86. the Response of Abbot Peter to the Bishop Hato (1141)

To the beloved and ever revered with love by me, lord Hato, bishop of Troyes, brother Peter humble abbot of the Cluniacs, sends greetings…

You have the manner of a bellow, my beloved, which compels by its breath†(with which it is filled) a dying ember to ignite and then to erupt into enormous flames. In a similar manner, by writing often (constantly blowing like a bellows), your spirit –not the airy, but the divine breath, I believe– certainly does not strive to rekindle the fire of my heart deadened towards you but struggles to recall the exhalation of my speech hooded by silence to its normal words. But I don’t want, I don’t want, I say, a friendly soul to imagine this; or to judge tardy words a failure of souls. For, though such words can be fabricated, the fiery vigor can never be extinguished nor can the product of the celestial seed now long ago conceived be rendered dormant.

Why, therefore, am I unfruitfully loquacious, when instead I am able to be judged eager and blustering with continual cries to the deaf? For, to I speak boldly with a friend of a single mind with me, who does not despair about those matters which I often urged your progress, since I see daily your weakening concerning them? Who presumes to be able to unroot one’s self when already an aged oak tree with deep roots, since ...?

Surely you do not turn a deaf ear to his strife and ceaseless conflicts? Surely what, when heard, discourages your friends, cannot batter you alone? For this reason, I declare (having travelled to and returned from the city of Rome),

These things should be avoided, it seems to me my beloved friend, not embraced; blessed rest must be put before labour, security before fear, safety before dangers;

May the paradise of charity await you at your Cluny before the paradise of desire, where the tree of life, where pleasant attraction, where

†in using spiritu, Peter implies both breath and spirit.