To the Prior Guy and other Religious of the
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
[12] To the Prior Guy and other Religious of the Grande Chartreuse Guy was the fifth Frior of the Chartreuse (1109-1136) and became the organizer of the Order. He codified the observances of his House w a book of customs for the benefit of other foundations. The Scale of the Cloisters and a book of Meditations are also attributed to him. He died in 1 137, leaving a reputation for great sanctity. Saint Bernard always maintained the most cordial relations with the Carthusian monks. There is even a tradition that he was for a short time a Carthusian Fostulant, and y it is undoubtedly true that he was full of admiration for the eremetical life of the Carthusians although there is no truth in this and took every occasion for visiting them.
To the most reverend of fathers and most dear of friends, Guy, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and the other saints who are with him, eternal life, from Brother Bernard of Clairvaux.
I RECEIVED
the letters of your Holiness with a delight equalled only by my longing eagerness for them. I have read them and mused upon them and they have fired my heart like so many sparks from the fire which the Lord came to spread over the earth. How great must have been the fire burning in your meditations to have sent out such sparks as these! Your burning and kindling greeting seemed to me, I confess, to have come, not from man, but from him who 'sent word to Jacob'.
It was no ordinary greeting such as one gives in passing on the road, or from habit; I could feel it came from the heart, a welcome and unexpected benison. May the Lord bless you for troubling to meet me, your child, with such a blessing in your letter to me that you have given me the courage to write back
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to you, after I had for so long wanted to, but not dared. For I was loath to harass your holy peace in the Lord, to disturb even for one moment your unbroken silence from the world, the whispers of your heavenly converse, by my uncalled-for scribbling; or to distract with my own affairs your ears absorbed in celestial praises.
I feared lest by so doing I should be as one disturbing Moses on the mountain, or Elias in the desert, or Samuel watching in the temple. When Samuel cries, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth', should I dare to push myself forward?
I feared lest I should be as one troubling David when he was taking to himself the wings of a dove to fly away far off, and hear the angry words:
'Let me be.
I cannot hear you.
I would sooner listen to what I can hear with greater pleasure:
"I will hear what the Lord will speak in me; for he will speak peace unto his people and unto those whose hearts are turned towards him". Or even: "Depart from me, ye malignant; and I will search the commandments of my God" \ What? Should
I be rash enough to wake the bride sleeping gently in the embraces of the Bridegroom for so long as she wishes?
I think I would thereupon hear from her the words, 'Do not trouble me. "My beloved to me and I to him who feedeth among the ' lilies."
2. But what I do not dare, charity does. She knocks confidently on the door of a friend, knowing that she is the mother of friendships and will not be repulsed. Sweet as your leisure is, she does not fear to disturb it a little on her business. She it is who, whenever she wishes, can draw you away from your contemplation of God for her own sake; and it was she who, when she wished, made you attentive to me, so that you have not thought it at all beneath you, not only to bear with me when
I am speaking, but moreover kindly to encourage me to speak when I am silent. I embrace your goodness, I admire your condescension,
I praise and venerate the purity of your intention which leads you to rejoice in the Lord for what you consider my progress.
I glory in the testimony you have given me of
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
your good will, in your spontaneous friendliness. It is now my joy, my glory, and the delight of my heart that I have not lifted
. my eyes in vain to the hills from which I have already received l so much help. From these hills a sweet dew has come down: may it still come until our valleys are filled with corn. It will ever be for me a day of joy and a day worthy of lasting remembrance on which I was honoured to see and welcome that ^ worthy man through whom I was received into your affections. y Although it is clear from your letters that you had received me j into your affections even before this, yet now
I understand it will be with an even closer and more intimate affection, since he has told you certain favourable things about me which he
% doubtless believed, although without sufficient cause. Far be it ^ from such a religious and good man to have said anything but what he believed to be true. So I have now found out for myself v-JN. the truth of those words of our Saviour: 'He who gives a just
7* jjf man the welcome due to a just man, shall receive the reward
\ due to a just man . The reward due to a just man is to be thought
J ^just, for no other reason than that he has received a just man.
\ If he has said anything else about me then he was judging me, ^ j> not according to the facts, but according to his own goodness.
You have listened to him, you have believed him, you have \^ rejoiced in what he said, you have written to me, and thereby you have gladdened me not a little, not only because I have won a place and no small place in your affections, but also because you have shown me something of the purity of your own soul.
In a few words you have shown me for certain of what spirit you are.
3. 1 rejoice on my own account and on yours; I congratulate you on your charity, and myself on the profit my soul has derived from it. For that is a true and sincere charity to be attributed entirely to a pure heart and unfeigned faith which leads us to love our neighbors' good as well as our own. The man who loves his own good in preference to his neighbours' good or
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who loves only his own good proves, by the very fact that his love is not disinterested, that he does not love the good with a chaste love. Such a one could not obey the Prophet when he says:
'Praise the Lord because he is good'. He may praise the Lord because he is good to himself, but not because he is Goodness itself. And he should know that the same Prophet is casting a reproach at him for this when he says: 'He will praise thee when thou do well to him'^JTiere are those who praise the Lord because he is powerful, and these are slaves and fearful for themselves; there are those who praise him because he is good to them, and these are hirelings seeking themselves; and there are those who praise him because he is Goodness itself, and these are sons doing homage to their father. Both those who fear for themselves and those who seek themselves are acting only for themselves; only the love of a son seeks not itselfpOn this account, I think that the words 'The Law of God is unspotted' refer to charity, because it alone can turn the heart from love of self and the world, and direct it to God alone. Neither fear nor love of self can turn the soul to God; they may sometimes change the aspect or influence the actions of a man, but they will never change his heart. Even the slave sometimes does God's work, but because he does not do it willingly he proves that his heart is still hard. x\nd the hireling too will sometimes do
God's work, but because he only does it for reward, he is known to be attracted only by his greed. Where there is self-seeking, there too is self-esteem; where there is self-esteem, there too is private interest; and where private interest makes a corner for 1 Let fear itself be the law itself there rust and filth will collect. of a slave, by it he is bound; let greed be for the hireling his law, by it he also is confined when by it he is led off and enticed away. Neither of these two laws is unspotted, neither can turn
1. Porro ubi proprietas, ibi singularitas; ubi autem singularitas, ibi angulus; ubi vero angulus, ibi sine dubio sordes sive rubigo.
Literally: 'Where there is proprietorship, there is singularity; where there is singularity, there is a corner; where there is a corner, there without doubt is filth or rust'.
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
the soul to God; only charity can do this, because she alone can render a soul disinterested.
4I I would call his charity unspotted who never keeps anything of his own for himself. When a man keeps nothing of his own for himself, everything he has is God's, and what is God's cannot be unclean. Therefore the unspotted law of God is charity, which seeks not what may benefit itself, but what may benefit manyHCharity is called the law of the Lord, either because the LoFd himself lives by it or else because none may have it except by his gift. Let it not seem absurd that I should have said even God lives by law, for I have also said that the law is nothing else but charity. What else but charity preserves that supreme and unspeakable unity in the blessed Trinity? {Charity is therefore a law, and it is the law of the Lord holding together, as it were, the Trinity and binding it in the bonds of peace. Yet let no one think that I speak of charity here as if it were a quality or something accidental to the Godhead, as if I were saying (may it be far from me to say any such thing! ) that there was something in God which is not God; but I say that charity is the divine substance itself. jVnd there is nothing new or strange about this, for St. John riimself has said, 'Glodjsdiarity'. It follows that charity can be correctly said to be both God and the gift of God; that charity gives charity; the substance of charity, the quality of charity. When we speak of the giver we mean the substance; when we speak of the gift we mean the quality. This is the eternal law, the creator and ruler of the Universe, since through it all things were made in weight, measure, and number. Nothing is left without law, since even the law of all things is not without a law, yet a law not other than itself for, although it did not create itself, it nevertheless rules itself.
5. The slave and the hireling also have a law, a law not from God, but which they make for themselves; the one by not loving God and the other by loving something more than God.
They have, I say, a law, but a law of their own, not of God, yet
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a Law which is, nevertheless, subject to the law of God. Anyone can make a law for himself, but he cannot withdraw it from the immutable order of the eternal law. But anyone who thus makes a law for himself is perversely trying to imitate his Creator by ruling himself, and making his own self-will a law for himself, just as God is his own law and subject only to himself. Alas! what a heavy and insupportable burden is this on the children of Adam; we are bowed down and bent under it, so that our lives are dragged down nigh to hell. 'Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death', by which I am so oppressed that unless the Lord had helped me,
I would almost have dwelt in hell. He too was groaning under this burden who said: 'Why hast thou set me opposite to thee, and I am become burdensome to myself. When he says,
'I am become burdensome to myself, he shows that he has been a law unto himself, and that no other than he himself had done this.
But when, speaking of God, he says, 'Why hast thou set me opposite to thee', he shows that he has not scaped from the law of God. It is the property of the eternal law of God that he who will not be ruled sweetly by him, shall be ruled as a punishment by himself; that he who, of his own will, throws off the sweet and light yoke of charity shall unwillingly suffer the insupportable burden of his own self-will.
6. And so in a wonderful way the eternal law keeps the renegade both 'opposite itself and yet subject to itself, so that he is neither able to evade the law of justice nor to rest in the peace and light of God. He remains subject to the power of God and yet far removed from happinessfO Lord, my God, why dost thou not take away my sin, why dost thou not remove my iniquity, so that I may cast off the burden of my self-will, and breathe again under the light yoke of charity, no longer forced by servile fear nor enticed by the hireling's lust for gain? Why am I not led by thy spirit, the spirit of liberty, the spirit which leads thy sons, and which bears witness to my spirit that while
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
thy law is also mme^too am one of thy sons; and as thou art, so also may I be in this world. For it is certain that those who fulfill the words of the Apostles and 'owe no man anything except to love him' are in this world even as God; not hirelings nor yet slaves but sons. Therefore neither are the sons of God free from law, unless anyone should think differently on account of the words, 'The law is not made for the just'. But it should be understood that the law promulgated in fear by the spirit of slavery is one thing, and the law given graciously by the spirit of liberty is quite another. Sons are not bound by the former, but neither are they suffered to live without the latter. Listen to why the law is not made for the just, 'because', says Scripture,
'you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear'. Listen also to why the just are under the law of charity: 'You have received the spirit of the adoption of sons'. And now hear the just man admitting that he is at once not under the law and not without law:
'I became to those that are under the law, as if I were under the law (whereas myself I am not under the law), that I might gain them that were under the law. To them that are without the law, I became as if I were without the law, whereas I was not without the law, but was in the law of Christ'. Hence, 'The law is not made for the just' does not mean that the just are without law, but that the law is freely and lovingly accepted by them from him who graciously inspired it and not imposed on them against their wills. Wherefore the Lord has beautifully said, 'Take my yoke upon you', meaning that he does not impose it on us against our will, but that we can take it on ourselves if we wish, and if we do not we shall find labour and not peace for our souls.
7. Good and sweet is the law of charity, not only light to bear, but also an easement of the law of slaves and hirelings.
For it does not destroy these laws, it brings them to perfection, according to Our_Loxd's words:
'I have not come to set aside the law, but to bring it to perfection'. TemperlnglKe one "and
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controlling theodier^jte^ Charity wjlLnejrerj)e without fear, buT^jchaste fear; nor ever without self-interest, but an ordered IjeTf^interest. It brings the law of the slave to perfection by inspiring it with devotion; and also the law of the hireling, by controlling self-interest. When devotion is mixed with fear it does not nullify it, but amends it; it takes from it the anguish which it never lacks when it is servile, and renders it chaste and filial. The words 'Perfect charity casteth out fear' must be understood as meaning that it removes the anguish which, as I have said, is never lacking to fear so long as it is servile. It is a common mode of speech, putting the cause for the effect. And the self-interest inherent in the law of the hireling is controlled by charity, so that it entirely rejects what is evil, prefers what is better to what is good, and what is good only for the sake of what is better. And, when this is fully effected in the soul by the grace of God, the body and all created good are only loved for the sake of the soul, and the soul only for the sake of God, and God for his own sake.
8. Because we are flesh and blood born of the desire of the flesh, our desire or love must start in the flesh, and it will then, if properly directed, progress under grace by certain stages until it is fulfilled in the spirit for 'that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; afterwards that which is spiritual', and we must first bear the image which is earthly and afterwards that which is heavenly. At first a man loves himself for his own sake. He is flesh and is able only to know himself.
But when he sees that he cannot subsist of himself, then he begins by faith to seek and love God as necessary for himself. And so in thesecond stage he loves God, not yet for God's sake, but for his own sake. However when, on account of his own necessity, he begins to meditate, read, pray, and obey, he becomes accustomed little by little to know God and consequently to delight in him. When he has tasted and found how sweet is the Lord he passes to the third stage wherein he loves God for God's
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
sake and not for his own. And here he remains, for I doubt whether the fourth stage has ever been fully reached in this life by any man, the stage, that is, wherein a man loves himself only for God's sake. Let those say who have experienced it; I confess that to me it seems impossible. It will come about, doubtless, when the good and faithful servant shall have been brought into the joy of his Lord and become inebriated with the fulness of the house of God. For he will then be wholly lost in God as one inebriated and henceforth cleave to him as if one in spirit with him, forgetful, in a wonderful manner, of himself and, as it were, completely out of himself.
I consider the prophet to have felt this when he said:
'I will enter into the powers of the Lord; O Lord, I will be mindful of thy justice alone'. He certainly knew that when he would enter the spiritual powers of the Lord, he would leave behind him all the frailties of the flesh, so that he would no longer have to think any more of them but would be wholly occupied with the justice of God. Then each of Christ's members will be able to say for himself what St. Paul said of their head: 'We have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him so no longer'. For no one will know himself there according to the flesh because 'flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God'. I do not say that the substance of the flesh will not be there, but that every carnal need will be absent, that the love of the flesh will be absorbed in the love of the spirit, and that what are now weak human affections will be transformed into divine powers. When charity shall pull up on to the shore of eternity the net which she is now drawing through this vast and great sea so as to bring in without ceasing every sort of fish, she will then cast aside the bad and keep only the good. For in this life her net keeps every sort of fish within its ample folds and she accommodates herself to all making, in a sense, her own all the good and evil fortunes of everyone, not only so as to rejoice with the glad but also to weep with the afflicted. When
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she shall have come to shore everything that she has hitherto borne with sorrow she will cast aside as evil fish, retaining only what gives her pleasure and happiness.
Will St.
Paul, for example, then become weak with the weak or on fire for the scandalized, when all scandals and all weaknesses are done away? Or will he weep for those who have not repented where it is certain that as there will be no one who sins, so there will be no one to repent? Far be it from him to mourn for those who are condemned to eternal flames with the devil and his angels, in the city of God 'which the stream of the river maketh glad' and the 'gates of which God loves above all the tents of Jacob
Because, although there may sometimes be rejoicing over victory in tents, yet there is also the labour of battle and often danger to life. But in that home-land no adversity or sorrow is admitted according to those words which are sung of it: 'All the world rejoicing finds its dwelling place in thee' and 'Everlasting joy shall be unto them'. And then how can there be any recol- < lection of mercy where only the justice of God is remembered?Where there will be no place for misery or time for mercy, there can be no feeling of compassion.
10.
I feel myself driven to compose a long discourse by my insatiable desire to speak to you, my most dear brothers, but there are three things which indicate that it is time for me to finish. The first is that I fear more than anything to become a burden to you. The second is that I am ashamed of my wordiness. The third is that I am hard pressed by the cares of my household. Finally I beg you to have pity on me. If you have rejoiced over the good you have only heard about me, have compassion on the evils that are real. Perhaps the good man who told you such favourable things about me saw certain small things and made of them something great. And you, in the goodness of your heart, found no difficulty in believing what you were so glad to hear. I give thanks for your charity which 'believeth all things'; but I am abased to the dust for the truth