Letters139 Letter CXXXIX. To the emperor Lothaire (Circa A.D. 1135)

Bernard exhorts the Emperor to repress the schismatics. He recommends to him the cause of a certain Church at Toul.

To LOTHAIRE, by the grace of God Roman Emperor and AUGUSTUS, BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting and prayer, if the prayer of a sinner be of any avail.

1. Blessed be God who has chosen you, and set you up as the horn of our salvation, to the praise and glory of His name, to the reparation of the Imperial honour, to the support of the Church in her evil hour, and lastly to work salvation in the midst of the earth. It is His work that the glory of your crown is being daily added to and raised on high, is wonderfully increasing and advancing in all honour and magnificence before God and men. Of His doing surely it was, and of His power that you lately accomplished so successfully such a laborious and dangerous journey, undertaken on behalf of the peace of the kingdom and the liberation of the Church. Indeed, you have most gloriously attained the full height of the Imperial dignity, and, what is still greater, you did so not by a mighty hand, that so the greatness of your mind and of your faith might the more clearly shine forth. But if the earth trembled and was still before so tiny an army, what dread may we suppose will seize upon the hearts of the enemy when the King shall proceed to show the power of his arm? Moreover, the goodness of his cause will animate him, nay, a double necessity will urge him forward. It becomes not me to exhort to battle; nevertheless, I say unhesitatingly that it is the duty of the Church's advocate to protect the Church from being attacked by the madness of schismatics, it is the prerogative of Caesar to uphold his own crown against the Sicilian usurper. For as a Jew by descent has seized upon the See of Peter to the injury of Christ, so without doubt everyone who makes himself a king in Sicily speaketh against Caesar.

2. But if it is incumbent upon Caesar both to render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and to God the things that are God's, why are the possessions of God at Toul diminished without Caesar getting any gain from them? It is to be feared that neglect of trifles may become a barrier to great matters. What I refer to is this. The church of S. Gengulphus in that city is being grievously oppressed, and unjustly, too, it is said; and they say that in some way or other your prudence has been beguiled into opposing my lord the Pope, when he was about to see justice done, by a request from you not to interfere. I implore and advise you to act more prudently, to recall the injurious request, to permit justice to be done before that Church is destroyed to the foundation. I am but a poor Religious, yet I am your devoted servant, and if I seem importunate, it is, perhaps, just because I am thus devoted. I salute the Lady Empress in the love of Christ.