[467] Peter Damiani, Vitae SS. Rodulphi et Dominici loricati, cap. 8 (Migne 144, col. 1015.)
[468] Ibid. cap. 10 (Migne 144, col. 1017).
[469] This story is told in all the early lives of Bruno, the Vita antiquior, the Vita altera, and the Vita tertia (Migne, Pat. Lat. 152, col. 482, 493, and 525). These lives, especially the Vita altera, are interesting illustrations of the ascetic spirit, which, as might be expected, also moulds Bruno’s thoughts and his understanding of Scripture. All of which appears in his long Expositio in Psalmos (Migne, Pat. Lat. 152). To us, for example, the note of the twenty-third (in the Vulgate the twenty-second) psalm is love; to Bruno it is disciplinary guidance: the Lord guides me in the place of pasture, that is, He is my guide lest I go astray in the Scriptures, where the souls of the faithful are fed; I shall not want, that is an understanding of them shall not fail me. Thy rod, that is the lesser tribulation; thy staff, that is the greater tribulation, correct and chastise me.
[470] Guigo was born in 1083 at St. Romain near Valence, of noble family (like most monks of prominence). There was close sympathy between him and St. Bernard, as their letters show. Cf. post, Chapter XVII.
[471] Migne 153, col. 601-631.
[472] A bibliography of what has been written on Bernard would make a volume. His own writings and the Vitae and Acta (as edited by Mabillon) are printed in Migne, tomes 182-185. The Vie de Saint Bernard, by the abbé Vacandard, in two volumes, is to be recommended (2nd ed., Paris, 1897).
[473] Vita prima, iii. cap. 1 (Migne, Pat. Lat. 185). This Vita was written by contemporaries of the saint who knew him intimately. But one must be on one’s guard as to these apparently close descriptions of the saints in their vitae; for they are commonly conventionalized. This description of Bernard, excepting perhaps the colour of his hair, would have fitted Francis of Assisi.
[474] Vita prima, iii. 3. Bernard himself said that his aim in preaching was not so much to expound the words (of Scripture) as to move his hearers’ hearts (Sermo xvi. in Cantica canticorum). That his preaching was resistless is universally attested.
[475] See, e.g., Vacandard, o.c. chap. i.
[476] Post, Chapter XLIII.