FOREWORD
FOREWORD The lifetime of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) coincided with one of the liveliest periods of monastic experiment in the medieval West.
Adults of mature experience, men who had been soldiers and landowners and their wives, were giving up their worldly positions to enter the religious life. Monasteries that had for many generations taken in the children given them by wealthy families and trained them now had to adapt to the demands of adult vocation and try to make monks and nuns of grown men and women, many of them unlettered and unprepared for the realities of the life they were entering.
Some of these converts founded communities of their own. Herluin, the first abbot of Bec early in the eleventh century, humbly took advice and designed his community along traditional Benedictine lines.
Others had novel ideas. Some individuals went to live as hermits in remote places, or took a few friends with them and tried to live a life of apostolic simplicity. In this climate of change and experiment monks who had grown up in older Benedictine houses were attracted to similar ventures, We read of runaway monks who wanted to enter an Order which seemed to offer a surer road to heaven in a more austere and testing life.
Many of these attempts were short-lived. The most lasting and the most influential perhaps was the foundation of the Cistercian Order, whose monks aspired to live a simple and balanced life by the Rule of St. Benedict. Its success owes a very great deal to Bernard of Clairvaux.
The outward reform of life in the older houses that was stimulated by these adventurous individuals and challenging newcomers had a counterpart in a deepening of the inner life. Adult experience perhaps brought something to the long, steady, patient process of practice and improvement that had been the traditional way.
FOREWORD Bernard of Clairvaux did a good deal to shape these developments in monastic life and spirituality, both within the Cistercian Order and outside it. He had an influence greater perhaps than that of any other single individual. He joined simplicity of life and balanced observance of the Rule to ardor for God in the hearts of hundreds of new Cistercians and others. He did it by example, and by the powerful effect his preaching had on those who heard him. The books and sermons translated here convey that power with remarkable force and freshness, even removed as they are by the less of gesture and tone of voice, and the delicate balance of Bernard's antithetical style, the near-rhymes and assonances to which his Latin lends itself. In his own day he appealed to all sorts of people because he spoke to the deepest level of common human experience. He does so still. The translations are made from the recently completed critical edition of Bernard's Opera Omnia by Leclercq, Talbot, and Rochais (LTR).
It has seemed important to include those of Bernard's treatises that trace the path of upward aspiration in the spiritual life. A small number of sermons from the series on the Song of Songs is given space. All these sermons deal more or less directly with the development of the spiritual life in the individual, but Bernard's opening sermons perhaps set out his ideas most clearly. One or two sermons from later in the series can be found here, too, and a few of Bernard's letters.
The working principle of the translation has been to remain as close to the Latin and to retain such marks of Bernard's style as readable
English permits. Frequently used terms have been translated consistently as far as can be done without forcing the sense.
Translation of texts from the Bible follows Bernard's text, which is normally that of the Vulgate. Sometimes he gives the Old Latin version and occasionally his memory fails him and he alters the Vulgate.
'THE TRANSLATIONS
Bernard did not write a treatise on the spiritual life, but in a sense all his writings take the spiritual life as their subject. As he puts his mind to the task of living the monastic life, of learning humility, of loving
God, of converting others to God ("On Conversion"), or to preaching on some passage of Scripture, he always has before him the need to bring his readers or listeners to know God, and he falls again and again into an account of the best practical method of doing so. This single
FOREWORD
overall purpose gives a unity and interconnectedness to his writings over several decades. Themes are repeatedly taken up. The imagery of divine love recurs—especially that of the Song of Songs.
The texts translated here are arranged in the order of the spiritual pilgrimage: conversion (De Conversione); patient progress in humility (De
Gradibus Humilitatis et Superbiae), treated ironically by Bernard as a sketch of a man's descent the other way into pride; learning to know
God (Book V of the De Consideratione); loving God (De Diligendo Deo).
Some of the sermons on the Song of Sengs follow, and a selection of letters in which Bernard speaks of the spiritual life.
PREFACE In the history of Christian spirituality, Bernard of Clairvaux holds a distinguished place. He played a decisive role in the monastic reform of the twelfth century, stimulating the development of the newly founded Cistercian Order and infusing into its spirituality his own dynamic vision. He defended the autonomy of spirituality against what he thought was the destructive rationalism of Peter Abelard and the emerging Scholasticism, which in later centuries would drive a wedge between spiritual experience and rational consciousness. He gave impetus to two devotions that flourished in the later Middle Ages, becoming major forces in subsequent spirituality: devotion to Mary and to the humanity of Christ.
In a century that was unique in Western history for the cultivation of love, Bernard towered above his contemporaries. In his eulogies of human love, he echoed the troubadours, trouveres, and the writers of romance; but unlike his secular counterparts, he saw this love as a symbol of the soul's love for Christ, and he charted a journey through love to union with God. His achievement was so great that he has become the classic guide for those who follow the path of love in Christian spirituality. It is not fortuitous, then, that Dante chose Bernard as his spiritual guide at the climax of The Divine Comedy. After the love of Beatrice had drawn Dante to the highest heaven, Bernard took over the role of guide, leading him first to Mary and then to a vision of God that united him to "the Love that moves the sun and the other stars."
The emergence of a spirituality of love, however, was not confined to Christianity in twelfth-century France. Quite the contrary! As has
1. Paradiso, xxxiii, 1.145.
PREFACE been observed by Richard Payne, the developer of the Classics of Western Spirituality, that was a great century for the spirituality of love in the world's religions.' In various traditions and in diverse geographical areas, love was cultivated as a spiritual path with an intensity and a creativity that was unprecedented. In Judaism, for example, rabbis turned with new vigor to compose mystical commentaries on the Song of Songs. In the latter part of the twelfth century, the Kabbalah emerged in France and Spain. This complex mystical tradition provided a theoretical framework and practical techniques for activating the energy of love in the spiritual life. It highlighted the Shekbinah, or feminine aspect of God, and saw the integration of male and female energies as central to the spiritual life. This led, in the thirteenth century, to the composition of the Zohar, the classical Jewish mystical text expressing the love of God in the Middle Ages. In this context, the sexual union of husband and wife on the Sabbath gradually became a sacred ritual that participated in the union of the male and female aspects of God.
In Islam love also flourished—for example, in the writings of the Sufi masters 'Attar, Ahmad al-Ghazalli, and Ibn 'Arabi. They highlighted the theme that God is lovable in his divine beauty, which he has manifested through the beauty of creatures. With consummate literary skill, the Muslim authors turned to lyric poetry to express this spirituality of love, often addressing a beautiful woman as the manifestation of the divine Beloved. This tradition reached a peak in the thirteenthcentury mystical love poetry of Rumi.
In Hinduism the way of love or devotion (bhakti) attained a stage of development that established it as a major Hindu path throughout subsequent history. Inspired several centuries earlier by the Alvar and Nayanar love mystics of southern India, the path of love was given a philosophical-theological foundation in the twelfth century by Ramanuja. It was at this time that the love tradition spread to northern India, becoming a dominant force in Hindu spirituality. It was at this time, too, that the Gita Govinda was composed, the Hindu counterpart to the Song of Songs, which celebrates erotic love as a symbol of the spiritual journey. Although of earlier origin, the Tantric traditions reached full development in this period, focusing on the feminine aspect of God,
2. Richard Payne, "A Mystical Body of Love" (paper delivered at the interreligious dialogue conference on the theme The Spirituality of Love in the Twelfth Century and Today, held at Nantes, France, June 1-4, 1986).
PREFACE
drawing on erotic experience, and incorporating ritual into the spirituality of love.
In Buddhism similar Tantric developments occurred in northern India, Nepal, and Tibet. In Japan in the twelfth century Honen established the school'of Pure Land Buddhism. He and his disciple Shinran taught that it was not the strict discipline of Zen but the benevolent love or compassion of the Amida Buddha that leads to enlightenment. This tradition has become a major force in Japanese Buddhism.
In the context of world spirituality, then, Bernard of Clairvaux has played a special role. At a time when love was being cultivated in the world's religions in a new and creative way, it was Bernard who emerged in Christianity as the spiritual master of the path of love.
Since, among the world's religions, Christianity gives preeminence to love, it required a master of exceptional talents to bring this central theme to a new level of self-consciousness and to chart a path that would lead Christians from the first stirrings of love to union with God. In the twelfth century Christianity was gifted with such a master in Bernard of Clairvaux.
Yet Bernard did not stand alone. In Christian Europe in the twelfth century, love was cultivated in both secular and religious circles. It flourished in the court and in the cloister. In southern France before the twelfth century, troubador poets had begun to awaken a romantic strain, singing the glories and the sorrows of the love between man and woman. In the twelfth century this love poetry flourished, and its themes were further developed in the genre of romance. Storytellers recounted the tragic love between Launcelot and Guinevere, between Tristan and Isolde. Through the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, written not far from Bernard's abbey, knights and ladies of the court were instructed in the gentle manners and sophisticated emotions that became part of the mystique of courtly love. This secular movement, which has contributed so much to the myth of romantic love in Western culture, did not produce an explicit spirituality of love. Yet it did contain the seeds of such a spirituality, which later blossomed in Dante.
In twelfth-century France, it was the cloister rather than the court that produced a spirituality of love. Were there influences between the two? Scholars still debate this point. Whatever the influences, mutual or not, this much is clear: As the century progressed, love became the central theme in the spiritual writers of the period. Like Bernard, many turned to producing commentaries on the Song of Songs, for example,
William of St. Thierry and Richard of St. Victor. These two writers
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. also composed theological treatises interpreting the Trinity in the light of human love. Aelred of Rievaulx composed a treatise entitled On Spiritual Friendship. Like the Platonists of Chartres, Hildegard of Bingen situated love in a cosmic setting. In this flourishing of the spirituality of love, Bernard played a leadership role, influencing this milieu by the power of his personality and position as well as by the depth of his spiritual wisdom.
As is characteristic of the twelfth century, Bernard bases his spirituality on experience. At the outset of his third sermon on the Song of Songs, he bids his monks examine their own experience. "Today," he says, "we read the book of experience." From the context, and throughout his writings, it is clear that he is concerned with religious experience, specifically the experience of affectivity, covering the entire spectrum from the initial awakening of love to mystical union with the Beloved. It would be wrong to see this as as a mere evoking of emotion or sentimentality. Bernard and the major spiritual writers of the twelfth century drew from the deepest levels of affectivity—from those wellsprings of the spirit where affectivity and intellect are conjoined.
Moreover, Bernard is acutely aware of the dynamics of love as a spiritual path. It is this path that he charts with intellectual brilliance. In his introduction to this volume, Jean Leclercq observes that Bernard's
"unique and definitive distinction is due to his method of reconciling personal, subjective experience with universal, objective teaching." Far from ignoring or denigrating intellect, the twelfth-century spiritual writers achieved a new level of intellectual self-consciousness precisely in the realm of religious experience. For example, Bernard's contemporary Richard of St. Victor is credited with founding the discipline of speculative spirituality or speculative mysticism. The excitement that followed upon this new burst of intellect into the realm of spirituality led Richard to seek for "necessary reasons" for the Trinity—an outreach of intellect that the more hesitant Artistotelian theologians of the thirteenth century refused to pursue.
Not all of Bernard's spiritual writings deal directly with love, but in the total corpus of his works love is by far the dominant theme. Since he presents the climax of the spiritual journey as union with God in love, all of his writings can be seen as delineating stages in this process.
Hence Evans has arranged the selections in this volume according to the order of the spiritual pilgrimages: "On Conversion," "On the Steps of Humility and Pride," "On Consideration," which deals with con-
PREFACE
templation, "On Loving God," and "Sermons on the Song of Songs."
The volume closes with a selection of letters, where the theme of love is also prominent.
It is in "Sermons on the Song of Songs" that Bernard's spirituality of love receives its most comprehensive expression. The central theme of these sermons is intimacy: the intimate love between the Bride and the Bridegroom, between the soul and Christ. The sermons begin with a longing for intimacy expressed in the first verse of the Song of Songs:
"Tet him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth." In Sermon 7, Bernard delivers a eulogy on the love between man and woman as the most intimate of human loves. Why does the Song of Songs use the image of bride and bridegroom? Because they are lovers and, as Bernard will explain, the most intimate of lovers. With great subtlety, he distinguishes the basic attitudes that constitute various relationships. Fear motivates a slave toward his master, desire for gain that of a worker toward his employer, knowledge that of a pupil toward his teacher, respect that of a son toward his father. But the one who asks for a kiss is a lover. "This affection of love," Bernard says, "excels among the gifts of nature, especially when it returns to its source, which is God." Because of the intimacy of their love, no names can be found that better express the love between the Word and the soul than those of Bridegroom and Bride. For they hold everything in common. "They share one inheritance, one table, one house, one bed, one flesh" (1.2).
Through the images of the bride and the bridegroom, Bernard describes at great length and with extraordinary sophistication the movement of the soul toward union with the Word. He does this with the full power of his passionate rhetoric as he orchestrates sensuous imagery to draw his hearers toward the heights of mystical affectivity. In the later sermons he describes, with remarkable delicacy and candor, his own intimate experiences of union with the Bridegroom.
In his symbolic interpretation of the Song of Songs, Bernard situates himself in an ancient tradition, which in its Christian strand goes back to Origen in the third century. In the prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs, Origen states: "This book seems to me an epithalamium, that is, a wedding song, written by Solomon in the form of a play, which he recited in the character of a bride who was being married and burned with heavenly love for her bridegroom, who is the:
Word of God." Origen then proceeds to distinguish two allegorical meanings of the bride. "Whether she is the soul made after His image
PREFACE — . or the Church, she has fallen deeply in love with Him."* Although Bernard emphasizes the meaning of the bride as allegory of the individual soul, he also develops the second meaning, the bride as allegory of the Church.
In the patristic and medieval periods, allegory was looked upon not as a flight of fancy, but as a method of penetrating into a deeper level of the sacred text, based on the structure of reality and the very nature of the psyche. According to this perspective, God, in creating the universe, imprinted certain spiritual meanings into physical symbols, which could be discerned by a heightened spiritual sensibility nourished by Scripture and tradition. No wonder, then, that Bernard sees in the bride and bridegroom the most appropriate symbol for the soul aflame with love for the Word. The love between the bride and the bridegroom is a natural symbol—that is, structured into the very nature of reality—for the intimate love between the soul and God. As Bernard has eloquently expressed, no other human relation can achieve more intimate love than that of the bride and the bridegroom.
Moreover the two levels of the allegory—the soul and the Church—are not arbitrary. One can detect in this distinction the basis of a philosophy and theology of interpersonal and community relations.
Of course, in this context the Church should be interpreted not as an institution, but as the community of believers. What is it, then, that makes such a community possible? The fact that the same Word is the Bridegroom of each individual soul. Thus the Word provides the basis of interpersonal and community relations since all are already related by being grounded in the same Word. It is this ground that is the ontological presupposition that makes interpersonal and community relations possible, and it is this ground that is awakened when these relations are activated.
These brief observations merely highlight some of the richness of Bernard's spirituality. The readers who explore this volume will be moved by the depth and sophistication of his teaching, as they will be
3. Origen, Commentary on tbe Song of Songs, prologue; English translation by Roland
Greer, Origen: An Exbortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works, The Classics of Western
Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), Prete
PREFACE
carried along by his passionate eloquence, which shines through the translation. They will perceive those qualities that entitle him to a place of eminence not only in Christian spirituality in the twelfth century, but within the entire scope of its history and within the larger horizons of world spirituality. é
aia "—— wished shoes Mt, dde s s Milit nae "rst pop adeat psal: aea tae iie pele: bui M OPE: eb "iu E tke m ness an