TO THE READER

This selection of S. Bernard's letters has been made in the hope that it may find its way into the hands of many to whom the volumes of the greater collection are unknown, or are for one reason or another inaccessible. The letters of great and good men give us information about them which can be derived from no other source. “As the eyes are to the other bodily senses,” says the editor of S. Augustine's correspondence, “so are the letters of illustrious men in numberless ways more wonderful than all their other works. In them, as in the mirror of the human eyes, appear the personal qualities, passions, virtues, and vices of the individual. Just as no one can better show himself to the life than in his letters, so nowhere can he be better known” than in them. This is true of the letters of every saint, as well as of every man of affairs; and the peculiar value and charm of such collections of letters is almost universally acknowledged.

S. Bernard's unique position in the Church in his day, and the widespread authority he possessed, no less than his acknowledged place among the spiritual writers of all ages, tend to make his correspondence peculiarly interesting, as revealing in a more intimate way than any of his more formal writings, the characteristic qualifications and virtues, which won for him the great position he held so long during the middle ages. His learning and judgment no doubt fully appear in his tracts, treatises, and sermons; but in the private letters that were intended only for the eye of the recipient, the reader can get a deeper insight into the man and the saint, and learn more fully, because more naturally, his real qualities. In them appear his prudence and zeal, his love of truth and piety, the warmth of his human affections and his natural eloquence with more genuine truth than, say, in his commentary on The Canticle of Canticles, his Mystical Vine, or his Treatise against Abelard.

“It sometimes happens,” says the editor above quoted, “that in writing about themselves, the saints immoderately exaggerate their bad qualities; or disparage their good more than is just. When another, however, writes about them, he is unable properly to penetrate the interior qualities of their soul; or if he can, is unable properly to express his knowledge for the benefit of others. But in their letters writers display themselves spontaneously, and paint themselves in their natural colours.” Nature, locality, occasion, and persons are produced before the mind of the reader even when the writer had no conscious design of doing so, and this in so clear a manner “that any careful reader may, in these letters of our author, look into his face and soul as if he were close at hand.”

For the benefit of those readers of this little volume who may not have access to any full account of S. Bernard's career, it may be useful to give here a brief outline of his life. The Saint was born in the year 1091 in the village of Fontaine, in the province of Burgundy. He received a good education in his youth, and from the first displayed the best Christian dispositions. At the age of three-and-twenty he determined to dedicate his life to God in the cloister; and made choice of Citeaux, a monastery then under the fervent direction of S. Stephen Harding and which S. Robert had founded only a few years previously from Molêsmes. Bernard took with him to Citeaux thirty companions, and from this refuge he was sent two years later, in 1115, to be Abbot of Clairvaux, the first offshoot of the future great religious congregation of Cistercians which had its centre at Citeaux.

The former solitude of Clairvaux soon became peopled under S. Bernard with men who were attracted by the Saint's great personality and some 700 novices are said to have sat at his feet to learn the science of the saints. He himself lived to see one of his disciples upon the throne of S. Peter, six more become cardinals, and over thirty bishops in various sees of the Christian world. He acquired, in a truly marvellous way, the general esteem and confidence of bishops, nobles, and peoples. For a considerable period there was no ecclesiastical matter of any importance, no difference to be composed, and no religious enterprise upon which he was not consulted. It was with his assistance, or it may be said by the authority of his name, that Innocent II. was recognised in the Church as Pontiff, and that Victor voluntarily abdicated the position of anti-pope. From 1131 to 1138 S. Bernard was constantly at work healing the schism. At the Council of Sens in 1140 he confounded Abelard by his learning and secured his condemnation. In 1148 he preached the Crusade, the partial failure of which he subsequently attributed to the sins of the Crusaders.

During all this time he lived as a true monk in the face of the world, and so many wonders and miracles were worked by him, or through his instrumentality, that he became commonly known as the Thaumaturgus of the West. During his lifetime he founded 160 monasteries in various parts of the western world, and he died at the age of sixty-three on 20th August 1153.

A word may now be allowed about S. Bernard's literary style, of which we have evidence in the two volumes of his “Letters,” translated and published by Dr. Eales, a selection from which is made in this small volume. He writes always in a lively and pleasant way: his thoughts are exalted and are expressed in a manner, full of unction ; whilst tender, he is by no means wanting in strength, and at times he is vehement in defence of the truth or when it is necessary to carry conviction to the mind of him with whom he is corresponding. His diction is saturated, so to speak, with Holy Scripture; and he constantly makes use of texts taken from the Bible, and still more frequently of Biblical expressions interwoven into his own language. His favourites among the Fathers are S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, and he follows their teachings and opinions as conclusive arguments for the truth.

S. Bernard in the midst of all his labours found time for writing a great many letters. Four hundred and eighty-two of these, some of considerable length, have been preserved, and are to be found printed in the great collections of the Saint's works. From these, as given to English readers in the faithful and easy translation made by the late Dr. Eales, sixty-six are selected as samples in the present volume. Where all is so excellent and so really fascinating the task of selection was not difficult, and mainly consisted in the unwelcome process of exclusion. The reason why one should be taken and another left was not always obvious, and beyond choosing all the letters which in any way had something to do with England, and one or two characteristic specimens, such as No. II.: “To the monk Adam,” or No. LX. on “the Heresies of Peter Abelard,” with the preceding note, practically no principle has guided the choice. In the notes it has been thought best, when reference is made to other letters not contained in this volume, to retain the numbers given to the letters in the original volumes. It may, in conclusion, be hoped that some at least may be tempted by these sample letters of a man who had to play so great a part in the first half of the twelfth century, to desire to become further acquainted with him in the larger collections of his writings.

FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET.

Athenæum Club,

All Saints’ Day, 1903.

LETTER I (circa 1120)

To the Canons Regular of Horricourt

The title of this letter follows a MS. at Corbey. It does not appear who these regular canons were.

Their praises inspire him with more fear than satisfaction. They ought not to put any obstacle in the way of the religious profession of certain regular canons of S. Augustine, whom he has received at Clairvaux.

To the Superior of the holy body of clerics and servants of God who are in the place which is called Horricourt, and to their disciples: the little flock of the brothers of Clairvaux, and their very humble servant, Brother Bernard, wish health, and power to walk in the Spirit, and to see all things in a spiritual manner.

Your letter, in which you have addressed to us an exhortation so salutary and profitable, brings us convincing proof of your knowledge and charity, which we admire, and for which we thank you. But that which you have so kindly prefixed by way of praise of me is, I fear, not founded on experience, although you have thus given me an excellent occasion to practise humility if I know how to profit by it. Yet it has excited great fear in me, who know myself to be far below what you imagine. For which of us who takes heed to his ways can listen without either great fear or great danger, to praises of himself so great and so undeserved? It is not safe for any one to commit himself to his own judgment or even to the judgment of another; for He who judgeth us is the Lord (1 Corinthians iv. 4.). As to the brothers concerning whose safety we recognize that your charity has been solicitous, that we should return them to you unharmed; know that by the advice and persuasion of many illustrious persons, and chiefly of that very distinguished man William, Bishop of Châlons,

This was William of Champeaux, a friend of S. Bernard, who died in 1121.

LETTER II (A.D. 1126)

To the Monk Adam

The MS. in the Royal Library is inscribed: De Discretione Obedientiæ. Of Discernment in Obedience. This Letter was written after the death of Abbot Arnold, which took place in Belgium in the year 1126.

1. If you remain yet in that spirit of charity which I either knew or believed to be with you formerly, you would certainly feel the condemnation with which charity must regard the scandal which you have given to the weak. For charity would not offend charity, nor scorn when it feels itself offended. For it cannot deny itself, nor be divided against itself. Its function is rather to draw together things divided; and it is far from dividing those that are joined. Now, if that remained in you, as I have said, it would not keep silent, it would not rest unconcerned, nor pretend indifference, but it would without doubt whisper, with groans and uneasiness at the bottom of your pious heart, that saying, Who is offended, and I burn not (2 Cor. xi. 29). If, then, it is kind, it loves peace, and rejoices in unity; it produces them, cements them, strengthens them, and wherever it reigns it makes the bond of peace. As, then, you are in opposition to that true mother of peace and concord, on what ground, I ask you, do you presume that your sacrifice, whatever it may be, will be accepted by God, when without it even martyrdom profiteth nothing (1 Cor. xiii. 3)? Or, on what ground do you trust that you are not the enemy of charity when breaking unity, rending the bond of peace, you lacerate her bowels, treating with such cruelty their dear pledges, which you neither have borne nor do bear? You must lay down, then, the offering, whatever it may be, which you are preparing to lay on the altar, and hasten to go and reconcile yourself not with one of your brethren only, but with the entire body. The whole body of the fraternity, grievously wounded by your withdrawal, as by the stroke of a sword, utters its complaints against you and the few with you, saying: The sons of my mother have fought against me (Cant. i. 5). And rightly; for who is not with her, is against her. Can you think that a mother, as tender as charity, can hear without emotion the complaint, so just, of a community which is to her as a daughter? Therefore, joining her tears with ours, she says, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me (Isa. i. 2). Charity is God Himself. Christ is our peace, who hath made both one (Eph. ii. 14). Unity is the mystery even of the Holy Trinity. What place, then, in the kingdom of Christ and of God has he who is an enemy of charity, peace, and unity?

2. My abbot, perhaps you will say, has obliged me to follow him—ought I then to have been disobedient? But you cannot have forgotten the conclusion to which we came one day after a long discussion together upon that scandalous project which even then you were meditating. If you had remained in that conclusion, now it might have been not unfitly said of you, Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly (Ps. i. 1). But let it be so. Sons ought, no doubt, to obey a father; scholars a teacher. An abbot may lead his monks where he shall please, and teach them what he thinks proper; but this is only as long as he lives. Now that he is dead, whom you were bound to hear as a teacher and to follow as a guide, why are you still delaying to make amends for the grave scandal that you have occasioned? What hinders you now to give ear, I do not say to me when I recall you, but to our God, when He mercifully does so by the mouth of Jeremiah, Shall they fall and not arise? Shall he turn away and not return? (Jer. viii. 4.) Or has your abbot, when dying, forbidden you ever to rise again after your fall, or ever to speak of your return? Is it necessary for you to obey him even when dead—to obey him against charity and at the peril of your soul? You would allow, I suppose, that the bond between an abbot and his monks is by no means so strong or tenacious as that of married persons, whom God Himself and not man has bound with an inviolable sacrament—as the Saviour says: What God hath joined together let no man but asunder (S. Matt. xix. 6). But the Apostle asserts that when the husband is dead the wife is freed from the law of her husband (Rom. vii. 2), and do you consider yourself bound by the law of your dead abbot, and this against a law which is more binding still, that of charity?

LETTER III (A.D. 1131)

To Bruno,

Bruno, son of Englebert, Count of Altena, was consecrated, in 1132.

Archbishop Elect of Cologne

Bernard having been consulted by Bruno as to whether he ought to accept the See of Cologne, so replies as to hold him in suspense, and render him in awe of the burden of so great a charge. He advises him to seek counsel of God in prayer.

1. You seek counsel from me, most illustrious Bruno, as to whether you ought to accept the Episcopate, to which it is desired to advance you. What mortal can presume to decide this for you? If God calls you, who can dare to dissuade you, but if He does not call you, who may counsel you to draw near? Whether the calling is of God or not who can know, except the Spirit, who searcheth even the deep things of God, or one to whom God Himself has revealed it? That which renders advice still more doubtful is the humble, but still terrible, confession in your letter, in which you accuse your own past life gravely, but, as I fully believe, in sincerity and truth. And it is undeniable that such a life is unworthy of a function so holy and exalted. On the other hand, you are very right to fear (and I fear the same with you) if, because of the unworthiness you feel, you fail to make profitable use of the talent of knowledge committed to you, unless you could, perhaps, find another way, less abundant, perhaps, but also less perilous, of making increase from it. I tremble, I confess it, for I ought to say to you as to myself what I feel: I tremble, I say, at the thought of the state whence, and that whither, you are called, especially since no period of penitence has intervened to prepare you for the perilous transition from the one to the other. And, indeed, the right order requires that you should study to care for your own conscience before charging yourself with the care of those of others. That is the first step of piety, of which it is written, To pity thine own soul is pleasing unto the Lord (Ecclus. xxx. 23). It is from this first step that a well-ordered charity proceeds by a straight path to the love of one’s neighbour, for the precept is to love him as ourselves. But if you are about to love the souls that would be confided to you as you have loved your own hitherto, I would prefer not to be confided rather than be so loved. But if you shall have first learned to love yourself then you will know, perhaps, how you should love me.

2. But what if God should quicken His grace and multiply His mercy upon you, and His clemency is able more quickly to replace the soul in a state of grace than daily penitence? Blessed, indeed, is he unto whom the Lord will not impute sin (Ps. xxxii. 2), for who shall bring accusation against the elect of God? If God justifies, who is he that condemns? This short road to salvation that holy thief attained, who in one and the same day both confessed his iniquities and entered into glory. He was content to pass by the cross as by a short bridge from the religion of death

Unlikeness.

3. But it is one thing to obtain the speedy forgiveness of sins, and another to be borne in a brief space from the sins themselves to the badges (fillets) of high dignities in the Church. Yet I see that Matthew from the receipt of custom was raised to the supreme honour of the Apostolate. But this again troubles me, because he did not hear with the other Apostles the charge, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature (S. Mark xvi. 15), until after he had done penitence, accompanying the Lord whithersoever He went, bearing long privation and remaining with Him in His temptations. I am not greatly reassured, though S. Ambrose was taken from the judge’s tribunal to the priesthood, because he had from a boy led a pure and clean life, though in the world, and then he endeavoured to avoid the Episcopate even by flight and by hiding himself and many other means. Again, if Saul also was suddenly changed into Paul, a vessel of election, the Doctor of the Gentiles, and this be adduced as an example, it entirely destroys the similarity of the two cases to observe that he, therefore, obtained mercy because, as he himself says, he sinned ignorantly in unbelief. Besides, if such incidents, done for good and useful purposes, can be cited, it should be, not as examples, but as marvels, and it can be truly said of them, This is the change of the right hand of the Highest (Ps. lxxvii. 10).

4. In the meantime let these provisional replies to your queries suffice. If I do not express a decisive opinion, it is because I do not myself feel assured. This must needs be the case, for the gift of prophecy and of wisdom only could resolve your doubt. For who could draw clear water out of a muddy pool? Yet there is one thing that I can do for a friend without danger, and with the assurance of a good result; that is to offer to God my petition that He will assist you in this matter. Leaving, therefore, to Him the secret things of His Providence, of which we are ignorant, I will beg Him, with humble prayer and earnest supplication, that He will work in you and with respect to you that which shall be for His glory, and at the same time for your good. And you have also the Lord Norbert,

The founder of the Præmonstratensian Order. See respecting him Letter lvi.

LETTER IV

To the Prior and Monks of the Grand Chartreuse

He commends himself to their prayers.

To the very dear Lord and Reverend father Guigues, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and to the holy brethren who are with him, Brother Bernard of Clairvaux offers his humble service.

In the first place, when lately I approached your parts, I was prevented by unfavourable circumstances from coming to see you and to make your acquaintance; and although my excuse may perhaps be satisfactory to you, I am not able, I confess, to pardon myself for missing the opportunity. It is a vexation to me that my occupations brought it about, not that I should neglect to come to see you, but that I was unable to do so. This I frequently have to endure, and therefore my anger is frequently excited. Would that I were worthy to receive the sympathy of all my kind friends. Otherwise I shall be doubly unhappy if my disappointment does not excite your pity. But I give you an opportunity, my brethren, of exercising brotherly compassion towards me, not that I merit it. Pity me not because I am worthy, but because I am poor and needy. Justice inquires into the merit of the suppliant, but mercy only looks to his unhappiness. True mercy does not judge, but feels; does not discuss the occasion which presents itself, but seizes it. When affection calls us, reason is silent. When Samuel wept over Saul it was by a feeling of pity, and not of approval (1 Samuel xv. 13). David shed tears over his parricidal son, and although they were profitless, yet they were pious. Therefore do ye pity me (because I need it, not because I merit it), ye who have obtained from God the grace to serve Him without fear, far from the tumults of the world from which ye are freed. Happy those whom He has hidden in His tabernacle in the day of evil men; they shall trust in the shadow of His wings until the iniquity be overpast. As for me, poor, unhappy, and miserable, labour is my portion. I seem to be as a little unfledged bird almost constantly out of the shelter of its nest, exposed to wind and tempest. I am troubled, and I stagger like a drunken man, and my whole conscience is gnawed with care. Pity me, then; for although I do not merit pity I need it, as I have said.

LETTER VI (circa A. D. 1127)

To the Same

He protests against the reputation for holiness which is attributed to him, and promises to communicate the treatises which he has written.

I. Even if I should give myself to you entirely that would be too little a thing still in my eyes, to have recompensed towards you even the half of the kindly feeling which you express towards my humility. I congratulate myself, indeed, on the honour which you have done me; but my joy, I confess, is tempered by the thought that it is not anything I have accomplished, but only an opinion of my merit which has brought me this favour. I should be greatly ashamed to permit myself in vain complacency when I feel assured that what is loved or respected in me is not, indeed, what I am, but what I am thought to be; for when I am thus loved it is not then I that am loved, but something in me, I know not what, and which is not me, is loved in my stead. I say that I know not, but, to speak more truly, I know very well that it is nothing. For whatever is thought to exist, and does not, is nothing. The love and he who feels it is real enough, but the object of the love does not exist. That such should be capable of inspiring love is wonderful, but still more it is regrettable. It is from that we are able to feel whence and whither we go, what we have lost, what we find. By remaining united to Him, who is the real Being, and who is always happy, we also shall attain a continued and happy existence. By remaining united to Him, I said; that is, not only by knowledge, but by love. For certain of the sons of Adam when they had known God, glorified Him not as God, nor were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations (Rom. i. 21). Rightly, then, were their foolish hearts darkened, because since they recognised the truth and despised it, they were justly punished for their fault by losing the power to recognise it. Alas! in thus adhering to the truth by the mind, but with the heart departing from it, and loving vanity in its place, man became himself a vain thing. And what is more vain than to love vanity, and what is more repugnant to justice than to despise the truth? What is more just than that the power to recognise the truth should be withdrawn from those who have despised it, and that those who did not glorify the truth when they recognised it should lose the power of boasting of the knowledge? Thus the love of vanity is the contempt of truth, and the contempt of truth the cause of our blindness. And because they did not like, he says, to retain God in their knowledge, He gave them over unto a reprobate mind (Rom. i. 28).

2. From this blindness, then, it follows that we frequently love and approve that which is not for that which is; since while we are in this body we are wandering from Him who is the Fulness of Existence. And what is man, O God, except that Thou hast taken knowledge of Him? If the knowledge of God is the cause that man is anything, the want of this makes him nothing. But He who calls those things which are not as though they were, pitying those reduced in a manner to nothing, and not yet able to contemplate in its reality, and to embrace by love that hidden manna, concerning which the Apostle says: Your life is hidden with Christ in God (Cor. iii. 3). But in the meantime He has given us to taste it by faith and to seek for by strong desire. By these two we are brought for the second time from not being, to begin to be that His (new) creature, which one day shall pass into a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. That, without doubt, shall take place, when righteousness shall be turned into judgment, that is, faith into knowledge, the righteousness which is of faith into the righteousness of full knowledge, and also the hope of this state of exile shall be changed into the fulness of love. For if faith and love begin during the exile, knowledge and love render perfect those in the Presence of God. For as faith leads to full knowledge, so hope leads to perfect love, and, as it is said, If ye will not believe ye shall not understand (Is. vii. 9, acc. to lxx.), so it may equally be said with fitness, if you have not hoped, you will not perfectly love. Knowledge then is the fruit of faith, perfect charity of hope. In the meantime the just lives by faith (Hab. ii. 4), but he is not happy except by knowledge; and he aspires towards God as the hart desires the water-brooks; but the blessed drinks with joy from the fountain of the Saviour, that is, he delights in the fulness of love.

3. Thus understanding and love, that is, the knowledge of and delight in the truth, are, perhaps, as it were, the two arms of the soul, with which it embraces and comprehends with all saints the length and breadth, the height and depth, that is the eternity, the love, the goodness, and the wisdom of God. And what are all these but Christ? He is eternity, because “this is life eternal to know Thee the true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (S. John xvii. 3). He is Love, because He is God, and God is Love (1 S. John iv. 16). He is both the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of God (I Cor. i. 24), but when shall these things be? When shall we see Him as He is? For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was subjected unto vanity, not willingly (Rom. viii. 19, 20). It is that vanity diffused through all which makes us desire to be praised even when we are blameable, and not to be willing to praise those whom we know to be worthy of it. But this too is vain, that we, in our ignorance, frequently praise what is not, and are silent about what is. What shall we say to this, but that the children of men are vain, the children of men are deceitful upon the weights, so that they deceive each other by vanity (Ps. lxi. 9; lxx.). We praise falsely, and are foolishly pleased, so that they are vain who are praised, and they false who praise. Some flatter and are deceptive, others praise what they think deserving, and are deceived; others pride themselves in the commendations which are addressed to them, and are vain. The only wise man is he who says with the Apostle: I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me (2 Cor. xii. 6).

4. For the present I have noted down these things too hastily (because of this in not so finished a way), rather than dictated them for you, perhaps also at greater length than I should, but to the best of my poor ability. But that my letter may finish at the point whence it began, I beg you not to be too credulous of uncertain rumour about me, which, as you know well, is accustomed to be wrong both in giving praise and in attaching blame. Be so kind, if you please, as to weigh your praises, and examine with care how far your friendship for me and your favour are well-founded, thus they will be the more acceptable from my friend as they are fitted to my humble merit. Thus when praise shall have proceeded from grave judgment, and not from the error of the vulgar, if it is more moderate it will be at the same time more easy to bear. I assure you that what attaches me (humble person as I am), to you is the zeal, industry, and sincerity with which you employ yourself, as they say, in the accomplishment of your charge in holy things. May it be always thus with you that this may be said of you always with truth. I send you the book which you desire to have in order to copy; as for the other treatises of mine which you wish that I should send, they are but few, and contain nothing which I should think worthy of your attention, yet because I should prefer that my want of intelligence should be blamed rather than my goodwill, and I would rather endanger my inexperience than my obedience in your sight, be so good as to let me know by the present messenger which of my treatises you wish that I should send you, so that I may ask for them again from those persons to whom they have been lent, and send them wherever you shall direct. That you may know what you wish for, I may say that I have written a little book on Humility, four Homilies on the Praises of the Virgin Mother (for the little book has this title), upon that passage of S. Luke where it is said the Angel Gabriel was sent (S. Luke i. 26). Also an Apology dedicated to a certain friend of mine, in which I have treated of some of our observances, that is to say, those of Cîteaux, and those of Cluny. I have also written a few Letters to various persons, and finally, there are some of my discourses which the brethren who heard them have reproduced in their own words and keep them in their hands. Would that any of the simple productions of my humble powers might be of any service to you, but I do not dare to expect it.

LETTER X (in the Same Year)

The Same, When Bishop

He exhorts him to adorn the dignity which he had obtained without preceding merits, by a holy life.

1. Charity gives me boldness, my very dear friend, to speak to you with great confidence. The episcopal seat which you have lately obtained requires a man of many merits; and I see with grief none of these in you, or at least not sufficient, to have preceded your elevation. For your mode of life and your past occupations seem in nowise to have been befitting the episcopal office. What then? Would you say, Is not God able of this stone to raise up a son of Abraham? Is not God able to bring about that the good works which ought to have gone before my episcopate may follow it? Certainly He is, and I desire nothing better than this, if it should be so. I know not why, but that sudden change wrought by the right hand of the Highest will please me more than if the merits of your former life pleaded for you. Then I could say, This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes (Ps. cxviii. 23). So Paul, from a persecutor, became the Doctor of the Gentiles; so Matthew was called from the toll-booth, so Ambrose was taken from the palace, the one to the Episcopate, the other to the Apostolate. So I have known many others who have been usefully raised to the Episcopate, from the habits and pursuits of secular life. How many times it has been the case that where sin abounded, grace also did much more abound?

2. So then, my dear friend, encouraged by these examples and others like them, gird up your loins, and make your actions and pursuits henceforth good; let your latest actions make the old forgotten, and the correction of your mature life blot out the demerits of your youth. Take care to imitate Paul in honouring your ministry. You will render it honourable by gravity of manners, by wise plans, by honourable actions. It is these which most ennoble and adorn the Episcopal office. Do nothing without taking counsel, yet not of all, nor of the first comer, but of good men. Have good men in your confidence, in your service, dwelling in your house, who may be at once the guardians and the witnesses of your honourable life. For in this you will approve yourself a good man if you have the testimony of the good. I commend to your piety my poor brethren who are in your diocese, especially those of Bonnemont, in the Alps, and of Hautecombe. By your bounty towards these I shall see what degree of affection you have for me.

LETTER XII (A.D. 1127)

To Louis, King of France

Louis VI., “the Fat.”

The monks of Cîteaux take the liberty to address grave reproaches to King Louis for his hostility to and injuries inflicted upon the Bishop of Paris, and declare that they will bring the cause before the Pope if the King does not desist.

To LOUIS, the glorious King of France, Stephen, Abbot of Cîteaux, and the whole assembly of the abbots and brethren of Cîteaux, wish health, prosperity, and peace in Christ Jesus.

LETTER XIII (A.D. 1127)

To the Same Pope, in the Name of Geoffrey,
Bishop of Chartres.

He explains to the Pontiff the cause why the Bishop of Paris was unjustly oppressed by King Louis. The interdict of the bishops of France had put pressure upon him, and he had promised to make restitution, when the absolution of Honorius rendered him contumacious, and prevented his fulfilling his promise.

It is superfluous to recall to you, very holy Father, the cause and order of a very afflicting history, and to linger over what you have already heard from the pious Bishop of Paris, and which must have profoundly affected your paternal heart. Yet my testimony also ought not to be wanting to my brother and co-bishop; what I have seen and heard respecting this matter, this I have undertaken to make you acquainted with in few words. When the before-mentioned Bishop had brought forward his complaint, which he did with great moderation, in our provincial assembly, where had gathered with our venerable metropolitan the Archbishop of Sens, all the bishops of the province, and certain religious also whom we had summoned, we determined to represent to the King, with all becoming humility, his unjust proceeding, and to beg that he would restore to the Bishop unjustly maltreated what had been taken from him; but we obtained no satisfaction from him. Understanding, at length, that in order to defend the Church we had decided to have recourse to the weapons of the Church, he was afraid, and promised the restitution demanded. But almost in the same hour arrived your letter, ordering that the interdict over the royal domains should be raised, thus, unfortunately, strengthening the King in his evil doings, so that he did not perform at all what he had promised. Nevertheless, as he had given a fresh promise that he would do what we required, we presented ourselves on the day appointed. We laboured for peace, and it did not come; but instead of it worse confusion. Thus the effect of your letter has been that the goods unjustly seized are more unjustly retained, and those which remain are seized day by day, and that so much more securely, as he is assured of entire impunity in retaining them. The just (as we consider) interdict of the Bishop has been raised by your order, and as the fear of displeasing you has made us suspend that which we proposed to send forth by our own authority, and by which we hoped to obtain peace, we are made in the meantime the derision of our neighbours. How long is this to be? Let the compassion of your piety be exercised in our behalf.

LETTER XVI

To Rainald, Abbot of Foigny

Bernard declares to him how little he loves praise; that the yoke of Christ is light; that he declines the name of father, and is content with that of brother.

1. In the first place, do not wonder if titles of honour affright me, when I feel myself so unworthy of the honours themselves; and if it is fitting that you should give them to me, it is not expedient for me to accept them. For if you think that you ought to observe that saying, In honour preferring one another (Rom. xii. 10), and: Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God (Eph. v. 21), yet the terms one another, one to another, are not used at random, and concern me as well as you. Again, if you think that the declaration of the Rule is to be observed, “Let the younger honour their elders,

Rule of S. Benedict cap. 63.

LETTER XVII

To the Same

He instructs Rainald, who was too anxious and distrustful, respecting the duty of superior which had been conferred upon him; and warns him that he must bestow help and solace upon his brethren rather than require it from them.

To his very dear son, Rainald, Abbot of Foigny, Bernard, that God may give him the spirit of strength.

1. You complain, my very dear son, of your many tribulations, and by your pious complaints you excite me also to complain, for I am not able to feel that you are sorrowing without sharing your sorrow, nor can I be otherwise than troubled and anxious when I hear of your troubles and anxieties. But since I foresaw these very difficulties which you say have happened to you, and predicted them to you, if you remember—it seems to me that you ought to be better prepared to endure them, and to spare me vexation when you can, For am I not sufficiently tried, and more than sufficiently, to lose you, not to see you, nor to enjoy your society, which was so pleasant to me; so that I have almost regretted that I should have sent you away from me. And although charity obliged me to send you, yet not being able to see you where you have been sent, I mourn you as if lost to me. When, then, besides this, you who ought to be the staff of my support, belabour me as it were with the rod of your faintheartedness, you heap sorrow upon sorrow, and torment upon torment; and if it is a mark of your filial affection towards me that you do not hide any of your difficulties from me, yet it is hard to add fresh trouble to one already burdened. Why is it needful to occupy with fresh anxieties one already more than anxious enough, and to torture with sharper pains the bosom of a father, already wounded by the absence of his son? I have shared with you my weight of cares, as a son, as an intimate friend, as a trusty assistant; but how do you help to bear your father’s burden, if, instead of relieving me, you burden me still more? You, indeed, are loaded, but I am not lightened of my load.

2. For this burden is that of sick and weak souls. Those who are in health do not need to be carried, and are not, therefore, a burden. Whomsoever, then, of your brethren you shall find sad, mean-spirited, discontented, remember well that it is of these and for their sakes, you are father and abbot. In consoling, in exhorting, in reproving, you do your duty, you bear your burden; and those whom you bear in order to cure, you will cure by bearing. But if any one is in such spiritual health that he rather helps you than is helped by you, recognize that to him you are not father and abbot, but equal and friend. Do not complain if you find more trials than consolations from those among whom you are. You were sent to sustain and console others, because you are spiritually stronger and better able to bear than they, and because with the grace of God you are able to aid and sustain all without needing yourself to be aided and sustained by any. Finally, if the burden is great, so also is the reward; but, on the other hand, the more assistance you receive, the more your own reward is diminished. Choose, therefore; if you prefer those who are for you a burden, your merit will be the greater; but if, on the contrary, you prefer those who console you, you have no merit at all. The former are the source whence it arises for you; the second as the abyss in which it is swallowed up; for it is not doubtful that those who are partakers of the labour, will be also sharers of the reward. Knowing, then, that you were sent to help, not to be helped, bear in mind that you are the vicar of Him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. I could have wished to write at greater length, in order to comfort you, but that it was not necessary; for what need is there of filling a dead leaf with superfluous words, while the living voice is speaking? I think that when you have seen our prior, these words will be sufficient for you, and your spirit will revive at his presence, so that you will not require the consolation of written words, in the delight and help which his discourse will give you. Do not doubt that I have communicated to him, as far as was possible, my inmost mind, which you begged in your letters might be sent to you. For you know well that he and I are of one mind and one will.

LETTER XVIII

To the Same,

He had desired Rainald to refrain from querulous complaints; now he directs Rainald to keep him informed of all his affairs.

I had hoped, my dear friend, to find a remedy for my care about you, if I were not informed by you of your little vexations. And I remember that I said to you, amongst other things, in my last letter, “if it is a mark of your filial affection towards me that you do not hide any of your difficulties from me, yet it is hard to add trouble to one already burdened.” But the remedy which I thought would lighten my cares has increased them, and I feel more burdened than before. For then I, indeed, felt vexation and fear, but only on account of the troubles named by you, but now I fear that some evil, I know not what, is happening to you, and like your favourite Ovid—

I fear all things because I am uncertain of all things, and feel often real sorrow for imaginary evils. The mind which affection dominates is hardly master of itself. It fears what it knows not; it grieves when there is no need; it is troubled more than it wished, and even when it does not wish; unable to rule its sensibility, it pities or sympathizes against its will. And because you see, my son, that neither my timid industry nor your pious prudence in this respect are of service to me, do not, I pray you, conceal from me henceforth anything that concerns you, that you may not increase my uneasiness by seeking to spare me. The little books of mine which you have, please return to me when you can.

LETTER XIX (A.D. 1127)

To Suger, Abbot of S. Denis

He praises Suger, who had unexpectedly renounced the pride and luxury of the world to give himself to the modest habits of the religious life. He blames severely the clerk who devotes himself rather to the service of princes than that of God.

1. A piece of good news has reached our district; it cannot fail to do great good to whomsoever it shall have come. For who that fear God, hearing what great things He has done for your soul, do not rejoice and wonder at the great and sudden change wrought by the Right Hand of the Most High. Everywhere your courage is praised in the Lord; the gentle hear of it and are glad, and even those who do not know you,

Otherwise viderunt , have seen.

LETTER XX (circa A.D. 1130)

To Guy, Abbot of Molêsmes

Bernard consoles him under a great injustice which he had suffered, and recommends him to temper his vengeance with mercy.

God who knows the hearts of all men, and is the inspirer of all good dispositions, knows with what sympathy I condole with you in this your adversity, of which I have heard. But, again, when I consider rather the person who has caused you this trial than Him who permits it, just as much as I feel with you in the present misfortune, so much I hope soon to rejoice with you in the prosperity which must speedily come. But only do not let yourself be at all crushed by discouragement; think with me how, by the example of holy Job,

Job ii. 10.

LETTER XXI (circa A.D. 1128)

To the Abbot of S. John at Chartres

Bernard dissuades him from resigning his charge, and undertaking a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

1. As regards the matters about which you were so good as to consult so humble a person as myself, I had at first determined not to reply. Not because I had any doubt what to say, but because it seemed to me unnecessary or even presumptuous to give counsel to a man of sense and wisdom. But considering that it usually happens that the greater number of persons of sense—or I might say that all such—trust the judgment of another person rather than their own in doubtful cases, and that those who have a clear judgment in the affairs of others, however obscure, frequently hesitate and are undecided about their own, I depart from my first resolution, not, I hope, without reason, and without prejudice to any wiser opinion explain to you simply how the matter appears to me. You have signified to me, if I do not mistake, by the pious Abbot Ursus of S. Denis, that you have it in contemplation to desert your country and the monastery over which, by the Providence of God, you are head, to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to occupy yourself henceforth only with God and the salvation of your own soul. Perhaps, if you aspire unto perfection, it may be expedient for you to leave your country, when God says, Go forth from thy country and from thy kindred (Gen. xii. 1). But I do not see at all on what ground you ought to risk, by your departure, the safety of the souls entrusted to you. For is it pleasant to enjoy liberty after having laid down your burden? But charity does not seek her own interests. Perhaps the wish for quiet and rest attracts you? But it is obtained at the price of the peace of others. Freely will I do without the enjoyment of any desire, even a spiritual one, which cannot be obtained except at the price of a scandal. For where there is scandal, there, without doubt, is loss of charity: and where there is loss of charity, surely no spiritual advantage can be hoped for. Finally, if it is permitted to any one to prefer his own quiet to the common good, who is there that can say with truth: For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. i. 21)? And where will that principle be which the Apostle declares: No one lives to himself, and no one dies to himself (Rom. xiv. 7); and, Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many (1 Cor. x. 33); and, That he who lives should not any longer live unto himself, but unto Him who died for all (2 Cor. v. 15)?

2. But you will say: Whence comes my great desire, if it is not from God? With your permission I will say what I think. Stolen waters are sweet (Prov. ix. 17); and for whosoever knows the devices of the devil, it is not doubtful that the angel of darkness is able to change himself into an angel of light, and to pour upon the thirsting soul those waters of which the sweetness is more bitter than wormwood. In truth, what other can be the suggester of scandals, the author of dissension, the troubler of unity and peace, except the devil, the adversary of truth, the envier of charity, the ancient foe of the human race, and the enemy of the Cross of Christ? If death entered into the world through his envy, even so now he is jealous of whatever good he sees you doing; and since he is a liar from the beginning, he falsely promises now better things which he does not see. For when did the Truth oppose that most faithful saying, Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed (1 Cor. vii. 27). Or when did charity urge to scandal, who at the scandals of all shows herself burning with regret? He, then, the most wicked one, opposed to charity by envy, and to truth by falsehood, mixing falsehood and gall with the true honey, promises doubtful things as certain, and gives out that true things are false, not that he may give you what you vainly hope for, but that he may take away what you are profitably holding now. He prowls around and seeks how he may take away from the flock the care of the pastor, to make a prey of it when there is none to defend it from his attacks; and, besides this, to bring down upon the pastor that terrible rebuke, Woe to him by whom scandal cometh (S. Matt. xviii. 7). But I have full confidence in the wisdom given to you by God, that by no cunning devices of the wicked one you will be seduced or made to renounce certain good, and for the hope of uncertain advantage to incur certain evil.

Letter XXIII (circa A.D. 1130)

To the Same

Bernard sends back to him to be severely reprimanded a fugitive monk. He persuades William, who was meditating a change of state or retiring into private life, to persevere.

To his friend, Brother Bernard, of Clairvaux, all that a friend can wish for a friend.

1. You have given me this formula of salutation when you wrote, “to his friend all that a friend can wish.”

Suus ille quod suus.

LETTER XXIV (circa A.D. 1126)

To Oger, Regular Canon

Some blame and some ridicule such a title as this, as being a vicious pleonasm, since these two words differ only in the language from which each is borrowed, and mean exactly the same thing; as if canons were something different from regulars, or as if there were some canons who were regulars and others who were not. But it may be seen in John Bapt. Signy Lib. de Ord. Canon, B. ii., and Navarre, Com. I. de Regul. ad c. 12, Cui portio Deus, q. 1, where he shows that every pleonasm is not necessarily a battology. For in legal documents certain expressions or clauses are often repeated to give them more force. It is the same in Hebrew (Ps. lxxxvii. 5, Ps. lxviii. 12 Vulg. and lxx.).

Oger was the first Dean of the Regular Canons of S. Nicholas des Pres, near Tournay. Picard states this upon the authority of Denis Viller, Canon and Chancellor of Tournay.

Bernard blames him for his resignation of his pastoral charge, although made from the love of a calm and pious life. None the less, he instructs him how, after becoming a private person, he ought to live in community.

To Brother Oger, the Canon, Brother Bernard, monk but sinner, wishes that he may walk worthily of God even to the end, and embraces him with the fullest affection.

1. If I seem to have been too slow in replying to your letter, ascribe it to my not having had an opportunity to send to you. For what you now read was written long since, but, as I have said, though written without delay, was delayed for want of a bearer. I have read in your letter that you have laid down with regret the burden of your pastoral charge, permission having been obtained with great difficulty, or rather, extorted by your importunity, from your Bishop; and only on the condition that you should remain under his authority, though fixing yourself elsewhere. But this not being satisfactory to you, you appealed to the Archbishop, and, obtaining the relaxation of this condition, you have returned to your former house and put yourself under your original abbot. Now you ask to be advised by me as to how you ought to live henceforth. An able teacher, indeed, and incomparable master am I! And when I shall have begun to teach what I do not know myself, it will soon be discovered that I know nothing. You act, in consulting me, as a sheep who seeks wool from a goat, a mill expecting water from an oven, a wise man expecting sound counsel from a fool. Besides this, you heap upon me, from one end of your letter to the other, complimentary speeches, and attribute to me excellences of which I am not conscious; and as I ascribe them to your kind feelings, so I forgive them to your ignorance. For you look upon the countenance, but God upon the heart; and if I examine myself with attention under His awful gaze, I find that I know myself much better than you know me, since I am much less far from myself than you are. Therefore I give greater credence to that which I see in myself than to what you suppose, without seeing, to be in me. Nevertheless, if you may have heard from me anything that is profitable to you, give thanks to God, in whose hand I am and all my words.

2. You explain to me also for what reason you have not followed my advice, not only not to allow yourself to be discouraged or overcome by despondency, but to bear patiently the burden laid upon you, which once undertaken you were not at liberty to lay down; and I accept your explanations. I am well aware, indeed, of the infertility of my wisdom, and I always hold myself in suspicion for rashness and inexperience, so that I ought not to take it ill, nor do I, when the course which I approve is not taken; and I wish, on the contrary, that action should be taken on better advice than mine. As often as my opinion is chosen and followed I feel myself weighed down, I confess it, with responsibility, and await with inquietude, never with confidence, the issue of the matter. Yet it is for you to see if you have acted wisely in not following my advice about this thing;

Bernard had counselled him not to resign his abbacy, and this advice he had not followed. Hence is suggested the serious question: Is it lawful to lay down the pastoral charge, to withdraw one’s self from cares and business, for the purpose of serving God in peace and quiet, and caring for one’s own soul? The examples of so many holy men whom we know to have done this add to the difficulty of the question. Many might be cited among prelates of lower rank, not a few Bishops, Cardinals, and even some Popes. Bruno III., Count of Altena, and afterwards Bishop of Cologne, quitted his see, in 1119, and retired to the Cistercian monastery of Aldenberg. Eskilus, Archbishop of Lunden, in Denmark, came to live at Clairvaux as a simple monk; Peter Damian, who, from a Benedictine monk, became Cardinal and Bishop of Ostia, after he had rendered signal service to the Church for a number of years, with wonderful constancy, in the high office to which he had been raised, returned into his cell from love of solitude and quiet, and passed the rest of his days in profound peace, in the midst of his brethren; but was blamed by the Pope because he, a useful and able man, postponed public usefulness to his private safety. One remarkable fact is recorded of him, that the Pope imposed upon him a penance of a hundred years for quitting his Bishopric: he was to recite Ps. 1. [li.] and give himself the discipline every day for a hundred years; and this he completed entirely in the space of one year. This I remember to have read somewhere (Works, Vol. i. ep. 10, new ed., Vol. iii. opusc. 20). To Pope Alexander and Cardinal Hildebrand, who became Pope later under the name of Gregory VII., he tries to justify his quitting his see, and opposes numerous examples of conduct similar to his, to the blame of the Pope and the cardinals.

But it is necessary to hold to what the law prescribes rather than to the examples of other persons. The Angelical Doctor says: “Every pastor is obliged by his function to labour for the salvation of others, and it is not permitted to him to cease to do so, not even to have leisure for peaceful meditation upon spiritual things. For the Apostle regards the obligation to occupy himself with the salvation of others who depend upon him as being of such importance that it must not be postponed even to heavenly meditation: I know not what to choose, he says, for I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you (Phil. i. 22–23). It may be added that the Episcopate being a state more perfect than that of the monk, it follows that just as it is not permitted to quit the second to re-enter the world, so it is not allowable to renounce the first in order to embrace the second, considering that the latter is less perfect than the former. That would precisely be to look back after having put one’s hand to the plough, and to show one’s self unfit for the kingdom of God” (S. Luke ix. 62).

LETTER XXV. (circa A.D. 1127)

To the Same

Bernard, being hindered by many occupations, has not yet been able to find time to satisfy his wishes, and is obliged even to write to him very briefly. He forbids a certain one of his treatises to be made public unless it were read over and corrected.

1. I pass over now my want of experience, my humble profession, or rather my profession of humility, nor do I shelter myself behind (I do not say my lowness, but, at least) my mediocrity of position or name, since whatever I should allege of that kind you would declare to be rather a pretext for delay than a reasonable excuse. It seems to me that you interpret my shyness and modesty at your will, now as indiscretion, now, as false humility, and now as real pride. Of these reasons, therefore, since they would appear doubtful to you, I say nothing. Only I wish that your friendship should be fully convinced of one thing, that since the departure of your messenger (not the one who carries this letter, but the other) left me I have not had a single instant of leisure to do what you asked, so busy are my days and so short my nights. Even now your latest letter has found me so engrossed that it would take me too long to write to you the mere occupations, which would be my excuse with you. I have scarcely been able even to read your letter through, except during my dinner, for at that hour it was delivered to me, and scarcely have I been able to write back to you these few words hastily and, as it were, furtively. You will see that you must not complain of the brevity of my letter.

2. To speak the truth, my dear Oger, I am forced to be angry with all these cares, and that on your account, although in them, as my conscience bears witness, I desire to serve only charity, by the requirements of which, as I am debtor both to the wise and to the unwise, I have been made unable as yet to satisfy your wishes. What, then? Does Charity deny to you what you ask in the name of Charity? You have requested and begged, you have knocked at the door, and Charity has rendered your requests unavailing. Why are you angry with me? It is Charity whom you must be angry with, if you will and dare to be so, since it is she who is the cause that you have not obtained what you expected to have by her means. Already she is displeased at my long discourse, and is angry with you who have imposed it. Not that the ardour with which you do this is displeasing to her, since it is she which has inspired you with it, but she wishes that your zeal should be ruled according to knowledge, and that you should be careful not to hinder greater things for the sake of lesser. You see how unwillingly I am torn away from writing to you at greater length, since the pleasure of conversing with you, and the wish to satisfy you, make me troublesome to my mistress, Charity, who has long since been bidding me to make an end, and I am not yet silent. How wide is the matter for reply in your letter, if it were permissible to do as you would wish, and as I, too, should, perhaps, be well enough pleased to do! But she who requires otherwise of me is mistress, or rather is the Master. For God is charity (1 S. John iv. 16), and it is very evident that such is her authority, that I ought to obey her rather than either myself or you. And since it is incumbent on Charity to obey God rather than men, I unwillingly, and with grief, put off for a time the doing what you ask, not refuse altogether to do it, and I fear in endeavouring humbly to respond to your desires to appear to wish, under the pretext of a pretended humility, which is only pure pride, to revolt here below, I, who am only a miserable worm of the earth, against the strength of that power which, as you truly declare, rules even the Angels in heaven.

3. As for the little treatise which you ask for, I had asked for it back again from the person to whom I had lent it, even before your messenger came to me, but I have not yet received it; but I will take care that at all events when you come here, if you are ever coming, you shall find it here, see and read it, but not transcribe it. For that other treatise which you mention that you have transcribed I had sent to you to be read, indeed, but not to be copied; and I do not know to what good purpose or for whose good you can have done it. In sending it to you I did not intend that the Abbot of S. Thierry should have it,

He is here, without doubt, speaking of the Apology to the Abbot William. Oger was at Clairvaux while Bernard was writing it, as appears from the last words of that work. But as he left before the final touches were put to it, Bernard afterwards sent it to him for perusal; and he, without direction, communicated it to Abbot William, to whom it was inscribed, and to whom Bernard intended to send it.

LETTER XXVII (circa A.D. 1127)

To the Same

A sincere love has no need of lengthy letters, or of many words. Bernard has been in a state of health almost despaired of, but is now recovering.

1. I have sent you a short letter in reply to a short one from you. You have given me an example of brevity, and I willingly follow it. And truly what need have true and lasting friendship, as you truly say, of exchanging empty and fugitive words? However great be the variety of quotations and verses, and the multiplicity of the phrases by which you have endeavoured to display or to prove your friendship for me, I feel more certain of your affection than I do that you have succeeded in expressing it, and you will not be wrong if you think the same in respect to me. When your letter came into my hands you were present in my heart, and I am quite convinced that it will be the same for me when you receive my letter, and that when you read it I shall not be absent. It is a labour for each of us to scribble to the other, and for our messengers a fatigue to carry our letters from the one to the other, but the heart feels neither labour nor fatigue in loving. Let those things cease, then, which without labour cannot be carried on, and let us practise only that which, the more earnestly it is done, seems to cost the less labour. Let our minds, I say, rest from dictating, our lips from conversing, our fingers from writing, our messengers from running to and fro.

This kind of correspondence is a hindrance to devotion and the spirit of prayer, as he says in the Letter placed at the head of his Apology addressed to Abbot William, and also in Letter 89.

2. But what am I doing? I promised brevity, and I am sliding into prolixity. If you desire news of Brother Guerric, or rather since you do so, he so runs not as uncertainly, so fights not as one that beateth the air. But since he knows that salvation depends not on him who fights, nor on him who runs, but on God, who shows mercy, he begs that he may have the help of your prayers for him, so that He who has already granted to him both to fight and to run, may grant also to overcome and to attain. Salute for me with my heart and by your mouth your abbot, who is most dear to me, not only on your account, but also because of his high character. It will be most agreeable to me to see him at the time and place which you have promised. I do not wish to leave you ignorant that the hand of God has for a little while been laid heavily upon me. It seemed that I had been stricken to the fall, that the axe had been laid to the root of the barren tree of my body, and I feared that I might be instantly cut down; but lo! by your prayers and those of my other friends, the good Lord has spared me this time also, yet in the hope that I shall bear good fruits in the future.

LETTER XXVIII (circa A.D. 1130)

To the Abbots Assembled at Soissons

This was one of the first general Chapters held by the Black Monks (as they are called) in the province of Rheims. It seems that its cause and occasion was the Apology addressed by Bernard to Abbot William, who was the prime mover in calling together this assembly, after the example of the Cluniacs and Cistercians, that they might re-establish the observance of the Rule which was being let slip. It was held without doubt at S. Medard under the Abbot Geoffrey, to whom Letter 66 was addressed. He was Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne when Peter the Venerable spoke of him thus (B. ii. Ep. 43): “It is he who first spread the divine Order of Cluny through the whole of France, who was its author and propagator; and, far more, it was he who expelled ‘the old dragon’ from his resting-places in so many monasteries, and who roused monks from their torpor.” Innocent II, determined that these general Chapters should be held every year in future.

Bernard urges the abbots zealously to perform the duty for which they had met. He recommends to them a great desire of spiritual progress, and begs them not to be delayed in their work if lukewarm and lax persons should perhaps murmur.

To the Reverend Abbots met in the name of the Lord in Chapter at Soissons, brother Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the servant of their Holiness, health and prayer that they may see, establish, and observe the things which are right.

1. I greatly regret that my occupations prevent me from being present at your meeting—at least, in body. For neither distance nor a crowd of cares are able to banish my spirit, which prays for you, feels with you, and rests among you. No, I repeat, I cannot be wanting in the assembly of the saints, nor can distance of place nor absence of body altogether separate me from the congregation and the counsels of the righteous, in which, not the traditions of men are obstinately upheld or superstitiously observed; but diligent and humble inquiry is made what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom. xii. 2). All my desires carry me where you are; I am with you by devotion, by friendship, by similarity of sentiment, and partaking of your zeal.

2. That those who now applaud you may not hereafter ridicule you as having assembled to no purpose (which God forbid!), strive, I beseech you, to make your conduct holy and your resolutions good, for too good they cannot be. Grant that you may be too just or even too wise, yet it is plain that you cannot be good beyond measure. And indeed I read: Do not carry justice to excess (Eccles. vii. 17, Vulg.). I read: Be not wiser than is befitting (Rom. xii. 3, Vulg.). But is it ever said: Do not carry goodness to excess? or, Take care not to be too good? No one can be more good than it behoves him to be. Paul was a good man, and yet he was not at all content with his state; he reached forward gladly to the things that were before, forgetting those that were behind (Phil. iii. 23), and striving to become continually better than himself. It is only God who does not desire to become better than He is, because that is not possible.

3. Let those depart both from me and from You who say: We do not desire to he better than our fathers; declaring themselves to be the sons of lukewarm and lax persons, whose memory is in execration, since they have eaten sour grapes, and their children’s teeth are set on edge. Or if they pretend that their fathers were holy men, whose memory is blessed, let them imitate their sanctity, and not defend, as laws instituted by them, the indulgences and dispensations which they have merely endured. Although holy Elias says, I am not better than my fathers (2 Kings xix. 4), yet he has not said that he did not wish to be. Jacob saw upon the ladder Angels ascending and descending (Gen. xxviii. 12); but was any one of them either sitting, or standing still? It was not for angels to stand still on the uncertain rounds of a frail ladder; nor can anything remain fixed in the same condition during the uncertain period of this mortal life. Here have we no continuing city; nor do we yet possess, but always seek for, that which is to came. Of necessity you either ascend or descend, and if you try to stand still you cannot but fall. It may be held as certain that the man is not good at all who does not wish to be better; and where you begin not to care to make advance in goodness there also you leave off being good.

4. Let those depart both from me and from you who call good evil and evil good. If they call the pursuit of righteousness evil, what good thing will be good in their eyes? The Lord once spoke a single word, and the Pharisees were scandalized (S. Matt. xv. 12). But now these new Pharisees are scandalized not even at a word, but at silence. You plainly see then that they seek only the occasion to attack you. But leave them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind. Take thought for the salvation of the little ones, not of the murmurs of the evil-disposed. Why do you so much fear to give scandal to those who are not to be cured unless you become sick with them? It is not even desirable to wait to see whether your resolutions are pleasing to all of you in all respects, otherwise you will determine upon little or no good. You ought to consult not the views, but the needs of all; and faithfully to draw them towards God, even although they be unwilling, rather than abandon them to the desires of their heart. I commend myself to your holy prayers.

LETTER XXX (circa A.D. 1132)

To Henry,

He was nephew, by his mother, of Henry I, King of England, brother of King Stephen, and son of Stephen, Count of Blois. “His mother, Adela,” says William of Newburgh, “not wishing to appear to have borne children only for the world, had him tonsured.” In 1126, The History of the Abbey of Glastonbury counts him among the number of the abbots of that monastery, and says, “he was a man extremely versed in letters, and of remarkable regularity of character. By his excellent administration the Abbey of Glastonbury profited so much that his tame will be held in everlasting memory there” (Monast. Anglican. Vol. ii. p. 18). Henry was elevated later on to the see of Winchester, and Bernard complains of him in writing to Pope Eugenius. “What shall I say of his Lordship of Winchester? The works which he does show sufficiently what he is.” Harpsfield reports that he extorted castles from nobles whom he had invited to a feast, and Roger that he had consecrated the intruder William to the See of York (Annal. under year 1140). The latter calls him legate of the Roman See. Brito and Henriquez must, therefore, be wrong in counting him among the Cistercians, and the latter in particular, in speaking of him as a man of eminent sanctity, taking occasion from the testimony of Wion (Ligno vitæ), who calls him a man gifted with prophecy, because when on his death-bed, in receiving the visit of his nephew, Henry, he predicted to him that he would be punished by God on account of the death of S. Thomas of Canterbury, whom he had himself consecrated; as if that saying may not have been inspired by fear rather than prophecy, as Manrique rightly says in his Annals. Peter the Venerable wrote many letters to him, which are still extant, among others Letters 24 and 25 in Book iv., in which he requests that he may return to Cluny to die and be buried there. Being invited to do so at the request of Louis, the King of France, and of the chief nobles of Burgundy, and also at the letters of Pope Hadrian IV., he sent on his treasures to Peter the Venerable, and, leaving England without the permission of the King, arrived at Cluny in 1155. He discharged from his own means the debts of the abbey, which were then enormous; he expended for the support of the monks who lived at Cluny, more than four hundred in number, 7,000 marks of silver, which are equal to 40,000 livres. He gave forty chalices for celebrating mass, and a silk pannus (which may have been an altar vestment, or more probably a hanging—[E.]) of great price; he buried with his own hands Peter the Venerable, who died January 1st, 1157. Having returned at length to his see, he died, to the great grief of the Religious of Cluny, on August the 9th, 1171.

Bishop of Winchester

Bernard salutes him very respectfully.

To the very illustrious Lord Henry, by the Grace of God Bishop of Winchester, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, health in our Lord.

LETTER XXXI (A.D. 1132)

To the Abbot of a Certain Monastery at York, from Which the Prior Had Departed, Taking Several Religious with Him.

Letter 318 clearly shows what monastery these had left, namely, the Benedictine Abbey of S. Mary, at York, and this the Monasticon Anglicanum confirms.

The Abbey of S. Mary, at York, was founded in 1088 by Count Alan, son of Guy, Count of Brittany, in the Church of S. Olave, near York, to which King William Rufus afterwards gave the name of S. Mary. Hither were brought from the monastery of Whitby the Abbot Stephen and Benedictine monks, under whom monastic discipline was observed; but about the year 1132, under Geoffrey, the third abbot, it began to be relaxed. It was at that time that the Cistercian order was everywhere renowned, and was introduced into England in the year 1128 (its first establishment being at Waverley, in Surrey). Induced by a pious emulation, twelve monks of S. Mary, who were not able to obtain from their abbot permission to transfer themselves to this Cistercian Order, begged the support of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, to put their project into execution. With his support they left their monastery on October 4th, 1132, notwithstanding the opposition of their abbot; to the number of twelve priests and one levite (deacon). Of these one was the Prior Richard, another Richard the sacristan, and others named in the History before mentioned, taking nothing from the monastery but their habit. Troubled by their desertion, Abbot Geoffrey complained to the king, to the bishops and abbots of the neighbourhood, as well as to S. Bernard himself, of the injury done by this to the rights of all religious houses, without distinction. Archbishop Thurstan wrote a letter of apology to William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and at the same time Bernard himself wrote to Thurstan and to the thirteen Religious to congratulate them, and another to Abbot Geoffrey to justify their action (Letters 94 to 96 and 313). In the meantime these monks were shut up in the Episcopal house of Thurstan; and as they refused, notwithstanding the censures of their abbot, to return to their former monastery, Thurstan gave them in the neighbourhood of Ripon a spot of ground previously uncultivated, covered with thorn bushes, and situated among rocks and mountains which surrounded it on all sides, that they might build themselves a house there. Their Prior Richard was given to them for abbot by Thurstan, who gave him the Benediction on Christmas Day. Having passed a whole winter in incredible austerity of life, they gave themselves and their dwelling-place, which they had called Fountains, to S. Bernard. He sent to them a Religious, named Geoffrey, of Amayo, from whose hands they received the Cistercian Rule with incredible willingness and piety (Life of S. Bernard, B. iv. c. 2).

1. You write to me from beyond the sea to ask of me advice which I should have preferred that you had sought from some other. I am held between two difficulties, for if I do not reply to you, you may take my silence for a sign of contempt; but if I do reply I cannot avoid danger, since whatever I reply I must of necessity either give scandal to some one or give to some other a security which they ought not to have, or at all events more than they ought to have. That your brethren have departed from you was not with the knowledge nor by the advice or persuasion of me or of my brethren. But I incline to believe that it was of God, since their purpose could not be shaken by all your efforts; and that the brethren themselves thought this also who so earnestly sought my advice about themselves; their conscience troubling them, as I suppose, because they quitted you. Otherwise, if their conscience, like that of the Apostle, did not reproach them, their peace would not have been disturbed (Rom. xiv. 22). But what can I do that I may be hurtful to no one neither by my silence nor by my reply to the questions asked me? Thus, perhaps, I may relieve myself of the difficulty if I shall send those who question me to a person more learned, and whose authority is more reverend and sacred than mine. Pope S. Gregory says in his book on the Pastoral Rule, “Whosoever has proposed to himself a greater good does an unlawful thing in subordinating it to a lesser good.” And he proves this by a citation from the Gospel, saying, No one putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God (S. Luke ix. 62); and he proceeds: “He who renounces a more perfect state which he has embraced, to follow another which is less so, is precisely the man who looks back” (Part iii. c. 28). The same Pope in his third Homily on Ezekiel, adds: “There are people who taste virtue, set themselves to practise it, and while doing so contemplate undertaking actions still better; but afterwards drawing back, abandon those better things which they had proposed to themselves. They do not, it is true, leave off the good practices they had begun, but they fail to realize those better ones which they had meditated. To human judgment these seem to stand fast in the good work, but to the eyes of Almighty God they have fallen, and failed in what they contemplated.”

2. Here is a mirror. In it let your Religious consider, not the features of their faces, but the fact of their turning back. Here let them determine and distinguish their motives, their thoughts, accusing or excusing them with that sentence which the spiritual man passes who judges all things, and is himself judged by no one. I, indeed, cannot rashly determine whether the state which they have left or that which they have embraced was the greater or less, the higher or lower, the severer or the more lax. Let them judge according to the rule of S. Gregory. But to you, Reverend Father, I declare, with as much positive assurance as plain truth, that it is not at all desirable that you should set yourself to quench the Spirit. Hinder not him, it is said, who is able to do good, but if thou canst, do good also thyself (Prov. iii. 27, Vulg.). It more befits you to be proud of the good works of your sons, since a wise son is the glory of his father (Prov. x. 1). For the rest, let no one make it a cause of complaint against me that I have not hidden in my heart the righteousness of God, unless, perhaps, I have spoken less of it than I ought, for the sake of avoiding scandal.

LETTER XXXII (A.D. 1132)

To Thurstan, Archbishop of York

Bernard praises his charity and beneficence towards the Religious.

To the very dear father and Reverend Lord Thurstan, by the Grace of God Archbishop of York, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes the fullest health.

The general good report of men, as I have experienced, has said nothing in your favour which the splendour of your good works does not justify. Your actions, in fact, show that your high reputation, which fame had previously spread everywhere, was neither false nor ill-founded, but manifest and certain. Especially of late how brilliantly has your zeal for righteousness and your sacerdotal energy shone forth in the defence of the poor Religious who had no other helper.

What Thurstan did for the protection of these monks, who had taken refuge with him in the desire to embrace a more austere life, may be seen in a Letter from him which we have taken from the Monasticon Anglicanum and placed after those of S Bernard.

LETTER XXXIII (A.D. 1132)

To Richard,

He had been Prior of the monastery of S. Mary, at York, which be quitted, followed by twelve other Religious, as we have seen above. He died at Rome, as may be seen in Mon. Anglic. p. 744. He had for successor another Richard, formerly sacristan of the same monastery of S. Mary, who died at Clairvaux (ibid., p. 745). He is mentioned in the 320th letter of S. Bernard.

Abbot of Fountains,

The monastery of Fountains, in the Diocese of York, passed over to the Cistercian Rule in 1132. It is astonishing to read of the fervour of these monks in Monast. Anglican. Vol. i. p. 733 and onwards. Compare also Letters 313 and 320 for what relates to the death of Abbot Richard, the second of that name and Order.

and His Companions, Who Had Passed, Over to the Cistercian Order from Another.

He praises them for the renewal of holy discipline.

How marvellous are those things which I have heard and learned, and which the two Geoffries have announced to me, that you have become newly fervent with the fire from on high, that from weakness you have become strong, that you have flourished again with new sanctity.

This is the finger of God secretly working, softly renewing, healthfully changing not, indeed, bad men into good, but making good men better. Who will grant unto me to cross over to you and see this great sight? For that progress in holiness is not less wonderful or less delightful than that conversion. It is much more easy, in fact, to find many men of the world converted to good than one Religious who is good becoming better than he is. The rarest bird in the world is the monk who ascends ever so little from the point which he has once reached in the religious life. Thus the spectacle which you present, dearest brethren, is the more rare and salutary, not only to men who desire greatly to be the helper of your sanctity, but it rightly rejoices the whole Church of God as well; since the rarer it is the more glorious it is also. For prudence made it a duty to you to pass beyond that mediocrity so dangerously near to defect, and to escape from that lukewarmness which provokes God to reject you, it was even a duty of conscience for you to do so, since you know that it is not safe for men who have embraced the holy Rule to halt before having attained the goal to which it leads. I am exceedingly grieved that I am obliged by the pressing obligations of the day and the haste of the messenger to express the fulness of my affection with a pen so briefs and to comprise the breadth of my kindness for you within the narrow limits of this billet. But if anything is wanting, brother Geoffrey

This Geoffrey, “a holy and religious man,” who founded or reformed numerous monasteries, had been sent by Bernard to Fountains to train them according to the Rule of the Cistercian Order (Monast. Anglican. Vol. i. p. 741). Concerning the same Geoffrey see The Life of S. Bernard, B. iv. c. 2.

LETTER XXXIV (circa A.D. 1130)

Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, to the Abbot Bernard.

In not a few MSS. this Letter, with the answer following, is placed after Letter 127, and in some even after Letter 252. Hildebert, the author of this Letter, ruled the Church of Mans (1098-1125), whence, on the death of Gilbert, he was translated to the Metropolitan See of Tours. This is clear, first from Ordericus Vitalis, Bk. x., sub ann., 1198, and next from the Acts of the Bishops of Mans, published in the third volume of Analecta, where Guido, his successor in the See of Mans, is said to have been consecrated, after long strife, in 1126. Hildebert only ruled in Tours six years and as many months. So say the Acts just mentioned. With them agrees a dissertation by Duchesne, and John Maan’s History of the Metropolitan See of Tours, and so also Ordericus Vitalis on the year 1125 (p. 882), where he assigns to Hildebert an Archiepiscopate of about seven years. Hildebert, then, did not reach the year 1136, as Gallia Christiana says, but died in 1132, in which year John Maan places his death. Horst, in the note to this Letter, refers to another Letter of Hildebert (the 24th), which he thinks was also written to Bernard. But this Letter, which in all the editions appears without the name of the person to whom it was addressed, is entitled in two MSS. “To H., Abbot of Cluny,” which we have followed. From this Letter we understand that Hildebert had it in mind to retire to Cluny, if the Supreme Pontiff would allow him. Peter of Blois praises his Letters. (Ep. 101)

The reputation of Bernard for sanctity induces Hildebert to write to him and ask for his friendship.

1. Few, I believe, are ignorant that balsam is known by its scent, and the tree by its fruit. So, dearly beloved brother, there has reached even to me the report of you—how you are steadfast in holiness, and sound in doctrine. For though I am far separated from you by distance of place, yet the report has come even to me. What pleasant nights you spend with your Rachel; how abundant an offspring is born to you of Leah; how you show yourself wholly a follower of virtue, and an enemy of the flesh. Whoever speaks to me of you has this one tale to tell. Such is the perfume of your name, like that of balm, poured out; such are already the rewards of your merit. These are the ears that you are gathering from your field before the last great harvest. For in this life some reward of virtue is to be found in the notable and undying tribute paid to it. This it wins unaided, and keeps unaided. Its renown is not diminished by envy, nor increased by the favour of men. As the esteem of good men cannot be taken away by false accusations, so it cannot be won by the attentions of flattery. It rests with the individual himself either to advance that esteem by fruitfulness in virtue, or to detract from it by deficiency. The whole Church, I am quite sure, hopes that your renown will be for ever sustained, since it is believed to be founded upon a strong rock.

2. As for me, having heard this report of you everywhere, with desire I have desired to be received into the inmost shrine of your friendship, and to be held in remembrance in your prayers when stealing yourself from converse with mortals you speak on behalf of mortals to the King of Angels. Now, this my desire was much increased by Gébuin, Archdeacon of Troyes, a man eminent as well for his piety as for his learning. I should have thought it my duty to commend him to you, if I were not sure that those whom you deem worthy of your favour need no further commendation. I wish, however, that you should know that it was through his information I learnt that you are in the Church, one who art fit to be a teacher of virtue, both by precept and example. But not to burden you with too long a letter, I bring my writing to an end, though end the above petition I will not until I have the happiness to obtain what I have asked. I beg you to tell me by a letter in reply how you are disposed with regard to it.

LETTER XXXV (circa A.D. 1130)

Reply of the Abbot Bernard to Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours.

He repays his praises with praises.

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things. Your letter so redounded to your honour, as well as to mine, that I gladly welcomed it, Most Reverend Sir, as giving me an occasion of addressing to you the praises of which you are so well worthy, and as affording me just satisfaction that you have done me so much honour as that your Highness should deign to stoop to me, and to show so much esteem for my humble person. Indeed, for one in high place not to be studious of high things, but to condescend to those of low estate, is a thing than which there is nothing more pleasing to God or more rare among men. Who is the wise man, except he who listens to the counsel of Wisdom, which says: The greater thou art, the more humble thyself (Ecclus. iii. 18) before all. This humility you have shown towards me, the greater towards the less, an elder to a younger. I, too, could extol your proved wisdom in due praises, perhaps more just than those of which your wisdom deemed me worthy. It is of great importance in order to gain assured knowledge of things, to rely on exact acquaintance with facts, rather than on the uncertain testimony of public rumour; and then what we have proved for certain we may proclaim without hesitation. What you were pleased to write to me about myself, it is for you to ascertain. I find an undoubted proof of your own merit in your letter, though it be so full of my praises. For though another, perhaps, might be pleased with the marks of learning therein, with its sweet and graceful language, its clear style, its easy and commendable art, I place before all this the wonderful humility, whereby your Greatness has cared to approach one so humble as I, to overwhelm me with praises, and to seek for my friendship. As for what refers to me in your letter I read it not as describing what I am, but what I would wish to be, and what I am ashamed of not being. Yet whatever I am, I am yours; and if, by the grace of God, I ever become anything better, be sure, Most Reverend and dear Father, that I shall still remain yours.

LETTER XXXVI (circa A.D. 1131)

To the Same Hildebert, Who Had Not Yet Acknowledged the Lord Innocent as Pope.

He exhorts him to recognise Innocent, now an exile in France, owing to the schism of Peter Leonis, as the rightful Pontiff.

To the great prelate, most exalted in renown, Hildebert, by the grace of God Archbishop of Tours, Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting, and prays that he may walk in the Spirit, and spiritually discern all things.

1. To address you in the words of the prophet, Consolation is hid from their eyes, because death divideth between brethren (Hosea xiii. 14, Vulg.). For it seems as if according to the language of Isaiah they have made a covenant with death, and are at agreement with hell (Is. xxviii. 15). For behold, Innocent, that anointed

Christus.

LETTER XXXVIII (circa A.D. 1135)

To His Monks of Clairvaux.

He excuses his long absence, from which he suffers more than they; and briefly reminds them of their duty.

To his dearly-loved brethren the Monks of Clairvaux, the converts,

“Converts” ( conversi ) was the name formerly given to adults who had been converted to the religious life, and who were distinguished by this name from those who were offered as children. The lay brethren are here meant; cf. ep. 141 n. 1. They were present at the election of an abbot (ep. 36 n. 2), just as once the laity were joined with the clergy in the election of a bishop. Here they are named before the novices, but in Sermon 22 (de Diversis n. 2) they come after them; they were not admitted into the choir. Bernard, moreover, distinguishes them from the monks. For at that time they were not among the Cistercians reckoned among the monks, as is proved by the Exordium Cisterc. (c. 15); although they made some profession. Hence Innocent II, in some deed of privilege or in ep. 352, here says: “Let no one presume without your leave to receive or to retain any one of your converts who have made their profession, but are not monks, be he archbishop, bishop, or abbot.” In the Council of Rheims, held under Eugenius III., the converts are called “the professed” (Can. 7), and although they may have returned to the world, yet they are declared incapable of matrimony, like the monks, from whom, nevertheless, they are distinguished. For the early days of Clairvaux cf. notes to ep. 31.

LETTER XXXIX (A.D. 1137)

To the Same.

He expresses his regret at his very long absence from his beloved Clairvaux, and his desire to return to his dear sons. He tells them of the consolations that he feels nevertheless in his great labours for the Church.

1. My soul is sorrowful until I return, and it refuses to be comforted till it see you. For what is my consolation in the hour of evil, and in the place of my pilgrimage? Are not you in the Lord? Wherever I go, the sweet memory of you never leaves me; but the sweeter the memory the more I feel the absence. Ah, me! that the time of my sojourning here is not only prolonged, but its burden increased, and truly, as the Prophet says, they who for a time separate me from you have added to the pain of my wounds (Ps. lxix. 26). Life is an exile, and one that is dreary enough, for while we are in the body we are absent from the Lord. To this is added the special grief which almost makes me impatient, that I am forced to live without you. It is a protracted sickness, a wearisome waiting, to be so long subject to the vanity which possesses everything here, to be imprisoned within the horrid dungeon of a noisome body, to be still bound with the chains of death, and the ropes of sin, and all this time to be away from Christ. But against all these things one solace was given me from above, instead of His glorious countenance which has not yet been revealed, and that is the sight of the holy temple of God, which is you. From this temple it used to seem to me an easy passage to that glorious temple, after which the Prophet sighed when he said: One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require, even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to visit His temple (Ps. xxvi. 4).

2. What shall I say? how often has that solace been taken from me? Lo, this is now the third time, if I mistake not, that my children have been taken from me. The babes have been too early weaned, and I am not allowed to bring up those whom I begot through the Gospel. In short, I am forced to abandon my own children and look after those of others, and I hardly know which is the more distressing, to be taken from the former, or to have to do with the latter. O, good Jesu! is my whole life thus to waste away in grief, and my years in mourning? It is good for me, O Lord, rather to die than to live, only let it be amongst my brethren, those of my own household, those who are dearest to my heart. That, as all know, is sweeter and safer, and more natural. Nay, it would be a loving act to grant to me that I might be refreshed before I go away, and be no more seen. If it please my Lord that the eyes of a father, who is not worthy to be called a father, should be closed by the hands of his sons, that they may witness his last moments, soothe his end, and raise his spirit by their loving prayers to the blissful fellowship, if you think him worthy to have his body buried with the bodies of those who are blessed because poor, if I have found favour in Thy sight, this I most earnestly ask that I may obtain by the prayers and merits of these my brethren. Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done. Not for my own sake do I wish for either life or death.

3. But it is only right, that as you have heard of my grief, you should also know what consolation I have. The first solace for all the trouble and misfortune that I undergo is the thought that the cause I strive for is that of Him to whom all things live. Whether I will or no, I must live for Him who bought my life at the price of His own, and who is able, as a merciful and righteous judge, to recompense us in that day whatever we may suffer for Him. But if I have served as His soldier against my will, it will be only that a dispensation has been entrusted unto me, and I shall be an unprofitable servant; but if I serve willingly I shall have glory. In this consideration, then, I breathe again for a little. My second consolation is that often, without any merit of mine, grace from above has crowned me in my labours, and that grace in me was not in vain, as I have many times found, and as you have seen to some extent. But how necessary just now the presence of my feebleness is to the Church of God, I would say for your consolation were it not that it would sound like boasting. But as it is, it is better that you should learn it from others.

4. Moved by the pressing request of the Emperor, by the Apostolic command, as well as by the prayers of the Church and the princes, whether with my will or against my will, weak and ill, and, to say truth, carrying about with me the pallid image of the King of terrors, I am borne away into Apulia. Pray for the things which make for the Church’s peace and our salvation, that I may again see you, live with you, and die with you, and so live that ye may obtain. In my weakness and time of distress, with tears and groanings, I have dictated these words, as our dear brother Baldwin

Baldwin, first Cardinal of the Cistercian Order, was created by Innocent, A.D. 1130, at a Council held at Claremont. He was afterwards made Archbishop of Pisa; cf. Life of S. Bernard (lib. ii. n. 49): “In Pisa was Baldwin born, the glory of his native land, and a burning light to the Church.” So great a man did not think it beneath him to act as Bernard’s secretary, and his praises are sung in ep. 245, cf. ep. 201.

LETTER XL

To Thomas, Prior of Beverley

This Thomas had taken the vows of the Cistercian Order at Clairvaux. As he showed hesitation, Bernard urges his tardy spirit to fulfil them. But the following letter will prove that it was a warning to deaf ears, where it relates the unhappy end of Thomas. In this letter Bernard sketches with a master’s hand the whole scheme of salvation.

Bernard to his beloved son Thomas, as being his son.

1. What is the good of words? An ardent spirit and a strong desire cannot express themselves simply by the tongue. We want your sympathy and your bodily presence to speak to us; for if you come you will know us better, and we shall better appreciate each other. We have long been held in a mutual bond as debtors one to another; for I owe you faithful care and you owe me submissive obedience. Let our actions and not our pens, if you please, prove each of us. I wish you would apply to yourself henceforth and carry out towards me those words of the Only Begotten: The works which the Father hath given Me to finish, the same works bear witness of Me (S. John v. 36). For, indeed, only thus does the spirit of the Only Son bear witness with our spirit that we also are the sons of God, when, quickening us from dead works, He causes us to bring forth the works of life. A good or bad tree is distinguished, not by its leaves or flowers, but by its fruit. So By their fruits, He saith, ye shall know them (S. Matt. vii. 16). Works, then, and not words, make the difference between sons of God and sons of unbelief. By works, accordingly, do you display your sincere desire and make proof of mine.

2. I long for your presence; my heart has long wished for you, and expected the fulfilment of your promises. Why am I so pressing? Certainly not from any personal or earthly feeling. I desire either to be profited by you or to be of service to you. Noble birth, bodily strength and beauty, the glow of youth, estates, palaces, and sumptuous furniture, external badges of dignity, and, I may also add, the world’s wisdom—all these are of the world, and the world loves its own. But for how long will they endure? For ever? Assuredly not; for the world itself will not last for ever; but these will not last even for long. In fact, the world will not be able long to keep these gifts for you, nor will you dwell long in the world to enjoy them, for the days of man are short. The world passes away with its lusts, but it dismisses you before it quite passes away itself. How can you take unlimited pleasure in a love that soon must end? But I ever love you, not your possessions; let them go whence they were derived. I only require of you one thing: that you would be mindful of your promise, and not deny us any longer the satisfaction of your presence among us, who love you sincerely, and will love you for ever. In fact, if we love purely in our life, we shall also not be divided in death. For those gifts which I wish for in your case, or rather for you, belong not to the body or to time only; and so they fail not with the body, nor pass away with time; nay, when the body is laid aside they delight still more, and last when time is gone. They have nothing in common with the gifts above-mentioned, or such as they with which, I imagine, not the Father, but the world has endowed you. For which of these does not vanish before death, or at last fall a victim to it?

3. But, indeed, that is the best part, which shall not be taken away for ever. What is that? Eye hath not seen it, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man (I Cor. ii. 9). He who is a man and walks simply according to man’s nature only, he who, to speak more plainly, is still content with flesh and blood, is wholly ignorant what that is, because flesh and blood will not reveal the things which God alone reveals through His Spirit. So the natural man is in no way admitted to the secret; in fact, he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor. ii. 14). Blessed are they who hear His words. I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known to you (S. John xv. 15). O, wicked world, which wilt not bless thy friends except thou make them enemies of God, and consequently unworthy of the council of the blessed. For clearly he who is willing to be thy friend makes himself the enemy of God. And if the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, how much less the enemy? Moreover, the friend of the Bridegroom standeth, and rejoiceth with joy because of the Bridegroom’s voice; whence also it says, My soul failed when [my beloved] spake (Cant. v. 6). And so the friend of the world is shut out from the council of the friends of God; who have received not the spirit of this world but the spirit which is of God, that they may know the things which are given to them of God. I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight (S. Matt. xi. 25, 26), not because they of themselves deserved it. For all have sinned, and come short of Thy glory, that Thou mayest freely send the Spirit of Thy Son, crying in the hearts of the sons of adoption: Abba, Father. For those who are led by this Spirit, they are sons, and cannot be kept from their Father’s council. Indeed, they have the Spirit dwelling within them, who searches even the deep things of God. In short, of what can they be ignorant whom grace teaches everything?

4. Woe unto you, ye sons of this world, because of your wisdom, which is foolishness! Ye know not the spirit of salvation, nor have share in the counsel, which the Father, alone discloses alone to the Son, and to him to whom the Son will reveal Him. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor? (Rom. xi. 34). Not, indeed, on one; but only a few, only those who can truly say: The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Woe to the world for its clamour! That same Only Begotten, like as the Angel of a great revelation, proclaims among the people: He who hath ears to hear let him hear. And since he finds not ears worthy to receive His words, and to whom He may commit the secret of the Father, he weaves parables for the crowd, that hearing they might not hear, and seeing they might not understand. But for His friends how different! With them He speaks apart: To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God (S. Luke viii. 8–10); to whom also He says: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (S. Luke xii. 32). Who are these? These are they whom He foreknew and foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren. The Lord knows who are His. Here is His great secret and the counsel which He has made known unto men. But He judges no others worthy of a share in so great mystery, except those whom He has foreknown and foreordained as His own. For those whom He foreordained, them also He called. Who, except he be called, may approach God’s counsel? Those whom He called, them also He justified. Over them a Sun arises, though not that sun which may daily be seen arising over good and bad alike, but He of whom the Prophet speaks when addressing himself to those alone who have been called to the counsel, he says: Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise (Malachi iv. 2).

So all texts, except a few, in which the reading is: “Indeed, that Sun is promised to those who have been called,” &c. In the first edition, and many subsequent ones: “For the Sun which arises is not that which is daily to be seen rising over good and bad, but one promised by the prophetic warning to such as fear God, to those only who have been called,” &c.

LETTER XLI

To Thomas of St. Omer, After He Had Broken His Promise of Adopting a Change of Life.

He urges him to leave his studies and enter religion, and sets before him the miserable end of Thomas of Beverley.

To his dearly beloved son, Thomas, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, that he may walk in the fear of the Lord.

LETTER XLIV

Concerning the Maccabees But to Whom Written is Unknown.

Such is the title in almost all the MSS. But in one at Cîteaux the Letter is inscribed To Bruno of Cologne, as is believed, on the martyrdom of the Maccabees. In an old edition It is thought to have been written to Hugo of S. Victor.

He relies to the question why the Church has decreed a festival to the Maccabees alone of all the righteous under the ancient law.

1. Fulk, Abbot of Epernay, had already written to ask me the same question as your charity has addressed to your humble servant by Brother Hescelin. I have put off replying to him, being desirous to find, if possible, some statement in the Fathers about this which was asked, which I might send to him, rather than to reply by some new opinion of my own. But as I do not come upon one, in the meantime I reply to each of you with my thoughts upon the matter, on condition that if you discover anything better and more probable in your reading, conversation, or by your meditations, you will not omit to share it with me in turn. You ask, then, why it seemed good to the Fathers to decree that an annual commemoration, with veneration equal to our martyrs, should be solemnly made in the Church, by a certain peculiar privilege, to the Maccabees alone out of all the ancient saints? If I should say that having made proof of the same courage as those, they were worthy now of the same honours, that would, perhaps, answer the question why they were included, but not why they alone were; while it is quite evident that there were others amongst the ancients who suffered with equal zeal for righteousness, but yet have not attained to be reverenced with equal solemnities. If I reply that the latter have not received the same honours as our martyrs because, although their valour deserved it, the time when they lived deprived them of it, why was not the same consideration applied also to the Maccabees, if, indeed, they, too, on account of the era when they lived, did not at once enter into the light of Heaven, but descended into the darkness of Hades? For the Firstbegotten from the dead, He who opened to believers the kingdom of Heaven, the Lamb of the tribe of Judah, who opens and no more shuts, at Whose entrance with complete authority it was sung by the heavenly powers: Lift up your heads, O ye gates, avid be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in (Ps. xxiv. 7),—He had not yet appeared. If on that account it appears unsuitable to commemorate with joy the passing away of those which was not a passage of glory and of joy, why was there an exception made for the Maccabees? Or if they obtained favour on account of the courage which they displayed, why was not the same favour extended to those others? Or ought it to be said, in order to explain this difference, that if the martyrs of the ancient law, as well as those of the new law, have suffered for the same cause of religion, yet they did not suffer in the same condition with those who have attained to the glory of martyrdom? It is agreed that all the martyrs, whether of the Old or the New Testament, equally suffered for the sake of religion; but there is a distinction, because the one class suffered because they held it, the other because they censured those who held it not; the one because they would not desert it, the other because they declared that those would perish who deserted it, and to sum up in a word, that in which the two differ, perseverance in the faith has done in our martyrs that which zeal for the faith has done in those of the ancient law. The Maccabees are alone among the ancient martyrs, because they possessed not only the same cause as the new martyrdom, but also, as I have said, the form of it; and rightly, therefore, they have attained the same glory and fame as the new martyrs of the Church. For like our martyrs, they were urged to pour libations to false gods, to renounce the law of their fathers, and even to transgress the commandments of God, and like them they resisted and died.

2. Not so did Isaiah or Zecharias, or even that great prophet, John the Baptist, die; of whom the first is said to have been sawn asunder, the second slain between the temple and the altar (S. Matt. xxiii. 25), and the third beheaded in prison. If you ask by whom? It was by the wicked and irreligious. For what cause? For justice and religion. In what manner? For confessing and openly upholding these. They openly upheld the truth before those who hated it, and thus drew upon themselves the hatred which caused their death. That which the unrighteous and wicked persecuted was not so much religion in itself as those who brought it before them, nor was their object to attack the righteousness of others, but to remain undisturbed in their own unrighteousness. It is one thing to seize upon the good things of another, and another to defend one’s own goods; to persecute the truth, and not to be willing to follow it one’s self; to grudge at believers, and to be angry at their reproofs; to stop the mouth of those who confess their faith, and not to be able to bear patiently the taunts of those who contradict. Thus Herod sent and seized John. Wherefore! Because he preached Christ, or because he was a good and just man? On the contrary, he reverenced him the more on this account, and having heard him, did many things. But it was because John reproached Herod because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife; on that account he was bound and beheaded; no doubt he suffered for the truth, but because he urged its interests with zeal, not because he was urged to deny it. This is why the suffering of so great a martyr is observed with less solemnity than those even of far less famous men.

3. It is certain that if the Maccabees had suffered in such a matter, and for such a reason as S. John, there would not have been any mention of them at all. But a confession of the truth, not unlike that of the Christian martyrs, made them like those; and rightly, therefore, a similar veneration follows. Let it not be objected that they did not, like our martyrs, suffer for Christ expressly by name; because it does not affect his status as a martyr whether a person suffers under the Law, on behalf of the observances of the Law, or under grace for the commandments of the Gospel. For it is recognized that each of these equally suffers for the truth, and, therefore, for Christ, who said: I am the Truth (S. John xiv. 6). Therefore the Maccabees are more deserving of the honours that have been conferred upon them for the kind of their martyrdom than for the valour displayed in it, since we do not see that the Church has decreed such honour to the righteous of a former time, although they have displayed equal courage on behalf of righteousness, for the time in which they lived. I suppose that it was thought unfit to appoint a day of festival for a death, however laudable, before the Death of Christ, especially since before that saving Passion those who died, instead of entering into joy and glory endured the darkness of the prison-house. The Church then, as I said above, considered that an exception should be made in favour of the Maccabees, since the nature of their martyrdom conferred upon them what the time of their suffering denied to others.

4. Nor them only, but those also who preceded in their death, the Death of Him who was the Life manifest in the flesh, either dying during His life, as Simeon and John the Baptist, or for Him, as the Innocents, we venerate with solemn rites, although they, too, descended into Hades; but for another reason. Thus, in the case of the Innocents, it would be unjust to deprive innocence dying on behalf of righteousness of fame even in the present. John also, knowing that from his day the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, therefore proclaimed, Do penitence, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (S. Matt. iii. 2, Vulg.); and, seeing that the Life would immediately follow him, endured death with joy. He, before his death, was careful to inquire from the Lord Himself respecting this, and had the happiness to be informed of it. For when he sent his disciples to ask of Jesus Art Thou He that should come, or are we to look for another? he received for answer, after the enumeration of very many miracles, And blessed is he who shall not be offended in me (S. Matt. xi. 3–6). In which answer the Lord intimated that He was about to die, and by such a death as might be to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. At this word the friend of the Bridegroom went onward rejoicing and with a willing mind, because he could not doubt that the Bridegroom also would speedily come. Therefore he who so joyfully could die merited also to be held in joyful remembrance. And that old man, too, as full of virtues as of days, who when death was already so near said, holding in his arms Him who was the Life, Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation (S. Luke ii. 29, 30), as if he had said, I go down without fear into Hades, because I feel that my redemption is so nigh; he, too, who died with such fearless joy and such joyful security rightly deserves to be commemorated with joy in the Church.

5. But on what principle shall a death be accounted joyful which is not accompanied by the joys of heaven? or from whence should a dying person derive joy who was sure that he was going down into the darkness of the prison-house, and yet did not bear with him any certitude, how soon the consolation of a deliverer thence should come to him? Thus it was that when one of the saints heard Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live, he turned himself to the wall and wept bitterly, and so asked and obtained some deferring of hateful death. Thus also he lamented miserably, saying, I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the half of my days (Is. xxxviii. 10); and a little after added, I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world (Is. xxxviii. 11). Hence also another says: Who shall grant me that Thou wouldest protect me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret until Thy wrath be passed; that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me? (Job xiv. 13). Israel also said to his sons, Ye will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave (Gen. xlii. 38). What appearance is there in these deaths, of solemn joy, of rejoicing and festival?

6. But our martyrs desire to be unclothed and be with Christ, knowing well that where the Body is there without delay will the eagles be gathered together. There will the righteous rejoice in the sight of God, and be in joy and felicity. There, there, O most blessed Jesus, shall every saint who is delivered from this wicked world be filled speedily with the joy of Thy countenance. There in the habitations of the just resounds for ever one song of joy and salvation: Our soul is delivered as a bird out of the net of the fowler: the net is broken and we are delivered (Ps. cxxiv. 7). How could those sing this song of gladness who in Hades sat in darkness and the shadow of death, while as yet there was no Redeemer for them, no Saviour; while the Sun rising from on high, Christ the first fruits of them that slept, had not yet visited us? Rightly, then, does the Church, who has learnt to rejoice with them that rejoice and to weep with them that weep, distinguish, because of the time at which they lived, between those whom she judges equal in valour: and does not think the descent into Hades proper to be followed with equal honour as is the passage into life.

7. Therefore, though the motive makes martyrdom, yet the time and the nature of it determine the difference between martyrdoms. Thus the time in which they lived separates the Maccabees from the martyrs of the new law and joins them with those of the old; but the nature of their martyrdom associates them with the new and divides them from the old. From these causes come the differences of observance with which they are kept in memory in the Church. But that which is common to the whole company of the Saints before God is what the holy prophet declares: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Ps. cxvi. 15). And why he calls it precious he explains to us: When He has given sleep to His beloved, behold, children, the heritage of the Lord; His reward, the fruit of the womb (Ps. cxxvii. 3). Nor must we think that martyrs alone are beloved, since we remember that it was said of Lazarus, Our friend Lazarus sleeps (S. John xi. 11), and elsewhere, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord (Apoc. xiv. 13). Not those alone who die for the Lord, like the martyrs, but without doubt those also who die in the Lord as confessors are blessed. There are two things, as it seems to me, which make death precious, the life which precedes it and the cause for which it is endured; but more the cause than the life. But when both the cause and the life concur that is the most precious of all.

LETTER XLV (circa A.D. 1120)

To a Youth Named Fulk, Who Afterwards Was Archdeacon of Langres

He gravely warns Fulk, a Canon Regular, whom an uncle had by persuasions and promises drawn back to the world, to obey God and be faithful to Him rather than to his uncle.

To the honourable young man Fulk, Brother Bernard, a sinner, wishes such joy in youth as in old age he will not regret.

1. I do not wonder at your surprise; I should wonder if you were not suprised [sic] that I should write to you, a countryman to a citizen, a monk to a scholastic,

Either a canon holding a prebend of theology or simply a student—here probably the former. But see n. 7.—[E.]

LETTER XLVI (circa A.D. 1125)

To Guigues, the Prior, And to the Other Monks of the Grand Chartreuse

He discourses much and piously of the law of true and sincere charity, of its signs, its degrees, its effects, and of its perfection which is reserved for Heaven (Patria).

Brother Bernard, of Clairvaux, wishes health eternal to the most reverend among fathers, and to the dearest among friends, Guigues, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and to the holy Monks who are with him.

1. I have received the letter of your Holiness as joyfully as I had long and eagerly desired it. I have read it, and the letters which I pronounced with my mouth, I felt, as it were, sparks of fire in my heart, which warmed my heart within me; as coming from that fire which the Lord has sent upon the earth (S. Luke xii. 49). How great a fire must glow in those meditations from which such sparks fly forth! This, your inspired and inspiring salutation, was to me, I confess, not as if coming from man, but like words descending surely from Him who sent the salutation to Jacob. It is not for me, in fact, a simple salutation given in passing, according to the custom and usage of men, but it is plainly from the very bowels of charity, as I feel, that this benediction, so sweet and so unhoped for, has come forth. I pray God to bless you, who have had the goodness to prevent me with benedictions of such sweetness, that confidence is granted to me, your humble servant, to reply, since you have first written; for though I had meditated writing, I had hitherto not presumed to do so. For I feared to trouble, by my eager scribbling, the holy quiet which you have in the Lord, and the religious silence which isolates you from the world. I feared, also, to interrupt, even for a moment, those mysterious whispers from God, and to pour my words into ears always occupied with the secret praises of heaven. I feared to become as one who would trouble even Moses on the mountain, Elias in the desert, or Samuel watching in the temple, if I had tried to turn away ever so little, minds occupied with divine communion. Samuel cries out: Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth (1 Sam. iii. 10). And should I presume to make myself heard? I feared, I say, lest presenting myself out of season before you, as it were to David engaged in flight, or abiding in solitude, you might not wish to listen, and might say, “Excuse me, I cannot hear thee now; I prefer rather to give ear to words sweeter than thine.” I will hear what the Lord God will say unto me; for He shall speak peace unto His people, and to His saints, and to those who are converted at heart (Ps. lxxxiv. 9 Vulg.). Or, at least, this: Depart from me, ye evil-disposed, and I will study the commandments of my God (Ps. cxix. 115). For could I be so rash as to dare to arouse the much-loved spouse sweetly resting in the arms of her bridegroom as long as she will? Should I not hear from her on the instant: Do not be troublesome to me; I am for My Beloved, and My Beloved is for Me; He feedeth among the lilies (Cant. ii. 16).

2. But what I do not dare to do, charity dares, and with all confidence knocks at the door of a friend, thinking that she ought by no means to suffer repulse, who knows herself to be the mother of friendships; nor does she fear to interrupt for an instant your rest, though so pleasant, to speak to you of her own task. She, when she will, causes you to withdraw from being alone with God; she, also, when she willed, made you attentive to me; so that you did not regard it as unworthy of you, not merely to benignantly endure my speaking, but more, to urge me to break the silence. I esteem the kindness, I admire the worthiness, I praise and venerate the pure rejoicing with which you glory in the Lord, for the advances in virtue which, as you suppose, I have made. I am proud of so great a testimony, and esteem myself happy in a friendship so grateful to me as that of the servants of God towards me. This is now my glory, this is my joy and the rejoicing of my heart, that not in vain I have lifted up mine eyes unto the mountains whence there has now come to me help of no small value. These mountains have already distilled sweetness for me; and I continue to hope that they will do so until our valleys shall abound with fruit. That day shall be always for me a day of festival and perpetual memorial, in which I had the honour to see and to receive that worthy man, by whom it has come about that I should be received into your hearts. And, indeed, you had received me even before, if I may judge by your letter; but now with a more close and intimate friendship, since, as I find, he brought back to you too favourable reports concerning me which, doubtless, he believed, though without sufficient cause. For, as a faithful and pious man, God forbid that he should speak otherwise than he believed. And truly I experience in myself what the Saviour says: He who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward (S. Matt. x. 41). I have said, the reward of a righteous man, because I am regarded as righteous, only through receiving one who is righteous. If he has reported of me something more than that, he has spoken not so much according to the truth of the case as according to the simplicity and goodness of his heart. You have heard, you have believed, you have rejoiced, and have written, thereby giving me no little joy, not only because I have been honoured with a degree of praise and a high place in the estimation of your Holiness, but also because all the sincerity of your souls has made itself known to me in no small measure. In few words, you have shown to me with what spirit you are animated.

3. I rejoice, therefore, and congratulate you on your sincerity and goodness as I congratulate myself on the edification which you have afforded to me. That is, indeed, true and sincere charity, and must be considered to proceed from a heart altogether pure and a good conscience and faith unfeigned, with which we love our neighbour as ourself. For he who loves only the good that himself has done, or, at least, loves it more than that of others, does not love good for its own sake, but on account of himself, and he who is such cannot do as the prophet says: Give thanks unto the Lord, because He is good (Ps. cxviii. 1). He gives thanks, indeed, perhaps, because the Lord is good to him, not because He is good in Himself. Wherefore let him understand that this reproach from the same prophet is directed against him: They will praise thee when thou doest well unto thy own soul (Ps. xlix. 18). One man praises the Lord because He is mighty; another because He is good unto him; and, again, another simply because He is good. The first is a slave, and fears for himself; the second mercenary, and desires somewhat for himself; but the third is a son, and gives praise to his Father. Therefore both he who fears and he who desires are each working for his own advantage; charity which is in him alone who is a son, seeketh not her own. Wherefore I think that it was of charity that was spoken, The law of the Lord is pure, converting the soul (Ps. xix. 7), because it is that alone which can turn away the mind from the love of itself and of the world and direct it towards God. Neither fear nor selfish love converts the soul. They change sometimes the outward appearance or the actions, but never affect the heart. No doubt even the slave does sometimes the work of God, but because he does it not of his own free will he remains still in his hardness. The mercenary person does it also, but not out of kindness, only as drawn by his own particular advantage. Where there is distinction of persons, there are personal interests, and where there are personal interests there is a limit of willingness, and there, without doubt, a rusting meanness. Let the very fear by which he is constrained be a law to the slave, let the greedy desire, with which the mercenary is bound, be a law to him, since it is by it that he is drawn away and enticed. But of these neither is without fault or is able to convert the soul. But charity does convert souls when it fills them with disinterested zeal.

4. Now, I should say that this charity is faultless in him who has become accustomed to retain nothing for himself out of that which is his own. He who keeps nothing for himself gives to God quite certainly all that he has, and that which belongs to God cannot be unclean. Thus that pure law of the Lord is no other than charity, which seeks not what is advantageous to herself, but that which profits others. But law is said to be of the Lord, either because He Himself lives by it or because no one possesses it except by His gift. Nor let it seem absurd what I have said, that even God lives by law, since I declared that this law was no other than charity. For what but charity preserves in the supreme and blessed Trinity, that lofty and unspeakable unity which it has? It is law, then, and charity the law of the Lord, which maintains in a wonderful manner the Trinity in Unity and binds It in the bond of peace. Yet let no one think that I here take charity for a quality or a certain accident in God, or otherwise to say that in God (which God forbid) there is something which is not God; but I say that it is the very substance of God. I say nothing new or unheard of, for S. John says God is love (1 S. John iv. 16).

LETTER XLVIII

To Magister

S. Bernard usually designates thus Doctors and Professors of Belles Lettres. See Letters 77, 106, and others. It is thus that in the Spicilegium iii. pp. 137, 140, Thomas d’Etampes is called sometimes Magister, sometimes Doctor. In a MS. at the Vatican we read, “To Magister Gaucher.”

Walter de Chaumont.

He exhorts him to flee from the world, advising him to prefer the cause and the interests of his soul to those of parents.

MY DEAR WALTER,

I often grieve my heart about you whenever the most pleasant remembrance of you comes back to me, seeing how you consume in vain occupations the flower of your youth, the sharpness of your intellect, the store of your learning and skill, and also, what is more excellent in a Christian than all of these gifts, the pure and innocent character which distinguishes you; since you use so great endowments to serve not Christ their giver, but things transitory. What if (which God forbid!) a sudden death should seize and shatter at a stroke all those gifts of yours, as it were with the rush of a burning and raging wind, just like the winds whirl about and dry grass or as the leaves of herbs quickly fall. What, then, will you carry with you of all your labour which you have wrought upon the earth? What return will you render unto the Lord for all the benefits that He hath done unto you? What gain will you bring unto your creditor for those many talents committed to you? If He shall find your hand empty, who, though a liberal bestower of His gifts, exacts a strict account of their use! “For he that shall come will come and will not tarry, and will require that which is His own with usury.” For He claims all as His own, which seems to ennoble you in your land, with favours full at once of dignity and of danger. Noble parentage, sound health, elegance of person, quick apprehension, useful knowledge, uprightness of life, are glorious things, indeed, but they are His from whom they are. If you use them for yourself “there is One who seeketh and judgeth.”

2. But be it so; suppose that you may for a while call these things yours, and boast in the praise they bring you, and be called of men Rabbi and make for yourself a great name, though only upon the earth; what shall be left to you after death of all these things? Scarcely a remembrance alone—and that, too, only upon earth. For it is written, They have slept their sleep, and all the men whose hands were mighty have found nothing (Ps. lxxvi. 5). If this be the end of all your labours—allow me to say so—what have you more than a beast of burden? Indeed, it will be said even of your palfrey when he is, dead that he was good. Look to it, then, how you must answer it before that terrible judgment throne if you have received your soul in vain, and such a soul! if you are found to have done nothing more with your immortal and reasonable soul than some beast with his. For the soul of a brute lives no longer than the body which it animates, and at one and the same moment it both ceases to give life and to live. Of what will you deem yourself worthy, who, being made in the image of your Creator, do not guard the dignity of so great a majesty? And being a man,

Some add “in honour” from Ps. xlviii., but it is wanting in the MSS., and certainly is redundant here.

LETTER XLIX

To Romanus, Sub-Deacon of the Roman Curia.

He urges upon him the proposal of the religious life, recalling the thought of death.

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to his dear Romanus, as to his friend.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

How good you are to me in renewing by a letter the sweet recollection of yourself and in excusing my tiresome delay. It is not possible that any forgetfulness of your affection could ever invade the hearts of those who love you; but, I confess, I thought you had almost forgotten yourself until I saw your letter. So now no more delays; fulfil quickly the promise that you have written; and if your pen truly expresses your purpose, let your acts correspond to it. Why do you delay to, give birth to that spirit of salvation which you have so long conceived? Nothing is more certain to mortals than death, nothing more uncertain than the hour of death, since it is to come upon us as a thief, in the night. Woe unto them who are still with child [of that good intention] in that day! If it shall anticipate and prevent this birth of salvation, alas! it will pierce through the house and destroy the holy seed: For when they shall say Peace and safety, then sudden destruction shall come upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape (1 Thess. v. 3). 1 wish you not to flee from death, but only to fear it. For the just, though he avoids it not, because he knows that it is inevitable, yet does not fear it. Moreover, he awaits it as a rest (Wisdom iv. 7) and receives it in perfect security; for as it is the exit from the present life, so it is the entrance into a better. Death is good if by it thou die to sin, that thou mayest live unto righteousness. It is necessary that this death should go before, in order that the other which follows after may be safe. In this life, so long as it lasts, prepare for yourself that life which lasts for ever. While you live in the flesh, die unto the world, that after the death of the flesh you may begin to live unto God. For what if death rend asunder the coarse envelope

Saccus.

LETTER L

To Geoffrey, of Lisieux

Some have “Luxeuil.” This word Ordericus also generally uses to designate Lisieux, in Neustria, so that there is no uniform distinction of names between Lisieux and Luxeuil, in the County of Burgundy, found among writers of this period.

He grieves at his having abandoned his purpose to enter the religious life and returned to the world. He exhorts him to be wise again.

I. I am grieved for you, my son Geoffrey, I am grieved for you. And not without reason. For who would not grieve that the flower of your youth, which, amid the joy of angels, you offered unimpaired to God for the odour of a sweet smell (Phil. iv. 18), should now be trampled under the feet of devils, stained by the filthiness of vice and the uncleanness of the world? How can you, who once wast called by God, follow the devil who calls you back? How is it that you, whom Christ began to draw after Himself, have suddenly withdrawn your foot from the very threshold of glory? In you I now have proof of the truth of the Lord’s word, when He said: A man’s foes shall be they of his own household (S. Matt. x. 36). Your friends and kinsfolk have approached and stood against you. They have called you back into the jaws of the lion, and have placed you once more in the gates of death. They have placed you in dark places, like the dead of this world; and now it is a matter for little surprise that you are descending into the belly of hell, which is hasting to swallow you up, and to give you over as a prey to be devoured by those who roar in their hunger.

2. Return, I pray you; return before the deep swallow thee up and the pit shut her mouth upon thee (Ps. lxix. 16); before you sink whence you shall never more rise; before you be bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (S. Matt. xxii. 13); before you be thrust down to the place of darkness and covered with the gloom of death. Perhaps you blush to return, because you gave way for an hour. Blush, indeed, for your flight, but do not blush to return to the battle after your flight, and to fight again. The fight is not over yet. Not yet have the opposing lines drawn off from each other. Victory is still in your power. If you will, we are unwilling to conquer without you, and we do not grudge to you your share of glory. I will even gladly come to meet you and gladly welcome you with open arms, saying: It is meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this thy brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found (S. Luke xv. 32).

LETTER LI

To the Virgin Sophia

He praises her for having despised the glory of the world: and, setting forth the praises, privileges, and rewards of Religious Virgins, exhorts her to persevere.

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to the Virgin Sophia, that she may keep the title of virginity and attain its reward.

I. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (Prov. xxxi. 31). I rejoice with you, my daughter, in the glory of your virtue, whereby, as I hear, you have been enabled to reject the deceitful glory of the world. That, indeed, deserves rejection and disdain. But whereas many who in other respects are wise, are in their estimation of worldly glory become foolish, you deserve to be praised for not being deceived. It is as the flower of the grass—(James i. 10)—a vapour that appeareth for a little time (S. James iv. 14). And every degree of that glory is without doubt more full of care than joy. At one time you have claims to advance, at another, yourself to defend; you envy others, or are suspicious of them; you are continually aiming to acquire what you do not possess, and the passion for acquiring is not satisfied even by success; and as long as this is the case, what rest is there in your glory? But if any there be, its enjoyment quickly passes, never to return; while care remains, never to leave. Besides, see how many fail to attain that enjoyment, and yet how few despise it. Why so? Just because though many of necessity endure it [i.e., the deprivation of pleasure], yet but few make of doing so a virtue. Few, I say, very few, and particularly of the nobly-born. Indeed, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the base things of the world (1 Cor. i. 26–28). You are, then, blessed and privileged among women of your rank in that, while others strive in rivalry for worldly glory, you by your contempt of this glory are raised to a greater height of glory, and are elevated by glory of a higher kind. Certainly you are the more renowned and illustrious for having made yourself voluntarily humble than for your birth in a high rank. For the one is your own achievement by the grace of God, the other is the doing of your ancestors. And that which is your own is the more precious, as it is the most rare. For if among men virtue is rare—a “rare bird on the earth”—how much rarer is it in the case of a weak woman of high birth? Who can find a virtuous woman? (Prov. xxxi. 10). Much more “a virtuous woman” of high birth as well. Although God is not by any means an accepter of persons, yet, I know not how, virtue is more pleasing in those of noble birth. Perhaps that may be because it is more conspicuous. For if a man is of mean birth and is devoid of glory, it is not easily clear whether he lacks virtue because he does not wish for it or because he cannot attain it. I honour virtue won under stress of necessity. But I honour more the virtue which a free choice adopts than that which necessity imposes.

2. Let other women, then, who have not any other hope, contend for the cheap, fleeting, and paltry glory of things that vanish and deceive. Do you cling to the hope that confounds not. Do you keep yourself, I say, for that far more exceeding weight of glory, which our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh (2 Cor. iv. 17) for you on high. And if the daughters of Belial reproach you, those who walk with stretched forth necks mincing as they go (Isaiah iii. 16), decked out and adorned like the Temple, answer them: My kingdom is not of this world (S. John xviii. 36); answer them: My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready (S. John vii. 6); answer them: My glory is hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3); When Christ, who is my life, shall appear, then shall I also appear with Him in glory (Col. iii, 4). And yet if one needs must glory, you also may glory freely and fearlessly, only in the Lord. I omit the crown which the Lord hath prepared for you for ever. I say nothing of the promises which await you hereafter, that as a happy bride you are to be admitted to behold with open face the glory of your Bridegroom; that He will present you to Himself a glorious bride, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph. v. 27); that He will receive you in an everlasting embrace, will place His left hand under your head and His right hand shall embrace you (Cant. ii. 6). I pass over the appointed place, which being set apart by the prerogative of virginity, you shall without doubt gain among sons and daughters in the kingdom. I say nothing of that new song which you, a virgin among virgins, shall likewise sing in tones of unrivalled sweetness, rejoicing therein and making glad the city of God, singing and running and following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. In fact, eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which He path prepared (1 Cor. ii. 9) for you, and for which it behoves you to be prepared.

3. All this I omit, that is laid up for you hereafter. I speak only of the present, of those things which you already have, of the first fruits of the Spirit (Rom. viii. 23), the gifts of the Bridegroom, the earnest money of the espousals, the blessings of goodness (Ps. xxi. 3), wherewith he hath prevented you, whom you may expect to follow after you, and complete what still is lacking. Let Him, yea let Him, come forth to be beheld in His great beauty, so adorned as to be admired of the very angels, and if the daughters of Babylon, whose glory is in their shame (Phil. iii. 19), have aught like Him, let them bring it forth, Though they be clothed in purple and fine linen (S. Luke xvi. 19). Yet their souls are in rags; they have sparkling necklaces, but tarnished minds. You, on the other hand, though ragged without, are all glorious within (Ps. xlv. 14), though to Divine and not human gaze. Within you have that which delights you, for He is within whom it delights; for certainly you do not doubt that you have Christ dwelling in your heart by faith (Eph. iii. 17). In truth, The King’s daughter is all glorious within (Ps. xlv. 4). Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion: shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, because the King hath desired thy beauty; if thou art clothed with confession and honour (Ps. civ. i, Vulg.), and deckest thyself with light as it were with a garment-For confession and worship are before Him (Ps. xcvi. 6, Vulg.). Before whom? Him who is fairer than the sons of men (Ps. xlv. 3), even Him whom the angels desire to look upon.

4. You hear, then, to whom you are pleasing. Love that which enables you to please, love “confession,” if you desire “honour.” “Confession” is the handmaid of “honour,” the handmaid of “worship.” Both are for you. “Thou art clothed with confession and honour,” and “Confession and worship are before Him.” In truth, where confession is, there is worship, and there is honour. If there are sins, they are washed away in confession; if there are good works, they are commended by confession. When you confess your faults, it is a sacrifice to God of a troubled spirit; when you confess the benefits of God, you offer to God the sacrifice of praise. Confession is a fair ornament of the soul, which both cleanses a sinner and makes the righteous more thoroughly cleansed. Without confession the righteous is deemed ungrateful, and the sinner accounted dead. Confession perisheth from the dead as from one that is not (Ecclus. xvii. 28). Confession, therefore, is the life of the sinner, the glory of the righteous. It is necessary to the sinner, it is equally proper to the righteous. For it becometh well the just to be thankful (Ps. xxxiii. 1). Silk and purple and rouge and paint have beauty, but impart it not. Every such thing that you apply to the body exhibits its own loveliness, but leaves it not behind. It takes the beauty with it, when the thing itself is taken away. For the beauty that is put on with a garment and is put off with the garment, belongs without doubt to the garment, and not to the wearer of it.

5. Do not you, therefore, emulate those evil disposed persons who, as mendicants, seek an extraneous beauty when they have lost their own. They only betray how destitute they are of any proper and native beauty, when at such great labour and cost they study to furnish themselves outside with the many and various graces of the fashion of the world which passeth away, just that they may appear graceful in the eyes of fools. Deem it a thing unworthy of you to borrow your attractiveness from the furs of animals and the toils of worms; let your own suffice you. For that is the true and proper beauty of anything, which it has in itself without the aid of any substance besides. Oh! how lovely the flush with which the jewel of inborn modesty colours a virgin’s cheeks! Can the earrings of queens be compared to this? And self-discipline confers a mark of equal beauty. How self-discipline calms the whole aspect of a maiden’s bearing, her whole temper of mind. It bows the neck, smooths the proud brows, composes the countenance, restrains the eyes, represses laughter, checks, the tongue, tempers the appetite, assuages wrath, and guides the deportment. With such pearls of modesty should your robe be, decked. When virginity is girt with divers colours such as these, is there any glory to which it is not rightly preferred? The Angelic? An angel has virginity, indeed, but not flesh; and in that respect his happiness exceeds his virtue. Surely that adornment is best and most desirable which even an angel might envy.

LETTER LV

To the Same

He commends her readiness in God’s service, and expresses his desire to see her.

I have received the joy of my heart, good news from you. I am happy to hear of your happiness; and your ready service, now so well known, makes me quite easy in mind. This great happiness comes in no way from flesh and blood, for you are living in lowliness instead of state, in mean, not high place, in poverty instead of wealth. You are deprived of the consolation of living in your own country, and of the society of your brother and your son. Without doubt, then, the willing devotion that hath been born in you is the work of the Holy Spirit. You have long since conceived by the fear of God the design of labouring for your salvation, and have at last brought your design to execution, the spirit of love casting out fear in your soul. How much more gladly would I be present to say this to you, than be absent and write! Believe me, I am annoyed at my business, which constantly seems to hinder me from the sight of you; and I hail with joy the chances, which I seldom seem to get, of seeing you. Such opportunities are rare; but, I confess, their very rarity makes them sweet. For, indeed, it is better to see you just sometimes than never at all. I hope to come unto you shortly; and I already offer you a foretaste of the joy that shall shortly come in full.

LETTER LVI

To Beatrice, a Noble and Religious Lady

He commends her love and anxious care.

I wonder at your zealous devotion and loving affection towards me. I ask, excellent lady, what can possibly inspire in you such great interest and solicitude for us? If we had been sons or grandsons, if we had been united to you by the most distant tie of relationship, your constant kindnesses, frequent visits, in a word, the numberless proofs of your affection that we experience daily, would seem to deserve, not so much our wonder, as our acceptance as a matter of obligation. But as, in common with the rest of mankind, we recognize in you only a great lady, and not a mother, the wonder is not that we should wonder at your goodness, but that we can wonder sufficiently. For who of our kinsfolk and acquaintances takes care of us? Who ever asks of our health? Who, I ask, is, I will not say anxious, but even mindful of us in the world? We are become, as it were, a broken vessel to friends, relatives, and neighbours. You alone cannot forget us. You ask of the state and condition of my health, of the journey I have just accomplished, of the monks whom I have transferred to another place. Of them I may briefly reply, that out of a desert land, from a place of grim and vast solitude, they have been brought into a place where nothing is wanting to them, neither possessions, nor buildings, nor friends; into a rich land and a lovely dwelling-place. I left them happy and peaceful; in happiness and peace, too, I returned; except that for a few days I was troubled with so severe a return of fever that I was in fear of death. But by God’s mercy I soon got well again, so that now I think I am stronger and better after my journey is over than before it began.

LETTER LVIII

To the Duchess of Lorraine

He thanks her for kindnesses shown, and deters her from an unjust war.

I thank God for your pious goodwill which I know that you have towards Him and His servants. For whenever the tiniest little spark of heavenly love is kindled in a worldly heart ennobled with earthly honours, that, without doubt, is God’s gift, not man’s virtue. For our part we are very glad to avail ourselves of the kind offers made to us of your bounty in your letter. But having heard of the sudden and serious stress of business, which, of course, must be delaying you at this time, we think it meet to await your opportunity as it shall please you. For, as far as in me lies, I would riot be a burden to any one, particularly in things pertaining to God, where we ought to seek not so much the profit of the gift as advantage abounding to the giver. And so, if you please, name a day and place in your answer by this messenger, when, by God’s help, having brought to an end the business which now occupies, you will be able to approach these regions, where our brother Wido

I think this is Wido [or Guy?], Abbot of Trois Fontaines, who frequently went to Lorraine. Cf. 63, 69.

LETTER LXI (A.D. 1138)

To Louis the Younger, King of the French.

He endeavours to defend the election of Geoffrey, Prior of Clairvaux, to the See of Langres; to which the King had appeared adverse.

1. If the whole world were to conjure me to join it in some enterprise against your royal Majesty, I should still through fear of God not dare lightly to offend a King ordained by Him. Nor am I ignorant who it is that has said, Whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God (Rom. xiii. 2). Nor yet do I forget how contrary is lying to the Christian calling and still more so to my profession. I say the truth, I lie not; what was done at Langres in the matter of our Prior

This refers to Geoffrey, Bernard’s kinsman, who after many disagreements had been at length unanimously taken from being third Prior of Clairvaux to be Bishop of Langres, A.D. 1138.

LETTER LXII (A.D. 1139)

To Pope Innocent.

On behalf of Falco, Archbishop elect of Lyons.

I think that I, who have so many times been listened to in the affairs of others, shall not be confounded in my own. I, my lord, hold the cause of my Archbishop to be my own, being a member of him, and knowing that there is nothing that affects the head but what touches me, which, nevertheless, I would not say if the man had taken this honour to himself, and had not been called by God, as was Moses. Nor can I think that it was the work of any but Him that the votes of so many men were so readily given him, that there was not even any hesitation, still less opposition. And deservedly so. He is distinguished not only for his high birth, but also for the nobility of his mind, for his knowledge, and his irreproachable life. In short, the integrity of his name fears not the tooth even of a foe. What, therefore, has been so done for so good a man is surely worthy to obtain the favour of the Apostolic See, the fulness of honour, which is the only thing now lacking, to increase the joy of its people that has grown accustomed to its kindness, or, I may say, to the liberality which he has fully deserved. This is what the whole Church, with most earnest supplication, implores; this is what your son, with his usual presumption, entreats of you.

LETTER LXIII (A.D. 1139)

To the Same, in the Name of Godfrey, Bishop of Langres.

He expresses the same thought as in the preceding Letter.

Amidst the numerous evils which. nowadays are seen in the churches on the occasion of elections the Lord hath looked down from heaven upon our Mother Church of Lyons, and has without strife given it a worthy successor to Peter of pious memory, its Archbishop, in the person of Falco, its Dean. I ask, my lord, that he who has been unanimously elected by his fellows, promoted for the good of all, and duly consecrated, may receive at your hands the fulness of honour that belongs to his office. And what makes me seek this is not so much consciousness of his merits, but of my duty-duty laid upon me not only by the metropolitan dignity of that Church, but because I am placed in this position in order that I may bear my testimony to the truth.

LETTER LXIV (A.D. 1139)

To the Above-Named Falco.

Bernard recommends to hint the interests of certain Religious.

The Lord Bishop and I have written, as we thought we ought to do, to my lord the Pope on your behalf, and you have a copy of your letters. It is our determination to stand by you with all our might, because of the good which we hope for from you for the Church. It concerns you so to act that we may not be disappointed of our hope. For the rest, if I have found favour in your sight I pray you think of those poor and needy ones at the house of Benissons Dieu.

Benissons Dieu was a Cistercian Abbey, an offshoot of Clairvaux, in the Diocese of Lyons, and was founded A.D. 1138. Alberic was its first Abbot. Not far from it was the monastery of Savigny, of the order of S. Benedict, in the same diocese. Its Abbot was Iterius, of whom Bernard here complains.

LETTER XLV (circa A.D. 1140)

To the Canons of Lyons, on the Conception of S. Mary.

Bernard states that the Festival of the Conception was new; that it rested on no legitimate foundation; and that it should not have been instituted without consulting the Apostolic See, to whose opinion he submits.

1. It is well known that among all the Churches of France that of Lyons is first in importance, whether we regard the dignity of its See, its praiseworthy regulations, or its honourable zeal for learning. Where was there ever the vigour of discipline more flourishing, a more grave and religious life, more consummate wisdom, a greater weight of authority, a more imposing antiquity? Especially in the Offices of the Church, that of Lyons has always shown itself opposed to attempts at sudden innovation, and it is a proof of her fulness of judgment that she has never suffered herself to be stained with the mark of rash and hasty levity. Wherefore I cannot but wonder that there should have been among you at this time some who wished to sully this splendid fame of your Church by introducing a new Festival, a rite which the Church knows nothing of, and which reason does not prove, nor ancient tradition hand down to us. Have we the pretension to be more learned or more devoted than the Fathers? It is a dangerous presumption to establish in such a matter what their prudence left unestablished. And the matter in question is of such a nature that it could not possibly have escaped the diligence of the Fathers if they had not thought that they ought not to occupy themselves with it.

2. The Mother of the Lord, you say, ought greatly to be honoured. You say well, but the honour of a queen loves justice. The royal Virgin does not need false honour, since she is amply supplied with true titles to honour and badges of her dignity. Honour indeed the purity of her flesh, the sanctity of her life, wonder at her motherhood as a virgin, adore her Divine offspring. Extol the prodigy by which she brought into the world without pain the Son, whom she had conceived without concupiscence. Proclaim her to be reverenced by the angels, to have been desired by the nations, to have been known beforehand by Patriarchs and Prophets, chosen by God out of all women and raised above them all. Magnify her as the medium by whom grace was displayed, the instrument of salvation, the restorer of the ages; and finally extol her as having been exalted above the choirs of angels to the celestial realms. These things the Church sings concerning her, and has taught me to repeat the same things in her praise, and what I have learnt from the Church I both hold securely myself and teach to others; what I have not received from the Church I confess I should with great difficulty admit. I have received then from the Church that day to be reverenced with the highest veneration, when being taken up from this sinful earth, she made entry into the heavens; a festival of most honoured joy. With no less clearness have I learned in the Church to celebrate the birth of the Virgin, and from the Church undoubtedly to hold it to have been holy and joyful; holding most firmly with the Church, that she received in the womb that she should come into the world holy. And indeed I read concerning Jeremiah, that before he came forth from the womb [ ventre : otherwise de vulva] he was sanctified, and I think no otherwise of John the Baptist, who, himself in the womb of his mother, felt the presence of his Lord in the womb (S. Luke i. 41). It is matter for consideration whether the same opinion may not be held of holy David, on account of what he said in addressing God: In Thee I have been strengthened from the womb: Thou art He who took me out of my mother’s bowels (Ps. lxxi. 6); and again: I was cast upon Thee from the womb: Thou art my God from my mother’s belly (Ps. xxii. 10). And Jeremiah is thus addressed: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee (Jer. i. 5). How beautifully the Divine oracle has distinguished between conception in the womb and birth from the womb! and showed that if the one was foreseen only, the other was blessed beforehand with the gift of holiness: that no one might think that the glory of Jeremiah consisted only in being the object of the foreknowledge of God, but also of His predestination.

3. Let us, however, grant this in the case of Jeremiah. What shall be said of John the Baptist, of whom an angel announced beforehand that he should be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb? I cannot suppose that this is to be referred to predestination or to foreknowledge. For the words of the angel were without doubt fulfilled in their time, as he foretold; and the man (as cannot be doubted) filled with the Holy Ghost at the time and place appointed, as he predicted. But most certainly the Holy Ghost sanctified the man whom He filled. But how far this sanctification availed against original sin, whether for him, or for that prophet, or for any other who was thus prevented by grace, I would not rashly determine. But of these holy persons whom God has sanctified, and brought forth from the womb with the same sanctification which they have received in the womb, I do not hesitate to say that the taint of original sin which they contracted in conception, could not in any manner take away or fetter by the mere act of birth, the benediction already bestowed. Would any one dare to say that a child filled with the Holy Ghost, would remain notwithstanding a child of wrath; and if he had died in his mother’s womb, where he had received this fulness of the Spirit, would endure the pains of damnation? That opinion is very severe; I, however, do not dare to decide anything respecting the question by my own judgment. However that may be, the Church, which regards and declares, not the nativity, but only the death of other saints as precious, makes a singular exception for him of whom an angel singularly said, and many shall rejoice in his birth (Luke i. 14., 15), and with rejoicing honours his nativity. For why should not the birth be holy, and even glad and joyful, of one who leaped with joy even in the womb of his mother?

4. The gift, therefore, which has certainly been conferred upon some, though few, mortals, cannot for a moment be supposed to have been denied to that so highly favoured Virgin, through whom the whole human race came forth into life. Beyond doubt the mother of the Lord also was holy before birth; nor is holy Church at all in error in accounting the day of her nativity holy, and celebrating it each year with solemn and thankful joy. I consider that the blessing of a fuller sanctification descended upon her, so as not only to sanctify her birth, but also to keep her life pure from all sin; which gift is believed to have been bestowed upon none other born of women. This singular privilege of sanctity, to lead her life without any sin, entirely befitted the queen of virgins, who should bear the Destroyer of sin and death, who should obtain the gift of life and righteousness for all. Therefore, her birth was holy, since the abundant sanctity bestowed upon it made it holy even from the womb.

5. What addition can possibly be made to these honours? That her conception, also, they say, which preceded her honourable birth, should be honoured, since if the one had not first taken place, neither would the other, which is honoured. But what if some one else, following a similar train of reasoning, should assert that the honours of a festival ought to be given to each of her parents, then to her grand-parents, and then to their parents, and so on ad infinitum? Thus we should have festivals without number. Such a frequency of joys befits Heaven, not this state of exile. It is the happy lot of those who dwell there, not of strangers and pilgrims. But a writing is brought forward, given, as they say, by revelation from on high,

A writing of this kind is attributed to an English abbot named Elsin in the works of Anselm, pp. 505, 507 of the new edition.

LETTER LXVI (A.D. 1135)

To the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Having received many letters from him, Bernard replies in a friendly manner, and praises the soldiers of the Temple.

I shall seem ungrateful if I do not reply to the many patriarchal letters which you have vouchsafed me. But what more can I do than salute him who has saluted me? For you have prevented me with the blessings of goodness, you have graciously set me the example of sending letters across the sea, you have deprived me of the first share of humility and charity. What fitting return can I now make? In truth, you have left me nothing which in my turn I can give back; for even of your worldly treasures you have been careful to make me a sharer in giving me part of the Cross of the Lord. What then? Ought I to omit what I can do because I cannot do what I ought? I show you my affection at least and my goodwill by merely replying and returning your salutation, which is all that I can do at present, separated as we are by so great a tract of sea and land. I will show, if ever I have the opportunity, that I love not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Give a thought, I pray you, to the soldiers of the Temple, and of your great piety take care of these zealous defenders of the Church. If you cherish those who have devoted their lives for their brethren’s sake you will do a thing acceptable to God and well-pleasing to man. Concerning the place to which you invite me, my brother Andrew will tell you my mind.

THE END

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