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Letter CLXXV. To the Patriarch of Jerusalem

(A.D. 1135.)

Having received many letters from him, Bernard replies in a friendly manner, and praises the soldiers of the Temple.1

I shall seem ungrateful if I do not reply to the many patriarchal letters which you have vouchsafed me. But what more can I do than salute him who has saluted me? For you have prevented me with the blessings of goodness, you have graciously set me tin; example of sending letters across the sea, you have deprived me of the first share of humility and charity. What fitting return can I now make? In truth, you have left me nothing which in my turn I can give back; for even of your worldly treasures you have been careful to make me a sharer in giving me part of the Cross of the Lord. What then? Ought2 to omit what I can do because I cannot do what I ought? I show you my affection at least and my goodwill by merely replying and returning your salutation, which is all that I can do at O J present, separated as we are by so great a tract of sea and land. I will show, if ever I have the opportunity, that I love not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Give a thought, I pray you, to the soldiers of the Temple, and of your great piety take care of these zealous defenders of the Church. If you cherish those who have devoted their lives for their brethren's sake you will do a thing acceptable to God and well-pleasing to man. Concerning the place to which you invite me, my brother Andrew1 will tell you my mind.

Footnotes

  1. William a Gallo-Belgian, and a monk of Tours, was Patriarch of Jerusalem from A.D. 1 130 to A.D. 1 145. See, for more information about him, the history of the Blessed Mary of Fountains (Spicilegium, Vol. x. p. 3^9), where there is a desciiption of the relics sent by him to Fountains through Lambert, a monk of the place. Onlericus says at the end of his thirteenth book: " In the year ii2«S died Germumius. Patriarch of Jerusalem. After him succeeded Stephen of Chartres, who reigned in holy Sion for two years; after him came William of Flanders." The same author mentions a Ralph as Patriarch. But certainly, on the authority of William of Tyre, William buried King- Baldwin A.D. 1142, and was succeeded by Fulcher in 114:. Either William had two appellations or Ordericus has made a mistake. Letter ^03 was written also to the same Patriarch. ↩

  2. Was this Andrew the uncle of S. Bernard, one of the Knights Templars, to whom Letter 288 was written? or was it his brother, a monk of Clairvaux, mentioned in the 1841!! Letter? or Andrew of Baudiment, mentioned in Letter 226, n. 2? The place mentioned here may be the one conceded to the Praemonstratensians by Bernard. See Letter 252. ↩

Chapter 175 of 491