Letters397 Letter CCCXCVII. To Odo, 1 Abbot of Marmoutiers, near Tours.

The monks of Marmoutiers were striving about certain tithes with the secular clergy: S. Bernard thinks that they ought to submit to the decision of arbitrators.

To the most reverend Father and Lord Odo, by the grace of God, Abbot of Marmoutiers,. and to the Community under his charge, holy and united in the love of Christ, Hugo, Abbot of Pontigny and Bernard of Clairvaux, wish health, and pray that they may walk in the Spirit and seek with all zeal the face of the God of Jacob.

1. Charity, brethren, bids us write to you and for your good, because although we are absent from you, it is only in place not in heart. For the sweet and fragrant odour of your well-known holiness has led our minds to the same desire of your society. But we have seen with deep regret for some time past, that this happiness and peace, which we have shared, has been diminishing day by day. For suddenly a cloud of sinister report has arisen, doubtless from the face of the north wind, and 1 Odo was Abbot from 1124 to 1137.

2 See note on Ep. 165 (E).

covered our faces with confusion, since we were far from expecting to hear of you a thing quite unworthy of your high reputation. Fearing therefore lest both your fame be imperilled and our glorying on your behalf hindered, unless the reports which spread so quickly were replaced by a breeze of happier character; we, by an impulse of fraternal solicitude, have undertaken by this letter to urge upon your Reverences promptly to apply a remedy to the harm done to your reputation by the reports which are daily flying abroad.

We wonder that some of you (for indeed we do not suspect all) have been so simple or so blinded with avarice, as not so spare your own high reputation in preferring the petty offerings of one altar (See note i at end of letter) to the esteem of the world. You ought not, my brethren, you ought not to put on a level with any earthly gain, the testimony to your high character which you have long since deservedly gained, even from those who are without. But perhaps you say: We are doing wrong to none. We are only maintaining our rights, and are ready, if anyone contests them, to submit to the decision of the judge. Very good. But what would you reply if another should answer and say: This is the very fault which is you, that you have lawsuits; why do you not rather suffer wrong? (1 Cor. vi. 7). What if another has also written: “If any have stolen thy goods, seek them not back” and further, If a man strike thee on the right cheek, offer him the left also; to him that taketh thy coat offer also thy cloke (S. Luke vi. 29, 30).

2. These and the like objections we might make to you, we did not prefer to correct rather than to condemn you. But this we say, that it is safer for every Christian and especially for a monk, to possess a little in peace, than much with strife. As we sing: “a small thing that the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly (Ps. xxxvii. 16);. What then is the reason that you strive about the altar and against the sons of Levi, i. e., against the clergy? It is the part of clergy to serve the altar and to live by the altar. Our profession and the example of the monks of old tell us to eat the good of our own labours, and not of the sanctuary of God. Here, it happens that the clergy serve this very church, about which is the present dispute, and you desire to partake with them the recompense, when you have performed none of the duties. Paul claims for the clergy, and Moses did so before him, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn (Deut. xxv. 4) again: Who planieth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof; or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock r (1 Cor. ix. 9).

But we ask you, on the contrary, “with what boldness, O monks, do you claim wine from a vineyard you have not planted, or milk from a flock which you have not fed? by what agreement do you make a demand where you have given nothing? Certainly if you will, baptize the infants, bury the dead, visit the sick, unite those that will be married, teach the ignorant, rebuke sinners, excommunicate the scornful, absolve the penitent, reconcile the sorrowful; in a word, let a monk, though it is his part to sit still and be silent, open his mouth in the midst of the church, then perchance will also the labourer prove himself worthy of his hire. But it is a hateful thing to wish to reap where you have not sown: while to gather what another has sown, is absolutely unjust.”

3. Yet let that pass: it is permitted by the gift of the Bishop, and no wrong must be considered to have been done, when it is sanctioned by a lawful investiture. However, what are you doing respecting your agreement? Now that the canons are exclaiming and complaining, if we mistake not, of injury done to them, you will not deny that you have allowed your cause to be placed in the hands of the Bishop of Chartres as well as of Count T., so that whatever reparation is assigned by the judgment of these two, either party will be finally bound by it. That is the best and wisest course. Such mediators have been chosen,- and you may have full confidence, not only in their well-proved integrity, but also as we know, in their private kindness of feeling towards you.

What, therefore, good men and your own friends have determined on both kindly and faithfully for restoring peace, why do you not abide by?

Are they to be thought not to have acted faithfully because the award seems not equitable, in that it gives the wealth of the greater to the less? So it may seem indeed, to one who seeks only his own advantage, one who values his coins more than his friends, wealth more than justice, earthly possessions more than brotherly love. If you were of the world, and the world loved that which was her own; that would seem neither wonderful nor unexampled, but now the sons of light and peace, love darkness rather than light, things temporal better than peace. Such as these the lament of the prophet bewails: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills (Lam. iv. 5).

4. Are we not right, they say, not to accept an award which is against our interests? But suppose that it had been against the interests of the other side? The matter then should be decided with equal and just determination. Yet this warning ought to have been given before the agreement was made. For where there is no law, there can be no breach of it. Now that you have given your adhesion, it is no longer a question of your interests, but of the terms of the agreement. What have you to say to this, and why do you make difficulties? When you object to the decision of the arbitrators you show yourselves as turbulent, unfaithful and breakers of covenant. Either deny the agreement or fulfil it.

What then? You do not deny the agreement, but you evade it, and lay the blame on the Bishop, as if he had not acted fairly with you; but had taken you with craft and guile, and led you into that agreement which now you deplore? You can say so: but it will be wonderful if you persuade anyone of it, even if you believe it yourselves. By no means, they say; but what was done without our consent, that is, without the consent of the whole Chapter ought not to stand. What? ought not that which the Abbot has determined with the consent of the elders to stand, if you do not all agree? Either you do not regard or you despise that plain sentence about this very thing in your Rules. For it decrees that when the brethren are called to Council, they shall one by one answer what they think, provided that they shall not presume to defend their answers: but when the Abbot shall have heard the opinions of each, whatever he pleases to determine all shall acquiesce in without contradiction.” 1 If therefore in arranging all things the authority of the Abbot be decisive, the Rule prescribing it, because on the opinion of the Abbot hangs all the management of the monastery; it is evident that you are proving yourselves disobedient and rebellious, who are trying to overthrow an agreement that the Abbot has made, and acting against his will. Unless indeed he has said from his heart, that what he has openly established and determined, he secretly destroys through his monks, and thus constitutes himself also a covenant breaker. Which be it Rule of S. Benedict, C. 3.

far from us to believe. For even to suspect so good a man of such a thing, is evil. For that suspicion of some who, more than befits honest people, were seeking evil where none is to be found, does not affect us, when they think that without sinning of this kind there can be no agreements between churches. But, as you inquire very anxiously, we judge that this matter has been satisfactorily dealt with by the answer of catholic and learned men; or even if it should not be so, we are ready to declare on the authority of the canons that as exchanges may be rightly made in ecclesiastical properties, so they seem to be right for churches. These views we express in order to put to silence those who presumptuously introducing themselves into matters which concern them not, are always ready to stir up strife and disorder. 1