Letter CCLXX. To the Same

(A.D. 1151.)

Bernard writes on behalf of the Prior of Chartreux against certain malcontents. He reports the" death of the Abbot of Citeaux and recommends his successor.

1. Our tempters neither slumber nor sleep. They have laid their snares in the desert, even as they but lately persecuted openly in the mountains. The Carthusians have been put to confusion.¹ They have been put to confusion and made to stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom has been well-nigh swallowed up. Know, my lord, that an enemy hath done this, and is still doing it. He still has confidence that the fruits of their holiness will fall into his mouth. He has chosen them as his food, as you know welL He has raised up traitors against those whom he could not drive out himself, and by their means he attacks them with domestic and civil war. From the first founding of the place and of the Order it has never been heard that anyone who went away was to be taken back without giving satisfaction. Those who did wrong in leaving have done worse in their return, inasmuch as they have added treachery to their misdoing. What do you think, Holy Father, that they are likely to do, who went out with transgression, and came back in pride? And now their pride is ever going higher (Fs. Ixxiv. 23). They exult in their evil doing, they insult those who suffer wrong. They have conquered, they are triumphing. The Prior is now no longer Prior. " When the wicked is lifted up the poor is consumed." He even wishes to leave the Order, for he cannot bear to see its destruction. And he would have left ere now if he could have left alone. And the Prior must be a good man, for I hear from good men that those on whose advice he leans are good.

2. Do you see, most gracious father, how you have been imposed on? Shall not the author of this deception receive what he deserves? If I know you well, he will bear his judgment, whoever he is. They came to you in sheep's clothing, and their sacred habit deceived you, for you are but a man. Hut now that the fraud has been discovered, let your zeal show itself, and boldly do its duty against the wicked. Let not your soul come into their council, let the counsel of Ahithophel be confounded. Watch over your self. To be imposed on through ignorance, and to let zeal sleep are not alike in their guilt. Ignorance is the excuse for the one, negligence makes the other inexcusable. He will, perhaps, take another ground, and try to persuade you of something else. Let his iniquity lie against himself and not against my lord, for the truth of the case is as I have stated it. Nothing is pleasanter, nothing more just in your judgments, than when an occasion of this sort presents itself, when a man is endeavouring to injure others, that he should fall into the pit that he himself made, and that his mischief should come upon Jiis own liead, ami Jus wickedness fall on his own pate (Ps. vu. 16, 17). The zeal of the Lord will do this. And the Prior will again be made Prior, I hope, so that iniquity may not altogether boast itself; else (and this is no empty fear) the Order will not long remain safe if the Prior be not restored to his office. May God give you the grace to receive this as a father, and to give a good answer for our comfort, for we have been greatly harassed and afflicted beyond our strength.

3. My Lord Abbot of Citeaux² has gone from us, to the great loss of the Order. And now we have as head in his place, Goswin, Abbot of Bonneval. Let it be your pleasure to strengthen him with letters from the Apostolic See, and by your favour to confirm his election. You know him, and there is no need to commend him to you, for his life and the wisdom given him by God are a sufficient recommendation. My lord of Valence is better, and when he is able he performs good works. Besides, all lovers of good love him, and he them. From this his goodness is plain. It is yours to love and cherish such men. Your son is more feeble than usual, his life is ebbing drop by drop, perhaps because he is not worthy of being killed at a blow, and so coming quickly to life.

Footnotes

1. The author of the French Life of S. Bernard (lib. vi. c. 10) has stated the cause of this as given in the Life of S. Anthelm, or Nanthelm, who was firstly Prior of the Great Chartreux and then Bishop of Bellay. It is there said, " For when the new Prior, Anthelm, was endeavouring, whenever the ancient strictness of the Order had received any loss, to have it reformed according to the original constitutions, he strove to call back, that they might bear better fruitr whomsoever he saw negligent or rebellious, by kindly admonitions, by words and threats, by precepts also, and rebukes. But if anyone refused to amend, and was evidently obstinate, he did not hesitate to expel him from the society of the brethren. There were some who spurned his wholesome instructions because they were great in their own eyes, men of a malicious disposition, and prone to strife, who did .not scruple to withstand him. But he refused to submit to their arrogance, and expelled them from the monastery that they might not disturb the peace of the rest." Some of them, as we can readily believe, fled to Eugenius, got absolution, and were sent back without any penance being imposed on them. It is of this that S. Bernard complains that " it had not been heard from the foundation of the place that anyone who left should be received back without giving satisfaction." Manrique (Annals, A.D. 1151, c. 2) assigns another cause from the Letters of Peter the Venerable (B. vi. n. 12), viz., the strife which, when Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, was translated to the Arch bishopric of Vienne, arose, A.D. 1151, on the occasion of the new election be tween the different Carthusian monasteries, Chartreux, Durbuy, Fortes de Mailly, Selve, and Anvers. Some said " that the man elected ought not to be made Bishop," and they wanted to have the case tried judicially. Others, on the other hand, declared that li it was not their business to go to law, but only to say what they thought, not to have recourse to the tribunals to plead." But since in this last matter it is an altercation between the monasteries, which is the question, not a rebellion of the monks, which Bernard implies in this Letter, this must be referred rather to the first. We refer them to the year 1151, because they happened a little after the death of Rainauld, Abbot of Citeaux, as appears from the Letter. He died December i5th, A.D. 1150, as Manrique proves from the Cistercian Martyrology on the year 1151, c. i. ↩

2. Reynold died A.D. 1151, and was succeeded by Goswin, Abbot of Bonneval. ↩