Liber Primus, Caput III. Indignum proceribus Ecclesiae continue causis litigantium audiendis et decidendis incumbere.
The Unending Litigation of the Day
Bernard laments that lawsuits consume both day and night, leaving no rest, and warns against growing hardened to this misery.
I ask you, what is it to litigate from morning until evening, or to hear litigants? Would that the malice of the day were sufficient! The nights are not free. Scarcely is there left to the necessity of nature what may suffice for the little body's rest; and again, one rises to quarrels. The day brings forth lawsuits, and the night declares malice: to such an extent, there is no breathing space for good things, no alternating rest to be taken, not even rare leisure to be interspersed. I have no doubt that you also lament these things; but it is in vain if you do not also strive to correct them. Meanwhile, I urge you to always act this way, and never to harden yourself to these things by any practice or diligence. I struck them, and they did not grieve, says God.
The Wrong Kind of Patience
Bernard argues that merely enduring this slavery profits nothing and that such patience is not true virtue but a misguided tolerance.
It does nothing for you, and nothing for them. Instead, make it your business to adapt both your attachment and your voice to the one who says, 'What strength do I have, that I should endure?' Or what goal do I have, that I should carry on patiently? My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh made of bronze.✦ Great is the virtue of patience — but that is not the kind I would have wished for you in these circumstances. Sometimes it is more credibly — more fittingly — to be impatient. Would you endorse the patience of those to whom Paul was saying, 'You gladly put up with fools, since you are so wise yourselves'?✦ Unless I am mistaken, that was irony, not praise — a rebuke aimed at certain people's easygoing tolerance, who, as if offering their hands to false apostles by whom they had already been led astray, would bear with the utmost patience being drawn into every strange and perverse teaching of those men.✦
The Dulled Heart Under Bondage
Bernard warns that unresisted servitude hardens the heart, and that excessive vexation leads not to understanding but contempt.
And so you put up with them, adding to your burden as you do; for Scripture says, If anyone reduces you to slavery.✦ It isn't good patience, when you could be free, to allow yourself to become a slave. I don't want you to disguise the slavery into which, day by day — and you don't even know it — you are being driven. The mark of a dulled heart is this: not to feel the constant vexation that is your very own. Vexation gives understanding to the listener, as someone says. That is true — but only if the vexation is not excessive. For if it is excessive, it doesn't give understanding — it gives contempt. And in the end, when the wicked person has sunk into the depths of evil, he despises correction.✦
Awaken to Your Servitude
Bernard urgently calls his reader to recognize the crushing yoke of worldly entanglement and the illusion of freedom.
Wake up, then: the yoke of a most wretched servitude is already hanging over you, no—already pressing down hard, and not lightly. Don't just beware of it; shudder at it. What, are you not a slave just because you don't serve one person but everyone? No servitude is more shameful or more burdensome than the servitude of the Jews, which they drag after them wherever they go, and everywhere they offend their own masters. Tell me, I ask—where have you ever been free, where safe, where your own person? Everywhere, clamor; everywhere, tumult; everywhere, the yoke of your servitude presses down on you.
Read the original Latin
Quaeso te, quale est istud, de mane usque ad vesperam litigare, aut litigantes audire? Et utinam sufficeret diei malitia sua! non sunt liberae noctes. Vix relinquitur necessitati naturae, quod corpusculi pausationi sufficiat; et rursum ad jurgia surgitur. Dies diei eructat lites, et nox nocti indicat malitiam: usque adeo non est respirare in bonis, non est alternam capessere requiem, non vel rara interseri otia. Non ambigo te quoque ista deplorare: at frustra istud, si non et emendare studueris. Interim tamen sic semper facias hortor, nec te unquam ad ista duraveris quolibet usu vel assiduitate. Percussi eos, et non doluerunt, ait Deus.
Nihil tibi, et illis. Justi potius tibi aptare curato et affectionem, et vocem, qui ait: Quae est enim fortitudo mea ut sustineam? aut quis finis meus, ut patienter agam? Nec fortitudo lapidum fortitudo mea, nec caro mea aenea est. Magna virtus patientiae: sed non hanc tibi ad ista optaverim. Interdum impatientem esse, probabilius. Tune approbes illorum patientiam, quibus Paulus dicebat: Libenter suffertis insipientes, cum sitis ipsi sapientes? Ni fallor, ironia erat, et non laus, sed suggillatio quorumdam mansuetudinis, qui quasi datis manibus pseudoapostolis, a quibus et seducti erant, ad quaeque ipsorum peregrina et prava dogmata trahi se patientissime ferrent.
Unde et subdens, Sustinetis enim, inquit, si quis vos in servitutem redigit. Non bona patientia, cum possis esse liber, servam te permittere fieri. Nolo dissimules servitutem, in quam certe in dies, dum nescis, redigeris. Hebetati cordis indicium est, propriam non sentire continuam vexationem. Vexatio dat intellectum auditui, ait quidam. Verum est; sed si nimia non fuerit. Nam si sit, non plane intellectum dat, sed contemptum. Denique impius cum in profundum malorum venerit, contemnit.
Expergiscere ergo, et pessimae servitutis jugum jam jamque imminens, imo jam non modice premens, non tantum cave, sed horre. An ideo non servus, quia non uni servis, sed omnibus? Nulla turpior servitus graviorve, quam servitus Judaeorum, quam quocumque ierint post se trahunt, et ubique dominos offendunt suos. Tu quoque dic, quaeso ubi unquam sis liber, ubi tutus, ubi tuus? Ubique strepitus, ubique tumultus, ubique jugum tuae servitutis te premit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.6.12 — Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?
- ↩2Cor.11.19 — For you gladly put up with fools, since you are wise yourselves.
- ↩2Cor.11.19-2Cor.11.20 — For you gladly put up with fools, since you are wise yourselves. 2Cor.11.20 — You put up with it if someone enslaves you, if someone devours you, if someone takes advantage of you, if someone puts on airs, if someone strikes you in the face.
- ↩1Cor.7.23 — You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.
- ↩Prov.18.3 — When the wicked comes, contempt comes also, and with dishonor comes disgrace.
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