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Letter CXLVII. To Peter, Abbot of Ciajny

(A.D. i [38.)

Peter had consoled Bernard, who was engaged abroad in several difficult labours for the Church, by sending him Gebuin, Archdeacon of Troyes. He gratefully acknowledges this kindness, and predicts a happier state for the Church by the extinction of the then existing schism.1

To dom PETER, the very Reverend Father, Abbot of Cluny, his friend BERNARD wishes health, and all that he could desire for his friend.

1. May the Dayspring from on high visit you, my excellent friend, for you have visited me in a strange land, and consoled me in the place of my pilgrimage. You have done well to think upon the poor and needy. I was absent, and absent too for a long time, and you, a great man, full of important matters, yet forgot not my name. Blessed be thy holy angel, who put loving thought for me into thy heart: blessed be our God who moved thee. Lo, I hold in my hand your letter, of which I may make my boast among strangers, and in which you have poured out your full heart to me. I rejoice that you hold me in favour as well as in memory. I rejoice in the privilege of your love, I am refreshed out of the abundant sweetness of your heart.2 And not only so, but I glory in tribulations also, if I have been counted worthy to endure any for the sake of the Church. This, truly, is my glory and the lifting up of my head — the Church's triumph. For if we have been sharers of her trouble, we shall be also of her consolation. We must work and suffer with our mother, lest she complain of us, saying, My kinsmen stand afar off: they also that seek after my life lay snares for me (Ps. xxxviii. 1 1, 12).

2. But thanks be to God who hath given her the victory, has crowned her labours, and glorified her in them. Our sadness has been turned into rejoicing, our mourning into gladness. The winter is passed, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning is here, the useless branch, the rotten member has been cut off. The wicked man who made Israel to sin, he has been swallowed up by death,3 and given over to the pit of hell. In the words of the Prophet, he had entered into a covenant with death, and made an agreement with hell (Is. xxviii. 18), and therefore, as Ezekiel says, Destruction has come to him and he shall be no more for ever (Ezek. xxviii. 19). Another enemy, too, the greatest of all and the worst of all, has none the less been cut off.4 And he was one of the friends of the Church, of whom she is wont to complain, saying: My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking upon my trouble, and my kinsmen stood afar off (Ps. xxxviii. n). If any remain I hope for speedy judgment against them. I shall soon be returning to my brethren, if God preserves my life, and I shall hope to pay you a visit in passing. Meanwhile I commend myself to your holy prayers. I salute brother Hugh, the Chamberlain, and all who are with you, with the rest of your sacred congregation.

Footnotes

  1. This reply of Bernard's is wanting in not a few copies, and in the first editions was placed after ep. 307. But this ep. 147 is an answer to two of Peter's, one of which is ep. 29 in lib. ii.; the other, ep. 37, is here subjoined, that it may be seen how closely these two holy souls clung to each other; <•/. also notes to ep. 228. The epistle is as follows: — "To my venerable and dearly beloved lord, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, his brother PETER, humble Abbot of the Cluniacs, sends greeting, desiring that he may be always strong in the Lord. " How great are the reverence and the love that my inmost soul feels for you, He knows whom in you I venerate and love. I still felt all this even when He hid from me your bodily presence; because rumour, that travels faster than the body can, brought before my mind's eye the form of your blessed soul. But when I at length attained what had been so long time denied me, and when the images of dreams disappeared before the light of truth, my soul clung to yours and refused to be again separated from your love. So did your love claim me wholly thenceforth, so did your virtues and the beauty of your character seize me, that nothing of my own was left me which was net yours, nothing of yours was suffered to remain with you which was not also mine. From that time there abode in me (and may the cause of Christ to which you have set your hand so abide in you) that brotherly love, which alone, be cause it can never perish, has preserved its nature perfectly so far as I am concerned. And since I have stored this up in my bosom, and hold it dearer than all the gold in the world, more precious than all jewels, I wonder that for so long a time I have not received from you, such tokens as I could wish for, of the love that you keep for me. I am thankful, indeed, that by the chance salutations you occasionally send, you show that you have not wholly forgotten your friend. But I complain that you have not given me yet surer proofs by letter^ I say ' surer,' because the paper cannot alter what has been written on it, while the tongue of the speaker can too often change by addition or subtraction, the truth that has been uttered. Hence, because as a chosen warrior, prepared for the day of battle, because of the dangers that threaten the Church of God, you fight with the arms of righteousness on the right hand and the left, 1 securely commend to your friendship the messengers whom I am sending to my lord the Pope; being assured that one who assists strangers in their cause will not be wanting to his friends in their need. That my complaint may be set at rest, send me word by letters and not by word of mouth only, how you are, how my lord, the Pope, is situated, and about his return. Would that you were set free from an exacting Curia and I from a perilous charge,1 as I have always longed for, so that one place never to be changed might hold us both, one charity unite us, one Christ receive us! " ↩

  2. Cur a. ↩

  3. The Antipope Anacletus died A.D. 1138. The manner of his death is described by Ernald (Life of S. Bernard, lib. ii. c. 7). Ordericus (p. 915) says that his death was sudden. Victor was chosen in his place by the rivals of Innocent. ↩

  4. This seems to be Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, who died A.U. 1136 (ep. 126 notes). Ordericus, speaking of his death (p. 908), calls him a most learned man, " and of great reputation and authority in the Roman Senate in the times of Popes Paschal, Gelasius, Calixtus, and Honorius." ↩

Chapter 147 of 491