Letter CCCXXXV. To A CERTAIN CARDINAL PRESBYTER. Also against Peter Abelard

(A.I). 1140).

To the CARDINAL PRESBYTER, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes health and happiness in the Lord.¹²

Let no one despise your youth. It is not- white hairs nor weight of years that is required by the Lord, but maturity of mind and a blameless life. Neither Jeremiah nor Daniel feared nor trembled, though both of them were young men, before old men disgraced by vice, though heavy with the weight of ill-spent days. And I might rightly, perhaps, treat as disgraced that man, who tried to corrupt the beauty of the Church, and to stain the purity of the Faith. That is Peter Abaelard, who disputes and defines as he chooses, and differently from accepted tradition, upon matters of faith, upon the Sacraments, and the mystery of the holy Trinity. Now, after having disturbed the Church and thrown it into confusion, he presents himself to the Curia, not that he may make amends for the mischief he has done, but because he relics upon the crafty subterfuges that he has at his command to conceal his errors. It is now that those who know themselves to be the Church's sons will stand firmly in her defence.