Bernard of Clairvaux
From An Aplogia for Abbot William
Distractions of ornamentation
But what can justify that array of grotesques
in the cloister where the brothers do their
reading, a fantastic conglomeration of beauty ! misbegotten and ugliness
transmogrified? What place have obscene monkeys, savage lions, unnatural centaurs,
manticores, striped tigers, battling knights or hunters sounding their horns? You can see
a head with many bodies and a multi-bodied head. Here is a quadruped with a dragon's
tail, there an animal's head stuck on a fish. That beast combines the forehand of a horse
with the rear half of a goat, this one has the horns in front and the horse's quarters aft.
With such a bewildering array of shapes and forms on show, one would sooner read the
sculptures than the books, and spend the whole day gawking at this wonderland rather
than meditating on the law of God. Ah, Lord! if the folly of it all does not shame us, surely
the expense might stick in our throats?
From On Consideration
What is God?
So, what is God? With respect to creation,
its end; to election, salvation; to himself, he
alone knows. What is God? All-powerful will, all-benign power, eternal light, immutable
reason, blessedness supreme. Creator of beings to partake of him, he quickens men to
perceive him, disposes them to desire him, enlarges them to receive him, justifies them
that they may deserve him, fires them with zeal, fertilizes them that they may bear fruit,
directs them in the way of justice, moulds them to kindness, contempers them to
wisdom, strengthens them to virtue, visits them with consolation, enlightens them with
understanding, preserves them unto immortality, fills them with felicity and keeps them
safe in his encircling arm.
To Brother G., greetings from Brother
Bernard, styled Abbot of Clairvaux.
Correcting proofs
Regarding the interpretation I defended
recently while talking about the text of the Gospel
with the lord bishop and yourself: I don't want you to write it up until you have first talked it
over with me once again. And if by chance you have already made a fair copy, don't give
it to anyone to read until I have seen it. Pondering later on what we said at the time, I
realized that, intent as we were on discovering the moral sense, we had in certain
places strayed in error from the facts of the story, and I now consider myself to have
pointed this out to you as well. The first mistake is that there are not, as we thought, fifty
days between the Nativity of the Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, but only
forty. Then we said that Mary and Joseph were on their way to Jerusalem when the child
was born, and this was incorrect. And lastly, as for the eight days leading up to the
Circumcision for which we developed the moral sense: counting forward from the day on
which the child was, as it were, born, that is to say the moment when the intention
became firmly fixed in the heart, the circumcision took place not on the eighth but on the
ninth day after. The other points, as far as I can judge, are correct and these can easily
be put right.
As for the rest, you should know that
we were very upset at your leaving us without the
escort promised to you, though no one but yourselves could properly be held responsible
for this. Farewell.
