To the Monks of Flay
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
is just when men are saying, All quiet, all safe, that doom will fall upon them suddenly, like the pangs that come to a woman in travail, and there will be no escape from it'.
[70] To the Monks of Flay The Cistercian life and the dynamic character of St. Bernard were constantly attracting monks from other houses, especially from the Black Benedictines. It was the main source of rancour between the two Orders. The Rule of St. Benedict is quite ex-
: a monk coming from an unknown monasplicit on the point tery may be received and, if he seems a desirable acquisition, he may even be persuaded to stay, but a monk from a monastery which is known may on no account be accepted.
This letter concerns yet another trouble occasioned by a monk leaving his monastery to live at Clairvaux.
To Dom H., 2 superior of the church of Flay, and to the brothers who are with him, greetings from the brothers who are at Clairvaux.
WE understand from your letters that you are upset by our having received one of your monks here. We are sorry that you should be sad about this for we are not sure that your sadness is that 'sadness according to God' or supernatural sadness, spoken of by the Apostle Paul. If it were this sort of sadness we do not think you would have reproached us so bitterly without knowing anything about us although, indeed, we are your brothers and could be, if you wished it, your friends; or without ever having met us or held any communication with us
1. Rule of St. Benedict, Chap. 61.
2, This appears to be Abbot Hildegard.
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either by letter or word of mouth. You say that you are amazed that we should have received Brother Benedict arid you threaten us with the consequences if we do not return him to you at once. Taking it for granted that your monastery is well known, you cite the Rule forbidding the reception of monks ^ from a known monastery. Your monastery may be well known, but not to us. Even though the fame of your religious observance may have reached Rome, as you say it has, it does not follow it has reached us who are, in fact, some way from Rome!
It may seem to you surprising, but it is none the less a fact, that we have not the slightest knowledge of any one of you, abbot or monks, or even of your neighbourhood, and we have never heard of your religious observance or way of life. And this is nothing to be wondered at seeing that we are separated by great distances, different provinces, and another language. We have not the same bishop nor even the same archbishop. So we do not consider that the passage you quote from the Holy Rule to the effect that a monk may not be received from a known monastery is particularly relevant to the case in dispute, for if it meant that a monk could not be received from any monastery that was known to anyone then, as there is no monastery that is W j r not known to someone, there would be no monastery left from b j£ which we could lawfully receive anyone. And how could one reconcile this with that other injunction of Blessed Benedict which lays it down or at any rate allows that a stranger monk should be received not only into the guest house for as long as ^ f he likes, but that, if he is suitable, he should even be persuaded to join the community.
2/However, we acted very differently in the case of Brother Benedict. When he came and begged us to receive him we turned him away and advised him to go back to his monastery.
He would not listen to us and betook himself to a hermitage near by and lived there quite quietly, without any trouble, for nearly seven months. But he did not think it safe for himself to live alone any longer and so he was not ashamed to ask again
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
for what had already been refused him once. We again advised him to return to his own monastery and asked him why he had ever left it.' Then he told us that his abbot used him no<: as a monk but as a doctor ; that he~forced him to serve or rather
used him to serve not God but the world; that in order to curry favour with the princes of this world he was made to attend tyrants, robbers, and excommunicated persons. And he told us that when he suggested to his abbot both in private and publicly that all this was a source of danger to his soul, no attention was paid to him, so that finally, with the advice of experienced men, he left, not so much his monastery as the occasions of sin, not so much his holy religion as his unholy way of life. When he had told us all this he once more begged us to open to his knocking and admit him for the safety of his soul. And when we saw his constancy and heard the reasons for his leaving the monastery and could discover nothing against him, we granted him admission, proved and approved him, admitted him to profession, and now regard him as one of ourselves. We did not compel him to enter and we will not force him to leave. He says that if we should drive him out he would not come back to you but would go still farther away. So stop, we beg you, reviling us with unmerited abuse for we have done you no harm, and cease troubling us with your useless letters. Even your accumulated insults cannot force us to reply to you save as respect demands, nor can your threats scare us for we are quite confident that we have acted lawfully in receiving your monk. i .
It was the custom in those days for monks to work as doctors.
It was eventually forbidden by Canon Law.
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"*"^"Ss
To the same, and concerning the same subject The greetings of Brother Bernard to the reverend brothers of Flay, to the Abbot H (ildegard) and all the other brothers.
IT would have been more becoming, dear brothers, if you had been content with my last reply to your complaints and ceased from your uncalled-for invectives. But as to your former charges you have now added worse ones and tried once more to give me grounds for quarrelling with you (may the grounds you have given be no more fertile than formerly).
I shall truthfully answer a second time the accusations you impudently throw at my head, lest if I say nothing my silence may be interpreted as an acknowledgement of guilt. As far as I can make out, the great injury I have done you, my whole fault, amounts to nothing more than this, that I have opened the doors of my monastery to a lonely, strange, poor, and unhappy monk who, fleeing from danger to his soul and seeking his salvation, knocked and implored to be admitted; and that I refuse to turn out again without sufficient reason the man
I have received under these circumstances, 'to put myself in the wrong by pulling down what I have built up'. On these grounds alone you accuse me of breaking the Rule, of transgressing the Canons, of violating the natural law. You angrily reproach me for doing to others what I would not tolerate others doing to myself, by receiving into my monastery one of your own monks whom you have excommunicated. What can I say about this excommunication when you yourself know the answer, namely that he was not excommunicated by you before he was received by me. And, as he had been already received and lawfully received by me, it follows that you excommunicated, not one of your own subjects, but one of mine. Whether this is as it should be is your affair!
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
2. The only grounds for enquiry between us, the only thing that remains to be discovered, is whether he was rightly received by me. You for your part, as you cannot deny that a monk may be lawfully received from an unknown monastery,
contend that you are not unknown to me.
I deny this, but you will not believe me. And so, as you will not believe my simple word, I affirm it again by oath. By the very Truth, which is God, I assure you that I have not known you and do not know you. Your letters are from persons quite unknown to me, and my letters to you are to unknown persons.
I have experienced vexation and worry from you, but I have had no experience of you who vex and worry me. So as to prove me guilty of feigned ignorance you bring forward the irrefutable argument that I must know you because I have inscribed the name of your ab- ' bot and monastery upon my letters, 2 as if to know the name of a thine were the same as to know the thing; itselfTBy this reasonx
Ljng K wo^uLdjje^a great thing for m^^toknow the names of the w angels Michael, Gabriel, and RaphaeT~because by the very IS) """""sound of the words I would be blessed with a knowledge of the blessed spirits. By this reasoning I must have profited not a little by hearing the names of Paradise and the third heaven from the Apostle, because, although I have not been rapt there with him, from the very names themselves I should be able to know the secrets of heaven, and words unspeakable which it is not lawful for men to utter. And how foolish
I must be, for although I know the name of God yet I continue to groan and sigh with the Prophet, saying, 'I long, Lord, for thy presence', and 'When shall I come and stand in the presence of my God?' and 'Smile upon us, O God, and we shall find deliverance'.
. And what is it that I have done to you which I would not tolerate others doing to myself? You believe it is that I would i. Vide Holy Rule, Chap. 61.
Clearly the difference between knowing something and knowing of something. The .Monks of Flay must have thought that the relevant passage
2. in the Rule referred to monasteries the abbot knew of, but did not necessarily know.
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not want a monk who had left my monastery to be received into another.
I can only say that I wish all those committed to my care could be received by you and saved without me! If one of my monks should come to you for the sake of greater perfection or a stricter way of life, not only would I not complain if you were to minister to his desire, but I should beg you to do so. And so far from considering myself offended
I would admit that I had been greatly helped by you. Finally you deny the truth of what I have heard of you, namely that by your command or consent Brother B was obliged to turn his medical skill to secular uses while he was with you, and you accuse him of falsehood who has said this. Whether he has lied or not I do not know, that is his affair, but this much
I do know: whether he did this of his own will, as you say, or of your will, as he says, he nevertheless did it at great risk to his soul. And who would be so inhuman as not to help, if he could, a soul in such peril, or who would not at least advise him if he could not help him?
But if, as you say, he was drawn by his cupidity and curiosity to run around here and there selling his art, what was his reason for leaving you? Was it because a stricter application of pastoral discipline made such wandering no longer possible? If so why when he had already come to us did you try to entice him back by promising that he would be left in peace in the cloister, if you did not know that he wanted this and did not remember that he had asked for it? But now that he has found among strangers the peace and seclusion he could not find among his own, he is not willing to leave what is certain for the sake of what is doubtful. He holds on to what he has and scorns to accept what is offered too late.
4. Cease therefore, brothers, cease worrying your brother about whom you have no cause to worry, unless indeed (and may such a thing be very far from you! ) it is your own interests and not the glory of God you are seeking, your own satisfaction in your brother's return and not the salvation of his soul. As you say he was always a rolling stone with you and,