Skip to the text
Ember
PT

Letter LVI. To the Same

(Circa A.D. 1128.)

He is uncertain respecting the pilgrimage of Norbert to Jerusalem. He does not share his opinion about A ntichrist. He also recommends Humbert.

I am quite ignorant respecting the matter of which you inquire of me, namely, whether the Lord Norbert is about to go to Jerusalem. For when I saw him last, a few days ago, he said nothing of it to me, though I was honoured in being able to drink in many words from his mouth, as it were a sweet-toned flute.1 But when I asked what he thought concerning Antichrist, he declared himself quite convinced that Antichrist was to be revealed during this generation that is now.23 I begged him to tell me on what he rested his conviction, but his reply did not convince me that he was right. But at length he asserted this, that before his own death he would see a general persecution in the Church.

Concerning another matter, permit me to recall to the remembrance of your Piety a poor exile named Humbert. He begged you lately when you were at Troyes to intercede for him with Count Theobald, who had deprived him of his goods. I also by this letter entreat for him, and with him, the same thing of your Piety. I have written4 on that subject to intercede with the Prince himself, but have not succeeded in obtaining the favour which I asked.

One thing I ought to tell you, which I know you will gladly hear. Stephen, your former disciple, so runs not as uncertainly, so fights not as one that beateth the air. Pray for him that he may so run that he may obtain, may so fight that he may overcome.

Footnotes

  1. High praise to Norbert (says Mabillon) from such a man; but not less remarkable is the discernment of Bernard in divine things, since he did not easily yield faith to any kind of pious imaginativeness, as we see from Letter 174, n. 6. Norbert (whom we have already praised in Letters 35 and 38) was the founder of the Praemonstratensian Order, which counted already almost seventy abbeys in its first twenty years of existence (Laurence of Liege, Spicilegium, Vol. xii., p. 32). See Letter 253. ↩

  2. Not Norbert only, but many of the older Fathers (not to speak of the more recent) were persuaded that Antichrist was on the point of appearing, and that the last day of the world was drawing near — as may be seen in S. Jerome, Pope Leo, S. Gregory the Great, and even S. Augustine. They were led to believe this by the iniquity of the times, and the appearance of very many of the signs foretold by Christ by which the end of the world should be preceded. But we may go even further back. Even from the time of the Apostles there were many judgments, conjectures, opinions, predictions upon Antichrist and upon the end of the world. Very many philosophers and astronomers, a great number also of impostors, stage players, and scandal-mongers, * certain heretics also and fanatics wished to be prophets on this subject, and to appear to know more about it than other mortals; but the event has already shown that the greater number of these predictions were vain, and has convicted their ↩

  3. Lit., dealers in female finery, migivenduli. authors of vanity and falsehood. The remainder will receive, without doubt, from the present and from the future a similar confutation, and the truth will be shown of that saying in Acts i. 7: It is not fur you to know the times and the seasons; and of that also in S. Matt. xxiv. 36: But of that day and hour knoweth no one. It will not be tedious to the reader if we give here a few examples of these out of a great many. The first who thought that the end of the world was imminent were the Thessalonians, who wrongly understood those words of the Apostle (1 Thess. iv. 17): Then we which are alive and remain shall Le caught, up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. It was to recall these from this opinion that S. Paul judged it necessary to write a second Epistle to the Thessalonians (S. Jerome, Epist. ad Miner, et Alex.). Lactantius thought that the destruction of the world would take place in the five hundredth year after Christ (Div. lust. B. i. c. 25). Others, called Chiliasts, assigned to the world a duration of a thousand years after Christ, founding that on the words of S. John Apoc. xx. 7: After a thousand years shall have passed, Satan shall le unbound and shall come out of prison. A certain Florentine Bishop asserted that Antichrist was born in A.D. 1105 (See Plat, in Paschale ii.). Peter John, Chief of the Beguines and Beghards, used to say that the reign of Antichrist would finish in 1335 (Joseph a Costa de Temp, noviss.). A certain Spaniard, named Arnold, indicated (according to Florimund) the year 1345 as that in which Antichrist would appear, and fixed on the day of Pentecost in that year as the time when his disciples would spread themselves through the world. Abbot Joachim thought that Antichrist would appear within 60 years from his own time; he lived about A.D. 1200. Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambray and Cardinal, predicted from astronomical observations and calculations that Antichrist would be born in i 789. Nicholas of Cusa did not hesitate to assert that the coming of Antichrist would be in A.D. 1700 or 1734. The illustrious John Picus Mirandola conjectured in his Assertions (Concl. 9) that Antichrist would appear in 1994. Jerome Cardan (de Variet. B. ii. c. 2) and James Naclant (in Prcelud. Medulla; c. 4) thought that Antichrist would come in A.D. 1800. In a former age, by I know not what itch of prophesying, many, both astrologers and heretics, occupied themselves with predicting the end of the world, which continued to exist all the same, and made them its laughing stock. John of Konigsberg, a very distinguished mathematician, assigned A.D. 1588 as that which would see the destruction of the world. John Stoffler, an astronomer not less famous, was of the same opinion; also Henry de Rantzau, a Danish nobleman, in his book on fatal years and on the periods of empires. he.r.X. ↩

  4. Letters 37-39. ↩

Chapter 56 of 491