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LECTURES

S. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX.

&ppetrt)ix an tfje Hortrme of tlje Immaculate ^Conception
oft&e».FJH.

BY
W. J. SPARROW-SIMPSON, M.A.,
VICAR OF S. MARK'S, REGENT'S PARK.

LONDON :
J. MASTERS AND CO., 78, NEW BOND STREET.
1895.

LONDON*.
PRINTED BY J. MASTERS AND CO.,
ALBION BUILDINGS, S. BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

DEDTCATED

THE RIGHT REVEREND

THE LORD BISHOP OF S. ALBAN'S.

NOTICE.

SOME apology may be needed for attempting to
tell again an oft told tale. But the Life of S. Ber
nard can never lose its fascination although oft
repeated. The following pages grew out of an
attempt to study S. Bernard's theology, and were
delivered as a course of lectures to a number of
persons in S. Pancras who were anxious to read
in the History of the Church.
An Appendix on the Doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception of the B.V.M. has been added to show
the marvellous change which has taken place in
the attitude of a portion of the Church towards
this subject since S. Bernard's day. The English
Church is at one with S. Bernard against more
modern teachings, in asserting that this new dogma
forms no part of the Apostolic teaching, and has
no support in Catholic Tradition for the first twelve
hundred years.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I. pagf.
S. Bernard's Early Days ... . . i
LECTURE II.
S. Bernard's Novitiate ... . . 15
LECTURE III.
S. Bernard as Abbot ... . 34.
LECTURE IV.
S. Bernard as a Monastic Reformer 58
LECTURE V.
The Seven Years' Schism, 1130— 1137 . . . -94
LECTURE VI.
S. Bernard and Innocent . . . . 118
LECTURE VII.
S. Bernard and Abe'lard ... . . 137
LECTURE VIII.
S. Bernard and the Crusade  161
LECTURE IX.
S. Bernard's Later Years . . -187
APPENDIX.
S. Bernard's Rejection of the Immaculate Con
ception of the B.V.M. . . . . 21 *
Notes .... • 249

CHRONOLOGY OF S. BERNARD'S LIFE.

a.d.
1091. Birth of S. Bernard.
1 1 13. Bernard enters Citeaux.
1115. Foundation of Clairvaux.
1 130. Election of Pope Innocent II.
1130 — 7. The Schism.
1 140. Synod of Sens.
1 145. Pope Eugenius III.
1 146. Council of Chartres. (Crusade.)
1 148. Death of Malachi.
1 149. Failure of the Crusade.
1150. Writing of the De Consideratione.
1 153. Death of S. Bernard.

LECTURES ON S. BERNARD.

A.D.
1091.

LECTURE I.
S. BERNARD'S EARLY DAYS.
BERNARD, afterwards Abbot of Clairvaux,1 was
born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in the year A.D.
1 09 1. The home in which he first saw the
light was one of the feudal fortresses in
Burgundy ; externally fenced with the em
blems of strife, but within, the abode of a deep,
fervent piety.
Tecelin, his father, was a soldier, but a man of
profound religious convictions. In him Christi
anity subdued the spirit of a barbarous age, and
placed him singularly in advance of the commonly
authorized habits of his time. Tecelin was once
challenged to fight a duel. All the details were
arranged, the place and the hour were fixed.
Strength and skill alike were in Tecelin's favour.
But Tecelin was haunted by the uncomfortable
suspicion that Christianity could not sanction
this prevailing practice of the age. Accordingly
the brave soldier dared to face the accusation of
B

2 6*. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
cowardice, and to run counter to the then recog
nized standard of honour. For religion's sake he
made such terms with his adversary as he knew
would prove acceptable ; and peacefully closed a
dispute, which, if won by force, had brought him
no little glory among his fellow men.
Such was Bernard's father.
His mother Aleth, or Elizabeth,2 was a woman
of the devoutest mind. She had been trained in a
severe and ascetic school ; and if permitted to
follow the bent of her natural inclination would
have entered the religious life. Her wishes, how
ever, were not particularly consulted, and she was
married at an exceptionally early age to the dis
tinguished soldier whose character has been already
indicated. Aleth was a woman of remarkable
religious influence. Like Hannah, she dedicated
her sons to religious life. Towards this end she
laboured persistently throughout their childhood's
training, which in her husband's continual absence
in war, was left almost entirely in her hands. She
laboured with unflagging devotion to imprint upon
the heart of her six sons a high and severe ideal
of Christian life and Christian duty.
Aleth accustomed her sons to frugal and simple
fare, to a healthy contempt for self-indulgence, to
a vigorous and earnest manner of living. The ideal
in Aleth's mind was that of the cloister rather than
that of the castle; and the interior of her home,
under her firm but loving rule, assumed the monas-

L] .S. Bernard's Early Days. 3
tic and not the worldly form. The sweetness of
the mother's character, the intensity of her religious
faith, the consistent elevation of her life, and her
complete devotion to her children, produced a mar
vellous effect in every life committed to her care.
It is Aleth to whom the world owes Bernard's reli
gion, and every one of Aleth's seven children ulti
mately embraced the monastic ideal of life. This
was certainly not merely due to the spirit of the
age, but to the training in the home. Like S.
Chrysostom, S. Augustine, and many another reli
gious leader, both in ancient and recent days, it
was to his mother that Bernard owed his faith.
But Aleth's labours were not limited to the circle
of her home. She descended from the castle to the
miserable huts of the vassals clustering round the
nobler dwelling. She sought out the infirm and
the needy, and with her own hands ministered to
their necessities. The lady of Fontaines must
have presented a striking contrast to the inmates
of many another feudal house, and all who knew
her loved and blessed her for her love and sym
pathy. In these ministrations to the poor, Aleth
would sometimes take Bernard her son.
So Aleth lived ; and the circumstance of her
death formed the most appropriate conclusion to
such a life. As she lay dying, too faint and feeble
for utterance, they chanted beside her bed the sen
tences of the Litany ; and when the words were
reached, " by Thy Cross and Passion, good Lord,

4 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
deliver her," she raised her weak hands, signed her
self with the sign of the Cross, and expired.
When it was known that Aleth had departed,
the abbot of a convent at Dijon came to beg that
she might be buried there. The ashes of one so
good and true should rest in monastic shade. The
abbot's request was granted. They bore the body
on their shoulders, they streamed in long procession
with Cross and lighted tapers, from Fontaines to
the cloister at Dijon. And there Bernard's mother
was committed to the dust.
In the deeply religious atmosphere of his home
Bernard grew, giving from early days great promise
of future mental power, and rapidly distancing his
companions of an equal age. But what distinguished
Bernard most was his singularly gracious and lova
ble disposition. Quiet, retiring, thoughtful beyond
his years, fond of solitude, and reading, most happy
when alone ; he was growing up GOD-fearing, obe
dient, true, keeping the freshness of his baptismal
grace unstained, and loved of all who knew him.
Fair anticipations these of future moral beauty.
Bernard's boyhood saw the commence
ment of the first Crusade. The names of
Peter the Hermit, Tancred and Godfrey
were on all men's lips when Bernard was eight years
old. He must have heard of the triumphs of the
Holy War, and the capture of Jerusalem, in
1099 :3 stirring events which could not fail to take
effect on an ardent imagination. The Trouba-

A.D.
1099.

I.] 5. Bernard's Early Days. 5
dours, the wandering singers and musicians, must
have constantly made these events the subject of
their recitals. The Troubadours were the news-
vendors of the twelfth century, and were to the
popular mind what the daily papers are to the
nineteenth century.4 These were the days when
our own Archbishop Anselm took refuge in France
from the violence of Rufus, and accompanied Pope
Urban II., and spoke at the Council of Bari on the
differences which parted the Greek Church from
the Latin, in a way which won all men's praise.
But Bernard would as yet be too young to enter
into these things.
The secular Canons of the Church at Chatillon
undertook the work of Bernard's education, and,
while he was still very young, his mother had made
for him a monastic dress ; thereby declaring the
future which she designed for him.
Bernard responded well to the labours of those
entrusted with his education. Studious and re
served, he devoted himself to literature with keen
interest and delight. And all his life the results of
classical training exhibit themselves in the frag
ments of Latin poets scattered freely through his
writings. But the dominant element in Bernard's
nature was religious. Bernard did not believe in
mere learning. Everything, he said later, depended
on the motive with which men accumulated learn
ing. Its purpose must not be vanity, nor mere
curiosity, nor anything of that kind, but edifica-

6 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
tion ; the real good either of others or oneself.
Some who learn are merely actuated by a desire to
know ; such curiosity has no moral worth. There
are others who desire to know simply that they may
be known, such vanity is piteous. Like the cynical
poet,5 they think that knowledge is valueless unless
you can make the world know that you know.
There are others who learn simply to turn their
knowledge into gain. They want honour, or money.
Such merchandise is a desecration. But there are
some who learn that they may act upon what they
know ; that they may train up others and train
themselves. This knowledge is good.6
So Bernard passed on to encounter the fierce
temptations of youth and dawning manhood.
He disciplined himself with merciless severity,
thereby to gain the grace of self-control. And all
men know how Bernard plunged himself to the
neck in an icy pool, and stood there half-lifeless
and frozen to the bones ; patient and content if, at
the cost of much distress, he might quench the un
ruly passions of the flesh. Not one only conflict
did he face, but many repeated trials again and
again renewed.
And, in the midst of all these, Bernard heard a
Voice, very awful and very clear, which called
him out from contact with a corrupted age, saying,
" Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest
for your souls."7
The monastery a secure refuge from many sore

I.] 5". Bernard's Early Days. "J
perils rose before him as his ideal : a refuge for
the weak, a discipline for the strong. Bernard
made no secret of his desire. But the cloistered
life was by no means the ideal which appealed
as yet to his brothers. They resisted, they expos
tulated. Men were not born simply for them
selves, but had a duty to the state and to the
world at large. To take flight from the great
world, and to be secluded in a convent, was to
render oneself comparatively useless to mankind.
Such a life might shelter itself under the name of
" contemplation," but as a matter of fact it was a
premium for idleness. Let the monks come out and
work. Let them not expect to be supported by
other men's charity. And besides, they asked, ap
pealing to Bernard's sense of pride, it might be all
very well for the illiterate and unknown poor to
crowd the cells of meditation and to plough the
fields, and cut down trees ; but for a man of Ber
nard's ability to bury himself within those walls,
was to waste his gifts, which God had bestowed
upon him not for concealment in the narrow obscu
rity of a cloister, but for usefulness in the larger
world. Viewed in the light of Bernard's subsequent
career, it is strange to find how strenuously his
relations dissuaded him from entering it. So blind
it is possible to be to another's true vocation.
Could they have checked the zeal of Bernard's
youth, what would not the world have lost ! Per-

8 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
haps however in this way the reality of a vocation
is tested, and a true vocation will triumph over the
obstacles which mistaken friendship places in its
way. Bernard patiently listened to their appeals.
He was influenced, but not for a moment
convinced. Yet for the time their strenuous

A,D.
IIII.

resistance prevented him from taking further steps.
It was better so. The great ideal of a life of dedi
cation gradually assumed a clearer and clearer form
as the young man of twenty passed his days at
Fontaines in dreamy reflection.
In after days he once described in an address
the tumultuous conflict which passed within his
soul during the months of indecision.
" I am not ashamed to confess that often, and
particularly at the commencement of my conver
sion, I experienced extreme coldness and hardness
of heart. I sought after Him Whom in my soul I
was desirous to love ; Who was able to restore
warmth and life to my frozen heart. But no one
came to my help to dissolve the icy torpor of my
spiritual senses, and to bring on the warmth and
fruitfulness of the spring. And thus my soul
remained untouched and powerless, a prey to hard
and hopeless depression and discontent. Who is
able to abide this frost ? Then on a sudden, at a
word, at the sight of some piously-minded person,
or at the remembrance of the dead, the Holy
Spirit would breathe upon me, and the waters

I.] 6". Bernard's Early Days. g
flow ; then tears would be my portion day and
night."8 The remembrance of the dead. — Here Bernard
touches the influence of early training, which clearly
pointed to the monastic ideal. Bernard's mind was
full of tender memories of his saintly mother Aleth.
He knew that as Hannah dedicated Samuel, so
in her heart Aleth had dedicated her sons to
God.
One day, full of most eager longings, pulled in
two directions, yet secretly convinced that the crisis
of decision was drawing near, Bernard entered a
church, threw himself upon his knees and prayed
with passionate tears for light, and guidance, and
a right judgment. When he rose from his knees
his decision was made.
And from that day he never faltered. Bernard
was to pass through fiercest conflicts, and bear the
burden of untold sorrows and anxieties, but never
for a moment did the shadow of doubt rest upon
his mind. He knew that he had made a right de
cision. The crisis of his life was ended. The light
was come. The storm was broken, the uncertainty,
the suspense, the unhappiness were passed away.
A wonderful calm had entered Bernard's heart. In
gladness and rejoicing he issued forth from the
silent solitary sanctuary, and wended his way with
the determined step and firmness of purpose of a
man who knows that he has a mission in life, and
that his destiny is fixed.

10 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
From the sacred presence therefore Bernard
went forth with the fire of God in his heart. The
flame which consumeth the mountains had kindled
within him. He had found his work. His first
labour was to convince the members of his own
family. Here too was his first triumph. Evidently
Bernard's was a strong personality — for by the grace
of a singular moral ascendency he won over his five
brothers one after another to accept with him the
monastic ideal of life.
Galdric, Bernard's uncle, was the first to follow
his nephew's convictions. Galdric was wealthy,
of noble rank, and personal distinction. But at
Bernard's summons, he abandoned everything, and
threw himself heart and soul into a career of po
verty and self-discipline. After this signal instance
of persuasive power, Bernard's enthusiasm knew
no bounds. He induced Bartholomew, a younger
brother, to throw up his intention of becoming a
soldier, and to join in a life of devotion. Other
conquests followed. His brother Andrew had
lately obtained military rank. Andrew rebelled
vigorously against Bernard's influence. Bernard,
however, ultimately prevailed, not so much through
his own influence, as through Aleth's memory.
The recollection of her wondrously Christian spirit
guided her son's career long after she was dead.
Next came Guido, the firstborn. Guido was a
married man. He was also deeply implicated in
secular work and duty. He was much older than

I.] S. Bernards Early Days. n
Bernard. He had a home of his own. He could
not possibly shake himself free. The undaunted
Bernard would not let Guido remain outside the
charmed circle of devotion and sacrifice. Guido's
wife herself solved the problem. Visited with a
serious illness, she took it as an indication of the
divine will. By mutual consent they parted ; she
to enter a religious house, and he to learn religion
under Bernard.
However the circle was not yet complete. Most
difficult of all was Gerard. A brave soldier, a
prudent person, immensely popular, Gerard would
not listen for a moment to his brother's ascetic
proposals. " I know," exclaimed Bernard, " I know
that nothing but adversity will give you under
standing. The day will come," continued he, with
prophetic insight, " when a lance shall pierce this
side, and open the way to receive the counsel of
salvation which you to-day despise." And one
day Gerard was at the wars, and fell wounded in
the midst of foes. A sudden terror of death came
upon him, and he cried, " I am a monk, I am a
Cistercian monk." But he was taken captive and
imprisoned. After a miraculous escape, Gerard
fled to Bernard, and entered monastic life.9 Thus
Bernard's attractive character drew them all, as by
irresistible authority, to himself.
One day, as they sat in the church, the words of
the lesson, " He Who hath begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of Christ," (Phil.

12 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
i. 6,) appealed to their youthful leader as a direct
message from heaven.
So Bernard became to his brothers their father
and spiritual guide. It was a singular picture, even
in that religious period, — all these young men de
parting from the pleasures and pursuits congenial
to their age, foregoing all the advantages of family
and wealth, to embrace poverty and an austere life.
What the future was to be, none as yet clearly
knew. Monastic life was, of course, the ultimate
goal ; but as to the precise direction it should take,
they waited for indications of the Divine will.
Meanwhile they prepared themselves by ascetic
practices. They retired to a house at Chatillon,
where they lived practically as monks. Here they
remained six months.
But Bernard's victorious spirit went far beyond
the limit of near relationship and home ; and in the
overwhelming enthusiasm of his great decision, he
went out and preached everywhere. It was like
the advent of an apostle. Men grew afraid : so
strong were the seductive influences of that burn
ing and mighty zeal. Mothers would not let their
sons go out to hear him. Lovers kept their loved
ones out of the reach of Bernard's bewitching power,
lest they should be carried away by force of the
torrent, and abandon the world for a cloistered life.
But neither maternal anxiety nor lovers' influence
could keep the hearts of young men away from
Bernard's teaching and Bernard's zeal. Within a

I.] S. Bernard's Early Days. 13
brief space the little band had grown from seven
to thirty. They came to him from every class
in the social order ; both the masters of broad
regions, and the lowly and the poor.
At last the day came for the community of
brothers to enter upon their dedicated life.
Led by Bernard, they issued from their home,

A.D.
III3.

all except Nivard, the youngest, who was at play
with the children in the street. " Nivard," exclaimed
Guido the firstborn, " all the land of our inheritance
is thine." " What !" answered Nivard ; " heaven for
you, and earth for me ! that is no fair division."
And when they were gone, the boy stole away
from his father, and followed them ; and no one
remained in the deserted house but Tecelin the
aged, and his daughter Humbeline.
Nivard's answer was the answer of a child, but
of a child born in the ages of faith. His words
reveal the intensely religious atmosphere with which
the child life had been surrounded.
The pathetic figure of the aged Tecelin, deprived
of his five sons in a single day, seeing the hope of
perpetuating his family name altogether destroyed.
left in solitude in his old age, and bowed with
grief, is a fact which may not be passed over with
out notice.
And in the year from our Lord's Incarnation
eleven hundred and thirteen, says the Chronicler,10
Bernard, the servant of God, now in his 22nd year,
knocked at the gates of the Cistercian monastery,

14 «S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
where Stephen the Abbot received him. All the
brothers were admitted, the youngest excepted,
who, on account of his tender age, was sent back
to his father, with a promise that, if, after two
years he still desired it, the monks would receive
him. After two years he returned, and was ad
mitted.

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 15

LECTURE II.
BERNARD'S NOVITIATE.
The monastery of Citeaux was deliberately se
lected. Hidden in the austere recesses of moun
tainous solitude, far away in a remote corner of
Burgundy, it was famed for unswerving fidelity to
the severe rule of S. Benedict. No concessions to
a luxurious and self-indulgent spirit were found in
the cloisters where Abbot Stephen presided. To
Bernard's intense and fervid devotion this was
Citeaux's greatest claim and chief attraction.
The Cistercian was a branch of the ancient Be
nedictine order — that great community to whose
learning and care we owe the preservation of a
considerable part of the literature of earlier times.
The Benedictine order had already existed six
hundred years before Bernard's day, having been
founded by S. Benedict, c. A.D. 500.11
The Abbot of Citeaux, who, upon that
memorable day welcomed the youthful
Bernard to monastic austerities, was an
Englishman, Stephen Harding, formerly of Sher
borne, in Dorsetshire.12 Harding had wandered
across the world, to realize his spiritual ideal in the

A.D.
III3.

1 6 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.

most rigorous convent he could find. He had
visited the religious houses in Scotland. He had
crossed over to France. He had entered Burgundy,
resting for a while at the convent of MolSme. But
Moleme had fallen from its pristine severity, and
from fidelity to S. Benedict's ideal, and Harding
was not satisfied.
The English monk ventured to insert a protest.
By reason, exclaimed Harding, did the Supreme
GOD create all things, and by reason does He rule
them ; and similarly by reason should man's life
be governed. But since we have sorely departed
from reason, authority is needed to bring us back.
Hence Benedict's rule ; as to which, although un
able to grasp the reason for all its details, I am
fully prepared to bow to its authority. Reason
and authority, although sometimes apparently at
variance, must nevertheless ultimately be found in
harmony together. Nor can I believe that saintly
men, God's nearest followers, acted without reason
in those matters, which bear the weight of their
authority. Accordingly, urged Harding upon the
community of Moleme, either produce reason or
authority for your departure from S. Benedict's rule.
Harding's protest was frequently discussed in
chapter at Moleme, and the Englishman's vigorous
zeal succeeded in winning for the moment eighteen
of the brothers and the Abbot himself. But the
main body of the convent was unconvinced. So
Harding and the Abbot, with eighteen brothers, de-

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 17
parted to found, under the sanction of the Arch
bishop of Vienne, afterwards Pope Calixtus II.
(a.d. 1 1 19 — 1 1 24,) the celebrated convent of Ci
teaux, in which the rule of S. Benedict might be
observed in all its literal exactness. Thus Citeaux
was founded in the year 1098, when Bernard was
but seven years old. But the rising house had
its difficulties. Harding's companion, the former
Abbot of Moleme, a delicately nurtured man, soon
found that the severe regime of Citeaux was too
great a strain upon his physical strength. His first
enthusiasm failed him, and he cast longing glances
towards the comparative indulgence of Moleme,
devoutly wishing himself among his old com
munity again. Nor was the convent at Moleme
slow to discover or to suspect their old Abbot's
wavering of mind. They came and begged him to
resume the presidency over them, and be their
Abbot once more. So he with unfeigned gladness
returned to the easier life, and all the brothers,
excepting eight, re-entered the former convent
with him. To the headship of these tried and
tested eight, Stephen Harding in time succeeded.
Such was the man who trained S. Bernard in the
discipline of monastic life.
Abbot Stephen insisted on extreme simplicity.
He was a born reformer. Poverty was their bride,
and must rule in Citeaux. The cross upon the
Altar there must be of wood, not gold ; the candle
sticks of iron, the vestments of linen, no gorgeous
C

1 8 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
texture, no brilliant colouring, but rigid severity,
barren and plain. Mere aesthetic admiration had
no place in the soul of Stephen Harding.13 But
all men knew that the spirit of fervent faith was
there, and that exact fidelity to the rule of earlier
ages was found within Citeaux's walls.
Yet Citeaux had a chequered history. The little
community did not prosper ; for although all men
respected the blameless standard maintained within
these austere recesses, yet the majority even of
those who sought religious life were rather repelled
than attracted by an austerity too great for them.
The monks were growing old. Death thinned their
scanty numbers every year. A pestilence deci
mated them ; and no novices appeared before the
lonely gates ; no youthful, eager natures offered
themselves, to enter the inheritance, and do their
work, and perpetuate the severer life. A sha
dow of depression fell on Citeaux. The religious
house was threatened with speedy extinction ;
even Abbot Stephen could not resist a feeling
of bitter disappointment. One day there lay a
monk of Citeaux dying. The Abbot approached
the dying brother, and poured forth all the sorrow
of his soul in the ears of the departing. Stephen
reminded the dying monk that all this overwhelm
ing grief had come upon them simply through their
faithfulness to S. Benedict's injunctions. God had
granted them hitherto no sign of His approval. The
community was decreasing almost every day. Their

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 19
nobler standard of life must die with them, their re
formation fail, unless speedy help were vouchsafed.
The Abbot ordered the dying brother, in virtue
of his vow of obedience, to take these words, after
death, to Jesus Christ, and to bring an answer
back to this lower world. The faithful brother
promised obedience and died. Abbot Stephen
sat in silence, his face buried in his cowl, and there
seemed to come an answer from on high, in the
old prophetic language ; " Lift up thine eyes round
about, and behold : all these gather themselves to
gether, and come to thee . . . The children which
thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall
say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for
me : give place to me, that I may dwell."14
Then a sudden gladness filled the Abbot's heart,
and he knew that the longing of his soul was
granted.15 Thus Bernard's advent, with his thirty
companions, was felt to be a distinct response to
the community's fervent prayer.
This deliberate selection of an almost extinct
religious house is a singular illustration of Bernard's
greatness. He avoided the majestic and famed
Abbey of Cluny, where all things were on a vast
and dignified scale, preferring to throw himself
into a forlorn and unattractive cloister, and to be
come the means of its recovery.
Bernard entered the quietude of devotion, to be,
as he supposed, lost for ever to the world. It was
his ambition to be effaced from human memory.

20 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Widely different, however, in the divine destiny of
things, was to be his lot, and incomparably more
useful. He was to bear witness for CHRIST before
nations and before kings. Meanwhile the humble-
minded novice, in the solitude of his cell, was
searching the depths of his own character, and
struggling to arrive at self-knowledge. Every day
,he solemnly asked himself the memorable question :
" Bernarde, Bernarde, ad quid venisti ?" " Bernard,
for what purpose art thou here ?"
He would be at times absorbed, and apparently
lost in contemplation. Few trials were more re
pugnant to him than the interruption of idle visits
and frivolous conversations. He was thankful when
the bell summoned him away to choir. He said
that on one occasion, after such idle converse, he
could not recover his habitual calm, until, for
twenty-five days, he had prostrated himself to
the earth before the Altar of God, and then at
last the vision of the glory of God returned to
him. Bernard seems at times to have been so wrapped
in thought as to have become perfectly oblivious
to outward things. After living a year in the no
vitiate cell, he did not know whether the roof was
of open rafters or ceiled, nor could he recollect
whether the eastern window of the church was of
three lancets, or only one.
His obliviousness to outward things is further
illustrated by the fact that he passed through some

II-] Bernard's Novitiate. 21
of the most magnificent scenery in Europe without
noticing it. For a whole day he passed along the
lake of Lucerne, and scarcely saw it, or knew not
that he saw ; and when, at evening, his com
panions alluded to the lake, Bernard, to their
amazement, asked them where it was. Abstrac
tion to this degree from external things might
be for some the crown of all their lifelong en
deavours, but Bernard thought himself a novice
still.16 It was one of Bernard's spiritual exercises as a
novice to repeat every day the Seven Penitential
Psalms, with special intention for his mother's soul.
One day, whether by forgetfulness or weariness, he
omitted to repeat them. Abbot Stephen's watchful
eyes did not fail to detect the omission, "Brother
Bernard," he said, "what did you do with the
Psalms yesterday, or to whom did you entrust
them ?" Bernard did not lay himself open to that
question a second time.17
During those calm and uneventful days Bernard
spent hours in deep and uninterrupted meditation
on the sacred mysteries of the Christian Faith.
Here he drank in from the fountains of Holy
Scripture his profound and wonderful knowledge
of the love of God. He delighted to take some
brief passage of the sacred books and bear it in
memory into the fields or the woods, and there
hour after hour reflect upon the words until his
mind became saturated with the ideas conveyed,

22 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
and the depth of meaning began more and more
to dawn upon him, and the mists which part us
from heavenly things broke and lifted, and Bernard
was face to face with Eternal Verities. Yet at the
end of prolonged meditation Bernard did not sup
pose himself to have seen down half the avenues
of truth, which indeed were there could mortal
eyes discern them. But he had seen a little of the
abiding and the true.
In after days Bernard declared that his happiest
insight into spiritual realities was due to the calm
days when he wandered alone in the forests, and
his only teachers were the oaks and beeches.
Self-discipline was the young novice's constant
aim. The soul had broken away from GOD, and as
a nemesis the body was insubordinate to the soul.
To restore this broken harmony was the purpose
of the ascetic life. Bernard disciplined his mortal
body without mercy. He followed, but to an
excessive degree, the Apostle's injunction, to keep
under the body, and bring it into subjection. Of
food and sleep he took barely enough to keep body
and soul together. He was ruining his physical
health. In maturer life he practically admitted
that this severity was zeal untempered by discre
tion, and asserted the duty of maintaining, as far
as was consistent with higher spiritual needs, the
divinely accorded talent of physical strength. But
although the zeal was excessive, the motive was
admirable. Bernard purposed to acquire self-

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 23
control. And the strength of will residing in that
thin and wasted frame, the moral ascendency which
his own self-conquest gave him, were reward enough
for his complete self-sacrifice. He was only twenty-
five. But his ardent pursuit of sanctity already
marked him out distinctly even in the severe and
disciplined circle of the cloisters of Citeaux, as one
who could do nothing by halves, and who on entering
the ascetic life meant to embrace it in all its rigour.
Abbot Stephen rejoiced in the good fortune with
which at last his beloved community had been
visited. Nor was he slow to recognize the com
manding gifts, the strong personality veiled be
neath that lowly exterior. With exceeding glad
ness he invested Bernard with the white robe
of the Cistercian order. Meanwhile continually
the fame of Citeaux increased, until at length
Citeaux could not contain the numbers who sought
admission into the circle of Bernard's disciples.
Evidently the time had come to throw out
branches, and form dependent houses elsewhere ;18
and Citeaux which had so recently trembled on the
verge of extinction, found itself ruler of a daughter
convent. Still Citeaux increased, and a second time
brothers issued forth to found another branch. But
Citeaux a third time overflowed. This time Ber
nard, notwithstanding his youth, was chosen to
take the lead. It was remembered that Bernard
with his thirty companions need not have come to
Citeaux at all, that he might on his own authority

24 >S". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
have constituted a religious house, that he had
voluntarily abdicated the place of authority, and
humbly entered Citeaux to be taught as a novice
among the rest.19 And therefore all men acknow
ledged the appropriateness of this selection. Ci
teaux owed its prosperity, nay its very existence,
humanly speaking, to this youthful leader of
men. So Bernard issued forth. According to mediaeval
precedent, he came from the monastery doors with
twelve disciples, after the Gospel pattern. Abbot
Stephen placed the Cross in Bernard's hands. The
remaining brothers of Citeaux accompanied their
departing friends to the borders of the mo
nastic precincts. Bernard and the twelve
companions crossed beyond these limits,
and left them for ever.
Up to the far north Bernard led the way into the
diocese of Langres, to the River Aube, to a valley,
inhospitable, uncultivated, infested by robbers,
called the Valley of Wormwood. With a true
monastic instinct Bernard seized upon this spot.
He would turn it into a spiritual haven, and a
garden of the LORD. Here Bernard fixed the site
for the new community. And in the midst of this
desolate and dreary wild rose the walls of the
famous cloister ever after to be known in Christian
story by the sweet sounding name of Clairvaux.
The valley of Wormwood was to become the valley
of Light. This was indeed no poetic dream, but

A.D.
1115.

H] Bernard's Novitiate. 25
here as in countless places actually realized. The
fathers of the convents were the tillers of the soil, the
cultivators both of lands and human souls. Under
their charge the wilderness became literally a
fruitful field, and the parched ground springs of
water. Landed proprietors who saw in the monks
nothing more than this, welcomed them as at least
the heralds of knowledge and cultivation.
In the Valley of Wormwood the fathers of the
new foundation were at first reduced to dire ex
tremity. Privations and hardships untold came
upon them from poverty, inclement seasons, and
inadequate food. They wore the same garb in
summer noontide and winter frost, and the old
torn cloak was seldom exchanged for new. Their
shoes grew thin, and fragmentary, and in default
of leather, were held together by bits of cord.20
Sometimes the peasants, scattered far and wide
in the thinly peopled region, would come and bring
them offerings of food, and so minister to their
most pressing necessities. But visits such as these
were occasional and uncertain. While summer
lasted things were not so bad ; but since the com
munity were occupied in building their wooden
house, which beneath a single roof included every
thing — refectory, chapel, kitchen, and dormitory,
they had not time to cultivate the ground, and
when the winter fell, their sufferings were severe.
They were forced to satisfy the cravings of hunger
upon beechnuts, vetches, and upon any wild natural

26 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
growth, before they could win a more congenial
harvest from the stubborn uncultured soil.
At first Bernard made too exacting and almost
intolerable demands on flesh and blood ; and al
though, in course of time, as he grew to understand
men and the capacity of human nature, he soft
ened and became more kindly and genial, it is
scarcely wonderful if under stress of these priva
tions the longsuffering community at times re
belled. They threatened to abandon the inhos
pitable vale, and seek refuge in the former home
at Citeaux.
The simplicity of Bernard's faith would startle
the economists of a later age. In the solitudes
of Clairvaux it was his duty to provide daily
food for a company of men, and the demands
of such incessant provision taxed beyond endur
ance their slender stores. Bernard was equal
to the emergency ; he resorted to prayer. Then
summoning Brother Guibert, he bade him ride to
a distant town and buy salt for the household.
"Where is the money?" inquired Guibert. "In
deed," responded Bernard, "I know not when I
possessed any silver or gold ; He lives on high
Who has my purse, and my treasures are in His
hands." Whereupon Guibert smiled. " If I go
empty, empty I shall return," said the brother.
But Bernard bade him go. The incredulous Gui
bert rode away upon his hopeless errand. Upon
the road however he met a priest, to whom he

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 27
confided the necessities of his house. The priest
touched by the simple tale, gave Guibert all he
wanted, and adding a considerable sum of money,
sent him rejoicing home. Bernard listened to the
story of Guibert's adventure, and drew the moral.
" Nothing," he said, " is more essential for a Chris
tian than faith. Have faith, and it will be well
with you all your days."
One day a brother from the Convent of S. Cle
ment, some way off, visited the rising house at Clair
vaux. Bernard offered him all they had, which was
half a loaf of barley bread. Amazed at their priva
tions, the brother returned to S.Clement's with a tale
of their deep distress, and with the half loaf as wit
ness. The sympathizing community were ashamed
of their own abundance. They laded horses and
asses with food, they filled carts with the common
necessaries of life, and brought them as an offer
ing to Clairvaux. Another time a woman brought
them a hundred pieces of gold to be spent on
better clothing. In this precarious way the first
winter passed.
In appearance Bernard was slight and frail ; his
features bore the impress of severe study and self-
discipline; his hair was light, almost bordering
upon whiteness ; his beard of yellow tinge, during
his later years fading into grey; in stature there
was nothing striking about him. Thus to outward
gaze Bernard was in no degree remarkable.
When he appeared before the Bishop of Chalons

28 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
for ordination, the singular contrast between himself
and his attendant Elboldo created much merriment
at the palace. Elboldo, of mature age, of com
manding presence, of strong noble physique, ap
peared far more suited for the office of Abbot than his
youthful companion, slight and frail, and evidently
the victim of habitual and deplorable ill health.
The Bishop's household were a long time discus
sing which was the Abbot. But William of Cham-
peaux, the Bishop, one of the ablest men of his
day, the acute logician of the schools of Paris, soon
discerned, beneath that careworn and undistin
guished exterior, the burning zeal, the intense
enthusiasm, of the religious. Strong friendship
sprang up between them. The fatherly, kindly-
hearted Bishop saw that Bernard was killing him
self with his austerities. William of Champeaux
even went so far as to make a pilgrimage in person
to Citeaux, where he obtained permission from the
authorities to take Bernard under his own care for
a year. Armed with their authority, the Bishop of
Chalons returned, and Bernard had to submit to
this unwonted dictatorship. The Bishop had a
small room erected outside the monastery, and
there he ordered Bernard to live, excluded from
the cares of the community, recruiting, as the
Bishop fondly hoped, his imperilled if not shat
tered and ruined health.
But William of Champeaux if a clever logician,
was an indifferent manager. With the kindest in-

II.] Bernard's Novitiate. 29
tentions he placed the young Abbot under care of a
quack physician, whose pretensions were only ri
valled by his incapacity, and whoin a short time made
his patient's condition distinctly worse. But the un
complaining Bernard bore everything with unruffled
equanimity. He took whatever was prescribed
him with the sweetest gentleness. Once he drank
a quantity of oil in mistake for water. But perhaps
his experience may in part explain Bernard's life
long incredulity with reference to medical skill.
Nor could he resist a quiet sarcasm to a visitor.
He supposed it was a merited requital, that he
who formerly ruled over men, should himself be
subordinated to the guidance of an ass.
Under this worthless treatment Bernard lingered
for a year. But when once the year of obedience was
at an end, the Abbot resumed his functions, and his
austerities also. The Bishop's well meant experi
ment cannot be called a triumphant success.
Meanwhile Bernard's character grew in men's
esteem. "When I entered that lowly cell," ex
claims one of his contemporaries, — "when I en
tered that lowly cell, and contrasted the dwelling
and its inhabitant, the place became sacred to me,
as if I approached an altar of God." It was the
golden age of Clairvaux, when in narrow circum
stances, in cold and want, and often real distress,
they laid the firm foundations of her future
greatness. Bernard used to continue praying day and night,

30 ^. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
until his knees were weak through fasting, and his
limbs would scarcely support his fragile frame.
But, above all things, he would not have his auste
rities known. He wore sackcloth next to his flesh,
but the moment the fact was discovered, he aban
doned the practice, and returned to ordinary ways.
His humility shrank from anything which might
be misunderstood as ostentatious. His food was
of the simplest kind. He rarely drank wine. A
victim of distressing bodily infirmities, medical men
wondered at the indomitable spirit which forced
the body to tasks beyond its strength. It was, they
said, like yoking a lamb to a plough. And indeed,
it may be said that ill health was Bernard's lifelong
portion, a daily element in his cares and duties,
sometimes falling upon him in greater severity,
sometimes mitigated, but always there, yet never
checking his wonderful buoyancy and cheerful
ness, never permitted to control his activity.
Powerful will and strength of character carried him
by the grace of God, through great emergencies,
when it seemed as if he must have broken down.
Bernard was a lover of simplicity, but he was no
friend to slovenliness and neglect,21 widely different
from the repulsive uncleanliness in which mediaeval
asceticism sometimes rejoiced. Bernard maintained
that the dress revealed the man, and was often
either the reflection of personal vanity, or the affec
tation of a shallow mind.22
What effect on human nature had all this soli-

IL] Bernard's Novitiate. 31
tude, this austerity, this voluntary refusal of joy and
pleasure ? Was it unpractical ? Was it an unjust
rejection of life's duties and burdens and oppor
tunities and disciplines ?
Bernard's character may reply. This seclusion
deepened him. This concentration of mind and all
his faculties upon one thing braced and strength
ened him. It resulted in marvellous detachment
and unworldliness. It intensified his realization of
the eternal and unseen. It enabled him to see the
interests of time with a due sense of proportion.
Few men ever understood life's responsibility more
profoundly than Bernard understood it. What
force the following warning against self-seeking
and ambition must have had when confirmed by
the silent witness of such an example !
"What will you take away of all your labour
which you shall have done upon the earth ? What
will you return to our LORD for all which He has
bestowed upon you ? What increase will you bring
for all your talents ? Oh, if you approach Him
empty-handed ! the generous Giver, but the just
Exactor ! He will come, He will come, and will
not keep silence. He will require His own with
usury. Family distinction, bodily strength, beauty,
intellect, learning — all these are glorious ; but only
so long as they are dedicated to Him. If you
divert them to your own uses, there is one that
seeketh and judgeth. Grant that you have your
way; that you win men's praise; that you are

32 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [[Lect.
called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi ; that you make your
self a name upon the earth. What will remain to
you of all these after death, except memory alone ?
It is written, They have slept their sleep, and all
the men whose hands were mighty have found
nothing."23 Human longings, he taught, must be so regulated
by holy love, that evil may be cast out, and the good
things of the world sought only for the sake of
higher good. Material advantages must be valued
only for the sake of the soul, the soul for the sake
of God, but GOD for His own sake. Being, how
ever, what we are, the growth of this holy love
begins at the lower stage.
a. We first love material things. That not being
first which is spiritual, but that which is animal, we
begin by bearing the image of the earthy. A man
first loves himself for his own sake. This is the
primary stage.
b. But when he sees that he is not self-sustained,
he begins to seek after GOD, as necessary to his
own continued existence. This is the second stage.
He loves GOD not for God's sake, but for his own.
c. One further step remains. By worship, by
prayer, by meditation, by knowledge, by obedience,
he comes to realize the loveliness of God. He has
tasted that the Lord is gracious. He reaches the
highest degree, which is to love God not for ad
vantage, but for God's own sake.24
The man who wrote in this mind was evidently

II.] Bernards Novitiate. 33
gaining clear insight into spiritual truth. His isola
tion from common life did not stunt the development
of his soul, or render him less human or less capable
of sympathy. It was a training for future usefulness.
In the routine of study and devotion, far remote
from the haunts of men, Bernard was gathering
moral power, for future encounters with cities and
with crowds. Bernard was not destined to pass
his days in unmolested prayer. He was to issue
forth into the midst of agitations and passions
and worldliness and the endless distractions of
the common life. But who shall say how much
Bernard owed to those years of severe self-disci
pline and recollectedness ? Who shall say how far
his character was matured and ripened by the silent
hours of meditation in cloisters, where all was done
that could be done to foster religion and enkindle
faith ?
Here in Clairvaux was being trained a man
who should direct the conscience of kings, and stir
the religious heart of Europe by his burning words.
This is a fact which must never be forgotten.
Bernard's first training was his home, but his se
cond education was the convent. If the one im
pressed his boyhood, by the other was his manhood
braced and strengthened.

D

34 •$"• Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.

LECTURE III.
S. BERNARD AS ABBOT.
What was the inner life of Clairvaux ? What
were its occupations ? What was its general tone
of thought ? What were the ideas and the prac
tices prevalent in the cloister under Bernard's rule ?
To give some answer to that question is the pur
pose of the present lecture.
Bernard's address to the novices breathed a tone
of extreme austerity. "If," said he, "you would
attain to the things that are within, leave here your
bodies at the gates. They belong to the world ;
let nothing but the spirit enter here ; the flesh pro-
fiteth nothing." And when the new comer, scarce
escaped from more commonplace ideals, recoiled
before this abrupt reception, Bernard hastened to
explain that he had in view the evil passions
of the flesh, and that these must verily be aban
doned, and left without. Then, when it dawned
upon him that he had begun too severely, Bernard
softened his rigorous tone. Two gifts especially he
strenuously cultivated — the spirit of sympathy and
the grace of discrimination. And he shone in a
new way, as, with characteristic rapidity, he gained

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 35
that insight into men's dispositions which was
essential to his office.
Yet with all his devotion to austerity and self-
discipline, Bernard was no advocate for entire se
clusion from the common interests of human life.
He would not have men introduce into the twelfth
century the solitary hermit of an earlier age. When
retirement from the community into complete iso
lation was upheld as the ideal, Bernard strongly
dissuaded the Religious from any such attempt. To
one who sought his advice upon the question, he
replied that such zeal was certainly not according
to knowledge. If it were urged that the soul was
safer in the wilderness than in the crowded city
and would serve God better where no distractions
invade, Bernard denied it altogether. If the soul
wills to do evil, solitude is no protection. There is
an evil which no man rebukes, because no man
sees. And when the gaze of man is withdrawn,
the tempter comes more boldly. Life among others
is in itself a protection. Do good, and they will
not rebuke you. But by their very presence, evil
is often suppressed ; or if it occurs, it is witnessed by
many : it is rebuked, it is amended. Like the vir
gins in the parable, you yourself are either foolish or
wise. If foolish, then you need the support of the
wise. If wise, then the foolish have need of you.
Choose which you will. Are you wise ? Then
strive, by force of example, to obtain companions
in holiness. Are you sinful ? then make repent-

36 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
ance where you are, lest you become weaker by
isolation.25 And Bernard would teach that religious life
must ever be a life of progress. There is, he
said, no possibility of standing still. Not to long
for progress is to fail. Men might conceal their
indolence beneath an assumed humility, and ex
press themselves as content to be what their fathers
were : but no such resting place can be found. To
be satisfied is to go backward. Nothing in this
world continues precisely where it was. Man him
self never continues in one stay. If there is not
to be deficiency, there must be perpetual ad
vancing.26 The candidate for religious life was repeatedly
warned that entrance into a Community, so far
from implying escape from all temptations, was
rather the' exchange of one set of trials for another.
He was told that if the ascetic discipline was the
more excellent way, it was sure to be for that very
reason beset by Satan with peculiar difficulties.
The more Satan realized that souls were escaping
from his grasp, the more strenuously would he
resist their advancement.
There were indeed in Communities peculiar dan
gers to which the common world was not so ex
posed. The very privilege of calm and devout
contemplation, precious as it was, had its perils.
Men got uplifted by pride, trusted too much to
their reasoning faculties, and sometimes challenged

HI.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 37
the very foundations of Faith. Fear, and reverence,
and humility, and self-mistrust were essential to
him who would approach the tremendous mys
teries of the spiritual and the eternal. Caution,
a sense of insufficiency, a knowledge of our igno
rance were surely becoming in one whose created
intellect was necessarily limited. Bernard follow
ing the great Catholic writers centuries before him,
insisted repeatedly that reason has its inevitable
limitation in the precincts of the Faith.27
Members of the College at Clairvaux sometimes
forgot this. A certain monk reflecting upon the
Real Presence, failed to understand how this thing
could be. As if we must comprehend the expla
nation before we could believe the fact. For years
this brother perplexed himself over the manner of
the mystery, while he declined to rest in the simple
fact. He had been an Abbot, but left his Abbey to
enter Clairvaux. His former associates, aware of
his difficulty, intreated him to return. He returned.
But exchange of locality is not exchange of con
viction. Still he doubted. At last however light
came. He met the facts of Christianity in a hum
ble spirit. He was contented to believe the fact
although he could not understand the manner.28
That our comprehension was the limit of truth
the Catholic teachers denied. "I believe," said
Bernard, "in the Holy Trinity. I do not com
prehend, but I believe."
By the intensity of his own convictions Ber-

38 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
nard in many ways sustained the weak in faith.
A brother in the Community in Clairvaux
ceased to believe in the Real Presence of our
LORD in the Holy Eucharist. To his dulled and
darkened vision there was nothing on the Altar
but a little bread and wine mixed with water. Re
ception of these mere material elements could not
profit, and therefore the monk abstained. His
habitual refusal to communicate was of course
observed, and being asked the cause, he told the
simple truth. He had lost faith. Deeply dis
tressed, he acknowledged that blindness had come
upon him. Bernard evinced the keenest sympathy.
An overscrupulous conscience had been sorely tor
mented by the temptation to doubt. " If you have
no faith," he exclaimed, " I bid you, in virtue of
your vow of obedience, to go and communicate in
my faith." Thus bidden to act upon his vow of
obedience, the monk obeyed. He communicated,
and his faith became clear, and was never obscured
again. The following narratives illustrate the devotional
standard which prevailed under Bernard's care.
The long devotional exercises of the religious
life were liable to the danger of too rapid and
mechanical a repetition. Anno, Archbishop of
Cologne, whenever he was free from public duties,
would say his offices with a priest who acted
apparently as his chaplain. The good Archbishop
was most reverent, deliberate, and devout. But

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 39
the chaplain rejoiced in running swiftly. So rapid
was his repetition of the Gloria after the psalms,
that only the names of the first and third Persons
of the Holy Trinity reached the ears of the con
gregation. What he said seemed to be only,
Glory to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost.
The Redeemer's name was not heard. The Arch
bishop was grieved, yet took no notice. But in a
dream JESUS Christ appeared to him. The Re
deemer seemed to the sleeper to hold up His, right
hand and count upon His fingers, — One, that is the
Father ; second, that is the Son ; third, that is
the Holy Spirit. Since the Three Persons Who
are one God are worshipped by the universal
Church with equal adoration, why do you not re
buke your priest who takes away all honour from ME
Who stand between the Father and the Spirit ?
On the following day the Archbishop warned the
priest of the irreverent effect of his too rapid utter
ance. We may not trust in the multiplication of
prayers and psalms. It is not the mere getting
through a certain quota of religious exercises which
is in the least degree availing, since it is not quantity
about which God cares, but the reverent devotion
of the heart. If a man can say much reverently,
well and good ; if not, let him at least be reverent,
and it will not matter that his words are few.29
John, Prior of Clairvaux, was not exempt from
certain weaknesses of the flesh. He could not
keep himself awake in the long midnight services,

40 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
accordingly he invented a most ingeniously tor
menting remedy. Over his stall in choir he fixed
a little wooden hammer so arranged that if the
occupant of the stall leant back too somnolently,
the little hammer made a swift descent and struck
him a blow upon the head. John found the remedy
most successful, and was highly admired in the
Community for his self-denying inventiveness.30
Very beautiful is the account which relates how
Bernard once in the midnight office in the dimly
lighted sanctuary saw a recording angel stand be
side every brother in the church. One angel wrote
in letters of gold, another in silver, another in ink,
another with water which left no trace upon the
scroll. And the moral was most clear. The writ
ing in gold represented the intensity of a pure and
strong devotion ; the letters of silver a lower grade
of fervour, and yet an intention good and right ;
and the writing in ink signified the more common
place less fervid mind, the man who although des
titute of nobler flights of devotion, still paid atten
tion to the words he sang ; the lowest of all,
written as if with water, represented that useless
and wasted prayer which did not come from the
heart, had no purpose, and reached no destination.
" Ah," Bernard cried, " if only the monks under
stood how the holy angels lament when they watch
beside the negligent, and the unreal, and the
indevout, how much more fervent they would
become !"

Iri-] S. Bernard as Abbot. 41
Abbot Bernard strongly insisted on the power
of intercession. When lying one day in his cell
suffering from a sudden and almost intolerable
access of pain, he intreated one of the two brothers
who watched beside him, to go at once to the
church and pray that his agony might be lessened.
The brother excused himself on the ground that
no such prevailing power would attend any prayer
of his. Bernard bade him go as an act of obedi
ence. In the church were three Altars, one of the
Virgin Mother, one of S. Laurence, one of S. Bene
dict. And while the brother prayed, there came a
vision to the suffering Abbot, — Mary, and Lau
rence, and Benedict all seemed to enter the narrow
cell where he lay. They stood beside him, and
touched his tortured frame, and in a moment the
agony was gone.
The community at Clairvaux did not forget their
dead. One night, when the body of a former com
panion had just been laid within the grave, a
member of the order dreamed that the dead re
turned in deep distress and agony, from some
region of suffering. In the morning ,he told his
dream, and the community received it as a sum
mons to prayer for the departed. They offered
the Holy Eucharist daily for the repose of their
brother's soul. The old monk dreamed again.
Once more the dead appeared, but now with every
sign of indescribable gladness and rejoicing.31
Being intreated to say by what means he had been

42 S. .Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
set free, he bade the old monk follow him. And
suddenly they were both within the walls of a
sanctuary, where many altars were built, and at
every altar stood the priest and his server, and all
were offering before God the sacred Victim with
profound devotion. "These are the weapons of
the grace of God," exclaimed the dead, " whereby
I am set free. This is, the all-conquering mercy of
the Most High. This is the Sacrifice which takes
away the sins of all the world."
When this dream was related to the wondering
brotherhood, they were greatly edified. And in
virtue of what to them was most convincing evi
dence, they applied themselves with renewed zeal
to the work of Eucharistic intercession.
But long before the foundation of Clairvaux, the
celebrated convent of Cluny had laid great stress
on the duty of prayer for the faithful departed.
Frequent Eucharistic Sacrifices were offered in
their behalf. At regular intervals during the year
this practice was there maintained. And espe
cially on the day following the Festival of All
Saints, the memorial of the dead was offered at
Cluny. Inaugurated in these monastic precincts,
the observance of All Souls' Day spread gradually
through Christendom, until it was adopted into
the general usage of the Church.32
We have seen that it was the spirit of that age
to chronicle every dream and every vision, and to
attach immense importance to supposed commu-

HI.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 43
nications from another world. Bernard was not
altogether in sympathy with this reverence for
dreams. A dying monk related to the wondering
brethren that he had seen that night the glories of
Paradise, and heard the sweet sounds of heavenly
minstrelsy, and the song which greeted every Cis
tercian brother when he passed away from earth to
God. He was specially commissioned in his dream
to relate the vision to the community. So saying,
he died. Full of the new revelation, a brother
went off in haste to Bernard, and poured out
the narrative of the wonderful dream. Bernard
did not seem to be impressed. ¦/" Do you wonder
at that, my brothers ?" asked the Abbot. " I rather
wonder at your incredulity, and the hardness of
your hearts. Did you not long ago believe the
word which came down from heaven, ' Blessed are
the dead which die in the LORD : yea, from hence
forth, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their
labours.' To me it is clearer than the light. I
am as certain of it as I am of my own existence,
that every member of this order, who lives in obe
dience and humility, will hereafter be robed in
immortality and glory."33 J^
It was urgently proclaimed in the. monastic ideal,
that personal inclination must be subordinated
to other men's spiritual needs. It was insisted
that the regular offices, even the Holy Eucharist
itself, should be postponed, if thereby good might
be done to a brother's soul. It was never for-

44 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
gotten how a brother, desirous of making his
confession, entered one day the sacristy to find
the Abbot, just as the superior was vested, and
prepared to celebrate. The Abbot thought that
the Holy Eucharist should take precedence, and
told the penitent that he would hear him at an
other time. But the brother went out, and did not
return. He was not found in choir that day at
vespers, nor did any one know where he was.
After long search the unhappy man was discovered,
dead. He had evidently laid violent hands upon
his own life. The Abbot's sorrow was unbounded.
It seemed to him that he had, although, of course,
unwittingly, lost one of the flock entrusted to his
care. And the lesson which all men drew from
the melancholy event, was, that it is a dangerous
thing for a priest not to give himself without delay
to those who seek his aid in confession.34
It was also taught that no monk must be above
doing the humblest duties. It fell to the lot
of a certain monk to wash the plates and dishes
for the community. He, however, thinking him
self too good for a function which he did not
relish, performed the work in a very slovenly
fashion. The plates and dishes reappeared only
half clean.
"Oh, miserable pride," exclaimed Bernard, "the
very source of sin, the root of all evil ! Who gave
thee freedom to degrade my holy community?
Depart ; by the grace of GOD, depart. Let there

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 45
be nowhere in these precincts a place for thee for
ever. Go back to him who, with thee and through
thee, fell from heaven."
Then, turning to the offending monk, he added :
" My son, listen to my words. I tell you, solemnly
from my conscience, and before God, that if, with
all humility, you fulfil this lowly duty, you will
gain more good to your soul than if you served at
the Altar, or even offered the Sacrifice."35
Now and then some turbulent spirit would rise
within the cloister to destroy monastic peace. An
unruly quarrelsome disposition would rebel against
order, and distress all things by an irritable temper
and a sharp speech. But Bernard could be firm.
Such a one, he said, must be ruled by kindness, by
private warning, by public rebuke, by severe words,
by punishment, and by means more effective than
these, by prayer to God for him. If, however, all
remedies are fruitless, then we must follow the
Apostolic advice, put away from among yourselves
that wicked person. (1 Cor. v. 13.) He has broken
the rule of obedience. Let him be his own master
and depart. Nor need we fear that this severity is
inconsistent with love. They went out from us,
but they were not of us. It is better to lose one,
than to lose unity.36
Another tale is told of a monk, who grew weary
of Clairvaux's calm monotony. He must needs
return into the greater world. He was seized with
a singular craze— to get his living by games of

46 5". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
chance. The spirit of the gambler possessed him.
Bernard attempted to reason with the man, but in
vain. He thirsted for the excitement, and nothing
would do but that he must go. So Bernard at
last hit upon a strange expedient. He offered the
brother thirty golden coins, and gave consent to
his departure, on condition that the monk returned
at the end of every year, to divide his profits with
the Abbot. The senseless brother agreed. Forth
he went to make his fortune as a betting man.
Time passed on, and nothing was heard of him, until
one day, shabby and crestfallen, he reappeared at
the monastery gates. The dexterous Abbot gaily
approached, and spread out his lap to receive his
promised share of the gambler's gains. Needless
to say, there were no gains to share. Reluctantly
the man confessed that he had lost — lost every
thing — even to the thirty golden pieces which
Bernard lent. " But," he added wistfully, " if you
will receive me back again, you can have me instead
of your gold." And the kindly-hearted saint ex
tended his arms to the prodigal, and made the
man eternally his own.
Monastic history resembles monastic architecture.
The Gothic church exhibits, together with the ac
curate outline, the exact proportion, the beautiful,
and the true, a strange medley of the quaint and
the fantastic and the impossible, and the repulsive
and the ridiculous. So it is in monastic history.
It is full of wonderful reality. You see human

ni.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 47

souls in the fearful intensity of struggle against the
lower self. Accurate delineations, exact detail,
historic truth, meet you continually. But strangely
intertwined with these is the legendary and the
childish and the painfully absurd, and the piteously
wretched and the miserably unworthy. In other
words, monastic history exhibits human nature just
as it is, with all its contradictions. Together with
the perfectly beautiful tale of ascetic devotion, is
the ludicrous record of the jackdaw of Rheims,
which is not a mere invention of the author of the
Ingoldsby Legends, but actually a narrative of the
twelfth century historian.37 The Abbot laid his
ring upon the table, whence the thieving jackdaw
stole it away. The Abbot excommunicated the
unknown offender. From that day the miserable
bird drooped and lost its feathers, and walked
about, the picture of wretchedness and dejection.
The thief was self-convicted, the ring found in its
nest, the excommunication removed, and the bird
flourished again. All this the chronicler records
as a sober warning against the danger of incurring
excommunication. Afterwards a terrible famine smote the lands
round Clairvaux, and the community's slender re
sources were taxed to the utmost, to provide bread
for the suffering poor. The brothers took a vast
multitude under their special charge, and for the
time being kept them alive. But there was a poor
woman, driven under stress of hunger to practise

48 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
upon the sympathies of the richer by deceit. She
carried in her arms a wretched bundle of moss and
rags, carefully folded to represent an infant child. By
her side two other children walked. And the pity
ing people who saw this forlorn family in the street
could scarcely endure to let her go without minis
tering to her wants from their own already precarious
store. At last charity failed, and the poor creature
sank upon the wayside to die. The chronicler
says that she was actually dead. Then Bernard
passed along, and found the crying children and
the unconscious woman, and the poor piteous
bundle of rags remorselessly revealing the miserable
deceit. Bernard sank upon his knees and prayed.
And the woman opened her eyes as if from
a trance ; and seeing Bernard and the monks
around her, she thanked God, Who had sent her
back into the world at His servant's prayer, and
spared her from the punishment which her sin
deserved. The College of Clairvaux was beloved by all
men — their charity was proverbial. No poor sup
plicant was ever sent empty away. Hence the
monastery was reverenced even by the outcast and
the lawless. A strange tale, showing their moral
ascendancy, is told in the ancient Cistercian record.
A monk of Clairvaux was one day sent off on the
business of the order, to a distant place. He rode
upon an ass, and carried money in his purse to
purchase various necessaries for the house. As he

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 49
passed through a lonely wood, he was attacked by
robbers, who, as the historian expresses it, " left
him nothing except his charity." The monk knelt
down and prayed. The robbers rode away. One
of them, however, impelled by curiosity, and won
dering what their victim would do, came back to
look at him. Still the monk was on his knees.
And it suddenly dawned upon the robber that this
was one of Bernard's brethren. He rode off imme
diately to his comrades, and communicated to them
his suspicion. They were all afraid. Clairvaux
was a name which extorted reverence even from
this lawless company. Clairvaux had been mer
ciful to the hungering and the outcast, and Clair
vaux deserved a better requital than this. The
robbers brought back the monk's possessions, and
restored to him all which they had taken away.38
From very ancient times there has been accorded
to certain personages, distinguished either by office
or character, the singular privilege of rescuing a
condemned criminal from death. The vestal vir
gins in Rome could procure a prisoner's release if
they met him on the way to execution. And
Bernard, in the twelfth century, claimed and exer
cised a similar power. He met in the streets a
notorious criminal, on the way to execution. " Give
him to me," said Bernard ; " I want to hang him
myself." The officer in charge regretted that the
saint should waste his energies upon the worthless.
" Father," he expostulated in amazement, " what
E

So 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
possesses you ? The man is a perfect devil ; why
would you recall him from the gates of hell ? He's
not the sort of creature to be converted — " " Best
of men," retorted the prudent saint, " I know very
well that what you say is very true. The man
deserves the worst he can receive. Don't suppose
that I would have him go unscathed. You would
give him a punishment far too short ; but I would
make him die the longest death. You mean to
torture him for a few brief hours ; but I would
make him live long years, and crucify him every
day." The officer understood. He was no match for the
Saint's logic, and he delivered the degraded criminal
into Bernard's care. And Bernard took the cord into
his own hands with which the miserable creature was
bound, covered him with his own cloak, and led him
away to the Brotherhood of Clairvaux. There in the
household of faith they treated him as one of them
selves. They showed him a new and a strange
ideal of life. They taught him by deeds not words
that mercy and unselfishness and generous love
existed on the hard cold earth. They brought
him into daily contact with some of the purest
and noblest of men. And by slow degrees his
frozen nature relented, and was touched and wak
ened and kindled by the warmth of brotherly
sympathy. Because they believed him capable of
good, he came to believe so too. They took this
refuse which the world rejected, and transfigured

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 51
him into something new. He lived to be exem
plary. Then they christened him and named him
afresh, and his old name, whatever it was, is for
gotten. At Clairvaux, in graceful allusion to his
constancy in Christian life, he was known as Bro
ther Constantius, whose humble goodness added
lustre to those sacred cloisters, and who thus re
paid the Abbot's loving care.
In this pathetic incident Bernard was certainly
many centuries in advance of his time. Before an
age quite reckless of the individual life, and forget
ful of the possibilities which lay concealed beneath
the most degraded, he set an ideal profoundly
Christian. There are indeed sins which according
to the Highest Sanction death alone can expiate.
But there is much in modern European criminal
codes which to Bernard's mind would need recti
fication. The effacement of the criminal so far as
this world is concerned may be indeed the simplest
way in which human selfishness can remove a per
plexing problem from its path. Infinitely nobler
is that ideal which aims at no mere self-protection
but at the regeneration of the fallen and the lost.
Bernard's sincere humanity was the outcome of a
firm grasp of the principle of the Incarnation. And
the Abbot of Clairvaux has a message still to
deliver to the nineteenth century, and indeed any
century yet to come, until the day when Christian
principles are entirely carried out in life.
From the cloisters of Clairvaux came many a

52 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
message of gladness back to the common world,
from men who had found therein the satisfaction of
their deepest religious needs. Peace and serene joy
were evidently their portion, and they must needs
communicate the fact to the struggling multitudes
outside. One ever memorable sentence expressing
gladness of heart rings out from those monastic
solitudes, urging upon the world the happiness of
serving God. We are familiar with the phrase,
GOD Whose service is perfect freedom. From Clair
vaux they wrote, — Cui servire regnare est, — to serve
God is to reign.39
And the fame of Clairvaux increased.
One night in Bernard's dream the little Com
munity seemed to extend, until at last the whole
valley was filled with dense masses of human
beings, and there was no more space remaining.
And Bernard rose with exultation, for he knew
that it signified the expansion of the Order beyond
all expectation. So indeed it happened. Ber
nard's virtues drew to the monastic gates crowds
of the cultured and the wealthy, and men of rank
and high office in secular life.
The College at Clairvaux became a refuge to the
serious and the devout and the repentant. It
would be a wonderful narrative of human nature
could the story of each person be written who came
to Clairvaux's gates : how Eschylus the missionary
Archbishop sought rest and died there ;40 how
Gunnar, a noble and a magistrate, resigned his

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 53
high office and sought Bernard's companionship ;
how Simon, Abbot of another order of the Black
Friars, asked permission to become a simple monk
in Bernard's Community ; how a skilled phy
sician, much sought after in those days, laid aside
his lucrative post and joined the brotherhood.
Geoffrey of Perrone, a young man of noble
birth, was one of the throng whom Bernard's
personal influence attracted to Clairvaux. But
Geoffrey's relatives had no desire to see the
hope of their house extinguished in a cloister.
They had widely different ambitions. Bernard
however prevailed. He wrote in gentle sympathetic
terms to the disconsolate parents, urging that if
God has made their son His own, neither they
nor their son can have lost by it. If they loved
him they will rejoice that he has gone to his Fa
ther. The claim of God's Fatherhood over all
His children, as higher even than the claims of
human paternity, comes very naturally from Aleth's
son. It is Bernard's mother, it is Bernard's own
reminiscences which echo here. To Geoffrey him
self Bernard wrote in glowing terms of approval.
He told Geoffrey that if there was joy in the pre
sence of the Angels of God over one sinner that
repenteth, how much more in the conversion of
so many who, once distinguished in the world for
learning, wealth, and ability, were by that very
fact so much the more influential in worldliness.
S. Paul had said that not many noble, not many

54 $• Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
wise, not many mighty were chosen. But now the
mighty power of GOD had converted these. Men
are learning to despise ambition, to estimate rightly
the worth of worldly wisdom, to abandon the long
ings of human love, to consider honours and dig
nities as valueless for Christ's sake. The hand
of God is in all this. Let Geoffrey persevere.41
A young Englishman on his way from Lincoln
to the Holy Land, knocked at the monastery gate
in 1 1 29, but after a few days spent at Clairvaux,
he did not wish for a holier land. He sought per
mission to continue there. Accordingly Bernard
wrote to the Bishop of Lincoln for his sanction.
Your Philip, he said, was longing for Jerusalem,
and has found it more quickly than he thought.
He has become not merely a visitor but an in
habitant and citizen of Jerusalem, not that earthly
one, but of that which is free.42
Clairvaux was to open its gates to many appli
cants, to the sons of kings, as well as to the con
demned criminal. But among all proofs of the
Abbot's influence there is none more striking than
the fact that Clairvaux opened its gates to the two
remaining members of Bernard's own family.
Tecelin, the aged father, came to end his
days among his children at Clairvaux.
From Bernard's hands he received the re-

A.D.
1 1 18.

ligious habit. He would not be distinguished from
the rest in any way. He was content to be a
lowly monk in the house where Bernard ruled.

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 55
So Tecelin passed the brief remainder of his years,
and finally died in Bernard's arms.
Bernard's sister Humbeline was the last to come.
Humbeline appeared before the lowly dwelling,
magnificently arrayed. Her retinue was an im
posing sight. But she waited at the monastery
doors in vain. Imperturbable calm reigned every
where. Not a soul except the porter would come
to give her greeting. The sensational was out
of place there. The attractions of worldly pomp
had no influence. Not one of her five brothers
would speak to her. " If I am a sinner," she ex
claimed, " at least it was for sinners that Christ
died ; and because I am a sinner, therefore need I
counsel and advice. And if my brother disowns
my relationship, let not the servant of God despise
my soul. Let him command me, and I will obey."
Then Bernard and the brethren issued forth. He
bade her discard the parade and frivolousness of
her social life, and live as her saintly mother had
done before her. With these words he sent her
away. Humbeline returned to her mansion with a heart
deeply moved. She laid aside her costly robes.
She exchanged her luxurious mode of living for
self-denial and simplicity. And the astonished
world beheld the woman who once moved as a
queen in the best circles of social life, henceforward
dedicated to austerity, devotion, and deeds of love.
Time rolled away, and Humbeline, like Bernard,

56 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
became foundress of a community in which she
lived until she died.43
And the strong personality, the human centre
round which all this community life gathered, the
personal influence which held it all together, and
controlled these widely contrasted elements, and
bound these different temperaments and characters
in one, was, under God, S. Bernard.
Singularly self-forgetting was his loving fore
thought for every member of his house. He seemed
ever watchful to ward off the possibility of offend
ing another. His penetrating insight instantly
knew when and why a brother was displeased. He
studied their characters, and dealt with each tem
perament according to its special needs. With the
laborious, he would lighten their burdens ; with
the indolent, he would insist on zealous work.
Their physical strength, their mental peculiarities,
their tastes, and likes and dislikes, he seemed tho
roughly to understand. Himself perpetually hin
dered by bodily weakness, he was ever providing
some comfort of mind or body for the sick members
of his house. This man is overworked, that cannot
digest his food, this believes himself unfairly treated.
So it ever was. The cares of the community, and
all its trials, rested upon Bernard, and his genial,
buoyant spirit was the support of all.
Such was Bernard's standard of duty. He held
office not for his own advantage, but for the service
of other men. In a few simple words, he has left

III.] S. Bernard as Abbot. 57
on record his ideal. He described for Abbot
Rainald's use what he thought a ruler in the
Church should be. A ruler in the Church is to
bear the burden of souls, chiefly of those who are
weak ; for the strong need not to be supported,
and in this respect are no burden. But to the
melancholy, the weak, the discontented, Rainald
must be as their father. He must console, exhort,
reprove. He is sent to help others, not to be him
self assisted. Thus is he the vicar of Him Who
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.44

58 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.

LECTURE IV.
BERNARD AS A MONASTIC REFORMER.
The previous narrative has shown something of
the inner life of a Religious House, and the fluctu
ations in its prosperity. Sometimes a Convent
would almost perish. Sometimes the sons of the
prophets would say to the Abbot, " Behold now, the
place where we dwell is too strait for us." (2 Kings
vi. 1.) Hence the multiplication of convents, in
each of which the life of the parent house was re
produced. But the standard of severity varied
greatly. Sometimes a lax and easy-going spirit
would gradually settle within the walls where
formerly intense devotion reigned, and iron disci
pline was loved. Then a new generation would
enter in ; a revival of the ascetic spirit began.
The more self-indulgent brothers would rebel
against a severer reign. And then the ardent-
minded would leave them in possession, and issue
forth to conquer some distant solitude, to live in
literal fidelity to the severest principles of the great
monastic founders long before. Historians have
repeatedly called attention to this wonderful capa
city which the monastic principle possessed of

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 59
recovering its youth and beginning anew.45 Most
true was it of the convent life, " They shall renew
their strength like the eagle."
Then there would frequently exist in neighbour
ing regions religious houses in various stages of
ascendency or decline. Here the ascetic spirit
would be dominant to the last extreme. There a
more lenient rule would find its home. This was
the case between Clairvaux and Cluny.46
Cluny was founded in the year 912, and had
passed through many vicissitudes under an illus
trious line of Abbots, Berno and Odo, and the
distinguished Hugh, who ruled there for sixty
years. Privileges innumerable were showered upon
Cluny by successive Popes. If an interdict were
laid upon the land, the Altars of Cluny alone were
exempt from that terrible suspension. The Ab
bots of Cluny were raised to the dignity of Car
dinals. But increased favour and increased pros
perity entailed dangers which in a simpler age
Cluny never knew. The primitive zeal for self-
denial faded away ; slackness invaded the sacred
precincts ; discipline no longer prevailed. A pite
ous change, an almost incredible change, had not
experience proved it — so thought the chronicler —
passed over the standard of Cluny. Spiritual apa
thy was the parent of endless sins ; it acted like
rust upon the mind ; it consumed as the moth ; it
crept in subtly, unobserved, and ruined every
thing.

60 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
The wealth of Cluny became enormous, and
with wealth came luxury. Abbot Pontius,47 suc
cessor to the saintly Hugh, became a scandal in
Christendom. Pontius paraded in public with a
retinue which eclipsed many a ducal court.
Pontius appeared at a Synod at Rheims
at which the Pope presided. The Arch
bishop of Lyons seized his opportunity, and

A.D.
IIIQ

accused the powerful Abbot of invading the epis
copal prerogative, and of unjust usurpations. The
monks of Cluny were in ill odour in the diocese
of Lyons. Pontius calmly retorted that he had
wronged nobody, that he was entirely within the
rights which the Pope had given, that Cluny was
not under episcopal supervision, but was a pecu
liar of the Pope, to whose decision he referred the
whole matter. Amid great uproar and discontent
the Pope sheltered Pontius from his accusers. But
it was impossible that this decision should be final.
The more religious-minded monks of Cluny could
not endure the extravagant administration through
which their House was made notorious. They
appealed a second time to Rome.
Pontius found that he had gone too far. In
proportion to the popular reverence for genuine
devotion was the indignant outbreak against this
worthless counterfeit. The secularized Abbot saw
that the tide was turned against him. Finding
himself unable to hold his own, he was seized with
a timely fit of suitable remorse. He abdicated,

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 61
disappeared on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there,
as it would seem, to spend the remainder
of his days in penitential seclusion and
amendment. Great was the relief at Cluny.

A.D.
1122.

They had heard the last of Pontius. Peace was
restored, a successor chosen, and a more respect
able level of religious life began again. Cluny re
sumed its usual occupations. But to the general
horror Pontius reappeared. An armed and tur
bulent throng endeavoured by force to replace him
at the head of the Convent. Pontius was excom
municated, and shortly afterwards died.
To the headship of this troubled Community
succeeded the Abbot Peter, commonly known as
Peter the Venerable, of Cluny. Peter of Cluny
was, on general attestation of all men, gifted with
a most gracious and winning nature. Generous,
kindly, liberal-minded, he was entangled in many
disputes, but always knew how to pour oil on the
troubled waters, and to find the appropriate reply
to an irritated opponent. The whole collection of
his letters is pervaded by a remarkable gentle
ness, courtesy, forbearance, a strong and deeply
Christian disposition. Peter was exactly suited to
guide the fortunes of Cluny through their dangerous
crisis. Between Cluny and Clairvaux serious jealousies
arose. The monks of Clairvaux robed themselves
in white, those of Cluny in black. Out of this
trivial circumstance began a violent dispute. If

62 5". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
the white friars and black friars met in the streets
they regarded each other as curiosities or mon
strosities. If a black-robed monk came upon
a group of Cistercians, conversation instantly
ceased.48 But the difference lay deep within.
The severe and fervent inmates of Clairvaux
looked askance upon the manners and customs
which even Peter found it necessary to tolerate
while he could not but condemn. Clairvaux re
buked the self-indulgence prevalent at Cluny.
Cluny retorted by expressipg regret at the youth
ful self-righteousness of Clairvaux. Cluny, founded
200 years before, with its line of illustrious superiors,
looked down with complacent indifference on the
little upstart house at Clairvaux.
The quarrel raged. It was kindled between the
monks of each order, but both Bernard and Peter
were drawn in to share in the dispute. In the vivid
pages of an Apology, Bernard rebuked his own
community for blindness to their own defects, and
then with no sparing hand he chastised the convent
of Cluny for the luxurious habits, which they made
no attempt to reform. First reminding his own
order, that variety in unity was the principle of
Christendom ; that Noah, Daniel, and Job repre
sented three types of sanctity, but were members
of the same religious kingdom ; that Martha and
Mary alike could please our LORD ; that it was
not reasonable to expect all classes of minds to be

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 63
included within the limitations of any one par
ticular monastic rule ; that Cluny and Cistercium
were differently gifted ; that humility in costly
raiment was better than pride in rags ; that if GOD
clothed Adam in furs and skins, and John Baptist
wore a leather girdle, there was no cause to object
if the monks at Cluny did the same ; that if they
drank wine at Cluny, S. Paul had recommended S.
Timothy to do this very thing ; that our LORD
had given wine to His Apostles at Cana ; and that
there was such a thing in history as the waters of
contradiction, bitterness, and strife. (Numb. xx. 13.)
But, on the other hand, to Cluny, he must tell
the plain and simple truth, although it be severe ;
for it is better to offend a man, than forsake the
truth. Bernard was shocked, and was forced
to say so, at the scandalous self-indulgences pre
dominant in the convent at Cluny. The saintly
founders of monastic life had indeed mercifully
tempered the ascetic rule to the special require
ments of the infirm and the sickly ; but the luxury
of Cluny was totally at variance with the spirit of
a simpler age. Contrast the days of S. An
thony. The elaborate table at Cluny, with its
variety of dishes and excellent cooking, was a
grief to the severe-minded Abbot of Clairvaux.
And as to wines, did not S. Paul say, drink a
little ? Cluny, in its better days, under Odo and
Hugh, was a stranger to these innovations. The
monks had become most particular about their

64 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
dress. Bernard gives a ludicrous description of a
monk going shopping for a new cassock, turning
over heaps of patterns, holding them up to the
light, and testing the quality of the goods. He
has not scorn enough for this excessive regard
for costume. Cluny was radically wrong. The
Abbot appeared with the gorgeousness of secular
chieftaincy. It was scarcely credible, but Bernard
had seen with his own eyes an Abbot with sixty
horsemen. You would take them, not for fathers of
monastic houses, but lords of a fortress ; not guides
of souls, but masters of provinces. When they
issued forth into the streets, were it only a stone's
throw, they came furnished with baggage, as if
going to the wars or crossing a desert, where the
commonest necessaries of life could not be found.
The luxurious bedrooms, the elaborate coverlets,
the numerous servants, are all alike subjected to
Bernard's severe criticism. The Cistercian re
joiced in a severe simplicity in the architecture
of his churches. Cluny elaborated the very stone
work into the quaintest, most fantastic, and gor
geous intricacy. Bernard strongly disapproved.
With Puritan austerity he condemned the costly
fabrics, the marble pavements, the paintings, the
precious gems, the golden candelabra, in which the
Cluniac delighted. They who came out from among
the people, he exclaims, leaving the world's beauty
and costliness for CHRIST'S sake, were they to be
again mingled among the Gentiles, and learn their

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 65
works ? The church was brilliant in colouring of
its walls, but outside were the poor, the starving.
They clothed the very stones with gold, but they
neglected the destitute. Forms of saints inserted
in the mosaic pavement, and perpetually trodden
in the dust, were to his mind most inappropriate.
You could not walk, but you trod on the face of
an angel. But Bernard was scandalized most of
all by the monstrous and imaginary shapes, fierce
or ludicrous, half beast half human, into which the
stonework was distorted. The grinning features,
the grotesque combinations, the fantastic gurgoyle,
the secular and the spiritual, the awful and the
irreverent, forced into violent contrast and com
panionship. All these were to the Abbot of Clair
vaux very painful. " Good heavens !" he ex
claimed, " if they are not ashamed of foolishness,
let them at least grow sick of their extravagances."
Bernard's disquisition was probably directed
chiefly against the luxurious regime of Pontius.
But his language hit too hard to be easily forgiven.
Abbot Peter also had his turn.
To Peter these disputes were infinitely distress
ing ; and the Abbot of Cluny wrote to the Abbot
of Clairvaux, deprecating such exhibitions of human
littleness. In a letter, at once satirical, courteous,
argumentative, Peter appeals to Bernard to unite
with him in suppressing the jealous rivalries be
tween their respective orders.49
Every divergence at Cluny from the Benedictine
F

66 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
rule had been vigilantly noted and severely repre
hended by the monks of Clairvaux,50 and Peter
cannot help recalling the irony of the Prophet ;
Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou. He
reminds Clairvaux that their adoption of the white
garb was a mark of singularity not permitted by
the rule, nor found elsewhere in Christendom.
These little trifling diversities ought not on either
side to be magnified into questions of life and death.
Certainly the monks were bound to S. Benedict's
rule ; but while bound to the rule, much more are
they bound to the Gospel. What is wanted on
either side is love. Love is the fulfilling of the
law. S. Augustine truly said, " Habe charitatem et
fac quidquid vis." Ancient rules must sometimes
become obsolete, or bend to the requirements of
the age. Peter was for considerateness. The ex
cessive austerities of Clairvaux appeared to him
ill advised. The exact amount of abstinence must
be left to pious discretion and local needs. Part
must be voluntary. They who abstain entirely
from wine have their own reward ; but concessions
must be permitted to human infirmities. Cluny
did not prostrate themselves before every guest,
recognizing CHRIST in the persons of the poor ;
nor did they wash the feet of every one who came,
as Clairvaux did. Rules like this, said Peter, were
means to an end, which end was salvation of souls.
Hence they must be interpreted by that discretion
which the rules expressly accorded to the Abbot.

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 6j
" You, O white friar," exclaims Peter, " why can
not you tolerate your brother's blackness — black
ness not of mind, but only of dress ? You, black
friar, cannot you endure your brother's whiteness —
not of mind, but only of dress ? Can anything be
more puerile ? Has it any inseparable connection
with Redemption ? Why should the colour of a
dress alienate monks from their brethren ?" Abbot
Peter proceeds to comfort Cistercium and Cluny
alike with the reflection that ancient precedents
exist both for white dresses and for black, and
shows with gentle satire the virtues and the draw
backs of the one and the other. He sees good in
both uses, and will give the preference to neither.
Let there be only more charity, and the quarrel
will instantly disappear.
So Peter endeavoured to conciliate the diver
gent spirits in Clairvaux and Cluny. He reminded
Clairvaux that a too rigid adherence to the letter
of the rule was the cause of many difficulties
in Clairvaux itself; that their thin winter dress,
and insufficient protection against the inclemency
of frost and snow, was a needless cruelty, a de
parture from charity, the cause of many com
plaints, and the reason for many failures, being
dangerous to health, and liable to incapacitate them
for the active service of God. And then Peter,
evidently with reference to the attack on Cluny,
observed : " Yes, we are proud, we are in the wrong,
we are sinful. But the sins of a brother ought not

68 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
to be published in the church, nor the failings of
monks made the talk of the people. Bishop
Augustine would not have acted so. His rule was,
where the sin arises, there let it die, nor should its
correction be known further than the offence itself
was heard of."
But Peter was not impartial when he claimed
for Cluny exemption from episcopal supervision,
as being a peculiar of Rome. Peter attempted
to defend this on very inadequate grounds. What
bishop, he asked, had better claim to their obe
dience, than he who ruled by divine right over
all other bishops ? So Peter misunderstood the
text, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy
brethren." Gregory VII. (A.D. 1077) had exempted
Cluny from all local interference, and this custom
held in other places.
But, notwithstanding this sharp encounter, the
heads of the rival orders were both too large-hearted
to let friendship grow cold, or mutual sympathy
become suppressed by stress of controversy. They
reverenced and loved each other. They continued
an unbroken correspondence, which still remains
to testify to the generous character of two great
but widely different men. But with the justice
of Bernard's charge of extravagance, Abbot Peter
fully concurred. Resolved upon restoring his house
to primitive simplicity, the Abbot of Cluny had a
harder task than fell to Bernard's share, for he was
not on the wave of a first enthusiasm in a newly

IV] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 6g
founded convent, but at the head of an ancient
house, which had fallen from its first estate. And
to restore is harder than to build. Peter was, how
ever, determined at all risk to enforce severer dis
cipline. He issued letters to the daughter monas
teries in Italy and in England, summoning all the
priors to meet at Cluny on the third Sunday in Lent.
A monk who was present on an occasion so memo
rable in the annals of Cluny, describes how 200 priors
and 1200 brothers joined in the long procession
through the cloisters from the abbey church to the
chapel of S. Mary.51 The venerable abbot laid
before the whole order the rules from which
their houses had grievously fallen, and insisted on
the duty of a closer conformity with their spirit.
Peter could not effect all he wished. The con
servative instinct in a bad tradition was too strong.
Murmurs were heard about removing ancient land
marks. Hard things were said about Cistercian
novelties, want of compassion. But the abbot
gained a great deal. And when the assembly
was broken up, the influence of his words was
felt far and wide in every convent affiliated to the
order. A reformer of monastic orders is easily led to
excessive severity. Merciless towards himself,
Bernard, at least in his earlier years at Clairvaux,
did not always display sufficient consideration for
human infirmities.
Robert, Bernard's kinsman, a young man of good

A.D.
III9.

70 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
intentions but wavering character, found the dis
cipline of Clairvaux a bitterness to the flesh. The
monks of Cluny heard of it, and visiting Clairvaux
during Bernard's absence, induced the novice to
take flight, and to shelter himself under the more
humane regime of Abbot Peter. Bernard sent the
faint-hearted Robert a strong letter of mingled
self-reproach and disapproval.52 He con
fesses that for Robert's departure he has him
self to blame. He was harsh and austere, and had
repelled him by inconsiderate dealing with the faults
of youth. He promises that Robert shall find him
changed. But he cannot resist sarcastic sketches
of Robert in his prim new attire, in the luxurious
environment of Cluny, where, to his soul's peril, he
was being petted and spoiled. Then growing sor
rowful and indignant, Bernard describes the Cluniacs
sending to Rome for the Pope's sanction. Vainly
did they talk of Apostolic absolution to a man
whose conscience was bound by his vows before
GOD. It was written, " No man putting his hand
to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the king
dom of GOD." S. Luke ix. 61. If Robert had left
Clairvaux in order to discipline his nature, and
lead a more self-denying life, well and good. But
if he was exchanging a career to which he had
solemnly engaged himself, for a career more con
genial to the sinful flesh, then he was "looking
back," and to look back is apostasy. " My son,"
cries Bernard, in a Scriptural strain, " I say this not

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. Ji
to shame you, but as my most beloved I warn you ;
for though you have many instructors in Christ,
yet have you not many fathers." Bernard is like
the woman who stood before Solomon, when her
son had been stolen away. So he writes, mingling
sarcasm and rebuke, and concludes with a pas
sionate appeal : "Arise, O soldier of Christ, arise,
shake yourself free from the dust, return to the
battle whence you fled, and you shall become
more glorious by contrast with your flight." Son
Robert read that letter, and its fatherly appeal
touched and subdued him. He forsook the easier
life of Cluny, came back to Bernard's arms, and
became distinguished in the order, and abbot of
one of its daughter houses.
The celebrated monastery of S. Victor, in the
suburbs of Paris, was at that time the home of
three illustrious hymn writers and learned men —
Adam and Richard and Hugh.53 Bernard cor
responded with Hugh of S. Victor on various theo
logical questions. These are interesting, as show
ing the prevalent ideas in the twelfth century.
Some were teaching the narrowest and most ex
clusive theory of salvation. They asserted that
the unbaptized, whether they lived before Christi
anity or beyond its range, were infallibly lost. The
large-hearted teacher of Clairvaux indignantly re
pudiated this uncatholic conception. Were the
whole Jewish millions before Christ came inevi
tably lost, although they obeyed the sacrament of

72 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
circumcision ? Unhappy ages indeed, when no re
medy prevailed. Was the Almighty sleeping, and
no one found for the work of redemption ? There
was an ignorance, indeed, which is sinful, born of
carelessness, when men know not, because they will
not know. Such ignorance has no excuse. But
there is an ignorance which is inevitable. Can you
condemn for that ? Quite different was the case
of those who knew and despised the Sacrament,
from those who never heard.
These maintainers of the narrow theory also
asserted that even those who wished to receive
Holy Baptism, yet died without it, were lost. No
reality of penitence or faith could atone for un
avoidable absence of the visible Sacrament, except
to the martyr alone, forgetting that, while it is
written, " He that believeth, and is baptized, shall
be saved," it is not written, he that is not baptized
shall be condemned, but he that believeth not (S.
Mark xvi. 16,) showing that faith in certain cases
will suffice, and that without faith nothing will
prevail. If martyrdom is accepted, it is for its
faith. When baptism cannot be had, the will is
taken for the deed.54
Most distinguished among the abbeys of France
was the church and monastery of S. Denys, at
Paris. Its splendid height, its vast nave, — 400 feet
long, — its marble paved choir, its windows, were
the glory of the nation. At the head of this illus
trious house was Suger, confidential adviser to the

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 73
French king. Abbot Suger copied the magni
ficence of kings. He appeared in public encircled
with all the pomp of a gorgeously equipped ca
valry. Bernard was scandalized. But a change,
probably through Bernard's influence, came over
Suger's life. The Abbot of S. Denys discarded
his secular parade, divested himself of his expensive
attire, dismissed the crowd of attendants, and
betook himself to a life more in harmony with his
profession. The throng of soldiers, secular per
sonages, women, who had invaded the precincts,
disappeared at Suger's bidding. Religious peace
was restored, discipline reigned. The cloisters were
dedicated afresh to silence and meditation. The
world was amazed. Bernard rejoiced. This won
derful man's most wonderful influence in religious
reform invigorated all he touched. Men of all
kinds bowed before his moral ascendancy. Rela
tives and strangers, high born and lowly, all alike
acknowledge Bernard's truth and Bernard's in
fluence. He is an apostle of the self-denying life.
The Abbot of Clairvaux wrote to his illustrious
brother of S. Denys, to express the gladness with
which he welcomed Suger as an advocate of Chris
tian simplicity in the priestly life. Bernard dwelt
forcibly on the impossibility of combining in the
same person the offices of the warrior and the
priest. It was totally incongruous to hold secular
office, and yet robed in priestly garb, pronounce
the Gospel in the church and offer the Eucharist.

74 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
It was wonderful that the Church did not expel her
military priests, or the Court its priestly soldiers.55
Every word which Bernard wrote on such a theme
was a strong condemnation of the secular life
which even Pope Innocent sanctioned by his own
example. It is peculiarly interesting to us as Englishmen
to know that Bernard's zeal in monastic reform was
felt in the religious houses of England. The great
Convent of S. Mary at York, founded but a few
years before, had lamentably departed already
from the Benedictine Rule. But Bernard's monks
rested there for a while on a Mission of Reform.
The result is most graphically described in a letter
from Thurstan,56 the celebrated Archbishop of
York, to William Archbishop of Canterbury.
Archbishop Thurstan, a great and noble-minded
man, the unworldly, disinterested, fearless opponent
of King Henry I. in defence of the interests of his
Province, was himself most ascetic, and a strong
advocate of all such reforms as tended to lift the
religious houses toward their high ideal. In S.
Mary's Convent the exemplary conduct of Ber
nard's brethren made a deep and permanent im
pression upon the more devout and thoughtful
members of the House. The better sort were
" ashamed to rest in the borders of Moab, while
they had received an inheritance across the Jordan."
Convinced of laxity and self-condemned, they
ventured to approach the Prior, and communicated

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 75
to him their longing for a stricter standard of life,
more in conformity alike with their spiritual needs
and the Rule which they had undertaken to obey.
Prior Richard hesitated but sympathized. Event
ually he was won over to complete agreement with
them, and pledged himself to support the move
ment to the utmost of his power. Thirteen bro
thers resolved to live more nearly after their
founder's rule. But thirteen were only a small
minority in the Convent of York. Nor were the
majority likely to sympathize in the least degree
with any longing after increased severity. Ac
cordingly Prior Richard with whom the practical
management of the Community rested, held a
private consultation with his Abbot, on the Vigil
of SS. Peter and Paul, taking with him Gervase
the Subprior as his supporter. Abbot Galfrid, an
illiterate and otherwise undistinguished person,
was dismayed. Honest, well-intentioned man, but
intensely conservative in a bad tradition, Galfrid
saw with alarm the restless spirit of reform, the
eagerness for fresh ideals invade his house. Su
premely distasteful as innovations were alike to
his natural bent and life-long habits, he was more
than satisfied to let things continue in the old
routine, and declared himself powerless to change
customs which even if not ideally the best, had
long ago become traditionally respectable.
Prior Richard apologized. He deprecated the
idea that he had been snared by an innovating spirit.

j6 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
He knew well that various orders existed, and he
coveted no man's ideals. He knew that Job served
GOD better on a dunghill than Adam in a Paradise.
All he wanted was conformity to the rule of S.
Benedict, which he had vowed he would obey.
He was absolutely convinced that indolence was
destructive to the soul. The Benedictine rule
assigned special hours for study and for prayer, for
work and industry. Above all, it insisted upon
silence and meditation. Richard's chief complaint
was the endless loss of time in idle gossip and
profitless conversation alike hurtful to the monks'
character and contradictory to the rule. After
contrasting in various details the Founder's rule
and the actual condition of the Convent, the Prior
added, It was not thus that our father Benedict
taught. Let us return to a simple life. That this
could be done was certain, for they had seen it
with their own eyes. The monks of Clairvaux
had so lived in their very presence in York. In
these men the Gospel standard seemed realized.
They were living representatives of the Christian
spirit ; they did not seek their own ; they held no
possessions of any kind ; having food and rai
ment they were literally therewith content. They
seemed to have a right to use the Apostle's
language, — "the world is crucified unto us, and
we unto the world." Happy and holy race of
men, whose manners and life and whole ideal
corresponded with such striking exactness with

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. "]"]
that of the Gospel ; GOD was their portion. Con
templating these facts, urged Prior Richard, it was
useless to say that the evangelical standard of life
was inaccessible. Bernard's monks had attained
it, and he aspired to be like them. Abbot Galfrid
listened regretfully to his Prior's theories. The
new enthusiasm was not to his liking, but he
honestly admitted that he was not a learned man,
and was anxious to do what was best. What he
stipulated for was time to consider the Prior's sug
gestions. Meanwhile the news of the interview between
Abbot and Prior got wind in the Convent. Ru
mours of impending reforms roused general anger
and opposition. The monastery was in a ferment.
Tongues were busy vehemently condemning the
Prior's interference, and unless the more moderate
had intervened, Richard would scarcely have been
safe from bodily injury. Soon the disturbance
became known in the city, and the Archbishop
heard that S. Mary's Convent was in an uproar.
Prior Richard departed with the Subprior Gervase
to seek the Archbishop's advice.
" I therefore, Thurstan, by the grace of God Arch
bishop of York, understanding that these servants
of Christ desired nothing but to serve Him more
truly after Benedict's rule, feared lest I should
wrong the Divine grace if I came not to their
assistance." The great Chapterhouse was thronged with

78 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
monks, as Archbishop Thurstan, and Canon Serlo,
and Archdeacon Hugh, and Canon Aufred the
Archbishop's Chaplain came to the Convent
gate. But when Thurstan began to remonstrate,
the entire chapter burst out into fierce uproar.
They howled at the Archbishop. They conducted
themselves, says Thurstan, more like infuriated
drunkards than sober-minded monks, they stormed
round the terrified minority who in their helpless
ness clung to the Archbishop. In this wild scene
of utter confusion Thurstan stood dignified, calm,
fearless. He had before this witnessed King Henry's
furious outburst of temper, and was not to be
beaten by the unruly throng. Without hesitation
he at once placed the Convent under an interdict.
" God is witness," exclaimed the Archbishop,
" that I came to you as a father, with the sole pur
pose of restoring Christian peace among you. But
since you endeavour to thwart me in the exercise
of my office and authority, I am compelled to take
away the privileges granted you — your Church is
closed." " Let it be closed for a hundred years," re
torted Simeon, a turbulent monk. And the dis
respectful answer was echoed on every side. They
would do anything rather than submit to the pro
posals of reform. " Seize them, seize them," cried
the mob. And the Prior with his twelve escaped
with difficulty from their infuriated brothers.
So they turned away reluctantly from the Con-

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 79
vent of S. Mary, baffled in the effort to reform,
and departed from the wealthy foundation destitute
and friendless, having no worldly possessions save
the robes which marked their order, but strong in
the sense of having sacrificed all to the spirit of
their Rule, and in faithfulness to the severer life.
Then the good Archbishop befriended them, and
took the cause of reform under his protection, and
provided for their immediate necessities.
Difficulties ensued. Two of the thirteen found
their courage fail them. Gervase and Ralph yielded
to the sore temptation to return to the wealthy
foundation at York. " You are not better than
your fathers," said the people. They re-entered.
But Gervase's heart misgave him. Once more he
summoned strength, and went forth again to Fon
taines, and there was faithful. They chose Richard
as their abbot. The new abbot had a community,
but no dwelling, no means, no possessions. They
slept under a great elm, and sang the midnight
offices beneath the trees. So they began to build.
In the midst of a beautiful well-watered valley,
lands were given them, and a noble church arose,
known to this day in its ruins as Fountains Abbey.
Fountains was a name appropriate to the
natural springs of the valley, but it was also
a name peculiarly dear to Bernard, since it
recalled Fontaines, his birthplace. The name then
was probably given at Bernard's suggestion. The
attempted reform at York met with his warm ap-

A.D.
1132-

80 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
proval. Bernard's ideal was before their minds,
and they sent messengers to Clairvaux, saying that
Clairvaux should be their mother, and Bernard
their father. Then Abbot Bernard was glad at heart,
and wrote to Richard and his brethren right joy
fully : Out of weakness ye have grown strong, ye
have flourished in newness of life. The finger of
GOD is here. Would that Bernard might cross
over and see with his own eyes this gladdening
sight. You will more easily see secular men be
come religious, than religious men rising to some
thing better. A monk whose later years surpassed
the level of his early zeal, was a rare bird on
earth. And Bernard also wrote to the good Archbishop
of York. Thurstan's works of mercy and alms
giving were long ago in all the Churches, but this
episcopal care of the religious orders was the crown
and the glory of his career. It is a good thing
to feed the hungry, and it is a greater thing to
kindle zeal, for the one is nature, and the other
grace. Bernard had a more difficult task when, in answer
to a letter of complaints, he wrote to Abbot Galfrid.
The Abbot of Clairvaux was evidently anxious to
speak gently with an aged religious, with whom, how
ever, he could not really sympathize. As to Gervase
and Ralph, if they had continued as they were at
first, they were justified ; if they rose to a higher
level, they did better. And if they returned to

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 81
their easier life, " I will not condemn them," says
Bernard ; " for the LORD knows who are His, and
every man shall bear his own burden. But I will
speak what I think. If I, Bernard, rise from good
to better, and then go back to my former state, I
become apostate. It is putting my hand to the
plough, and looking back."
But Bernard could not but bear the English
house in his mind. Anxious for their advance, he
sent them, at their request, from his own commu
nity at Clairvaux, a saintly brother, to impress
upon the English branch the rules of their holy
institution. " Go with these men," said Bernard,
" and teach them what thou knowest." But brother
Galfrid had no wish to visit the English shores.
He was old, and the time of dissolution could not
be far off. He longed to end his days at Clairvaux ;
there would he die, and there would he be
buried. " Fear not," said Bernard, " I myself will
bury you here."
So brother Galfrid issued forth from Clairvaux,
and crossed the seas, and entered the community
at Fountains. They received him with deep respect.
They heard the word from his lips, and kept it,
embracing willingly with reverence his holy teach
ings. The Burgundian monk went back impressed
with the English monastic character, their ready
obedience, their frugal fare, their seriousness of -life.
He found them strong in faith, rooted in charity,
zealous in hope, patient in poverty. Thus Galfrid's
G

82 5". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
mission was ended, and his heart's desire was ful
filled, for he speedily faded away in death, and
Bernard's loving hands laid him to rest among his
fathers. And Abbot Richard of Fountains lived beloved
of all men, and in after years they spoke of his
peculiarly loving sympathy in confession as a
spiritual guide. But Richard longed to visit Clair
vaux, and wrote repeatedly to ask for Bernard's
leave. Bernard, after many requests, at last reluct
antly granted it, coupled however with the con
dition, that the chapter of Fountains approved.
The chapter loved their good Abbot far too well to
let him go. Yet the longing of Richard's heart
was ultimately granted him, for the Abbots of the
order were convened at Clairvaux, and there
Richard was taken ill and died. For him also
Bernard's loving care and sustaining faith were
present in the dark passage to the grave. Thus
Bernard's name was very dear to English hearts,
as well as to those of his native land. " Blessed
Bernard, of happy memory," wrote Hugh, monk
of Kirkstall, " a noble-minded man, very zealous
for the Lord God of hosts, sublime in sanctity,
illustrious in doctrine, distinguished by wondrous
deeds." The reformer of monastic life gradually took a
wider survey, and became a reformer of ecclesi
astical laxity, wherever it existed. Men of high
distinction sought Bernard as a spiritual adviser.

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 83
Bruno, being elected to the Archbishopric

A.D.
1132-

of Cologne, writes to inquire of Clairvaux
whether he does well to accept such respon
sibilities. Bernard bids him weigh most solemnly
the perils inseparable from that sacred office. From
what we know of Bruno's life and character, he
evidently mistrusts his fitness.57 Bruno, however,
was consecrated. After his consecration, a second
letter from Clairvaux was placed in his hands :
" If election to the Episcopate includes entrance
into the kingdom of heaven, then is the Archbishop
of Cologne secure of everlasting bliss. But if Saul
was divinely chosen to a kingdom, and Judas to a
bishopric, as indeed the Scriptures teach, then the
Archbishop of Cologne has cause to be afraid. If,
further, not many noble, not many powerful, not
many wise are called, has not the Archbishop of
Cologne a threefold reason to fear? 'If thou be
made the master of the feast, lift not thyself up, but
be among them as one of the rest.' Ecclus. xxxii. 1.
' The greater thou art, the more completely humble
thyself in all things.' Eccl. iii. 20. It is the wise
man who advises this, and indeed Wisdom Itself
has said, ' He that is greatest among you, let him
be as the younger.'" S. Luke xxii. 26. Warnings
of such a kind came from Bernard's lips with all the
force of Bernard's unquestioned fidelity to the
advice which he was giving. Perhaps no man ever
lived more singularly free from personal ambition
than Bernard of Clairvaux.

84 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
The Abbot of Chartres was filled with a longing
to resign his charge, and, quite in the spirit of the
age, make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He
sent to Bernard for advice. Bernard discourages
any abdication of duty for such a purpose as this.
Abbot Stephen has his work to do where he is,
and this longing could not justify reliction of the
charge entrusted to him. He ought not to lay his
burden down, nor leave the souls whom he is bound
to guide. Art thou bound to a wife, seek not to
be loosed.58 Abbot Stephen, however, had his
way, and became the Latin Patriarch at Jerusalem.
Bernard is also in familiar correspondence with
Haimeric, the Roman chancellor, and with Hono-
rius, his master.59 He receives courteous letters
from Cardinal Peter Leo, afterwards notorious as
Antipope, and destined to be overthrown by Ber
nard. At present all this is unsuspected by ei
ther actor in the tragic scene, and Bernard sends,
at the Cardinal's request, copies of his sermons and
his books on Humility, in the Virgin's Praise, and
the Apology on monastic quarrels.60
Bernard is rapidly linked with the leading minds
in Europe. He corresponds with Gilbert, Bishop
of London, one of the most distinguished men of
that age. Gilbert's immense accumulated learning
in every department of human study earned him the
title of " the universal." Bernard's communications
with him are based on a common love of self-denial.
It was no great thing for Gilbert to become a

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 85
bishop, but for a Bishop of London to live as an
ascetic was great indeed.61
Oger, one of the canons regular, had been made
superior of a religious house, but growing weary of
his charge, Oger, with the Bishop's consent, re
signed his office, and returned to the parent house
as an ordinary brother. Bernard sharply rebuked
him. The charge once undertaken ought not to
be laid down. Oger had given way to the love of
ease and quiet. Did not Scripture say, " Art thou
bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed ?" In one
thing Oger was right. He had not secured his
own independence, but returned and submitted
himself to the parent house whence he came out.
He was afraid to be his own master. Wise indeed.
He who is his own master makes himself disciple to
a fool. " Experience teaches me," added Bernard,
" that it is easier to govern a houseful of men than
to govern myself." But Bernard warns Oger that
trials will arise from his return to a subordinate
position. Do not expect honour because you were
in honour once. Possibly another danger may
arise. Human nature is fickle and uncertain, and
the fascinations of to-day are repugnant to-morrow;
while what we will not to-day, to-morrowwe long for.
Things become sweet in memory, which in reality
were bitter. Distinction, household management,
dispensing of affairs, obedience of subordinates,
personal freedom, power over others — these may
become dear after they have been left. What must

86 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
be aimed at is humility. And if you seek the grace
of humility, you must not shun the road of humili
ation. If you cannot bear the one, you will never
secure the other. Bernard explains that Oger's
letters found him overwhelmed with work, and
were read during dinner, and the replies dictated
in broken intervals snatched from other duty.62
Henry, Archbishop of Sens, had succumbed
to laxity and worldliness. Afterwards, however,
through the influence of Godfrey, Bishop of Char
tres, Bernard's friend, the Archbishop began to
amend his ways. Godfrey induced him to ask for
Bernard's advice. The Superior of Clairvaux re
plied,63 who was he to write to bishops? But,
again, who was he that should not obey ? Being
commanded, he would speak. The Archbishop
was called to an arduous and perilous work, need
ing perpetual prudence. He must never be im
pulsive in judgment, nor passionate in punishing ;
neither lax in things which must be corrected, nor
severe where he ought to spare. Let him acquire
reverence not for his magnificence, his horses, his
princely surroundings, but for his character, re
ligious studies, good works. He is a priest of the
most high God. Whom will he please — God or
the world ? If the world, why is he a priest ? If
God, why does he resemble the world ? Will he
try to serve two masters ? The friendship of the
world is enmity with GOD. If I pleased men, I
should not be the servant of Christ (S. James

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 87
iv. 4 ; Gal. i. 10). What business has a mere monk
to judge bishops ? Would it were possible to shut
his eyes, and not see the scandals around him !
The portion of the poor is squandered in luxury.
The trappings of the horses glitter with gems, while
the limbs of the poor are scarcely clad. Rings
and bells and insignia are not the true accessories
of an apostle. A bishop's real dignity consists in
purity, humility, and charity. " Our glory is this,
the testimony of our conscience." 2 Cor. i. 12.
Nor will even that suffice. Even if I know no
thing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified.
I cannot adequately judge myself, because I do
not adequately know. " He that judgeth me is the
Lord." Bernard here loses all sight of the Arch
bishop, and pours out his soul to Jesus Christ.
Then the Abbot turns indignantly against the
abuses of his day. Mere boys were advanced to
ecclesiastical rank through family influence — youths
just escaped from their masters at school. Not
indeed that any age is premature to the grace of
God, and sometimes the young have more under
standing than their teachers, and compensate by
goodness for what they lack in years. The whole
evil lay in a ruinous ambition. Men will not be
content. The priest must become an archdeacon,
the archdeacon a bishop, the bishop a primate.
And then he must needs haunt the palaces of
Rome, to secure the vote of influential personages.
"Is this all for the good of souls ?" adds Bernard.

88 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Then, with impressive directness, Bernard ven
tures to turn to the Archbishop of Sens. " When
you were first elected to your throne, you wept,
you declined it, you complained, you asserted that
it was an office hopelessly beyond your power.
You said you were wretched and unworthy, un
equal to so holy a ministry, incapable of so
solemn a charge. How is it that now all your fear
and reverence have vanished away, and you go of
your own accord in search of greater dignities
than these, yea, with an irreverent boldness, not
satisfied with your own, you invade the functions
of others ! Why is this ? Is it all for the good of
souls ?"
The same spirit of ambition led superiors of
religious houses to seek exemption from episcopal
control. The mitred abbot, a monk wearing epis
copal insignia, was now to be seen in Christendom.
This mark of ambition Bernard cannot endure.
The mitre is the emblem either of dignity or of
administration. If dignity, it is unbecoming to a
monk. If administration, the Abbot has no diocese.
Work and silence and poverty are the insignia of
the monk, and in these alone the dignity of the
common life consists. But, he adds, declaiming
against conventual ambition, " your eyes are turned
towards every eminence, your feet wander in every
public place, your tongues are heard in every as
sembly, your hands are upon the possessions of
every man. They will claim one day to confer holy

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 89
orders themselves." So wrote Bernard to Henry,
Archbishop of Sens, in 1126.
Beyond the monastery Bernard was concerned
with raising the standard of life among the secular
clergy. Beyond these, the intrepid Abbot stood
forward as the champion of the oppressed : an
office which will probably never be a sinecure on
earth, but which was peculiarly needful in days
when impulsiveness, caprice, arbitrary power were
the frequent administrators of law. Theobald,
Count of Champagne, according to the verdict
of his contemporaries in many respects an ad
mirable person, was fired with anxiety to efface
the irrational practice of duelling. But in his
praiseworthy zeal, he forgot all sense of proportion,
and decreed that those who venturing upon single
combat had the misfortune to be beaten, should
suffer the further penalty of loss both of their eyes
and their possessions. Humbert, one of Theo
bald's dependents, rendered himself liable to this
cruel sentence, which was remorselessly carried out.
The unhappy man and his wife and children were
reduced to the lowest misery and destitution. The
story came to Bernard's ears. In holy anger he
wrote to the barbarous chief.64 Was not Theobald
afraid of the warning which is written, With what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you
again ? Did he not realize that it would be in
comparably easier for God to disinherit him, than
it was for him to disinherit Humbert ? Justice

A.D.
II27.

90 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
demanded that the unhappy victim's property be
restored to him. The innocent children ought not
to be deprived for their father's fault.
So pleaded Bernard with secular chieftains in
behalf of justice and humanity.
Bernard's next vindication of justice takes a yet
higher flight. The offender is a king.
Louis, surnamed the Fat, King of France,
had in some way defrauded Stephen Bishop
of Paris. The king refused to do justice.
Stephen retaliated by employment of that most
terrible spiritual weapon — the interdict. He sus
pended the exercise of religious offices throughout
the diocese, and fled to take refuge at Cistercium.65
An interdict is thus described by an eye-witness.
The sweet chants of the Catholic worship ceased,
no solemn litany, no prayer, no absolution, no
benediction was uttered throughout Paris. The
Eucharistic Sacrifice ceased. The consolations of
the Faith were denied to all except the dying.
The marriage of believing men could not be cele
brated. The churches were forsaken, the doors
were locked, the church bells rang out no more
across the city. Paris, so far as religion was con
cerned, became a desolation.66 The awful silence
was unendurable. Heaven itself had hid its face
from them. Louis dared not brave the conse
quences of his action. Meanwhile in the cloisters of
Citeaux the assembled Abbots of the Order wrote a
bold warning letter to the throne of France.67

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 91
" Stephen, Abbot of Citeaux, and the whole
congregation of Cistercian Abbots and brethren,
to the illustrious Louis, King of the Franks,
greeting. " The King of Heaven and earth has accorded
you a kingdom in this world, and will accord you
one in Heaven, if you strive to administer with
justice and wisdom, the realm you have received.
This we desire of you, for this we intreat, that you
may reign faithfully here, and happily hereafter.
.... Serious charges are brought against you
before the Church's LORD, while the Church ex
periences your hostility where she ought to have your
defence. Do you realize against Whom you have
raised your hand ? It is not the Bishop of Paris,
but the LORD of Paradise, the terrible One, He
Who refrains the spirit of princes. (Ps. lxxvi. 12.)
It is He Who says to the Bishops, Whoso des-
piseth you despiseth Me. (S. Luke x. 16.)"
King Louis had almost yielded, when to the
amazement of the French Episcopate, he suddenly
flourished in their faces a Papal rescript removing
the interdict. Louis triumphed. Armed with
Papal authority he defied the spiritual autho
rities of France, and the Bishops knew that their
one effective weapon was ruthlessly taken away.
Whatever Bernard's attitude to the Papacy might
involve in reverence and devoted service, he was
no advocate for blind submission or unreasoning
obedience. The simple monk of Clairvaux spoke

92 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
out publicly with a freedom and a vigour which
would startle a more subservient theory of Papal
power. Bernard wrote direct to the Pope Honorius.
He stated that the grievous wrongs inflicted upon
the Episcopate, nay upon the whole Church, could
not be passed by in silence. A solemn necessity
forced him into public action from the obscurity of
his cloister. "We have seen it with sorrow, and
with sorrow we speak. The honour of the Church
is not a little impaired in the time of Honorius."68
How Pope Honorius received this rebuke of his
conduct and jest upon his name is not recorded.
But it was evident that fearless utterance of the
simple truth was to be expected from the solitude
of Clairvaux. Bernard received a letter from
Rome apparently to the effect that a monk's place
was the cloister, and that he had best not meddle
in matters beyond his sphere. Bernard wrote
again to Haimeric the Chancellor, explaining that
he had been drawn into the affair by no will of his
own, but by the order of his ecclesiastical superiors.
Would indeed he had not been there ; for he
would have been spared the sight of tyranny
armed by apostolic authority, and advancing
thereby against the Church. He is glad to know
that he may occupy himself with convent routine,
assured that justice will at last be done. Let the
frogs be told to keep within their caves, and be
content with their marshes. Let them neither be

IV.] Bernard as a Monastic Reformer. 93
heard in councils nor met in palaces. His per
sonal determination is not to quit the monastic
precincts except on the business of the order, or
under episcopal command. But for all that, he
warns the Roman Curia that so long as Roman
interference is thus exerted to the detriment of
the absent, no silence on his part will avert the
resistance of the Churches.69

94 S- Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.

LECTURE V.
THE SEVEN YEARS' SCHISM. II30 — 1 1 37.
THE life of the great Hildebrand (Gregory VII.)
to whose powerful ascendency the See of Rome
owes perhaps as much as to any other of her
Bishops, was terminated in 1085, just six years
before Bernard was born. The papacy then as
Bernard knew it bore the impress of that masterful
character. But Hildebrand's successors were not
heirs to his genius. As he lay on the bed of death
his Cardinals besought him to appoint a successor
as Peter had appointed Clement. Hildebrand de
clined the privilege as contravening the Councils
of the Church, but he advised the anxious electors
that if they wanted a man powerful in the world
they would do well to select Desiderius, Abbot of
Monte Casino ; if however they wanted an eccle
siastic and an eloquent man, let them select Odo,
Bishop of Ostia, former Abbot of Cluny. It is a
remarkable evidence of Hildebrand's power, that
both Desiderius and Odo succeeded him.70
Desiderius took the name of Victor III., but his
days were brief. He fell and died at the Altar in
the act of celebrating. It was believed that he

A.D.
1088.

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 95
was poisoned, were it not almost too horrible a
suspicion, in the reception of the sacred chalice
itself. Odo succeeded to the perilous pre-emi
nence, under the title of Urban II. Urban
was distinguished as the instigator of the
first Crusade. Urban guided the Church ten years,
and was followed by Paschal II., who governed
Western Christendom for the exceptionally lengthy
period of twenty years, (1099 — 11 18.) One of the
main struggles which Bernard saw during Paschal's
supremacy was the contest about investiture, in
which he himself was destined to take his part.
Then with singular and painful rapidity the See
of Rome was a constant scene of consecration and
funeral pageant, as the occupants of the papacy
followed each other in swift succession to the
throne and to the grave. After these came Hono
rius II., (11 24 — 1 1 39,) upon whose death Bernard
was called upon to decide the contested suc
cession. The unbelieving gazed with wonder and con
tempt, the devout with profound distress on the
sight of rival Cardinals aspiring to occupy the
vacant papal chair. This was not the first time
nor the last when Rome was the arena of a dis
puted succession. Pope Honorius was on the verge
of death. Intrigue was already active in securing
a successor. With precipitate haste a group of
Cardinals elected Gregory, Cardinal priest of S.

96 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Angelo, almost before the vacancy had occurred ;
some say before the dying man's last agony was
past, or at least before his body was consigned to
the grave. But another powerful section of Cardi
nals yet remained. Determined not to be baffled,
these electors proceeded certainly at a more ap
propriate and becoming time, to confer the coveted
distinction upon Cardinal Peter Leo.71
Peter Leo, son of a Jewish convert of enormous
wealth, heir to a family which had rendered to the
Church many important services, had been edu
cated under most Catholic auspices in the Convent
of Cluny, and had already appeared as Papal
Legate in France in company with Gregory, whose
rival he now became.
Thus the Church possessed two rival claimants
to supremacy. Peter Leo assumed the name of
Anaclete, and through family influence and per
sonal ascendency occupied the Eternal City, where
by the aid of his party he attempted to discharge
the office of the papacy. Meanwhile Gregory, who
had assumed the name of Innocent II., was sup
ported by the Roman clergy, but found it impos
sible to continue within the walls of Rome.
Accordingly schism rent the very centre of West
ern Christendom. And the rivalry born there was
necessarily repeated in miniature in every diocese
and every kingdom. A contemporary historian
describes the miserable results which followed. In
many a diocese two Bishops arose, representing the

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. 97
two rival claimants at Rome. In the very Con
vents two Abbots attempted to rule, one in behalf
of Anaclete, the other of Innocent. It was ex
ceedingly difficult to avoid excommunication, for
each party fulminated against the party opposed ;
Bishops were ranged on either side ; and the hum
ble ranks of the unlearned may well be excused
if they knew not how to discriminate between
plausibly supported rival claims. To put an end
one way or the other to these miserable disunions
was of the highest importance to the well-being
of Christendom.
Innocent sent his legates into France announcing
his succession and claiming submission. Peter,
Abbot of Cluny, returned an affectionate reply.
Cluny was at the Pope's disposal. The venerable
Abbey and all its brethren, and dependent houses
would acknowledge Innocent as their head. Driven
from his city, or guarding his flock, exiled or re
stored, Innocent ,was still their master. Peter in
prison, Clement in exile, were just as truly pri
mates and to be acknowledged as in the hour of
their greatest prosperity.72
Innocent made a bold decision, which events
amply justified. He determined to throw himself
on the loyalty of France. Accordingly he sailed
down the Tiber, and took refuge in the Convent of
Cluny. King Louis, in his perplexity, turned to his
minister. Abbot Suger, however, was on this occa-
H

98 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
sion reluctant to exercise the dangerous office of
adviser. All Christendom seemed involved in the
decision, which however perplexing, was inevitably
forced upon the attention of all the faithful, for not
to acknowledge was practically to repudiate. Con
fronted with this vexed problem of succession, the
King and his minister turned to the only man in
France in whose clearness and discriminating
power all alike confided. Upon the recluse of
Clairvaux rested in a single hour the fate of West
ern Christendom and the peace of the Church.
Louis VI. summoned a national assembly at
Estampes, where the chief spiritual and lay per
sonages of the realm met in council to hear Ber
nard's advice. Bernard's decision was already made.
Summoned by episcopal authority and kingly in
vitation from the convent to the Council, Bernard
threw the whole weight of his influence on Inno
cent's side.
From that moment Innocent prospered. With
Bernard, Innocent had on his side Peter, Abbot of
Cluny, and the powerful influences of the numerous
Cistercian religious houses, the hundreds of Abbots,
the thousands of monks who all acknowledged the
orders of Citeaux. This adherence of Cluny was
all the more remarkable as Anaclete was formerly
a monk of that place.73 Innocent himself con
tinued to seek refuge from Italian violence amid
the loyal devotion of France. And in all his
visits to the French cities the Abbot of Clairvaux

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. 99
is the Pope's almost inseparable companion, writ
ing, speaking, visiting, persuading, denouncing, in
sisting with inexhaustible energy and activity, and
a force of character and weight of influence which
it was everywhere difficult to resist.
Innocent's arrival in France was met by lavish
and generous offerings. The exile and the dis
owned was universally welcomed and reverenced.
The wealthy House of Cluny sent sixty mules
burdened with supplies for the Pope and Cardinals.
The brethren conducted him to Cluny itself, and
entertained him there with his retinue for eleven
days.74 The great Abbey Church of Cluny, with
its five and twenty altars, one of the wonders of
France, was just completed. Innocent himself pro
ceeded to its dedication. All this unquestioning
allegiance told immensely in Innocent's behalf.
One of the strangest incidents of Innocent's stay
in France was a deputation from the Jews, who
met him in Paris with the friendliest greeting, and
presented him with a copy of the Old Testament.
Innocent received them very graciously, and con
versed with them. On parting he uttered an ear
nest prayer, " May the Almighty take away the
veil from your hearts !"75
The French monarch Louis, chiefly through
Bernard's influence, acknowledged Innocent's claim
to the papal throne. Henry I. of England how
ever by the advice of the English episcopate hesi
tated. "You fear lest to acknowledge Innocent

ioo S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
would be a sin. Leave that to me," exclaimed the
intrepid Bernard, " answer to GOD for your other
sins." Henry and England submitted.
Germany followed. Lothair the Emperor was
urged to give in his allegiance. Fully conscious
of the value of his support, Lothair hesitated.
Upon the power of his army depended, humanly
speaking, Innocent's return to Rome. Lothair
determined to improve the occasion. If he ac
cepted Innocent, then the Pope must make some
concession in the vexed question of investitures.
The investiture was the form by which Bishops
and other religious persons were admitted to the
temporal possession of their office. This admis
sion was conferred by the secular authorities, and
was jealously regarded by the spiritual powers.
The investiture thus involved the serious question as
to the limits of spiritual and temporal power. In
vestiture was regarded by the King as an outward
mark of allegiance to himself, it corresponded with
the ancient consent of the laity in the choice of
Bishops, it conveyed possession of endowments,
houses or lands. But on the other hand investi
ture was regarded by the Pope as an invasion of
the spiritual sphere. Gregory VII., better known
as Hildebrand, had abrogated all right of lay in
vestiture A.D. 1075. The question had received a
further settlement at the Concordat of Worms,
A.D. 1 122, just eight years before Lothair raised
this dispute.76

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. 101
Great was the dismay of Innocent and his court.
They were in a strange land, dependent largely
upon the hospitality and protection of the German
King, who thus dexterously chose the hour of the
Pope's greatest weakness for pressing the kingly
rights. But the ever watchful Bernard rose at
once to the Pope's defence ; and before his autho
rity Lothair surrendered.
Bernard may be pardoned if he wrote back with
exultation to the Convent of Clairvaux, describing
how God had prospered his efforts. The Kings of
Germany, France, England, Scotland, Spain, and
Jerusalem, with their respective realms had all
acknowledged Innocent.77
Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, found it ex
ceedingly difficult to discriminate between the
rival Popes. Bernard sent him an earnest letter,
asserting that Innocent was set for the fall and
rising again of many in Israel, while in the person
of his rival the abomination was standing in the holy
place. Innocent is wronged, and innocence with
him. He flees from the face of Leo, as it was written,
" the lion roars, who will not fear ?" (Amos iii. 8.)
He has left Rome according to the precept, " if they
persecute you in one city flee to another." Inno
cent had lost the city of Rome, but had gained the
world. Shimei rages against David, (Gerard of
Angouleme against Innocent,) but all the principal
sovereigns of Europe had given in their allegiance.
Only Ahitophel is ignorant that his counsel is frus-

102 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
trated. That Innocent was the true primate was
proved alike by his election, his reception, his cha
racter. That the Archbishop has been slow to
recognize the truth is not a matter for blame.
Mary herself did not respond to the Angel until
she had considered what manner of salutation this
should be. But it is now high time for Hildebert
to acknowledge the Pontiff, and Bernard counsels
him to do so without further delay.78
Schism was still dominant in the territory of
Aquitaine. Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, had
acknowledged Innocent, conditionally on receiving
from him the position of Legate, which he had
held under previous Popes. Innocent, however, de
clined the conditional acknowledgment, and being
well aware of Gerard's notorious unworthiness, de
posed him from his place as legate, substituting
Bernard's friend, Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres.79
Gerard instantly disowned Innocent, and not only
transferred his allegiance to the rival pope Anaclete,
but also persuaded the Duke of Aquitaine to follow
the course which he had taken. Then, assuming
the functions of papal legate, through the province
of Aquitaine, Gerard proceeded to depose such
bishops as favoured Innocent, and to elect others
in their stead. Bernard then wrote a vigorous
letter to the bishops of Aquitaine, insisting upon
the validity of Innocent's election. Bernard scorn
fully describes Gerard as a new Diotrephes, who
loveth to have the pre-eminence. Gerard called

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 103
himself papal legate in Burgundy and France.
"Let him add Medes and Persians," derisively
exclaims the Abbot. Can Rome have no Pope,
unless Gerard is his legate ? Who gave him this
privilege in the inheritance of Christ? Men
should learn to be content with the angelic dis
tribution, — glory to God, peace to man. Foolish
sons of Adam, who, despising peace and thirsting
after glory, lose both. Innocent had been already
elected, and no second election was possible. More
over Innocent had the advantage every way : in per
sonal character, in priority of election, in the majority
of electors. Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, was ac
tuated by an audacious love of influence. He was
erecting altar against altar, substituting creatures of
his own for duly elected abbots, degrading Catholics,
promoting schismatics, working confusion every
where. Let the faithful observe that all the religious
orders are on Innocent's side — Vallambrosans, Car
thusians, Cluniacs, Cistercians — all with perfect
unanimity have acknowledged him.80
Not satisfied with letter writing, Bernard, at
Geoffrey's pressing invitation, proceeded in person
to Aquitaine. At Poitiers the Abbot of Clairvaux
celebrated the Holy Sacrifice.81 No sooner was
he gone, than the dean had the altar destroyed, in
sign of his hatred of Innocent. At length Bernard
met the Duke of Aquitaine. The Duke reluctantly
offered to make a compromise. He was not dis
inclined to acknowledge Innocent, but to reinstate

104 £• Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
the ejected bishops he steadily refused. Argument
being no further availing, Bernard resorted to
prayer. He entered the church, and celebrated
the Holy Eucharist, in the presence of all who
would enter, while the Duke remained at the doors
without. The Sacrifice proceeded. Then Bernard
arose in the full strength of unassailable conviction.
Bearing upon the paten the consecrated Host, he
passed down between the assembled throng of
prostrate worshippers, and addressed the Duke no
longer in the language of courtierly deference, but
in menacing terms, and accents of reproach and
indignation. /' I besought you," he exclaimed,
" and you despised me. The whole multitude en
treated you, and you met them with contempt.
See now the Son of the Virgin, the Head and
LORD of the Church which you persecute, Himself
approaches you. Your Judge is at hand/at Whose
Name every knee shall bow, of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the earth.
Your Judge is at handjrbefore Whose bar your soul
must one day come. Is it possible that you will
despise Him ? Will you treat Him with the con
tempt which you have measured out to His ser
vants ?"
So pleaded the half-transfigured priest in fearless
audacity, in the overwhelming certainty that he was
in the right. The bystanders wept. The whole
awe-struck multitude stood speechless, in momentary
expectation of some tremendous miracle ; and the

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 105
Duke himself, confronted with the awful Presence
of the Redeemer, dared no longer resist. A sudden
terror came upon him. He trembled visibly, and
fell prostrate to the earth, and when his soldiers
raised him, he fell again, and lay in the dust
as paralysed, i Bernard stood over the cowering
Duke, pushed him with his foot, ordered him to
rise. " See," he said, " the Bishop whom you ex
pelled from his church is here ; go, and be re
conciled." Without a word the submissive noble
arose, conquered by the presence of the Holy Sa
craments, and, amid universal rejoicing, reinstated
the Bishop whom he had most iniquitously driven
away. Afterwards Bernard and the Duke were
seen walking together as friends, while the Abbot
gently besought him henceforward to be true, lest
he should by renewed injustice provoke too far the
forbearance of GOD.
While a fugitive from Rome, Innocent and his
court visited Clairvaux. The austere simplicity
deeply impressed them. No purple, no silken vest
ments, no gorgeous hangings adorned the sacred
shrine. No costly marble gleamed upon the walls.
The very vessels of the sanctuary were of the
poorest kind. No art and splendour, upon which
the eye might rest with satisfaction. The elaborate
melodies of Italian devotion were here exchanged
for severe simplicity : the illuminated missals, the
jewelled crucifixes, for poorest manuscripts, and
wooden cross. Innocent with his attendant car-

106 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
dinals were affected even to tears. The entire
unworldliness, the saintly character of the good
brothers, made a memorable impression.
But months and even years were passing away.
Innocent's accession dates from 1130. It was now
1 133. The Pope could not remain a burden upon
the hospitality of France,82 and the cost of maintain
ing his court was certainly no trifling consideration.
Innocent gazed anxiously towards his own city,
where Anaclete was meanwhile strengthening his
position, by crowning Roger, Duke of Apulia, as
King of Sicily, thus securing him the more de
votedly in his behalf. Innocent's anxiety increased,
and accompanied by Lothair, and followed by Ber
nard, he determined to begin the return journey
towards Rome. The Pope and the Emperor en
tered Rome together in triumph. Innocent was en
throned within the Lateran Palace. The Antipope
Anaclete retired to the Castle of S. Angelo, and
from the midst of its fortifications, still continued
to govern a considerable portion of Rome.
Meanwhile, in the church of S. John Lateran,
Innocent placed the crown upon Lothair. Thus
each, in the face of the world, acknowledged the
other.83 Lothair acknowledged Innocent in being
crowned by him, and Innocent recognized in Lo
thair the lawful emperor. Lothair returned to his
people ; but Innocent, without the German army,
was unable to retain the city. The party of Ana
clete was still too powerful, and Innocent took

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 107
refuge in Pisa. Bernard congratulated the city
which opened its gates to the truth. Pisa has
taken the place of Rome.84 But the city of Milan
was still rebellious. And here Innocent desired to
act with great severity. Bernard, however, reproved
him, reminding Innocent of the passage in the Gos
pel, " Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit
on this fig tree, and find none." S. Luke xiii. 7.
" Three years !" exclaims Bernard ; " you have not
waited six months. Even had you waited three
years, I would say as in the parable, let it alone
this year also."85
Bernard was right. He thoroughly understood
the Milanese, and meanwhile wrote to the people
in mingled expressions of praise and warning.
" Hear me," he insists ; " I tell you the truth ; I do
not lie. I am your lover ; I am concerned for
your salvation. The Roman Church is very mer
ciful, but she is mighty. It is a faithful saying, it
is worthy of all men to be received. Do not abuse
her clemency, lest you experience her power."86
Whatever the Milanese might think of Bernard's
assertions, they respected, they reverenced Bernard's
life. The fame of his severe ascetic self-discipline
had preceded him, and nowhere did the ascetic life
find more eager devoted admirers than at Milan.
Monasticism had flourished there certainly not less.
than 800 years, since the days of Ambrose, their
Bishop. The Milanese surrendered to Bernard's will,
and Innocent was henceforth their Pope. Bernard

108 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
himself visited the admiring city. They rejected
Anaclete. They acknowledged Innocent. They
swore on the Gospels fealty to the Emperor Lothair,
and Innocent restored their forfeited privileges.
Bernard writes triumphantly to Lothair. The
Sicilian usurper is disowned ; Lothair is lord of
Milan ; and the Jewish Leo no longer occupies the
throne of Peter.
Bernard's entry into Milan was a progress more
than royal. The simple inhabitants surrounded
him with a veneration indiscriminate and excessive.
They felt themselves abundantly rewarded if pri
vileged to hear his voice. Much to his discomfort
they crowded round him, insisted on kissing his
feet, wanted fragments of his robes to apply to the
sick, and maintained that everything which Bernard
•touched was sanctified. They preceded him, they
surrounded him, they followed him. There was
no escape from the besetting multitudes. Amid
this overwhelming enthusiasm, public business was
suspended. All crowded round Bernard, to touch
him, or to receive his blessing. Even the Church,
during the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, was not
exempt from their invasion. They followed him up
to the altar steps. They brought him a little girl,
" vexed with a devil." They entreated him to use
his influence with heaven to restore her to health.
According to their entreaties.he took the consecrated
chalice, and poured of the Blood of Christ upon the
afflicted lips. And as if the devil was being burnt

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. 109
up, he hastened to escape, and the child was well.87
But — greatest miracle of miracles — in the midst of
all this incense of veneration, Bernard retained his
humility. Kings sought his counsel, Popes sent
him on missions of high importance, people crowded
at his feet ; but Bernard was still the lowest of
all in his own esteem. It was the Eternal Who
did all these wonders, and Bernard was nothing
but ashes and dust. The simple-minded crowds
idolized the saintly Abbot. They must retain him
in their city. He must become their Archbishop.
And they would have made him their spiritual
head, had he not gently but firmly resisted. " To
morrow," he said, in his quaint but subtle manner,
" I will mount on horseback, and if I am carried
beyond your city walls, I will not become what
you desire ; but if I am not carried beyond your
walls, then I will undertake it."
Needless to say, that on the morrow the horse
took Bernard far beyond the city walls. But the
people were content, for the sign was conclusive.
This gifted man, with his marvellous ascendancy
over whole cities, over educated and illiterate alike,
this maker of Bishops and Popes, refused all offices
of high distinction. He was determined to remain
a mere monk to the end.88
For three entire years the needs of the Church
at large enforced S. Bernard's absence from the
beloved retreat of Clairvaux. But in spirit he was
ever there. He rejoiced to withdraw in thought
from the distractions and turbulences and self-

1 10 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
seeking and disputes which incessantly beat upon
him in the clouded atmosphere of the greater world,
and to be once more obscure, unnamed, unknown
in the place of study and of prayer. Whenever he
could escape he did. The adviser of princes, the
confidant of popes, was at his best in the quiet
convent, writing on Humility, or the Love of GOD,
or on the Song of Songs. And when he preached
to the brotherhood on such themes as these, he
seemed raised above the ordinary dull earth on
which the feet of all men tread.
If there is one doctrine which, more than an
other, Bernard may be said to have made his own,
it is the doctrine of the Divine Love. This aspect
of the truth penetrates his whole being. The
imagery, the passionate language of Solomon's
Song, was to him a faint expression of the intense
devotion which exists between the awakened soul
and its GOD. Everything is transfigured and spi
ritualised. And the beauty and refinement of his
thoughts, the profound living reality of love be
tween GOD and man, the depth of devotion, are
indeed perfectly amazing. Ascetic meditations
such as these, intended solely for the minds of a
religious order, will undoubtedly be cast in a form
uncongenial to modern popular belief, will be
deemed unpractical, and judged as obsolete. Per
haps in many ways they are. Yet for vivid reali
sation of the love of GOD, we shall not easily find
a rival to the sweet eloquence of Clairvaux.

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. in

Bernard would sometimes preach in the early
morning, before the Holy Eucharist; sometimes,
again, in the evening. His addresses contain many
local touches, nor does he hesitate to call attention
to the fact that drowsiness would occasionally seize
upon the brothers, and not all his efforts succeed
in keeping them awake. He admits, on one such
occasion, that the midnight office was very long,
and is very willing to invent excuse.89 The secret
of Bernard's power as a preacher lay in his won
derful knowledge of human nature, and in his ex
traordinary facility for adapting his style to the
particular class of hearers. Enraptured chroniclers
declare that Bernard perfectly realized the intel
lectual capacity, the customs and life and moral
standard of those to whom he spoke. Before a
rustic audience he gave the impression of lifelong
familiarity with rustic ways, In a learned assembly
he exhibited knowledge of learned studies. With
the simple, he was simple ; with the spiritually-
minded, he was profound. He adapted himself to
all capacities : his one supreme ambition being to
win all men to Christ.
In addition to the expository and devotional
addresses on Solomon's Song, a large collection of
Bernard's sermons on the Seasons of the Christian
Year, and on general Christian duties, is preserved.
The main feature which distinguishes Bernard from
many of the preachers in early Christendom, is
that, while Chrysostom and Augustine address

112 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
almost exclusively the popular congregations of
their respective cities, Bernard's instructions are for
the monastic ear. This fact of course determines
the nature and form of his teaching. Bernard's
hearers would undoubtedly be very mixed, but
they would require a totally different order of in
struction from that suited to the common world.
Bernard's cast of mind was not so much of a spe
culative order. He rarely penetrated far into the
great problems of human destiny. For critical
acumen, for profound reasonings, we have to look
elsewhere. Bernard's gift lay chiefly in intensely
devout and glowing meditations on the faith. He
delighted most in that portion of theology which
concerns the soul in its progress towards God — the
various stages of religious advancement, the moral
hindrances to entire conversion, the practical duties,
penitence, confession, fasting, almsgiving, prayer,
obedience, the Christian graces, the steps of holi
ness. In these, and such like themes, Bernard is
at once most profitable, and in his most congenial
sphere. Bernard revelled in elaboration. His three
fold, fourfold, sevenfold divisions, his seven divi
sions each subdivided into three, are at once most
intricate, and more suggestive of innate delight in
the mystery of numbers, than of thoughts which
flow out in logical and irresistible order. Teaching
which is entirely forced into such divisions is apt
to lose its naturalness, and assume an aspect very
artificial. In Bernard's master hands this is indeed

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 113
rarely the case, but with a less able mind such
result would be inevitable. At the same time these
subdivisions are undoubtedly an aid to memory,
and as such calculated to make a more abiding
impression on the hearer's mind. One notable
feature of Bernard's writings is the marvellous way
in which all his teaching is saturated with Holy
Scripture. His memory of the Psalms, the strange
ness at first sight, but yet peculiar appropriateness
of quotation, the insight, which attests long silent
pondering over the sacred page, until new depths
and fresh significances have opened out before
him, is little less than amazing. The old familiar
words are illuminated by an intensity of meaning
which the casual listener could not detect.
S. Bernard's private Secretary has left us a de
scription of the room at Clairvaux where much of the
work was done. Bernard's study was in the very
centre of the monastic buildings, the door opened
upon the cell of the novices, which was crowded in
Clairvaux's palmy days by learned and illustrious
men humbly seeking admission into the order. On
the right was the cloister and the cells where the
brothers passed the hours in study of the sacred
books ; a region of silence, and peace, and peniten
tial devotion. On the left was the infirmary where
the severer monastic discipline was relaxed for
those whose strength of body was not equal to the
continual strain. Bernard's study was by no means
to be despised, it was full of the choicest books.
1

1 14 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Here Nicolaus the secretary passed his days trans
cribing the MSS., or writing at Bernard's dictation.
From morning to night, says Nicolaus with some
thing approaching a sigh, this was his occupation.90
These quiet devotional hours at Clairvaux were
much after Bernard's heart. But they were speedily
broken through. The distracted state of the Church
repeatedly demanded his presence elsewhere.
In 1 137 Bernard is in Italy again. The great
Monastery of Monte Casino, the training place of
many popes, had itself become infected with the
schismatic spirit, had in fact abandoned Innocent's
cause. Through Bernard's influence their allegiance
was renewed.
Last of all monarchs to capitulate, Roger of
Sicily still stood out. Bernard crossed to Sicily,
there to be confronted with the incorrigible Roger,
who reluctantly consented to a conference. Anaclete
sent three Cardinals as his defenders, among whom
the chief was the learned and formidable Cardinal
Peter of Pisa. The Cardinal delivered an address
replete with learning, acute, argumentative, in behalf
of Anaclete. But he was no match for Bernard's
simplicity. " I know," said he, " that you are a very wise
and very learned person, Peter. Would that the
truer interest, the better cause could claim you !
You would then be irresistible. I am an unlearned
man, more used to country life than logical dispu
tation, and if the cause of faith did not compel

v.] The Seven Years' Schism. 115
me, would rest in silence. But charity requires
that I should speak, now that the Redeemer's
robe which neither Jew nor Gentile rent in our
SAVIOUR'S Passion, is torn and pierced by Peter
Leo. There is one faith, one LORD, one baptism.
We do not acknowledge two lords, two faiths,
two baptisms. To go back to early ages — there
was one ark at the time of the flood. In that ark
eight souls were saved ; all others perished. To be
outside that ark was destruction. That the ark is
a type of the Church, there is no one who will
deny. A second ark is lately builded ; and since
there are two, needs must that one is false, and
shall be sunk in the deep. If the ark which Peter
rules is of God, then the ark which Innocent rules
must perish. Then the whole Eastern Church
must perish ; the whole Western Church also must
perish ; France must perish ; Germany must perish.
The Christianity of English and barbaric kingdoms
must also be destroyed. The religion of the Car
thusians, and Cistercians, and all the other Orders
must all alike perish in the deep. Alone then of
all princes there is found in Peter's true ark — this
Roger! All the rest being overthrown, shall he
alone be saved ? God forbid that the religion of
all the world should be valueless, and the ambition
of this Peter should secure for itself the Kingdom
of Heaven !"
The Abbot of Clairvaux's utterances fell on will
ing ears. The assembly abjured Anaclete. Ber-

116 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
nard extended his hand to Cardinal Peter of Pisa,
" Let us enter together into the safer ark," said he.
And lo once more his extraordinary influence pre
vailed. Taking the Cardinal by the hand, Bernard
led him away and reconciled him to Innocent.91
King Roger was left almost alone a reluctant
witness to Bernard's moral ascendency, amazed,
but unconvinced. Roger knew that to acknow
ledge Innocent was to part with broad lands which
the Pope claimed as his patrimony. But Anaclete
felt that his power was broken. Abandoned by
his most trusted defender of Pisa, the Antipope
grew embittered, a disappointed man, secluding
himself more and more from the world.
For seven years the disputed succession lingered,
and all that time Anaclete held the city.
Then suddenly without warning Anaclete,
while seated quietly in his room, expired.
The body was hurried away and buried secretly,
none knew where. But the schism survived.92
The electing Cardinals had committed them
selves too deeply to hope for reconciliation. They
were forced by their own past to perpetuate the
schism. They must needs elect some one. Their
choice fell on Victor, a mere figure-head, a cari
cature of a Pontiff, whose powerlessness helped to
overwhelm the party, and speedily bring things to
an end. Victor, painfully conscious of the absur
dity of his position, within a few days after his
election secretly betook himself, under shadow of

A.D.
1 138.

V.] The Seven Years' Schism. 117
night, to Bernard's presence, entreating to be re
conciled with Innocent. Thus the most singular
good fortune fell to Bernard's share. He brought
the Antipope into Innocent's presence, and saw
him there lay down his usurped authority.
Bernard sent a very jubilant message to Clair
vaux. In the octave of Whitsuntide GOD had
fulfilled the longing of his heart, God had given
unity to the Church, and peace to the city. All
the adherents of Peter Leo had acknowledged
Innocent. Bernard is coming back to the brother
hood at Clairvaux. Behold I come quickly, and
my reward is with me, the triumph of JESUS
Christ, and the peace of the Church.93

u 8 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.

LECTURE VI.
BERNARD AND INNOCENT.
Bernard and Innocent stand contrasted together,
the one as officially the greatest, the other as mo
rally the greatest personage in Christendom of that
age. And the boldness of Bernard's language to
the Pope, the dignity of his rebukes, are as signi
ficant as they are amazing.
There were occasions when Bernard, labouring
to reduce rebellious cities to unity with Innocent,
ascribed to the Pope an exaggerated authority,
which it is impossible to reconcile with more pri
mitive Catholic principles. When the Abbot of
Clairvaux asserts that plenitude of power over all
the Churches of the world is the peculiar preroga
tive of the Apostolic see ; that he who resists this
power, resists the ordinance of God ; that the
Pope can by his sole authority, deprive and make
Bishops, and summon at will the highest eccle
siastical personages from the most distant places
to his presence, Bernard is assuming doctrinal
positions, with which his own language elsewhere,
and his own constant attitude towards Rome, is
totally inconsistent.94 Bernard dealing with the

VI-] Bernard and Innocent. 119

Pope's enemies, is a different being from Bernard
dealing with the Pope himself.
1. Innocent was greater in misfortune than in
prosperity. The deprived and bereaved Pope, ap
pealing to the compassion of his children in France,
is a figure of pathetic dignity. But Innocent in
prosperity descended to the level of meaner men.
No longer the careworn prelate, overwhelmed with
grave anxiety and uncertainty from day to day,
he was now at the height of his triumph, and
saw every enemy prostrated at his feet. And the
change was too much for him. He could not resist
the opportunity of retaliating upon his now help
less foes. He had not the generosity to pardon,
nor the magnanimity to forget. The sufferings of
the past seven years had embittered his spirit, and
warped his judgment, and he broke without hesi
tation the solemn pledges of forbearance and mercy
to which, under stress of difficulty, he had also
without hesitation committed himself.
Innocent held a Council in Rome, and there
cancelled the position and office of all the Cardinals
who had formerly opposed him. In this indiscri
minate punishment, Peter of Pisa was included.
At this, Bernard was especially indignant. For
Peter had expressly pleaded that if reconciled to
the Pppe, no such acts of severity should be passed
against him. And to this condition Bernard, as
Innocent's legate, had, with the Pope's approval,
fully consented. To go back from this position

1 20 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
was then nothing less than a breach of faith. Ac
cordingly Bernard wrote repeatedly to Innocent,
expressing his strong dissatisfaction.95 But Inno
cent was immoveable. He was tasting the plea
sures of revenge. Bernard expostulated in still
more vehement terms. He did not hesitate to risk
the favour with which Rome regarded him, in his
determination to see justice done. " How am I to
obtain justice from you ?" asks the Abbot. If
there were a judge before whom he could summon
him, Innocent should be told what he deserves.
There is indeed the tribunal of CHRIST. But Ber
nard would rather appear there in Innocent's
defence. I summon you before yourself. Do you
judge between yourself and me. Did you not ap
point me your legate ? If you deny it, I will prove
it by witnesses. What has induced the Pope to
cancel his own decision ? For the sake of Him
Who spared not Himself, Bernard urges the Pope
to revert to his former sentence, and maintain his
own consistency.
2. But Innocent was evidently concentrating all
his energies on retaliation. Roger of Sicily still re
mained the solitary opponent of his now triumphant
see. Accordingly Innocent proceeded to take mea
sures for suppression of this rebellious realm.
Divesting himself of his sacred functions, Innocent
became leader of an armed host, and proceeded in
person against Roger. But if Innocent was an
able bishop, he was a bad general. He was snared

VI.] Bernard and Innocent. 121
by his subtle foe, surrounded, conquered, and
taken prisoner. But whatever were Roger's im
pressions of Innocent's military skill, he stood in
awe of his prisoner's spiritual office. Innocent the
prisoner obtained better terms from his conqueror
than he secured while he was free.
There remains recorded no word of rebuke from
Bernard to Innocent upon this episode in the papal
career. But what Bernard thought of military
bishops is plainly written in those celebrated lines
of mingled sarcasm and invective, in which he de
nounced the secular conduct of religious men.
3. Bernard's plain language to the Pope and the
Cardinals must have been at times somewhat too
plain to be congenial. Innocent and the Roman
Court had cancelled the election of William, Arch
bishop of York. The following Pope reversed his
predecessor's decision. Bernard was indignant.
William boasts the possession of letters from Rome :
would they were written by the Prince of Darkness,
and not by the prince of the Apostles ! The sons
of the uncircumcised triumph. They deride a Court,
which, after giving public decision, reverses it by
private letters. Religious men cannot conscien
tiously receive the Sacrament from the leprous
hands of the papal favourite, William of York.
He appeals from the Court of Rome to the Court
of Heaven — that Court whose judgment cannot be
perverted by ambition.96
4. Innocent found in Bernard his most able and

122 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
devoted defender. And the Abbot became more
and more indispensable to the Pope. Innocent
made Bernard his adviser, and consulted him upon
the most intricate affairs of Christendom. Bernard's
authority grew continually. He powerfully influ
enced the choice of bishops ; tells Innocent plainly
that Bernard de Portis, just elected to a bishopric
in Lombardy, is unsuited for the peculiar difficulties
of the work, and prevails ; writes to Rome, in be
half of the Bishop of London and the Archbishop
of Canterbury, who are being unjustly treated ;
reminds the Pope that the noblest gem in the Papal
tiara is zeal in behalf of the oppressed, a determi
nation that the rod of the ungodly should not
come into the lot of the righteous. He writes to
vacant dioceses regulating the election of new
bishops.97 5. One of the most singular instances of Bernard's
ascendency yet remains to be told.98 It was during
Bernard's stay in Rome. The Archbishop of Lyons
arrived. There came also Robert, Dean of Langres,
and Olric, one of the Canons, to obtain Papal per
mission for the Chapter of Langres to proceed to
elect a Bishop for the vacant see. The Pope en
joined them to take no steps without consulta
tion with members of some religious order. Dean
Robert and Canon Olric accordingly fixed upon
Bernard. Bernard would be no party to it unless
he were given precise and definite information as
to the intended election. The Dean and Canon

VI.] Bernard and Innocent. 123
promised to do nothing without Bernard's advice.
But Bernard was not even then content. Robert
and Olric brought the Archbishop to reinforce their
promise. The Archbishop declared that he would
refuse to confirm the Chapter's election unless they
abode by Bernard's advice. The Chancellor of the
Roman see was also brought in as further witness.
Bernard did not rest until the Pope himself had
been consulted, and approved the procedure. Two
candidates were nominated between whom the
Chapter was to decide. Then Bernard, satisfied
that everything was concluded, left Rome to retire
to Clairvaux. But, as he crossed the Alps, a rumour
reached him that the whole of this engagement
was being unscrupulously set aside, and another
person elected to the bishopric. Bernard was sick
in body, and worn with work, and longed to reach
the quiet cloisters of Clairvaux ; yet at the earnest
entreaty of certain religious, he was induced to
visit Lyons, where he instantly confronted the
Archbishop, who admitted that the rumour was
true, but excused himself on the ground that he
was afraid of the secular authorities. Fortified by
Bernard's presence, he agreed that all should be
done after Bernard's will. " Certainly not," ex
claimed the Abbot ; " not my will, but the will of
God be done." Meanwhile the intruded candidate
arrived. But hearing that Bernard was there, he
did not appear at the palace, but lodged at an inn.
He arrived on Friday night, and left on Saturday

124 >$"• Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect*
morning. He had retired apparently vanquished
from the field without a conflict. But the intruder
had stealthily departed to the French king, whom
he induced to grant his investiture in the temporal
possessions of the see : and after Bernard left
Lyons, secured the election which he could not get
during the bold Abbot's presence in the city.
When the news reached Clairvaux, to which
Bernard had retreated, his anger burst forth fu
riously. He wrote indignantly to Innocent. He
wrote again more furiously. Men had added ini
quity to iniquity. They neither regarded equity
nor law, nor the sacred canons of the Church. It
is not his to accuse or blame any one. But he
appeals in virtue of his services and severe toil
endured for the Roman Church. Broken in bodily
strength, he had carried his life in his hands, and
was content that it should be so. But he is evi
dently determined that no man shall be bishop at
Langres without his own consent.
Here Peter, Abbot of Cluny, intervened. The
intruder so called, was a Cluniac monk. Rumour
had indeed busily detracted from his character :
but rumour was false. Let Bernard accept the fact
on Peter's authority ; the monk was above suspicion.
Not that it mattered much to the Abbey of Cluny,
whether one of its monks should be entrusted with
the charge of a diocese so obscure as Langres.
Cluny had supplied to Christendom Bishops, Arch
bishops, Patriarchs, and even Popes, and could well

VI.] Bernard and Innocent. 125
afford to regard the affairs of Langres with com
plete indifference. Hildebrand himself had been a
monk of Cluny. But Abbot Peter's letter of re
monstrance was unavailing. Bernard wrote again,
this time to the Cardinals' Papal Court, in more
passionate terms than ever. They knew, if only
they would condescend to remember, how he had
lived among them in the evil time of the schism,
going out and coming in, and continuing with them
in their temptations. But his reward was increase
of sorrow. The mighty gods of the earth have
lifted up themselves against him — the Archbishop
of Lyons and the Abbot of Cluny, trusting in
their strength, boasting themselves in the multi
tude of their riches, have advanced against him.
And not against him alone, but against the servants
of GOD, against the Roman Cardinals, against their
own advantage, against all justice and truth, against
GOD. They have put a man over our head,
who is at once the shame of the good and the
laughter of the base. Let the Roman Curia see
to it, and set it straight. Was it worthy of them
to refuse him a share in their peace, who had will
ingly shared their sorrows ? He insists that they
may not and cannot decline his request.
Bernard conquered. Everything gave way before
his passionate appeals and determined resistance.
The Archbishop of Lyons gave way to him. The
Cardinals and the Pope gave way. The Abbot of
Cluny gave way. The elected Bishop of Langres

126 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
was sent back to the cloister whence he issued,
and Bernard selected a new candidate, Godfrey,
his prior at Clairvaux, whom he caused to be en
throned in the disputed seat.
6. Bernard's profound knowledge of the eccle
siastical affairs of Europe rendered it impossible
that the gradual encroachings of the Papal over
the Episcopal authority should escape his watchful
eyes. Bernard saw clearly that through the practice
of incessant appeals to Rome," the Episcopal order
was being slowly and steadily subordinated to the
Papal. He tells Innocent that he will speak confidently,
because he loves faithfully. The complaints re
cently uttered by the Bishop of Treves are not his
alone, but widespread among those who are de
voted to the Papal interest. The most exemplary
members of the Episcopate are complaining that
justice has ceased in the Church, that the power of
the keys is being destroyed, and the Episcopal
authority lowered, since none of the Bishops is left
free in the administration of his own diocese.
Everything is being referred to the Pope and the
Roman Curia. The Bishops complain that the Pope
frustrates their just decisions, and re-establishes the
evil which they cast down. Any turbulent priest,
or layman or monk, escaped from his convent,
rushes off to Rome, and returns exulting that he
has found a protector where he ought to have
encountered an avenger. For shame, exclaims

VL] Bernard and Innocent. 127

Bernard. Oh, the scorn and laughter which this
creates among the Church's enemies ! The faithful
are wronged, the Bishops treated with contempt,
and while their right judgments are cancelled, no
reputation suffers more grievously than the Pope's.
Albero, Archbishop of Treves, was, in Bernard's
opinion, entirely mistrusted and misunderstood by
Innocent. Albero strove to raise the religious
standard in the Abbey of S. Maximin, close to
his city, but found himself frustrated by the Pope's
interference. Bernard's first letter seems to have
been ineffective. He wrote again, assuring Inno
cent that he was utterly wrong in his estimate of
the Abbot and the Bishop. While none was truer
than the Bishop, or more worthless than the Ab
bot, Innocent had honoured the worthless, and de
spised the true. Bernard says he began by pitying
the unfortunate Archbishop, but unless the Pope
speedily changes, all his pity will be wanted for
him who, while able to rectify a serious blunder,
refused to do it. Whatever stains the name of
Innocent goes to Bernard's heart.
Considering the speaker, this bold resistance to
Papal encroachments is in itself most significant,
and more remarkable still is the language in which
that resistance is expressed. That centralising
power which would make Roman a synonym for
Catholic, and rule all Christendom from the Vatican,
was becoming even then practically destructive to
the Episcopate, reducing them from the position of

1 28 6*. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
equal authority and independent power which they
held in the earlier centuries, to the position of
entire inferiority, a lower order beneath the suc
cessors of S. Peter. Bernard saw the evil, and
attempted to resist it. But the whole tendency of
the age had especially since Hildebrand set that
way. Nor can it be denied that Bernard's own
teaching increased the evil he resented. He seems
to ignore that this absolutism was a legitimate
inference deducible from certain of his own ex
pressions. Nor can it be said that Bernard's practice was con
sistent. For when Innocent offered to render the
whole Cistercian order independent of the Bishop in
whose diocese they worked, Bernard accepted it, —
" We forbid any Archbishop or Bishop to summon
you or your successors, or any Abbot of the Cister
cian order, before his Council or Synod, except only
in matters of faith." This dangerous immunity
often seriously increased the Bishop's difficulties, by
placing in his diocese an organized body of men,
over whom he had practically no control. It was
an exercise of Papal authority which would most
certainly not have been tolerated in a more Ca
tholic and less Romanized period. And had Ber
nard been true to the lines of his former protest,
he must have been the first to decline an indepen
dence of Episcopal control, which his own eyes
saw to be so dangerous to the best interests of the
Church. The privilege which Bernard that day

VL] Bernard and Innocent. 1 29

accepted at Innocent's hands was destined to
work out disastrous consequences in the follow
ing centuries. And the subsequent decline of the
religious orders has been in no small degree
attributed to their emancipation from Episcopal
control. The seven years' schism now ended, Bernard
was once more free to return to the cloistered life,
and to resume his spiritual instruction on the
Song of Songs. Here a new sorrow awaited him.
Bernard's brother Gerard died. Gerard had been
his right hand in matters of administration, prov
ing himself invaluable during the Abbot's pro
tracted absences. Gerard was not a student or an
intellectually gifted man, but he fully realized his
brother's surpassing powers, and accordingly set
himself to secure Bernard from unnecessary inter
ruptions. Gerard was singularly free from self-seek
ing ; his heart was invaded by no sense of jealousy ;
he underrated the extent of his own abilities, and re
joiced to minister to his brother's greater usefulness.
Visitors at the monastery always encountered the
watchful Gerard, who settled everything which
lay within his power, leaving only the more diffi
cult cases to be referred to his brother. The end
less details of practical management were through
Gerard's loving assiduity quietly disposed of with
out Bernard's intervention. So Bernard studied
and prayed, prepared his addresses and instructed
the Community, while Gerard toiled in the round of
K

130 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
daily duties. Then suddenly the humble-minded
brother was taken ill and died.
The whole Community was overwhelmed with
grief, but Bernard above all. His brother after
the flesh, his brother after the spirit, lay there
dead ; and Bernard had to say the last offices of
the dead for him, and to cast the dust upon
Gerard's lifeless frame. The Abbot by a supreme
effort suppressed all outward signs of his emotion
at the grave. Faith ought, he felt, to conquer
grief. Afterwards he began as usual his medita
tions on the Canticles ; the passage taken in its
natural order being the verse, " As the tents of
Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." Cant. i. 5.
Bernard began calmly as usual, as if nothing had
happened. But his emotions mastered him. He
suddenly broke off, and poured out his whole heart
in pathetic utterances of mingled faith and grief
over Gerard's departure.100
But Bernard's private grief was speedily invaded
by the sorrows of the Church. Innocent was per
petually referring the difficulties of the Gallican
Church to Clairvaux. Now and then, Bernard ex
postulated, protesting against the heavy burdens
laid upon him. "Did I ask your lordship for a
bishopric ?" he wrote reproachfully. " If I had co
veted an episcopal throne, certainly it was not
Treves — a stiff-necked and discontented people, in
cessantly raising discord, and resisting the Church."
He cannot endure them. He has received a most

VI.]- Bernard and Innocent. 131
difficult charge, no doubt a punishment for his sins.
And to increase his difficulties the Suffragan Bishops
at Treves are young and noble, and are so far from
supporting him, that he is fortunate if they are not
his resolute antagonists.101
Bernard's indignation was next roused by
a grave wrong to the sanctity of marriage.102
Ralph, Count of the Viromandi, had mar-

A.D.
1 142.

ried a sister of Count Theobald. The opportunity
afterwards presented itself of a much more ad
vantageous match. Accordingly Ralph aban
doned his wife, and married Petronilla, the Queen's
sister. The heartless Ralph induced three bishops
secretly to sanction the divorce. But Count Theo
bald, bitterly indignant over his sister's disgrace,
appealed to the Pope, who through his legate,
Cardinal Ivo, cancelled the marriage, excommu
nicated Ralph, and suspended from their functions
the three subservient episcopal advisers. Here
upon King Louis interposed. Petronilla's cancelled
marriage reflected dishonour upon his own Queen.
And against all justice Louis fell furiously upon
the territories of Theobald, who had provoked the
inquiry. Theobald, reduced to the direst distress
was forced to take an oath that he would plead
with the Pope for the removal of Ralph's ex
communication. All this the Abbot of Clairvaux, watching over
the affairs of France, witnessed with shame. He
had long since expressed himself to Innocent on

132 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
the iniquitous procedure of the three bishops. It
was written, What GOD hath joined let not man
put asunder. But presumption had even ven
tured to this extreme. It is not aliens who have
done the Church this dishonour, nor strangers to
the sanctuary, but the living representatives of
those to whom it was said, If ye love Me, keep
My commandments. Count Ralph and his wife
GOD Himself had through the ministers of the
Church joined together, and the Church through
God Who had given such power unto men. Shall
the Court of Rome separate those whom the
Church has joined together ? Louis' treatment of
Count Theobald was abhorrent to all principles
of justice.
"What had Count Theobald done to merit
this ?" exclaimed Bernard indignantly. " What
was his sin ? If it is wrong to love righteousness
and hate iniquity, then indeed Theobald cannot be
defended. If it is wrong to render to the king the
things which are Caesar's, and to God the things
which are God's, then Theobald cannot be de
fended." To the King himself Bernard wrote with well
deserved severity. " Whatever you may be pleased
to do with your kingdom, your conscience, and
your crown, we, sons of the Church, cannot pass
over the wrongs, the insults, the oppression in
flicted upon our Mother." Louis' conduct re
minded the Abbot of the prophetic rebuke, " When

VI.] Bernard and Innocent. 133
thou sawest a thief thou consentedst unto him, and
hast been partaker with the adulterers." Ps. 1. 18.
" I tell you if you persist in this conduct, it will
not long be unavenged. Satan alone could be
the instigator of such flagrant injustice."
To Bernard's defence of the cruelly injured no
reply was possible. In this question of divorce
the Church stood before the world, invested with
the moral power inseparable from conscious purity
of motive and loftiness of Creed. And when the
selfishness of human passion threatened to destroy
the sanctity of family life, surely the fearless utter
ances of men who could neither be silenced by love
of popularity, nor awed by secular authority, nor
bribed into submission, was a benediction to man
kind. The three abject episcopal advisers who
dared not force upon a king the moral truth which
he knew very well, sink away nameless into oblivion ;
but the Abbot of that lowly community who
brought the truth before kings, and was not afraid,
stands out very gloriously as the champion of
purity, and honour, and justice, in a barbaric and
selfish world.
But Bernard was only the mouthpiece of the
Church. It was the very safety of mankind that a
moral authority should exist, before which princes
and popular clamour alike should lay aside their
violence, and listen as to a voice from Heaven.
Bernard wrote also to Suger, Abbot of S. Denys,
and to the King's advisers. Such a measure as

134 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Louis' recent action could scarcely have taken place
without their knowledge. And the absence of all
protest rendered them liable to suspicion for in
difference, if not actually responsible for concur
rence in guilt.
All that Bernard could find to say in the King's
favour was that he was passionate, and that he was
young. Louis was also in the same predicament
as Herod. He had rashly vowed that no power
on earth should induce him to accept the recently
appointed bishops. And the French conscience was
not alive to the fact that a rash oath is not binding.
But the state of the Gallican Church was in
consequence most lamentable. Chapters were pro
hibited from electing bishops, and if they dared to
brave the royal injunction the newly appointed
were not permitted to exercise their office. The
diocese of Paris was without a bishop, no one
ventured to suggest a successor.
But Bernard was not destined to enjoy the
Papal favour uninterruptedly.103 Cardinal Ivo,
legate of the Roman See, was taken dangerously
ill during his mission to France. Ivo drew up his
will, appointing Bernard and two other Abbots as
his executors. Shortly afterwards the legate ex
pired. Acting on the terms of the will, but in
Bernard's absence, and without his knowledge, the
other executors discharged their office and distri
buted the Cardinal's possessions for the benefit of
the poor. But the Roman Court was exceedingly

VI.] Bernard and Innocent. 135
enraged. Innocent thought that Bernard had
alienated funds which should have found their
way to the Roman See. And Bernard discovered
that his popularity at Rome was suddenly gone.
He replied to Innocent, endeavouring to remove
the unjust impression. He asked the Pope to
hear from his own lips the simple facts. He
explained that the entire business was transacted in
his absence on a mission in Innocent's behalf, and
that the distribution of the money had been carried
out in simple obedience to the terms of Ivo's will.
But Innocent's friendship was lost to Bernard.
It is a pathetic, and not very creditable illustra
tion of human infirmity. Innocent owed to Ber
nard, humanly speaking, everything that he pos
sessed. It was Bernard's indefatigable efforts
through the seven long years which had gained
for Innocent the confidence, the loyal reverence of
Europe and its princes. Upon Bernard he had
leant continually during the precarious time of
anxiety and fear. From Bernard he could scarcely
bear to be parted. Bernard's counsel, Bernard's
service was then the most vital of all human aid
to him. But all this was in the days of exile and
mistrust. It was pathetically different in the days of
assured possession. Innocent, in the calm strength
of the position which Bernard helped to give him,
could now afford to ignore the Abbot of Clairvaux.
But in the judgment of later times there is some
thing unspeakably sad in this piteous alienation,

136 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
and the historian must needs relate with sorrow
how Bernard's labour was rewarded by Innocent's
ingratitude. Innocent's days were numbered. He speedily
passed away. Whether in the deeper hours which
came upon him any reconciliation took place to
wards the Cistercian Abbot is nowhere recorded.
We look in vain for any kindly words, any gentle
expression of sympathy, any blending of parted
minds, any letter in which the asperities to which
imperfect human nature is too liable might appear
finally softened and effaced. So loving a nature
as Bernard's must certainly have yearned for this.
Who shall say whether this estrangement of two
great men was one of the misunderstandings left
to be readjusted elsewhere ?
Once more Bernard is at Clairvaux. He is
exhausted by the seven years' schism, and perhaps
more still by recent disappointment. He writes
confidentially to the Abbot of Cluny, that ex
cept for the annual visit which he is bound to
pay to Citeaux, he has resolved that nothing
shall draw him forth from the cloister limits.
His strength is failing. He must rest and be
silent. He will act on the prophetic utterance :
" In quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength." How far Bernard was permitted to
keep his resolve will be shortly seen.

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 137

LECTURE VII.
BERNARD AND ABELARD.
The period covered by S. Bernard's life is notable
for considerable increase of intellectual activity.
The renewed study of Greek philosophy led to two
divergent results. Where subservient to the Faith
it issued in vast systematic unfolding of Catholic
Theology ; but it also led some to subordinate
their religion to their philosophy, and to make
desperate efforts to harmonize Christianity with
irreconcilable principles. In the former case the
revival of learning produced Scholasticism, in the
other case theories of a rationalistic order.
The thirst for knowledge increased. Able teach
ers arose, gathering round them immense crowds of
eager pupils from all parts of Europe. And in
this simple unconventional method of instruction
is seen the rise of the great Universities. About
1 100 A.D. no city was more intellectually distin
guished than Paris, and no teacher more con
spicuous than the celebrated William of Cham
peaux,104 afterwards S. Bernard's friend. William
of Champeaux, Student in Philosophy, raised the
Cathedral School of Notre Dame to eminence by

1 38 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
his able work as professor. Here Peter Lombard
afterwards taught. And hence originated the Uni
versity of Paris, of which William of Champeaux
may be considered the practical founder.
William was at the height of his reputation and
influence, when there entered among his pupils a
young student from Brittany, whose strange me
teoric career is the subject of the following pages —
Peter Abelard.105 The peculiar features of the
Breton temperament have been studied by a modern
French philosopher, V. Cousin, who says that he
finds them singularly realized in the person of
Abelard. These features are, a certain natural
originality, an amazingly independent spirit, self-
confidence coupled with contempt for opponents,
more vigour than depth, to which must be added
a disposition to undervalue the labours of past
ages.106 Abelard has left us a picture of himself in the
singular autobiography entitled the story of his
misfortunes,107 which certainly bears this out. In
this painful narrative Abelard exhibits himself
alike in his weakness and in his strength. Vain,
acute, restless, self-confident beyond description,
his logical faculties were developed to the fullest
extent ; but there was no corresponding develop
ment of the faculty of reverence, the grace of
humility, and the power of devotion. He is a
perfect master in the art of logical fencing. But
adoring prostration of self before stupendous truth

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 139
accepted but partially understood, was not in
Abelard's character.
Abelard entered the Cathedral School at Paris,
eager to measure lances with the renowned logi
cian, attacked him, discomfited, and surpassed
him. William of Champeaux thus disconcerted
and silenced, never entirely recovered the shock of
his defeat. Abelard meteorlike leapt suddenly into
distinction, and eclipsed the master's hardwon
fame. Eventually William retired to the Bishopric
of Chalons, where we have already found him as the
adviser of S. Bernard's youthful zeal. Meanwhile
during the years spent by Bernard in severe ob
scurity and self-discipline, Abelard's brilliant gifts
were dazzling the eyes of Paris. But the rise of
his reputation was the ruin of his spirituality.
Crowds of admiring pupils gathered round him in
the Schools, offering incense to his self-esteem,
while the young reasoner pursued his speculations
into every field save one of human thought.
But Abelard had not yet ventured on the
precincts of theology. Made boundlessly self-
confident by success, Abelard determined to add
Religion also to the subjects of his lectures.
Challenged to say what he thought of lecturing on
Holy Scripture, Abelard replied that the immense
array of human authorities was not needed, and
that all we want could be gathered from the Book
itself. The students laughed ; and inquired whether
Abelard would lecture on the Bible. Certainly, he

140 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
replied, at once. And he offered to lecture forth
with on any, even the most unfamiliar, passage
they might give him. They proposed ironically
the Prophecies of Ezekiel ; but seeing that he
seemed in earnest, ventured to suggest the desir
ability of some delay. Abelard's pride, however,
was wounded. It was not his way, he exclaimed, to
advance by slow laborious plodding, but by intel
lectual power. He declared that he would lecture
on Ezekiel the following day. This he did. Few
attended at first, regarding the whole procedure as
a mere intellectual freak. But Abelard's power
delighted all who came, and the lectures succeeded.
Such was this singular man's introduction to teach
ing in theology.
But, adds Abelard himself, the prosperity of fools
destroys them, and nothing enervates mental vigour
so much as a period of tranquillity and success.
And certainly, in this gifted man, mental ability
was neither balanced nor controlled by moral
strength. His miserable fall is but a pathetic
illustration, if such were needed, of the fact that
intellectual refinement is no guarantee for moral
excellence, that intellectual power and moral
weakness may too easily coexist, and that one
side of human nature may be developed, to the
neglect or at the expense of another.
We approach the darkest period of Abelard's
stormy life. Fulbert, Canon of the Cathedral in
Paris, dazzled by Abelard's fame, entrusted to his

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 141
charge the education of Heloise, his niece. Heloise
was learned in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. She
was also well read in philosophy, and in the higher
studies of the age. Abelard found in Heloise an
exceedingly intelligent pupil. But the mere intel
lectual relationship developed into a closer con
nection, and teacher and pupil fell in love. Abelard,
with deliberate cruelty, shamefully wronged the
confidence placed in him. Afterwards he promised
to make what amends he could by marriage, to
which it appears that Canon Fulbert gave consent.
Other relatives of Heloise, however, took the law
into their own hands, attacked Abelard, and pun
ished him with great severity. Heloise entered a
convent. Abelard concealed himself in monastic
obscurity. But his restless mind could not long
endure obscurity. He came into notoriety again
for a work on the Holy Trinity. Here Abelard's
powerlessness to rise beyond mere logic displayed
itself. He wrote for the sake of pupils who would
accept nothing which could not be demonstrated,
and would believe nothing by faith which their
reason could not comprehend.
Abelard's book on the Holy Trinity created
much sensation. It was challenged, argued over,
and ultimately condemned by the Council
of Soissons. Abelard was compelled pub
licly to recant, and to burn the book with
his own hand. The Council appear to have treated
the scholar with great severity. They made him

A.D.
1 121.

142 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
repeat the Creed, and, as if assuming him to be
unfamiliar with its language, placed a copy before
him, that he might read it. And he, as best he
could, amid confused emotions of anger and grief,
and with many tears, read out the words before
them. He was then handed over to the Abbot of
S. Medard, as a convict to a prison.
The Abbot of S. Medard regarded his charge
somewhat in the light of a wild beast, to be licked
into shape, and treated him with inconsiderate
severity. Naturally, under such regime, the unfor
tunate philosopher in the convent cell, became like
a lion in a cage. In his passionate indignation he
almost lost his faith, crying out repeatedly, " Good
Jesu, where wast Thou ?" Time, however, calmed
him down, and he became somewhat more recon
ciled to his cell, which he was ultimately permitted
to exchange for a dwelling in the great monastery
of S. Denys, in Paris.
But the unhappy philosopher could not rid him
self of his inborn love of disputation. Controversial,
aggressive as ever, he succeeded before long in
stirring strife among the brethren of S. Denys.
He perpetrated the unpardonable offence of as
suring the monks that S. Denys, their founder, was
not the Areopagite, the convert under S. Paul's
teaching at Athens.
Historically correct, but prudentially ill-advised,
Abelard raised a perfect storm of indignation. To
question whether S. Denys were of Athens, was to

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 143
imperil the position of their patron saint, and
thereby not only to inflict a wound on the prestige
of the religious house, but to deprive them of a
powerful patron in the other world. And Abelard
seems to take a bitter malicious delight in main
taining, from the standpoint of superior knowledge,
a position which his ignorant opponents could not
possibly refute. But Abelard found that the only
escape from the storm was departure from the
precincts of S. Denys. Once more then the wan
derer issued forth from a house which, acknowledg
ing his mental power, was reluctant to lose him,
yet unwilling to retain him. Once more he became
a teacher, and once more crowds gathered round
him. Abelard profanely describes his enemies as
saying of him, the whole world has gone after him.
Restless as ever, this phase of his storm-tossed
life passes rapidly away. Through friends he ob
tained a site and money, and attempted to found
a monastery on his own account. He called the
house the Paraclete. But this again jarred on the
minds of his opponents as a separation between
the Persons of the sacred Trinity. Nothing that
Abelard did seemed right. He was one of those
unfortunate persons, the exact contrast to Peter
of Cluny, who invariably strike the wrong chord,
and are out of harmony with their surroundings.
Abelard's convent was a failure. He abandoned
the attempt.
Far away from the haunts of civilization, in the

144 •$"• Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
south of Brittany, on the edge of the Atlantic,
stood in bleak isolation, facing the dreary outlook,
and the storms of the Bay of Biscay, the Abbey of
S. Gildas.108 Scantiest vegetation fringed the wind
swept shore, half-barbarous natives lived around,
laxity and disorder reigned within. Here the cele
brated student of Paris takes refuge, at their express
invitation. They called him to be their Abbot,
and Abelard the wanderer figures as a superior of
a religious house.
Abelard's ideal of an Abbot was a pious and
firm ruler, at the head of a devout and obedient
brotherhood. But this was by no means the ideal
prevalent in the Convent of S. Gildas. S. Gildas
was a home of lawlessness, pervaded by low moral
standards, the spirit of devotion having long since
taken flight ; and if the community desired Abe
lard to rule over them, it was Abelard the lover
and singer of sweet songs, not Abelard the
penitent, whom they sought. Nor indeed was
Abelard the man to restore a self-indulgent com
munity to austerer life. If the first element in re
forming others is the conquest of self, the brilliant
scholar needed himself to be a learner. Once more
the clever reasoner is out of place, once more his
logic is powerless. He meditates departure, yet
dares not go, lest it be said of him, as in the Gospel :
this man began to build, but was not able to
finish. If Abelard had taken refuge at S. Gildas
from his pitiless antagonists, he had fallen into a

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 145
hornet's nest. Everywhere, says Abelard, the devil
hindered him. He was a fugitive, and a wanderer
upon the face of the earth. The curse of Cain
rested upon him.
Abelard unexpectedly reappears in the active
world. By a bold stroke he obtains Pope Inno
cent's permission to instate Heloise as Abbess of
the Paraclete. He returns to his turbulent home
at S. Gildas. But his unpopularity had increased,
and his monks conspired against him. Awful
desecrations ensued. They attempted to poison
him even in reception of the Eucharistic Chalice.
The failure of their fearful crime was followed by
efforts to poison him in the refectory. A brother
who partook of food intended for the Abbot, died.
The cook revealed his guilt by instant flight. At
last Abelard despaired, resigned his office, and
withdrew. Once more he regains publicity, which
was the breath of life to one of his disposition.
Bold and confident and audacious as ever, invad
ing the deepest problems of Christian theology,
and making startling departures from the tradi
tional Faith, he is busy teaching again. One of
Abelard's publications, which must have created
a great sensation among his contemporaries, was
the work entitled, "Yes and No."109 It consists
of selected passages from Scripture and the
Fathers, which appear to contain contradictory
statements. If Abelard's plan had been to state strongly
L

146 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
what might be said on both sides of an open ques
tion, his method would be above suspicion. But
since some of the subjects with which he deals are
not open questions, but integral parts of the Revela
tion once for all delivered, his method is one which
no true believer can adopt. Abelard's method
leads to no conclusion, unless it be that of general
uncertainty. That minds anxious to avoid inse
curity, and to promote the Catholic Religion, should
shrink from Abelard's work, is certainly most
natural. All this could not escape the notice of the great
Abbot, guarding the Faith of France, from his
watch-tower at Clairvaux. Bernard warns the
Roman authorities of the dangerous character of
the New Speculations. He intreats them to read
the Theology of Peter Abelard, his book of Sen
tences, his treatise entitled Know thyself, and to
see for themselves the erroneous nature of Abelard's
writings. On the doctrine of the Trinity Abelard
was an Arian, on that of grace a Pelagian, on that
of the Person of Christ a Nestorian. And this
formidable accusation, says Victor Cousin, was
just.110 Bernard warns Innocent that Abelard's teaching
is doing mischief. Needs must be that offences
come, but they are none the less deplorable. Ber
nard is weary of his life. The cry of the Hebrew is
his cry. " Oh for the wings of a dove, that I might
flee away and be at rest." (Ps. Iv. 6.) The disap-

vii.] Bernard and Abelard. 147
pointment of the Prophet is his also. "It is
enough, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not
better than my fathers." The leonine madness is
passed away. But if we have escaped the lion, we
have fallen upon the dragon, who is none the
less dangerous for his subtlety. Abelard wrote
concerning virtue and vice without moral insight,
concerning the Sacraments without faith, concern
ing the dogma of the Holy Trinity without reverence.
Bernard fully acknowledges Abelard's great ability.
Goliath and his armour-bearer, Arnold of Brixia,
have issued forth ; Satan is transfigured into an
angel of light.111
As a crucial instance of Abelard's errors Ber
nard selects his idea of Faith.112 He defined faith
as opinion. As if, says Bernard, every man was
to believe what he liked, and that the dogmas of
Christianity were all vague and uncertain, and at
the mercy of individual impressions. If the faith
fluctuates, surely faith is vain. Did the martyrs
die for problematical and uncertain ideas? Did
they not rest on solid and invariable truth ? Are
the Incarnation, the Passion, the Redemptive
Death, the Resurrection, merely opinions, or are
they not facts ? Faith is not conjecture nor in
security. Faith is certain knowledge. The Chris
tian cannot adopt the philosophic attitude of
suspense, challenging all things, knowing nothing.
" Faith," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, " is the
substance of things hoped for." The substance,

148 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
not the dream of mere conjecture. The substance,
not a shadow. Matters of faith cannot be open
to challenge by the believer as if not yet deter
mined. He cannot put himself outside the region
of certainty without ceasing to have faith and
becoming an unbeliever. He cannot, if he believes,
wander hither and thither through the interminable
by-paths of opinion and uncertainty. The very
idea of substance implies permanence and security.
It involves definite limits. Faith is not opinion
but certitude.
Abelard approached the subject of Redemp
tion rather with the air of a critic, than of one
who already believed the fact of our Lord's
divinity. What necessity, he asked, was there,
what reason, what advantage in this excessive
expenditure? By. a single word the Divine com
passion could have set man free from servi
tude to sin. Why then the Incarnation ? Why
the opprobrium of the Passion, the ignominy of
a cruel death, the bitter anguish enduring the
Cross ?
Bernard replied that although many methods
of Redemption lay within the disposal of the
Almighty, yet this fact did not impair the effi
cacy of that method which GOD was pleased to
select. Possibly that method was selected which
by the appalling anguish it brought on our De
liverer should appeal most forcibly to the affec
tions of mankind. But after all attempts at ex-

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 149
planation are exhausted, it must ever be remem
bered that we do not know, and we cannot fully
know what effectiveness of holy influence, what
harmony with perfect wisdom, what appropri
ateness for our redemption are contained in the
Passion of JESUS Christ. We do not know, and
must confess our ignorance, and adore. But if we
cannot fathom the motives which determined the
Will of the Eternal Wisdom, we can at least
.accept the fact and receive its practical blessings.
We can believe that " it is a faithful saying and
worthy of all men to be received, that while we
were yet sinners, we were reconciled to GOD by
the death of His SON." Cf. Rom. v. 10. We may
be assured that we have redemption through His
Blood. Ephes. i. 7. If you ask, why through His
Blood, rather than through His Words, I cannot
tell. Ask Him. It is mine to know that so it is ;
but why it is, I cannot tell.
Bernard and Abelard may be taken as represent
ing two opposite tendencies of the human mind.
The Universal Church as embodying a divine
revelation of unalterable truth, sent with a message
to deliver, was the Catholic conception to which
Bernard clung. The human reason, eliciting truth
by logic, and accepting nothing which it could not
demonstrate, was rather Abelard's ideal. Ber
nard's is the devout, the adoring mind : Abelard's
the critical, the doubting. Bernard is full of the
sense of human ignorance ; Abelard, of human

1 50 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
cleverness. With Abelard theology consists of a
series of discoveries, problems of the intellect.
With Bernard the main interest is in the applica
tion of revealed truth to life.
To counteract Abelard's influences men turned
to Clairvaux. Bernard must be summoned from
the solitudes he loved. Bernard's name was on all
men's lips. But Bernard shrank altogether from
the encounter. The scholar and the monk would
be unfairly matched — the trained disputant and
the uncultured brother ; the rustic against the
acute philosopher; the countryman reared amid
oaks and woods, against the polished disciple of
the schools ! What place had Bernard in subtle
disputations ? Abelard was a scholar from his
youth. Was the Church so badly off for learned
men, that her cause must be confided to the guid
ance of a simple monk ? There was Hugh Victor
and Richard Victor in the cloister near Paris.
These were the men qualified alike by genius and
by culture for such a task. Bernard would mean
while resort to the weapon whereby he would best
advance the Catholic cause, namely to prayer.
So Bernard shrank from a burden to which he felt
himself unequal. But those who knew him best
gave a different estimate of his powers. Accord
ingly he was summoned by those whose authority
he could not well resist, that is to say, by the
French Episcopate, to challenge and refute Abe
lard at a Council at Sens, A.D. 1140.113

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 151
It was an hour of the keenest interest for France.
The announcement that two of the ablest men of
the day were to meet in public disputation was
in itself sufficiently attractive. But Bernard and
Abelard were more than distinguished individuals,
they were representatives of two contrasted ten
dencies of the age. The one represented the prin
ciple of Divine authority ; the other, the primacy
of human reason.
The Council of Sens (1 140 A.D.) was a brilliant
assembly of all the eminent ecclesiastics in the
realm of France. The King himself attended.
The Bishops, Abbots, learned theologians, were
fully arrayed to hear Bernard answer the novelties
of Abelard. The Archbishop of Rheims was pre
sent, and numerous Suffragans. But the cen
tral figure of that Council was the Superior of
Clairvaux. Bernard did not attempt the subtleties of ab
struse reasoning. He produced before the Council
a copy of Abelard's " Theology," from which he
read extracts.
Confronted with Bernard, Abelard's dialectic
powers suddenly seemed to forsake him. His
fluent speech was gone when he needed it the
most. The trained and brilliant reasoner seemed
helpless as a child. Before the Bishops, and Ab
bots, and learned men, and the King, Abelard was
practically silenced. Passages from the scholar's
writings were produced containing statements ad-

152 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
verse to Catholic truth. The author was invited
to explain or disown them. This he was totally
unable to do. Deserted as it seemed by his own
abilities, he faintly appealed to Innocent at Rome,
anxious to elude the threatened decision, and
transfer his case to other hands.
Abelard's inability is the most natural thing in
the world.114 He felt himself hopelessly alone.
Twenty years had passed over him since last he
stood before a Council, but the remenibrance of
the day when he had to burn his own writings was
scarcely effaced, and in the twenty years he may
have learnt many things. His appeal to Rome
was an act of prudence, superior to many acts
for which he is responsible. By that appeal his
opponents were for the moment certainly dis
concerted. This appeal from the Gallican Episcopate to the
Roman Bishop need not have been permitted.
Such appeals had been a perpetual contention for
centuries. In this case, however, although the ap
peal was irregular, (licet appellatio ista minus
canonica videretur,) yet out of respect for Innocent,
the French Bishops put no" obstacle in the way.
Indeed they could not well do otherwise. To put
obstacles in the way of Abelard's appeal would
obviously have created at Rome a prejudice in his
favour. Thereupon Bernard calls upon " Peter's succes
sor" to decide whether he who abandons Peter's

VII. ] Bernard and A belard. 153
Faith shall find refuge at Peter's Throne. The
bold Abbot tells Innocent, When thou wast little
in thine own sight, did not GOD enthrone thee
over nations and kingdoms ? For what purpose,
unless to pull down and to destroy, and to build
and to plant ? Accordingly he urges the Pope to
act with decision.
But Bernard knows very well that Abelard has
adherents even in the Court of Rome itself. In
deed Abelard made no secret of the fact that he
felt himself secure. Cardinals and priests were
among his disciples. Scandalized that error should
be defended in Rome, Bernard wrote indignantly
to his friend Cardinal Ivo, describing Abelard's
opinions and character. This quondam monk,
Peter Abelard, subject to no order, and held by no
rule, a man totally unworthy of trust, without
he is John, within he is Herod, slippery and de
ceitful, having nothing of the monk about him
except the dress and the name. That is his
character. However, what is that to Bernard ?
Every man must bear his own burden. But what
concerns Bernard is, that this man has corrupted
the integrity of the Faith, injured the doctrinal
purity of the Church. The Abbot trusts that God
will through the Roman clergy deliver His Church
from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.115
Innocent replied, condemning Abelard's teach
ings, and imposing upon him as a heretic the
penalty of perpetual silence. His followers and

154 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
defenders, should any presume to be such after
this Papal admonition, were excommunicate.116
Abelard published a sort of recantation. He
submitted to the authority of the Church. He
had no desire to be a philosopher in such a sense
that he repudiated S. Paul, nor to follow Aristotle
in such a manner as to be shut out from Christ.117
The condemnation of Abelard appears to have
been one of Innocent's last public acts.
By a strange vicissitude of history, Innocent's
immediate successor was Celestine II., Abelard's
pupil and friend. When Celestine II. was known
as Guido, Cardinal Priest at Rome, Bernard's
watchful eyes detected his sympathy with Abelard,
and wrote to warn him of the danger. Celestine's
pontificate was brief, and almost obscured in the
interest of subsequent events.
Abelard's stormy, fitful, if brilliant career, ended
at last in peace. Cluny opened its gates to receive
the broken-down and sorrow-stricken wanderer.
The gentle Abbot of Cluny was as true as Bernard
to the Faith, but gifted as a rule with fuller sym
pathy. The venerable Peter wrote to Innocent,
asking the Pope's permission to retain Abelard at
Cluny. Abbot Peter succeeded in effecting a re
conciliation between Abelard and his former oppo
nent Bernard. The days of controversy were passed.
Abelard consented at Peter's instigation to erase
from his writings such statements as were repug
nant to Catholic minds. Of Abelard's learning

VII. ] Bernard and A belard. 155
Innocent is well aware. Peace being now restored,
it was becoming that Abelard's old age and in
creasing infirmities should find at Cluny a shelter
and a haven of rest. Abelard himself intreated
leave to pass the remainder of his days, which in
all human probability would not be many, in the
cloistered calm. Abbot Peter's kindly letter was the
outcome of a singularly loveable disposition, and to
his request Rome could scarcely fail to accede.118
The last chapter of Abelard's life we owe to the
Abbot of Cluny. It fell to Peter's office to acquaint
Heloise of the fact of Abelard's death. And this
he did with wondrous delicacy and gentleness.
Abbot Peter described Abelard's exemplary life
at Cluny. It would be difficult to do justice to
Abelard's humility and devotion. The Abbot,
with all his experience, had rarely seen a deeper
earnestness. Content with the humblest garb and
the lowliest place, no one would have imagined
him to be the brilliant scholar of world-wide repu
tation. In food he was most sparing. His time
was dedicated to constant study and prayer, or to
preaching before the convent ; a duty which Peter
thankfully intrusted to him. He was constantly
present at the Holy Sacrament. In brief, his mind
and conversation continually dwelt on things
learned and things divine. So he lived among
them, upright, simple, fearing God, while labouring
under the burden of ever increasing infirmities.
Abbot Peter sent him away to their most healthily

156 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
situated monastery in Burgundy, in the hope that
a more genial and sunny spot might improve his
wretched health. There Abelard renewed his
studies. There he devoted himself afresh to holy
exercises. And there the advent of death found
him, not sleeping, but watching for his LORD. So,
like the wise virgins, Abelard was called to the
eternal marriage feast. As he lay upon his bed of
death, he made confession alike of the Catholic
Faith and of his sins. He received the viaticum,
the pledge of life eternal, the Body of the Re
deeming LORD, with what singular reverence and
devotion the whole convent knew. Thus Abelard,
the brilliant teacher, the able master in many
sciences, the man of European reputation, passed
away. And so the kindly Abbot fulfilled the last offices
for the dead. He wrote Abelard's epitaph. At
Heloise's request he sent the body to be buried at
the convent where she presided. He also sent a
document which certified Abelard's absolution.
Thus closes a stormy, passionate, brilliant, fitful
career. The singularly gracious form of Peter
Cluny stands out in beautiful pre-eminence in the
closing episode of Abelard's life. Peter had evi
dently watched the rise and fall of this gifted but
unstable character. He had gazed with exceeding
pity on talents spent in propagating error, and an
able mind misled through over-confidence. Peter
was full of sympathy. He thoroughly understood

vii.] Bernard and Abelard. 157
the difficulty which this restless, eager lover of
admiration would have in submitting himself in
lowliness to receive the truth. Peter hated the
error, but he succeeded in winning the erring.
That which the decisions of Councils could not do,
Peter's persuasive gentleness achieved. The even
ing time of life, when the glitter of praise and the
attractiveness of reputation had sobered down and
lost their former power, was surely the time for
calmer judgment and nearer approach to truth.
Abelard by this time might fairly be expected to
have come to know himself better than of old.
He would, by force of past experience and riper
knowledge, mistrust the reasoning powers upon
which he rested everything when he was younger.
He would see the limits of human capacity, and
how soon those limits are reached. He would feel
the need of some authority to declare the truth to
the most gifted, as well as the most ignorant among
men. Thus he had come round to Bernard's side.
But it was Peter Cluny's CHRIST-like gentleness
which effected this, and soothed the once aggressive
and hard and argumentative and self-reliant man.
This picture of the peacemaker is one on which
the heart rests with vivid satisfaction. Bernard's
eminent grandeur may have eclipsed the fame of
his less distinguished contemporary, but among all
the interesting personages of that wonderful cen
tury, none is more kindly and more gracious than
the Abbot of Cluny.

158 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
Was it this tragic tale of Abelard's misfortunes
which suggested to Bernard, in his addresses to the
monks at Clairvaux, the subject of human ignor
ance alike of self and of God ? Was it this brilliant
but blighted life which made Bernard say, that if
the knowledge of learning is good, the knowledge of
our own weakness is more profitable to salvation ?
We cannot tell. But the facts must have given
peculiar force to his assertions, that neither genius
nor teaching are indispensable for entrance into
the kingdom of heaven ; that there is a knowledge
which puffeth up, as well as a knowledge which
edifies ; that while learning is very glorious, when
subordinate to our Lord, men are made acceptable
with God not for literary acquirements, but for a
pure conscience and a faith unfeigned. Men please
GOD, said Bernard, by the merits of their character,
not the capacity of their brain. Singular fact, that
Peter and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, were
not chosen from the trained and learned circles of
rabbinical schools, but from the simplicity and
ignorance of the Galilean shores ; and yet by these
was saving truth enshrined in the hearts of men.119
Self-knowledge was of all things most essential for
the suppression of ostentatious vanity and pride,
for the grace of that humility which is the only
secure foundation for spiritual growth. Self-know
ledge always abases. Can it be otherwise as man
comes to see that he is laden with much wrong
doing, burdened with this dull mortal frame, ab-

VII.] Bernard and Abelard. 159

sorbed in earthly cares, tainted with low desires,
blind, earth-bound, weak, entangled in errors, ex
posed to endless dangers, beset by fears, careworn
with anxieties, easily led into evil, and very weak
towards good. Perhaps it was reflection upon his
own powerlessness to win Abelard, and the con
trast between himself and the gracious Abbot of
Cluny, which led to the following beautiful utter
ances on the fall of the angels and the pride of man :
Verily I hearing these things, and turning mine
eyes in upon myself, and searching diligently, dis
cover in myself that very plague-spot which the
LORD repudiated in His angels. A horrible dread
has come upon me, and I exclaimed, If thus it befell
His angels, what will become of me who am nothing
but earth and dust ? If he were proud, it was in
heaven, but I upon a dunghill. Pride is less in
tolerable in the wealthy, than it can be in the poor.
Woe unto me ! if judgment fall with such severity
on him, because his heart was lifted up, what will
be required of me, who am alike miserable and
proud ? Deep languor and heaviness of mind have
fallen upon me. I did run well. But the stone of
stumbling was in my way. I struck against it, and
I have fallen. Pride is found within me, and the
LORD has in anger departed from His servant.
Hence this spiritual dearth within me, this in-
devotion with which I am scourged. . . . The holy
songs are no joy to me, I find no delight in prayer,
no peace in meditation. Whither has that ecstasy

160 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
departed ? that serenity of soul, that peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost ? . . . Alas, the Lord has
visited all the high hills round about me, and I
alone am left unvisited ! In one character I see
the grace of wonderful unselfishness, in another
the grace of a most winning patience, in a third a
profound humility and gentleness, another is all-
merciful and full of piety, another soars heaven
ward in frequent meditation, another knocks often
at the gates of GOD by fervent prayer, others are
gifted with many glorious gifts. All these, fervid,
devout, peace-loving, enriched with many graces,
rise like spiritual heights which the LORD has
blessed. But I, who see in myself none of these
graces, what else can I think but that I stand
among these fruitful hills as the mountains of
Gilboa, upon which there was to rest neither dew
nor rain, barren and bleak as a mountain height,
which the blessed Giver of all fruitfulness has in
His anger and indignation passed by?120

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 161

LECTURE VIII.
BERNARD AND THE CRUSADE.
It was Christmas Day in the year 1145. Godfrey,
Bishop of Langres, had just returned from the
Holy Land.121 He was the bearer of the latest
news, and the witness of recent disaster. Preach
ing before the French king and the French episco
pate, Godfrey described in glowing terms of in
dignation the misfortunes of the Sacred Land.
Eastern Christendom was crushed beneath Turkish
oppression. The ancient city of Edessa — the city
to which, according to tradition, our LORD once
wrote, when Abgarus was their king — had fallen
under Mohammedan power. Proud, insolent bar
barians were in possession there. The fall of
Edessa was the prelude to general ruin. The in
fidel powers were advancing. Antioch itself stood
paralyzed with fear, unable to meet the swarming
multitudes. Destruction was drawing on even to
Jerusalem, which was powerless without Antioch,
and under the government of a woman (Queen
Melisende). Godfrey's eloquence made a profound impression.
The young King Louis was deeply stirred, and,
M

1 62 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
under the impulse of the moment, vowed that he
would inaugurate a crusade for the protection and
recovery of the sacred places. But Louis's zeal
met no response from his chief adviser, Abbot
Suger. Suger was an older man. Suger had
passed through a world of experience. Far-sighted,
statesmanlike, Suger was the last person to be
swept away in a passionate emotion. He had no
belief in the advantage of Crusades, and strongly
dissuaded the young monarch from committing
himself to such rash and unprofitable enterprise.
Public feeling was not then as it once had been.
This was not the first Crusade. Experience of
past misfortune might well have extinguished the
national zeal for these undertakings, and have ren
dered the very name of a Crusade a word of warn
ing and a memory of defeat. Suger, too, in his secret
heart had no belief in the religious efficacy of Cru
sades. And protests raised here and there against
such enterprises show that Suger was by no means
alone in his conviction. Eight hundred years be
fore, Jerome had urged against mistaken ideas of
the value of pilgrimages, that the essential duty
of man was not to visit Jerusalem, but to lead a
holy life. And even in Bernard's age, some were
found to rectify the popular misconceptions con
cerning visits to the Holy Land. It was repeated
from earlier days that S. Hilarion had spent
his life not far from Jerusalem, and yet had not
entered the city gates, nor stood where the Re-

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 163
demption of the world was won. "A disciple of
CHRIST is to bear His Cross, not seek His grave,"
said Hildebert. Peter of Cluny protested that it is
a nobler thing to serve God in humility and self-
denial, than to join the proud pageant of a pilgrim
age to Zion. And if it were good to see Jerusalem,
where the feet of the LORD once rested, it was
incomparably better to long for heaven, where
He shall be confronted face to face. It was not
holy places, but holy works which save. Peter
reminded men that the Roman poet was true
to nature, when he said, they change their sur
roundings, but not their heart, who cross the
seas.122 Suger, however, called in Bernard's aid. If
Suger expected Bernard to confirm his opinion,
the king's adviser was grievously mistaken. Ber
nard was on the other side. With the spirit of
such an enterprise Bernard fully coincided. Years
ago he had written in glowing terms his eloquent
apostrophe to Jerusalem ; " Hail to thee, O holy
city, whom the Highest has sanctified to be His
own abiding place. Hail to thee, city of the Great
King, city whence wonders ever new have at all
times risen, gladdening all the world. Hail to
thee, mistress of the nations, chief of provinces,
possession of patriarchs, mother of prophets and
apostles, the inaugurator of our faith, the glory of
the people of CHRIST. Hail, land of promise, ages
ago with milk and honey flowing, now extending

164 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
to all the earth the remedy of redemption, and the
strength of life eternal."123
The attractiveness to Bernard's mind of the
sacred places in the Holy Land is strikingly shown
in a letter sent by him to the Roman Patriarch at
Jerusalem. Bernard held it a most singular and
glorious privilege to be entrusted with that holy
region where sprung the light of the world. To
enter daily into His tabernacle, and worship in the
place where the Feet of Christ once stood, might
well recall the words of long ago, " the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground." How awful is that
place, where first visited us the Dayspring from on
High. How awful that place where the gracious
and sinless LORD poured wine and oil upon our
wounds.124 So Bernard wrote. Accordingly King
Louis wrote to Eugenius for his approval. Bernard
had also written, expressing himself in favour of
the movement ; and Eugenius gave the enterprise
his benediction, regretting that the disturbed con
dition of Rome rendered his absence from that
city inexpedient, and leaving the practical organi
zation in Bernard's hands.
To the French people Bernard appealed in behalf
of the Crusade, by motives such as the following.
Now was the acceptable time, and the day of over
flowing salvation. God is in danger of losing His
territory. GOD'S territory, urged Bernard, the land
where the Word of GOD once taught, where He
abode more than thirty years, as a man among

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 165
men, the land which He immortalized by miracle,
consecrated by His own Blood, the land in which
the first-fruits of the Resurrection arose. The pro
mised land, which we have lost through our sins.
Profane enemies of the Cross are advancing. They
will overthrow the city of the living God, the arena
upon which Redemption was worked out, the soil
empurpled with the blood of the Immaculate. He
bids them gird on their armour. Here is the field
for true distinction. Victory is glory, death is
gain. He recalls the labours of Peter the Hermit,
and the first Crusade, and by such memories as
these bids them rally round the Redeemer's Cross.125
But Bernard must not only write letters, he
must issue forth in person. Bernard must be torn
again from his beloved seclusion. Fifty-five years
of age, the careworn Superior of Clairvaux was
far older than his years. His physical weakness
craved for rest. Controversy, self-discipline, acti
vity, anxious work, had worn him away almost to
a shadow. Some time ago the Abbot had resolved
not to be drawn out from his retreat. But Bernard
was not permitted to rest. He was forced into an
undertaking more exhausting than any previous
labour, and at a period of his life when the worn-
out frame could scarcely respond to the demands
even of his indomitable and mastering will.
So Bernard issued forth once more into the
tumultuous world. Supported by the French
King, sanctioned by the Pope, the movement was

A.D.
1 146.

166 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
already in the air. The losses of the Oriental
Church appealed forcibly to the popular imagina
tion. The advance of infidel hosts, the fall of
Edessa, the danger of Antioch, the misfortunes of
Jerusalem, the Saracen supremacy, stirred strongly
to the depths the chivalrous forces of the empire,
and it needed but a spark to kindle all things into
flame. So when Bernard arose in their midst at
a great public assembly at Vezelai, clothed
in all the authority of his order and per
sonal character and noble life, the enthusiasm
knew no bounds. No building was spacious
enough to contain the crowds who pressed eagerly
upon the preacher of the Second Crusade. A
wooden platform had to be hastily erected in the
open air. Louis and Bernard ascended it together,
the King wearing upon his breast the Cross, the
emblem of their enterprise. Then Bernard spoke.
Attenuated, fragile, transparent, worn to a shadow,
he seemed all enthusiasm, and fire, and zeal.
His wonderful persuasive influence swayed the
crowds as one man. Crosses numerous enough
could not be made for the people. Robes were
torn into fragments that crosses might be given
to all who came. Princes, and nobles, and every
rank from the throne to the lowest degree, pressed
round the preacher to be enrolled in the great
Crusade. In the overwhelming zeal of the hour,
they even urged upon Bernard to act as their

Vlii.] Bernard and the Crusade. 167
commander-in-chief, and to lead in person the forces
to the East. Very prudently the saint declined
the honour. Imagine me, he afterwards wrote,
ordering a battle array, and riding at the head of
armed men !126
Eugenius fully agreed that the Abbot's place
was not to advance sword in hand to the work of
destruction. But neither Bernard nor Eugenius
appeared to see anything inconsistent with their
profession as ministers of the Prince of Peace, to
urge upon Christians an exterminating war.
Meanwhile Louis VII. was not idle. He organ
ized his forces through France. He wrote letters to
Manuel Comnenus, Emperor at Constantinople, to
ensure a friendly reception when his army should
depart for the East. Bernard, of course, wrote in
every direction. The chronicler says he " flew
about." He passed through France from city to
city. Everywhere he preached the Crusade. Every
where crowds responded to his burning appeals.
Bernard's intimacy with the leading minds in
Europe enabled him now to exert unrivalled in
fluence in behalf of the great movement. Bernard
invites Peter Cluny to attend the Assembly at
Chartres, (A.D. 1 146,) assuring him that the Bishops
and the King will be there, and urging him to dis
play his zeal in the great undertaking. The Abbot
of Cluny was unable to attend, but he wrote to the
French King that although unable to accompany
the King in person, he concurs with his attempt.

A.D.
1 149.

168 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
History is repeating itself. Joshua is advancing
against the Kings of Canaan. The Christian King
threatens the East. The Holy Land is to be won
to Christ. Let Louis destroy the infidel popu
lation with the sword. Let him acquire their ter
ritory for God and himself.127 So the peaceful
Abbot waxes warlike.
After energetic efforts for the Crusade,
Bernard was often sorely distressed by
unworthiness among his own people. They
could not sustain themselves at this high level.
Among the very chief noblemen who had vowed
themselves to the Crusade quarrels arose. A duel
was arranged to come off after Easter between
Duke Henry and Duke Robert, a brother of the
French King. Bernard was dismayed. Was this
the spirit of the Crusader ! He wrote an urgent
letter to Abbot Suger of S. Denys, at Paris, ex
pressing his indignation and grief. "We would
have healed Babylon, but she is not healed." Jer.
li. 9. Bernard implores Suger to exert his influ
ence to suppress the duel at all costs.128
Not satisfied with overrunning France, Bernard
passes into Germany. He traverses the border
land of the Rhine. Here the spirit of the Crusade
exhibited itself in another form — persecution of the
fews. If all who disowned the saving Name were
to be objects of Christian animosity, there was a
race in Europe itself upon which such bitterness
must logically be expended. The Saracen after

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 169
all was far away, but the Jew was in their midst.
Strong antipathy to the Jews was indeed prevalent
in Bernard's age. Attempts were made to turn
the Crusading movement against the Jews in Ger
many as well as against the Saracens abroad.
Even the gentle and conciliating Peter of Cluny,
peacemaker as he was on most occasions, could
not rise superior to this popular hatred against
the Hebrews. The Abbot of Cluny is the author
of a fierce attack, the most lamentable page in all
his writings, the one exception to that universal
spirit of justice and forbearance which otherwise
reigns in him.
What use, urged Peter, in conquering the Sara
cens far away, if prosperity were permitted to the
Jews at home ? To his mind the Jew was far more
detestable than the Saracen. He does not recom
mend that the Jews should be slain ; rather he
would have them reserved for the more awful doom
of Cain the fratricide. They richly merited spoli
ation of those ill-gotten and immense resources
which their craft and subtlety had extorted from
Christian hands — resources which. Peter with cruel
irony suggests might be well employed in provid
ing for the expenses of the new Crusade.
If the venerable Abbot of Cluny went to this
excess, popular repugnance to the hated race went
further still. A rumour traversed Europe that the
Jews had crucified an English boy. Not the faint
est historic foundation for the rumour exists, but

170 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
popular feeling was ready to catch at anything,
and grew menacing. Precisely at this excited mo
ment the spark required to set everything in flames
fell into the German mind. Rudolf, a Cistercian
monk, took upon himself the office of preacher,
and endeavoured by fiery harangues to kindle the
popular passions against that maligned and dis
trusted race. Unhappily in the state of popular
excitement among the masses he was only too
successful. A pathetic narrative of a contempo
rary Hebrew writer129 remains to testify to the
Jews' misfortunes.
"And it came to pass after Edessa was taken,
that the kings of the West heard a saying, ' The
Turks are come into the land of Judah, and into
the land of Aram ; and they have destroyed the
best part thereof; and the cities of the uncircum-
cised they have taken ; and their males they have
slain with the edge of the sword.' And when
Pope Eugenius heard of it, he sent priests unto all
the kings of the Gentiles, saying, ' The children are
come to the birth, and no man layeth it to heart ;
and now, arise ye, and let us go unto the land of
Israel ; and let us make a breach therein for our
selves ; and we will destroy the Turks from being
a nation ; and their name shall not be remem
bered.' And the priest S. Bernard, of Clairvaux,
went from province to province, and from city to
city ; and he read in their ears the oppressions and
tribulations which had befallen the uncircumcised

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 171
in the land of Canaan. And it came to pass, when
he was in Spires, that the Emperor Conrad took
him with both his hands, and drew him up to him
self ; for he feared lest the people of the country,
who came to hear his report, should trample upon
him, for they were more than the locusts. And
the Emperor heard it, and all the people of the
country heard it ; and they became willing to go
unto Jerusalem.
" Then the Emperor Conrad and Louis the King
of Tzarphath, assembled themselves together, united
in heart to go unto Jerusalem with a strong hand.
And they put the cross upon their clothes for a
sign ; and they arose to go in the month of May,
which is the second month, in the year four thou
sand nine hundred and six of the Creation, which
is the year one thousand one hundred and forty-
six. " That year was also unto the house of Jacob a
time of sorrow and oppression, of emptiness, deso
lation, and destruction, and of smiting of the knees
together ; and much pain was in all loins, and their
faces gathered blackness ; for the priest Rudolf
came unto the land of Ashkenaz to search out those
which would join themselves to go unto Jerusalem.
And he spake falsehood against the Jews, the
remnant which was left from the first persecutions ;
and he thought in his heart, ' It is time to act and
to speak against the people who have not been
forsaken ; to dissolve, to kill, and to destroy them.'

172 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
And he went along, crying in the name of his GOD,
in order to stir up people to go unto Jerusalem.
And in all places he passed through, he stirred up
the dogs in them, saying, ' Avenge ye our LORD'S
vengeance on His enemies, who are before us :
after that we shall go.' And when the Jews heard
it, their heart melted away ; and they cried unto
the LORD, and said, 'Alas, O LORD, behold, fifty
years, like the years of a jubilee, have not passed
by, since our blood was spilt like water, because of
the sanctification of Thy great, mighty, and fearful
Name, in the day of the great slaughter. If Thou
forsake us for ever, what wilt Thou do for Thy
great Name ? Wilt Thou appoint misery a second
time ?' And the LORD heard their cry, and re
membered His covenant, and turned Himself unto
them, according to His great loving-kindness. And
He sent after this Belial, the Abbot S. Bernard
from Clairvaux, a city which is in Tzarphath.
" And he called also after their manner, saying,
' Come, let us go up unto Zion, to the sepulchre of
their Messiah ; but take thou heed that thou speak
to the Jews neither good nor bad ; for whoever
toucheth them, is like as if he had touched the
apple of the eye of JESUS ; for they are His flesh
and bone ; and my disciple Rudolf has not spoken
aright, for of them it is said in the Psalms, Slay
them not, lest my people forget.' And they heark
ened unto his voice, for he was exalted in their
eyes ; and they returned from their burning wrath

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 173
and ceased to do evil to them, as they had devised
to do.
"And he took no ransom of the Jews, for he
spake good of Israel from his heart. ' I will praise
Thee, O LORD ; that though Thou wast angry
with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou
hast comforted me, to leave unto us a remnant in
the land, to preserve of them a great remnant, as
it is at this day.' If it had not been for the com
passion of the LORD, that He had sent this priest,
there would have none escaped nor remained of
them. Blessed be He Who ransometh and de-
livereth. Amen."
This singular passage, with its naive declaration
that Bernard made no money out of it, is a striking
testimony to Bernard's character and Bernard's
influence from an unsuspected source.
But in the German cities Jews were massacred,
or fled for refuge, and hardly escaped with life.
Deeply distressed by this disgraceful form of
preaching the Cross, the German Bishops remon
strated with Bernard, whom they supposed to
have some sympathy with the doings of his sub
ordinate. Bernard replied in a letter to the German epis
copate, disowning Rudolf's teaching altogether,
which he characterizes in very strong terms as a
heartless approval of homicide. Rudolf had no
mission either from God or man. The Abbot
quoted Scripture to show expressly that the Jews

174 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
were not to be slain. Was it not written, " Slay
them not, lest my people forget it : but scatter
them abroad among the people, and put them
down, O LORD, our defence?" Ps. lix. n. Thus
Bernard refused to go with the stream of popular
dislike. He exerted his great influence on the
side of justice and truth. With his usual energy
and promptness, Bernard himself appeared on the
spot, ordered the mischievous preacher away to
his monastery, and endeavoured as far as pos
sible to turn away the popular indignation into
more distant channels. At Mayence Rudolfs dis
appearance was the cause of sullen murmurs and
threatened outbreaks. And it needed all Bernard's
authority to quell the storm once raised.
Bernard triumphed over Rudolf. But the French
Abbot must come to terms with Conrad the German
king. Bernard met with a brilliant reception. But
with this reception all zeal evaporated. The German
princes and nobles in general viewed the Crusade
with strong disfavour. None seemed prepared to
promote the expedition. Conrad definitely de
clined all personal responsibility for so hazardous an
undertaking. He warned Bernard expressly that
he could take no share in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The Abbot quietly replied that it was not for
him to teach a monarch his duty. The heart of
the king was in the hand of GOD. But Bernard
was depressed. He almost resolved to return at
once to Clairvaux. His mission to Germany seemed

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 175
branded with the mark of failure. But Conrad, in
his secret heart, profoundly respected his guest.
And the more Bernard was eager to depart, the
more anxious grew Conrad to retain him. Ber
nard's intensity of spirit communicated itself even
to those who did not understand his language. If
he preached in French before a German audience,
yet it is said he moved them even to tears by his
earnestness and overwhelming solemnity. It was
Bernard's personality, the manner as well as the
matter, which powerfully affected all classes of his
hearers. Bernard's manner was very fervid, yet
very sweet, persuasive and convincing. He seemed
to understand his hearers perfectly, and to know
instinctively what truths were suited best, and in
what way they would find entrance most securely
into the hearts of men. In brief, he was a master
in real eloquence. The popular veneration for
Bernard was unbounded. Once he was almost
crushed to death by the pressure of the crowds.
Bernard restored a paralyzed person to health, and
the crowd pressed round the saint almost to suffo
cation. The stalwart king forced his way into the
mass of the people, caught up in his vigorous grasp
the attenuated saint, bore him aloft in the air, and
carried him to a place of safety in the chapel of S.
Mary. Still the leading personages continued un
convinced. The king still hovered in hesitation.
At last, however, two days after Christmas, on the
festival of S. John the Evangelist, Conrad promised

176 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
that on the morrow Bernard should have his final
reply. So on the festival, the Emperor and the Court
were assisting at the Sacrifice, and Bernard was
the celebrant. He paused, and, quite against his
usual custom, preached during the solemnities of
the Mass. He said that he could not permit the
day to pass without addressing them. In awfully
solemn tones, he depicted the final judgment, and
the soul before the tribunal of JESUS CHRIST. The
Redeemer was described reproaching the sinful soul :
What more could I have done for thee that I have
not done ? Bernard described the accumulated
blessings which this soul had once received. It had
been endowed with strength of mind and body, with
vast wealth, with high position in the world, nay
more, it had been a king. The eloquent monk
contrasted in glowing terms the great endowments
of this gifted soul, with the darkness of its final and
fatal condemnation. And Conrad could endure it
no longer. He burst into tears. He interrupted
the preacher, and cried out, in the church itself, " I
acknowledge the unmerited mercies of the divine
grace. I will not be ungrateful. Let Him only
give me a signal of His will, and I obey." The
whole congregation broke out into loud exclama
tions of warm approval. And the emperor received
from the altar the sign of the Redeemer's Cross.
Duke Frederic, his nephew, afterwards known under
the name of Barbarossa, followed the imperial ex-

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 177
ample, and the nobles, in a body, gathered round
the preacher, and took the Cross.
Having secured the German king and his nobles,
Bernard's mission was accomplished. He returned
to France by Cologne, where the crowds became
so vast, that he dared not leave the house, but
gave his blessing from a window to the assembled
multitudes. " I myself," says Gerard, his com
panion, " wishing to enter, was unable ; and from
nine in the morning to evening-tide I waited in the
street, without being able to reach the door."130
At last the Abbot found himself safely ensconced
in the calm refuge of Clairvaux. Beside his suc
cessful mission for the Crusade, Bernard returned
with many a recruit for his monastery. Thirty
novices went before him, thirty follow him. So he
returned not unattended.131 But rest was not to be
yet. It was the eve of the general departure for the
Holy Land, and at the exodus Bernard must not be
wanting. After a fortnight's repose at Clairvaux,
the indefatigable Abbot issues forth to attend the
general assembly at Etampes, A.D. 1 147. Letters
were read from the Greek emperor, Manuel Com-
nenus, conveying assurances of sympathy and friend
ship. The order of the expedition was discussed.
One party proposed that the journey should be made
by sea. This would have been incomparably the
safer plan, for it would have secured the Crusaders
from the treachery of the Greeks, and within a brief
space have landed the host direct in some Syrian
N

178 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
port. Unhappily for that assembly, these prudent
counsels were rejected, and it was determined to
go by land. One problem of deep importance re
mained. Who should govern France during Louis's
absence ? By general consent the responsible office
of vice-regent was forced upon the unwilling Abbot
Suger.132 Finally, to crown all these preparations
for the war, Eugenius himself appeared in Paris.
The Pope stood at the high altar of the Abbey
Church of S. Denys, and blessed the sacred standard
in presence of a vast congregation. Louis knelt to
receive from the Pontiff himself the oriflamme, the
banner of the Cross, and the Papal benediction.
The young king passed from the solemn ceremony,
to prepare himself in religious seclusion. He visited
the hospital of the lepers. He passed the night in
the cloister of S. Denys, joined the brethren in the
refectory, and with a kiss of peace departed on the
distant enterprise.133
So the great expedition moved onward to the
holy places. The almost deserted cities, the ces
sation of trade, the market-places where no man
walked, testified to the monk's tremendous influence
in guiding the popular movement, and showed how
the Crusade was draining away the strength of
Europe into the desperate encounters of the East.
Thus departed for the Holy Land the choicest and
best of Europe's enthusiasm, hosts animated by
splendid zeal, buoyed up by most confident hopes.
The details of this ill-fated expedition yet remain

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 179
recorded by an eye-witness. Odo, monk of S.
Denys, at Paris, accompanied his monarch to the
Holy Land, and wrote back to his Abbot, Suger, of
S. Denys, the tragic tale. The French and German
armies were wisely kept apart. The Germans com
menced their march at Easter. Louis and the
French did not follow till Whitsuntide. From
Ratisbonne the German host, under Conrad, passed
down the course of the Danube, into the territory
of the Greek empire. Arrived at Philippopolis, an
unfortunate incident betrayed the undisciplined
character of the German troops. A desperate en
counter between Germans and Greeks arose from
the most trivial cause. A Greek conjuror swal
lowed a draught of wine, and then produced from
his mouth a living snake. The ignorant Germans
were terrified, and being under the impression that
this was a plot to poison them, drew their swords,
and cut the unlucky performer to pieces. A general
uproar ensued, the Crusaders fell upon the Greeks,
and set fire to the suburbs of Philippopolis. Na
tional hatred also broke out. Germans quarrelled
in Greek markets with the French, over the pur
chase of food, which the wily Greeks doled out in
small quantities at exorbitant prices. Neither party
understood the other's language. So fierce grew the
jealousy, that blood was freely shed, and they cut one
another to pieces, until night prevented further con
flict. Totally unable to maintain discipline in his
ranks, Conrad was the helpless witness of endless

180 S . Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
irregularities. His soldiers perpetrated outrages in
almost every country which they traversed. At Con-
stantinopletheEmperorManuel awaited their arrival
with anxiety. Their character had preceded them.
Outside the city was avast and exceedingly beautiful
garden, a sort of Paradise, where Oriental fancy re
velled in all kinds of inventiveness ; artistic water
courses and groups of costly flowers. Into this spot
of all places the German swarms must needs pour
themselves, running wild, destroying everything,
trampling down, breaking, ruining ; while from the
walls of the city the Greeks looked down upon the de
struction of their property. But the Greek emperor
concealed his indignation, and took measures for a
subtle revenge. Professing as sincere friendship as
ever, he provided the German host with guides,
secretly bribed to lead the army to destruction.
Seventy thousand horsemen crossed the Straits
under this guidance. For eight days they pressed
forward into a region of which they were absolutely
ignorant. And there they woke one morning to
the fact that their guides had fled, their provisions
were exhausted, their way was lost, and the Turk
ish host was upon them. On the hills above
them appeared the Mohammedans everywhere,
occupying every post of vantage, harassing the
advance, swooping down upon their weariness,
well acquainted with every inch of the country,
vigilant, innumerable. In the unknown labyrinth
of the mountains, the Crusaders became perplexed,

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 181
exhausted, discouraged. To retreat was death with
out honour, without achievement, inglorious. To
advance was possibly death also, but death, perhaps
with glory. The Germans voted for progress, and
went forward. They fed upon their worn out and
dying horses. But their weakness necessarily grew
upon them. The Turkish hordes besetting them
became increasingly more bold, in proportion to
the invaders' increasing feebleness. From the hills
the Turks rained arrows down upon them, and while
refusing a closer engagement, did terrible execution
from afar. Huge stones were hurled, crashing down
into the valleys as the troops passed through a narrow
defile. The inaccessible enemy lost no one, while
the wounded and dying Crusaders were strewing the
whole passage of the hills. It was impossible to
describe the awful horrors of the way. Conrad
and a wretched remnant alone survived to return
to Constantinople.
Meanwhile the French, unaware of the Germans'
fate, entered Constantinople. There the unhappy
consequences of the schism between East and West
made themselves felt. Diversities in ritual usage
disturbed the French adherents to Rome. The
Greeks differed in their way of celebrating the
Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Oriental priest actually
cleansed and re-dedicated the altar where the West
ern priest had celebrated. It was even whispered
that the Greeks baptized every person who came to
them from the Western Church. East and West

1 82 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
met in the streets of Constantinople with angry
suspicions and fierce recriminations, regarding
each other as heretics from the Catholic Faith.
The intense bitterness survives in the chronicler's
page. He declares that he would not defile his
narrative with these heresies, could he possibly
avoid it. He mutters something about disgraceful
errors which only death could expiate. The possi
bilities of sincere union among the adherents of the
Cross were evidently remote. The Greeks were
considered not to be Christians, their destruction
scarcely a crime. Perjury was no sin among the
Greeks, if perpetrated in behalf of their holy
empire. Profound mistrust increased. Rumours of Greek
treachery reached the French host. It was said
that Manuel was in league with the Turks against
the Crusaders. Indignation broke out in fiercest
flames. A Council was held under the very walls
of Constantinople to consider the advisability of
laying siege to the treacherous city. The Bishop
of Langres, the same whose burning words had
first kindled the French monarch's zeal, urgently
pressed upon the Crusaders the duty of war.
However his fiery counsels did not prevail. They
had come, it was answered, to conquer the infidel,
not to fight fellow Christians. But bitterly does
the chronicler lament that the Bishop's advice was
not taken. Meanwhile the subtle Greek was
anxious to speed his guests' departure. A lying

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 183
rumour was circulated of a great victory won by
the German host. Instantly the French fell into
the trap, crossed the straits, and advanced to join
them. They had scarcely landed on the other
side of the Hellespont when Frederick Barbarossa
arrived with the awful news of disastrous defeat.
Afterwards Conrad himself, covered with wounds,
and accompanied by scanty fugitives, attested the
melancholy truth.
Constantinople was the glory of the Greek em
pire, rich in reputation, richer in gold, so wrote the
chronicler as he entered it. Constantinople, proud
in possessions, treacherous in morals, corrupt in
faith, so wrote the Crusader in wrath as he looked
back upon it.134 He will not write the name of
the Greek emperor in his pages, because that
name is not written in the Book of Life.
So Louis VII. moved onward between Mount
Ida and Mount Olympus, through Smyrna and
Pergamos ; they reached Ephesus ; they stood at
the mound which marks the resting-place of the
Apostle S. John. They pushed on through the
rushing torrents down the Ephesian Valley. They
bought food at famine prices. But worst of all
was the subtle treachery of the Greeks. The
transit ships were purposely delayed ; they were
supplied at ruinous expense. Every sort of mis
fortune seemed to gather round the armies of the
Cross as they vainly strove to cope with the Mo
hammedan forces under Noureddin, Sultan of Ico-

184 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
nium.135 The flower of the French army perished
long before they reached Damascus.
Rumours of the great disaster, fragmentary news
of misfortune and repulse, reached Europe now
and then. Louis modified as far as he could
venture the terrible facts in his communications
with France. Suger implored him to return. But
Louis remained a year in the Holy Land. No con
quest was made, no brilliant achievement secured.
The feeble remnant which escaped the severity of
the passage, was rendered feebler by oriental luxury
in Antioch. At last he must return. In the year
1 149 Louis returned by Rome, where he spent a
brief time with Eugenius, and at length, as if re
luctant to reappear in his own kingdom with the
manifest tokens of miserable and utter defeat,
slunk back to his palace with the scanty shreds
and relics of the once glorious multitude of more
than 100,000 men.136 They returned with tales of
disgrace and disastrous irreparable defeat. And
by a strong and violent revulsion the indignant
populace turned on the Abbot, whose burning
words were responsible for directing their armies
to ruin.
Bernard felt the overthrow most keenly. No
eloquence could now avail to turn the stream
of general mistrust and disapproval. The fickle
crowds regarded Bernard as the main author of
their misfortunes. Men of deeper insight than the
rest pointed to the true causes of reverse. They

VIII.] Bernard and the Crusade. 185
spoke of the untrained, ill-disciplined multitudes
totally unqualified for military life. They drew in
dark colouring the story of shameless immoralities,
and all kinds of selfish excess by which the Cru
sading hosts were enfeebled and demoralized, and
overcome. They drew the just conclusion that not
with such degraded materials as these would the
Eternal permit the deliverance of the holy places
where the Redeemer's Blood was shed. Others
pointed out that, after all, good had been provi
dentially drawn forth from disaster and defeat.
Misfortunes had had a purifying effect upon many
in that ill-disciplined host. Survivors from the en
terprise could relate the story of many a penitent
and edifying death. Reverse and suffering had
been made instrumental in securing the conversion
of souls.137 These just and true reflections mode
rated no doubt the wrath which fell on Bernard's
head. But no reasonings could hinder the mass
of men from regarding the Abbot of Clairvaux as
personally responsible for their miseries.
Not that Bernard was distressed by the mere
loss of popularity. The distressing element lay
in the fact that he had, in absolute assurance of
the Divine approval, predicted success. He had
spoken as a prophet, but his promises had failed.
Bernard was shaken by the melancholy issues.
He writes to the Pope, exclaiming, " We have said
Peace, and there is no peace. We promised bless
ings, and lo, confusion !" It bore the appearance of

1 86 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
rashness. It seemed as if the mere enthusiasm of
a shallow mind. And yet the Pope had fully con
curred, nay, GOD Himself approved. Why have
we therefore fasted, and He has not heard ? Why
have we humbled ourselves, and He regards it
not? For in all this His anger is not turned
away, but His Hand is stretched out still.
The Abbot attempted to comfort himself and
the Pope with the reflection that Moses promised
the Israelites a better land, into which however he
was not permitted to lead them.138 And if the
people challenged him to prove the truth of his
mission by miracles, if they said, What sign showest
thou that we may believe, there was an answer
ready, were it not for the fact that humility would
be endangered by it.
Bernard here distinctly alludes to the signs by
which his preaching had been accompanied. But
Bernard's heart was deeply wounded in his hour
of failure and reverse.

!X.] Bernard's Later Years. 187

LECTURE IX.
BERNARD'S LATER YEARS.
FROM the reproaches which the outer world poured
upon Bernard after the failure of the Crusade, he
sought refuge within Clairvaux's gates in quiet
converse with Archbishop Malachi, Primate of
Ireland, a brave champion of the Catholic Faith.
Malachi delighted in Clairvaux. He had visited
the monastery ten years before, and pleaded with
the Pope for permission to continue there, but
pleaded in vain. Malachi, after ten years' strug
gles with Irish barbarism, was now returning to
his province for the second time from Rome, and
rested at Clairvaux on the way. Here a sudden
illness came upon him, and he ended his days
with Bernard and in peace.
When the dust of Clairvaux was laid on the
dead form of Malachi, Bernard sat down to write
the Archbishop's life. Bernard's life of Malachi139
is one of those deeply interesting records in which,
while writing the life of another, the writer reveals
his own ideal of what life should be. Malachi was
a mediaeval apostle ; a man who in the barbaric
wilds of Ireland had undergone incredible hard-

1 88 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
ships in propagating truth. And Bernard under
took to place on record the outlines of his brave
career. It was always a useful labour, said Ber
nard, to write the lives of saintly men. It may
help to rouse the morally dead. Therefore he will
restore to the world one of whom the world was
not worthy. Among all who read, Malachi's
memory will be blessed. The Archbishop lay
buried at Clairvaux, accordingly Clairvaux's monk
must naturally become his biographer. Bernard
owes him a personal debt. The hands of the
dying Primate have rested on the Abbot's head.
Bernard inherits his blessing. So Bernard relates
how Malachi was born among a sunken and de
graded people, from whose barbarism he imbibed no
more than the fish do from the saltness of the sea ;
how he grew up singularly serious-minded and
devout ; how he was ordained priest at what was
then the exceptionally early age of twenty-five ;
how he laboured to enforce the apostolic rules,
Confession, " the Sacrament of Confirmation," the
sanctity of the marriage vows, among an ignorant
and sensual crowd ; how his sister led a worldly
life and died ; how the priest had a dream, in
which the dead woman appeared in great misery,
having tasted nothing for thirty days, and Malachi
reflected that for those thirty days he had omitted
to offer the Holy Eucharist in his sister's behalf;
how he celebrated the Sacrifice for her needs, and
dreamed that she was restored, and thence learned

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 189
the effective influence of that prevailing Sacrament
not only in this world, but in the next.
Bernard relates that Malachi received the site of
the great Irish Monastery of Bangor, which pirates
had destroyed. At the age of thirty, Malachi was
consecrated Bishop of Connaught. Bernard de
scribes with horror the condition of the diocese,
nominally Christian, but in reality pagan. They
paid no tithes, they disregarded the sanctity of
marriage, they never went to confession. It was
difficult to find a confessor anywhere. Very few
ministered at the altars. There were no preachers,
and scarcely any chants were heard in the House
of Prayer. It was a perfect desolation. Among
these conditions the Apostolic Malachi laboured
splendidly. Shortly afterwards, Celsus the Irish
Primate died. On his dying bed he pointed to
Malachi as his fit successor. But by an almost
unique departure from Catholic precedent, the Irish
succession was in those days hereditary. The
episcopate was secured in the tribe and the family.
Bishops were multiplied to a very great extent.
Almost every separate Church possessed its own
Bishop. Malachi was duly consecrated Primate,
but not without a long-continued resistance. Mau
rice was a relative of Celsus, and according to this
bad tradition, claimed for himself the Primacy,
and invaded the see five years. He was succeeded
by another usurper, Nigellus. Nigellus secured
the most valuable relics, heirlooms of the primacy,

C A.D
"39-

190 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
including a copy of the Gospels which had be
longed to S. Patrick, a staff covered with gold, and
adorned with jewels, called the JESUS staff, from a
tradition that our LORD had held it in His hands,
and had in fact made it. Armed with these relics,
for which the popular veneration was unbounded,
Nigellus endeavoured to hold his own. But Mala
chi's power was increasing. His adherents en
throned him in the diocese of Armagh. The Arch
bishop then set off to Rome to seek the pallium.
Innocent was at that time Pope, and Malachi
asked leave to resign, and live at Clairvaux,
a request which Innocent declined to grant.
The Irish Primate then asked the Pope to confirm
him in his metropolitan see. Innocent granted this
at once. Malachi next sought the pallium. Inno
cent replied that this could only be done in response
to a request from the entire Irish episcopate. The
Pope then placed his own mitre on Malachi's head,
gave him his own maniple and stole, which the
Primate ever after wore while celebrating, and
sent him away with the kiss of peace. All this
Malachi himself related to Bernard and the monks
at Clairvaux. The Archbishop returns to his
Irish troubles. So passed away ten years, of
which many events are told, legendary, wonderful,
which Bernard himself implicitly believed. One
tale relates how a woman sought for extreme
unction at the hands of Malachi. The Archbishop
refused it under the impression that she was not

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 191
dying. That night, however, the woman died.
Malachi, in deep distress, prayed that she might
live again ; and live again she did, sufficiently long
to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and
to die in peace, much to Malachi's satisfaction.
The tale exhibits profound veneration for the Sa
craments, and vivid sense of their utility.
The Irish priest was evidently a man of strong
moral ascendancy. Other men were strong while
resting upon him. When departing for the second
time to Rome, armed with a council's request for
the pallium, a poor sufferer from epilepsy, who felt
himself safe from recurrence of his terrible malady
so long as the Archbishop was near, approached
him with bitter lamentations. Malachi, with fatherly
tenderness, drew him to himself, signed him with
the sign of the Cross, and said, with impressive
authority, " Be sure you shall never suffer from this
again until I return." He has never suffered since,
says the biographer. And, Bernard adds, with quiet
pathos, Malachi never will return. So Malachi
came down to the sea-shore, about to leave Ireland
for ever. As he was departing, two most intimate
friends made him promise to grant their last request.
" What is it ?" Malachi said. They declined to tell
him until he had promised to grant it. Malachi
was rash enough to promise. " Give us your word,"
said they, "that you will return." Malachi was
snared. Convinced that the future would be other
wise ordered, he knew not what to say, but thought

192 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
it best to leave the event in GOD'S hands, and set
sail. But soon a storm arose, and the boat was
compelled to return. So Malachi kept his promise.
But the next day he sailed away, and was never
seen again. Then follows in rapid succession the
Primate's visit to Rome, and at Clairvaux his death.
In his last illness they could not believe that he
was dying, for no signs of death seemed visible in
his face. He asked for extreme unction. He re
fused to allow the monks to come up to his cell,
but arose and went down to meet them. It was
the festival of All Saints. Malachi communicated
with the brotherhood. " I have earnestly desired,"
he said, " to eat this Passover with you. I praise
the Divine mercy that I am not deprived of my
desire." And at midnight Bernard rose and stood
beside his bed. It is the hour when the light
shineth in the darkness ; the monks assembled ; the
room was full. They followed the departing soul
with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So
Malachi slept, in his fifty-fourth year. By the
motionless calm upon his features, they knew that
he was dead. We thought him dying when he
slept, and sleeping when he died. (Mortuus vivere
et vivens mortuus putabatur.) Why should Clair
vaux mourn for Malachi ? Right dear in the sight
of the LORD is the death of His saints. He giveth
His beloved sleep. The Sacrifice was offered for
the Primate's repose. And in the chapel of the
Holy Virgin Mother of GOD, that chapel in which

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 193
Malachi had delighted, he was laid to rest, in the
year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1 148.
No sketch of Bernard's life would be complete
without including Bernard as a biographer. His
admiration for Malachi's character, his enthusiastic
description of the life of a great contemporary,
gives us a fresh insight into the beauty of Bernard's
own mind. It shows us once more what he had
most at heart, and the ideal after which he strove.
Although the Crusades had ended in a complete
collapse, yet Bernard's preaching had not been un
productive of good. His incessant labours had
brought him into contact with many minds, widened
enormously the circle of his influence, and effected
a deep impression on the more religious of the
day. These now sought him out in his cloister.
They came from every order of social life. Three
times the monastery had to be enlarged, to meet
the requirements of the ever-increasing community.
Bernard's dream was coming true. Seven hundred
brethren were enrolled in Clairvaux before the
great Abbot's death. And beyond this 160 reli
gious houses in France, Spain, Germany, and Eng
land, acknowledged him as general of their order.140
Clairvaux was perpetually receiving fresh acces
sions. It was also sending out her sons to occupy
important places in the Church. Many of Bernard's
followers became Bishops. They issued forth from
the solitudes to discharge the practical duties of a
diocese. But amid the cares and the interests of a
O

194 •$"¦ Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
great position, they never forgot the quiet convent
and its seclusion. Their hearts were at Clairvaux
still. They loved it as men love their home. They
ever delighted to lay aside the responsibilities of
public ministrations, and to return to the monas
tery as a blest retreat. They held it a precious
privilege to be permitted to die there.141 There
was Guerric, in whom all the brothers acknow
ledged a high degree of sanctity. Like Bernard,
constantly a victim to bodily infirmities, but most
spiritually minded. He was peculiarly noted for
his reverence in reading the lessons, in fact it
was said that they saw an angel accompany
him when he left his stall, and devoutly kneel
beside him while he read. Guerric was subse
quently made head of a religious house. And
when Abbot Guerric lay dying, remembering the
strict account which he must give, he carefully
examined his conscience by the Benedictine rule.
After which he summoned the convent, and told
them that he bitterly accused himself of breaking
the monastic discipline in one respect. He had
written a volume of Addresses, and issued them
without the permission of his superiors. Had not
Samuel said that disobedience was as idolatry.
Guerric besought the brothers to recall the book,
and ruthlessly to commit it to the flames. But,
says the biographer, it was otherwise ordained.
The Church was not to be thus deprived of the
precious fruits of his spiritual meditations. And,

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 195
as a matter of fact, they are still prefixed to S.
Bernard's work. Master and disciple are still to
gether in their writings.142
Bernard's later days were sorely disturbed
by forgeries of his seal and signature.143
There was a brother at Clairvaux to whom

A.D.
II5I.

the Abbot had been, if possible, exceptionally
considerate. Bernard made Nicolas his private
secretary, and trusted him entirely. But Nicolas
was unprincipled and dishonest. He brought upon
his Abbot incredible distress by forging his seal
and issuing letters in his name. This continued
for a long time undiscovered. At length Nico
las absconded, and his miserable frauds became
known. Bernard, patient as ever, made as little
reference to his dishonest secretary as the case
permitted. But it cost him untold anxieties before
he could set right the mischievous results of the
forged letters.
He was perforce compelled to acquaint Eugenius
with the facts. That Nicolas, he wrote, has gone
out from us, because he was not of us. But he
has left the most deplorable witness to his de
pravity. Bernard had long ago suspected the man,
but with his usual patience had hoped against
hope. Either, thought Bernard, God will convert
Nicolas, or else, like Judas, the betrayer will betray
himself. He stole books and money, but, worst
of all, three seals ; the Secretary's, the Prior's, and
Bernard's own, a new seal which Bernard had

196 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
lately substituted for the former seal. This was
why Bernard had complained that he lived among
false brethren. Who could tell to what mis
chievous uses the unscrupulous Nicolas had put
the Abbot's seal ? Nicolas had been forced by
evidence to confess that he had forged a letter to
the Pope. Bernard will say no more than is
necessary by way of warning and defence.
Bernard was distressed by the insolent conduct
of the Papal Nuncios. Your legate, writes Ber
nard to the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, your legate
has passed from nation to nation, from one king
dom to another people. And everything which he
has touched he has defiled. This apostolic person
has propagated not the Gospel, but sacrilege. He
has reaped a rich harvest from the Churches,
appointed mere boys to ecclesiastical offices.
Many have bribed him to keep him at a distance.
He has made himself a byword in the schools, the
courts, the public places. Seculars and religious
alike complained of him. The poor, the monks,
the clergy — none will say a good word for him.
Read this, adds Bernard, to the Pope. Let him
decide what ought to be done. I have delivered
my soul. It will be well for the Pope if he cleanses
the Court of Rome, and so delivers his own
conscience.144 The strain of a life's incessant exertions told
grievously on a constitution naturally frail, and
further enfeebled by severe ascetic discipline. I

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 197
have determined, he is obliged to say, not to leave
the monastery any more. My strength is broken, I
can no longer wander about as I used to do. 1
shall sit still and be silent. "It is good that a
man should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the LORD." Lam. iii. 26. It was also
written, " In quietness and confidence shall be
your strength." Isa. xxx. 15. Bernard wanted
peace, and it was not long delayed.
Writing to Andrew his uncle, one of the Knights
Templars at Jerusalem, Bernard expresses a strong
desire to see him before his death. But if he is
coming, Andrew must come quickly, or he will be
too late.
The days of Bernard's incessant activity were
drawing to a close. He no longer possessed the
physical force necessary for wanderings across Eu
rope, and for personal intervention in the interests
of widely separated cities. But the mind was as
active as 'ever. In these days of his decline, the
Abbot saw no more his beloved Eugenius. But
Eugenius, far away in his dangerous dignity, was
ever very near and dear to Bernard's heart. In
the quiet of Clairvaux and the broken intervals of
rest, Bernard was writing wise counsels, and grave
warnings for the guidance of his friend and brother
monk, the Pope. The manual " On Considera
tion," is one of Bernard's best known works. It
is written to Eugenius by the man who in all
Europe had probably the profoundest knowledge

1 98 6". Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
of religious affairs in that age. And it is written
with the express purpose of deepening the Pope's
spiritual life, of securing his usefulness to Chris
tendom, and of protecting him from the perils of
a unique and isolated greatness, strangely con
trasted with the simple-minded monk's obscure
position in early days. We catch in this memor
able writing many glimpses into the inner work
ing of the Pope's Court and surroundings at
Rome. We have the lofty ideal of a chief Bishop
in Christendom drawn by the pencil of one of the
most genuinely apostolic among men.
Bernard reminds Eugenius how insensibly we
slide away from our first intentions and our pure
ideal. That which first appears insufferable, in
course of time assumes a less repulsive form, and
then afterwards it becomes tacitly endured, and
later still we do not notice its presence, and finally
we become reconciled to it, and accept it as of neces
sity. We cannot trust to the permanence of our
present emotions. Nor is the heart so firmly fixed
in right that by the solvent of time and neglect it
cannot be dislodged.
The incessant burden of secular affairs which
found their way to Rome, Bernard deeply deplores.
The papal palace echoed less the laws of CHRIST
than the laws of Justinian. Let Eugenius see to
it that they deserved the name of Just. The
scenes in Rome contrasted oddly with the saying
of our Lord, " Who made Me a judge or a divider

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 199
over you ?" S. Luke xii. 14. The Apostles were
not found rectifying boundaries or apportioning
estates. They appeared indeed in court, but as
prisoners, not as magistrates. Their office was not
to administer farms, but to forgive sins. Secular
affairs have their appropriate functionaries whose
business is to attend to this very thing. Why
should the spiritual invade the duties of the secu
lar, and thrust in their sickle into a harvest which
is not theirs ?
Amid the distractions of the papal life, the only
safeguard was reflection, consideration. Called to
do good to all men, among all men Eugenius must
include himself. He must take his own turn
among the souls with which he deals. Care for others
is not compatible with neglect of self. " He that is
evil to himself, to whom will he be good ?" Ecclus.
xiv. 5. It is Eugenius' first duty to look to his
own spiritual state. He must not dissipate his
strength by too incessant activity. The essential
thing is consideration, that is occasional with
drawal for thought and reflection upon eternal
truths. To the restless mind in the cares of high
estate there is peculiar significance in the words,
"Be still then, and know that I am God." Ps.
xlvi. 10. Consideration helps to govern the emo
tions, to guide the conduct, to correct excess, to
regulate character, to strengthen and ennoble life,
to bring home to the mind the knowledge alike of
things human and things divine. Consideration

200 .9. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect
unravels the confused, binds the broken, gathers
the scattered, penetrates the unknown, discovers
the true, dispels the false. Let Eugenius reflect
upon himself, his nature, his office, his character.
What art thou by nature ? a man, a creature,
rational and mortal. By office, a servant, not a
lord. (Ministerium non dominium datum.)
Eugenius has the care of all the churches but
not dominion over them. Hear S. Peter himself,
" Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being ensamples to the flock." I S. Pet. v. 3. This
was our Saviour's teaching. " The kings of the
Gentiles exercise lordship over them ; . . . . but
ye shall not be so." S. Luke xxii. 25, 26. Clearly
dominion is forbidden to the Apostles.
After this Bernard ascribes many lofty titles to
the Pope, and then bids Eugenius consider the
peculiar dangers of his work. Ambition was a
more frequent visitant than devotion at the thres
holds of the Apostles. The Abbot vigorously de
nounces the injustice and waste entailed by the
practice of appeals to Rome. How long, he cries,
will you be deaf to the murmurs of the world ?
How long before you awake to the confusion and
the abuses of appeals ? The character of the Ro
man Cardinals for wealth and rapacity does not
escape the scourge of Bernard's indignant rebuke.
It has become proverbial, he says, When does
Rome ever say no to money ?
Bernard had not a very high estimate of the

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 201

Italian character. The populace were a fierce and
unruly throng. The more cultured class were un
willing to obey and incapable of ruling ; faithless
to their superiors, insufferable to those beneath
them ; audacious in pushing their own self-interest,
never resting till their ambition was secured, and
thankless when successful. Singularly facile in the
arts of cunning and dissimulation, their slippery
character escaped at every turn. Bernard was not
happy in association with Italians. The outward
trappings of the Papacy met with the Abbot's
strong disapproval. Peter the Apostle was a
stranger to this dignified display of glittering gems
and silken robes. He rode not forth in embroi
dered apparel upon a white palfrey, accompanied
by an armed force and servants innumerable.
In the absence of all these accessories he be
lieved it possible to fulfil the command, If thou
lovest Me, feed My sheep. In these things you
are not Peter's successor, but Constantine's.
Bernard would sternly reprove the secular ele
ment which was in danger of obscuring the spiritual
aspect of the Church. Why do you again attempt
to usurp the sword which you were bidden to put
back within its sheath ? Bernard's idea of the
relationship between secular and religious power is
instructive. There are two swords, the spiritual
and the material. The former alone is to be em
ployed by the Church herself, the latter by the
world in the Church's behalf. The priest holds

202 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
one, the soldier the other ; but the secular should
be directed in subordination to the spiritual.
The Abbot counsels the Pope on the exercise of
his patronage. Let him select neither him that
willeth nor him that runneth, but rather those
who draw back and refuse, men who fear none
besides God, and hope for. nothing except from
God, men of recognized goodness, obedient to
discipline, catholic in faith, trustworthy stewards,
seekers after peace, lovers of unity. Men who
will be like John the Baptist to kings, like Moses
to the Egyptians, like Elijah to idolaters, men
who will not despise the ignorant, but teach them,
nor flatter the rich, but warn them, nor wrong the
poor, but help them, nor fear the powerful, but re
buke them. Men whose advent is peaceful, whose
departure regretted, whose word is edifying, whose
life is exemplary, whose presence is welcome, and
whose memory is blessed. Men who will not enrich
themselves or their relatives with the patrimony of
the Crucified.
Another matter which set Rome in an unfavour
able aspect before Europe was the aggressive and
presumptuous arrogance of the Papal legates. Their
overbearing conduct was ridiculous. Above all
things, says Bernard, remember that the Holy
Roman Church, over which God has placed you,
is the mother of Churches, but not their mistress ;
and that you yourself are not master over the
Bishops, but one among their number.

IX.] Bernar&s Later Years. 203
It is not every man who would have ventured to
say these things to an occupant of the Papal throne.
And for a man holding a place so distinguished in
Christendom, it was simply invaluable to have the
plain truth told him with the authority of a father,
and the independence of one who cared not whether
his boldness brought him loss or gain. Bernard
spoke plain words. He rebukes and exhorts the
Pope, and teaches him the limits of his position,
and all this with a freedom most remarkable. Did
this ideal of the Roman episcopate lie before the
successive occupants of the Papal chair? Was it
read in the awful degradations inseparable from
the name of Borgia ? We do not know. But it
had been well for the progress of Christendom,
during the centuries which ensued, had this pure
and noble utterance been followed out and obeyed.
Who knows whether the divisions which have
weakened Christendom to this hour, had ever been,
if the successors of Eugenius had followed the
guidance of S. Bernard ?
It must have gladdened Bernard's heart to re
ceive a letter from Peter of Cluny,145 describing a
visit to Rome, and giving his impressions of Euge
nius. The powerful head of the great society of
Cluny was received in Rome with every token of
deference. But nothing struck him so much as his
interviews with Eugenius. Eugenius was as a
friend most faithful, a brother most true, devoting
himself with endless patience to all who sought

204 5. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
him, conducting himself with a lowliness and hu
mility which almost made men oblivious to the
fact of his exalted position. Not a trace of vanity,
parade, self-seeking, could be detected in his amiable
character. Peter found the Pope most willing to
grant his requests, or most reasonable when de
clining. It was no new thing, added Peter, with
pardonable pride, that the House of Cluny should,
in the person of its superior, be respected by the
occupant of the Papal throne. But this transparent
sincerity in word and deed was a new experience
at Rome. Thus the lessons learnt in Clairvaux
bore fruit in the great Italian Patriarchate, and
Bernard's influence in training character displayed
itself in the person of the Pope. The saintly
Abbot's declining days must have been so far com
forted. He was permitted to see the fruit of his
labours, in the man whom he described as formerly
his son, but now his father.
Odo,146 the Subprior of Clairvaux, saw with
grief the Abbot's failing strength. Odo for years
had aided in the government of the house. He
was a monk of the best and purest type. Genial
and kindly, but very firm and rigid in observance
of the rule. Odo had seen Clairvaux through its
most famous days, and he had no desire to survive
them. Odo prayed fervently he might die before
Bernard was taken away. And the subprior's
prayer was granted. Bernard stood by his dying
bed, and strengthened him in the last passage of

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 205
mortality, and the solemn experiences which he
himself was soon to undergo.
Half-way through the twelfth century, or more
exactly, in the year 1153, Bernard's increasing in
firmities gave warning that the end was approach
ing. I am sick even to death, he wrote ; I am
even weaker than you would believe. Meanwhile
the whole brotherhood, in their devotions, pleaded
most fervently against the saint's departure. And
Bernard intuitively knew that his death was being
hindered by their prayers. Accordingly, one day,
he gathered up his strength, as the brothers stood
round his bed, and besought them to hinder his
decease no longer. " Why will ye keep so miserable
a creature here ? I beseech you spare me, and let
me go." Bernard lay in perpetual suffering. There
was no intermission granted by the obliviousness
of occasional sleep. He tossed from side to side
in continual wakefulness. The signs of dropsy set
in, and the sick man could take no nourishment.
But in all the ruin of his physical frame, Bernard
never lost the serenity of mind, the gentleness and
graciousness of character which had distinguished
him all life through. Sensible of his increasing
infirmity, he told the brothers, I shall not continue
much longer on the earth. He withdrew himself,
during the few remaining weeks, as far as possible
from the distractions of worldly affairs. He wanted
to secure his footing most firmly on the further
shore ; and when a Bishop came to consult the

206 S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
dying man on business connected with his see,
Bernard seemed bereft of his usual interest. Marvel
not, he said ; I am no longer of this world. After
wards, conscious that what strength remained was
ebbing fast away, the dying Abbot summoned
about his bed certain best beloved and most trusty
members of the community, and gave them his part
ing charge. /Since, he said, I can leave you no great
example of holy life as your inheritance : there are
three things which I have laboured to observe
during my career, and which I commend for your
imitation. My aim has been to trust less in my
own senses than in those of others ; never to re
venge myself on those who have injured me ; to
give offence to no man, and if unhappily offence
was given, to make amends as speedily as I could.^
Thus the great Abbot of Clairvaux breathed his
last. The body, robed in priestly vesture, rested
in the Chapel of the Virgin. Upon the altar was
offered the Holy Sacrifice for Bernard's soul.
When it became known beyond the precincts
that the saintly Abbot had expired, mourning mul
titudes collected at the monastery gates. There
the women sobbed and bewailed him. According to
the monastic rule, women might not enter the mo
nastic church. But the men pressed on crowding,
and choking all the avenues of approach. They
gathered round the dead form, and gazed on the
noble face which death had not altered, or if al
tered, had yet further refined and dignified. They

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 207
kissed the cold hand. They laid coins upon the
vesture of the dead, as if by contact with the sacred
clay, some virtue would be communicated even to
these. Throngs pressed in to Clairvaux from far
and near. The dense masses of eager visitants
became unmanageable. All the world seemed
coming to Clairvaux. Confusion ensued. The
monks could not restrain the impulsive and mourn
ing multitudes. The community were obliged to
hasten the funeral secretly. Early on the morning
of the third day, the Eucharistic Sacrifice was
offered again, and the holy dead laid quietly in his
grave, before the altar of the B.V.M. Upon his
heart were placed some relics of the Apostle
Thaddaeus, which had been sent to Bernard from
Jerusalem, and which the saint desired to have
buried with him when he died.
Thus passed away, at the age of sixty-three, one
of the purest realizations of Christian principle
which has ever appeared in human flesh and blood.
As a writer, contemporary with Bernard, truly
says : he was one to whom many miracles were
attributed, but the greatest miracle which he dis
played was himself. Calm and serene in aspect,
humble in bearing, prudent in speech, devoted to
meditation, believing more in prayer than any other
form of human industry, vigorous in faith, unflag
ging in hope, overflowing with love, crowned by
lowliness. Marvellous was the force of character
which, although himself abiding in lowly position,

208 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux. [Lect.
enabled Bernard to win his elder brothers to em
brace monastic life, to infuse new vigour in an
already severe monastic house, to attract his fellow-
countrymen towards that obscure corner of Bur
gundy, to obtain ascendancy over whole peoples,
to guide the consciences of kings, Henry of Eng
land, Louis of France, and Conrad of Germany ;
to decide and finally settle the claims of rival
Popes ; to order the affairs of Christendom from
the Abbot's chamber in Clairvaux ; to direct the
current of popular enthusiasm into the disasters of
the second Crusade ; to win, without seeking it,
the adoring reverence of multitudes ; and yet to
decline all outward honours, and to live and die
merely the Superior of an undistinguished cloister
in a wild and repellent vale. In one way this
saintly hero of far-off days is with us still, for we
join in singing the language of his hymns. The
familiar hymn —
" Jesu, the very thought is sweet,
In that dear Name all heart-joys meet :
But oh ! than honey sweeter far
The glimpses of His Presence are,"
comes to us from the cloisters of Clairvaux, and
from Bernard's pen. It is a fragment of the beauti
ful lines beginning, Jesu dulcis memoria.
Our labours now are ended. We have tried to
catch glimpses of a far-away time — to make the
men and women of a bygone age live before us

IX.] Bernard's Later Years. 209

again. We have attempted to realize what they
were like in their modes of thought, their devotion,
their manner of living. We have passed into a
mediaeval atmosphere widely contrasted with this
in which our own lot is cast. We have heard
strains very unfamiliar to modern conceptions, en
thusiasms which possibly wake no echo in minds
of to-day. But we have also seen profound un
worldliness and all-conquering faith. We have
seen that, notwithstanding the diversity of cen
turies, human nature is everywhere the same. We
have seen one impressive phase in the development
of Christian character. We have seen a spiritual
grandeur, an intensity of conviction which we shall
not easily find surpassed. We have found men
who, at whatever sacrifice, were animated with a
spirit of intense reality, men who put Christianity
in the very forefront of all they sought and all
they loved. We have seen the Cross exerting its
influence over the passions of ignorant nobles and
half-civilized throngs ; the power and authority of
the Church arresting the lawlessness of sinful men.
And in the centre of it all, as the embodiment
of all that was best in the tendencies of the age,
there rises a singularly unearthly figure, physically
weak but morally powerful, a strangely beautiful
ascetic saintly form ; the childlike simplicity, the
unquestioning faith, the fervent personal devotion
to our LORD, the single-minded unselfish sacrificial
life, of one who exercised enormous power, but
P

2 1 o .S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
never exercised it in his own behalf; the man who
with few and slight imperfections universally ex
hibited in human nature as we see it, was one of
the purest examples of Christian principle which
history can anywhere present, the gentle yet
strong, the spiritually-gifted — Bernard, first Abbot
of Clairvaux.

APPENDIX.

s. Bernard's rejection of the immaculate con
ception OF THE blessed virgin.
S. Bernard is lavish in the glorious titles which he heaps
upon S. Mary. She is " the Lady of the world," she is
"the Queen of Heaven." The royal Virgin is "the way
whereby the Saviour came near to us. " The familiar con
trast between Mary and Eve, the mother of all living, and
the mother of the Lord, the introducer of sorrow into
human life, and the bringer in of Redemption, is one upon
which S. Bernard, as his predecessors, delighted to dwell.
He calls on Eve to go to Mary, the mother to put her con
fidence in her daughter. He tells Adam that he must
now retract his accusation against Eve, for the woman
whom Thou gavest me has now given me of the Tree of
Life, and by it I live again. In a passage of extreme
beauty and refinement, S. Bernard describes the entire
human race as waiting in breathless suspense for Mary's
answer to the angel. Her word is to be the fiat of the
new spiritual creation. S. Bernard represents Mary, if
not with theological accuracy, at least with exceeding
dignity and grace, as deciding by one word the destinies
of mankind. All the human race is prostrate at her

212 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
feet. The angel waits for her reply. " Behold, there
is offered to thee," S. Bernard exclaims, "the price of
our redemption ; if thou consentest, we are free. Upon
thy lips depends the consolation of the sorrowful, the
freedom of the enslaved, the rescue of the lost, the
salvation of all the sons of Adam, of all thy race."147
Upon this a writer of our own communion remarks : —
" I have indeed thought it an exaggeration, when some
writers of books of devotion have delighted to dwell on
the Incarnation as though our Redemption depended
upon the 'fiat' of Mary. For although God — in con
formity with that His wondrous condescension, whereby
He reverences (if I may so speak) the free will with which
He has endowed us, and will not force our will — would
not accomplish the Incarnation without the free will of
His creature, yet, of course, there was nothing really in
suspense. Had He indeed, amid the manifold failures,
which He has allowed in His work of grace, willed to allow
this scope also to free will, that it should reject the pri
vilege of being Theotokos, and so have offered it to one
who would not accept it, the Incarnation might have been
delayed for a while ; it could not have failed."148
But S. Bernard goes further. " Let us strive through
her to ascend to Him, Who through her descended to us."
" Through thee we have access to thy Son. O blessed dis-
coveress of grace, bearer of life, mother of Redemption,
that through thee He may receive us, Who through thee
is given us." " Our Lady, our mediatrix, our advocate,
recoiicile us to thy Soti."U9
This language of S. Bernard implies that God has con
stituted the B.V.M. as a mediatrix between Jesus Christ
and mankind ; that all our approach to Jesus Christ

Appendix. 213

must be through her ; that she again dispenses His grace
to all the human race. And this language has been re
echoed and widely adopted in subsequent writers.
S. Bernard is responsible for this doctrine. According
to S. Bernard, one unique prerogative of Mary is her
mediatorship between Christ and the Church. Christ
indeed, S. Bernard admits, would have sufficed, and as it
is even now, all our sufficiency is of Him. But it was
not good for the Man Christ Jesus to be alone. It
was, Bernard thinks, becoming that both sexes should
take part in our restoration. The faithful and most
powerful mediator between God and man is the Man
Christ Jesus. But human nature shrinks away in fear,
awestruck at the recollection of His divinity. The man
hood seems absorbed in Deity, says S. Bernard. Accord
ingly what more natural, more beautiful, than the erection
of a mediator between the Mediator and the human race ?
Human frailty is terrified at the majesty of Jesus Christ.
But human frailty has no fear of Mary. In her there is
nothing austere, nothing terrible. Does she ever say a
harsh word in the Gospel ? If she does, let her forfeit
her position. Do you want an advocate with the Father ?
God has given you Jesus Christ. Do you need an
advocate with Jesus Christ? Take refuge in Mary.
Mary, says S. Bernard, is placed as mediatress between
Christ and the Church.150
To any mind, coming straight from the study of pri
mitive Christian writers, all this is as novel as it is painful.
The erection of a womanly ideal of mercy without justice,
a feminine refuge for sinners, more tender and compas
sionate than Jesus Christ, is at once a wrong inflicted
upon the character of our Lord, and also a lowering of

214 ¦$• Bernard of Clairvaux.

the severe Christian morality to the level of human frailty.
The greatest glory of Christianity lies in its marvellous
reconciliation of mercy with justice. Bernard felt this at
other times most keenly. His wonderful Sermon on
the words, Mercy and Truth are met together, plainly
shows it. In fact, to separate the attributes of mercy and
judgment is not really an act of kindness to the human
race. We need the bracing, invigorating, if at times
overwhelming Form of the awful Son of Man, Who is,
although merciful, yet just, and although just, yet merciful.
There is also the painfully false light in which this
separation of mercy from justice places the character
of our Lord's tenderness. If the sinner is bidden to
take refuge in Mary, when afraid of his Lord, it
seems implied that the mercy of the creature is greater
than the mercy of the Uncreated. The rivulet seems
pointed out as purer than its source. The human heart,
which God endows with a ray of love, seems regarded
as more sympathetic than the Giver of this endowment
of love. No — " The love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind."
The voice which spoke words such as no other gave
utterance to — says not Go to My mother, but Come unto
Me. But S. Bernard strongly emphasized the wide distinc
tion between the dignity of the mother and the dignity
of her Blessed Son. On the words, Blessed art thou
among women, S. Bernard writes : — Not because thou

Appendix. 2 1 5

art blessed, therefore blessed is the fruit of thy womb ;
but because He has prevented thee with the blessings of
goodness, therefore thou art blessed. Truly blessed is
thy Child, in Whom all nations of the earth are blessed,
of Whose fulness hast thou also received as others,
although differently from others. Moreover, thou art
blessed, but it is among women ; but He is blessed, not
merely among men, nor among angels, but, far above all :
for this is He of Whom the Apostle exclaims, He is
God, blessed for ever.151
Again, if S. Bernard says, " whatever we say in praise
of the Mother reverts to her Son," he immediately adds,
" and when we honour the Son, we do not depart from
the glory of the Mother." And unquestionably the gaze
of S. Bernard is fixed not upon the Mother, but upon
the Divine Son. It is Jesus Christ Who is the per
petual theme of his praise, and the centre of his adoration.
At the same time the beauty of S. Bernard's teaching,
the intensity of his devotion to Mary undoubtedly gave
great impulse to the popular tendencies. Bernard cer
tainly helped to advance in several ways the ideas of
Europe on the B.V.M.
But there were limits even for S. Bernard. A claim
was being made in Mary's behalf which even S. Bernard's
mind could not accept. And the enthusiastic readiness
with which he accepts many things contributing to her
honour, makes the contrast of his refusal all the more
striking. There must be strong reasons indeed when
S. Bernard refuses to ascribe a new title to S. Mary.
We propose to sketch in the following pages the history
of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the
B.V.M.

2 1 6 5. Bernard of Clairvaux.
I. ,S. Bernard's Letter.
The Festival of the Conception of the B.V.M. was
now (a.d. i 140) being observed for the first time in
Christendom. The ever-watchful S. Bernard is instantly
on the alert. He writes his celebrated letter152 to the
Canons of the Church of Lyons. He assures them that
among the churches of France none has been more dis
tinguished hitherto in influence, in learning, and in life
than the Church of Lyons. A matured and judicious
community it has never as yet been betrayed into youth
ful levity. Accordingly Bernard is all the more amazed
to find that Church introducing a novel observance — he
means the Festival of the Conception — which, he adds,
is foreign to the usages of the Church, discordant to
reason, and destitute of the authority of tradition. Are
we, asks S. Bernard, more learned than the Fathers, or
more devout ?
But, interposes an objector, the Lord's Mother is
surely to be highly revered. True, replies S. Bernard, but
the queen's honour loveth judgment. The Royal Virgin
needs no false glories. The genuine dignities which crown
her are numerous indeed. Honour her as Ever Virgin,
revere the holiness of her life, venerate her divine Son.
She was honoured by the Angels, desired by all nations,
predicted by Patriarchs and Prophets, chosen alone
from all, preferred before all. She is the discoverer of
grace, the mediatress of Redemption, through her the
world is restored. So the Church has taught him to
say. That she was sanctified from her birth S. Bernard
rejoices to believe. This was said of Jeremiah and
S. John Baptist ; but how far that sanctification availed

Appendix. 21 J

with reference to original sin, S. Bernard is not prepared
to say. What was granted to these prophets was cer
tainly not denied to her through whose instrumentality
all mankind has entered into life. Unquestionably the
Lord's Mother was sanctified before her birth; and
S. Bernard himself believed that all her life through she
was by special grace secured from actual sin. It was
becoming that it should be so. Are not these privi
leges sufficiently great? No, answers the objector, we
must also believe that she was conceived by her parents
without sin. Why not also that her grandparents and
great-grandparents, and so on for generations, says S.
Bernard, were also exempt from original sin ? There is
no limit to it. But the defenders of the Immaculate
Conception produce some writings upon which they rely.
As if any one could not as reasonably infer from the text,
Honour thy father and thy mother, that the Virgin's father
and mother were also exempted from the inheritance of sin !
As for such apocryphal writings, neither resting on reason
nor authority, S. Bernard is not to be influenced by them.
That she was sanctified is the proof that she was not imma
culately conceived. S. Bernard is quite clear that being
born of the ordinary marriage union of her parents, her con
ception was not sinless. He reads Gabriel's prediction that
the Holy Ghost shall overshadow her. The Holy Spirit
comes upon her in her maturity, but was not with her in
her nativity. If S. Bernard may repeat the mind of the
Church, and assuredly the Church is right, he would say
that the B.V.M. conceived by the Holy Spirit, but not
that by the Holy Spirit she was herself conceived.
Otherwise where is the Virgin's unique prerogative if
the Virgin's mother also possessed the same? This

2 1 8 .S". Bernard of Clairvaux.
is not to honour the Virgin, but to deprive her of
honour. Although then it has been granted to a very few
among human beings to be born in holiness, not one
among them has been so conceived ; Christ alone ex
cepted, Who sanctifies all men, and coming alone without
sin, cleanses all from sin. But with that sole exception,
Mary, like the rest must say, " In sin hath my mother
conceived me."
Hence what is the meaning of a festival of her Im
maculate conception ? How can that Conception which
was not sinless be observed by festival ? The glorious
Virgin may well do without this honour. S. Bernard
denounces this festival. He calls it a bold innovation,
the mother of rashness, sister of superstition, daughter of
levity. Indeed even if the Canons of Lyons had been
maintaining the truth, which S. Bernard is convinced is
not the case, yet before taking such steps the Apostolic See
ought to have been consulted. They ought not to
have followed the simplemindedness of a few unlearned
persons. S. Bernard had detected this error on a previous occa
sion. But he was reluctant to interfere with a devotion
which sprang from simplemindedness, and well-inten
tioned zeal. But when he discovered learned men like
the Canons of Lyons, and that great Church led away
into superstition, he felt that the time for silence had
passed by. S. Bernard concludes with an expression of
deference for the opinion of any person more learned
than himself, and especially of the Roman Church by
whose authority he is purposed to abide.
S. Bernard's rejection of the Immaculate Conception

Appendix. 219
of the B.V.M. is in this celebrated letter rested upon
two grounds — 1. Argument, and 2. an appeal to Tra
dition. The appeal to tradition has an independent value,
whatever may be thought of the validity of S. Bernard's
reasonings. Reasonings such as these exhibit to some
extent the individual mind alone. But in the appeal to
Tradition is S. Bernard's witness to the teaching and
practice which the Church had set before him. S. Ber
nard's position, his friendship with successive Popes, his
incessant correspondence with leading Bishops and theo
logians of his age, his wide and intimate knowledge of
the century in which he was living — none knew it better
than himself — all these facts contribute to add enormous
weight to his witness when he asserts that the Catholic
Church had no traditions of the Virgin's Immaculate
Conception.153 II. The Council of Basle.
But this doctrine to which the last of the Fathers of
the Latin Church had half-way through the twelfth cen
tury accorded his emphatic denial, was to be the theme
of violent contention in the ages succeeding. The
theory of the Virgin's exemption from mortal taint
which barely struggled for place and existence in the
twelfth century, had become more powerful and pre
valent in the fifteenth. If the entire Dominican order
was identified with its rejection, the Franciscans sup
ported it with all their strength. And the subject hitherto
confined to the discussion of individual theologians, at
length emerged into the council chambers of the Catholic
Church.

220 6". Bernard of Clairvaux.
John of Torquemada,154 Cardinal of the Roman Church,
protested with all his force against the introduction of
this new theory among the dogmas of the Church.
Cardinal John was supported by the whole order of
S. Dominic.
It was the desire of Pope Eugenius IV. that the sub
ject of the Immaculate Conception should be discussed
at the Council of Basle in 143 1. Accordingly the
Pope selected two theologians, one in defence of the
doctrine, and the other in denial, whose office was to
show what might be said on either side. John of
Torquemada was the theologian chosen to show reasons
why the Church should not erect this opinion into a
dogma of the Faith.
In fulfilment of his office the Cardinal wrote an ex
ceedingly elaborate treatise at great length, in support of
the position adopted by S. Bernard. Cardinal John
rose in his place in the council chamber at Basle, and
proposed to introduce his thesis in accordance with the
Pope's desire. But die absorbing question of the Greek
Church occupied the Council's attention at first, and the
subsequent discord, and division, and failure, and ulti
mate departure of the vast majority of Bishops defeated
the Pope's desire, and the treatise of Cardinal John was
never read. The Cardinal himself, disgusted with the
unhappy state of the Council, returned to the Pope.
After John of Torquemada and the majority of the Bishops
had departed, an insignificant minority passed a canon
enforcing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of
S. Mary. This decree was received in France, but
ignored in Rome. Such was the first introduction of
the doctrine into the Council Chambers of Christendom.

Appendix. 221

Cardinal John scornfully characterises this decree as
worthless, invalid, as indeed it is generally acknow
ledged to be.
But the Cardinal's laborious compilation was laid aside,
and was in danger of becoming lost in the archives of
Rome, had not Pope Paul III., a century later, ordered the
work to be published (a.d. 1534). Whether or no the
increasing unpopularity of the cause defended by Cardinal
John contributed to the oblivion of his labours need not
be discussed ; but the treatise, although published with
Papal sanction, became very rare and inaccessible. In
the present century, no library in England possessed a
copy. The volume was obtained almost accidentally by
Dr. Pusey, who had it reprinted in 1869, and dedicated
to the Bishops assembling for the Vatican Council in the
following year. The contents of this remarkable docu
ment, which deserves a better fate than has been ac
corded it, exhibit the strong repugnance which existed in
the Roman Communion to the doctrine of the Immacu
late Conception, half-way through the fifteenth century.
Elaborately argumentative, occupying some 800 closely
printed pages, containing the teaching of a vast number of
learned and saintly writers of all ages, the work is doc-
trinally and historically of the greatest interest, notwith
standing its scholastic and unpopular form, as showing
the influence of S. Bernard's teaching, and the struggles
and dangers awaiting the new theory before it could
obtain its present recognition.
Defenders of the Immaculate Conception urged, says
the Cardinal, four points. They asserted — ¦
1. That God could preserve S. Mary from original sin.
2. That it was becoming that He should do so.

222 5. Bernard of Clairvaux.
3. That therefore He ought.
4. That accordingly He did.
In reference to the first point, the Cardinal replies
that unquestionably the power of God abstractedly re
garded has no limit. But the divine power is commonly
viewed by theologians as (1) absolute, and as (2) con
ditioned. Absolute, without reference to special cases.
Conditioned, when controlled by the divine character, or
by the laws of His working. Abstractedly, it was un
doubtedly possible for the Almighty to raise S. John the
Baptist or S. Mary, or any other human being, above the
universal taint of sin ; but when conditioned by the divine
will, that our Lord was to be the universal Saviour, the
preservation of any individual from original sin became
no longer possible. Our Lord's prerogative is to be the
Redeemer of all the human race without exception. By
Him has every human being been redeemed. Mary then,
like all the rest, has been redeemed. But from what?
Assuredly from sin. Preservation is not identical with Re
demption. That the Divine Power could, if He pleased,
have preserved Mary from original sin, and therefore from
the need of Redemption, Torquemada admits and asserts.
But she cannot at once be above the need of redemp
tion, and yet redeemed. And she could only need re
demption on the ground that she was born in sin. To say
that any were redeemed by Jesus Christ, who were never
under the influence of original sin, is to say exactly what
S. Augustine strongly condemned the Pelagian heresy for
saying. They that are whole need not a physician, but
they that are sick. To say that the B.V.M. needed a
physician, yet that she was never sick, is a contradiction.
Not one individual of the human race exists who was not

Appendix. 223

once in need of the physician, not one who was not
healed by the grace of Christ. The purpose of the
Redeemer's coming was " to save sinners." In this S.
Mary must be included. If she was one of those whom
our Lord came to save, she also was a sinner. And
when Mary sang her Magnificat, among all the titles of
God, that which she expressly selects is " God, my Sa
viour." But any one to whom our Lord is a Saviour,
must once have been in a state of sin. At least so
thought Pope Zosimus, when he wrote that no one can be
truly called redeemed, unless he was first a servant of sin.
Christ died for sinners. Yes; but He died for none
but sinners. It is exclusively for sinners that the Sa
viour died. If the B.V.M. come not under the category
of sin, how is she included in the range of redemption ?
This line of thought evidently struck home in the thir
teenth century. For it was suggested, as a means of
escape, that Christ Jesus our Lord died for the angels
also. "All must be redeemed by Christ," wrote S.
Thomas ; " but this cannot be, if one soul be found
which was never infected with the stain of original sin."
2. On the second point, that the B.V.M. 's exemption
from all contact with sin, was appropriate and becoming,
it was urged that the Queen of Heaven and the Mother
of God could never surely have been a slave of Satan.
Torquemada replied by a question. Why should the
B.V.M. be more acceptable to God, if preserved from
evil, than if cleansed from evil by the precious Blood of
Jesus Christ?
3. On the third point, that God ought to preserve the
B.V.M. immaculate from all taint of original sin, it was
urged, original sin is a curse upon the race. But it can-

224 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
not be ascribed to the B.V.M., for our Lord Himself
quoted with approval the words of Moses : " Whoso
curseth father or mother, let him die the death." S.
Mark vii. 10. Our Lord cannot have cursed His own
mother. This argument, says Torquemada, was considered cru
cial. Torquemada, accepting his opponent's position, re
minds him that a man may no more curse his grandmother
than his mother. If then it be alien from piety to place
the B.V.M. under the curse, so also would it be alien to
place S. Anne, the Virgin's mother, under it. And so
on with previous generations. Indeed, is it not written,
bless and curse not? Accordingly the entire human
race ought not to have been placed under the curse
of original sin. A logical conclusion, which, when
contrasted with known facts, may teach the value to be
set by Catholics upon arguments of this nature.
4. On the fourth point, namely, that God did actually
exempt the B.V.M. from all contact with original sin,
passages of Scripture were quoted which, to the mind of
Torquemada's opponents, appeared to prove the fact.
The passages quoted are significant. The principal seem
to be the following : — Gen. iii. 15. " She shall bruise thy
head." And it was inferred that if the B.V.M. was to bruise
Satan's head, she could never have been under Satan's
dominion. But S. Bernard had applied these words to S.
Mary, yet denied the inference. Esther xv. 10 was also
quoted, in which the king stretches forth his golden
sceptre, and laid it upon Esther's neck, exempting her
from the- common penalty of death, saying, This law is
not for thee, though it is for all the rest. The beauty of
the application might almost excuse its irrelevance as an

Appendix. 225

argument. Psalm lxxxvii. " The Most High shall stablish
her." Cant. ii. "As a lily among the thorns." Cant. iv. 7.
" Thou art all fair, My love ; there is no spot in thee."
There is, echoes Torquemada, not there was. This is
no argument to prove what Mary was in her conception.
That she was sanctified before her birth, the Cardinal,
as S. Bernard centuries before him, piously and firmly
believed, yet as firmly rejected the doctrine of the Im
maculate Conception.
Again, it was argued from Gabriel's salutation, Did not
Gabriel say Ave to Mary ? And what is Ave, but a word
composed of a negative, and vae=woe? Does not then
Gabriel salute Mary as one who is a-vse, that is, exempt
from all woe ? And what is the great and principal woe
of the human race ? Is it not original sin, in which all
other woes are implied? Accordingly the triumphant
inference is, that herein the angel Gabriel ascribes to the
B.V.M. immunity from original sin.
One single line from Torquemada's reply to this exegesis
will probably suffice. Ave was also said by our Lord
to the women at the sepulchre. Did this imply that
they were all sharers in the same exemption with Mary ?
Torquemada's argument against the doctrine of the Im
maculate Conception consists, first
(A) in an appeal to Holy Scripture. Scripture teaches in
the plainest terms that immunity from original sin is a pre
rogative of the Divine Redeemer alone. Scripture has in
cluded all under sin. " All have sinned, and come short
of the glory of God." In Adam all die. There is a per
sistent monotony of reiteration about this mournful truth.
Christ alone is excepted. " Holy, harmless, undefiled,
Q

226 5. Bernard of Clairvaux.
separate from sinners." And the reason for this immu
nity from original sin, in the case of our Blessed Lord's
human nature, is that He was not born of a marriage
union, but by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.
No sinful, earthly passion marred that Immaculate Con
ception. But Mary herself was the child of earthly
parents, and born of an ordinary marriage union. Im
munity from original sin is accorded alone to those who
are born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but conceived by the Holy Ghost.
" The exemption of our Lord's human nature from
original sin, is ascribed, by the Fathers, to the difference
in the mode of His conception. All, those Fathers teach,
have been born subject to the original sin, who received
their being after the way of nature ; our Lord's human
nature alone was not so subjected, because He was not
conceived after the way of nature; He was conceived,
not of man, but of the Holy Ghost."155
Moreover, urged Torquemada, Scripture is absolutely
silent about this supposed prerogative of Mary. The
doctrine is not involved or implied in any teachings of
Holy Scripture. That the B.V.M. is the Mother of the
Eternal Son of God is true. But it does not follow by any
logical or spiritual necessity that she was therefore by a
special grace and favour of God exempted from all con
tagion of original sin. This has to be proved. It can
not be assumed. That she, selected from the entire
human race for her awful and unique prerogative, and
thus isolated from the world of intelligent beings, was
indeed marvellously endowed, mysteriously gifted with
many dignities befitting her for her glorious office, thai
she never in deed or word offended her Divine Son,

Appendix. 227

all this every Catholic will joyously acknowledge. But
all this by no means involves the assertion, nay is per
fectly consistent with the denial of the doctrine that
Mary was immaculately conceived. There can be pro
duced in its behalf no single authority from the records
of inspiration. Certainly it is not probable that so
supreme a privilege, had it been really bestowed upon
the Mother of Jesus Christ, should be passed over in
perfect silence in the pages of the Holy Scriptures, while
this very prerogative is not passed over in the case of
our Lord Himself. For the mention in His case seems
less necessary than in hers. Christian piety must from
the first have certainly ascribed to Him this prerogative
even if Scripture had not explicitly declared it, but in.
the case of Mary a Scripture statement is essential,
since we could not know it unless we were told. This
silence is unaccountable were the doctrine true.
(B.) To the Scriptural argument Torquemada adds
various other reasons which may be grouped together as
doctrinal. 1. Among these he notes the fact of the Virgin's
death. Death, says the Cardinal, and here his oppo
nents could not possibly contradict him, for he was fol
lowing the authoritative teaching of innumerable saints,
death is the consequence of original sin. To be exempt
from original sin, to be immaculately conceived, is to be
exempt from the necessity for physical death. In virtue
of this Immaculate Conception our Lord Himself could
claim exemption from death of the body. That He did not
claim exemption was because He identified Himself
with the sinful race, and voluntarily became the Re
demptive Sacrifice. But why did Mary die? Her

228 5. Bernard of Clairvaux.
death was no expiation for the sins of the world. What
possible construction can be placed upon the fact of her
dissolution, except that it is a witness to her share in the
universal evil inheritance ? So at least thought no less
an authority than S. Augustine.
" Adam died because of sin. Mary died because of
Adam's sin. And the flesh which the Lord took of
Mary also died, but it was to take away the sins of the
world." (On Ps. xxxiv.)
If it be objected that grace could remove the cause
without removing the consequence, that original sin
might be removed, yet physical death remain, Cardinal
John answers that for consequences to follow a non
existent cause is at once irrational and unjust. Nor is
there any proof to show that grace actually did what
was asserted to lie within God's power. " Our body is
dead because of sin. The body of Christ also is dead
without sin."156
(C.) Torquemada's third and strongest argument is the
historical, the appeal to Catholic Consent. He quotes a
hundred writers — Saints, Bishops, doctors, teachers in
Christendom, demonstrating in a way beyond refute
that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not
the tradition of the Catholic Church. Authorities of such
weight as S. Ambrose, S. Leo, S. Augustine, S. Anslem,
S. Bernard, S. Thomas Aquinas, S. Bonaventura, are all
producible for language which cannot be reconciled with
the more modern teaching, and in many cases for posi
tive and definite rejection.
i. S. Augustine,157 when writing on actual sin, refuses
for the honour of our Lord to include the B.V.M. in the
range of the discussion, but he makes no corresponding

Appendix. 229

exemption while discussing the subject of original sin.
" The very pains which people have been at to make the
occasion in which he exempts the B.V.M. from actual
sins to include original sin also, brings out the more the
force of the omission."158 The reiterated assertion of
S. Augustine is that Christ alone was conceived without
sin. And that this was not meant to imply a reservation
in the case of the B.V.M. is clear from the ground upon
which Augustine bases the sinless conception of Christ.
According to S. Augustine Jesus alone is innocent,
because Jesus alone was born of a Virgin. " Whoever
then thinks that there was or is in this life any man or
any men, except the One Mediator of God and man,
to whom remission of sins was not necessary, contradicts
Divine Scripture."159
Mary His Mother, of whom He took flesh, was born
of the carnal concupiscence of parents, but not so did
she conceive Christ  160
2. Pope Zosimus161 again had taught that no one can be
described as set free, unless he was once the slave of sin,
nor said to be redeemed unless he was once bound by
sin. Plainly then, adds Torquemada, according to this
Pope's teaching, unless Mary was once a captive to
original sin, she was not redeemed by the Blood of
Christ. 3. Pope S. Leo163 wrote, — " For this Nativity [i.e. of
our Lord] has no concern with what we read in regard
to all men. No one is clean from defilement, not even
an infant whose life on earth is but one day old. And
thus no element derived from carnal passion or from
the law of sin passed or flowed into this peerless
Nativity."

230 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.

.... He in Whom alone the nature of all men was
innocent. 4. " For not even the Mother of the Redeemer was
free from the bond of the primaeval sin." — Eusebius163 of
Gaul. 5. S. Thomas184 wrote : "It is erroneous to say that
any one was conceived without original sin, our Lord
alone except. For he who is conceived without sin
needs no redemption. And thus Christ would not be
the Saviour of all men."
And again, "The Blessed Virgin was conceived in
original sin."
6. S. Bonaventura.165 "This mode of speaking is
more common, and more reasonable, and safer. More
common, because almost all hold that the Blessed Virgin
had original sin ; ... . more reasonable, because the
being of nature precedes the being of grace. Safer, be
cause it is more concordant with piety and the authority
of the Saints. It is more concordant with the authority
of the Saints, for the Saints commonly when they speak
of this subject, except Christ alone from that univer
sality wherewith it is said, ' all have sinned in Adam.'
But there is no one found of those whom we have heard
of with our ears, who said that the Virgin Mary was free
from original sin. It is more concordant with piety, be
cause although the mother is to be had in reverence, and
great devotion ought to be had towards her, yet much
greater is to be had towards the Son, from Whom all
honour and glory come to her."
7. S. Bernard's emphatic rejection of the doctrine in
his letter to the Canons of Lyons and elsewhere, was
all the more significant and difficult to set aside from

Appendix. 231

the very fact of his profound reverence for all which
tended to the Virgin's honour. But it was urged in
mitigation of his witness, and the argument has since
been repeated, that the Abbot of Clairvaux had after all,
at the close of his letter, submitted its contents to the
judgment of the Apostolic See. Torquemada replied
that this submission to the Apostolic See is distinctly
qualified by the emphatic and determined tone of the
entire letter. S. Bernard is evidently making an appeal
to universal tradition, which he regards it morally impos
sible for the Pope to contradict. There is an intensity of
conviction, an assurance of certainty. He is absolutely
convinced that any appeal which the Canons of Lyons
or others might make to the authority of the Church
could only result in a triumphant vindication of his own
teachings, and a rejection of this intruded novelty.
Moreover since S. Bernard wrote 300 years had passed,
and no reversal of his teaching had ever issued from the
Councils at Rome.
Torquemada might have strengthened his reply by
observing the actual form in which S. Bernard's remarks
are cast. He makes no simple appeal to the decisions of
Rome, nor does he really leave the matter in the Pope's
hands. What he says in effect is that even supposing
the Canons of Lyons to have been maintaining the truth,
a supposition which he emphatically denied, yet even
then they ought not to have ventured upon the course
of introducing observances upon their own authority.
The conditional form of the sentence renders S. Ber
nard's reference to the papacy something quite different
from an act of submission.
It was then attempted to get rid of S. Bernard's

232 S. Bernard of Clain'aux.
authority in another way. Bernard, they boldly said,
had found cause to change his mind on this subject
when he reached the other world. He had reappeared
in vision to a certain monk, very glorious, except for a
mark upon his breast, which was the penalty for daring
to deny the Immaculate Conception. The Cardinal
grows very scornful over this legend. But Bernard's
denial of the doctrine remained. In fact the teaching of
S. Bernard's letter is repeated in his Sermons. "But
though she derived the original stain from her parents,
yet Christian piety prohibits our believing that she was
less sanctified before her birth than Jeremiah, or not more
filled with the Holy Ghost than John [the Baptist] ; for
neither would she be honoured at her birth with festival
praise, if she were not born holy."166
Torquemada asks, in a tone which certainly carries
conviction, whether the theory of which all these, and
other luminaries of the Church, representatives of many
places and ages, were either ignorant, or by implication
rejected, or knew only to condemn, is ever to be rightly
erected into a dogma of the Catholic Faith ? Is it pos
sible that these illustrious teachers and guides of the
centuries before we were bom, did not know the highest
privilege of the Mother of Jesus Christ? nay more,
that they refused it, and contradicted it, and taught
against it? Was the tradition of the first fifteen Ca
tholic centuries no guide for the present ? The theory
was an innovation in Christendom. And to say that a
doctrine is a novelty, is to say that it is false. Identity
with the Catholic past is a note of essential truth.
This statement roused a storm. It is not new, they

Appendix. 233

asserted. It was being argued in Torquemada's time,
that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had
been taught for centuries. But the Cardinal refuted this
by a passage from S. Bonaventura, written only a century
and a half before, in which he says that of the teachers
whom he had heard with his own ears, none had ever
asserted Mary's immunity from original sin. . Now Bona
ventura, like Torquemada, was a Cardinal of the Roman
Church. But this most distinguished light of the Uni
versity of Paris, this teacher, named by common reverence
the Seraphic, noted among all men for his devotion to
Mary, had never taught, nor heard taught, nor could he
bring himself to believe the opinion of Mary's immunity
from original sin.
In face of these authorities, and this overwhelming
tradition, the Cardinal's opponents hazarded, (1) an argu
ment from development. Conceding the weight of past
tradition, at least to some considerable extent, this, they
argued, is a case of development. A truth has become
fully known which was not fully known before. The im
plicit conviction of past ages has been transmuted into
the explicit assertion of later generations. We must
not then infer the erroneousness of the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception merely because the doctrine
seems unknown to S. Hilary or to S. Cyprian.
To this fifteenth century attempt to support dogmatic
additions by a theory of development, Torquemada re
plied that the Faith differs from human science precisely
in this very respect, that while human departments of
knowledge admit substantial increase, the Catholic Faith
does not. The Faith is like its Lord, the same

234 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It is an indispens
able condition, that any doctrine claiming acceptance
from Christendom in the later days, must be con
tained in the teachings of previous ages from the first.
Torquemada, in fact, talks just as S. Vincent of Lerins
did nearly a thousand years before him. No doubt,
in a sense, the Faith admits development. A truth may
be further amplified and explained. But later teachers
are not better informed than the Apostles. No new
truths can be added to the ancient immemorial Faith.
And, above all things, one doctrine cannot be revealed
to primitive ages, and its contrary to later days. But
this is exactly what would have been the case if the Im
maculate Conception of Mary were an article of Faith.
For it is not simply that early ages were ignorant of the
fact. They contradicted it. They refuted it. They
committed themselves traditionally to doctrinal positions
and teachings totally irreconcileable with the more mo
dern idea. Thus the theory of the Immaculate Con
ception sins against the first principles of development.
If the Immaculate Conception be erected into a dogma,
it will be no development, but a contradiction. It will
make the faith of the present hopelessly at variance with
the historic past. The Cardinal appeals strongly, even
passionately, to the writers of the past. The teaching of
modern doctors is not to be accepted against that of
earlier ages. He implores the Council, in the language
of Solomon, " remove not the ancient landmark which thy
fathers have set." Prov. xxii. 28. What are we now, he
asks, men of to-day, contrasted with the masters of by
gone times, that we should in any way sanction departures
from their faith?

Appendix. 235

Cardinal John also bitterly complains that the doc
trine of the Immaculate Conception had been supported,
(2) on spurious writings, and on statements attributed to
some of the greatest of the Fathers— statements for
which the saintly teachers in question would have alto
gether declined to make themselves responsible. The
following passage, among others, was ascribed to S. Au
gustine167 : — " Were it possible for My mother to be sin-
stained in the day that I created her, then could I also be
sin-stained in the day when I was born of her." Now, in
the first place, S. Augustine did not write these words.
Whatever authority they may possess, they do not derive
it from him. They originate from some unknown writer,
probably of the fifth century. But, in the second place,
the passage as edited by the Benedictines, runs as follows :
" Were it possible for Me to be sin-stained in the day that
I created her, then could I also be sin-stained in the day
when I was born of her." The object being to show
that no deterioration of the divine Majesty, or of the
perpetual Virginity, was involved in the mystery of the
Incarnation. Torquemada's comment on this is brief
but emphatic. It is disgraceful to corrupt the writings
of the Saints. This complaint about spurious and mis
quoted authorities opens out one of the most painful
features of Christian history. How far the misquotation
was accidental, and how far immoral, is a question which
need not be decided. But it is certainly most unfortunate
that some of the controverted subjects in Christendom
should be rested upon such misquotations. Cardinal
John's complaints reached further than he knew. Even
the passage in which S. Augustine declines to include
the B.V.M. in his discussions on actual sin, becomes

236 5. Bernard of Clairvaux.
changed from the form of a question to the form of
a positive dogmatic assertion. S. Augustine's famous
words, " for whence do we know what grace was accorded
her," were misquoted as " for thence we know that grace
was accorded her — for victory over every sin," unde enim
scimus quid, into inde enim scimus quod.ws Thus the
hesitating reflective language of a reverence which con
fesses its ignorance, becomes transformed into the
definite expression of a clear and certain knowledge.
This indeed may be nothing but an accidental variant.
But there can be little doubt that the positive assertion
places a very different construction upon S. Augustine's
mind. A curious instance of the way in which writings
have been interpolated, and thus reversed the writer's
judgment, is the following : — The words, "All men died
for sins, no one whatever being excepted, save the Mother
of God," have been quoted as from a twelfth century
writer (Herve of Dole, 1130,) in behalf of the modem
teaching. But the words, save the Mother of God, form
no part of the original. They are an unauthorized addi
tion, exactly contradicting what the writer meant to say.
Very possibly the words were a marginal alteration made
by some possessor of the MS., to whom the sentiment of
the original was repugnant, little dreaming, it may be,
what would flow from his marginal corrections. Other
cases occur in which passages asserting the B.V.M. to
have been conceived in original sin, were removed from
the author's works. The Cardinal complains (3) that his
opponents freely accused those who agreed with S. Ber
nard of being irreverent towards S. Mary. To charge
those who denied the doctrine of the Immaculate Con
ception with irreverence towards the B.V.M., was, urged

Appendix. 237
Torquemada, to go in the face of facts. For was there
ever a more devout servant of Mary than S. Bernard
of Clairvaux, or S. Bonaventura? Yet both denied it.
The very writers who accord to Mary the tremendous
titles of Reparatrix and Vivificatrix are those who assert
that S. Mary was conceived in original sin.
It is to be wished that this work of Cardinal John had
been placed before the Council at Basle. Its powerful
arguments could not but have taken effect. As it was,
the decree was passed without any hearing being granted
to the other side, and the work of this laborious writer
was consigned to unmerited oblivion.
III. The Council of Trent.
The subject of the Immaculate Conception of B.V.M.
was brought into the Council of Trent in 1546. The
decrees asserted the transmission of original sin to the
whole human race. Upon this Cardinal Pacheco proposed
the following addition : that " as regards the Blessed
Virgin, the Council does not intend to define anything ;
although it is piously believed, that she was conceived with
out original sin." " This opinion," says a Roman writer
on the Council of Trent,169 " had a majority in its favour,
but was opposed by all the bishops of the Dominican
order, and by a few other prelates, as a deviation from the
resolution not to condemn any opinion prevalent in the
Church : for, as it seemed to them, to declare an opinion
pious, was indirectly to condemn the contrary as impious.
It was at length, after much debate, agreed that the
obnoxious words should be expunged." All then that the
Council of Trent effected upon this matter was to leave

238 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
the subject undecided. " This same holy Synod doth
nevertheless declare, that it is not its intention to include
in this decree, when original sin is treated of, the blessed
and immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God ; but
that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV., of happy me
mory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in
the said constitutions, which it renews."

IV. The Seventeenth Century. Bossuet.
To transfer ourselves from Basle, in the fifteenth cen
tury, to Paris in the seventeenth, and from Cardinal
John of Torquemada to Bossuet,170 the greatest of French
preachers, is to be the witness of a doctrinal change
which is simply amazing. The University of Paris com
pelled all its students to defend the doctrine of the Im
maculate Conception. And Bossuet himself approved
this course, although frankly acknowledging that the
Church even then did not require her children to believe
that Mary was immaculate. Being requested by a stu
dent to explain the inconsistency of compelling belief
when the Church did not compel, the great Bishop of
Meaux was reduced to a difficult position, from which he
did not extricate himself with honour. But Bossuet
threw all the power of his genius into the defence of the
doctrine, and his wonderful sermon shows what may be
built without historic foundation. Yet Bossuet himself
is obliged to admit, " the Church has not yet ventured
to decide whether Mary was exempt from original sin.
Many distinguished personages have not believed it, and
we are forbidden to condemn them."

Appendix. 239

V. The Eighteenth Century. Father Zoller.
On into the eighteenth century, the two opinions both
prevailed within the limits of the Roman Communion.
One of the most extraordinary productions of that cen
tury is the work of the Jesuit, Father Zoller, on the Con
ception of the Holy Mother of God. It is a folio volume,
containing a hundred reasons, a hundred authorities,
and a hundred historical illustrations, to prove that Mary
is indeed Immaculate. After the majestic eloquence of
Bossuet, and the dignity of his ideas and language, to
descend to the pages of Father Zoller is about as be
wildering a change as can well be made. Here is an
elaborate, laborious, and learned work, filled with the
most puerile absurdities, most painful, considering the
solemnity of the subject, and its nearness to the Person
of our Blessed Redeemer. One does not know what to
make of Father Zoller. It is difficult to realize what
class of minds he is writing for, or how he convinced
himself that the cause of truth could be promoted by the
type of argument and illustration in which his work
abounds. The criticism is severe, but let the reader
judge. A priest, in the name of the Holy Trinity, com
pelled the Devil to confess what he knew of Mary's
exemption from original sin. Immaculate, immaculate,
returned the tempter. Who then will venture to deny
when even the devils believe and tremble ?
Zoller's selection of texts to prove his thesis includes
the following : —
Gen. xii. 14. The Egyptians saw the woman that she
was fair.

240 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
His reasons for the Immaculate Conception of Mary
are, among others —
1. That otherwise Gabriel could not have said, Ave,
nor Gratia plena, nor Dominus tecum.
2. That Christ is beautiful above the sons of men,
therefore also His Mother.
3. That a tree is known by its fruits, therefore Mary
is immaculate, as well as her Son.
5. What concord hath Christ with Belial? neither
the Lord's Mother with sin.
6. That if the root be holy, so are the branches;
therefore a holy branch presupposes a holy root, the holy
Son involves a holy Mother.
7. That no one ever yet hated his own flesh. But
Mary was the flesh of Christ ; therefore —
8. That Christ was made so much better than
the angels; therefore so was Mary, for she was His
Mother. n. That because she did not commit actual sin, there
fore she is not to be thought tainted with original.
17. If Cicero is for his own house, according to the
proverb, why is not God for Mary ?
18. That silence gives consent; and since Rome has
not condemned the doctrine, therefore it undoubtedly
approves it.
30. That the Immaculate Conception of Mary adds to
God's glory, whereas Mary's contact with sin would have
brought dishonour upon God.
32. That a son, if he had the choice, would select the
best parent he could.
41. That He could not be born in original righteous
ness, unless from a mother possessing the same.

Appendix. 241

47. That a friend is another self; much more a mo
ther must share His immunity from sin.
51. Universities and peoples say this, and we know
that vox populi vox Dei.
52. It is attested by many miracles.
53. A bishop elect, before his consecration, has certain
prospective privileges of his rank; much more Mary,
who was elect from eternity.
55. That you could not elect as an abbess one who
was not a virgin, much less as the queen of all the saints,
one who was tainted with sin.
81. She could not be mediatrix between God and
sinners, unless she was acceptable to both ; therefore no
sin. 89. Prevention is better than cure. Ergo, Immaculate
Conception of Mary.
VI. The Nineteenth Century. Pius IX.
The period from the Council of Trent (i.e., 1546) to
the middle of the nineteenth century (a. d. 1854) saw the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of B.V.M. per
petually acquiring wider extension. Roman Catholics of
this century had been trained to believe in it from their
childhood as a truth, although still of course only as a
pious opinion. Thus the way was prepared for a step
which would certainly have made a schism in the Church
if attempted some centuries before. Pius IX. sent a
letter to the bishops of the Roman communion, inviting
their opinion on the desirability of erecting the Imma
culate Conception of B.V.M. into a dogma of the Faith.
This letter of inquiry produced some significant re-
R

242 .S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
suits.171 A large majority of the Bishops replied express
ing their warm concurrence with the implied proposal.
But a minority as strongly expressed disapproval. Among
, these the most striking is the reply of the Archbishop of
Paris. After consulting the ablest theologians in his
diocese, he concludes that in conformity with the prin
ciples of theology, the Immaculate Conception of the most
holy Virgin is not a matter which can be defined as a
truth of the Catholic Faith, and in no case can be im
posed as a belief obligatory under pain of eternal dam
nation. He asks among others the following questions :
Can the Church make a definition as to a doctrine
which rests neither on Holy Scripture nor tradition?
Did not the Council of Trent ordain that both opin
ions were free, and so in themselves indifferent ? After
this decree of Trent who will dare to assert that
opinion is not free upon the subject? Since the Im
maculate Conception cannot be demonstrated either by
Holy Scripture or by tradition, if the Church were by
a solemn decree to declare it obligatory, the CathoUc
controversy would on this point become weak and
powerless. The Archbishop of Rouen considered that this belief
is not clearly contained in Holy Scripture, and that tra
dition upon the subject is wanting in precision and
unanimity ; otherwise S. Anselm, S. Bonaventura, S. Ber
nard, S. Thomas, Bellarmine, and so many others could
not have been ignorant of it ; that the belief in it cannot
be clearly traced back beyond the eleventh century ; that
if it were decreed on such foundations the incredulous
world might think that no Christian truth rested on
better basis or more certain tradition.

Appendix. 243

An Italian Bishop replied, that if the Church after so
many centuries imposed upon the faithful a new mystery
of which we find no testimony either in Scripture or the
Fathers, excepting allegorical statements, great occasion
would be given to the enemies of the Church.
Another Bishop considered that it was not necessary
to make it a dogma even if true. For although all
dogma is truth, yet all truth is not necessarily dogma.
Another drew attention to what would be regarded as
a remarkable fact, that in general the denial of this
doctrine was based on Scripture and tradition, while its
defence was taken chiefly from sermons, prayers, and
hymns, which express the affection of the heart rather
than the judgment of the mind, the feelings of piety,
rather than the conclusions of the understanding.
Another ventures to hope that if the Pope does decide
for this doctrine, he will so modify his decree, that
S. Thomas Aquinas, who denied it, may still retain his
honoured place in the Church.
Another anticipates the accusation which will cer
tainly come, that the Church is acting on a new prin
ciple. Lo ! the Church of the Catholics has devised a
new article of faith after ages, which as is evident, was
not believed everywhere, nor always, nor by all ! What
new light then dawns now upon that Church which was
denied to the Council of Trent ? He thinks that this is
a fallacy which well instructed minds will easily dissipate.
But he also thinks it will be an obstacle to the conver
sion of many.
But when Pius IX. in 1854 erected the opinion as to
Mary's exemption from original sin into an article of
faith, he ignored the replies of the minority. He sum-

244 •£• Bernard of Clairvaux.
moned no Council. And in a manner impossible to re
concile with the authority inherent in the Episcopate and
expressed in General Councils, he alone pronounced
what had hitherto been a pious opinion, as henceforward
an essential portion of the Catholic Faith. He declared
that "the most Blessed Virgin Mary was in the first
instant of her conception, by the singular grace and pri
vilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus
Christ, the Saviour of the human race, preserved free
from all taint of original guilt."
The action of Pius IX. raises a new and most serious
difficulty. Quite apart from the doctrinal question itself,
and quite apart from the historical question whether the
doctrine has been held from the first, comes a very serious
difficulty from the manner in which the opinion has been
erected into an article of faith for the Roman Com
munion. The great teachers of the early Christian centuries
would never for a moment have acknowledged that the
power to raise any matter into an article of faith resided
solely in the successor of S. Peter at Rome. S. Augus
tine for example would never have admitted the neces
sary finality of any decision made by contemporary occu
pants of the Roman See.
VII. The English Church.
The following passages from recent English Theolo
gians may be fitly added here, showing how S. Bernard's
influence lives among us, and how completely the Eng
lish Church is at onewith the Abbot's famous letter.
i. "We can express the truth indeed that the blessed

Appendix. 245
Mary was the Mother of God, as we can express the
doctrine of the Trinity, in all modes and forms which
amount but to the expression of that truth; and the
truth itself invests her with incommunicable dignity.
But when the reasoner goes further and says, She was
the Mother of our Lord, therefore she was born without
original sin, in the first place; therefore she was the
' created idea in the making of the world,' in the second
place ; therefore she is the one channel through which all
grace flows, in the third place ; it is right to ask, Why ?
How do these second truths follow necessarily from the
first? show for example, that it inevitably follows, from
her being the Theotocos, that her own conception was
immaculate. 'Can a clean thing come from an un
clean ?' we are told. But it is evident that on such an
application of Scripture as this, the mother of the Virgin
must be immaculate, for the same reason that the Virgin
herself was ; and so the stream of original sin is driven
backward till no place is left where it ever could have
existed. The truth is we are not sufficiently acquainted
with the nature of the mystery of the Incarnation to be
drawing such conclusions from it."173
2. " Between the imposition of the Homoousion and
the recent definition of the Immaculate Conception there
is no real correspondence. It is not merely that the latter
is accepted only by a section of the Christian Church,
and was promulgated by an authority whose modern
claims the Fathers of Nicxa would have regarded with
sincere astonishment. The difference between the two
cases is still more fundamental ; it lies in the substance
of the two definitions respectively. The Nicene Fathers
did but assert a truth which had been held to be of

246 6". Bernard of Clairvaux.
primary vital import from the first ; they asserted it in
terms which brought it vividly home to the intelligence
of their day. They were explaining old truth; they
were not setting forth as truth that which had before
been matter of opinion. But the recent definition asserts
that an hypothesis, unheard of for centuries after the
first promulgation of the Gospel, and then vehemently
maintained, and as vehemently controverted by theolo
gians of at least equal claims to orthodoxy, is a fact of
Divine revelation, to be received by all who would re
ceive the true faith of the Redeemer. In the one case
an old truth is vindicated by an explanatory reassertion ;
in the other the assertion of a new fact is added to the
Creed. " The Nicene Fathers only maintained in the language
of their day the original truth that Jesus Christ is God ;
but the question whether the conception of Mary was or
was not sinless is a distinct question of fact, standing by
itself, with no necessary bearing upon her office in the
economy of the Incarnation, and not related in the way
of an explanatory vindication of any originally recorded
truth beyond it. It is one thing to reassert the revealed
Godhead of Jesus; it is in principle a fundamentally
distinct thing to 'decree a new honour' to Mary. The
Nicene decision is the act of a Church believing itself
commissioned to guard a body of truth which had been
delivered from heaven in its integrity, once for all. The
recent definition appears to presuppose a Church which
can do more than guard the ancient faith, which is em
powered to make actual additions to the number of
revealed certainties, which is the organ no less than
the recipient of a continuous revelation. It is one thing

Appendix. 247

to say that language has changed its value, and that a
particular token which was once considered misleading
will now serve to vindicate an acknowledged truth ; it is
another thing to claim the power of transfiguring a pre
carious and contradicted opinion resting on no direct
Scriptural or primitive testimony, and impugned in terms
by writers of the date and authority of Aquinas, into a
certainty claiming submission from the faith of Christen
dom on nothing less than a Divine authority. There is
then no real reason for the statement that those who
now reject the Immaculate^ Conception would of old
have rejected the Homoousion. There is nothing to
show that those who bow with implicit faith before the
Nicene decision are bound as a matter of consistency to
yield the same deference of heart and thought to the
most modern development of doctrine within the Latin
portion of Catholic Christendom."173

NOTES.

LECTURE I.

Note i, p. I. The materials for the life of the great Abbot of
Clairvaux are most ample.
The large collection of his letters (466) gives constant help through
out his career.
First come three contemporary biographers.
1. William, Abbot of S. Theodoric, near Rheims, who died be
fore S. Bernard.
2. Arnold, Abbot of Bonnevale, near Chartres, who continued
the unfinished work of Abbot William.
3. Geoffrey, S. Bernard's secretary.
4. Alan, Bishop of Autun, who spent some years at Clairvaux
immediately after S. Bernard's death.
5. John the Hermit.
To these must be added the Chroniclers of the twelfth century.
Ordericus Vitalis. And among the English Historians, The Annals
of Nicholas Trivet, a London Dominican, Student in the Schools of
Oxford and Paris, c. a.d. 1150 — 1228. Chronicle of Florence of
Worcester. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum,
and Historia Novella. See publications of the English Historical
Society. Among Continental historians, Otto of Frisingen for Germany :
Suger, Life of Louis VI. for France : Matthew of Paris.
At the head of modern efforts stands the exhaustive Life of S.
Bernard in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, which embodies the
contents of the three contemporary lives.

250 61. Bernard of Clairvaux.

But the literature which gathers round a Saint so distinguished as
Bernard would form a library by itself. See Xenia Bernardina.
Among recent writers may be named, in France —
Abbe Ratisbonne, Histoire de S. Bernard, written from the Ro
man standpoint in exceedingly clear and flowing style.
Abbe Chevallier, Histoire de S. Bernard, somewhat more contro
versial than the former, but full of admiring reverence for the
saintly worker of whom it treats. This has passed through five
editions. In Germany — Bohringer, Kirchengeschichte. Neander, with all
the virtues and defects of that great writer. Wetzer and Welte,
Kirchen Lexikon.
Among English works— J. C. Morison. Dr. S. J. Eales, extremely
interesting outline of S. Bernard's life in the S.P.C.K. series of
Biographies of Saints. We are also indebted to Dr. Eales for a
translation of S. Bernard's Letters, and of the Sermons on the Song
of Solomon. Dr. Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux. This is a course
of Lectures by an American writer.
2, p. 2. Cf. Bohringer, Kirchengeschichte. Bd. xiv. 436.
Ratisbonne, Histoire de S. Bernard, I., 90.
3, p. 4. See Matthew of Paris, Chronica Majora, I., ioo. Roll's
Series. For Anselm, Florence of Worcester, Chronicle.
4, p. 5. Ratisbonne, I., 103.
5, p. 6. Persius.
6, p. 6. S. Bernard, Sermones in Cantica, xxxvi., Vol. IV., pp.
968—9. 7, p. 6. S. Matt. xi. 29.
8, p. 9. S. Bernard, Serm. Cant, xiv., tr. S. J. Eales. Life of
S. Bernard, p. 76.
9, p. 11. Life of S. Bernard by Abbot William, Vol. IV., p. 234.
10, p. 13. lb., cf. Acta Bollandist., in Migne, Vol. IV., p. 660.

LECTURE II.
n, p. 15. See Robertson, Ch. Hist., II., 346.
12, p. 15. Stephen Harding's Life is gathered from William of
Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. iv. Eng. Hist. Soc.,-

i3> P-

18.

14, p.

19-

IS. P-

19.

16, p.

21.

i7, P-

21.

18, p.

23-

"9. P-

24.

20, p.

25-

p. 444.

21, p.

30.

quam.

22, p.

3°-

23, p-

32.

24, p.

32.

Notes. 251
Vol. II., pp. 511 — 516. See also Dugdale, Monasticon Anglic,
Vol. V. Exordium Magn. Cist, in Migne, IV., 1010.
Cf. Milman's Latin Christianity.
Isa. xlix. 18 — 20.
Exord. Magn. Cist., Migne, IV., p. 1013.
Milman's Latin Christianity, IV., 311.
Exord. Magn. Cist., I., xvii.
Ratisbonne, I., 177.
Ratisbonne, I., 147.
S. Bernard's Works, Vol. IV., 670. Cf. Bohringer,
In vestibus ei paupertas semper placuit sordes nun-
Cf. Ecclus. xix. 30.
Letter 104.
Letter 11 ; Works, I., 114.

LECTURE III.
25, p. 36. Letter 115.
26, p. 36. Letter 254.
27, p. 37. Letter 190.
28, p. 37. Exordium Magnum Cisterciense, VI. , I. This is an
early collection of stories relating to the Order of Citeaux. For a
critical estimate of its value, see Hiiffer, Vorstudien.
29, p. 39. Exord. Magn. Cist., V., xvi.
30, p. 40. Exord. Magn. Cist., IV., xxvi.
31, p. 41. Cf. the Dream of S. Perpetua.
32, p. 42. Exord. Magn. Cist., I., viii. Works, IV., 1003.
33, P- 43- Exord. Magn. Cist., IV., xx.
34, p. 44. Exord. Magn. Cist., V., xiii.
35, p. 45. Works, IV., 550.
36, p. 45. Letter 102. Melius est enim ut pereat unus, quam
unitas. 37, p. 47. Exord. Magn. Cist., V., xi. Cf. the story how Ber
nard excommunicated the flies.
38, p. 49. Exord. Magn. Cist., IV., xx. Works, IV., 1108.

252 5". Bernard of Clairvaux.

, p. 52. This is S. Bernard's favourite expression, often re-
d. Cf. Letter 3. Exord. Magn. Cist., III., xvi. Letter 377.

39,
peated. 40, p. 52. Exord. Magn. Cist, III., xxv.
41, p. 54. Letter 109.
42, p. 54. Letter 64.
43, p. 56. Works, Vol. IV., p. 580.
44, P- 57- Letter 73. LECTURE IV.
45, P- 59- See the brilliant description in Milman's Latin Chris
tianity. Cf. Neander, Der Heilige Bemhard, p. 76, n., and an
interesting passage in Grant's Bampton Lectures on Missions, p.
124, 125.
4^, P- 59- Exord. Magn. Cist., I., vi. Works, IV., 1004.
Robertson's Hist, IV., 166 ; V., 22.
47, p. 60. For Pontius cf. Ordericus Vitalis, XII. ,xxi. andxxix.
48, p. 62. S. Bernard, Works, I., 409. The Apology.
49, P- 65. Letter 229 among Bernard's.
50, p. 66. Letter 28. Peter Cluny to Bernard on the disputes
between White friars (Clairvaux) and Black friars (Cluny). Cf.
Letter 131 among the Letters of Peter Venerab., and Letter 157 ib.
51, p. 69. Ordericus Vitalis, XIII., xiii.
52, p. 70. Exord. Magn. Cist., III., ix., x. Works, IV., 1060.
53, P- 71- For Adam of S. Victor, see Digby Wrangham,
Liturgical Poetry, Three Vols.
54, p. 72. Tractatus de Bapt. Works, I., 1042.
55, p. 74- Letter 78.
56, p. 74. ForThurstanseeS.Bernard'sLetters,490. Appendix,
Works, IV. Dixon's History of the Archbishops of York, Vol. I.,
pp. 170, 200. Additional Letters are given in Canon Raine's
Historians of the Church of York, Roll's Series. Narrative of
the founding of Fountains Abbey by Hugh, Monk of Kirkstall,
in Dugdale, Monasticon, Vol. V., 286. S. Bernard, Works,
I., 700.
57, p. 83. Letters 8 and 9.
58, p. 84. Letter 82, and notes to Bernard's Works, L, 202.
59, P- 84. Letters 15, 13, 114.

Notes. 253
60, p. 84. Letter 18.
61, p. 85. Letter 24.
62, p. 86. Letters 87—90.
63, p. 86. Tractatus de moribus et officio Episc.
64, p. 89. Letters 39, 37.
65, p. 90. S. Bernard, Works, I., 150, n.
66, p. 90. Ordericus Vitalis.
67, p. 91. S. Bernard, Letter 45.
68, p. 92. Letter 46.
^9, p. 93- Letter 48. LECTURE V.
70, p. 94. See William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglo-
rum. English Hist. Soc. Series, Vol. II., pp. 445, 536.
71, p. 96. For Peter Leo cf. Ordericus Vitalis, XII., xxi.
72, p. 97. Cf. The Letters of Peter of Cluny, I., p. 66.
73, P- 9^. Cf. Neander, Heilige Bernhard, p. 90.
74, p. 99. Ordericus Vitalis. Bohringer, 492.
75, P- 99- Neander, p. 91.
76, p. 100. Milman's Latin Christianity, IV. , pp. 57, 59, 292.
77, p. 101. S. Bernard, Letter 125.
78, p. 102. S. Bernard, Letter 124.
79, p. 102. S. Bernard, Works, IV., 286.
80, p. 103. S. Bernard, Letter 126.
81, p. 103. S. Bernard, Works, IV., 288.
82, p. 106. Ordericus Vitalis.
83, p. 106. Ratisbonne, I., 409.
84, p. 107. Letter 130.
85, p. 107. Letter 314.
86, p. 107. Letters 131, 137, 139. Neander, p. 106.
87, p. 109. Bernard's Works, IV., p. 753.
88, p. 109. Neander, p. 115.
£9, p. III. Acta, p. 763. Serm. in Cant.
90, p. 1 14. Cf. Mabillon's preface to the Sermons, Works, II. 27.
91, p. 116. Life of S. Bernard, Works, IV., 295.
92, p. 1 16. Ordericus Vitalis.
93, p. 117. Letter 317.

254 -S- Bernard of Clairvaux.

LECTURE VI.
94, p. 118. Letter 132.
95, p. 120. Ratisbonne, I., 505. Letter 213.
96, p. 121. Letter 236.
97, p. 122. Letters 155, 211, 198, 202.
98, p. 122. This narrative is gathered from Letters 164, 166,
168, 170 of S. Bernard. Letter 29 of Peter Cluny.
99, p. 126. On appeals to Rome, see Letters 178, 179, 180.
Innocent's exemption granted to the Cistercian order, is found
among S. Bernard's letters, 352.
100, p. 130. Sermones in Cant xxvi.
101, p. 131. Letter 177.
102, p. 131. On the marriage question, see Letters 216 (to In
nocent,) 221 (to the king,) 222 (to Suger, the king's adviser,) 219,
224. 103, p. 134. On the alienation cf. Acta, p. 813. Letter 220.

LECTURE VII.
104, p. 137. For William of Champeaux, cf. V. Cousin, and
Michaud, Guillaume de Champeaux et les ecoles de Paris.
105, p. 138. For Abelard, see writings in Migne. V. Cousin's
edition of the unpublished works. Cousin's sketch of his philo
sophy for the dispute between Realists and Nominalists. Remusat,
Life of Abelard. Hausrath's P. Abelard, to whom this lecture is
much indebted. Bohringer. Haureau, Histoire de la Philosophic
Scolastique, Pt. I., p. 362, ff. See also Jules Simon, Life of V.
Cousin. 106, p. 138. V. Cousin.
107, p. 138. The following narrative is principally from Abe
lard's own sketch in the Historia Calamitatum.
108, p. 144. Cf. Hausrath, p. 108.
109, p. 145. See Abelard, CSuvres inidites. V. Cousin.
no, p. 146. S. Bernard, Letters 188, 189, 192. V. Cousin,
Frag. Philosoph., p. 237.
Ill, p. 147. S. Bernard, Letter 189.

Notes. 255
112, p. 147. See Bernard, Tractatus de Err. Abelardi, Works,
I., 1055.
II3, P- I5°- S. Bernard, Letter 337. Ratisbonne, II., 48.
114, p. 152. See Neander, p. 259.
115, p. 153. S. Bernard, Letters 189 — 193, 230.
116, p. 154. Among S. Bernard's Letters, 194.
H7, p. 154. Abelard's Works, Migne, p. 576.
118, p. 155. Letters of Peter Cluny, Bk. iv., Ep. iv., p. 316;
and Book iv., Ep. xxi. p. 352. Cf. Neander, 284. Peter of Cluny's
life deserves a separate study. His tract on the Divinity of our
Lord is specially worthy to be read. Works, Migne's edition, p.
487 if.
119, p. 158. Sermones in Cantica, Serm. xxxvi., p. 967.
120, p. 160. Sermones in Cant., Serm. liv. p. 1042.
LECTURE VIII.
121, p. 161. On the subject of the Crusades, see the contem
porary Odo's Itinerarium, in Migne, IV., p. 1202 ff. Suger's
Letters. Michaud's Histoire des Croisades ; 5 vols. Ratisbonne,
II., 178.
122, p. 163. On earlier ideas about pilgrimage, cf. Neander,
Heilige Bemhard, p. 448, from whom these passages are mostly
taken. P. Cluny, Letters, Bk. ii. 15, ch. 44.
123, p. 164. Liber ad Milites Templi, by S. Bernard, cap. v.
Works, I., 929.
124, p. 164. S. Bernard's Letters, 393.
125, p. 165. S. Bernard's Letters, 363.
126, p. 167. " S. Bernard's Letters, 256, and Works, IV., 858.
127, p. 168. Letters of Peter Cluny, Bk. iv., Ep. 35, p. 366,
Migne. 128, p. 168. Letter 376.
129, p. 170. See the Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph ben Joshua ben
Meir. Tr. Oriental Translation Fund. The passage is quoted in
most of the histories, e.g., Ratisbonne, II., 226 ; Vilken, Geschichte
der Kreuzziige ; Bohringer, Kirchengeschichte, 53 1.
130, p. 177. De Miraculis, p. 1194.
131, p. 177. Ratisbonne, II., 285.

256 S. Bernard of Clairvaux.
132, p. 178. Radulf de Diceto. Abbreviationes Chronicorum,
I., 257 ; Roll's Series.
133, p. 178. Odo, Itinerary, Book i., from which the following
narrative is principally derived.
134, p. 183. Odo, Book iv. and Book v.
135, p. 184. Matthew of Paris, Chron. Maj., I., 101.
136, p. 184. Cf. Ratisbonne, II., 376.
137, p. 185. Letter 386.
138, p. 186. S. Bernard, De Consideratione.

LECTURE IX.
139, p. 187. Works, I., n 18.
140, p. 193. Bohringer, B. iv., 360.
141, p. 194. Exord. Magn. Cist, III., xxi. xxiii.
142, p. 195. Exord. Magn. Cist, III., viii.
143, p. 195. Letters 284, 269, 298.
144, p. 196. Letters 290, 288.
145, p. 203. Peter Cluny, Letter 46, Bk. vi. p. 467.
146, p. 204. Exord. Magn. Cist., III., vi.
APPENDIX.
Works, Vol. II., p. 84.
Pusey's Letter on the Immaculate Conception,
Works, Vol. II., p. 43.
S. Bernard, Sermons, pp. 429 — 441.
S. Bernard, Works, Vol. II., p. 73, 78.
Letter 174.
Cf. Church Quarterly Review, 1895, April, p. 242.
Card. Turrecremata de Conceptione B.V.M. Ed.
Bail's Summ. Concil., I., 511. Pusey's Letter, p. 290.
Pusey's Letter, p. 78, cf. p. 66.
S. Aug. De pecc. Merit, et Rem., II., 49, Works,
S. Aug. de Natura et Gratia. Works, Vol. X., 395.

147,

P-

212.

148,

P-

212.

p- 23.

149,

P-

212.

150,

P-

213.

151,

P-

215.

152,

P-

216.

153,

P-

219.

154,

P-

220.

Pusey.

Bail's

155,

P-

226.

156,

P-

228.

Vol. X

•)

278.

157,

P-

228.

Notes. 257
158, p. 229. Pusey, Letter, pp. 68, 70, 101, 107.
159, p. 229. S. Aug. de Perfect. Justit, 44, Works, X., 463.
Cf. Pusey, Letter, 65.
160, p. 229. S. Aug., Op. Imperf., vi. 22.
161, p. 229. Quoted by S. Aug. Letter 190 (to Optatus).
Works, II., p. 1061. Torquemada, p. 156.
162, p. 229. S. Leo, Serm. i., Nativ. Tr. Dr. Bright, p. 20.
Cf. Turrecremata, p. 128 ff. S. Leo, Serm. xii., on the Passion.
Tr. Dr. Bright, p. 48. T., p. 129.
163, p. 230. Quoted from Pusey, p. 122.
164, p. 230. S. Thomas. T., pp. 138, 296.
165, p. 230. S. Bonaventura, in Sentent, III., D. iii. § 2.
Cf. Pusey, p. 219.
166, p. 232. S. Bernard. Serm. ii., Assumpt B.V.M., and
Pusey, Letter, 176.
167. p. 235. Incert Auct. int. Op. S. Aug. Works, VIII.,
1534. Contra quinque Ha^reses, and T., 709.
168, p. 236. S. Aug., de Natura et Grat Works, X., 395.
Pusey, Letter, 179.
169, p. 237. Waterworth, Decrees of Trent, p. xcvi. Cone.
Trid. Sess. V. Decree concerning Original Sin, 1546. Water-
worth, p. 24.
170, p. 238. Bossuet's Works, Vol. XL, p. 14.
171, p. 242. Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 352, &c.
172, p. 245. Mozley, Theory of Development, p. 54.
173, p. 247. Dr. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, p. 443.
See also Rev. R. M. Benson, The Virgin Birth.

J. Masteks & Co., Printers, Albion Buildings, S. Bartholomew Close, E.C.

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