§ 65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 343
previous presentations in magazines and brochures. — J. LAGARDERE, Besan9on, 1900. — DEUTSCII, art. Bernhard, in Herzog, II. 623-639. Also H. KUTTER : Wilhelm von St. Thierry, eiu Representant der mittelalterlichen Frommigkeit, Giessen, 1898. For other literature see chapters, Mystical Theology and Hymns.
St. Bernard, 1090-1153, founder and abbot of the convent of Clairvaux, was the model monk of the Middle Ages, the most imposing figure of his time, and one of the best men of all the Christian centuries. He possessed a mag netic personality, a lively imagination, a rich culture, and a heart glowing with love for God and man. Although not free from what might now be called ecclesiastical rigor, he was not equalled by any of his contemporaries in services for the Church and man. " In his countenance," ac cording to the contemporary biographer who knew him well, " there shone forth a pureness not of earth but of heaven, and his eyes had the clearness of an angel's and the mild ness of a dove's eyes."1 There is no spotless saint in this world, and Bernard was furthest from claiming perfection, but he came as near the mediaeval ideal of ascetic holiness as any man of his century.2
In the twelfth century there were at least two other eccle siastics of the first order of genius, Anselm and Innocent III. The former passed away a few years after the century opened. Innocent began his papal reign two years before it went out. Anselm has pre-eminence as a profound theological thinker and dialectician. Innocent ruled the world, as pope never ruled it before or since. Between the two fall the intellectual genius and activity of Bernard,
1 Vitaprima, III. 1 ; Migne, 185, 303. Gaufrid, the biographer, presents an elaborate description of his qualities. He says, Bernard was magnanimus in fide, longanimis in spe, profusus in charitate, summus in humilitate, prcecipuus in pietate. Alanus in Vita secunda, XVII. 47, Migne, 185, 497, gives this high praise, humanissimus in affectione, mag is tamen forte in fide.
2 This was the judgment of Philip Schaff, Literature and Poetry, p. 282. Bernard not seldom used in his letters such expressions as this, Nonne ego puer parvulus, Am I not as a little child? Ep., 365 ; Migne, 182, 570.
344 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
combining some of the qualities of Anselm and Innocent. As a mystical theologian he is allied to Anselm, whose Medi tations give him a high place in the annals of devotional literature. And Bernard was also a statesman, although he did not attain the eminence of Innocent and shrank from participation in public affairs which were so much to the taste of the great pope. Contemporary with himself was Peter Abselard, whose brilliant mind won for him enviable fame as a teacher and thinker. But Abselard never won the confidence of his own age, and is not to be compared with Bernard in moral dignity.
By preference a monk, Bernard figured, with almost equal prominence, in the history of the papacy, the Crusades, mysticism, monasticism, and hymnology. In the annals of monasticism, the pulpit, and devotional literature he easily occupies a place in the front rank. He was called the "honey-flowing doctor," doctor mellifluus. Twenty years after his death he was canonized by Alexander III. as " shin ing pre-eminently in his own person by virtue of sanctity and religion, and in the whole Church by the light of his doctrine and faith." 1 Pius VIII., in 1830, admitted him to the select company of the doctors of the Church. Both Calvin and Luther, who ridiculed the Schoolmen as a body, held him in high regard.2
1 The document is given in Migne, 185, 622 sq.
2 Calvin says, Instt. IV. 2, 11, "in bis de considerations Bernard speaks as though the very truth itself were speaking." Luther, directed to Bernard by Staupitz, studied his works, and often appealed to his words. Kb'stlin, Life of Luther, I. 81. He praised Bernard for not having depended upon his monk's vow, but upon the free grace of Christ for salvation. Denifle, Luther und Lutherthum, I. 56-64, tries to make out that Luther falsified when he represented Bernard as putting aside, as it were, his monastic pro fession as a thing meritorious. Luther, in an animated passage, declared that at the close of his life Bernard had exclaimed, tempus meum perdidi quia perdite vixi, " I have lost my time because I have lived badly, but there is one thing that consoles me, a contrite and broken heart Thou dost not despise." You see, said Luther, how Bernard hung his cowl on the hook and returned to Christ. It seems, according to Denifle, that the two clauses