Letter CCXLVIII. To the Same

(A.D. 1146.)

Bernard forewarns the Pontiff not to lend an ear to the Bishop of Seez, who is endeavouring to be reinstated in his diocese.

1. It is not my custom, as it is with many, to use any preface, any roundabout phrases with you. I begin at once with the matter itself. A deceitful man is on his way to you. to deceive you, I believe, but I hope that he will not succeed. For this could not happen except with very great danger to many. It is always an evil to deceive anyone; it is commonly also an evil to be deceived by anyone. But it makes a difference who it is that is deceived, and in what he is deceived. The greater your power and dignity is, the more dangerous and more disgraceful is it to take any advantage of you, especially in ecclesiastical matters. For example, this deceitful fox of Seez is craftily laying his snares for you, hoping by his craft to catch you, and you ran imagine with what malignity he will rage against the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, no small part of which he has in a short time laid waste, if he is allowed to return to it fortified by your authority. Alas! what is left he will speedily devour. He who came a fox will return a lion, and he will no longer use cunning but cruelty against some of the clergy, as well as some of the laity. You must, then, be on your guard against his cunning, so that his violence may not break out a second time.

2. Be not moved by the piteous face of the man, his mean dress, his suppliant look, his downcast eyes, the humility of his words, nor yet by his crocodile's tears, running, they say, at will, and practised to further his lies. All these are but the appearance, and you know Who said, Judge not according to the appearance (S. John vu. 24). In such things as these consists the form of godliness, but not always its power. These are sheep's clothing, often put on, as the Lord warned us, by wolves for the greatest destruction of the sheep. The sheep do not hide themselves, for the wolves come to them disguised (S. Matt. vu. 15). Thence it is that some of my friends, taken in by his falsehoods, have written on his behalf, not paying attention to what was wisely and truly said by the Wise Man, There is one who wickedly humbles himself, and his inward parts are full of deceit (Ecclus. xix. 23). Pay no attention, then, to his words, or to the gestures of his body; examine his deeds. By his fruits you will know him. Many grievous things are said of him; they will also be said against him if there is one that seeketh and judgeth. I am unwilling to tell you all that I have heard. For everything is not to be believed; but neither is everything to be dis believed. I briefly mention one conjecture of mine; you will judge if there is anything in it. Why did he refuse the judges given him? If he objects to them personally, they were under no suspicion. If he objects to the place, it was in his own land, amongst his own kindred, where the whole matter could be investigated easily, and without trouble, at small expense, and without a long journey. We can clearly only conclude that he appealed to you as an expedient to escape from the great number of his accusers who would be unable to pursue him outside his native land because of the expense. We must thank the Bishop of Lisieux, whose zeal for the House of God has made him spare neither his purse nor his individual trouble. He is a good brother, whose desire it is to raise up seed to his dead brother.¹ Do you, too, thank him, because this diligent care of his will shed no small lustre on your name, for by it the wicked is made manifest, and so overthrown, which is your glory.

Footnotes

1. He skilfully applies the old and now antiquated command of God, that if a man died without children his brother should raise up seed to him, to Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux; who by Letters to the Pope, and by his close attention, so pre served the rule of S. Augustine, which had been given by his brother John, Bishop of Seez, to secular canons, and which had been allowed to be grievously neglected by his successor, that S. Bernard here happily remarks that he had raised up his brother's seed, which another's carelessness and license had well nigh choked. It is likely that he laboured in this matter for some twenty years, as appears from a Letter of his to Pope Alexander III., beginning, " There is one who," etc. John, the brother of Arnulf, died A.D. 1143, and was succeeded by Girard, the second of that name, formerly a secular canon, who from the above Letter to Arnulf seems to have been refused consecration as Bishop until he profcssed the same Order himself. But, as the same Letter says, this Bishop was declared to have conceived the detestable desire of uprooting this plantation of regular canons. For this reason he is htre alluded to by Bernard. ↩