The Formulae of St. Eucherius of Lyons

I believe that you should study diligently these formulae of spiritual knowledge, which I have compiled and which I send you. The following knowledge is meant to bring the teaching of the divine scriptures easily to mind. Because the letter kills and the spirit gives life [II Cor. 3:6], it is indispensable that we enter the interior of spiritual discourse with a quickening spirit. We remind ourselves and others that, in the future, the whole of scripture will be our [mental] dress; the old, as well as the new, will be the means to allegorical understanding, because as we read in the Old Testament: I will open my mouth in parables; I will speak in old mysteries [Ps. 77(78):2], or again, as it is written in the New Testament, Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the crowds and without parables he would not speak to them [Matt. 13:34]. The heavenly talk of the prophets and the apostles is not to be wondered at; it is brought forth by prayer, not by the usual way that men write. Much will vanish easily if it is gotten readily; great things, which are the true thing, held in the interior, will be brought together, that the blessed sayings of God will be separated from other writings by their worth and type.