To Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln
7 2
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
[67 ] To Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln This letter concerns a young canon named Philip who, on his way to Jerusalem, turned aside to pause at Clairvaux, and was blessed to find there his vocation, even as St. Stephen Harding on his way to Rome found it at Molesme. Alexander was Bishop of Lincoln from n 23-1 147, and was known as Alexander the Magnificent. Saint Bernard was an artist in words and in the first paragraph of this letter we see him at his most eloquent.
Perhaps there has never been written a more compelling invitation to the mystical life than this short paragraph.
To the honourable Lord x\lexander, by the grace of God Bishop of Lincoln, that he may desire honour in Christ rather than in the world, from Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux.
I WRITE to tell you that your Philip has found a short cut to Jerusalem and has arrived there very quickly. He crossed
'the vast ocean stretching wide on every hand' with a favourable wind in a very short time, and he has now cast anchor on the shores for which he was making. Even now he stands in the courts of Jerusalem and 'whom he had heard tidings of in Ephrata he has found in the woodland plains, and gladly reverences in the place where he has halted in his journey'. He has entered the holy city and has chosen his heritage with them of whom it has been deservedly said: 'You are no longer exiles or aliens; the saints are your fellow citizens, you belong to God's household'.
His going and coming is in their company and he has become one of them, glorifying God and saying with them: 'We find our true home in heaven'. He is no longer an inquisitive onlooker, but a devout inhabitant and an enrolled citizen of Jerusalem; but not of that earthly Jerusalem to which Mount Sinai
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f. q in Arabia is joined, and which is in bondage with her children, ^but of that free Jerusalem which is above and the mother of ) us all. a) 2. And this, if you want to know, is Clairvaux. She is the K Jerusalem united to the one in heaven by whole-hearted devo- \ tion, by conformity of life, and by a certain spiritual affinity.
Here, so Philip promises himself, will be his rest for ever and J ever. He has chosen to dwell here because he has found, not yet \ to be sure the fulness of vision, but certainly the hope of that £ true peace, 'the peace of God which surpasses all our thinking'. r^ But this blessing, although he has received it from on high, he
^ wishes to have, and is indeed quite sure that he does have, with I your good will, because 'a wise son maketh the father glad'. He t< begs you of your fatherly love, and I unite my prayers with his, j that the arrangement he has made for his creditors to have his rj o
prebend, may be allowed to stand, so that he may not become (God forbid) a defaulter and breaker of his covenant, and his daily sacrifice of a contrite heart be unacceptable because a brother has something against him. He also begs that the house which he has built for his mother on Church lands with the ground which he has assigned to it, may remain hers so long as she lives. So much for Philip.
3. And now I turn to yourself.
I feel impelled and even inspired by the Charity of God to exhort you not to regard the passing glory of the world as if it would never pass away, and so lose the glory that endures for ever; not to love your possessions more than your self or only for your own sake, and so lose both your possessions and your self; not to allow the flattery of present prosperity to hide from you the inevitable end, so that when it comes it will bring endless adversity; not to allow the pleasures of this world to beget for you and conceal from you the endless woe which they beget by concealing, so that when you think death is far off, it may come upon you unawares, and while you are counting on a long life, life itself may suddenly leave you ill prepared, according to what has been written:
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