102. to Milo I, bishop of Thérouanne (1140)

[see also appendix H of vol II of letters]

To the venerable lord, the lord Milo, bishop of Thérouanne, brother Peter, the humble abbot of the Cluniacs sends greetings.

Since the injury of charity is judged so great by God, that, just as Your Erudition knows, neither is a gift offered to the altar with it received, nor are alms supported, nor is the martyr made present, nor are sins cast off, or rather, they, now sent back, are returned to their author; I must not dissimulate nor do I disturb the mind of a brother (and especially) a bishop, unless perchance the evidence of a commotion was just with the zeal of justice. For to undertake something out of justice is not injurious to charity, but the action of equity. I wish, if God grants the grace that this mind holds towards all, I wish this also, if its is maintained fully by you. What, as sweetly as I am able, I do not propose to hide my soul from you, or do I speak “in heart and heart”, but what drives me to disturb, just as by a friend, to uncover without any veil of deception (bad intention). It is related to us, if this it is, not by a few, not by some, but by many and great people, that you, deride the monastic order, (I say this with fraternal peace in salvation), that you frequently tear apart upon a pretense or flimsy opportunity, that you proclaim such things even in public gatherings…..

Persons of high stature have brought tidings that you have taken the flimsiest pretences of attacking the monastic order, which you take to task at public councils, to diminish the well known good acts, to exaggerate the slightest faults with the help of a habitual rhetoric. We say, moreover, that at your synod in the presence of a considerable number of priests and lay-persons, you invoked divine wrath upon the pride of the Cluniacs and commanded prayers for this intention. And would that the merciful saviour destroy not only the pride in us and ours and also all theirs, but also would that He destroy alls wall of Satan down to the last, let him build up the walls of the spiritual Jerusalem with them and thence let him hear plainly the prayers of good men. But if this had to be said, it ought not to be derided. If it should been admonished, it ought not to have been preached. If it had to be beseeched, it had ought not to have been proclaimed. We are prideful, I agree. We are guilty, we are sinners. But is it necessary to proclaim in the Church the sins of our brothers, to teach to the faithful that there exist prideful monks of Cluny, thus risking that they learn to imitate them or that you suggest to them an excuse for their own pridefulness? Your wisdom should preach such things, not to the crowd of people of Thérouanne, but at the Chapter of Cluny, in order to drive out the pride of our brothers in the voice of humility with a pious and persuasive speech befitting a bishop.

For Cluniac brothers, from such various and distant parts of the world, are unable to listen (still less to say listen favourably) to the bishop of Thérounanne discussing their pride, since perhaps they would have submitted if they heard him cautioning about such things in their chapter, to which twice or maybe three times he came.

Thus, Augustine did not preach to the people about the evils of brothers –true or false– nor did he order it to be preached in his writings when he said, “Where sin arises, there it withers away, and the correction of it does not extend further than the knowledge of it.” Thus not the fathers, the priors and the masters of the Church of God, not thus (so that I may speak of singular men of our time) does Guido, the prior of Charteuse, who has here has drunk from the font of true, not fictitious, charity…

But where does this pride arise? Which of the bishops do the Cluniac brothers resist? Whom do they not obey? Whom do they not serve? To whom do they not freely offer legitimate obedience, or submission to men, or reverence in comparison to almost all the monks of almost any other congregations. I don’t know! As God knows, I know not! If I knew, I would not suffer it; if I had knowledge of this, I would correct it. I see the riches of Cluny become the common treasury of the Christian republic, from which everyone draws, which they almost empty, into which a few people put a few things, [and] from which many people receive many things.

But since, through the grace of God, we have the priests of almost the whole Latin Church as friends, we request that we count you also among the rest of those favourable….

I say, in that chapter in which, just as I said, it is discussed two or three times and where it gladdens those arrogant about the promise of benefits and arguments of friendship.

I am able indeed to be justly won over concerning these things, but I have more the right of complaining about you. For since both communal charity and individual friendship convinces do nothing against a friend, you harm the goals of friendship with excesses and you injure a friend in no way hurting you.

I spare my words lest I seem to provoke a friend whom I attempt to placate. I pray, therefore, at the end of this letter; I pray and ours beseech that Your Truth observe what your benignity promised to us about friendship just as I said above.