Letter CDVII. To Odo, Abbot of Beaulieu
[Formerly No. 348].
Bernard warns him to restore without delay, to a poor man, the deposit received from him.1
To his brother and friend Odo, Abbot of the Regular Clerks of Beaulieu, Brother Bernard, the unworthy steward of the monastery of Clairvaux, wishes health.
The deposit of this man, which he says he left with you for safe custody, it is neither good nor honourable of you to detain, if you do detain it.2
And inasmuch as he heard of the close friendship which is between you and me, he came to me to pour out his complaints. Permit me then to venture to ask you, without wishing to forget the respect which is due to you, wherefore you did not rather sell the very Chalice from your Altar to silence a complaint which is so compromising, if you had not an ox or a horse which could be disposed of so that the man might receive that which was his own? Think, I entreat you, of what is due to yourself, spare the good name of your House, have respect to the holy season of Lent in which we are, and hasten to render to this poor man what you clearly owe to him, before the matter is more widely known, and you experience the greater shame of being obliged to make restitution.
I I I
Footnotes
Chapter 407 of 491