149 Reply of the Lord Abbot Peter (1149)

Summary: Peter answers Bernard’s letter with the utmost cordiality and affection. He declaims all the high titles that the saint gives him and retains only that of “dear friend”. As for the bitter words for which the saint apologized (they were in a letter concerning the business of an English Abbot), Peter declares that he was not in the least offended by them and if he had been, the apology of Bernard would haevc been a more than suitable amend. After this Peter refers to the will of one Baro, a Roman subdeacon. Hes says that although all he had deposited at Cluny belonged by right to the abbey, yet he is quite willing for Bernard and his brethren to have it. In conclusion he refers to an election at Grenoble to which the Carthusians were objecting. He says that he has entrusted his opinion on the affair to Nicholas and asks Bernard to accept what Nicholas tells him as coming from himself. (from Bruno Scott James, 379).

Bouthellier and Torrell, call this ‘astonishly warm’.

Knight: the first 2/3 of the text are an examination of Bernard’s own words.

Text:

To the venerable and brilliant man of Christ among the members, [in membris Christi viro] the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the brother Peter, the humble abbot of the Cluniacs, what is after God and in God.

What do I say? I am accustomed to speak, but I am now made mute. Whence is this? Since your letter, which ought to make me eloquent, has rendered me mute. Why?

<GK>? I read so much in it, although brief, that if I tried to pour myself out in response I would seem taciturn rather than loquacious. But I am speaking to a grave man, a religious man. Accordingly I must act as gravity demands, as religion demands- but yours rather than mine.</GK>For what? Surely it is true what I say? Brief is the letter, but much is the material for replying. Take it, I ask, unflavoured if I might say something otherwise than what is appropriate.<GK>or it is a mark of true friendship not only to receive the wit (saltiness) of a friend, but to season or put up with what is tasteless. I have received, as I said, a letter from you, a singular letter, a letter extending the sweetest love and honour more than is due to me.</GK>

You address me as“most reverend”, you name me “father”, you call me “dearest friend”. I rejoice at these things, but I do not perceive salvific truth (which abounds in you from Christ) in the first two [titles], though I do recognize the third. For I am unaware of myself to be “most reverend”, I strongly deny that I am a father to you, [but] your friend and dearest I not only profess myself with my mouth, but also I recognize myself in my heart.For that I remain silent about the names, “most reverend” and “dearest friend”, of which, as I said, I admit one, but not the other, I write to you, reverend brother, in the meantime, what lord Guido, the prior of La Chartreuse, the brightest flower of religion and singular in his time, wrote concerning the name of “father”. I was writing to him frequently and I delighted often with him either with words gathered from each other, or with familiar letters, and I called him “father” in my letters. He tolerated this at first, thinking me the end of deeds of writing. And after he saw that I continued and that repeated the name “father” in several letters, that saint let loose at length with the following words. For he wrote me a letter in which among other things he inserted:

Whence we seek through that, by which in our unworthiness your heart kindles a love, as when your serenity deigns to write our meagreness, that you should think so about your own edification, as not to inflate our weakness with dangerous elation.

And firmly he continued:

And we ask that thing for all and above all and we beseech with out knees affixed to the earth, lest you account our vileness beyond dignity by the name of father. It is sufficient, and more than sufficient, if he who is not considered worthy of the name “servant”, is called brother, friend or son.

He wrote this to me, I write this also to you. Let it suffice, and more than suffice, if I am glorified with the name, “brother”, “friend”, “dear” or “dearest” by you or before you, or if such a thing either is fitting that you send, or that is decent that I take up.

This about the aforementioned salutation. But what about the following matters? You said, “Would that I be able to send my mind to you as if the present epistle.” And firmly continued, “Without doubt then that you read clearly what the finger of God has written in my heart about your love, what it imprinted on my innermost parts.” Indeed this word about the salvific sacrament of the major mystery, “just as salve on the head, which descended from the beard of Aaron onto the neck of his clothing.” Indeed that, just as the Rose of Herman which descended onto the mount Zion”. Indeed also thus, “the mountains ran with sweetness and milk and honey flooded the hills.”

Do not be astonished that I attend so carefully and that I hold to your words. For I do not know things promulgated by whatsoever mouth, but from his, who I know will not speak, except “with a pure heart, a good conscience and an unfeigned love.” I know this, I say, and the world knows it along with me, that you are not of their number who (according to the psalmist) speak vanities to their neighbours.” You are not, moreover, of them of whom “deceitful lips speak in the double heart”. On that account, <GK>when it pleases you Sanctity to write to me, I receive, read, embrace your writings, not carelessly or cursorily, but studiously, affectionately. For who would not read carefully, not embrace with much affection, both those words which I have set out above, and those which follow:</GK>

Long ago, you said, my soul is bound together with your soul and from unequal persons, the equalness of charity renders equal souls. For what from my humility with your sublimity, if not worthiness had not inclined worthy. And then it was done, such that both were mixed together, and my humility and your sublimity, that I am not able to be humble without you, nor are you able to be sublime without me.

<GK>Therefore, are words of this kind to be read carelessly? Must they not hold the eyes of the reader fixed, snatch the heart, unite the minds. See for yourself, my dearest, who wrote this, what you understand from this. I cannot understand otherwise, than what the letter sounds, what I hold said by so great, so truthful, so holy a man. And not, as you yourself said, do I begin to commend myself to you. We began to love in Christ when still young men, shall we know, as old men, or nearly, the doubt of so sacred, so lengthy an affection? Let this not be. “Believe one who loves”, to use your words, “that neither in my heart has it sprung up, nor has it extorted from my mouth,” that I should ever have doubted your words in any way, provided that they were expressed seriously.</GK> Whence I embrace, I serve, I guard what you wrote in this letter about what was done. More easily are one thousand talents of gold able to be taken from me than is this able to be torn away from my heart for any reason.

But enough concerning those matters. About the rest, Your Prudence considered me moved from that place, it was thus. You letter contains [something] about the affairs of a certain English abbot, the matter, which is well known to you. Your letters say, “It is as if the judgment be subverted, and justice is removed from the world, and there be not him who delivers the weak from the hand of those stronger than them, the poor and needy from those despoiling them.” But if you believe me, you should know henceforth from there so I was moved by it, just as the prophet says of himself, “But as if a deaf man, I do not hear, and as if a dumb man, not opening his mouth.”And again, “I am made as if an unhearing man, and one not having refutations.” Indeed I am not offended by these. But even if I had been offended, there is much satisfaction when you said:

The multitude of affairs is at fault, since while our writers do not well retained their meaning, they sharpen their pens beyond the proper modicum and I am unable to see what I have ordered to be written. Pardon this vice, since whatever my with other letters, I will look to yours and I not believe except with mine own eyes and ears.

I am merciful, therefore, and grant pardon easily. For me it is not, as I say humbly, hard work even in serious offenses, with the result that I forgive anyone beseeching, I give pardon to anyone who demands it. Because, if it is no labour to forgive even in grave matters, how much less is it in light or none? Concerning the will of the lord Baro, a subdeacon of Rome, which while dying he is said to have made to your Clairvaux and the Cistercian church, of those things which he entrusted to us: what was written to me by certain persons, who said that this was injoined to them by him, is done. I wish you to know that, just as some truthful witnesses, as I think, assert, morehasthe grace of the abbot of Cluny conferred thison you than hasthe will of Baro. Indeed, I know that am I not an expert of divine or human law with the result that I cannot know what witnessed and legalized and committed in faith are judged for the sake of death by those coming afterwards. But yet I read in another text: “There is nothing so fitting as natural law, as to have judged the will of the lord wishing to transfer his matter into another.” This, therefore, I say, since just as the aforementioned witnesses had related: he entrusted everything to Cluny, he gave all to Cluny (unless perhaps [one monastery] happened to receive him, before he had ended this present life). Nonetheless, I do not wish this privilege to be employed, but since I believe it to be according to my witnesses, I concede it to you and yours. Concerning the election at Grenoble, against which our Carthusians acted: I diligently repositioned what I feel in the mouth of my beloved, your faithful Nicholas, to be revealed to you. Listen to him and what he bears back to you from my mouth, believe that is true without hesitation or the least. If what ought to be mandated has passed from your mind, since I be mindful, I will command it to one so beloved to myself in Christ. In conclusion, I ask (as strongly as I am able) and beseech that you make some mention of me (which mission I already commited to some persons of your order) unto the large community of holy men which have gathered at Cîteaux, and attentively commend myself and the entire body of the Cluniac congregation to their prayers.