§ 65. ST. BEKXARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 353
Englishman who flourished in the latter years of Bernard's life and later, speaks in the same breath of Bernard's mir acles and his eloquence.1 But what, to say the least, is equally important, Bernard himself makes reference to them and marvelled at his power. Miracles, he said, had been wrought of old by saintly men and also by deceivers, but he was conscious neither of saintliness nor of fraud.2 He is re ported as recognizing his power, but as being reluctant to speak of it.3 In a letter to the Toulousans, after his visit in their city, he reminded them that the truth had been made manifest in their midst through him, not only in speech but in power.4 And appealing to the signs which had accom panied his preaching the Second Crusade, he speaks of his religious shrinking which forbade his describing them.5
These miracles were performed at different periods of Bernard's life and, as has been said, in different localities. The bishop of Langres, a near relative, says that the first miracle he saw Bernard perform was upon a boy with an ulcer on his foot. In answer to the boy's appeal, Bernard made the sign of the cross and the child was healed. A mother met him carrying her child which had a withered hand and crooked arm. The useless members were restored and the child embraced its mother before the bystanders.6 A boy in Charletre, ten years old, unable to move his head and carried on a pillow, was healed and shown to Bernard four years afterwards.
Sometimes Bernard placed his hand upon the patient, sometimes made the sign of the cross, sometimes offered
U. 24, Wright's ed., p. 20.
2 Ego mihi nee perfectionis conscius sum necfictionis. Vitaprima, III. 7; Migne, 185, 314 sq.
3 Vitaprima, I. 13; Migne, 185, 262.
4 Ep. , 242 ; Migne, 182, 436.
5 Verecundia, de consid. II. 1 ; Migne, 185, 744. The word used here is signa. See also Vitaprima, I. 9; Migne, 185, 252.
6 William of St. Thierry, in Vita prima, I. 9 ; Migne, 185, 253.
2A
354 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
prayer, sometimes used the consecrated wafer or holy water.1 In Milan many persons possessed with evil spirits were healed.2 As for the miracles performed on his tour along the Rhine from Constance and Basel to Cologne, when he was engaged in preaching the Second Crusade, Hermann, bishop of Constance, with nine others kept a record of them, declaring the very stones would cry out if they were not recorded.3 After a sermon at Basel, says Gaufrid, a woman, who was mute, approached Bernard and after he had uttered a prayer, she spoke. A lame man walked and a blind man received his sight.4 Thirty men, moved by the sight of Bernard's healing power, accompanied him back from Ger many to France to take the monastic vow.5
Abielard and his pupil, Berengar, were exceptions to their age in expressing doubts about the genuineness of con temporary miracles, but they do not charge Bernard by name with being self-deceived or deceiving others. Morison, a writer of little enthusiasm, no credulity, and a large amount of cool, critical common sense, says that Bernard's "miracles are neither to be accepted with credulity nor denied with fury.''6 Neander recognized the superior ex cellence of the testimony,7 refused to pronounce a sentence
1 Febricitantibus muUis sanctus manus imponens et aquam benedictam porriyens ad bibendmn, sanitatem obtinuit, etc., Migne, 185, 278.
2 The only case I have found which was not a case of healing in Bernard's miracles occurred at the dedication of the church of Foigny, where the con gregation was pestered by swarms of flies. Bernard pronounced the words of excommunication against them and the next morning they were found dead and people shovelled them out with spades.
8 Vitaprima, VI.; Migne, 185, 374 sqq.
4 Vita prima, IV. 5 sqq.; Migne, 185, 338-359. See Morison's remarks, 372 sqq.
5 A strange story is told of Bernard's throwing dice with a gambler. The stake was Bernard's horse or the gambler's soul. Bernard entered into the proposition heartily and won. The gambler is said to have led a saintly life thereafter. Gesta Itomanorum, Engl. trans, by Swan, p. 317.
6 Life of Bernard, p. 66. Dr. Morison died 1905.
7 Der HeiUge Bernhard, I. 135-141 ; II. 92-95. See also Neander's Ch. Hist , Engl. trans. IV. 256 sq.