Letter CC. To Magister Ulcer, Bishop of Angers, concerning the Grievous Quarrel Existing Between Him and the Abbess of Fontevraui/r

(A.D. 1140.)

1. I am more inclined to shed tears than write a letter. But since charity is not unable to do either the one or the other, it is my duty to give the latter and not omit the former. The one is due to you, the other to me, and to the many weak ones like me who are made to stumble. You say, perhaps, that the scandal is not caused by you. Will you deny that it exists because of you? I would bear the rest easily enough if only you were not in the cause. For I do not dare to say you are in the wrong. It is not my place to discuss this; there is One who seeketh and judgeth. Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. Whosoever is the guilty, whether it be he or she, shall surely bear the punishment. But my discourse is now with you. Bear a little with my folly. \Vhat I have once begun I will say to my Lord. I will satisfy in some degree, though imperfectly, the zeal and affection wrhich prompt me to speak. I will not fear the age, I will not be terrified by the dignity, I will not pause at the great name of Magister Ulger. For the greater the name the greater the scandal. Therefore I will go beyond myself, and will be a fool. I will chide my senior, I will reprove a Bishop. I will endeavour to teach a teacher, to give counsel to the wise. The love and the emulation which I formerly conceived for your sanctity and the glory of your name may well excuse any kind of presumption. To me it is no light matter, nor is it to the Church of God, which used everywhere to rejoice with great joy in this noon-day sun, that the spiritual odour of this glory which was poured out everywhere should be interrupted even in a small degree by the envy of the devil.¹

2. But it is plain enough how utterly you despise your own glory. I praise you in this, but not if it is to the injury of God. I praise, too, the constancy with which vou yield nothing of what you think your rights even to the highest powers, but I praise you not if you should seem to do this with more obstinacy than constancy. How much more to your glory, and certainly to your holiness, would it be if you were to bear bravely an injustice done to you, and so keep your good name for the glory of God. And yet I cannot think how you keep even your conscience in safety under this scandal. For it is no excuse even if you can rightly throw the blame on another. Be it that another has caused the scandal, surely it is in your power to end it. Will you be guiltless if you are unwilling to end it? or will the wish to end it be without glory? If the ill which you repress is your own it will redound to your righteousness; if another's, to your glory. Whoever may be the author of the scandal, on all grounds it is your duty to end it; and I can only say that on one condition only are you free from blame, viz., if it is out of your power to end it. And, finally, is it not the work of angels to remove scandals from the kingdom of God (S. Matt. xiii. 41)? If you say, What is that to the point? the verse will answer you, The priest's lips keep knowledge, and they ask for the law at his mouth, for he is a messenger² of the Lord (Matt. ii. 7). If, then, you do not, when you can, end this scandal, you simply do not fulfil your ministry. And you shall judge for yourself whether that be no fault. But I do not mean to say this alone is enough; you must show it honour by acting on it.

3. There is another thing also I would add if I were not, I confess, more timid than I professed myself. But I bring forward with more safety as a teacher a Bishop who is not afraid to speak the plain truth to a Bishop. There is utterly a fault among you, he says, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather suffer wrong (1 Cor. vi. 7)? He has set up the mirror, the Sun of righteousness has shone forth, truth has shone, the spot has been made apparent. Of what importance is that little, trivial possession that it should have power any longer to cast a shade over such manifest truth, or hinder so longed-for an ending of strife? May God inspire you so as to yield to this counsel, which is not so much mine, as the counsel of all who are jealous for you with a godly jealousy, reverend father, who art worthy to attain all honour.

Footnotes

1. Petronilla, first Abbess, who was succeeded by Matilda A.D. 1150. The death of Petronilla is placed in the Necrology on April 24th, and she is said to have been chosen for Abbess by Robert, founder of the Order of Fontevrault, a famous nunnery in the Diocese of Poictiers, not far from the borders of Tours and Angers. A bitter quarrel with the nuns was kept up by Ulger, Bishop of Angers, whose religion and learning Ordericus speaks of (lib. xii. p. 882), till the year 1 1 24, when he was substituted for Reynold, who had been translated to the See of Kheims. Me was a man excelling the other Bishops of his age in wisdom, character, and holiness (Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans, Vol. iii. p. 335). Because of this suit he did not at once betake himself to Rome, to Innocent and Lucius, who had undertaken the defence of the nuns, as appears from their bulls given in the History of Fontevrault. See Letter 340. ↩

2. Angclus. ↩