Letter CCCXLIV. From the Same Bernard to Saint Bernard

(A.D. 1140.)

He complains of the Prelaturc which Jiad been forced upon him.¹

To the venerable lord and dearly-loved P —,² Abbot of Clairvaux, his son B — sends greeting, and prays that he may have the unction which teaches all things.

As often as I recall that day of misery and calamity, on which I was torn from your consoling bosom, I am more inclined to weep than to write anything. If the eloquence of my prayers equalled the abundance of my tears, I should easily be able to make you realize how miserable and deserted I am. When I apply my mind to reflecting upon it, and my hand to the pen, my grief is renewed. The extreme bitterness of my soul returns to me as I write; and I am troubled by the remembrance of that unhappy day, on which my foolish and unworthy self was placed in a position of eminence. I do not, my lord, blame your action, nor the motive of your action, which is believed to have been pointed out by the ringer of God; but I lament a little the unhappiness of my lot. For, behold, after I was driven away from the sight of thine eyes, my life was worn away in grief, and my days in mourning. Woe is me! I have lost sight of the pattern on which I tried to fashion myself, the mirror of what I ought to be, the light of my eyes! No longer does that sweet voice sound in my ears, nor that kindly and pleasant face, which used to blush at my faults, appear before my eyes. Wherefore, my lord, has my hope been frustrated, and the desire of my heart denied me? My life has been cut off as the thread of an unfinished web, and broken off short as a plant yet shooting up. That unhappy sentiment is fulfilled in me which you quoted upon the Song of Songs, and which I now read in the book of experience, Man, being in honour, hath no understanding (Ps. xlix. 12). For I did not sufficiently understand when I was in Clairvaux that I was in a place of happiness among the trees of Paradise, and therefore I held that Delectable Land as of no account. I ask of you, my lord, why you thought fit to determine this lot for me, why you set me as a leader and a teacher of others, and a chief over your people? Was it my career in the world? But that was foul. Was it my life in the cloister? But that was luke warm and backward. Why, then, when I was little in mine own eyes, have I been made the head of a tribe in Israel? Wherefore, when I was not myself clean from secret sins, have you not spared to make your servant responsible for those of others? What can a man do whom sorrow for the past renders unhappy, the responsibilities of the present weigh down, and the thought of the future renders fearful? Overburdened with grief and affliction, I presume, my lord regretted and longed for, to say this to you alone, because my wound was received from a hand the least expected. But, my lord, to speak of this place to which you have sent me, I have run as if uncertainly, I have fought as if beating the air. For the lord Pope, on whose letter I was sent forth, has not yet fulfilled his promise to confirm the donation of this place, and what is taking place at this moment is a proof of this. The Lord Abbot of Farfa³ welcomed me at my coming with great joy, and received your sons with the utmost gladness, so that, if it were possible, he would have plucked out his own eyes, and have given them to me. In this one respect alone is he to be blamed and corrected by you, that he goes only too far, exceeding not only his own promises, but even our wishes. As this letter is already so long, I am able to say nothing shorter, nothing truer about my inner life, than that I am wasting my time.⁴

Footnotes

1. A new Letter; the former No. 344 is now No. 315. ↩

2. That is to say Father (Pater), namely, Bernard, for it appears clear that this Letter was written to S. Bernard, and by that Bernard who at a later period became Abbot of S. Anastasius at Aquae Salviae, near Rome, and at length Pope under the name of Eugenius III. The preceding Letter is also his, and likewise Letter 428. All these appeared at first under the name of S. Bernard. ↩

3. Pars., but read Farfensis. This was Atenulf; he had asked for monks from S. Bernard. See Life, B. iii. c. 7, n. 23. ↩

4. Lit. laterem lavo. A proverbial saying used by Terence in the sense of to-waste time. — [E.] ↩