Letter CCCLXXXVII. To Peter, Abbot of Cluny

[Formerly No. 352: the for- mer No. 387 is now No. 397] (A. D. 1150).

Bernard begins by protesting his friendship and affection for Peter, and begs him to excuse anything that he had written with too much sharpness in a former letter.

To the very Reverend father, and his very dear friend, Peter, by the grace of God, Abbot of Cluny, brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes health in Him who is the true Salvation.

Would that I could send you my heart to read as you read my letter that is before you! Then I am sure you would read most clearly the affection for you which the finger of God has graved deeply on my heart and in my whole being. What then? do I begin again to commend myself to you? By no means. Long since did my soul cleave to yours: and an equal affection has rendered equals two men very unequal in other respects. For if your humility had not deigned to stoop to me, what could there have been in common between your dignity and my littleness? But thus it has happened that your greatness and my humility have been united in reciprocal affection: so that neither I, without you, are humble; nor you, without me, are exalted.

Nicholas, one of my Religious who is particularly attached to you, has astonished me in no small degree by saying, that to his surprise and regret he had noticed in a letter which I had addressed to you, various sharp and bitter expressions.¹

Believe me, who love you, that nothing which could wound your Beatitude ever proceeded from my mouth, or was harboured in my heart. The great pressure of business is the cause of the mistake: for when my secre-taries have not quite understood my meaning, they are sometimes apt to employ expressions too sharp; nor am I able to ' read over what I have directed to be written. 2 For this once, pardon me: henceforth I will read over whatever I shall write to you by the hand of others, and will trust only my own eyes and ears. ' Other things, my son and yours, who bears this letter, shall tell you by word of mouth. Kindly listen to him as being to me another self; to me, who love you, not in word or in tongue only, but in deed and in truth. Salute your holy community on my behalf, and beg them to remembei their humble servant in their prayers.

Footnotes

1. The letter here referred to is not found amongst the published letters of S. Bernard. Peter the Venerable mentions it in the following letter (No. 4). Letter 270 shows that the monks of the Grand Chartreuse had been similarly wounded by a letter from S. Bernard. 2 it is clear from what Bernard says here, that many of the letters, if not of those which remain to us, were the work of his secretaries. Such were those of Nicholas, which we give in the Appendix. ↩