Letter CCCXIII. To Geoffrey, Abbot of S. Mary at York
(A.I). 1132.)
Bernard recommends him not to hinder those who wished to enter a religious Order more austere; and declares that those should be regarded as apostates, who, after having thus removed, fall back to their former manner of life.1
To the venerable Dom GEOFFREY, Abbot of the Church of S. Mary at York,2 Brother BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, sends salutation in our Lord.
1. It has pleased your Reverence to write and consult so humble a person as myself on some doubtful questions. But I am afraid to give any decisive answer; and hesitate the more to do so, inasmuch as if men with the purest intentions are unable to discern the minds of their nearest companions, they are still less able to discern the secret designs of the Divine Will. Again, I am afraid in so speaking to wound those who do not share my opinion; and this is certain to happen with those unsatisfied souls who only seek to justify their conclusion in their own eyes by a cloud of incoherent and obscure reasonings. But yet their conscience itself is the avenger of this voluntary darkness: because at the same time thaf they strive to delude themselves with regard to that they have done, the truth of the matter comes back to them in the shape of remorse which wounds and preys upon them. Of such a character was the gnawing remorse from which the Psalmist prays of God to be delivered, saying: Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise Thy name (Ps. cxlii. 7). If, then, I do not reply to your questions in a manner as satisfactory as you would wish, or if I do not dare to express myself as fully as I might, do not, Reverend sir, suppose that it is from a studied artfulness. Your letter begins by complaints upon the painful position in which the departure of a certain number of your monks has placed your old age, since they have quitted you only to embrace a manner of life stricter and more secure. It seems to me that in this case you ought rather to be afraid that your sorrow is the sorrow of this world which worketh death.
2. For if there is any reason at all in the opinion of men, it is a thing not to be lamented if a man ever endeavours to devote himself with greater strictness to the practice of the law of his Creator. And we indeed should be acting not merely not holily, but even without ordinary fatherly care and interest, if we should envy the advances made by our sons. If, then, you wish, as I suppose, chiefly to make your profit of one good counsel out of a thousand, not only should you strive to prevent those who still remain with you under a mitigated rule, from falling into a lower state through their relaxations; but also you should be, as says the prophet, the first to bring bread (Is. xxi. 14), the first to favour the design of those, who, fearing that the health of their souls would suffer if they remained longer in a house of less severity, aspire to observe their profession in all its purity. On the first you ought to lavish the greatest care lest they grow careless to their spiritual loss; but to the second you ought to show every kind of goodwill, that they may attain to the crown. For those who meditate continually in their heart on the means of rising higher are those who go from strength to strength; they merit to behold the Lord of Lords in Sion, and that the more surely because they are consumed with a fervent zeal to adhere to Him by a more holy and perfect life (Ps. Ixxxiv. 5, 7).
3. As for the monks Gervase and Ralph, whose withdrawal Archbishop Thurstan, like a true father and a worthy Bishop, had sanctioned, and to which you, as you yourself declare, had consented, I am sure that, far from erring, they would have done well to have remained firm in that more perfect path of purity to which they had ascended, and to have persevered in it laudably. It is evident to me, nevertheless, that if they wished to regain the path of purity from which they have rashly descended, they would be deserving of very great praise for that proof of Christian valour, as soldiers who return to the fight contend the more bravely for the victory, that they had for a moment shamefully fled from the battle field. You, indeed, are quite able, I believe, to recall the permission you had given, but the judgment of the Almighty cannot be thus rendered of no effect. You allow that their life would afterwards be a more holy one; but you say that they would not be able to support its rigour, on account of the delicacy of their constitution, or of ties of relationship impossible to break. To this you add, that their presence is necessary to you; and therefore you urge me to say, whether they may not with out fault remain in a house which they have not been able to quit without offence.
4. To this I reply, that there are different kinds of offences; that carnal affections ought to be entirely cut off lor the sake of Christ, that the Gospel loudly declares, and one passage in the Scripture repeats after another, that temporal advantages and enjoyments are to be abandoned for the salvation of the soul; and that to be ignorant of this is a fault so gross as to be almost heretical. But I am not certain whether such a return as you speak of could be made without fault needing punishment. Certainly, it would expose them to evident peril, and a fall almost certain, because it is presuming on the mercy of God against His justice, and to set up the one against the other. The Scripture says: Be not without fear to add sin to sin and say not, His mercy is great (Ecclus. v. 5, 6). For it is a bad kind of discretion that makes the less important consideration preponderate over the more important, and tries to put the worse in the same line with the better.
5. Lastly, you protest vehemently against the name of apostates being applied to these men if they should return to their own monastery, and endeavour to discharge the sacred rules of their profession. As for me, I reply, it is not my business to condemn them. The Lord knowetli them that are His (2 Tim. ii. 19). Everyone shall bear his own burden (Gal. vi. 5). He whom the darkness does not comprehend shall manifest Himself as the Lord in the day of judgment, and the sinner shall be taken in the work of his own hands (Ps. ix. 16). Each person may judge him self as leniently as he will; as for me I will say what I think about myself. I, Bernard, if after I had passed over by my own free will from a good state to a better, from a dangerous condition to one more secure, I had, by a culpable change of will, presumed to go back again to what I had left, should have feared not only that I was an apostate, but that I was also unlit for the kingdom of God. This also S. Gregory says: ' Whosoever has proposed to himself a higher good is no longer free to follow one which is lower. For it is written: No man putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God (S. Luke ix. 62). And such is the man who, having embraced a higher life, falls back again on one who is lower (Pastor. iii. 28.) As to a certain excommunication on which you desire to open a discussion in your letter, it appears to me that it would profit you nothing to discuss that question, and that it is not my business to decide it. You know that the law refuses to judge anyone until he has been first heard: and it is always rash to deliver judgment on an absent person.
Footnotes
Chapter 313 of 491