Letter CCCXXX. To Pope Innocent
(A.D. 1140.)
Against Peter Abaelard.1
To his very dear father and lord INNOCENT, BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends humble homage.
The Spouse of Christ weeps bitterly in the night. Her cheeks are bedewed with tears, and there is not one to console her of those to whom she is dear. That Shunammite, my lord, is committed to your care during the days of her pilgrimage, and while her Spouse delays His coming. To no one will she contide her injuries and her troubles so unreservedly as to the friend of her Spouse. Because you love Him you are always prepared to listen to her com plaints in time of trouble. And among all the various kinds of enemies with whom the Church is surrounded, as a city among thorns, there are none whose attacks are more persistent and more dangerous than those whom she has borne in her bosom and nourished at her breast. It is they, and such as they, who have drawn forth the exceeding bitter cry, My lovers and my friends draw near and stand against me to take away my life (Ps. xxxviii. 1 1, 12). There is none more powerful to injure than an enemy of our own household. We may judge of this from the treacherous attachment of Absalom, and from the kiss of Judas. Other foundation for our faith can no man lay than that which is laid (1 Cor. iii. n). Now in France there is being fabricated a new faith which does not look at virtues and vices from the point of view of morals, at Sacraments with the eye of faith, which reasons about the Holy Trinity itself in away far from simple or reverent, and arrives at conclusions other than the truth we have received. Magister Peter and Arnold, of whose evil influence you have cleared Italy, have Stood up and taken counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed. Scale is joined to scale, so that not a breath can come between them. They are corrupt, and become abominable in their pursuits. With the leaven of their corruption they corrupt the faith of the simple, pervert the rules of morals, and soil the whiteness of the Church's robe. Like him who changes himself into the similitude of an angel of light, they have a form of piety, but without its power. They are adorned like a decorated sanctuary that they may privily shoot at them that are of a right disposition. Scarcely have we ceased to hear the roaring of Peter Leonis occupy ing the seat of Simon Peter than we are threatened by Peter the dragon2 assailing the faith of Simon Peter. The one persecuted the Church of God openly, as a ravening lion, but the other, as a dragon, lurks in hiding places that he may murder the innocent. But Thou, Lord God, will bring down the high looks of the proud; Thou wilt tread under Thy feet both lion and dragon. The one did evil as long as he lived, but death put an end to his malice; but the other, committing his new dogmas to writing, provides for the transmission of his poison to future generations. In short, to describe this theologian in few words, he distin guishes with Arius degrees and inequalities in the Trinity; with Pelagius he prefers free will to grace; with Nestorius he divides Christ in excluding His humanity from union with the Trinity. But in all these things he boasts that he has opened the fountains of knowledge to the cardinals and ecclesiastics of the Curia; that his books are in the hands of the Romans, his maxims in their hearts, so that he takes those by whom he ought to be judged and condemned to be the protectors of his error. With what intention, with what effrontery can you [I ask him], who art the persecutor of the faith, appeal to the protection of its defender, and with what unabashed boldness can you, the insulter of the Church, dare to look in the face the friend of the Church's Bridegroom? If the care of my brethren and the weak state of my health did not keep me here, how greatly should I wish to behold the friend of the Bridegroom exert ing himself zealously in di fence of the Church, in tin-absence of her Spouse! Can I possibly endure the wounds of the Church when I could not bear in silence the injuries done to my lord [the Pope]? Do thou, then, most dear father, cease to withhold thy help from her. Rise up in her defence; gird thee with thy sword. For already, through the overflowing of iniquity, the love of many waxes cold, and unless you put to your hand I foresee the day when the Spouse of Christ will go forth and follow strange paths, and be led astray by false pastors.
Footnotes
Chapter 330 of 491