Letter XXXVI. To the Same

(A..D. 1128.)

He replies to the letter of Hugo, and advises him to desist from impugning the doctrine of a Bishop, then dead.

To his very dear friend now as formerly, and by the grace of God, holy Abbot HUGO, Brother BERNARD of Clairvaux, health and the assurance of sincere and undiminished affection.

I intended to reply more at length, as it was my duty, to the letter of your Worthiness, which was shorter than I desired, though longer than I deserved, but the haste of your messenger did not permit. Nevertheless, that he may not depart with his hands quite empty, I send in haste these few lines in reply to the much longer letter, for which I acknowledge myself the debtor. I commence by saying, in few but sincere words, as to an old and dear friend, to whom I also am dear, that from the bottom of my heart I hold you for a Catholic, a holy man, and one very dear to me. As to the purity of your faith, I trust your own confession; your high reputation vouches for the holiness of your life, and as for the affection which I have said that I feel towards you, my own heart is a sufficient witness.

You protest that you do not retain the least vestige of that opinion, which rightly, in my judgment, raised scruples in my simple mind, and I receive the assurance as willingly as I read with gladness in your last letter the concise statement of most pure truth, so that I would rather believe that it is I who have wrongly understood you than that you had put forth any proposition contrary to the faith. Now, permit me to advise you, with brotherly boldness, not to attack, now that he is dead, the doctrine of a Bishop,¹ as holy as learned, whom you have left unmolested while he lived, lest in blaming one not now able to answer for himself you may hear the whole Church replying for him, and seem to have acted more from a want of charity than from love of the truth. For Humbert, as I have begged you, so I repeat my request, that you will afford him, as far as you are able, your advice and protection. Farewell.

Footnotes

1. If I do not mistake, this was William of Champeaux, Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne, a man for whom Bernard had the greatest affection. ↩