Liber Tertius, Caput IV. Gradus ordinum ac dignitatum, quae in Ecelesia sunt, non temere confundendos ac perturbandos. Hinc abusum quaerendi privilegia ac exemptiones perstringit.
The Double Garment of Conscience and Reputation
Bernard calls the reader to pursue both a clean conscience and an unblemished reputation, clothing the soul in strength and beauty drawn from the Lord.
Hear this too — if, however, it is something else. For someone might perhaps say that it pertains to the same thing. Your own consideration will see to this. It seems to me not far from the truth to dissent from someone who has perhaps thought it should be placed among the kinds of greed.1 I, at least, wouldn't deny that it is either a form of that greed or a form that has it.2 Surely it is between your perfection and evil things — and likewise evil forms — that you must avoid.3 In one case you take thought for conscience, in the other for reputation.4 Suppose it isn't allowed to you — though perhaps it may be allowed otherwise — whatever has been badly colored.5 Then again, ask your elders, and they'll tell you: Abstain from every kind of evil.✦ Indeed, let the servant of the Lord imitate the Lord, because he himself says: Whoever serves me, let them follow me.✦ And you have this spoken of him: The Lord has reigned, he has clothed himself with beauty; the Lord has clothed himself with strength.✦ You too must be strong in faith, beautiful in glory, and you have proven yourself an imitator of God. Your strength is the confidence of a faithful conscience; your beauty is the brightness of a good reputation. So I beg you, put on strength — for the joy of the Lord is your strength.✦ Moreover, he delights in your appearance and your beauty, as in a likeness truly his own. Put on the garments of your glory, clothe yourself with a double garment — the kind with which that strong woman was accustomed to clothe her own household.✦
The Bridegroom Rejoicing over His Bride
A spotless conscience and unstained reputation clothe the soul so that the Bridegroom rejoices over his bride and God delights in his people.
Let there be no wavering weakness of small faith in your conscience, no stain of ill repute on your good name; and you will be clothed in rich garments, and the Bridegroom will rejoice over his bride, your soul, and your God will rejoice over you.✦✦
The Wound in the Churches
Bernard names the grievance of the churches: ranks are being torn apart as abbots, bishops, and archbishops are removed from their proper superiors.
Are you wondering what I'm getting at, still unaware of what I want to say? I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I'm speaking of the murmuring and the grievances of the churches. They cry out that they are being mutilated and dismembered. Either none, or very few indeed, are there that do not feel this wound or are not afraid of it. You ask which wound? Abbots are being taken away from bishops, bishops from archbishops, archbishops from patriarchs or primates.
Power, Justice, and the Threefold Test
Bernard questions whether such disruption is proper or expedient, insisting that even the highest authority must act by permission, fitness, and advantage rather than by raw will.
Is this a good look? It would be surprising if even the work could be excused — or the deed. By all this activity you prove that you have a fullness of power, but of justice perhaps not so much.6 You do this because you can — but whether you ought to is the real question. You are placed to guard the ranks and orders of honors and dignities, each in its own place — not to envy, as one of your own says: To each honor, honor.7 The spiritual person who judges everything, so that they themselves may be judged by no one, will anticipate every action of theirs with a kind of threefold deliberation. First, whether it is permitted; then, whether it is proper; finally, whether it is also expedient. For even if it is agreed that in Christian teaching nothing is proper except what is permitted, and nothing expedient except what is both proper and permitted, it does not immediately follow that everything that is permitted is therefore proper or expedient. Come, let us apply these three tests, if we can, to this work. But how is it not unbecoming for you to use your own will as if it were a law, and since there is no one to whom you can appeal, to wield power and disregard all accountability? Are you greater than your Lord, who says, 'I have not come to do my own will'?✦ For it is no less a sign of a downcast than of a proud mind to act, as if devoid of reason, not by reason but by whim, and to be driven not by judgment but by appetite. What could be more brutish than that?
The Sin of Coveting What Is Entrusted
Those who grasp for privileged exemptions beyond what is entrusted to them repeat the sins of the rich man who coveted the one sheep and of Ahab who seized Naboth’s vineyard.
And if it's unworthy for a person to live like a beast, who would bear such an insult to nature and injury to honor in you, who are the ruler of all? May it be far from us to degenerate in this way! You have made a general disgrace your own: A man, although he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to beasts of burden, and became like them. What is so shameful for you, that holding the whole, you are not content with it, unless you strive to grasp certain trifles and small portions of that very whole entrusted to you, as if they were not yours? Where I also want you to remember the parable of Nathan about the man who, having many sheep, coveted one that belonged to a poor man. Let this deed also come to mind, nay, rather the crime of King Ahab, who held the highest power and coveted one vineyard. May God avert from you what he heard: 'You killed, and you possessed.'
The Twin Fruits of Exemption
Bernard rejects exemption as a supposed freedom, showing that it breeds insolent bishops, dissolute monks, shameful poverty, worldliness, and unchecked sin without anyone to call the wandering to account.
But I don't want you to offer me the fruit of emancipation itself as an excuse. There is no such result — except that from it bishops become more insolent, and monks also become more dissolute. What of it that they also become poorer? Look more carefully, everywhere, at the resources of such freedmen, and at their lives — whether what's found among them isn't exceedingly shameful poverty in one group and worldliness in the other. These are the twin offspring of a harmful mother — of freedom from restraint. Why shouldn't a wandering, badly free rabble sin more freely, when there's no one to call them to account? Why shouldn't defenseless religious life also be stripped and plundered more freely, when there's no one to defend it? What refuge is there for them?
Guilt for the Blood of Others
Those who tear members from their churches become guilty of the blood they cause, since both the murmuring sufferer and the instigator perish, and scandal brings forth hatred and discord among the churches.
Isn't this an injury to the suffering bishops? They surely look with their eyes at those who laugh, whether they do evil things or suffer them. What good is that blood, then? I fear that she, whom God threatened in the prophet, is the one who will die in her iniquity; I will require her blood from your hand. For if both the one who is exalted and the one who is withdrawn are burned, how is the one who withdraws innocent? It is too little: we wrap the fire; listen more openly. If the one who murmurs is dead according to the soul, how does the one who instigates live? How is he not guilty of death for both, and equally for his own, who gave the sword, from which both would die? This is what I said: You killed, and you took possession. Moreover, those who hear it are scandalized, indignant, speak against it, and blaspheme; that is, they are wounded to death. A good tree does not bear such fruits as insolence, dissolutions, squandering, quarrels, scandals, and hatreds; and what's more grievous, it brings about serious and perpetual enmities and discord among churches. You see how true that saying is: 'All things are permitted to me,' but not all things are beneficial. What if perhaps it is not permitted? Forgive me: I am not easily led to consent to what so many unlawful things bring forth.
The God-Given Order of Authorities
Bernard insists that no apostolic power is singular or supreme apart from the many authorities God has ordained, so those joined together must not be torn apart.
Then do you think it's acceptable to mutilate the churches of your own people with severed members, to throw the order into confusion, and to disturb the boundaries that your fathers set? If justice means preserving what belongs to each person, how can it be consistent with justice to take away what is anyone's? You're mistaken if you think that your apostolic power was instituted by God as sole authority and in that sense supreme. If you hold that view, you're at odds with the one who said: No authority exists except from God.✦ So the next statement follows: Whoever resists authority resists God's ordinance — even if it is principally for your benefit, it is not on that account singular or unique to you.✦ And the same one also says: Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities.✦ He does not say 'to the higher one,' as though to a single authority, but 'to the higher ones,' as to many. So your power is not the only one that comes from the Lord; there are intermediate ones, and there are lower ones too. Just as those whom God has joined together must not be separated, those whom He has placed beneath others shouldn't be treated as equals.
Christ’s Body and the Heavenly Pattern
To rearrange the ranks of the Church is to make a monstrosity of Christ’s body, whose order is not earthly but copied from the heavenly Jerusalem and the angelic hosts under one Head.
You'd create a monstrosity if you removed a finger from the hand and made it hang from the head, above the hand, beside the arm. That's exactly what it's like if you place the members of Christ's body differently than he himself arranged them. Surely you don't think it was someone else who placed some in the Church as apostles, some as prophets, others as evangelists, and others as teachers and pastors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, and for building up the body of Christ.✦ And this body, which Paul himself portrays for you with truly apostolic speech, fitting it most aptly to its head, he declares to be wholly compacted from it, and joined together through every connecting joint of service, by the working measured to each individual member, bringing about the growth of the body for its own building up in love.✦ Don't think this form of ordering is cheap or lowly just because it exists on earth; it has its pattern from heaven. For the Son can't do anything except what He sees the Father doing, especially since it was said to Him under the name of Moses: See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.✦ The one who said this had seen it: I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, prepared by God.✦ For I think the saying means this by comparison: just as there the Seraphim and Cherubim, and all the rest as far as the Angels and Archangels, are ordered under one head, God, so here too, under one supreme Pontiff, primates or patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, priests, or abbots, and the rest are arranged in this way. It is no small thing to weigh, that this order has God as its author and leads its origin from heaven. But if a bishop says, I don't want to be under an archbishop; or an abbot, I don't want to obey a bishop: this is not from heaven. Unless perhaps you happened to hear one of the angels saying, I don't want to be under the Archangels; or someone from any other of the lower orders who would not submit to anyone except God.
Faithful Stewards, Not Scatterers
Bernard concludes that the papal office is stewardship for building up, not scattering, and that while some monasteries rightly belong to the Apostolic See by devotion, ambition that cannot bear authority is another matter entirely.
What do you say? Do you forbid dispensing? No, but to scatter. I'm not so ignorant as to overlook that you've been placed here as stewards — but for building up, not for tearing down.✦ After all, what's asked of stewards is that each one be found faithful.✦ Where necessity presses, there's room for discretion; where the common good calls for it, discretion is praiseworthy. I mean the common good, not private advantage. For when neither is present, it's not really faithful stewardship at all — it's reckless waste. Still, who doesn't know that some monasteries, though located in various dioceses, have belonged more directly to the Apostolic See from the very moment of their founding, by the wish of their founders? But what devotion freely gives is one thing; what ambition, unable to bear being under authority, schemes for is quite another. And so much for these matters.
Read the original Latin
Audi aliud, si tamen aliud. Ad idem enim fortassis pertinere quis dicat. Tua consideratio viderit hoc. Mihi videtur non longe a vero dissentire, qui id forte inter avaritiae species locandum putaverit. Ego vero illius aut speciem esse, aut speciem habere non negaverim. Sane inter est tuae perfectionis, et malas res, et malas pariter species devitare. In altero conscientiae, in altero famae consulis. Puta tibi non licere (etsi alias fortasse liceat) quidquid male fuerit coloratum.
Denique interroga majores tuos, et dicent tibi: Ab omni specie mala abstinete vos. Sane minister Domini Dominum imitetur, quia ipse ait: Qui mihi ministrat, me sequatur. Et habes de illo: Dominus regnavit, decorem induit, induit Dominus fortitudinem. Tu quoque esto fortis in fide, decorus in gloria; et probasti te imitatorem Dei. Fortitudo tua, fiducia fidelis conscientiae: decor tuus, splendor bonae opinionis. Ita, quaeso, induere fortitudinem; etenim gaudium Domini fortitudo tua. Porro specie tua et pulchritudine tua nihilominus tanquam propria similitudine delectatur. Induere vestimentis gloriae tuae, vestire duplicibus, quibus domesticos suos fortis illa mulier induere consuevit.
Non sit in conscientia nutans infirmitas modicae fidei, non sit in fama naevus malae speciei; et vestieris duplicibus, et gaudebit sponsus super sponsam animam tuam, et gaudebit super te Deus tuus. Miraris quorsum haec, ignarus usque adhuc quid dicere velim. Non te tollo diutius. Murmur loquor et querimoniam ecclesiarum. Truncari se clamitant ac demembrari. Vel nullae, vel paucae admodum sunt, quae plagam istam aut non doleant, aut non timeant. Quaeris quam? Subtrahuntur abbates episcopis, episcopi archiepiscopis, archiepiscopi patriarchis sive primatibus.
Bonane species haec? Mirum si excusari queat vel opus. Sic factitando probatis vos habere plenitudinem potestatis, sed justitiae forte non ita. Facitis hoc, quia potestis: sed utrum et debeatis, quaestio est. Honorum ac dignitatum gradus et ordines quibusque suos servare positi estis, non invidere, ut quidam vestrorum ait: Cui honorem, honorem.
Spiritualis homo ille qui omne dijudicat, ut ipse a nemine judicetur, omne opus suum trina quadam consideratione praeveniet. Primum quidem, an liceat; deinde, an deceat; postremo, an et expediat. Nam etsi constet in christiana utique philosophia non decere nisi quod licet, non expedire nisi quod decet et licet: non continuo tamen omne quod licet, decere aut expedire consequens erit. Age, aptemus, si possumus, tria ipsa operi huic. At quomodo non indecens tibi voluntate pro lege uti; et quia non est ad quem appelleris, potestatem exercere, negligere rationem? Tune major Domino tuo, qui ait: Non veni facere voluntatem meam! Quanquam non minus dejecti, quam elati animi est, veluti rationis expertem, non pro ratione, sed pro libitu agere; nec judicio agi, sed appetitu. Quid tam bestiale?
Et si indignum cnivis utenti ratione vivere ut pecus, quis in te rectore omnium tantam contumeliam naturae, honoris injuriam ferat? Sic degenerando, quod absit! generale opprobrium fecisti proprium tibi: Homo cum in honore esset, non intellexit; comparatus est jumentis insipientibus, similis factus est illis. Quid item tam indignum tibi, quam ut totum tenens, non sis contentus toto, nisi minutias quasdam, atque exiguas portiones ipsius tibi creditae universitatis, tanquam non sint tuae, satagas nescio quomodo adhuc facere tuas? Ubi etiam meminisse te volo parabolae Nathan de homine, qui multas oves habens, unam quae erat pauperis concupivit. Huc quoque veniat factum, imo facinus regis Achab, qui rerum summam tenebat, et unam vineam affectavit. Avertat Deus a te quod ille audivit: Occidisti, et possedisti.
Nolo autem praetendas mihi fructum emancipationis ipsius. Nullus est enim, nisi quod inde episcopi insolentiores, monachi etiam dissolutiores fiunt. Quid quod et pauperiores? Inspice diligentius talium ubique libertorum et facultates, et vitas, si non pudenda admodum et tenuitas in his, et in illis saecularitas invenitur. Matris noxiae libertatis gemina soboles haec. Quidni peccet licentius vagum et male liberum vulgus, cum non sit qui arguat? Quidni licentius quoque spolietur ac depraedetur inermis religio, cum non sit qui defendat? Quo enim refugium illis?
Numquid ad episcopos dolentes injuriam? Ridentibus profecto aspiciunt oculis, sive quae faciunt mala, sive quae patiuntur. Quae demum utilitas in sanguine isto? Vereor ne illa, quam in propheta comminatus est Deus: Ille, inquiens, in iniquitate sua morietur, sanguinem autem ejus de manu tua requiram. Si enim et extollitur qui subtrahitur, et qui subtrahitur uritur; qui subtrahit, quomodo innocens? Parum est: involvimus ignem: audi apertius. Si is qui murmurat, secundum animam mortuus est; qui instigat, quomodo vivit? Quomodo vero non reus mortis amborum, et suae pariter, qui gladium dedit, unde ambo morerentur?
Hoc est quod dixeram: Occidisti, et possedisti. Adde quod qui audiunt, scandalizantur, indignantur, detrahunt, et blasphemant; hoc est, vulnerantur ad mortem. Non est bona arbor faciens fructus tales, insolentias, dissolutiones, dilapidationes, simultates, scandala, odia: quodque magis dolendum, inter ecclesias inimicitias graves, perpetesque discordias. Vides quam verus sit sermo ille: Omnia mihi licent, sed non omnia expediunt. Quid si forte nec licet? Ignosce mihi: non facile adducor licitum consentire quod tot illicita parturit.
Tune denique tibi licitum censeas, suis ecclesias mutilare membris, confundere ordinem, perturbare terminos, quos posuerunt patres tui? Si justitiae est jus cuique servare suum; auferre cuiquam sua, justo quomodo poterit convenire? Erras, si ut summam, ita et solam institutam a Deo vestram apostolicam potestatem existimas. Si hoc sentis, dissentis ab eo qui ait: Non est potestas nisi a Deo. Proinde quod sequitur, Qui potestati resistit, Dei ordinationi resistit; etsi principaliter pro te facit, non tamen singulariter. Denique idem ait: Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit. Non ait, Sublimiori, tanquam in uno, sed sublimioribus, tanquam in multis. Non ergo tua sola potestas a Domino; sunt et mediocres, sunt et inferiores.
Et quomodo quos Deus conjunxit, non sunt separandi: sic nec quos subjunxit, comparandi. Monstrum facis, si manui submovens, digitum facis pendere de capite, superiorem manui, brachio collateralem. Tale est si in Christi corpore membra aliter locas quam disposuit ipse. Nisi tu putas alium esse, qui posuit in Ecclesia quosdam quidem apostolos, quosdam autem prophetas, alios vero evangelistas, alios doctores et pastores, ad consummationem sanctorum, in opus ministerii, in aedificationem corporis Christi. Atque hoc corpus, quod tibi ipse Paulus suo vere apostolico figurans eloquio, et capiti convenientissime aptans, totum ex eo compactum perhibet, et connexum per omnem juncturam subministrationis, secundum operationem in mensuram uniuscujusque membri, augmentum corporis faciens in aedificationem sui, in charitate. Nec vilem reputes formam hanc, quia in terris est: exemplar habet e coelo. Neque enim Filius potest facere quidquam, nisi quae viderit Patrem facientem, praesertim cum ei sub Moysi nomine dictum sit: Vide omnia facias secundum exemplar quod tibi in monte monstratum est.
Viderat hoc qui dicebat: Vidi civitatem sanctam, Jerusalem novam, descendentem de coelo, a Deo paratam. Ego enim propter similitudinem dictum reor, quod sicut illic Seraphim et Cherubim, ac caeteri quique usque ad Angelos et Archangelos, ordinantur sub uno capite Deo; ita hic quoque sub uno summo Pontifice primates vel patriarchae, archiepiscopi, episcopi, presbyteri, vel abbates, et reliqui in hunc modum. Non est parvi pendendum quod et Deum habet auctorem, et de coelo ducit originem. Quod si dicat episcopus, Nolo esse sub archiepiscopo; aut abbas, Nolo obedire episcopo: hoc de coelo non est. Nisi tu forte Angelorum quempiam dicentem audisti, Nolo sub Archangelis esse: aut ex alio quolibet inferiorum ordinum aliquem non ferentem subesse cuiquam, nisi Deo. Quid, inquis? prohibes dispensare? Non, sed dissipare.
Non sum tam rudis, ut ignorem positos vos dispensatores, sed in aedificationem, non in destructionem. Denique quaeritur inter dispensatores, ut fidelis quis inveniatur. Ubi necessitas urget, excusabilis dispensatio est: ubi utilitas provocat, dispensatio laudabilis est. Utilitas, dico, communis, non propria. Nam cum nil horum est, non plane fidelis dispensatio, sed crudelis dissipatio est. Nonnulla tamen monasteria, sita in diversis episcopatibus, quod specialius pertinuerint ab ipsa sui fundatione ad Sedem apostolicam pro voluntate fundatorum, quis nesciat? Sed aliud est quod largitur devotio, aliud quod molitur ambitio impatiens subjectionis. Et haec dicta de his.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Thess.5.22 — Abstain from every form of evil.
- ↩John.12.26 — If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
- ↩Ps.92.1 — A Psalm. A song for the day of the Sabbath.
- ↩Neh.8.10 — Then he said to them, "Go, eat rich food and drink sweet drinks, and send portions to those for whom nothing has been prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
- ↩Prov.31.21 — She is not afraid for her household when snow comes, for her whole household is clothed in scarlet.
- ↩Zeph.3.17 — The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will be silent in his love; he will exult over you with singing.
- ↩Isa.62.5 — For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
- ↩John.6.38 — For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
- ↩Rom.13.1 — Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God, and the authorities that exist have been appointed by God.
- ↩Rom.13.2 — Therefore the one who resists the authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and those who have opposed will receive judgment on themselves.
- ↩Rom.13.1 — Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God, and the authorities that exist have been appointed by God.
- ↩Eph.4.11-Eph.4.12 — And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. Eph.4.12 — for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ
- ↩Eph.4.16 — from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each individual part is working properly, causes the growth of the body for building itself up in love.
- ↩Exod.25.40 — See that you make them according to the pattern that is being shown you on the mountain.
- ↩Rev.21.2 — And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
- ↩2Cor.10.8 — For even if I boast a little too much about our authority—which the Lord gave us for building you up and not for tearing you down—I will not be put to shame.
- ↩1Cor.4.2 — Moreover, what is required of stewards is that one be found faithful.
Notes
- 1 ↩vero at token 5 is rendered as the ablative noun 'truth' (a vero) rather than the discourse particle 'indeed'; the connective candidate was set aside in favor of the noun reading, which yields the idiom 'not far from the truth'.
- 2 ↩vero rendered as the emphatic particle ('at least') rather than the noun 'truth', since this is a new clause with no ablative construction; the double aut ('either...or') is preserved.
- 3 ↩The sentence is elliptical: inter est ... devitare lacks an explicit subject for 'est'. Rendered as 'it is between X and Y that you must avoid,' supplying the locative sense of inter with a gerundive of obligation.
- 4 ↩Elliptical: the ablatives altero conscientiae and altero famae imply a contrast of spheres of concern; rendered explicitly as 'in one case...in the other' to make the parallel clear in English.
- 5 ↩The parenthetical concessive (etsi alias fortasse liceat) is rendered with a dash to preserve the aside quality of the Latin; 'badly colored' keeps the metaphor of moral dissimulation.
- 6 ↩The rare frequentative factitando ('by busying oneself / by constant activity') is rendered as 'activity'; the form is uncertain and the exact nuance may differ.
- 7 ↩The closing phrase 'Cui honorem, honorem' echoes a sententious proverbial form (cf. Rom 13:7 'to whom honor, honor'); treated as a candidate allusion pending Moses resolution.
De consideratione (On Consideration) companion
Make consideration a daily appointment
Bernard told Eugene to set aside time every day. Chosen Portion holds that time for you, free.
Bernard's core prescription — a fixed daily time reserved for examining the soul — is exactly the habit Chosen Portion installs with its daily devotional portion.
- One 10-minute daily portion for self-examination and prayer
- Reflection prompts drawn from historic texts, not improvised journaling
- A visible streak that protects the daily interval Bernard insisted on