rhetoric governed its composition.

     As the present book was going to press, the observations 
of Dom Jean Leclerc concerning reading aloud in the patristic 
and medieval period came most opportunely to attention. His 
The Love of Learning and the Desire for God  (pp. 18­19) puts 
this neglected matter in the central position in which it belongs:

          If then it is necessary to know how to read, it is 
     primarily in order to be able to participate in the lectio  
     divina.  What does this consist of? How is this reading 
     done? To understand this, one must recall the meaning 
     that the words legere  and meditari  have for St. Benedict, 
     and which they are to keep throughout the whole of the 
     Middle Ages; what they express will explain one of the 
     characteristic features of monastic literature of the