Letter LXI. To Ricuin, Bishop of Toul, in Lorraine

(Circa A.D. 1125.)

He sends back to the Bishop a man who had been sent to him for the purpose of undergoing penitence, and charges him "with his restoration.

To the Reverend Lord and Father RiCUiN,¹ by the grace of God, Bishop of Toul, Brother BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, health and prayers.

For this sinner whom your Worthiness has thought fit to send to me, who am myself a sinner, for spiritual advice, as he says, I have no wiser counsel at the present than that he should return to the bosom of your fatherly goodness, and should learn his duty from the mouth of the priest; for I, in order to remain within the narrow limits of my powers and my office, which I ought not to transgress, am not at all accustomed to impose penance, especially for great faults, on anyone but those alone who are under my jurisdiction. For what rashness would it be in me, a sinner, and inexperienced as I am, to undertake episcopal func tions and matters so important? Ought I not also, just as other men, to have recourse, as is proper, to the opinion of the bishop, as often as there presents itself among us some affair more weighty than usual, which either I know not, or dare not, or am unable to settle by myself; and am I not far from secure until I have been fortified by the opinion and advice of my bishop? Let this poor diseased sheep be provided for, then, by his own pastor, who is one who well knows the canons, with a suitable medicine of penance, that a soul for which Christ died may not (which God forbid) die in sin, and the Chief Pastor require his blood at your hand. But I have persuaded him to leave the world since God has given him a thought of so doing; if by your intercession he may obtain the favour of being received, though an old man and poor, into some monastery of holy men within your diocese. May God one day receive you, holy and venerable father, full of days and good works, into the sacred habitations in which one day is better than a thousand passed elsewhere.

Footnotes

1. Ricuin died in 1 1 26, from whence it follows that this Letter cannot be later than that year. On the other hand, it appears certain that it cannot have been written before 1124, since the Letter implies that Bernard already had a certain celebrity for his teaching. Letter 396 is addressed to the same Ricuin. ↩