Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (Fontaines, near Dijon, 1090 – August 21, 1153 in Clairvaux) was a French abbot and theologian who was the main voice of conservatism during the intellectual revival of Western Europe called the Renaissance of the 12th century. The voice of conscience, the dominating figure in the Christian church from 1125 to 1153 (Cantor 1993), he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1830. Bernard is a saint of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches and was the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order.

Bernard's character

The greatness of St Bernard is generally regarded as being his character. The age saw him as the embodiment of its ideal: that of medieval monasticism at its highest development. The world had no meaning for him save as a place of banishment and trial, in which men are but "strangers and pilgrims" (Serm. i., Epiph. n. I; Serm. vii., Lent. n. I); the way of grace, back to the lost inheritance, had been marked out, and the function of theology was merely to maintain the landmarks inherited from the past. He had no sympathy with the dialectics of many teachers. Bernard's vision was clear. With merciless logic he followed the principles of the Christian faith as he conceived it. For all his overmastering zeal he was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. Even when preaching the crusade he interfered at Mainz to stop the persecution of the Jews, stirred up by the monk Radulf.http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=879&letter=B&search=bernard_of_clairvaux As for heretics, "the little foxes that spoil the vines should be taken, not by force of arms, but by force of argument". However, if any heretic refused to be thus taken, he considered "that he should be driven away, or even a restraint put upon his liberty, rather than that he should be allowed to spoil the vines" (Serm. lxiv). He was troubled by the mob violence which made the heretics "martyrs to their unbelief." He approved the zeal of the people, but believed that "faith is to be produced by persuasion, not imposed by force"; adding that, "it would without doubt be better that they should be coerced by the sword than that they should be allowed to draw away many other persons into their error." Finally, he ascribes the steadfastness of these "dogs" in facing death to the power of the devil (Serm. lxvi. on Canticles ii. 15).

Related Topics:
Mainz - Jew - Martyr

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Bernard at his best displays a nobility of nature, a wise charity and tenderness in his dealings with others, and a genuine humility, that make him one of the most complete exponents of the Christian life. His broadly Christian character is witnessed to by the enduring quality of his influence. The author of the Imitatio drew inspiration from his writings; the reformers saw him as a medieval champion of their favourite doctrine of the supremacy of the divine grace. His works have been reprinted in countless editions. This is perhaps due to the fact that the chief fountain of his own inspiration was the Bible. He was saturated in its language and in its spirit; and though he read it, as might be expected, uncritically, and interpreted its plain meanings allegorically-- as the fashion of the day was--it saved him from

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the grosser aberrations of medieval Catholicism. He accepted the teaching of the church as to the reverence due to our Lady and the saints, and on feast-days and festivals these receive their due meed in his sermons; but in his letters and sermons their names are at other times seldom invoked. They were overshadowed by his idea of the grace of God and the moral splendour of Christ; "from Him do the Saints derive the odour of sanctity; from Him also do they shine as lights " (Ep. 464).

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Bernard's popularity as a preacher cannot be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in Latin, to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level. Like his letters, they are full of quotations from and reference to the Bible, and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times.

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In the Divine Comedy Bernard is the last of Dante's spiritual guides, and offers his prayer to the Virgin Mary to grant Dante the vision of the true nature of God that is the climax of the story.

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"Bernard," wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam in his Art of Preaching, "is an eloquent preacher, much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how to reach and move the affections." The same is true of the letters and to an even more striking degree. They are written on a variety of subjects, great and small, to people of the most diverse stations and types; and they help us to understand the adaptable nature of the man, which enabled him to appeal as successfully to the unlearned as to the learned.

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