A Saint for Our Time: Bernard of Clairvaux
- Dr. Matthew David Wiseman
- Aug 20, 2019
- 6 min read
On this feast of the great Cistercian founder, I am struck by the timeliness of his witness. Frequently neglected outside of those small circles interested in the Benedictine tradition, I believe that St Bernard deserves our attention as a model, and our prayer as an intercessor for the modern world. I would particularly like to highlight four points in the saint's life: his promulgation of the Rule of the Knights Templar, his support of Innocent II, his conflict with Abelard, and his work in the reformist Cistercian movement.
It is no secret to the denizens of the Internet that we are suffering a crisis of masculinity, and this bare fact has remarkably universal agreement, though there are very different schools of thought regarding what the crisis is exactly, and how to solve it. Both The American Conservative and The New York Times know that "The Boys are Not Alright."
But there seems to be a lack of mainstream answers to this problem which we can take seriously. Popular conservatism is determined to embrace a reductive "boys will be boys" approach, pretending that masculinity is an end unto itself, as if to say that there is no need to order it to a greater end, or to put aggression and toughness in a balanced proportion or in a greater context. Mainstream liberalism, on the other hand, is at risk of suggesting that it is these masculine traits themselves which are the problem. While I know that both my conservative and my liberal friends and readers will object that these are not their goals, they are clearly their temptations, and temptations which are being resisted with only a modicum of success in many cases.
What we require is a different understanding of ordering our lives entirely. What chivalric codes of conduct like the Rule of the Knights Templar give us is a way of understanding masculine traits as a means to an end. They must be ordered to the good, kept in check, and appreciated insofar as they glorify God. It is not flatly wrong to be aggressive, but it is wrong to be aggressive in all aspects of life, or to take aggression as a good in itself. Chivalry balances justice with mercy, honor with humility, and strength with tenderness. There can be no proper "Charge of the Light Brigade" without "Off to the English Civil War." The gentleman is the man who says "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more."
I typify this pair by St Martin, the Roman soldier who refused to fight, and St. George, the saint who slew the dragon. We are tempted to take one or the other of these two as the only proper vision of manhood, but when St. Bernard, the pacific monk, stands before the Council of Troyes and promulgates the great chivalric code of the High Middle Ages, we see how the Catholic Church squares this circle. We see the icon of the Blessed Virgin, sitting calmly with her Child and impaling the Serpent with a spear. At Troyes, St. Martin preached St. George: the tender soldier who willingly fights when love and mercy demand it.
Like our own, the twelfth century was a time of great division in the Church. Of course, that may also
be said of the first century, the fourth century, the fifth and sixth centuries, the eleventh century, and the sixteenth century. The Church has had no shortage of such crises.
Each of these ages has its corresponding heros, and we might learn from all of them, whether St. Nicholas or St. Constantine, St. Augustine or St. Ignatius. But today we are celebrating St. Bernard. In the crisis of Antipope Anacletus II, St. Bernard decided in favor of the righteous Pope Innocent II, working to reconcile the Latin patriarchs of the east to his cause.
It is worth noting that the papacy of Innocent II was overall unremarkable. Canons were passed against various abuses in the clergy at the Second Lateran Council, but otherwise very little can be ascribed to this Pope. St. Bernard did not defend him because he was a great saint or a great pope, but because it was his duty in order to preserve the unity and integrity of the Catholic Church. This striving for unity is essential to our identity as Catholics. St Bernard did not take the controversy lying down, and he likely supported Pius for his piety rather than for any superior canonical claim, but his work was for the unity of the Church in the face of division.
St Bernard hoed a hard row in this case. Innocent II left Rome in part because he believed his cause was lost. Anacletus II controlled Rome, had the majority of the college of cardinals on his side, and the support of the finest Italian nobility that money could buy. But with the support of St Bernard, he endured, and schism was quelled. Despite corruption and controversy, St Bernard remained loyal to the See of Peter, he endured, and so the Church was delivered from crisis.
The conflict with Peter Abelard is an odd case. Despite official condemnation, obtained by St. Bernard, it is Abelard who really prevailed in history, and was hailed as a great scholar even in his own lifetime. But we have a lesson to learn from the abbot's position, regardless.
Briefly: Peter Abelard was among the earliest Scholastics, who helped to introduce the philosophy of Aristotle into Western Christendom. His work was influential on William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, and through them many later philosophers. While there were several grounds for objecting to Abelard's brand of Scholasticism (and note that neither Aquinas nor his great master, Albertus Magnus, are among those particularly influenced by Abelard, for good reason), the line that St. Bernard took was that he was causing Reason to intrude where it had no business.
St. Bernard contended that Abelard's philosophy brought Reason into questions of theological first principles which were only properly the realm of Revelation. We might see a modern reiteration of this in C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, in which Lewis defends the super-rational First Principles of ethics and aesthetics against the attacks of the speudonymous "Gaius and Titius."
For us, as for Lewis, it is Materialism and Scientific Realism that poses the threat, rather than Abelard's or Ockham's Nominalism, but the problem is remarkably similar: logic, empiricism, reason, these have a very particular place, and they cannot overstep them without endangering their own basis for existence. St. Bernard's calm and rational stance against the intellectual darling of his age on these vital First Principles is an important model for us as we answer contemporary intellectual heresies, whether base rationalism or airy relativism.
Finally, although the Cistercian Order was founded a generation before St. Bernard, we rightly associate it most with his name and his work. It was St. Bernard who elucidated the principles of the Cistercian movement at the first General Chapter meeting in 1119, and who defended the principles of the new order against criticism. Under his influence the Cistercian order flourished and grew, recaptured the original spirit of Benedict, and developed its famous twins of Gothic architecture and the Theology of Light.
This is another story which repeats itself in Catholic history: reformers returning to the conservative and often austere foundations of the Church, who then oversee an explosive growth in numbers and in piety. St Benedict, St Odo of Cluny, St Francis, and Matteo Serafini, to name only a few. And this has proven true in our own time, when, as the Catholic Herald points out, it is the traditional orders which are experiencing the great bulk of growth.
St. Bernard emphasized that monks should work for their own keep, they should live simply and piously, and they should observe the Great Silence in which God speaks. It was the desire to remove distractions which lead him to his, perhaps overzealous, removal even of iconography from the Cistercian churches. His deepest desire was for a single-minded focus on the Holy Trinity, through the intercession of Our Lady.
It has been repeatedly beaten into our society and the current generation through overwhelming experiential evidence that no institution is incorruptible, or even bound to survive very long without corruption. Rather, if anything we build is going to endure, we must strive to make it not incorruptible, but reformable. This is the central part of our work here at The Fellowship of St Columbanus, to reform the institutions of higher education. But such a work of reform has to arise out of a deep affection for the institution. Animosity can only lead to further harm.
I have not even tried to give the full story of St Bernard, and I could not do him justice in less than a book. Rather, I offer these four points to you as examples of how St. Bernard is an answer to many of the problems that we face. The problems of modern manhood, conflict, philosophy, and corruption may be referred for some answer to this great saint and his example. We should hold his simplicity, his humility, and his love of silence before our eyes in order to follow him as he followed Christ.
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