To the Monk Adam
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perienced men, in which case, they would be necessary for their orphaned house; or else they are, as I have said, weak and inexperienced, and therefore not fit for the long and tedious journey.
But I do not think you can still wish to rule over them as their superior, since I know you to be minded to lay down your pastoral charge and henceforth to care only for your own soul.
And indeed it would be most unfitting were you to presume to undertake, without being asked, in one place what in another with equal audacity you have given up against the will of your superiors. But you know all this and so I conclude by promising you in all good faith that if you but give me the chance of speaking with you, I for my part will do what I can so that this venture you have undertaken against orders and therefore with great danger to your soul, you may be able to finish with permission and without disobeying your superiors.
[8] To the Monk Adam Abbot Arnold had just died when this letter was written. Evidently the leadership of the party had devolved on Brother
Adam, the same Brother Adam to whom Letter 6 is addressed.
The implications of monastic obedience are discussed in it at great length, so that it is more a small treatise on the subject than a letter. In a manuscript referred to by D. Mabillon it is, indeed, entitled De discretione Obediential WERE you still abiding in the charity which at one time I knew or thought abided in you, you could not but feel the condemnation of charity for the scandal you have caused to the weak. Charity would not offend charity nor scorn when she is offended; she cannot be divided against herself, nor deny her own nature. Rather is it her nature to unite again what has
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been divided.
If, as I have said, she abided in you and you in her, she would not be keeping silent, she would not be resting, or feigning ignorance, but she would be groaning, she would be on fire within you and clamouring, 'Who is scandalized and I am not on fire', for she is kind, and loves peace, and rejoices in unity. It is she alone who begets unity, confirms it, binds it up, and preserves it in the bonds of peace. Wherever charity is, there too is peace. So, I ask you, how can you, when you have thus wounded the mother of unity and peace, dare to hope that your offering will be acceptable to God? The Apostle himself believes that even martyrdom without charity 'availeth nothing'. How can you believe that you have not offended her whose very bowels and dear pledges you have lacerated by your brutal treatment of her? You have not spared her in the past, nor do you spare her now, but you rend unity and break the bonds of peace. Lay down your offering by the altar and go first to be reconciled, not with just one brother, but with the whole multitude of brethren who have this against you and those few who are with you, that, as with a sword, you have wounded their peace and unity by your desertion. They lament with the bride in the Canticle crying, 'The sons of my mother have fought against me', and rightly so, because being no longer joined in unity with them you are against them. And do you think that charity, their loving mother, can hear without grief this just complaint of her children? She joins her tears with theirs and says of you: 'My own sons, that I have reared and brought to manhood, think to defy me'. Charity is God himself. Our peace is Christ, 'who hath made two nations one'. In the Trinity itself, unity is honoured. What share, therefore, can the enemy of charity, peace and unity have in the kingdom of Christ and God?
2. [put perhaps you will say, 'My abbot commanded me to follow him. Would you have me disobedientJ^But you surely have not forgotten the decision we reached together when you first told me of the scandalous project which you were even
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then considering. If only you had remained firm to that it might have been said of you not inaptly, 'Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly'. But be it so, as you say. Let us grant that as you were his sons and disciples you ought to have followed your abbot; that an abbot may lead his sons where it shall please him and teach them what he wishes— but surely not now that he is dead? Now that he is dead whose teaching you were bound to hear and in whose footsteps you were bound to follow when he was alive, why do you delay in setting right the great scandal you have caused? Who is now to prevent you hearing, I do not say myself, but God sweetly calling to you through the mouth of Jeremias:
'Shall not he that falleth rise again? And he that is turned away, shall he not turn again?' Does he intrude even from the grave to prevent you rising again or daring to think that you should turn again? Now that he is dead is it necessary for you to obey him against charity and at the peril of your soul? You would allow, surely, that the bond which links abbots with their disciples is not stronger than the bond which God has tied with an inviolable sacrament between husband and wife, according to the words of our Saviour himself: 'What God has joined together let no man put asunder'? Yet on the authority of the Apostle a woman is no longer tied to her husband when he is dead. Do you then believe yourself still bound by the command of your abbot now that he is dead, against an even holier law, the law of charity?
I have not said this because I think you ought to have obeyed your abbot in this matter, even when he was alive; or that such yielding to him could even be called obedience. That sentence from Scripture applies to all obedience of this kind:
'Feet that stray into the snare the Lord will punish as he punishes wrong doers'. And so that no one should contend that this does not apply to obedience, even when it is in something evil, it says more clearly in another place: 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son', prom this it is clearly apparent that no one is to be
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obeyed when he commands evil, especially as, although we may seem to be obeying a man when we do so^vet really we are disobeying God who has forbidden all evijjlt is extremely pe rverse to profess to be obedjent.bLy disobeying the higher for the sake of the lower, or in other \vords by disobeying the commandments of God for the sake of the commands of a man .
What then? Am I to turn a deaf ear to God when a man commands what he forbids? Not so the Apostle who cried out:
'It is better to obey God than man'. For this the Lord rebukes the Pharisees in the Gospels saying: 'Why do you transgress the commandments of God for the sake of your own traditions?' and by the prophet Isaias he says:
'In vain they worship me teaching the commandments and doctrine of men'; and again to the first man: 'Because thou hast harkened to the voice of thy wife rather than to mine, the earth is accursed in thy work'.
Therefore to do evil, command it who may, is to disobey rather than to obey.
4. Now so that you may understand me you must know that there are some things wholly good and others wholly evil, and in these latter there can be no obedience due to any man. No one may forbid the former; no one may command the latter.
And betw reen these two extremes there are middling things; things neither good nor evil, but indifferent. And these things derive their character of goodness or badness from the circumstances of manner, place, and time. It is in this sphere that the law of obedience obtains as in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which was in the midst of Paradise. In these things we may in no wise follow our own will so as to ignore the commands of our superiors. Let us see now whether it is a thing such as this that I have rebuked in you, when, perhaps, on this account I should not have done so. This will be all the clearer if I give some examples of the foregoing distinctions. Faith, hope, charity, and the like are wholly good and it can never be wrong to enjoin them and never right to forbid or neglect them.
Wholly evil are theft, sacrilege, adultery, and the rest, which it
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can never be right to enjoin or to do and never wrong to forbid or not to do. The law of obedience is not concerned with these, since no prohibition is valid against what has been laid down, and what has been forbidden cannot be recommended by the commands of anyone. Then there are the middling things, neither good nor evil, and these can be indifferently, either well or ill, commanded or forbidden. In these things obedience is never wrong. As examples of them I give fasting, vigils, reading, and the like. But you must know that some middle things can often become either wholly good or wholly evil. Thus marriage is neither enjoined nor forbidden; but once contracted it cannot be dissolved. What, therefore, before the nuptials was clearly a middling thing, after them becomes, for the persons married, a thing wholly good. Likewise, whether a secular person should hold property or not is a matter of indifference; but for a monk it is wholly evil, for he is not permitted to hold any property at all.
5. Do you see now, brother, to which of my foregoing divisions your leaving the monastery belongs? If it can be classed as wholly good, it is praiseworthy; if as wholly bad, it is blameworthy. But if it is to be classed between the two extremes as being neither good nor evil, then the going forth might be excused on the grounds of obedience, but not the delay in returning. From what has been said already it should be quite clear to you that if your abbot commanded anything he ought not to have done, now that he is dead he is no longer to be obeyed.
This should be clear enough, but, for the sake of those who unreasonably seek opportunities to object,
I will try to make it still more clear, so that there can be no shadow of doubt that it was not an indifferent matter, neither good nor evil, but wholly evil that you should have obeyed and left your monastery in the way you did. But so that God shall not say of me with righteous anger, 'Men have taken away my judgement', I shall not mention your abbot. He now has God for his only judge and before his Lord he either stands or falls. I will discuss not what he did,
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but what he ordered, so that we may see whether his orders had force to bind his subjects even in the teeth of the scandal they have given. But first I will say this, if there be some, as 1 could well believe there are, who, although they did wrong to leave their monastery, yet did it in good faith, supposing their abbot to have had the permission of the Bishop of Langres and the Abbot of Citeaux, to both of whom he was subject, my rebuke does not touch them, providing they return to their monastery so soon as they learn the true facts of the case.
I speak only against those, or rather for the sake of those, who knowingly and deliberately have put their hands into the fire; who, though conscious of their audacity, yet followed the audacious one, heedless of the Apostle warning them to have nothing to do with a vagabond brother, and of the Lord him4Who does not gather with me, scatters'. You, brothself saying: ers, you, I say, take particular heed of that taunt of Jeremias which I remember with grief: 'This is a people which hath not harkened to the voice of the Lord their God'. For this is the voice of God authoritatively pointing out his enemy, as with a 4Who is finger, to deter the simple from his ungodly example: not with me', he says, 'scatters', as if to say, if you follow him when he scatters abroad what I have gathered together, you can know that you are not with me. When God himself cries out,
'Who does not gather with me, scatters', must you follow the scatterer? When God, I say, invites you to gather, ought you to obey in preference a man so as to scatter? He ignores his superiors, he betrays his subjects, he troubles his brethren, and yet you on seeing the thief ran with him!
I had intended to keep silent about the dead but I am obliged, I confess, to overstep a little my limit, because the obedience cannot be blamed without showing up the command as blameworthy. Further, as both the command and the deed were united in the same man, it would appear impossible to blame the one without reflecting blame on the other. Yet it is clear that this sort of command cannot be obeyed for to do so were to disobey God. Also the ordinances
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of our fathers are to be preferred to those of lesser persons, and there can be no doubt that personal commands must not be obeyed if they conflict with the common observance, for all this is the Rule of St. Benedict.
I might indeed bring forward the Abbot of Citeaux as complaining that you have ignored him in favour of your own abbot. And he would have every right to complain for he is as much the superior of your abbot as a father is of his son, or the master of his disciple, or in fact an abbot of his monks. I might also cite the Bishop of Langres for whom he showed inexcusable contempt by not awaiting his permission before setting out, even when the Lord has said: 'He who despises you despises me'. But because the authority of the Roman Pontiff could be opposed and preferred to these as being more weighty, since they say that you have not omitted to fortify yourselves with his licence (this matter of licences I will deal with later),
I will cite one whose authority no man may gainsay, the High Priest who, by his own blood, alone and once and for all entered into the sanctuary having obtained eternal redemption, and I will cite him crying with a great voice that no one shall dare scandalize one of his little ones. But the scandalizing of one might be forgiven you if the evil rested there, for pardon comes speedily to the fault from which no great evil arises. But now that, beyond doubt, many have been scandalized, who cannot clearly see how churlish you have been in obeying man rather than
God? Who, unless he were mad, would dare to call such an action as yours good or even middling, neither goad nor bad, however great the dignity of the man who commanded it? But what is not good nor ever able to be good is, without doubt, wholly
Y evil. Consequently ymir^jouriiey.ijDrth from your monastery because it gave rise to the scandal of so many was, for this reason, against the command of God, and so it was not either wholly good or -indifferent, but wholly evil. For what is wholly good can never be anything but good, and what is between the two, neither good nor evil, can be good.
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Since, as it has been shown, what is w holly evil can never be justly commanded or law fully done, how,
I ask you, can the command of an abbot or the permission of the Pope render it lawful? W hen violation of God's law is involved the excuse of human obedience is futile. Nor do I fear your taking refuge behind that answer the Lord gave when they told him of the scandal he had given to the Pharisees, 'Let them be, they are blind leaders of the blind', as if on that account you need not worry about the scandal you have given us. There is no comparison either between the persons or the causes. Our Lord is speaking there of the scandal caused to the proud Pharisees, whereas you have given scandal to the humble poor of Christ.
And in his case it w ras truth that caused the scandal, in yours it is frivolity. Also, to repeat what has been said already, you have preferred not only human authority to divine, but private judgement to the common life. But it should be proof enough for you that not only the w rhole of our Order, but also the usages and customs of every monastery cry out against your strange noveky and insolent audacity. o.rWe have sought and obtained', you say, 'an apostolic licence.^ reply that this is just an indication that you were not easy in your mind or satisfied in your conscience. What a futile expedient!
It is like the first man trying to cloak his shame with fig leaves, as if they were a remedy and not just a cover. It would have been better had you sought the counsel rather than the consent of the Pope. But why did you obtain this licence? In order that you might lawfully do what it was not lawful for you to do? But what is unlawful is evil. Therefore the intention which inclined to evil, was evil. Unless indeed you say that it was lawful for you to do with a licence what would not have been lawful otherwise. But that argument has been utterly de-. molished further back. When God said, 'See to it that you do not treat one of these little ones with contempt', he did not add,
'unless you have permission of the Pope'; nor did he say, 'Whoever scandalizes one of these little ones without an apostolic
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h \ wr licence .
'! It is clear that, except in the interests of truth, and . there is no question of that in your case, it is never lawful for jfv anyone to give scandal or to command what would give scandal.
You think it necessary to obtain a licence from the Pope in order to commit this sort of evil. So that, I suppose, you may sin more impudently and therefore more perilously! What wonderful caution! What astonishing foresight! The evil you conceived in your heart you were careful not to bring forth until you had secured a licence! You conceived sorrow, but you did not bring forth iniquity until the Pope had given his consent. But what have you gained? How is the evil lessened? Does it, on account of the Pope's consent, cease to be evil or become a lesser evil? As if anyone would think it was not evil to consent unto evil!
I refuse to believe the Pope did this unless you got round him by lies or overwhelmed him by importunity. How else could he have been induced to permit the sowing of scandal, the stirring up of schism, the upsetting of friends, the disturbing of peace, the disruption of unity, and the contempt of the bishop? And all this for what purpose? There is no purpose in my saying for the results are a clear enough indication.
I bewailed your progression, but I have yet to see any progress.
10. You tell me that to assent to such great evils, to yield to them, to assist them, is to be obedient, modest, and meek.
I tell you that you are simply cloaking the worst vices under the names of the virtues. You call the most deceitful presumption, obedience; the most outrageous frivolity, modesty; the most cruel discord, meekness. By doing this you merely foul the holy names of the virtues. This is not the sort of obedience
I would want for myself; such modesty, I should say molestation, would not be for me; may such meekness be far from me! Such obedience is worse than any haughtiness; such modesty exceeds all mode. Shall I say it is beyond measure or not up to measure? It would be perhaps more true and more pertinent to say that it is completely outside any measure. What sort of meekness is this of which the very mention exasperates everyone? Nevertheless
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I wish you would show a little meekness to me. As you are so patient that you allow yourself to be dragged without complaining even where you ought not to go, permit me, I beg you, to be a little more bold with you, or else, if I alone am singled out for the object of your wrath, I have indeed deserved ill of you.
11.
I invoke your conscience. Did you set out from your monastery because you wanted to or unwillingly?
If because you wanted to, then it was not from obedience. If unwillingly, then it would seem that you were doubtful about the order to which compliance was such a burden. But when an order is in doubt, there should be inquiry. Yet so that you might put your patience to the proof, or give a proof of your patience, without any inquiry whatsoever, you suffered yourself to be dragged off not only unwillingly, but even against your conscience.
Who would not be impatient with such patience!
I cannot help, I confess, being angry with such headstrong patience. You saw your abbot scattering the flock and you followed with him; you saw him ordering scandal, and you obeyed him. It is the nature of true patience to suffer and act against self-will, but not in excess of what is lawful. I wonder how you heard the whispers of a man when you were deaf to the voice of God proclaiming in 4Woe to the man through whom scandals tones of thunder: come!' Not only the voice of the Lord, but also his blood cries aloud with a terrible voice for even the deaf to hear. The pouring of it forth is its cry. It was poured forth for the scattered children of God that they might be gathered together in one fold, and justly it raises its voice against the man who would scatter again. Concerned only to gather together, it abhors the man who scatters. With a great and mighty cry it awakes the dead in their tombs and summons souls from below. It is the voice of a trumpet calling heaven and earth together to give peace to both. The sound of it has gone out to the ends of the earth, but it has not pierced your deafness. That voice of power, that voice of glory, was powerless to pierce your deafness! And
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what does it say? 'Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered'; and again: 'Scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord, my protector'. It is the blood of Christ, Brother
Adam, it is the blood of Christ which raises its voice for the faithful gathered together, against the impious one who would scatter them abroad. The blood which was poured forth to gather together those who had been scattered, threatens to scatter what it has gathered together. If you do not hear its voice, he hears it from whose side it flowed. And how could he not hear the voice of his own blood, who heard the voice of the blood of Abel?
12.
'But what is all this to me?' you say. 'He should have looked to it who gave me the order.
It was not for me to contradict my abbot. The disciple is not above his master.
I clove to him in order to be taught, not to teach. I was the disciple and it was for me to follow, not to lead, my master.' So you are an1 If only your abbot had been another Another simple Paul! thony, so that there would have been no need for you to inquire into anything he said, but simply to obey without question the slightest word that fell from his lips! What an obedient monk you are, you do not suffer one jot or one tittle of your senior's words to escape you: it is enough for you that a thing should be commanded that without pausing to question the command
. 2
And this is the true obedience without delay. But if this sort of obedience were proper, then it would be useless to read in Church: 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good'. Were this sort of obedience becoming, then we should delete the words of Scripture, 'You must be prudent as serpents', for it would be enough to have said ' ... as simple as doves'. I do not say that subjects should question the orders of their superiors when it is clear that they do not conflict with the divine ordi1. The Paul here mentioned was the disciple of St. Anthony in Egypt about the year 300.
St. Anthony was called by St. Athanasius, who wrote his life, the model for monks and the founder of asceticism. His disciple Paul was well known for his docility and childlike simplicity.
2. The MS. is here defective.
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nances, but I say that prudence is necessary in order to understand w hether they do conflict, and freedom too in order candidly to ignore them if they do. 'But you reply that it does not concern you to question the orders of your superiors; that they are responsible for their orders. Tell me then,
I beg you, were your abbot to place a sword in your hand and command you to cut his throat, or were he to tell you to push him headlong into the fire, would you obey? Would you not say that it would be murder even not to hinder such a thing? Come then and see to it that you have not co-operated in an even graver matter, under pretext of obedience. You know who said (in case you do not believe me), 'If anyone scandalizes one of these little ones that believe in me, he had better be drowned in the depths of the sea'. Why did he say this if not to indicate that torments so great beyond the grave await those who give such scandal that in comparison temporal death seems a blessing rather than a punishment? Why then did you co-operate in the scandal by obeying and following your abbot? Would it not have been better for him that he should have been drowned in the depths of the sea with a millstone about his neck? What then? O most obedient monk, so obedient that rather than part with your abbot for one second or by a palm's breadth, you followed him into the pit, not blindly but, like Balaam, with your eyes fully open; do you believe that you were acting for his good by showing such obedience, an obedience that was for him more grievous than
4A death? Now indeed I understand the truth of those words: man's enemies are of his own household'. If you see and understand this, do you not groan and tremble for what you have done? According to the judgement, not of myself, but of Truth, your obedience has been worse than murder.
13.
If you know this, how can you not fear? And if you are afraid, how is it you do not mend your ways? Otherwise what sort of conscience will you bring before the dire judgement of God? Then the judge will not want for a witness, then truth itself will search the intentions, then the scrutiny of faults will
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reach into the most hidden places of the heart, then the eye of God will search the most remote secrets of the mind. Then the corners of the heart will expand under the sudden brightness of the sun of Justice and pour forth the good and bad which they were hiding. Then, Brother Adam, those who have done evil and those who have consented to evil will receive a like penalty.
Then both thieves and their partners in guilt will await the same punishment. Then both those who entice to sin and those who have allowed themselves to be enticed will receive a like judgement. Go ahead then, Brother Adam, and say:
I have touched pitch and yet I am not black, I have held fire to my bosom, and yet I am not burned. Say that you have taken your portion with adulterers, and yet it is no business of yours. Isaias thought differently. He blamed himself not only for being unclean, but for keeping company with the unclean, saying: 'Woe is me because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips'. He blamed himself, I should have said, not because he lived with evil men, but because he did not blame the evils, for he says:
'Woe is me because I have held my peace'.
But where do we hear that he yielded to the evil which he blamed himself for not blaming in others? And what about David? Did he not believe that he could be infected with the sins of others when he said: 'Not mine to take part with wrong doers, not mine to mingle with the company they keep'? And then he prays: 'From my secret sins cleanse me, O Lord, and from those of others spare thy servant'. It is also clear that he declined the company of those whose evil he did not wish to share, for he says:
'I have not sat with the council of vanity, neither will I go in with the doers of iniquity'; and to this verse he adds:
'I have hated the assembly of the malignant, and with the wicked I will not sit'. Finally Wisdom counsels us:
'If sinners entice thee, consent not to them'.
14. Did you really think that you ought to have obeyed anyone in the face of these and many other testimonies of truth?
What hateful perversity! Obedience which has hitherto always
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been the ally of truth, you have armed against it.
I should call happy the disobedience of Brother 1 lenry. He soon repented of his error and returned to his monastery without experiencing such obedience as yours. How much more sweet and desirable is the fruit that he plucks of his disobedience and even now is tasting with a good conscience because, while his other companions are breaking the hearts of their brethren with the scandal they are causing, he is living peacefully among his brothers faithful to his Order and profession. Had
I to choose I would rather have his inactive disobedience with his good conscience than the zealous obedience of the others with the scandal.
I consider he does better thus preserving unity in the bonds of peace, disobedient to his abbot yet not to charity, than those others who for the sake of obedience to one man endanger the unity of all.
I would add with all assurance that it is better to endanger obedience, than to jeopardize all the benefits of piety and the vows of our profession.
1 5. Not to mention anything else there are two things handed down to us who dwell in monasteries for especial observance.
One is submission to the abbot, the other is stability in our monastery. And these two are so to be observed that there is no conflict between them. That is to say, we should not be led by our stability to disdain subjection to the abbot, or by our subjection to the abbot, to lose stability. Further, if you abominate one who although persevering in stability yet ignores the commands of his abbot, can you wonder if I censure the obedience you adduce as the cause or occasion of your losing stability by leaving your monastery? Especially as in our regular profession while stability is explicitly promised there is no mention at all of it being subject to the abbot.
16. But perhaps you will ask how I reconcile the stability I confirmed at Citeaux with living elsewhere. I answer that while it is true I was professed a monk of Citeaux in that place and was sent by the abbot to live where I do, yet I was sent in peace, without any scandal or discord, according to the customs and
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common observance of our Order. Therefore so long as I persevere in the same peace and concord wherein I was sent, so long as I stand fast in unity, I am not preferring my private judg nent to the common observance. I am remaining quietly and obediently where I was put.
I say my conscience is at peace because I have not broken the bond of unity, because I have not left the firm ground of peace. And if under obedience
I am absent in body from Citeaux, yet by a fellow devotion, by a life in all things the same, I am always there in spirit. But the day on which I begin to live by other rules (which may God forbid! ) and other habits, to keep other observances, to introduce new things and follow different customs, on that day I shall no longer believe
I keep my promise of stability.
I say, therefore, that the abbot is to be obeyed in all things, but according to the tenor of our profession. You, who were professed according to the Rule of St. Benedict, when you promised obedience, you promised as well stability. So if you should be obedient, but not stable, by offending in one, you offend in all, and if in all, then also in obedience.
17. Do you now see the force of your vow of obedience?
That it cannot, in fact, suffice to excuse the transgression of stability, not even having the force to support itself. We make our professions solemnly and according to Rule in the presence of the abbot, but only in his presence, not at his pleasure. The abbot witnesses, but does not dictate the profession. He is there to help, not to hinder, its fulfillment. He is there to punish, not instigate, infringement. What then? Do I leave in his hands what
I have confirmed by my mouth and hand before God and his saints, knowing from the Rule if I ever act otherwise I will be condemned by him whom I mock?
If my abbot, or even an angel from heaven, should command what is contrary to this, I shall boldly excuse myself from an obedience that I know would render me a transgressor of my vow and a perjurer before God.
I know from Scripture that out of my own mouth I shall be justified or condemned because 'the mouth that lies killeth the
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soul' and because we chant before God, 'Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie', and because 'Everyone shall bear his own burden' and 'Everyone of us shall render an account of himself to God'. Were it otherwise how could I dare to sing before God:
'I will render unto thee the vows my lips have uttered'? It is the duty of my abbot to consider how he may best follow the explicit direction of the Rule that 'he should maintain the present rule in every particular'. In the same way it is also laid down in the Rule as a general principle from which no one may be excused: 'Let all follow the Rule as their guide, and from it let no man rashly turn aside'. And I have so determined to fol- , low my abbot always and everywhere providing that he never /\ & by his teaching departs from the Rule which, in his presence,
I have vowed and determined to keep.
18. Let me now meet another question that might be raised, but briefly so as to bring this letter, which is already too long, to a close. It seems at first that by receiving and keeping monks that come to me from other monasteries I act contrary to my own teachingJit could be asked why I receive monks who break their vows of stability and ignore the commands of their seniors by coming to me when I condemn those who leave their monasteries not only with permission of their abbot but even by his orderJ^To this there is a short answer, but a perilous one. I fear that what I am to say will displease some people. But I think
I would have more to fear for myself if, by not telling the truth, I could no longer sing from my heart:
'I have not hid my righteousness within my heart: my talk has been of thy truth and thy salvation\[Therefore I will say that I received them for the reason that I did not think they were wrong in leaving their monasteries, if they could not observe there the vows their lips have utterecl, and coming to where they may be better able to render them to God who is everywhere, repairing the harm they have done by breaking their vow of stability by an exact observance of the others. If there is anyone whom this does not please, and who murmurs against a man for seeking his own
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salvation, the author of all salvation shall answer him with the words: Is thine eye evil because his is good?' O whoever you are who envies another his salvation, spare at least your own.
Have you not read: 'By the envy of the devil, death entered the world'? Take heed for yourself.
If death and envy go together, you cannot envy and live. Why trouble your brother if he tries to honour the vows his lips have uttered? What do you lose by a man seeking how and where he may best fulfill what he has promised to God? Perhaps if he owed you a little money you would oblige him to encompass sea and land until the whole debt had been repaid even to the last farthing. What then has your God deserved of you that you should not wish him too to receive his due? In fact by envying one you have offended two. While you deprive the Lord of his servant's service, you also deprive the servant of the grace of his Lord. Why do you not imitate him by also paying what you owe? Do you think that your debt too will not be required of you? In fact you impiously anger God even more by saying: 'He will not require it of me'.
19. 'What', you say, 'do you condemn all those who do not follow these monks into your Order? ' No, I do nothing of the sort. But listen to what I have to say of them and do not make futile accusations. Why do you try to make me hateful in the eyes of many thousands of holy men, who live under the same vows as I but not in the same manner, yet who live holy lives and make holy deaths?
I know quite well that God has left to himself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
Listen and attend to what I have to say, envious and calumnious man.
I have already told you why I believe that those who come to us from other monasteries are to be received.
Does it not follow that I condemn those who do not come?
I have excused those who do come but I have not accused those who do not.
I only do not excuse the envious, for I cannot.
Leaving aside these, if there should be any who wish to change to the purity of the Rule but dare not for fear of scandal, or
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cannot on account of some bodily weakness, I think they do not sin providing they live where they are soberly, honestly, and piously. If by the customs of their monastery they cannot live so strictly as the Rule would seem to require, they will probably be excused either on account of their charity which holds them back from hastening to something better for fear of giving scandal, according to the words of Scripture, 'Charity covers a multitude of sins', or else on account of their humility by which they are conscious of their own infirmity and deem themselves imperfect on that account, and of such it has been written:
'God gives grace to the humble'.
20.
I have said much to you, beloved, without there being any need for many words in your case, for I know well how quick you are to understand and how prompt you are to follow good advice. But although I have addressed myself to you especially, I have not written at such great length especially for you, but for those who need it. But I do warn you, as one who has been now for long well known to me, with few words and the fullest confidence, not to keep the souls who need you in any longer suspense, to the fearful peril of your own soul. You hold in your hand the fates of yourself and, unless I am deceived, of those who are with you. I believe they will follow you in whatever you do or wish to be done. Otherwise do not hesitate to proclaim to them the sentence of excommunication, which none can ignore, passed on them by all the abbots in Chapter:
'Who return shall live, who refuse shall die'.
1 . This was the Chapter held in 1 1 24, when St. Bernard was instructed to recall the fugitives.
See Statuta Capitulorum Generaliwn Ordinis Cisterciensis, ed. D. Josephus Canivez, Louvain, a work of superb erudition and interest.
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