Letter CCCX. To Arnold of Chartres, Abbot of Bonneval
(A.D. 1153.)
Bernard was almost at the point of death, when he addressed to his friend tin's letter, which was the last he ever wrote.
\ have received the marks of your affection with gratitude, I cannot say in pleasure, my sufferings are too great1 for that; still, what I endure seems to me tolerable in comparison with what I feel when obliged to take food. Sleep has departed from me, so that I suffer without intermission through the exhaustion of nature. All my ailments resolve themselves into a great weakness of stomach, which has to be supported frequently day and night with very small quantities of liquid food; for I am entirely unable to bear anything solid. It is not without excessive suffering that it endures the little that is given to me, but still worse is feared, if it should be entirely without any at all. A drop more than is absolutely needful, however, causes me extreme pain. My feet and ankles are swollen as if I were dropsical. In the midst of all this, for I ought not to hide anything from you of the state of a friend for whom you are anxious, as to the inward man I may declare (but I speak as a fool) that the spirit is vigorous, though the flesh is weak. Pray our Saviour, who willeth not the death of a sinner, that He will not put off my departure, which is fully seasonable, and that He will guard me when I pass away. Give diligence to strengthen by your prayers a poor, humble soul, bare and devoid of all merit, that the crafty enemy may not find place, to seize me and inflict a mortal wound. I wished, notwithstanding the state in which I am, to write these fewr words, that you may recognize, on seeing the handwriting you know so well, how much I love you. But I should have preferred to reply to a letter from you than to write the first.
Footnotes
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Many modern writers, among them Horst, Charles de Visch, and the author of a Life of S. Bernard in French, do not share the opinion of Trithemius, Bellarmine and many others, but distinguish this Arnold from the author of the second Life of S. Bernard, to whom they give the name of Bernard and the title of Abbot, not of Bonneval or Bonnevaux in Poitou or Rouergue, but ot Bonneval or Bonnevaux, a Cistercian house in the Diocese of Vienne in Dauphiny. They adduce still another Arnold, Abbot of Bonneval, a Benedictine house in the Pays Chartrain, and to whom was addressed this Letter. But all these great writers will permit me to say that all these Arnolds are only one and the same person. For as regards the difference in the two names, we see that the author of the second Life is written Ernald in the very ancient MS. of Corbie, by which name our Arnold of Chartres is designated by Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, in his Letters to him. But, putting aside this controversy about the name, it is certain that the second book of the Life was written while Godfrey, Bishop of Langres, was still living. For he writes (c. v. n. 29): " Godfrey, Prior of the same house, his relative both in the flesh and in the spirit... became afterwards Bishop of Langres, where he continues to this day, going out and coming in in all good reputation." That was written before 1 161, in which year Godfrey, resigning his See, " returned to Clairvaux, to the embrace of his Rachel," as the Chronicle of Clairvaux records. The same register mentions his death on the 8th Nov., 1164. And from the foundation of Bonneval in Dauphine, in 1117 up to the year 1 180 no Abbot named Bernard is found to have ruled that house. The first Abbot was S. John from 1 1 18 to 1 138; then Gozevin, who was succeeded, in 1151, VOL. n. 53 by Rainald of Citeaux. After him came Peter; then in 1171 Hugo of happy memory. He was still Abbot of Bonneval at his death in 1 180. Where, then, is to be placed an Abbot Bernard who wrote the Life before 1164, as we have shown above it must have been written? Our argument rests on the Annals of Manrique. But besides, it is evident to every attentive reader of the preface to Book II. of the Life that it was not written by a Cistercian. We conclude, then, that the author of Book II, and that friend to whom S. Bernard wrote this Letter just be fore his death, was Arnold or Ernald, Abbot of Bonneval in the Pays Chartrain. ↩
Chapter 310 of 491