The single book

 "Beware the person of a single book," Thomas Aquinas said.

As a 13th century priest and theologian, you might have expected Aquinas to make an exception for the person of a single book when that single book was the Holy Bible. Apparently he didn't.

Admittedly I am taking seven words out of context, so I don't know exactly what Aquinas was getting at. My paraphrase all these centuries later would be something like, "Don't trust a single source for all knowledge, all wisdom, all pleasure." This might apply to news sources as well as books.

Even if one holds one particular book as supreme — the Bible, say, or the works of Shakespeare — other books can complement that book, or in some cases contradict it. Reading more books can confuse, but in the end should make more clear to the reader what is actually important, what is most meaningful, what is true.

The Covid misinformation period we recently went through, which is now unraveling, illustrates the danger of relying on just one source of information. Physicians who disagreed with the official party line on Covid treatment were often shunned and even persecuted. They have since been proven right in many cases, while the official party line, spread by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC and others, was often wrong. Thus those warning of misinformation turned out to be the ones spreading misinformation. Allowing conflicting views might have saved lives.

Beware the person of a single book.