Letters68 Letter LXVIII. To the same, upon the same subject.
Letter LXVIII. To the same, upon the same subject.
To the Reverend the Abbot of Flay, to the brethren of that convent, and to certain others, Brother BERNARD wishes health.
My GOOD BRETHREN,—1. It would have been a proof of moderation on your part had you shown yourselves satisfied with my former explanation in answer to your complaint, and refrained from harassing those who do not deserve it. But as to your former attacks you have added greater ones, and have thrown among us new germs of discord (which, we trust, will no more be fruitful than the former were), and as by not replying I may seem to acknowledge fault where there is none, I reply truthfully a second time to what you angrily object. This is the whole of my fault, which you consider so great; this the vast injustice that I have done to you; that a monk, alone, a wanderer, poor, miserable, flying from peril to his soul, seeking earnestly his own salvation, at his earnest application and request we have received; or that having thus received him, we do not eject him without cause, and so make ourselves prevaricators, destroyers of what we have built. For this we are considered transgressors of the Rule, of the canons, of the law of nature itself! You demand with indignation, why we have presumed to admit among us a monk of yours, excommunicated by you, which we would not suffer ourselves. But as to the excommunication, why need we reply, when you give a sufficient reply yourselves for us, since you know without doubt that he was received by us, before he was excommunicated by you? But if he was regularly received, it is a monk under our jurisdiction and not under yours, that you have excommunicated: and you will see, whether that was rightly done.
2. It remains therefore to be ascertained, whether he was rightly received; and this is the sole question between us. You indeed, since you cannot deny that a monk may regularly be received from a monastery that is unknown, contend that yours was known to us. We deny it, and you do not believe us. But if you do not believe us in a simple denial, do so when we affirm by oath. I take God to witness that I did not know you, and do not know you; I have received the writings of unknown persons and I have replied to unknown persons. I feel indeed your violence and your attacks, but yet I am not acquainted with the assailants themselves. But you for the purpose of convincing me of pretended ignorance, employ the crushing argument that those cannot be unknown to me whose name, that of the abbot and of the monastery itself I have placed in my letters; as if when you know the names of things you know the things themselves also. Since in that case I have the pleasure to know the names of Michael and Gabriel and Raphael, by the mere hearing of these words, I am already blessed by the knowledge of those blessed spirits themselves. It is no small profit to me, I say, if because I have learned from the Apostle to call by their names Paradise and the third Heaven, I have therefore, though not rapt thither with the Apostle, learned the secrets of Heaven from their names alone, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter. Foolish am I who, already knowing the name of my God, yet still groan superfluously every day, I know not why; uselessly sighing with the Prophet, and saying, Thy face O Lord will I seek (Ps. xxvii. 8). And When shall I come to appear before God (Ps. xlii. 2). And: Show us Thy Face, and we shall be saved (Ps. Ixxx. 3).
3. But what is it we do towards you which we are unwilling to be done towards us? Do you suppose that we are unwilling that any monk departing from our monastery should be received in any other? Would that you might be able to save without us all those committed to us. If any monk of ours should have passed over to you for the sake of greater perfection, or from the desire of a severer life, not only are we not offended if you assist him in so good a wish, but we earnestly entreat you to do so: nor should we complain as persons offended, but confess ourselves to have received a great service. Then you deny what we had heard of you, that Brother B. as long as he was with you, practised the medical art by your consent or even by your order upon secular persons, and you accuse of falsehood him who has said this. Whether he has told the truth I know not; let him see to it; but this I know, that if he practised medicine, whether of his own accord, as you declare, or to obey you, as he testifies, he exposed his soul to great dangers. Who, then, could be so inhuman as not to help a person in such peril if he were able, or to counsel him if he were not able? And if, as you assert, that it was not compelled by obedience but by the desire of gain for himself, or a taste for wandering, that he used to travel about here and there making merchandise of his art; what cause existed for his leaving you? Was it because by the tightening of pastoral discipline, that was no longer permitted to him which had been permitted before? But in that case why did you, when he was with us, wishing to recall him, promise him that he should remain quiet in the convent, for the purpose of persuading him to return; unless that you knew that the man wished for this, and remembered that he had asked for it? but he, having already obtained among strangers what he could not obtain among his own, nor desiring to quit the certain for the uncertain, has held fast what he already enjoyed, despising what was offered to him too late.
4. Cease, then, my brethren, cease, from being careful for a brother for whom it is not at all needful that you should take care: unless, perhaps, which I hope is not the case, you seek your own interests and not those of Jesus Christ, and love more the advantage which you derive from him than his salvation. For since he was always when among you a rolling stone, and, as you write, expending for his own purposes what he acquired by his art, against the obligations of his condition and the command of his abbot; let those who love him rejoice, because by the pity of God he has, while among us, been entirely cured. For we give our testimony to him that never now does he wander abroad on any pretence, but remains quietly in the monastery; he lives without complaint as a poor man among poor men. Far from regarding, as you say, the first engagements which he made as null and void, he now considers them valid, and accomplishes them all without exception, which, when with you, he failed to do; and this with a regularity and perfect obedience without which he deceives himself who trusts in his stability of place. I entreat you, then, brethren, that your indignation may now be calmed and your inquietude cease. But if otherwise, do what you please, write as you please, persecute me as much as you please; charity endures all things, suffers all things. For I am quite resolved not to abandon on account of this matter the purest affection, the deepest respect, and a brotherly consideration towards you.
Reverendis fratribus Flaviacensibus, abbati H. caeterisque omnibus fratribus, frater BERNARDUS, salutem.
1. Modestiae quidem vestrae erat, o boni fratres, super querimonia vestra priori nostra satisfactione contentos esse debere, et jam ab immeritorum infestatione quiescere. Sed quia prioribus malis pejora junxistis, et rursum nobis jurgiorum seminaria transmisistis (quae absit ut germinent! sicut nec priora germinarunt in nobis), ne tamen, non respondendo, culpam, quae non est, agnoscere videamur, hoc etiam secundo ad ea quae procaciter objicitis, veraciter respondemus. Haec tota nostra culpa est, quantum aestimamus, haec grandis illa injuria quam vobis fecimus, quod monachum, solum, peregrinum, pauperem, miserabilem, animae suae periculum fugitantem, salutem suam sollicite quaerentem, pulsantem, supplicantem suscepimus; seu quod talem, taliter a nobis susceptum, denuo sine causa non ejicimus, ut, quod aedificavimus iterum destruentes, praevaricatores nos constituamus. Hinc Regulae, hinc canonum, hinc ipsius naturalis legis transgressores judicamur. Opponitis enim indignantes, cur vestrum et a vobis excommunicatum nobis sociare praesumpsimus, quod utique ab alio pati nolumus. Sed de excommunicatione quid respondebimus, quando vos inde vobis satisfacitis pro nobis, scientes procul dubio prius a nobis fuisse receptum, quam a vobis excommunicatum? Cum autem prius susceptus, dum tamen regulariter, fuerit, profecto non jam in vestrum, sed in nostrum vestrae maledictionis sententiam intorsistis; quod si recte factum sit, vos videritis.
2. Restat igitur sciendum, et hoc tantum quaeritur inter nos, an rationabiliter susceptus fuerit. Et vos quidem, quoniam de ignoto monasterio monachum regulariter posse suscipi negare non potestis, vestrum nobis notum esse contenditis. Negamus, et non creditis. Verum si non creditis simpliciter negantibus, credite vel jurantibus. In veritate, quae Deus est, vobis dicimus: nec novimus vos, nec noscimus, ignotorum scripta suscepimus, ad ignotos rescripsimus. Sensimus quidem stimulationes et inquietationes vestras, sed necdum stimulatores et inquietatores ipsos agnovimus. Vos tamen ad convincendum nos de simulata ignorantia invictissimum argumentum inducitis, non posse videlicet ignotos esse nobis, quorum et abbatis scilicet et ipsius monasterii nomen in nostris posuimus litteris; quasi mox ut rerum vocabula scimus, etiam res ipsas noverimus. Multum ergo valet mihi Michaelis, Gabrielis, Raphaelis nomina nosse, quando ex solo auditu vocabulorum, etiam de ipsorum beatorum spirituum cognitione jam beatus sum. Non mediocriter, inquam, profeci quia didici ab Apostolo paradisum et tertium coelum nominare, si, etiam non raptus cum Apostolo, solis ex nominibus secreta coelestia jam novi, et audivi ineffabilia verba quae non licet homini loqui. Stultus ego, qui jam sciens nomen Dei mei, nescio quid adhuc superflue quotidie gemo, frustra suspirans et dicens cum Propheta: Vultum tuum, Domine, requiram; et illud: Quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei? et: Ostende nobis faciem tuam, et salvi erimus.
3. Sed quid est quod vobis facimus, quod nobis fieri nolumus? Hoc nos utique nolle putatis, ut quis a nostro monasterio discedens monachus, in alio suscipiatur. Utinam omnes nobis commissos, sine nobis salvare possetis! Si quis de nostris ad vos majoris perfectionis gratia et arctioris vitae desiderio convolaverit, non solum non causamur si ei in tali studio consulitis, sed et multum precamur ut hoc faciatis; nec offensos nos conqueremur, sed valde in hoc adjutos esse fatebimur. Negatis deinde quod de vobis audieramus, vestro scilicet jussu vel assensu fratrem B., quamdiu fuit apud vos, in medicinali arte saecularibus deserviisse; ipsumque, qui hoc dixit, falsitatis arguitis. Si mentitus sit, nescimus; ipse viderit; sed hoc scimus, quia sive per se ipsum, ut vos fatemini, sive per vos, ut ipse testatur, haec fecerit, in magno interim periculo fuit. Quis vero tam inhumanus, qui sic periclitanti non succurreret si posset, non consuleret si nosset? Attamen si, ut asseritis, non compulsus obedientia, sed proprii quaestus cupiditate ac vagandi curiositate, hac illacque artem suam venditans discurrebat, quid causae exstitit quod a vobis discessit? An quia jam tandem censurae pastoralis districtione non ei licebat quod ante licuerat? Cur igitur cum jam apud nos esset, volentes eum revocare, ad persuadendum de reditu promisistis ei quietem in claustro, nisi quia hoc velle hominem noveratis, hoc quaesisse memineratis? At ille, jam adepto apud alienos quod non potuit inter suos, ne certa pro incertis desereret, tenuit quo jam fruebatur, spernens quod sero sibi offerebatur.
4. Desinite itaque, fratres, desinite fratrem sollicitare, de quo non valde necesse est vos sollicitos esse, nisi forte, quod absit! quae vestra, non quae Jesu Christi sunt, quaeratis, et magis vestrum de illo solatium, quam ejus salutem diligatis. Nam cum semper apud vos gyrovagus fuisset, et, ut scribitis, contra suum propositum et abbatis imperium, in proprios usus quod de arte sua conquirebat expenderet, gaudeat qui eum diligit, quod apud nos Deo miserante sanatus sit. Testimonium enim ei perhibemus quod nusquam modo aliqua occasione vagatur, sed quiete perseverans in monasterio, pauper inter pauperes sine querela conversatur, primam fidem, quam quidem apud vos promisit sed non tenuit, non irritam, ut dicitis, faciens, sed ratam integramque custodiens, morum utique conversione, et obedientissima conversatione, sine qua sese fallit qui de loci stabilitate confidit. Rogamus vos, fratres, ut quiescat jam indignatio vestra, et desinat inquietatio nostra. Sin autem, facite quod vultis, scribite ut vultis, persequimini quantum vultis: charitas omnia suffert, omnia sustinet. Nobis autem decretum est ex hoc jam vos pure diligere, reverenter suspicere, familiariter colere.