ARNALDO (ARNOLDO, ERNALDO), abbot of BONNEVAL. — Friend and biographer of St. Bernard. Little is known of his life. He was a monk at Marmoutier when, after 1138, he was elected abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Bonneval (Bona Vallis), in the diocese of Chartres; hence he is also called A. of Chartres. There he suffered various adversities, on account of which he went to Rome, where the Pope recognized his innocence. He enjoyed the esteem and friendship of St. Bernard, with whom he corresponded (cf. St. Bernard, Ep. 310: PL 182, 514), and whose exegetical method he imitated. He died after 1156. The Cistercian Menologium commemorates him on 6 February, praising him as «vir doctrina pariter et pietate celebris».
His writings are of exegetical and ascetical importance: 1) De operibus sex dierum or Hexaemeron, of which the copy in the National Library of Paris (ms. lat. 1925) bears the title Paradisus animae: St. Ambrose and St. Basil are cited in II. Its first editor, Denis Perronet, called it a «fulgida gemma». 2) Commentarius in Ps. CXXXII: five homilies, a model of piety and gentle eloquence. 3) Expositio super Isaam, unpublished (ms. 923 of the library of Troyes): it is a compendium of Jerome’s commentary. 4) De cardinalibus operibus Christi, formerly attributed to St. Cyprian (cf. J. Huby, Une exigée faussement attribuée à s. Cyprien in Biblica, 14 [1933], p. 96): twelve discourses on the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ, preceded by a dedicatory pio Prologo to Pope Adrian IV; the seventh (De oblutione pedum) is of particular interest for its treatment of the symbolism of the washing of the feet, echoing St. Bernard (cf. A. Malvy, in DThC, IX, col. 34); a theory that St. R. Bellarmine and Maldonado (In Jo. 13, 7) brought to prominence as belonging to St. Cyprian (M. J. Lagrange, Ev. Selon s. Jean, 7th ed., Paris 1947, pp. 349 and 550, attributes sacramental efficacy to it, with exaggeration). 5) De septem verbis Domini in cruce: «in eia - scrive - sua omnia Christus recapitulat dogmata» (PL 189, 1678). 6) Meditationes (on the Passion of the Lord), formerly published among the writings of Cyprian. 7) De septem donis Spiritus Sancti, in seventeen chapters. 8) De laudibus B. Mariae Virginis, a lively and devout sermon. 9) Liber secundus of the Vita s. Bernardi, written at the request of the monks of Clairvaux, erroneously attributed by De Visch to another author of the same name, who would have been abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Bonnevaux (Bonavallis) near Vienne. According to Vacandard, the work displays «une remarquable sagacité».
A. possesses the merits of a delicate, eloquent, and pious writer, endowed with profound learning. More than an exegete, he is a mystic yearning for knowledge and the divine life.