Saint Bernard
Among the great figures of the Middle Ages, there are few whose study is more suited for counteracting certain prejudices cherished by the modern mind than Saint Bernard. In fact what could be more disconcerting for the modern mind than to see a pure contemplative, one who always wished to be and to live as such, called upon to play a dominant role in conducting the affairs of Church and of State, and succeeding where all the prudence of professional diplomats and politicians had failed? What could be more surprising and even more paradoxical, according to the ordinary way of judging such things, than a mystic who shows only disdain for what he calls 'the quibblings of Plato and the niceties of Aristotle,' but who nonetheless triumphs without difficulty over the most subtle dialecticians of his day? All of Saint Bernard's life seems destined to show, through striking example, that in order to solve problems of an intellectual and even a political order there exist means quite other than those we have long since become accustomed to considering the only ones effective, no doubt because they are the only ones within reach of a purely human wisdom, which is not even a shadow of true wisdom. The life of Saint Bernard thus seems an anticipated refutation of these errors of rationalism and pragmatism, which are supposedly opposed to each other but are actually interdependent; and at the same time, for those who examine it impartially, this life confounds and upsets all those preconceived ideas of 'scientific' historians, who consider along with Renan that 'the negation of the supernatural constitutes the very essence of critical thinking,' something we readily admit, though for the reason that we see in this incompatibility the exact opposite of what they do: the condemnation, not of the supernatural, but of 'critical
thinking' itself. Truly, what lessons could be more profitable for our time than these?
Bernard was born in 1070 in Fontaines-lès-Dijon; his parents belonged to the upper ranks of Burgundian nobility, and if we mention this fact it is because to this origin can be linked certain features of Bernard's life and doctrine that we will discuss in the following pages. We do not wish to imply that this alone could account for the sometimes quarrelsome ardor of his zeal or the violence he repeatedly introduced into the polemics he engaged in, qualities that were moreover superficial, for kindness and mildness incontestably formed the basis of his character. What we especially allude to are his relationships with the institutions and the ideal of chivalry, to which we must in any case accord great importance if we are to understand the events and the very spirit of the Middle Ages.
At about the age of twenty, Bernard decided to retire from the world; and in a very short while he had succeeded in converting to his views all his own brothers, as well as some of his neighbors and several of his friends. In his early apostleship, his persuasive force was such that in spite of his youth he became (as his biographer states) 'the terror of mothers and wives; friends were in fear of seeing him approach their friends.' Here already was something extraordinary, and it would surely be inadequate to attribute it simply to the force of his 'genius', in the profane sense of the word. Would it not be better to recognize here the action of divine grace, which somehow or other penetrated the whole person of the apostle and shone out abundantly from him, communicating itself through him as through a channel, to use a simile he himself was to apply later to the Holy Virgin, and that can also be applied within certain limits to all the saints?
It was thus that in 1112 Bernard, accompanied by thirty young men, entered the monastery of Cîteaux, which he had chosen because of the strictness with which the Rule was observed there-a strictness contrasting with the laxity that had been introduced in all the other branches of the Benedictine Order. Three years later, his superiors did not hesitate to entrust to him, in spite of his inexperience and unsteady health, the direction of twelve monks who were going to found a new abbey, that of Clairvaux, over which he was to
rule until his death, always refusing the honors and dignities that were so often offered to him in the course of his career. The renown of Clairvaux was not slow to spread, and the abbey's growth was truly prodigious: when its founder died, it is said to have housed some seven hundred monks and had given birth to more than sixty new monasteries.
The care that Bernard brought to the administration of Clairvaux, personally overseeing everything down to the most minute details of everyday life, the part that he took in the direction of the Cistercian Order as the head of one of its foremost abbeys, the skill and the success of his interventions to smooth over difficulties that frequently arose with rival Orders-all these qualities give sufficient proof that what one calls 'practical sense' may often be united with the highest spirituality. All this would have been more than enough to fully absorb the energy of an ordinary man, yet Bernard soon saw another whole field of activity open up before him, indeed almost in spite of himself, for he never feared anything as much as being obliged to leave his cloister to mix in the affairs of the outside world, from which he had intended to isolate himself forever in order to surrender himself completely to asceticism and contemplation, with nothing to distract him from what was in his eyes, according to the Gospel, 'the one thing needful.' In this hope he was greatly disappointed, but all those 'distractions' (in the etymological sense of the word) from which he could not escape and about which he would complain with some bitterness did not at all prevent his attaining the heights of mystical life. That fact is truly remarkable, and what is no less so is that in spite of his humility and all the efforts he made to live in seclusion his collaboration was requested for all sorts of important affairs, and that although he was nothing in the eyes of the world, everyone, including high civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries, always spontaneously bowed to his compelling spiritual authority-whether this was due to his own saintliness, or to the age in which he lived, being hard to tell. What a contrast between our own age and one in which a simple monk, through no more than the radiance of his eminent virtues, could become in a sense the center of Europe and Christianity: the uncontested arbiter of all conflicts where public interest was in play, both in politics and in
religion; the judge of the most renowned masters of philosophy and theology; the restorer of the unity of the Church; the mediator between the papacy and the empire; one, finally, whose preaching was to rally armies of several hundred thousand men!
BERNARD had begun early to denounce the luxurious living of most of the members of the secular clergy and even monks in certain abbeys; his remonstrations had provoked resounding conversions, including that of Suger, the illustrious Abbot of Saint-Denis, who even though he did not officially hold the title of prime minister to the King of France, was already fulfilling its functions. It was his conversion of Suger that made known the name of the Abbot of Clairvaux at court, where he was regarded it seems with a respect mixed with fear, for one saw in him the indomitable adversary of all abuses and injustices; and, indeed, he soon intervened in conflicts that had broken out between Louis the Fat and various bishops, and he protested loudly any infringements of civil authority against the rights of the Church. In truth, it was still a question of purely local affairs of interest only to a given monastery or diocese, but in 1130 events of a completely different gravity occurred that put in peril the whole Church, which became divided by a schism created by the antipope Anaclet II, and it was on this occasion that Bernard became renowned throughout all Christendom.
We need not enter here into all the details of the history of that schism: the cardinals, split into two rival factions, had elected in succession Innocent II and Anaclet II; the first, forced to flee from Rome, never despaired of his rights and appealed to the universal Church. It was France that responded first; at a council convened by the King at Étampes, Bernard appeared (in the words of his biographer) 'like a true envoy of God' among the assembled bishops and lords; all followed his advice on the question submitted to their inspection and recognized the validity of the election of Innocent II. The latter was on French soil at the time, and Suger went to the Abbey of Cluny to announce to him the decision of the council; he passed through all the main dioceses and was everywhere welcomed with enthusiasm; this momentum was to solidify Innocent's support in almost all of Christendom. The Abbot of Clairvaux then
made his way to the King of England and quickly overcame his hesitations; perhaps he also had a part, at least indirectly, in the recognition of Innocent II by King Lothaire and the German clergy. He then went to Aquitaine to combat the influence of Bishop Gérard d'Angoulême, a partisan of Anaclet II; but it was only in the course of a second trip to that region, in 1135, that he succeeded in destroying the schism by effecting the conversion of the Count of Poitiers. In the interval, he had had to go to Italy, summoned by Innocent II, who had returned there with the aid of Lothaire, but who had been stopped by unforeseen difficulties due to the hostility of Pisa and Genoa; it was necessary to find a compromise between the two rival cities and to make them accept him, and it was Bernard who was given charge of this difficult mission, which he acquitted with the most marvelous success. Innocent could finally return to Rome, but Anaclet remained entrenched in St Peter's, of which it proved impossible to gain control; Lothaire, crowned emperor at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, soon retired with his army; after his departure, the antipope took the offensive and the legitimate pontiff again fled and took refuge in Pisa.
The Abbot of Clairvaux, who had returned to his cloister, was dismayed by the news; shortly afterward came the rumor that troops had been deployed by Roger, King of Sicily, to win all of Italy to the cause of Anaclet, ensuring his own supremacy there at the same time. Bernard wrote immediately to the inhabitants of Pisa and Genoa to encourage them to remain faithful to Innocent; but this faithfulness was but a weak support, and to conquer Rome, it was from Germany alone that effective aid could be expected. Unfortunately, the Empire was ever a prey to division, and Lothaire could not return to Italy before he had assured peace in his own country. Bernard left for Germany and worked for the reconciliation of the Hohenstaufens with the emperor; there again his efforts were crowned with success, and he witnessed its happy outcome confirmed at the Diet of Bamberg, after which he made his way to the council that Innocent II had convened at Pisa. On this occasion he had to address the misgivings of Louis the Fat, who opposed the departure of the bishops from his kingdom; the prohibition was lifted, and the principal members of the French clergy were able to
respond to the appeal of the head of the Church. Bernard was the soul of the council; between the meetings, as historians of the day describe it, his door was besieged by those who had some serious matter to resolve, as if this humble monk were endowed with the power to decide at will all ecclesiastical questions. Delegated next to Milan to bring back that city to the side of Innocent II and Lothaire, he was acclaimed by the clergy and the faithful, who in a spontaneous show of enthusiasm, wanted to make him their archbishop, an honor from which he extricated himself only with the greatest difficulty. He wished only to return to his monastery and did in fact go back there, though not for long.
From the beginning of 1136 , Bernard had once more to abandon his solitude, in compliance with the pope's wishes, to come to Italy to meet the German army, commanded by Duke Henry of Bavaria, son-in-law of the emperor. A misunderstanding had arisen between Henry and Innocent II; Henry, little concerned with the rights of the Church, chose consistently to align himself only with the interests of the State. But the Abbot of Clairvaux was strongly in favor of re-establishing harmony between the two powers and reconciling their rival claims, especially in certain questions of investiture, in which he seems regularly to have played the role of moderator. Meanwhile however Lothaire, who himself had taken command of the army, subdued all of southern Italy; but he made the mistake of rejecting the peace proposal of the King of Sicily, who quickly took his revenge, putting everything to fire and sword. Bernard did not hesitate then to go to Roger's camp, but Roger was ill-disposed toward his words of peace; Bernard predicted a defeat for him, which in fact happened; then retracing his steps, Bernard rejoined Roger at Salerno and made every effort to turn him away from the schism into which ambition had drawn him. Roger consented to hear both the partisans of Innocent and of Anaclet, but while pretending to conduct the inquiry impartially, he was only trying to gain time and refused to make a decision; at any rate this debate had the positive result of bringing about the conversion of one of the principal authors of the schism, Cardinal Peter of Pisa, whom Bernard won to the side of Innocent II. This conversion dealt a terrible blow to the cause of the antipope; Bernard knew how to profit from
this and, in Rome itself, through his ardent and convincing words, he managed in a few days to win over most of the dissidents from Anaclet's side. That took place in 1137, around the time of Christmas; one month later, Anaclet suddenly died. Some of the cardinals most involved in the schism elected a new antipope who took the name Victor IV, but their resistance could not last very long, and they all submitted on the eighth day of Pentecost; a week later, the Abbot of Clairvaux again headed home to his monastery.
This short summary should suffice to give an idea of what one might call the political activity of Saint Bernard, which moreover does not stop there: from 1140 to 1144 he was to protest the abusive meddling of King Louis the Young in episcopal elections, then to intervene in the serious conflict between the same king and Count Thibaut of Champagne; but it would be tedious to go on at length about such affairs. In summary, one could say that the conduct of Saint Bernard was always determined by the same intentions: to defend the right, to combat injustice, and perhaps most of all to maintain unity in the Christian world. It is this constant preoccupation with unity that animated his struggle against the schism; it is also what made him undertake, in 1145, a trip to Languedoc to bring back to the Church the neo-Manichean heretics who were starting to spread in this region. It seems that he had ever-present in his thought the Gospel words: 'That all may be one, even as my Father and I are one.'
However, the Abbot of Clairvaux had to struggle not only in the political domain, but also in the intellectual domain, where his triumphs were no less astonishing, since they were marked by his condemnation of two eminent adversaries: Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée. Through his writings and teachings Abelard had acquired for himself the reputation of a most skillful dialectician; he even made excessive use of dialectic, for instead of seeing in it only what it really is, that is, a simple means to arrive at understanding the truth, he regarded it almost as an end in itself, which naturally resulted in a sort of verbosity. It also seems that, both in his method and in the very essence of his ideas, he engaged in a pursuit of novelty not unlike that of modern philosophers; and at a time when
individualism was practically unknown, this defect had no chance of being considered a virtue, as is the case nowadays. And so some soon began to worry about these innovations, which tended to establish a veritable confusion between the domains of reason and faith; it is not that Abelard was a rationalist properly speaking, as has sometimes been claimed, for there were no rationalists prior to Descartes; but he did not know how to distinguish between what belonged to reason and what is higher than it, between profane philosophy and sacred wisdom, between purely human know-how and transcendent knowledge, and there lay the root of all his errors. Did he not go so far as to maintain that philosophers and dialecticians enjoy a constant inspiration comparable to the supernatural inspiration of the prophets? One understands easily why Saint Bernard, when his attention was called to such theories, rallied against them forcefully and even with an outburst of anger, and also that he should have bitterly reproached their author for having taught that faith was merely a simple opinion. The controversy between these two very different men, begun in private talks, soon reverberated loudly in the schools and monasteries. Abelard, confident of his competence in handling an argument, demanded that the Archbishop of Sens call a council before which he might justify himself publicly, for he thought he could easily lead the discussion in such a way as to confound his adversary. But things turned out quite otherwise: the Abbot of Clairvaux, in fact, saw the council as only a tribunal before which the suspect theologian was appearing as a defendant; in a preparatory session he produced the writings of Abelard and pointed out their most reckless propositions, which he proved heterodox; the next day, the author having been introduced, Bernard enunciated these propositions and called upon Abelard to either retract them or justify them. Abelard, instantly foreseeing a condemnation, did not await the judgment of the council but declared immediately that he would appeal the decision to the court of Rome; the proceeding nonetheless followed its course, and when the condemnation was pronounced, Bernard wrote such vehemently eloquent letters to Innocent II and the cardinals that six weeks later the verdict was confirmed in Rome. Abelard could only submit; he took refuge at Cluny with Peter the Venerable, who
arranged an interview for him with the Abbot of Clairvaux and succeeded in reconciling them.
The Council of Sens took place in 1140; in 1147, Bernard obtained in the same way, at the Council of Rheims, the condemnation of the errors of Gilbert de la Porrée, the Bishop of Poitiers, regarding the mystery of the Trinity; these errors arose from the fact that their author applied to God the real distinction between essence and existence, which is applicable only to created beings. However, Gilbert retracted without much difficulty, so that it was simply forbidden to read or transcribe his writings until they had been corrected; his authority, apart from the specific points in question, was not affected, and his teaching remained in good repute in the schools throughout the Middle Ages.
Two years before this last affair, the Abbot of Clairvaux had had the joy of seeing one of his fellow Cistercian monks, Bernard of Pisa, rise to the pontifical throne; the new pope took the name of Eugene III and Bernard always maintained the most warm-hearted relations with him. It was this new pope who near the beginning of his reign charged Bernard to preach the Second Crusade. Until then, the Holy Land had held, in appearance at least, only a minor place in Saint Bernard's preoccupations; however, it would be wrong to think that he had remained totally indifferernt to events there, the proof of this being a fact which is not usually given the weight it deserves: namely, the part Bernard played in the founding of the Order of the Temple, the first of the military orders by date and importance, which was to serve as a model for all the others. It was in 1128, about ten years after its foundation, that the order received its Rule at the Council of Troyes, and it was Bernard who, as secretary of the Council, was charged with drawing up this Rule, or at least with delineating its chief features, for it seems that it was only somewhat later that he was called to complete it and he finished its final wording only in 1131. He then commented on this Rule in De laude novae militiae (In Praise of the New Militia), where he set forth with magnificent eloquence the mission and the ideal of Christian chivalry, which he called the 'militia of God'. These connections between the Abbot of Clairvaux and the Order of the Temple, which modern
historians consider only a rather secondary episode in his life, assuredly had quite a different importance in the eyes of men of the Middle Ages; and we have shown elsewhere that these connections undoubtedly explain why Dante chose Saint Bernard as his guide in the highest circles of Paradise.
In the year 1145, Louis VII formulated a plan to go to the aid of the Latin principalities of the East, menaced by the Emir of Aleppo; but the opposition of his advisers had constrained him to postpone the plan's execution, and the definitive decision had been left to a plenary assembly which was to take place in Vézelay during the Easter holiday of the following year. Eugene III, detained in Italy by a revolution provoked in Rome by Arnaud of Brescia, charged the Abbot of Clairvaux to take his place at that assembly; Bernard, after having read aloud the papal bull, which invited France to the Crusade, delivered a speech that was, to judge by its impact, the most important speech of his life, all those present rushing to receive the cross from his hands. Encouraged by this success, Bernard traveled the cities and provinces, everywhere preaching the Crusade with untiring zeal; where he could not travel in person, he sent letters no less eloquent than his speeches. Then he went to Germany, where his preaching had the same result as in France; the Emperor Conrad, after resisting for a time, under Bernard's influence changed his mind and joined the Crusade. Toward the middle of the year 1147, the French and German armies set off on this great expedition which despite its formidable appearance was to end in disaster. The causes of this failure were many, the main ones seeming to have been the treason of the Greeks and the lack of cooperation between the various leaders of the Crusade; but certain critics hoped, quite unjustly, to lay responsibility for the failure on the Abbot of Clairvaux, who had to write a veritable apology for his conduct, an apology which was however at the same time a justification of the defeat as an act of Providence, showing that the unhappy outcome was not attributable to the faults of Christians alone, and that therefore 'the promises of God remain intact, for they do not contradict the rights of justice'; this apology is contained in the book De Consideratione [On Contemplation], addressed to Eugene III, a book which is like
the will or testament of Saint Bernard and which contains especially his views on the rights of the papacy. Besides, not all were discouraged, and Suger soon conceived a plan for a new Crusade, of which the Abbot of Clairvaux was himself to be the leader; but the death of this great prime minister of Louis VII stayed the plan's execution, and Saint Bernard himself died shortly afterward in 1153, his last letters testifying that he was preoccupied to the very end with the deliverance of the Holy Land.
Although the immediate purpose of the Crusade was not attained, must one say even so that such an expedition was entirely useless and that the efforts of Saint Bernard were spent to no avail? We do not think so, despite what may be thought about it by those historians who concern themselves only with external appearances, for there were in these great movements of the Middle Ages, which were both political and religious, more profound motives, one of which-the only one we will note here-was the wish to maintain within Christianity a keen awareness of its unity. Christianity was identical with Western civilization, which was founded at that time on an essentially traditional basis, as is any normal civilization, and which was to reach its apogee in the thirteenth century; the loss of that traditional character would inevitably follow any rupture in the very unity of Christianity of which we are speaking. Such a rupture, which was later accomplished in the religious domain by the Reformation, was effected in the political realm by the rise of nationalism, preceded by the destruction of the feudal regime; and one could say, from this last point of view, that the one who dealt the first blow to the grand edifice of medieval Christianity was Philip the Fair, the very one who through a coincidence by no means fortuitous destroyed the Order of the Temple, thereby directly attacking the work of Saint Bernard.
In the course of his travels, Saint Bernard frequently supplemented his preaching with miraculous healings, which were for the multitude like visible signs of his mission; these acts were reported by eye-witnesses, but Bernard himself never willingly spoke of them. Perhaps he imposed this reserve on himself because of his extreme modesty; but undoubtedly at the same time he attributed only a
secondary importance to these miracles, considering them a mere concession accorded by divine mercy to the weakness of faith among the majority of the men, according to the words of Christ: 'Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.' This attitude was in accord with the disdain that Bernard had in general for all outward and visible show of the sacred, such as the pomp of ceremonies and the ornamentation of churches; some have even reproached him, with apparent justification, for harboring only contempt for religious art. Those who formulate this criticism, however, forget a necessary distinction that Bernard himself established between what he called church architecture and monastic architecture: it was only the latter that was to have the austerity he advocated, and it was only to the religious orders and to those who followed the road of perfection that he forbade 'the cult of idols', that is to say of forms, which he proclaimed, on the contrary, were useful as a means of education for the simple and the imperfect. If he did protest against the abuses of representations devoid of meaning and having no more than an ornamental value, he did not wish, as has been falsely alleged of him, to forbid symbolism in architectural art, for he himself made frequent use of symbolism in his own sermons.
The doctrine of Saint Bernard is essentially mystical, by which we mean that he sees everywhere the divinity of things under the aspect of love, which it would moreover be wrong to interpret in the merely sentimental sense, as modern psychologists do. Like many great mystics, he was especially drawn to the Song of Solomon, on which he commented in many sermons, forming a series that continued throughout most of his career; and this commentary, which always remained incomplete, described all the degrees of divine love, up to the supreme peace that the soul attains in ecstasy. The ecstatic state as he understood it, and which he certainly experienced, is a sort of death to the things of the world; along with such sensible images, all natural feeling disappears; everything is pure and spiritual within the soul itself, as in its love. This mysticism was naturally reflected in the dogmatic treatises of Saint Bernard, the title of one of the principal ones, De diligendo Deo [On Loving
God], indeed showing clearly the place that love held in it; but one would be wrong to think that this was to the detriment of true intellectuality. If the Abbot of Clairvaux always wished to remain a stranger to the vain subtleties of the scholastics, it was because he had no need of the laborious artifices of dialectic; he would resolve in a single blow the most arduous questions because his thinking did not proceed by a long series of discursive operations; what the philosophers strove to reach by a circuitous route and by groping their way, he arrived at immediately, through the intellectual intuition without which no real metaphysics is possible, and without which one can only grasp at a shadow of the truth.
Ir is essential to call attention to one last trait in the character of Saint Bernard: the eminent place held in his life and in his writings by the cult of the Holy Virgin, something that has produced a flowering of legends and that may be why Bernard has remained so very popular. He loved to give to the Holy Virgin the name of Our Lady [Notre Dame], a usage that has become general since his time and that seems in large part due to his influence; it is as if he were, one might say, a true 'knight of Mary', and he truly regarded her as his 'Lady' in the chivalric sense of this word. If one compares the role that love plays in his teaching with the role it also plays, in a more or less symbolic manner, in the conceptions proper to the Orders of Chivalry, one will easily understand why we took care to mention his family's noble origins. Though he became a monk, Bernard remained always a knight, as did all those of his lineage; and by that very fact one could say that he was in a way predestined to play, as he did in so many instances, the role of intermediary, of conciliator and arbiter between the religious power and the political power, because there was in his person something of the nature of both. Monk and knight at one and the same time: these two traits were those of the members of the 'militia of God', of the Order of the Temple; they were also, and first of all, those of the author of their Rule, the great saint who was called the last of the Fathers of the Church, and whom some would see, not without some reason, as the prototype of Galahad, the perfect knight without blemish, the victorious hero of the 'quest for the Holy Grail'.