Letter CCCXIV. To Pope Innocent

(A.I). 1134.)

Bernard, having reconciled the Milanese to the Church, had set out at the command of Innocent to endeavour to restore peace among the other cities of Lombardy, first proceeding to Pavia and Cremona. But not succeeding with the Crcmonese, he acquaints the Pope with their obstinacy, and he advises that the very severe sentence which was being prepared against the Archbishop of Milan should be for a while sit sp ended.¹

To his very dear father and lord, Supreme Pontiff, INNOCENT, Brother BERNARD sends his humble homage.

1. The Cremonese are hardened, their worldly prosperity is their ruin. On the other hand, the Milanese think lightly of others, their self-confidence deceives them. These, who put their hope in their war chariots and their horses, have frustrated my endeavours, and rendered my labour useless. I was sadly departing when behold the great consolation with which you favoured me: so that although my tribulations for Christ abound, yet my consolations, through him, abound also. I have received your wished-for letter, which brings sweetness to my soul in the news of your safety, of the successes of our friends, and the reverses of our enemies. Unfortunately the end of the letter tempered the joy which I had felt on reading the first part. For whom would not your indignation cause to tremble? I confess that it is just, and therefore fear it the more. Yet I would say that that which has not yet been done should indeed be done, but at the fit time which God will point out. You will then be equally free to do what you propose, and it will perhaps not be equally dangerous. To act at the present time is alas! to destroy utterly all that God by an extraordinary stroke of His grace has accomplished in this city, and which has cost so much care and labour to you and your assistants.² It will be strange if such a proceeding is pleasing to Him who, as we read, exalts mercy over justice (James ii. 13.) But oh! that unhappy Bishop who, having been translated from a kind of earthly paradise to Ur of the Chaldees, finds him self become a brother to dragons, and a friend3 of ostriches. What can he do? He wishes to obey, and behold the beasts of Ephesus gnash their teeth upon him. He wishes to dissimulate prudently for the moment, and incurs all the harshness of your far more formidable indignation. There are difficulties for him everywhere, unless he should find it his better course to be without a see, than without a lord: and should hold, as it becomes him to do, the favour of the Pope, as of greater value than the See of Milan. Have you any doubt of his attachment? If any one has been so malicious as to persuade you to suspect him, he shows him self really less loyal than the suspected person, since in his envy he has blackened with his faithless tongue, the good name of a prelate of such high reputation. Have consideration, good Father, for your faithful servant, have consideration for work which is so new, for a plant which has not had time to take root; have consideration for people wrho are attaching themselves to you, and do not efface the memory of those very benefits, which, as you yourself most truly declare, you have bestowed upon them. Remember, pious Pontiff, those wrords of your Lord: Behold these three years I come seeking fruit upon this fig tree, and find none (S. Luke xiii. 7). But you have waited for scarcely three months, and yet you are pre paring the axe. If you had waited three years, you would have followed even in the fourth, as a faithful servant should, the example of your Master. Let us then say:³ Let it alone this year also; perhaps during that time the ground may be trenched with the spade of penitence, and enriched with tears, and it may be that He who has given you this sterile ground of the hearts of the Milanese to cultivate, will enable it to bring forth the fruit which you desire.

Footnotes

1. Formerly No. 318. That Letter which was numbered 314 is now 390. This Letter relates to the same affair as Letters 131. 132, and 133. ↩

2. These were Guy of Pisa and Matthew of Albano; they had been sent by Innocent to the inhabitants of Milan as legates of the Holy See, with Bernard, as we see in Letter 131. ↩

3. I imagine that there is here a reference to Ribald, who had been elected and confirmed Archbishop of Milan, in the place of Anselm, who had been driven from his See, as we learn in Letter 131. ↩