"My sons; may God fulfil in you that which His Grace has begun."[104]
From the commencement of his novitiate, Bernard practised austerities that were severe—even for a Cistercian. He would kneel until, on rising, his swollen limbs refused, almost, to support him, and, while always ready with a helping hand to lighten the toil of other monks in the forest or the marsh, he prepared himself for his labours with nourishment so poor that his body wasted and fever consumed him, until his life was despaired of. Devoting all his mind to the inward and spiritual, to answering well the question he was always asking himself, "Bernarde ad quid venisti?" (Bernard, wherefore art thou here?), he seems to have been almost unobservant of outward things. The old chronicler relates how, one day, being thirsty, the saint drank, without noticing its taste, (nihil sapiebat gustandi) a jar of oil whose contents he had mistaken for water. On another occasion, when asked whether the ceiling of his cell was flat or vaulted, he was quite unable to answer.
The immediate result of the coming of such a man, with such companions, was an enormous increase in the numbers and power of that order. Postulates flocked in hundreds to the Abbey of Citeaux, and, by the year 1113, it had become necessary to establish daughter abbeys. The first was La Ferté (Firmitas), so called to signify the strength and consistency that the Almighty had already bestowed upon the rising order. Then followed Pontigny, where Bernard's friend, Hugues de Mâcon, was sent as abbot; then, in 1115, Morimond, and Clairvaux (Claire Vallée)—once the robber-haunted Valley of Wormwood. Before long, the order had the choice of the fairest fields of France; indeed, of all Europe.
But Clairvaux had no abbot; and Citeaux must supply one. The choice fell upon St. Bernard, twenty-five years of age, hardly out of his novitiate, scarce able to support the exercise of his rule, and little fitted, as it seemed, to undertake a voyage of discovery to the loneliest forest in all the diocese of Langres. Yet he must go.
The form in which such an expedition set out was characteristic, and impressive in its simplicity. The monks, having been assembled by sound of the bell, all the community went down upon their knees. After a long silence, the Abbot intoned a psalm; then, taking a cross of wood from the altar, he handed it, as the token of office, to the new Abbot. The latter received it in silence, kissed it, still without speaking, and left his stall, followed by twelve other monks, symbols of the Christ and apostles. All the brothers then ranged themselves in the cloister, while, with heads bowed, the thirteen passed between them. Silently the gates of the monastery swung open, revealing to all a glimpse of the dangerous world beyond. The pilgrims filed out; and the clang of closing gates announced the termination of the ceremony.
We have not space to follow further the career of the "Last of the Fathers," as he was called, or to trace in detail the growth of an influence so extraordinary, that about the year 1148, we find Pierre le Vénérable, Abbot of Cluny, writing of "Bernard of Clairvaux, the splendid and immovable column that sustains not the monastic order only, but the entire church," while Bernard himself, broken down by the weight of affairs pressing upon him, writes to Eugène III: "People are pretending everywhere that you are not pope, but I; and all who have business, flock to me for help," (Aiunt non vos esse papam, sed me). Geoffrey, Bernard's secretary and successor, writing two years after his master's death, said: "Whoso has met Bernard has seen Christ. For in him the whole Christ dwelt."[105]
Without, indeed, going so far in praise as did his secretary, we may agree that Bernard's character comprised most of those elemental virtues, that, blended, make the perfect man. In him, calmness and vehemence, tenderness and serenity, tenacity and flexibility, vivid imagination and unswerving rectitude, were all present; ever ready to meet the necessities of any occasion that might arise. With all these varied gifts he never flattered, never betrayed the truth, never dissembled the sacred ardour that burned within him. Everywhere he was listened to with profound respect; his stern voice was heard in the cottages of the poor, and in the palaces of kings. Neither his enthusiasm, nor his ceaseless activities, caused him to lose lucidity nor precision of argument in debate. His repartee was gentle and penetrating; swift to disentangle truth from error, without practising the subtleties of the schools. He was that rarest of phenomena, a practical idealist, an enlightened fanatic. And with all these varied faculties, high above men of his time though his intellect was, he remained ever a true son of the Church, nor sought to free himself from the yoke of Catholic authority. Therein lay the secret of his subsequent bitter antagonism to the teachings of Abélard.
A few words as to Cistercian ideals, and especially as to Cistercian rule, as compared with that of Cluny, may not be out of place here.
For the sites of all their monasteries, they chose invariably lonely and wild lands, marshy valleys, swamps, or lake, or forest, where the monks would be under no temptation from the vicinity of worldly attractions, nor from too close contact with the secular clergy, whose influence was sometimes harmful. The Cistercian's first duty was the first duty of man—to reclaim the dark places of the earth from watery desolation to culture and fertility; just as, later on, the first duty of preaching friars was to win back the souls of men, from the power of Satan unto God. Faurtride, third abbot of Clairvaux, quotes St. Bernard as giving another reason. "It is not sufficient for a monk to allege illness (as an excuse for shirking the austerities of the rule).