Letter LXX. To the Same
Bernard reminds him what feelings of mercy a pastor ought to have, and ad-vises him to withdraw a sentence which he had passed upon an offending monk.
To the Lord Abbot GUY, Brother BERNARD, health, with the spirit of wisdom and piety.1
Considering the miserable condition of this unhappy man, I feel myself touched with pity, but I fear lest it be in vain. Yet even though he should remain in his unhappy state I do not think that my pity would be altogether wasted, but would be of advantage, at least to me. The pity which I feel is not, however, prompted by any advantage to myself, but a brotherly sympathy is produced in my inmost heart by the misery of a brother. Pity is a feeling which is not governed by the will, nor subjected to the reason, nor is anyone drawn to it by deliberate purpose; but it necessarily imposes itself of its own accord on compassionate hearts at the sight of the suffering of others, so that even if it were a sin to be moved with compassion I could not help pitying, even if I wished. The reason and the will would, indeed, be able to prevent our acting upon the feeling; but could they eradicate the feeling itself? Far from me be those who would console me by saying that my prayer shall return unto my own bosom, although he for whom it is offered is not yet converted. Nor do I listen to those who flatter me by quoting: The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him (Ezek. xviii. 20) while the wicked still remains in his impiety. No, I say, I cannot be consoled while I see the desolation of a brother. If, then, my dear son, your pious mind is similarly affected, or rather because it is similarly affected, although that un happy man seems to have practised shameful and repeated flight from the monastery after having returned, yet because he thinks otherwise, you ought to listen, not only patiently but also willingly to what he humbly urges (how ever ill-founded), if perchance any reasonable opportunity may be found for saving a man whose safety is despaired of; which (as your experience, equally with my own, teaches) is difficult to find even in cono-reo-ation, but is / o o much more difficult when he is without in the world. Do not disdain, therefore, having called an assembly of all the brethren, to recall all the censures that you have launched against him, insomuch that his contumacy shall be healed by your humility, and perhaps some means may be found, without violating the Rule, for receiving him once more. Nor need you fear that by this retractation you will displease our just and merciful God, if mercy shall be exalted above justice.2 Farewell.
Footnotes
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This inscription has been restored from the Corbey MS., No. 553. ↩
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Out of eight MS. copies of this Letter which I have seen, there are five in which the following addition is found after these words, viz., two of Citeaux, one of Vauluisant, one of Corbey, and five of Foucarmont; but in thr;e Colbertine MSS. it is wanting: — " A similar case, which I remember to have happened to me, I adduce as an example to you. A certain brother (otherwise Bartholomew) I one day, carried aivay by anger because he had vexed me, bade ivith threatening voice and look to go out of the monastery; he immediately went out, and proceeding to one of our farmhouses there remained. Which being known, I unshed to recall him; but he replied that he would only return if he might take his previous order and standing, instead of being last of all; and not as a fugitive, but as one rashly and without reasonable judgment dricen forth; because, he said, he ought not to submit to the ordinary judgment of the Rule in returning, as that had not been waited for in expelling him. Not wishing to decide on his answer and my action myself, since I distrusted my own judgment on account of a feeling of carnal resentment, I committed the matter to the judgment of all the brethren. Therefore in my absence it was decided that his recall ought not to be subject to the precept of the Rule, as it appeared that his expulsion had not been regularly made. If, then, so great and pious consideration was shown in the case of one who had once only gone out of his monastery, ivhat ought not to be shown for your monk in the situation of peril in ivhich he is? " This entire addition appears to me entirely alien as well to the character of Bernard as to his conduct. That transport of rage, and headlong ejection of a monk from the convent could never have been found in so good a man. He had without doubt ardent zeal, but founded on gentleness and clemency, as appears even in this Letter, where he urges the showing of so much lenity to a deserter. Besides, if our Saint had fallen into this fault he would rather have buried it in silence, and striven to efface it by penitence; nor would he have committed such an imprudence, as to adduce to Abbot Guy for an example, what would have been so contrary to the object of Bernard himself, and an occasion of scandal to Guy. I think, then, that this story was cited at first by some abbot, perhaps on the margin of a Codex, it may be one of the Cistercian MSS., and then removed from the margin to the text, and that from this Codex others received it; but by no means any of those at Clairvaux, which in this matter are of the greatest weight. ↩
Chapter 70 of 491