"Bernard is one of those great men of whom it is difficult to write without either animosity or admiration—in other words, without passion. . . . He had a precise, vast and profound knowledge of the sacred text. He had so woven it into the very fabric of his personal psychology that he made use of it, perhaps at times unawares, even when he did not quote it explicitly. . . . He saw the Bible as an experience, as a means of participating in the redemption of the whole human race saved in Jesus Christ. . . . According to Bernard, inspiration is nothing but this personal intervention of God working in Christ and in the course of the history which prefigured him and transmitted his message.”

      —From Jean Leclercq's Introduction to Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Spirit