Letter CCLI. To Pope Eugenius

(A.D. 1147.)

Bernard prays him to pardon the monks of Banmc, whom he had rightly punished, and to reconcile them with those of Autun.

To his loving father and lord, EUGENIUS, by the grace of God Supreme Pontiff, his humble servant BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends his humble greeting.

The monks of Baume have sinned grievously, but not with impunity.¹ To you, therefore, there are praise and thanksgiving due from the whole Church, because you have not kept silence, not passed it over, not been inactive. You rightly roused yourself; you struck, but it was to heal. But if my lord forgets to have mercy, and shuts up his pity in wrath, where will the healing come from? Therefore, I confidently wait for mercy after judgment, that I may sing to the Lord of mercy and judgment. I know well that you will not depart from the footsteps of Him whose vicar² you -are, especially because he says: If any man will serve Me let him follow Me (S. John xii. 26). But the Prophet says of Him: H7io knoweth if God will turn, and pardon, and leave a blessing behind Him? (Joel ii. 14). And this blessing I boldly ask from you who have come after Him. Besides, it is not right to destroy the innocent with the guilty. For those who did the evil have been removed. What remains but that those who remain may be saved? \Yhy should not they who obeyed both you and your predecessor be saved? I speak with Paul, who said: Put away from among yourselves that wicked person (1 Cor. v. 13). Therefore, have pity on them; and let not the iniquity of the wicked prejudice the righteousness of the innocent. I say this because their cause comes before the presence of your majesty together with that of the monks of Autun, and they are afraid that the iniquity of these others may injure them. I beseech you most of all to strive for their harmony and peace; indeed, I wish well to both, and so I think it is expedient for both.

Footnotes

1. We gather what this crime of the monks of Baume (in the Diocese of Besan9on) was from two. rescripts of Pope Eugenius, one to Humbert, Archbishop of Besangon, another to William or Guy, Count of Macon, in which he reduces Baume from an Abbey to a Priory, " because of its execrable and horrible wickedness, and its unheard of contempt of the Roman Church shown to its beloved master Osbert," as well as from Letters of William, Count cf Macon, consenting to the degradation. The Letters of Eugenius were dated May zyth, 1147, Paris. They are in the Cluniac registry. However, Baume afterwards regained its title of Abbey. ↩

2. The Supreme Pontiff is here called, not obscurely, Vicar of Christ; but in the old writers he was usually called Vicar of Peter, epp. 346, 183, of Peter and Paul, ep. 243. ↩