Letters406 Letter CDVI. To the Abbot of S. Nicholas.
Letter CDVI. To the Abbot of S. Nicholas.
To his valued friend and co-abbot of S. Nicholas, Brother Bernard of Clairvaux wishes health and the spirit of piety.
The enemy of Christ, the devil, has acted according his manner, in seducing a soul: as for me, to whom the man seduced happened to come, I have done what I cPuld, as I always strive to do, to correct and bring him back. There remains therefore, that you should do your 1 A Cistercian monastery in the Diocese of Langres.
2 This was no doubt Simon, Abbot of S. Nicholas des Bois, to whom are addressed Letters 83, 84.
Letter CDVII.
duty likewise; in sustaining him now that he is recovered. God also will one day do that which is His function: in that He will render to everyone according to his works.
To Odo, Abbot of Beaulieu.
Bernard warns him to restore without delay, to a poor man, the deposit received from him.
To his brother and friend Odo, Abbot of the Regular Clerks of Beaulieu, Brother Bernard, the unworthy steward of the monastery of Clairvaux, wishes health.
The deposit of this man, which he says he left with you for safe custody, it is neither good nor honourable of you to detain, if you do detain it.
And inasmuch as he heard of the close friendship which is between you and me, he came to me to pour out his complaints. Permit me then to venture to ask you, without wishing to forget the respect which is due to you, wherefore you did not rather sell the very Chalice from your Altar to silence a complaint which is so compromising, if you had not an ox or a horse which could be disposed of so that the man might receive that which was his own? Think, I entreat you, of what is due to yourself, spare the good name of your House, have respect to the holy season of Lent in which we are, and hasten to render to this poor man what you clearly owe to him, before the matter is more widely known, and you experience the greater shame of being obliged to make restitution.
1 An Abbey of the Order of Premontre, in the Diocese of Troyes.
2 See letter 253.
Dulcissimo amico et coabbati suo de Sancto-Nicolao, frater BERNARDUS de Clara-Valle, spiritum pietatis.
Hostis Christi diabolus fecit morem suum, seducendo christianum; nos quoque, ad quos forte devenit, nihilominus, prout potuimus, fecimus nostrum, corrigendo seductum. Restat itaque, ut et vos, quod vestrum est, faciatis, suscipiendo correctum; et sic omnes in communi speremus, Deum etiam quandoque quod suum est facturum, redditurum scilicet unicuique secundum opera sua.