Letter CCXLI. To Hlldefonsus, Count of S. Eloy, about the Heretic Henry

(A.I). 1147.)

He describes the impious teachings of the heretic Henry, successor of Peter de Bruys, and blames the Count for per mitting such a man to teach undisturbed in his dominions.¹

1. How great are the evils which I have heard and known that the heretic Henry has done and is daily doing in the Churches of God! A ravening wolf in sheep's clothing is busy in your land, but by our Lord's direction / know him by his fruits (S. Matt. vu. 15, 16). The churches are with out congregations, congregations without priests, priests without their due reverence, and, worst of all, Christians without Christ. Churches are regarded as synagogues, the sanctuary of God is said to have no sanctity, the sacraments are not thought to be sacred, feast days are deprived of their wonted solemnities. Men are dying in their sins, souls being dragged everywhere before the dread Tribunal, neither reconciled by repentance nor fortified by Holy Communion. The way of Christ is shut to the children of Christians, and they are not allowed to enter the way of salvation, although the Saviour lovingly calls on their behalf, Suffer little children to come unto Me (S. Matt. xix. 14). Does God, then, who, as He has multiplied His mercy, has saved both man and beast, debar innocent little children alone from this His so great mercy? Why, I ask, why does he begrudge to little ones their Infant Saviour, who was born for them? This envy is of the devil. By this envy death entered into the whole world. Or does he suppose that little children have no need of a Saviour, because they are children? If so the great Lord was made small for no reason, to say nothing of His being scourged, spitted on, nailed to the cross, and put to death.

2. This man, who says and does things contrary to God, is not from God. Yet, O sad to say, he is listened to by many, and he has a following which believes in him. O, most unhappy people! The voice of one heretic has put to silence all the Prophets and Apostles, who in one spirit of truth have joined in calling together in the faith of Christ the Church out of all nations. Therefore the divine oracles have been deceived; the eyes and minds of all are deceived when they see fulfilled what they read was predicted. How certain is it rather that this man alone with a dull and alto gether Jewish blindness, either does not see the truth which is manifest to everybody else, or envies its fulfilment, and so by some devilish art or other he has persuaded a stupid and foolish populace not to trust their own eyes in a plain matter of fact, and to believe that our ancestors were deceived, that their descendants are in error, that the whole world, even after Christ's blood has been shed, is going to perdition, and that the full riches of the mercy of God and His grace which saves the world have come to those only whom he is leading astray. And now, because of this, though in much weakness of body, I have set out on a journey to those parts² which this ravening wild beast is most laying waste, since there is none to resist him or to save them. Since he has been expelled from the whole of France for similar wickedness, he finds those parts alone opened to him where, under your protection, he is with all his might raging against the flock of Christ. How this is consistent with your good name I must leave you, as an illustrious prince, to judge. Still it is no wonder if that crafty serpent has deceived you, since he has the form of godliness, though within he has denied its power.

3. But now hear who he is. He is an apostate; he was once a monk,³ but has abandoned the religious habit, and has returned, like a dog to its vomit, to the abominations of the flesh and of the world. Being unable to live a life of shame among his kindred and those who knew him, or, rather, not being allowed to do so because of the greatness of his crime, he has girded up his loins, and has entered on a road of which he is ignorant, and has become a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth. When he began to go about begging he put a price on the Gospel (for he was well-educated), divided the word of God for sale, and preached the Gospel that he might earn his bread. If he was able to extract more than enough to live on from the more simple of the populace or from any of the matrons he would basely squander it at dice, or even on baser objects. Often, indeed, after being applauded by the people in the day, has this famous preacher been found at night with prosti tutes, and sometimes even with married women. Ask, if you please, noble sir, why he left Lausanne, why Le Mans, why Poictiers, why Bordeaux, and there is no way of return to any of them open to him, because he has in all left foul traces behind him. Did you, pray, expect good fruit from such a tree? He makes the land in which he is to stink in the nostrils of the whole earth, because, according to the saying of the Lord, an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit (S. Matt. vu. 18).

4. This, then, as I said, is the cause of my coming. Nor do I come of myself, but I am drawn thither alike by the summons and evil condition of the Church, to see if those thorns and their little seeds while they are little, can be rooted up from the land of my Lord, not by my hand, for I have no power, but by the hand of the holy Bishops with whom I am, and with the assistance of your strong right-hand. Amongst whom the. chief is the venerable Bishop of Ostia,⁴ sent for this very purpose by the Apostolical See, a man who has done great things in Israel, and by whom the Almighty Lord has often given victory to His Church. It is your duty, illustrious Prince, to receive him honourably, as well as those with him; and also to take care according to the power given you from above that the great labour of these great men undertaken most of all for the salvation of you and yours be not rendered inefficacious and to no purpose.

Footnotes

1. Query, Eligii, not Egidii. — [E.] Add "also of Toulouse.'' He was son of Raymund, Count of Toulouse, and Elvira; was born in the East (William of Tyre, Bell. Sac., lib. x. c. 27), and baptized in the Jordan. The same author (lib. xvi. c. 28) also says of him, when speaking of his departure for the East: " There was at that time in the port of Acre the magnificent and illustrious Count of Toulouse, Anfossus (? Alphonsus) by name, son of the elder Count Raymond, whose exploits in the first expedition were worthy of his renown; a man famous by the name he bore, still more illustrious by" his father's piety. When on his way to Jerusalem to give thanks to God for his safe arrival he put in at Caesarea, and ended his life there (as is reported) by poison given by an unknown hand." Further, the county of S. Eloy is a part of Gallia Narbonensis, named from the saint who once lived in it. The Count of S. Eloy calls himself Hildefonsus in a treaty of A.D. 1135, drawn up between him and Raymund, Count of Barcelona, where his wife is called Fardida. ↩

2. See Life, B. iii. c. 6. ↩

3. Geoffrey (f'itu Bem., lib. iii. n. 16) calls this monk Henry (and Exord. Cister., referred to in lib. iii. c. 17 of the same life). The Acts of Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans (Analect., Vol. iii. p. 314) call him a hermit. ↩

4. Alberic, mentioned in Vila Bernardi, lib. iii. n. 17, was born at Beauvais, became a Cluniac monk, was created Cardinal by Innocent, A.D. 1138, legate to England, then to Syria, and then to Gaul. Ep. 219 was written to him. ↩