Letter CCCXLIII. From Abbot Bernard, of Italy, to Pope Innocent

(A.D. 1140.)

He complains that in the Abbey of S. Saviour all things arc not as the Pope had promised.¹

To the dearly-beloved and longed-for father, INNOCENT, by the grace of God supreme Pontiff, his servant BERNARD sends greeting and the prayers of the poor.

I am in deep perplexity; for on the one side modesty requires me to be silent, and on the other necessity obliges me to speak. I shall speak, therefore, to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes; but I shall speak in the bitterness of my soul. I complain, my lord, of you, but it is to your self; my complaint is made in strict secrecy, but the cause of my complaint is only too manifest. I did as you com manded; I came to the monastery of S. Saviour,2 as you bade in your letter to your servant, our father.² What has become now of your promises and of my hopes? I have passed through fire and through water; and unless the Lord had helped me, the water would perhaps have swallowed me up. I have been afflicted by dangers of waters and of robbers, in cities, in solitude, on the land and in the sea; nor was there any to help me. All these things came upon me: nor was even then the end. By your letter, my lord, I was drawn from the bosom of my father, and, at your mere bidding, leaving my father and my brethren, I hastened to obey your will. By your letter I was torn from the bosom of my mother, and deprived of her consolations: driven forth from an abode of happiness; and that I might not return thither, you, my lord, have opposed to me a flaming sword, which turns every way. My crown has fallen from my head, and my songs of gladness have turned to lamentation. How could I, my lord, sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How much more sweetly and safely did my soul rejoice herself in the abode and bosom of my mother? Now, I so run as one in uncertainty; I so fight as one that beateth the air: but for this, my lord, your promise is to blame, which I believe to be full of grace and truth. But now, since the winter has departed and the bad season is over, if it shall please my lord, allow me to leave this place, and to seek wrhere I may find rest for my feet: since hitherto snow and hail, ice and storms have prevented my so doing. It seems most cruel and most inhuman to deprive of his wish him³ who loved me before he knew me, who has shown himself to me a father so tender that he would have torn out his own eyes and given them to me had it been possible. My King and my God, whose kingdom was not of this world, had not where to lay His head: would that the world would drive us out also and oblige us to wander in deserts, in mountains, in caves, and dens of the earth!

Footnotes

1. A new Letter; the former No. 343 is now No. 384. a This monastery existed still in the time of Mabillon, about eight miles from the Abbey of Farfa, on which it depended. It served as a country house for the monks of Farfa, who retired there during the heats of summer. See Letter 184, and its Notes. ↩

2. S. Bernard. ↩

3. This was Atenulf, Abbot of Farfa, respecting whom see below. ↩