THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
cinating power over others; on the other hand, his practical activity excited in him a stronger desire for contemplation and made it the more fruitful for him (De diversis, sermo iii, 3-5).
Of Bernard's quiet hours, in spite of the manypressing claims on him, one part was devoted to study, and his favorite study was the Holy Scripture. His knowledge of the Bible 2. Study of was remarkable; not only does he
the Bible, often quote Bible-passages, but all his orations are impregnated with Biblical references, allusions, and phrases, to pay regard to which is often essential for the correct understanding. It is true that bis exegesis did not go beyond the average of his time, yet he allows the great fundamental thoughts and vital forms of the Holy Scripture to influence him the more. As he was nourished by them he also knew in a masterly manner how to bring them near to others. All qualities of the great preacher were united in him; besides being vitally seized by the grace of God, he had a hearty desire to serve his hearers, an impressive knowledge of the human heart, and a wealth of thoughts and fascinating exposition, which was indeed not free from mannerism. What is missing in his sermons is reference to the variety of the relations of life, and this is intelligible, • because he had monks as his hearers.
Religious geniality is the most distinguishing quality in the whole disposition of Bernard; his other rich gifts serve it, to it is due the impression which he made upon his time, and the importance which he obtained in the history of the Church. At the same time, Bernard is also a child of his time; above all, of the Church of his time, in which his religious life could develop without conflict. In this respect Bernard is related not to Luther, but to Augustine, and between Augustine and him stand Leo I, Nicholas I, and Gregory VII. Thus elements are found in Bernard which point to future developments combined with those which belong only to the ecclesiastical consciousness of the time. Bernard is most deeply permeated by the feeling of owing everything to the grace of God, that on the working of God rests the beginning and end of the state of salvation, and that we are to trust only in his grace, not in our 3. Grace and works and merits. From the for-
Works. giveness of sin proceeds the Christian life (De diversis, sermo iii, 1). Faith is the means by which we lay hold of the grace of God (In vigil, nativ. dornini, v, 5; In Cant., sermo xxii, 8; cf. also In Cant., lxvii, 10; In vigil, nat. dom., sermo ii, 4). Man can never be sure of salvation by resting his hope upon his own righteousness, for all our works always remain imperfect. On the other hand, Bernard does not deny that man can and should have merits, but they are only possible through the preceding and continually working grace of God; they are gifts of God, which again have rewards in the world to come as their fruit, but without becoming a cause of self-glory. Before God there is no legal claim, but an acquisition for eternity through the work of the pious, made possible and directed by God's grace.
A characteristic contrast to these thoughts,
which lead man again and again to humility, is the excessive glorification which Bernard devotes to the saints, above all to the Virgin Mary. Though he opposes (Epist., clxxiv) the new doctrine of her immaculate conception, he nevertheless uses expressions concerning the mother of Jesus which go very far (e.g., In nativ. Beat. Virg. Maria, v, 7; In assumpt. Beat. Virg. Marice, i, 4; In adv. dom., ii, 5). The same concerns also other saints (e.g., In vigil. Petri et Pauli, § § 2, 4, and at the end of the second oration In transitu B. Malachioe). But the importance of such expression which a Protestant consciousness will never be able to adopt is restricted by this, that they are only used on special occasions, such as a feast of the saints. Otherwise the saints stand in the background, Christ alone stands in the foreground.
Bernard has always been regarded as a main representative of Christian mysticism, and his writings have been much used by later mystics and were the main source for the Imitatio Christi. But just here becomes evident how different the phenomena are which are comprised under the name of mysticism. With the Neoplatonic-Dionysian mysticism that of Bernard has some points of contact, but it differs from it as to its religious character. It is known how depreciatingly Luther speaks of the Areopagite, but this animadversion does not concern Bernard's mysticism. It is not man who soars to divine height, but the grace of God in Christ, which first pardons the sin and then lifts up to itself the pardoned sinner. On this account 4. Bernard's the whole mysticism of Bernard Mysticism, centers about Christ, the humbled and exalted one; it likes to dwell upon his earthly appearance, his suffering and death, for it is the " work of redemption " which more than anything else is fit to excite love in the redeemed (In Cant., xx, 2; De grad. hum. in its first chapters). At the same time Bernard perceives that a sensual devotion, as it were, to the suffering of Christ is not the goal with which one must be satisfied; the thing necessary is rather to be filled with the spirit of Christ and through it to become like Christ. By Christ's work of redemption the Church has become his bride. To it, i.e., to the totality of the redeemed, belongs this name first and in a proper sense, to the individual soul only in so far as it is a part of the Church (In Cant., xxvii, 6, 7; lxvii; lxviii, 4, 11). What it receives from him is in the first place mercy and forgiveness of sins, then grace and blessing. The climax of grace is the perfect union, but in the earthly life this is experienced by the pious at the utmost in single moments (De consid., V, ii, 1; De grad. hum., viii; De dilig. Deo, x). When Bernard speaks of becoming one with Christ and with God, his thought is clothed with Biblical expressions; but that Bernard in point of fact does not intend to go beyond the meaning of these words can be seen by reading the explanations (In Cant., lxxi, 7 sqq.), where the union with God, to which the pious soul attains, is most keenly distinguished from a consubstantiality, as it exists between Father and Son in the Trinity. Bernard is entirely free from pantheistic thoughts, and that mysticism does not