5. To Hato, Bishop of Troyes (1122/46)

To lord Hato, the bishop of Troyes, one to be venerated and to be received into the charity of Christ in every innermost part of the soul, brother Peter, the humble abbot of Cluny, wishes an abundance of health and love.

I do not know where to begin. I am completely unaware where to make a start. Dark clouds obscure a bright day, the midday brightness suddenly puts on the appearance of terrifying shadows. The nature of things is changed: sunrise is transformed into sunset, roaring fires are suddenly extinguished, silver cords are snapped, friends are estranged from friends.

O friendship –a thing of exceedingly great value among mortals and the more precious it is, all the more infrequent it is– to where did you depart? Did you –hated– withdraw from the lands? How is it that, o firm union of souls, you abandon [us] wretched men? Why did you make yourself absent from all left behind? Perhaps, as is read about that ancient dove, not finding a place where you might rest your feet, you returned to the ark and, welcomed by the Noah the master builder, you fled the dangers of the flood. You, dove, are the friend of eternal peace, I say, free from bitterness and knowing nothing but to love, you dreaded the waves of the upswells, the surges of discords possessing the whole world; and finding nowhere in the depths for rest, with a hasty return you flew back to the heights.By the time you grasped the hand of Noah, the builder of the world, you had penetrated to the deepest parts of heaven, and by your departure you had in turn agitated every end.

This is why I discern all terrestrial things conspiring in mutual destruction; thence I glimpse that kingdoms rise up against themselves, thence I see that everywhere the entire structure of the mundane body is undermined by loose joints. Thence it is that neither neighbour with neighbour, friend with friend, brother with brother nor son with father keep faith; thence it is that the oaths of all obligations are violated, thence it is that blood has already stained the surface of every land. But why do I lament events which are far from here. Why do I cry about distant problems? Why do I deplore foreign circumstances? Where domestic affairs are disturbed, why are externals worried about? If I am unable to bring harmony to my very self, for whom might I keep the peace? If I am wicked myself, to whom will I be good?

But to what end are these questions? They consider you, you I say, formerly a friend with a shared soul, sometimes most beloved and though not now, but once, following the words of Horace, half of my soul.And so I lament that I remained not a whole entity, but impiously divided in two without you; I lament that you have severed the chain of charity, which I had thought unbreakable; I lament that you violate the pact of alliance which you swore with me. Perhaps you will respond that I have acted rigidly with a just you. And I, far more lenient than I should be, declare that I would say, “Your sins merit something unto me”. But if you ask what they might be, I’ve already said and I still reply that guilt of all evils is done in you alone, as the apostle evidences who said, One who had observed the entire Law, but then offended in one, is made guilty of them all. No one is to doubt that this is the one Charity. In his one thing you have offended, when you forsook a friend believing that he guarded himself and you, not harming you and serving faith. But perhaps you will say: “I know nothing about what you object; I hold faith, I maintain charity.” It may be that you hold faith, you maintain charity. The proof of love, is a demonstration in works. If there is a fire, it warms. If it warms, it does not yet filled with flames. If it has been filled with flames, soon the fire will cease to be. Frequent legates are accustomed from your parts to us, messengers announce messengers, a follow-up precedes the original letters, the public litter is unending for those going and returning from Troyes to Cluny. But now everything is made impassable, they prohibit the Rhinish mountains become newly impenetrable, the unnavigateable seas of the Indies flood over, and because Scithia binds the open sea with it glacial frigidness; the new silence of your tongue, the leisure of your hands, and an ignorance of dictation and the laziness of your scribes declares that never pen in a reed-bed, never a feather on a bird, never a skin from a beast. Since all these things lack, that great affection of love is unable to indicated by you to a friend. Now, therefore, since I waited and they did not speak, I heeded and it was not him who responded, I burst out first in words since I desire to still be faithful to a friend. Therefore finally awakened, be wakeful that you either return recalled or speak as requested. Do not write back saying, in heart and heart, but with the single heart which is not which is not confessing, if that love derived from a supernal love still remains, under which equally we formerly began to desire to the blessed life, that if I recognize that it remains in that state, we will rejoice together, if I sense it to be diminished, still we can work together to reintegrating it. But if you suspect that I harm this mutual charity which ought to be between us through some whispering, I am prepared either to wash off this blemish or to tolerate with equanimity whatever lashes ought to be struck by you. If perhaps I speak audaciously what I must, I pray that you offer forgiveness since I proffer these comments not out of an inflation of pride but from the presumption of love, not as an abbot to a bishop, but as a friend true in God I write, I believe, to a true friend.