Life and Works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

J&t. itfetnatto. LIFE AND WORKS OF SAINT BERNARD, ABBOT OF CLA1RVAUX. EDITED BY DOM. JOHN MABILLON, Presbyter and Monk of the Benedictine Congregation of S. Maur. Translated and Edited with Additional Notes, BY SAMUEL J. EALES, M.A., D.C.L., Sometime Principal of S. Boniface College, Warminster. SECOND EDITION. VOL. I. LONDON: BURNS & OATES LIMITED. NEW YORK, CINCINNATI & CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS. EMMANUBi A $ t fo je s : SOUTH COUNTIES PRESS LIMITED. .NOV 20 1350 CONTENTS. I. PREFACE TO ENGLISH EDITION II. GENERAL PREFACE... ... i III. BERNARDINE CHRONOLOGY ... 76 IV. LIST WITH DATES OF S. BERNARD S LETTERS... gi V. LETTERS No. I. TO No. CXLV ... ... 107 PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. THERE are so many things to be said respecting the career and the writings of S. Bernard of Clairvaux, and so high are view of his the praises which must, on any just character, be considered his due, that an eloquence not less than his own would be needed to give adequate expression to them. and able labourer He was an untiring transcendently ; and that in many fields. In all his manifold activities are manifest an intellect vigorous and splendid, and a character which never magnetic attractiveness of personal failed to influence and win over others to his views. His entire disinterestedness, his remarkable industry, the soul- have been subduing eloquence which seems to equally effective in France and in Italy, over the sturdy burghers of and above of Liege and the turbulent population Milan, the all the wonderful piety and saintliness which formed these noblest and the most engaging of his gifts qualities, and the actions which came out of them, rendered him the ornament, as he was more than any other man, the have drawn him the leader, of his own time, and upon admiration of succeeding ages. We have to look at S. Bernard in more than one capacity. a for he lived in an First and chiefly, he was monk, age when the most elevated religious enthusiasm inevitably took the form of the monastic vocation. Nor is it difficult viii PRFEACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. the eleventh to see why this was necessarily the case. In the chief and twelfth centuries war, public or private, was and a constant incident of business of princes and nobles, of the common But the daily life of the masses people. a state of is always when the world lives in war, religion associate the driven to take the incorporated or (i.e., unconscious and monastic) form by a kind of reaction, at all. indeed, in order to maintain its existence Exagger in turn and the idealized ated forms generate each other ; unworldliness of the monastic theory was the virtual protest, and of and a very needful one, against the coarseness cruelty in the world as it stood. Monastic institutions satisfied, fact, the conscience of the age, and were popular because they venture did so. Even so gifted a man as Bernard, we may had he to believe, would not have been nearly so influential but a monk because monachism was the been anything ; of the expression, and the necessary expression, religious sentiment of those times. How deeply the monastic theory was graven into the consciousness of the twelfth century is and shown by the practical paradox attempted, actually accomplished for a time, in the welding together of charac ters absolutely contradictory the soldier and the monk, in the Knights Templars, the Knights of Calatrava and Alcantara, and other military Orders. S. Bernard, then, was a monk and an ascetic, and as such the foremost in power and influence of his time. He was Cistercian not only practically the founder of the great 1 Order, which was frequently called by his name, but to him was owing in great measure, though not wholly, that a general reform of the monastic Orders which restored for sur- time the austerity of the ancient discipline, and even 1 The monks of Abbeys dependent upon Clairvaux, were frequently called Hernardines. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. ix passed it. So great was the enthusiasm which he inspired that thousands of eager postulants, drawn from all classes, crowded into the convents which were reorganized or founded by him. Knights, nobles, ladies of the highest rank, were among these ardent devotees, and that in large numbers. Even reigning sovereigns, in not a few instances, descended from their thrones before middle life was well over and entered some convent. Clairvaux, while he pre its to found sided over it, sent out parties of monks new monasteries, at the average rate of four every year, as may be noted in our Table of Bernardine Chronology. At the death of S. Bernard the number of Cistercian Abbeys exceeded five hundred, and to such a degree did this enthusiasm grow that in 1142 the kingdom of Portugal declared itself a fief of the Abbey of Clairvaux. Under the influence of S. Bernard the endurance of austerities became a passion to be eagerly sought, not a penance re the luctantly submitted to, and the heavier and sharper was to be its Cross voluntarily borne, the greater was held glory. but for a Not only was he the head of this great Order, over the whole generation his influence was paramount Church. He was, more than any of the Popes who succeeded " each other at such short intervals, the governing head of 1 of was Christendom," to whom every subject importance of sure to be, in some form, referred, and the expression it. had whose view was equivalent to a judgment upon He unctio ilia received, in the view of his contemporaries, qux docet de omnibus. His voice was the most trusted and nor authoritative in Europe, though he was no Bishop at the Council Archbishop, but only a simple Abbot. When, Louis of Etampes, he opened his mouth to declare to King that and he VI. and all the prelates of France Innocent, 1 Milman, Latin Christianity, B. viii. p. 302. X PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. were taken as the alone, was the legitimate Pope, his words decision of the Holy Ghost, and unhesitatingly acted upon. Lothair of and Henry I. of England, the Emperor Germany, the force of his the Count of Aquitaine, yielded to argu ments, or to the winning power of his remarkable per Innocent as sonality, and acknowledged Pope, abandoning his rival. It is no wonder that to those who looked on at these the character astonishing facts, occurring one after another, have seemed and the powers of the Abbot of Clairvaux should in that seemed mar truly Apostolic. They saw what age vellous in the extreme a monk, poor, infirm, and obscure, of yet the counsellor, reverenced and obeyed, sovereigns, or and even of Popes. Nor was there any adventitious influence which worldly reason to account for this profound he exercised. In him the ascendency of a higher intellect, a and more elevated of a nobler spiritual nature, purer in was felt all. purpose, of a truly religious force, short, by of the humble A halo of sanctity surrounded the head Bernard, and whenever a difficult question of ecclesiastical or or polity or of personal duty perplexed Prince, Bishop, the monk, the great Abbot of Clairvaux was constantly chosen referee. It would be easy to adduce instances of to him which this, even from the few specimens of letters are still extant, although the great mass of his correspond ence has naturally perished. As a theologian he was equally distinguished. Though he was not unacquainted with the writings of the Fathers and earlier commentators, his own expositions owe little to to be these. They have an individuality that shows them the utterances of a single mind. He treats all subjects on the scale refers all actions to standards, grand ; spiritual and both illustrates and determines the question he is PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. xi treating by principles and sanctions drawn from the most unexpected quarters, and frequently from the most awful heights of authority. He has the of a imagination poet ; and his works are full of word-pictures which glow and like even at sparkle gems, the present day, through the medium of the stiff and scholastic Latin in which they are set. In his writings there are not a few of those jewels five-words-long That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever. from his Mysticism mouth drops most of its question able tendencies, and becomes a thing to charm the de votional mind, and to lift the thoughtful into new and loftier regions of emotion. He is a mystic undoubtedly, but after the manner of S. Ephrem Syrus and S. Gregory the Great rather than of Eckart (b. 1260), Tauler (b. 1290), or even of his contemporaries Hugo and Richard of S. Victor, though these latter approach much nearer to him than the former. It is essentially a pure and spiritual mysticism that he inculcates, clear of all the actual sounds, sights, and odours, celestial music, Elysian fragrance, miraculous visitations, such as appear for example in the writings of S. Theresa; though no doubt occasional ex travagances of language may be found in his writings, particularly in his Sermons on the Canticles. Once, indeed, he relates that the Saviour came down from heaven, and entered into his soul; but he relates even this great distinc tion shown to him hesitatingly and with a reluctance and modesty in every way honourable to him. And he takes care to make it quite clear that this was a purely spiritual " event, attended by no outward manifestations : Ita igitur intrans ad me aliquoties Verbum Sponsus, nullis unquam introitum suum indiciis innotescere fecit, non voce, non Xll PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

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