their ritual form of life and by a wider literate public, both clergy and lay, for literary
enjoyment and religious insight.
Many of Bernard’s other sermons follow the cycle of the liturgical feast days
(Sermones per annum), such as the Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, the
Assumption. Noteworthy for their poetic quality and intensity, Bernard’s sermons on the
Virgin Mary contributed to the development of mariological devotion in the later Middle
Ages.
In his treatises, Bernard deals in a more thematic way with the issues of monastic life
and of religion in general. A treatise on the steps of humility, De gradibus humilitatis et
superbiae, is a commentary on a passage from the Benedictine Rule. A treatise on love,
De diligendo Deo, describes the journey toward God, who is to be loved because of
himself with a love that is “measure without measure” (modus sine modo). Bernard
combines the relentless desire for God characteristic of the monastic life with the stability
of its goal. The long treatise on consideration, De consideratione, dedicated to Pope
Eugenius III, outlines the ideal portrait of a pope while offering theological and mystical
reflections on the knowledge of God.
In his many letters, Bernard often takes circumstantial matters as a point of departure
for reflection. His first letter is, like his Apologia, a fierce attack on the luxuriousness of
the Cluniac (or, more widely, Benedictine) way of life. This critical attitude was based on
Bernard’s own Cistercian predilection for simplicity and austerity in art. The lengthy
Letter 190, to Innocent II, is directed against Abélard on the occasion of the latter’s
condemnation at the Council of Sens, depicting him as a dangerous innovator whose
application of reason to matters of faith threatens religious stability. In fact, it is
Bernard’s concern about the legitimacy of his own monastic way of life in the light of the
Christian tradition and culture, rather than the motives of his opponent, that comes to the
fore. Yet in spite of his claim that he, unlike Abélard, is staying within the bounds of the
Christian tradition, Bernard is to be seen as part of the general renaissance of the 12th
century. In defending the quality of his own ascetic life, he cherished a sophistication that
many of his contemporaries sought in the further refinement of reasoning and art.
Burcht Pranger
[See also: ABÉLARD, PETER; CISTERCIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE;
CISTERCIAN ORDER; GILBERT OF POITIERS; MONASTICISM; WILLIAM OF
SAINT-THIERRY]
Bernard of Clairvaux. Sancti Bernardi opera omnia, ed. Jean Leclercq, Charles H.Talbot, and
Henri Rochais. 8 vols. Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–78.
——. Selected Works, trans. Gillian R.Evans. New York: Paulist, 1987.
Bredero, A.H. Études sur la Vita prima de S.Bernard. Rome, 1960.
Casey, M. Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of
Songs. Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1988.
Duby, Georges. Bernard de Clairvaux et l’art cistercien. Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1976.
Evans, Gillian R. The Mind of Bernard of Clairvaux. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
Gilson, Étienne. The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard, trans. A.H.C.Downes. London: Sheed and
Ward, 1940.
Leclercq Jean. Recueil d’études sur saint Bernard et ses écrits. 3 vols. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e
Letteratura, 1966–92.
——. Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France: PsychoHistorical Essays. Oxford: Clarendon,
1979.
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