39. To Pope Innocent (1133)

To the highest pastor of the Church of God and our special father, the lord Pope Innocent, the brother Peter, humble abbot of Cluny, sends obedient fidelity.

I am unable to say in words who much I long for your paternal love

For between the passions of factions, between the divisions of hearts, between the schisms –as much ours as others’, whether near or far– after the sword has been drawn, I stood firm as much as the nature of my person and my office would allow, and I never checked it from the blood of the beloveds, when it was necessary. As much as I can, whether by talk or text, by command, flattery or threat, I do not hesitate to subject to the feet of Your Majesty through myself and through others anyone –kings or princes, nobles or base-born, the great or the meek– whom I recognized as joined to myself and to the Cluniac church in any sort of friendship.

An open conscience, it seems to me, ought to deserve more love; pristine grace should not be diminished by having the heart’s veil removed. For I say again a saying which has already become commonplace: if all things are open among friends, no secret should be covered up between such a father and such a son. If he had revealed such things to others, not just to you, the father’s agitation perhaps would be just.

Remember, none ever was able to be loved too much, remember that none ever abounded in friends more justly, remember what Solomon said: You should have many friends. And therefore, you may believe that you could never abound in enough of them, especially in this time, when, as we experience daily, iniquity abounds and the charity of many grows cold.