Letter LXVII. To the Monks of Flay

(Circa A.D. 1125.)

He justifies his reception of B., a monk, as being from a monastery entirely unknown to him, and having just causes for his departure.¹

To Dom H., Superior of the Convent of Flay, and to the brethren who are with him, the brethren in Clairvaux wish health.

1. We learn by your letter that your Reverence is aggrieved because we have received one of your monks among us. I also am much grieved, fearing that this grief of yours be not that whereof the. Apostle said: Ye •were made sorry according to God (2 Cor. vu. 9). For if it had been according to God it would not have so provoked you, and you would not have shown so much bitterness and violence in the reproaches which you make to us, the first time that you write to us, since although we are unknown to you, and we have never yet held communication by speech or by letter, we are none the less your brethren, and if you permit me to say so, even your friends. You wonder, as you write us, that we have received Brother Benedict² among us, and you address threats to us unless we immediately send him back. You remind us that the Rule forbids a monk to be received from a known monastery, and you are no doubt persuaded that yours is not un known. But what if it is known to others, provided that it is not known to us? Even although, as you tell me, the reputation of your community has so spread that the history of your church is known even at Rome; yet it has, I know not how, so passed over us, who are a long way this side of Rome, that we have never heard speak of you the least in the world, neither of your abbot nor of your monks, nor of the very name of your house, nor have we the least knowledge of the sanctity of your life up to the present time. Nor is that wonderful, considering that we are separated from each other by a long distance, by different provinces, and by difference of language. Not only are we not residing in the same diocese, but we do not belong to the same archbishopric. We think, then, that we are prohibited from receiving monks only from monasteries which are known to us, and not from those which others know; otherwise, since there is no monastery which is not known to somebody, not one would be left from which monks might properly be received. How, then, would that be fulfilled which was permitted and even ordered by the blessed Benedict, that a stranger monk ought not only to be received as a guest, as long as he pleases to remain, but also to be urged to remain permanently, if he is found useful to the community?

2. We, nevertheless, took another course with regard to the brother before mentioned. For when he came humbly praying to be received by us he was at first repulsed, and then bidden to return to his own monastery. But he not being willing to do this, betook himself to a hermitage near us, and there dwelt quietly almost seven months, without any evil report of him arising. But not thinking it safe for himself to live alone, he was not ashamed, after this first repulse, to ask of us again what he had asked before. We a second time admonished him about his return, and when we inquired the cause of his departure he said: " My abbot treated me not as a monk but as a physician.³ He obliged me to serve, or rather he himself served by means of me, not God, but the world; since, in order not to incur the ill-will of secular princes, he used to compel me to give medical care to tyrants, robbers, and excommunicate. I declared to him both in public and in private the peril which my soul incurred; but as this was to no purpose, I at length, relying on the advice of certain wise men, fled from the destruction of my soul, not from religion or from my community. Do not reject one who seeks salvation, open the door to one who knocks." At the sight of his perseverance, having heard his reason, and knowing no ill of him, we granted him admission; we approved him after his time of probation, we admitted him to make profession, and now we consider him as one of us. We did not compel him to enter, and now we will not oblige him to depart. And if we should drive him out he would not (as he asserts) return to you, but would fly still farther from you. Cease then, brethren, to persecute unoffending people with un merited reproaches, and to trouble them with useless letters, because we will not be provoked even by reiterated insults to reply to you otherwise than with respect; nor will we be terrified into not keeping among us a monk whom we believe that we have received according to the Rule.

Footnotes

1. Thus, after the best MSS., and not of Flavigny (Flaviniacenses), as Horstius and some others affirm. The context furnishes three convincing' proofs of this. For. first, Bernard asserts in this Letter to the monks, to whom he writes: " We have had no knowledge of nor have we ever heard the least mention of your house, nor of the sanctity of your life, up to the present time.'' Then he adds: "We are separated from each other by a longdistance, by different provinces, and by difference of language." And, lastly: " Not only are we not resident in the same diocese, but we do not belong to the same archbishopric." And it is too evident to need proof that these expressions do not at all apply to the Abbey of Flavigny. For Flavigny is a town in the Duchy of Burgundy, not far from Fontaines, where Bernard was born, nor a very great distance from Clairvaux, having an Abbey of Benedictines, which was in the Diocese of Autun, the Archbishopric of Lyons, just as Clairvaux was, and which possessed the relics of a holy queen. We must, therefore, restore "of Flay" (Flaviacenses), a little village of the Diocese of Beauvais, on the Epte, where S. Germer founded, in 650, a famous monastery of Benedictines; whence it was sometimes called Flay, sometimes S. Germer of Flay. As for the name of the abbot, whom Bernard indicates by his first Letter to Dom H., Abbot of Flay, I think that it is no other than Hildegaire I., who was Abbot of Flay from 1106 to 1123, as is stated in the Catalogue of Acherius, following Guibert. But I collect from the order of these Letters that he was still abbot in 1126. Some think (but wrongly) that Hugo is meant in this place. ↩

2. In the printed copies the initial G. is found, in not a few MSS. B. That of Corhey, which is most highly tstimated, has the full name Benedict, and following it we have restored the name in several places. ↩

3. Formerly clerks and monks used to act as physicians. As to clerks, Christianus Lupus shows that in notes upon various Letters, both of the Ephesine and Chalcedonian Council (p. too, et seqq.} As to monks, various examples are cited, of which a remarkable one is in Lupus Ferrariensis Ep. 72, respecting Dido, Abbot of Sens. Modern law forbids the practice of medicine to monks as well as to clergy. (Mabillon's note.) ↩