The cause of Bernard’s extraordinary popular success as a preacher can only imperfectly be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in Latin, evidently to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level. Like his letters, they are full of quotations from and reference to the Bible, and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times. “Bernard,” wrote Erasmus in his Art of Preaching, “is an eloquent preacher, much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how to reach and move the affections.” The same is true of the letters and to an even more striking degree. They are written on a large variety of subjects, great and small, to people of the most diverse stations and types; and they help us to understand the adaptable nature of the man, which enabled him to appeal as successfully to the unlearned as to the learned.
Bernard’s works fall into three categories:—(1) Letters, of which over five hundred have been preserved, of great interest and value for the history of the period. (2) Treatises: (a) dogmatic and polemical, De gratia el libero arbitrio, written about 1127, and following closely the lines laid down by St Augustine; De baptismo aliisque quaestionibus ad mag. Hugonem de S. Victore; Contra quaedam capitala errorum Abaelardi ad Innocentem II. (in justification of the action of the synod of Sens); (b) ascetic and mystical, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, his first work, written perhaps about 1121; De diligendo Deo (about 1126); De conversione ad clericos, an address to candidates for the priesthood; De Consideratione, Bernard’s last work, written about 1148 at the pope’s request for the edification and guidance of Eugenius III.; (c) about monasticism, Apologia ad Guilelmum, written about 1127 to William, abbot of St Thierry; De laude novae militiae ad milites templi (c. 1132-1136); De precepto et dispensatione, an answer to various questions on monastic conduct and discipline addressed to him by the monks of St Peter at Chartres (some time before 1143); (d) on ecclesiastical government, De moribus et officio episcoporum, written about 1126 for Henry, bishop of Sens; the De Consideratione mentioned above; (e) a biography, De vita et rebus gestis S. Malachiae, Hiberniae episcopi, written at the request of the Irish abbot Congan and with the aid of materials supplied by him; it is of importance for the ecclesiastical history of Ireland in the 12th century; (f) sermons—divided into Sermones de tempore; de sanctis; de diversis; and eighty-six sermons, in Cantica Canticorum, an allegorical and mystical exposition of the Song of Solomon; (g) hymns. Many hymns ascribed to Bernard survive, e.g. Jesu dulcis memoria, Jesus rex admirabilis. Jesu decus angelicum, Salve caput cruentatum. Of these the three first are included in the Roman breviary. Many have been translated and are used in Protestant churches.
St Bernard’s works were first published in anything like a complete edition at Paris in 1508, under the title Seraphica melliflui devotique doctoris S. Bernardi scripta, edited by André Bocard; the first really critical and complete edition is that of Dom J. Mabillon Sancti Bernardi opp. &c. (Paris, 1667, improved and enlarged in 1690, and again, by Massuet and Texier, in 1719), reprinted by J.P. Migne, Patrolog. lat. (Paris, 1859). There is an English translation of Mabillon’s edition, including, however, only the letters and the sermons on the Song of Songs, with the biographical and other prefaces, by Samuel J. Eales (4 vols., London, 1889-1895). See further Leopold Janauschek, Bibliographia Bernardina (Vienna, 1891), which includes 2761 entries, including 120 works wrongly ascribed to Bernard.
Authorities.—The principal source for the life of St Bernard is the Vita Prima, compiled, in six books, by various contemporary writers: book i. by William, abbot of St Thierry near Reims; book ii. by Ernald, or Arnald, abbot of Bonnevalle; books iii., iv. and v. by Geoffrey (Gaufrid), monk of Clairvaux and Bernard’s secretary; book vi., on Bernard’s miracles, by Geoffrey and Philip, another monk of Clairvaux, &c. A MS. is preserved, int. al., in the library of Lambeth Palace (§ xiv. No. 163). The Vita was first published in Bernardi op. omn. by Mabillon (Paris, 1690), ii. pp. 1061 ff.; it was included in Migne, Patrolog. lat. clxxxv. pp. 225-416, which also contains the abridgments or amplifications, by later hands, of the Vita Prima, known as the Vita Secunda, Tertia and Quarta. For a critical study of these sources see G. Hüffer, Der heilige Bernhard von Clairvaux (2 vols., Münster, 1886), and E. Vacandard, Vie de Saint Bernard (2 vols., Paris, 1895).
Among the numerous modern works on St Bernard may be mentioned, besides the above, J.C. Morison, The Life and Times of St Bernard (London, 1863); G. Chevallier, Histoire de Saint Bernard (2 vols., Lille, 1888); S.J. Eales, St Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux (London, 1890, “Fathers for English Readers” series); ib. Life and Works of St Bernard (London, 1889); R.S. Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux: the Times, the Man and His Work (New York, 1893); Comte d’Haussonville, Saint Bernard (Paris, 1906). See also the article by Vacandart in A. Vacant’s Dictionnaire de théologie (with full bibliography), and that by S.M. Deutsch in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.), vol. ii. (bibliography). Further works, monographs, &c., are given s. “Vita S. Bernardi” in Potthast. Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi (Berlin, 1896).
(W. A. P.)
[1] The Cistercians of this branch of the order were commonly known as Bernardines.
BERNARD OF CHARTRES (1080?-1167), surnamed Sylvestris, scholastic philosopher, described by John of Salisbury as perfectissimus inter Platonicos nostri saeculi. He and his brother Theodore were among the chief members of the school of Chartres (France), founded in the early part of the 11th century by Fulbert, the great disciple of Gerbert. This school flourished at a time when medieval thought was directed to the ancient philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and had perversely come to regard Aristotle as merely the founder of abstract logic and formal intellectualism, as opposed to Plato whose doctrine of Ideas seemed to tend in a naturalistic direction. Thus Bernard is a Platonist and yet the representative of a “return to Nature” which curiously anticipates the humanism of the early Renaissance. John of Salisbury (Metalogicus, iv. 35) attributes to him two treatises, of which one contrasts the eternity of ideas with the finite nature of things, and the other is an attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle. The only extant fragments of Bernard’s writings are from a treatise Megacosmus and Microcosmus (edited by C.S. Barach at Innsbruck, 1876). The source of Bernard’s inspiration was Plato’s Timaeus. He maintained that ideas are really existent and are laid up for ever in the mind of God. He further attempted to build up a symbolism of numbers with the view of elaborating the doctrine of the Trinity, and explaining the meaning of unity, plurality and likeness.