How he predicted that learning would become an occasion of ruin

Source: Google Books

The blessed Francis lamented that, to the detriment of virtue, learning was being pursued, learning that is a cause of puffing up and pride, by which each person was in danger of stumbling in his first vocation; and he was accustomed to say:

“Truly, my brothers, whoever covets the honors of learning will, on the day of tribulation, find himself with empty hands. And therefore I would have you skilled in virtue, so that, at the moment of suffering, God may be with you in your anguish. For indeed tribulation will come, when books, then of no value, will be thrown out of the windows and relegated to dark places.”

He said this not because it displeased him that the Scriptures should be read, but because he desired that his brothers be more deeply versed in the knowledge of divine love than in the subtleties of scholastic learning, foreseeing the nearness of times in which learning would be an occasion of ruin. In confirmation of this, after his death he appeared to one of his companions, overly devoted to the study of his sermons, rebuking him and commanding that he apply himself to walk in the way of simplicity and humility.