Bonaventure
Medieval
c. A.D. 1221–1274
“All men want to be wise and knowing. Yet, soon it happens that the woman deceives the man. But wisdom is the higher, being noble, while knowing is the lower: yet she seems beautiful to man, and he seeks to be joined to her, and his spirit tends to the things that can be known and experienced, and he wills to know them, and to experience the things he knows, and consequently to be united to them. And in this way he is weakened like Solomon who sought to know all things, "and he treated about trees from the cedar that is in Libanus, unto hyssop." And he forgets about the most important, and thus turns to the vain. Therefore passing from knowing to wisdom is not assured: a means must be placed in between, that is, holiness.”