Chapter XVII: The Quality of Love in Saint Bernard

Through the prodigious power of his personality, St. Bernard gave new life to monasticism, promoted the reform of the secular clergy and the suppression of heresy, ended a papal schism, set on foot the Second Crusade, and for a quarter of a century swayed Christendom as never holy man before or after him. An adequate account of his career would embrace the entire history of the first half of the twelfth century.[472]

The man who was to move men with his love, and quell the proud with fear, had, as a youth, a graceful figure, a sweet countenance, and manners the most winning. Later in life he is spoken of as cheerfully bearing reproaches, but shamefaced at praise, and his gentle manners are again mentioned.

“As a helpmeet for his holy spirit, God made his body to conform. In
his flesh there was visible a certain grace, but spiritual rather than
of the flesh. A brightness not of earth shone in his look; there was
an angelic purity in his eyes, and a dove-like simplicity. The beauty
of the inner man was so great that it would burst forth in visible
tokens, and the outer man would seem bathed from the store of inward
purity and copious grace. His frame was of the slightest
(_tenuissimum_), and most spare of flesh; a blush often tinged the
delicate skin of his cheeks. And a certain natural heat (_quidquid
caloris naturalis_) was in him, arising from assiduous meditation and
penitent zeal. His hair was bright yellow, his beard reddish with
some white hairs toward the end of his life. Actually of medium
stature, he looked taller.”[473]

This same biography says:

“He who had set him apart, from his mother’s womb, for the work of a
preacher, had given him, with a weak body, a voice sufficiently strong
and clear. His speech, whatever persons he spoke to for the edifying
of souls, was adapted to his audience; for he knew the intelligence,
the habits and occupations of each and all. To country folk he spoke
as if born and bred in the country; and so to other classes, as it he
had been always occupied with their business. He was learned with the
erudite, and simple with the simple, and with spiritual men rich in
illustrations of perfection and wisdom. He adapted himself to all,
desiring to gain all for Christ.”[474]

Bernard was born of noble parents at the Chateau of Fontaines, near Dijon, in the year 1090, and was educated in a church school at Chatillon on the Seine. It is an ofttold story, how, when little more than twenty years of age, he drew together a band formed of his own brothers, his uncle, and his friends, and led them to Citeaux,[475] his ardent soul unsatisfied so long as one held back. Three years later, in 1115, the Abbot, Stephen Harding, entrusted him with the headship of the new monastery, to be founded in the domains of the Count of Troyes. Bernard set forth with twelve companions, came to Clara Vallis on the river Aube, and placed his convent in that austere solitude.

Great were the attractions of Clairvaux (Clara Vallis) under Bernard’s vigorous and loving rule. Its monks increased so rapidly and so constantly that during its founder’s life sixty-five bands were sent forth to rear new convents. Meanwhile, Bernard’s activities and influence widened, till they seemed to compass western Christendom. He had become a power in the politics of Church and State. In 1130 he was summoned by Louis le Gros practically to determine the claims of the rival Popes Innocent II. and Anacletus II. He decided for the former, and was the chief instrument of his eventual reinstatement at Rome. Before this Bernard’s health had been broken by his extreme austerities. Yet even the lamentable failure of the Second Crusade, zealously promoted by him, did not break his power over Europe, which continued unimpaired until his death in 1153.

This active and masterful man was impelled by those elements of the _vita contemplativa_ which formed his inner self. First and last and always he was a monk. Had he not been the very monk he was, he would not have been the dominator of men and situations that he proved himself to be. Temperament fashions the objects of contemplation, and shapes the yearning and aversions, of great monks. The temperamental element of love--the love of God and man, with its appurtenant detestations--made the heart of Bernard’s _vita contemplativa_, and impassioned and empowered his active faculties. It was the keynote of his life: in his letters it speaks in words of fire, while other writings of the saint analyze this great human quality with profundity and truth. In these he renders explicit the modes of affection which man may have for man and above all for God; he sets them forth as the path as well as goal of life on earth, and then as the rapt summit of attainment in the life to come. Through all its stages, as it flows from self to fellow, as it rises from man to God, love still is love, and forms the unifying principle among men and between them and God.

Let us trace in his letters the nature and the power of Bernard’s love, and see with what yearning he loved his fellows, seeking to withdraw them from the world; and how his love strove to be as sword and armour against the flesh and the devil. By easy transition we shall pass to Bernard’s warning wrath, flung against those who would turn the struggling soul aside, or threaten the Church’s peace; then by more arduous, but still unbroken stages, we may rise to the love of Jesus, and through love of the God-man to love of God. We shall realize at the close why that last mediaeval assessor of destinies, whose name was Dante Alighieri, selected St. Bernard as the exponent of the blessed vision which is salvation’s crown in the paradise of God.[476]

The way of life at Clara Vallis might discourage monks of feeble zeal. Among the brethren of these early days was one named Robert, a cousin of the Abbot, seemingly of weak and petulant disposition. Soon he fled, to seek a softer cell in Cluny, the great and rich monastery to which his parents appear to have dedicated him in childhood. For a while Bernard suppressed his grief; but the day came when he could endure no longer Robert’s abandonment of his soul’s safety and of the friend who yearned for him. He stole out of the monastery, accompanied by a monk named William. There, in the open (_sub dio_), Bernard dictated a long letter to be sent to the deserter. While the two were busy, the one dictating, the other writing, a rainstorm broke upon them. William wished to stop. “It is God’s work; write and fear not,” said Bernard. So William wrote on, in the midst of the rain; but no drop fell on him or the parchment; for the power of love which dictated the letter preserved the parchment on which it was being written.[477]

Whoever has read this letter in its own fervent Latin will not care to dispute this miracle, for which it stands first in the collection of Bernard’s correspondence. Bernard does not recriminate or argue in it; his love shall bring the young monk back to him. Yes, yes, he says to all that the other has urged regarding fancied slights and persecution:

“Quite right; I admit it. I am not writing in order to contend, but to
end contention. To flee persecution is no fault in him who flees, but
in him who pursues; I do not deny it. I pass over what has happened; I
do not ask why or how it happened. I do not discuss faults, I do not
dispute as to the circumstances, I have no memory for injuries. I
speak only what is in my heart. Wretched me, that I lack thee, that I
do not see thee, that I am living without thee, for whom to die would
be to live; without whom to live, is to die. I ask not why thou hast
gone away; I complain only that thou dost not return. Come, and there
shall be peace; return, and all shall be made good.

“It was certainly my fault that thou didst go away. I was too austere
with thy young years, and treated thee inhumanly. So thou saidst when
here, and so I hear thou dost still reproach me. But that shall not be
imputed to thee. I never meant it harshly, I was only indiscreet. Now
thou wilt find me different, and I thee. Where before thou didst fear
the master, thou shalt now embrace the companion. Do not think that I
will not excuse any fault of thine. Dost thou wish to be quite free
from fault? then return. If thou wilt forget thy fault I will pardon
it; also pardon thou me, and I too will forget my fault.”

Bernard then argues long and passionately against those who had led the young man away and received him with such blandishments at Cluny; and passionately he argues against the insidious softening of monastic principles.

“Arise, soldier of Christ, arise, shake off the dust, return to the
battle whence thou hast fled, and more bravely shalt thou fight and
more gloriously triumph. Christ has many soldiers who bravely began,
stood fast and conquered; He has few who have turned from flight and
renewed the combat. Everything rare is precious; and thou among that
rare company shalt the more radiantly shine.

“Thou art fearful? so be it; but why dost thou fear where there is no
fear, and why dost thou not fear where everything is to be feared?
Because thou hast fled from the battle-line, dost thou think to have
escaped the foe? It is easier for the Adversary to pursue a fugitive
than to bear himself against manful defence. Secure, arms cast aside,
thou takest thy morning slumbers, the hour when Christ will have
arisen! The multitude of enemies beset the house, and thou sleepest.
Is it safer to be caught alone and sleeping, than armed with others in
the field? Arouse thee, seize thy arms, and escape to thy
fellow-soldiers. Dost thou recoil at the weight of thy arms, O
delicate soldier! Before the enemy’s darts the shield is no burden,
nor the helmet heavy. The bravest soldiers tremble when the trumpet is
heard before the battle is joined; but then hope of victory and fear
of defeat make them brave. How canst thou tremble, walled round with
the zeal of thy armed brethren, angels bearing aid at thy right hand,
and thy leader Christ? There shalt thou safely fight, secure of
victory. O battle, safe with Christ and for Christ! In which there is
no wound or defeat or circumvention so long as thou fleest not. Only
flight loses the victory, which death does not lose. Blessed art thou,
and quickly to be crowned, dying in battle. Woe for thee, if
recoiling, thou losest at once the victory and the crown--which may He
avert, my beloved son, who in the Judgment will award thee deeper
damnation because of this letter of mine if He finds thee to have
taken no amendment from it.”

“It is God’s work,” said Bernard to the hesitating scribe. These words suggest the character of the love which inspired this letter. He loved Robert as man yearns for man; but his motive was to do God’s will, and win the young man back to salvation. In after years this young man returned to Clara Vallis.

It was Bernard’s lot to write many letters urging procrastinators to fulfil their vows,[478] or appealing to those who had laid aside the arms of austerity, perhaps betaking themselves to the more worldly life of the secular clergy. This seems to have been the case with a young canon Fulco, whom an ambitious uncle sought to draw back to the world, or at least to a career of sacerdotal emolument. In fact, Fulco at last became an archdeacon; from which it may be inferred that in his case Bernard’s appeal was not successful. He had poured forth his arguments in an ardent letter.[479] Love compels him to use words to make the recipient grieve; for love would have him feel grief, that he might no longer have true cause for grief--good mother love, who can cherish the weak, exercise those who have entered upon their course, or quell the restless, and so show herself differently toward her sons, all of whom she loves. This letter, like the one to Robert, concludes with a burning peroration:

“What dost thou in the city, dainty soldier? Thy fellows whom thou
hast deserted, fight and conquer; they storm heaven (_coelum rapiunt_)
and reign, and thou, sitting on thy palfrey (_ambulatorem_), clothed
in purple and fine linen, goest ambling about the highways!”

Bernard also wrote letters of consolation to parents whose sons had become monks, or letters of warning to those who sought to withdraw a monk from his good fight. In one instance, his influence had made a monk of a youth of gentle birth named Godfrey, to his parents’ grief. So Bernard writes to them:

“If God makes your son His also, what have you lost, or he? He, from
rich, becomes richer, from being noble, still more illustrious, and
what is more than all, from a sinner he becomes a saint. It behoved
him to be made ready for the Kingdom prepared for him from the
foundation of the world, and for this reason it is well for him to
spend with us his short span of days, so that clean from the filth of
living in the world, earth’s dust shaken off, he may become fit for
the heavenly mansion. If you love him you will rejoice that he goes to
his Father, and such a Father! He goes to God, but you do not lose
him; rather through him you gain many sons. For all of us who belong
to Clara Vallis have taken him to be our brother and you for our
parents.

“Perhaps you fear this hard life for his tender body--that were to
fear where there is nothing to fear. Have faith and be comforted. I
will be a father to him and he shall be my son until from my hands the
Father of Mercies and God of all consolation shall receive him. Do not
grieve; do not weep; your Godfrey is hastening to joy, not to sorrow.
A father to him will I be, a mother too, a brother and a sister. I
will make the crooked ways straight, and the steep places plain. I
will so temper and provide for him that as his spirit profits, his
body shall not want. So shall he serve the Lord in joy and gladness,
and shall sing before Him, How great is the glory of the Lord.”[480]

Young Godfrey was a daintily nurtured plant. For all the Abbot’s eloquence he did not stay in Clara Vallis. The world drew him back. It was now for the saint to weep:

“I grieve over thee, my son Godfrey; I grieve over thee. And with
reason. For who would not lament that the flower of thy youth which,
to the joy of angels, thou didst offer unsullied to God in the odour
of sweetness, is now trampled on by demons, defiled with sins, and
contaminated by the world. How could you, who were called by God,
follow the devil recalling thee? How could you, whom He had begun to
draw to Himself, withdraw your foot from the very entry upon glory? In
thee I see the truth of those words: ‘A man’s foes are they of his own
household.’ Thy friends and neighbours drew near and stood up against
thee. They called thee back into the jaws of the lion and the gates of
death. They have set thee in darkness, like the dead; and thou art
nigh to go down into the belly of hell, which now is ravening to
devour thee.

“Turn back, I say, turn back, before the abyss swallows you and the
pit closes its mouth, before you are engulfed whence you shall not
escape, before, bound hand and foot, you are cast into outer darkness
where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, before you are hurled
into darkness, shut in with the darkness of death.

“Perhaps you blush to return, where you have only now fallen away.
Blush for flight, and not for turning to renew the combat. The
conflict is not ended; the hostile arrays have not withdrawn from each
other. We would not conquer without you, nor do we envy you your share
of the glory. Joyful we will run to thee, and receive thee in our
arms, crying: ‘It is meet to make merry and be glad; for this our son
was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.’”[481]

Who knows whether this letter brought back the little monk? Bernard wrote so lovingly to him, so gently to his parents. He could write otherwise, and show himself insensible to this world’s pestering tears. To the importunate parents of a monk named Elias, who would drag him away from Clara Vallis, Bernard writes in their son’s name thus:

“To his dear parents, Ingorranus and Iveta, Elias, monk but sinner,
sends daily prayers.

“The only cause for which it is permitted not to obey parents is God;
for He said: ‘Whoso loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy
of me.’ If you truly love me as good and faithful parents, why do you
molest my endeavour to please the Father of all, and attempt to
withdraw me from the service of Him, to serve whom is to reign? For
this I ought not to obey you as parents, but regard you as enemies. If
you loved me, you would rejoice, because I go to my Father and yours.
But what is there between you and me? What have I from you save sin
and misery? And indeed the corruptible body which I carry I admit I
have from you. Is it not enough that you brought miserable me into the
misery of this hateful world? that you, sinners, in your sin produced
a sinner? and that him born in sin, in sin you nourished? Envying the
mercy which I have obtained from Him who desireth not the death of a
sinner, would you make me a child of hell?

“O harsh father! savage mother! parents cruel and impious--parents!
rather destroyers, whose grief is the safety of the child, whose
consolation is the death of their son! who would drag me back to the
shipwreck which I, naked, escaped; who would give me again to the
robbers when through the good Samaritan I am a little recovering from
my wounds.

“Cease then, my parents,” concludes the letter after many other
reproofs, “cease to afflict yourselves with vain weeping and to
disquiet me. No messengers you send will force me to leave. Clara
Vallis will I never forsake. This is my rest, and here shall be my
habitation. Here will I pray without ceasing for my sins and yours;
here with constant prayer will I implore that He whose love has
separated us for a little while, will join us in another life happy
and inseparable,--in whose love we may live forever and ever.
Amen.”[482]

If Bernard was severe toward those who threatened some loved person’s weal, his anger burned more fiercely against those whom he deemed enemies of God. Heavy was his hand upon the evils of the Church: “The insolence of the clergy--to which the bishop’s neglect is mother--troubles the earth and molests the Church. The bishops give what is holy to the dogs, and pearls to swine.”[483]

Likewise, fearlessly but with restraint arising from his respect for all power ordained of God, Bernard opposes kings. Thus he writes to Louis the Fat, in regard to the election of a bishop, with many protests, however, that he would not oppose the royal power--for which we note his reason: “If the whole world conspired to force me to do aught against kingly majesty, yet would I fear God, and would not dare to offend the king ordained by Him. For neither do I forget where I read that whosoever resisteth power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” But--but--but--continues the letter, through many qualifyings which are also admonitions. At last come the words: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, even for thee, O king.” Thereupon the saint does not fail to speak his mind.[484]

Bernard’s fiercest denunciations were reserved for heretics and schismatics, for Abaelard, for Arnold of Brescia, for the Antipope Anacletus--were they not enemies of God? Clearly the saint saw and understood these men from his point of view. Thus in a letter to Innocent II.[485] he sums up his attitude towards Abaelard: “Peter Abaelard is trying to make void the merit of Christian faith, when he deems himself able by human reason to comprehend God altogether. He ascends to the heavens and descends even to the abyss! Nothing may hide from him in the depths of hell or in the heights above! The man is great in his own eyes--this scrutinizer of Majesty and fabricator of heresies.” Here was the gist of the matter. That a man should be great in his own eyes, apart from God, and teach others so, stirred Bernard’s bowels.[486]

Of Arnold, the impetuous clerical revolutionist and pupil of Abaelard, Bernard writes with fury: “Arnold of Brescia, whose speech is honey and whose teaching poison, whom Brescia vomited forth, Rome abhorred, France repelled, Germany abominates, Italy will not receive, is said to be with you.”[487] Again, Bernard rejoices with great joy when he hears that the anti-pope who divided Christendom was dead.[488]

It is pleasant to turn back to Bernard’s lovingness and mercy. His God would not condemn those who repented; and the saint can be gentle toward sinners possibly repentant. He urges certain monks to receive back an erring brother: “Take him back then, you who are spiritual, in the spirit of gentleness; let love be confirmed in him, and let good intention excuse the evil done. Receive back with joy him whom you wept as lost.”[489] In another letter he urges a countess to be more lenient with her children;[490] and there is a story of his begging a robber from the hands of the executioners, and leading him to Clara Vallis, where he became at length a holy man.[491]

So one sees Bernard’s severity, his gentle mercy, and the love burning within him for his fellows’ good. Such were the emotions of Bernard the saint. The man’s human heart could also yearn, and feel bereavement in spite of faith. As his zeal draws him from land to land, he is home-sick for Clara Vallis. From Italy, in 1137, fighting to crush the anti-pope, a letter carries his yearning love to his dear ones there:

“Sad is my soul, and not to be consoled, until I may return. For what
consolation save you in the Lord have I in an evil time and in the
place of my pilgrimage? Wherever I go, your sweet recollection does
not leave me; but the sweeter the memory the more vexing is the
absence. Alas! my wandering not only is prolonged but aggravated. Hard
enough is exile from the Lord, which is common to us all while we are
pilgrims in the body. But I endure a special exile also, compelled to
live away from you.

“For a third time my bowels are torn from me.[492] Those little
children are weaned before the time; the very ones whom I begot
through the Gospel I may not educate. I am forced to abandon my own,
and care for the affairs of others; and it is not easy to say whether
to be dragged from the former, or to be involved in the latter is
harder to bear. Thus, O good Jesus, my whole life is spent in grief
and my years in groaning! It is good for me, O Lord, to die, rather
than to live and not among my brothers, my own household, my own
dearest ones.”[493]

Bernard had a younger brother, Gerard, whom he deeply loved. In 1138 he died while still young, and having recently returned with Bernard from Italy. Bernard, dry-eyed, read the burial-service over his body; so says his biographer wondering, for the saint was not wont to bury even strangers without tears.[494] No other eyes were dry at that funeral. Afterwards he preached a sermon;[495] it began with restraint, then became a long cry of grief.

The saint took the text from Canticles where he had left off in his previous sermon--“I am black, but comely, as the tents of Kedar.” He proceeded to expound its meaning: the tents are our bodies, in which we pilgrims dwell and carry on our war. Then he spoke of other portions of the text--and suddenly deferred the whole subject till his next sermon: Grief ordains an end, “and the calamity which I suffer.”

“For why dissemble, or conceal the fire which is scorching my sad
breast? What have I to do with this Song, I who am in bitterness? The
power of grief turns my intent, and the anger of the Lord has parched
my spirit. I did violence to my soul and dissembled till now, lest
sorrow should seem to conquer faith. Others wept, but with dry eyes I
followed the hateful funeral, and dry-eyed stood at the tomb, until
all the solemnities were performed. In my priestly robes I finished
the prayers, and sprinkled the earth over the body of my loved one
about to become earth. Those who looked on, weeping, wondered that I
did not. With such strength as I could command, I resisted and
struggled not to be moved at nature’s due, at the fiat of the
Powerful, at the decree of the Just, at the scourge of the Terrible,
at the will of the Lord. But though tears were pressed back, I could
not command my sadness; and grief, suppressed, roots deeper. I confess
I am beaten. My sorrow will out before the eyes of my children who
understand and will console.

“You know, my sons, how just is my grief. You know what a comrade has
left me in the path wherein I was walking. He was my brother in blood
and still closer by religion. I was weak in body, and he carried me;
faint-hearted, and he comforted me; lazy, and he spurred me;
thoughtless, and he admonished me. Whither art thou snatched away,
snatched from my hands! O bitter separation, which only death could
bring; for living, thou wouldst never leave me. Why did we so love,
and now have lost each other! Hard state, but my fortune, not his, is
to be pitied. For thou, dear brother, if thou hast lost dear ones,
hast gained those who are dearer. Me only this separation wounds.
Sweet was our presence to each other, sweet our consorting, sweet our
colloquy; I have lost these joys; thou hast but changed them. Now,
instead of such a worm as me, thou hast the presence of Christ. But
what have I in place of thee? And perhaps though thou knewest us in
the flesh, now that thou hast entered into the power of the Lord, thou
art mindful only of His righteousness, forgetting us.

“I seem to hear my brother saying: ‘Can a woman forget her sucking
child; even so, yet will I not forget thee.’ That does not help, where
no hand is stretched out.”

Bernard speaks of Gerard’s unfailing helpfulness to him and every one, and of his piety and religious life. He feels the cares of his life and station closing around him, and his brother gone. Then he justifies his grief, and pours it forth unrestrained. Would any one bid him not to weep? as well tell him not to feel when his bowels were torn from him; he feels, for his flesh is not brass; he grieves, and his grief is ever before him:

“I confess my sorrow. Will some one call me carnal? Certainly I am
human, since I am a man. Nor do I deny being carnal, for I am, and
sold under sin, adjudged to death and punishment. I am not insensible
to punishments; I shudder at death, my own or others’. Mine was
Gerard, mine! He is gone, and I feel, and am wounded, grievously!

“Pardon me, my sons; or rather lament your father’s state. Pity me,
and think how grievously I have been requited for my sins by the hand
of God. Though I feel the punishment, I do not impugn the sentence.
This is human; that would be impious. Man must needs be affected
towards those dear to him, with gladness at their presence, with
sorrow at their absence. I grieve over thee, Gerard, my beloved, not
because thou art to be pitied, but because thou art taken away. May it
be that I have not lost thee, but sent thee on before! Be it granted
me some time to follow whither thou art gone; for thou hast joined the
company of those heavenly ones on whom in thy last hours thou didst
call exultingly to praise the Lord. For thee death had no sting, nor
any fear. Through his jaws Gerard passed to his Fatherland safe and
glad and exulting. When I reached his side, and he had finished the
psalm, looking up to heaven, he said in a clear voice: ‘Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Then saying over again and again the
word, ‘Father, Father,’ he turned his joyful face to me, and said:
‘What great condescension that God should be father to men! What glory
for men to be sons of God and heirs of God!’ So he rejoiced, till my
grief was almost turned to a song of gladness.

“But the pang of sorrow calls me back from that lovely vision, as care
wakens one from light slumber. I grieve, but only over myself; I
lament his loss to this household, to the poor, to all our Order; whom
did he not comfort with deed and word and example? Grievously am I
afflicted, because I love vehemently. And let no one blame my tears;
for Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb. His tears bore witness to His
nature, not to His lack of faith. So these tears of mine; they show my
sorrow, not my faithlessness. I grieve, but do not murmur. Lord, I
will sing of thy mercy and righteousness. Thou gavest Gerard; thou
hast taken him. Though we grieve that he is gone, we thank thee for
the gift.

“I bear in mind, O Lord, my pact and thy commiseration, that thou
mightest the more be justified in thy word. For when last year we were
in Viterbo, and he fell sick, and I was afflicted at the thought of
losing him in a strange land and not bringing him back to those who
loved him, I prayed to thee with groans and tears: ‘Wait, O Lord,
until our return. When he is restored to his friends, take him, if
thou wilt, and I will not complain.’ Thou heardest me, God; he
recovered; we finished the work thou hadst laid on us, and returned in
gladness bringing our sheaves of peace. Then I was near to forget my
pact, but not so thou. I shame me of these sobs, which convict me of
prevarication. Thou hast recalled thy loan, thou hast taken again what
was thine. Tears set an end to words; thou, O Lord, wilt set to them
limit and measure.”[496]

We may now turn to Bernard’s love of God, and rise with him from the fleshly to the spiritual, from the conditioned to the absolute. There is no break; love is always love. More especially the love of Christ, the God-man is the mediating term: He presents the Godhead in human form; to love Him is to know a love attaching to both God and man.

Guigo, Prior of the “Grande Chartreuse,” whose _Meditations_ have been given,[497] was Bernard’s friend, and wrote to him upon love. Bernard replies: “While I was reading it, I felt sparks in my breast, from which my heart glowed within me as from that fire which the Lord sent upon the earth!” He hesitates to suggest anything to Guigo’s fervent spirit, as he would hesitate to rouse a bride quiet in the bridegroom’s arms. Yet “what I do not dare, love dares; it boldly knocks at a friend’s door, fearing no repulse, and quite careless of disturbing your delightful ease with its affairs.” Bernard is here speaking of love’s importunate devotion; his words characterize the soul’s importuning of God:

“I should call love undefiled because it keeps nothing of its own.
Indeed it has nothing of its own, for everything which it has is
God’s. The undefiled law of the Lord is love, which seeks not what
profits itself but what profits many. It is called the law of the
Lord, either because He lives by it, or because no one possesses it
save by His gift. It is not irrational to speak of God as living by
law, that law being love. Indeed in the blessed highest Trinity what
preserves that highest ineffable unity, except love?”

So far, Bernard has been using the word _charitas_. Now, in order to indicate love’s desire, he begins to use the words _cupiditas_ and _amor_.[498] When these yearning qualities are rightly guided by God’s grace, what is good will be cherished for the sake of what is better, the body will be loved for the soul’s sake, the soul for God’s sake, and God for His own sake.

“Yet because we are of the flesh (_carnales_) and are begotten through
the flesh’s concupiscence, our yearning love (_cupiditas vel amor
noster_) must begin from the flesh; yet if rightly directed, advancing
under the leadership of grace, it will be consummated in spirit. For
that which is first is not spiritual, but that which is natural
(_animale_); then that which is spiritual. First man loves (_diligit_)
himself for his own sake. For he is flesh, and is able to understand
nothing beyond himself. When he sees that he cannot live
(_subsistere_) by himself alone, he begins, as it were from necessity,
to seek and love God. Thus, in this second stage, he loves God, but
only for his own sake. Yet as his necessities lead him to cultivate
and dwell with God in thinking, reading, praying, and obeying, God
little by little becomes known and becomes sweet. Having thus tasted
how sweet is the Lord, he passes to the third stage, where he loves
God for God’s sake. Whether any man in this life has perfectly
attained the fourth stage, where he loves himself for God’s sake, I do
not know. Let those say who have knowledge; for myself, I confess it
seems impossible. Doubtless it will be so when the good and faithful
servant shall have entered into the joy of his Lord, and shall be
drunk with the flowing richness of God’s house. Then oblivious to
himself, he will pass to God and become one spirit with Him.”[499]

So one sees the stages through which love of self and lust of fellow become love of God. A responsive emotion attends each ascending step in the saint’s intellectual apprehension of love--as one should bear in mind while following the larger exposition of the theme in Bernard’s _De deligendo Deo_.[500]

The cause and reason for loving God is God; the _mode_ is to love without measure: “Causa diligendi Deum, Deus est; modus, sine modo diligere.” Should we love God because of His desert, or our advantage? For both reasons. On the score of His desert, because He first loved us. What stint shall there be to my love of Him who is my life’s free giver, its bounteous administrator, its kind consoler, its solicitous ruler, its redeemer, eternal preserver and glorifier? On the other hand, “God is not loved without reward; but He should be loved without regard to the reward. _Charitas_ seeks not its own. It is affection and not a contract; it is not bought, nor does it buy. _Amor_ is satisfied with itself. It has the reward, which is what is loved. True love demands no reward, but merits one. The reward, although not sought by the lover, is due him, and will be rendered if he perseveres.”

Bernard proceeds to expound the four stages or grades (_gradus_) of love:

“Love is a natural affection, one of the four.[501] As it exists by
nature, it should diligently serve the Author of nature first of all.
But as nature is frail and weak, love is compelled by necessity first
to serve itself. This is carnal love, whereby, above everything, man
loves himself for his own sake. It is not set forth by precept, but is
rooted in nature; for who hates his own flesh? As love becomes more
ready and profuse, it is not content with the channel of necessity,
but will pour forth and overspread the broad fields of pleasure. At
once the overflow is bridled by the command, ‘Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.’ This is just and needful, lest what is part of
nature should have no part in grace. A man may concede to himself what
he will, so long as he is mindful to provide the same for his
neighbour. The bridle of temperance is imposed on thee, O man, out of
the law of life and discipline, in order that thou shouldst not follow
thy desires, nor with the good things of nature serve the enemy of the
soul, which is lust. If thou wilt turn away from thy pleasures, and be
content with food and raiment, little by little it will not so burden
thee to keep thy love from carnal desires, which war against the soul.
Thy love will be temperate and righteous when what is withdrawn from
its own pleasures is not denied to its brother’s needs. Thus carnal
love becomes social when extended to one’s kind.

“Yet in order that perfect justice should exist in the love of
neighbour, God must be regarded (_Deum in causa haberi necesse est_).
How can one love his neighbour purely who does not love in God? God
makes Himself loved, He who makes all things good. He who founded
nature so made it that it should always need to be sustained by Him.
In order that no creature might be ignorant of this, and arrogate for
himself the good deeds of the Creator, the Founder wisely decreed that
man should be tried in tribulations. By this means, when he shall have
failed and God have aided, God shall be honoured by him whom He has
delivered. The result is that man, animal and carnal, who knew not how
to love any one beside himself, begins for his own sake to love God;
because he has found out that in God he can accomplish everything
profitable, and without Him can do nothing.

“So now for his own interest, he loves God--love’s second grade; but
does not yet love God for God’s sake. If, however, tribulation keeps
assailing him, and he continually turns to God for aid, and God
delivers him, will not the man so oft delivered, though he have a
breast of iron and a heart of stone, be drawn to cherish his
deliverer, and love Him not only for His aid but for Himself? Frequent
necessities compel man to come to God incessantly; repeatedly he
tastes and, by tasting, proves how sweet is the Lord. At length God’s
sweetness, rather than human need, draws the man to love Him.
Thereafter it will not be hard for the man to fulfil the command to
love his neighbour. Truly loving God, he loves for this reason those
who are God’s. He loves chastely, and is not oppressed through obeying
the chaste command; he loves justly, and willingly embraces the just
command. That is the third grade of love, when God is loved for
Himself.

“Happy is he who attains to the fourth grade, where man loves himself
only on account of God. Thy righteousness, O God, is as the mountain
of God; love is that mountain, that high mountain of God. Who shall
ascend into the mountain of the Lord? Who will give me the wings of a
dove and I will fly away and be at rest. Alas! for my long-drawn
sojourning! When shall I gain that habitation in Zion, and my soul
become one spirit with God? Blessed and holy will I call him to whom
in this mortal life such has been given though but once. For to be
lost to self and not to feel thyself, and to be emptied of thyself and
almost to be made nothing, that pertains to heavenly intercourse, not
to human affection. And if any one among mortals here gain admission
for an instant, at once the wicked world is envious, the day’s evil
disturbs, the body of death drags down, fleshly necessity solicits,
corruption’s debility does not sustain, and, fiercest of all,
brotherly love calls back! Alas! he is dragged back to himself, and
forced to cry: ‘O Lord, I suffer violence, answer thou for me’ (Isa.
xxxviii. 14); ‘Who will deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom.
vii. 24).

“Yet Scripture says that God made all things for His own sake; that
will come to pass when the creation is in full accord with its Author.
Therefore we must sometime pass into that state wherein we do not wish
to be ourselves or anything else, except for His sake and by reason of
His will, not ours. Then not our need or happiness, but His will, will
be fulfilled in us. O holy love and chaste! O sweet affection! O pure
and purged intention of the will, in which nothing of its own is
mingled! This is it to be made God (_deificari_). As the drop of water
is diffused in a jar of wine, taking its taste and colour, and as
molten iron becomes like to fire and casts off its form, and as the
air transfused with sunlight is transformed into that same brightness
of light, so that it seems not illumined, but itself to be the light,
thus in the saints every human affection must in some ineffable mode
be liquefied of itself and transfused into the will of God. How could
God be all in all if in man anything of man remained? A certain
substance will remain, but in another form, another glory, another
power.”

Hereupon St. Bernard considers how this fourth grade of love will be attained in the resurrection, and “perpetually possessed, when God only is loved and we love ourselves only for His sake, that He may be the recompense and aim (_praemium_) of those who love themselves, the eternal recompense of those who love eternally.”

Christ is the universal Mediator between God and man, not only because reconciling them, but as forming the intervening term, the concrete instance of the One suited to the comprehension of the other. Such thoughts and sentiments as commonly apply to man, when they are applied to Christ become fit to apply to God. Herein especially may be perceived the continuing identity of love, whether relating to human beings or to God. The soul’s love of Christ is mediatorial, and symbolic of its love of God. All of which Bernard has demonstrated with conjoined power of argument and feeling in his famous _Sermons on Canticles_.[502]

The human personality of Christ draws men to love Him, till their love is purged of carnality and exalted to a perfect love of God:

“Observe that the heart’s love is partly carnal; it is affected
through the flesh of Christ and what He said and did while in the
flesh. Filled with this love, the heart is readily touched by
discourse upon His words and acts. It hears of nothing more willingly,
reads nothing more carefully, recalls nothing more frequently, and
meditates upon nothing more sweetly. When man prays, the sacred image
of the God-man is with him, as He was born or suckled, as He taught or
died, rose from the dead or ascended to heaven. This image never fails
to nerve man’s mind with the love of virtue, cast out the vices of the
flesh and quell its lusts. I deem the principal reason why the
invisible God wished to be seen in the flesh, and, as man, hold
intercourse with men, was that He might draw the affections of carnal
men, who could only love carnally, to a salutary love of His flesh,
and then on to a spiritual love.”

Conversely, the Saviour’s example teaches men how they should love Him:

“He loved sweetly, wisely, and bravely: sweetly, in that He put on
flesh; wisely, in that He avoided fault; bravely, in that He bore
death. Those, however, with whom He sojourned in the flesh, He did not
love carnally, but in prudence of spirit. Learn then, Christian, from
Christ how to love Christ.”

Bernard shows how even the Apostles failed sometimes to love Him according to His perfect teaching and example:

“Good, indeed, is this carnal love,” he concludes, “through which a
carnal life is shut out; and the world is despised and conquered. This
love progresses as it becomes rational, and perfected as it becomes
spiritual.”[503]

From his own experiences Bernard could have spoken much of the winning power of Jesus, and could have told how sweetly it drew him to love his Saviour’s steps from Bethlehem to Calvary. The fifteenth sermon upon Canticles is on the healing power of Jesus’ name.

“Dry is all food for the soul unless anointed with that oil. Whatever
you write is not to my taste unless I read Jesus there. Your talk and
disputation is nothing unless that name is rung. Jesus is honey in the
mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart. He is medicine as well. Is
any one troubled, let Jesus come into the heart and thence leap to the
lips, and behold! at the rising of that bright name the clouds scatter
and the air is again serene. If any one slips in crime, and then
desponds amid the snares of death, will he not, invoking that name of
life, regain the breath of life? In whom can hardness of heart, sloth,
rancour, languishment stand before that name? In whom at its
invocation will not the dried fount of tears burst forth more
abundantly and sweetly? To what fearful trembler did the power of that
name ever fail to bring back confidence? To what man struggling amid
doubts did not the clear assurance of that name, invoked, shine forth?
Who despairing in adversity lacked fortitude if that name sounded?
These are the languors and sickness of the soul, and that the
medicine. Nothing is as potent to restrain the attack of wrath, or
quell the tumour of pride, or heal envy’s wound, or put out the fire
of lust, or temper avarice. When I name Jesus, I see before me a man
meek and humble of heart, benignant, sober, chaste, pitying, holy, who
heals me with His example and strengthens me with aid. I take example
from the Man, and draw aid from the Mighty One. Here hast thou, O my
soul, an herb of price, hidden in the vessel of that name, bringing
thee health surely and in thy sickness failing thee never.”

This is a little illustration of Bernard’s love of the Christ-man, a love which is ever taking on spiritual hues and changing to a love of the Christ-God. Christians, from the time of Origen, had recognized the many offices of Christ, the many saving potencies in which He ministered unto each soul according to its need. And so Bernard preaches that the sick soul needs Christ as the physician, but that the saintly soul has other yearnings for a more perfect communion.

This perfect communion, this most complete relationship which in this mortal life a soul can have with Christ, with God, had been symbolized, likewise ever since the time of Origen, by the words Bride and Bridegroom, and the Song of Songs had furnished the burning phrases. With surpassing spirituality Bernard uses the texts of Canticles to set forth the relationship of the soul to Christ, of man to God. The texts are what they are, burning, sensuous, fleshly, intense, and beautiful--every one knows them; but in Bernard’s sermons flesh fades before the spirit’s whiter glow.

“O love (_amor_), headlong, vehement, burning, impetuous, that canst
think of nothing beyond thyself, detesting all else, despising all
else, satisfied with thyself! Thou dost confound ranks, carest for no
usage, knowest no measure. In thyself dost thou triumph over apparent
opportuneness, reason, shame, council and judgment, and leadest them
into captivity. Everything which the soul-bride utters resounds of
thee and nothing else; so hast thou possessed her heart and
tongue.”[504]

What Bernard here ejaculates as to the overwhelming sufficiency of love, he sets forth finally in a sustained and reasoned passage, in which man’s ways of loving God are cast together in a sequence of ardent thought and image. He has been explaining the soul’s likeness to the Word. Although it be afflicted and defiled by sin, it may yet venture to come to Him whose likeness it retains, however obscured. The soul does not leave God by change of place, but, in the manner of spiritual substance, by becoming depraved. The return of the soul is its conversion, in which it is made conformable to God.

“Such conformity marries the soul to the Word, whom it is like by
nature, and may show itself like in will, loving as it is loved. If it
loves perfectly it weds. What more delightful than this conformity,
what more desirable than this love, through which thou, O soul,
faithfully drawest near to the Word, with constancy cleavest to the
Word, consulting Him in everything, as capable in intellect as
audacious in desire. Spiritual is the contracting of these holy
nuptials, wherein always to will the same makes one spirit out of two.
No fear lest the disparity of persons make but a lame concurrence of
wills: for love does not know respect. The name love comes from loving
and not from honouring. He may honour who dreads, who is struck dumb
with fear and wonder. Not so the lover. Love aboundeth in itself, and
derides and imprisons the other emotions. Wherefore she who loves,
loves, and knows nothing else. And He who is to be honoured and
marvelled at, still loves rather to be loved. Bridegroom and Bride
they are. And what necessity or bond is there between spouses except
to be loved and love?

“Think also, that the Bridegroom is not only loving but very love. Is
He also honour? I have not so read. I have read that God is love; not
that He is honour, or dignity. God indeed demands to be feared as
Lord, to be honoured as Father, and as Bridegroom to be loved. Which
excels the rest? Love, surely. Without it, fear is penal, and honour
graceless. Fear is slavish till manumitted by love; and the honour
which does not rise from love is adulation. To God alone belong honour
and glory; but He will accept neither unless it is flavoured with
love’s honey.

“Love asks neither cause nor fruit beyond itself. I love because I
love; I love that I may love. A great thing is love. Among all the
movements, sensations, and affections of the soul, it is the only one
wherein the creature can make a return to its Author. If God be angry
with me, shall I likewise be angry with Him? Nay, I will fear and
tremble and beseech. If He accuse me, I will make no counter-charge,
but plead before Him. If He judge me, I will not judge but worship.
And when He saves me, He asks not to be saved by me; nor does He who
frees all ask to be freed of any one. Likewise if He commands, I obey,
and do not order Him. Now see how different it is with love. For when
God loves, He wishes only to be loved; He loves with no other end than
to be loved, knowing that those who love are blessed with love itself.

“A great thing is love; but there are grades in it. The Bride stands
at the summit. Sons love, but they are thinking of their inheritance.
Fearing to lose that, they honour, rather than love, him from whom
they expect it. Love is suspect when its suffrage appears to be won by
hope of gain. Weak is it, if it cease or lessen with that hope
withdrawn. It is impure if it desires anything else. Pure love is not
mercenary: it gains no strength from hope, nor weakens with lack of
trust. This love is the Bride’s, because she is what she is by love.
Love is the Bride’s sole hope and interest. In it the Bride abounds
and the Bridegroom is content. He seeks nothing else, nor has she
ought beside. Hence he is Bridegroom and she Bride. This belongs to
spouses which none else, not even a son, can attain. Man is commanded
to honour his father and mother; but there is silence as to love.
Which is not because parents are not to be loved by their sons; but
because sons are rather moved to honour them. The honour of the King
loves judgment; but the Bridegroom’s love--for He is love--asks only
love’s return and faith.

“Rightly renouncing all other affections, the Bride reposes on love
alone, and returns a love reciprocal. And when she has poured her
whole self out in love, what is that compared with the perennial flood
of that fountain? Not equals in abundance are this loving one and
Love, the soul and the Word, the Bride and Bridegroom, creature and
Creator--no more than thirst equals the fount. What then? shall she
therefore despair, and the vow of the would-be Bride be rendered
empty? Shall the desire of this panting one, the ardour of this loving
one, the trust of this confiding one be baffled because she cannot
keep pace with the giant’s course, in sweetness contend with honey, in
mildness with the Lamb, in whiteness with the Lily, in brightness with
the Sun, in love with Him who is love? No. For although the creature
loves less, because she is less, yet if she loves with her whole self,
nothing lacks where there is all. Wherefore, as I have said, so to
love is to have wedded; for no one can so love and yet be loved but
little, and in mutual consent stands the entire and perfect
marriage.”[505]

Who has not marvelled that the relationship of marriage should make so large a part of the symbolism through which monks and nuns expressed the soul’s love of God? Historically it might be traced to Paul’s precept, “Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church”; still more potently it was derived from the Song of Songs. But beyond these almost adventitious influences, did not the holy priest, the monk, the nun, feel and know that marriage was the great human relationship? So they drew from it the most adequate allegory of the soul’s communion with its Maker: differently according to their sex, with much emotion, and even with unseemly imaginings, they thought and felt the love of God along the ways of wedded union or even bridal passion.[506]