secularization of the Church--which had given to the pope almost supreme
power in temporal affairs--and against the worldly disposition and life
then prevalent among ecclesiastics and monks. His own life was sternly
simple and ascetic, and this habit had been strongly confirmed by the
ethical passion which burned in the religious and philosophical
instructions of Abelard. With the popular religion Arnold had earnest
sympathy, but he would reduce the clergy to their primitive and
apostolic poverty, depriving them of individual wealth and of all
temporal power.
The inspiring idea of Arnold's movement was that of a holy and pure
church, a renovation of the spiritual order after the pattern of the
apostolic church. He conformed in dress as well as in his mode of life
to the principles he taught. The worldly and often corrupt clergy, he
maintained, were unfit to discharge the priestly functions--they were no
longer priests, and the secularized Church was no longer the house of
God.
Arnold dreamed of a great Christian republic and labored to establish
it, insomuch that his ideal, never realized in concrete form, either in
church or state, took, and in history has kept, the name of republic.
His eloquence and sincerity brought him powerful popular support, and
even a large part of the nobility were won to his side. But of course,
among those whom his aims condemned or antagonized, there were many who
spared no pains to place him in an unfavorable light and to bring his
labors to naught. In the simple story of his career, as here told by the
great church historian, his figure appears in an attitude of heroism,
which the pathos of his end can only make the reader more deeply
appreciate. Through all this agitation is heard the voice of St. Bernard
urging the religious conscience and better aspiration of the time,
preaching the Second Crusade, and speeding its eastward march with
earnest expectation--his high hope doomed to perish with its inglorious
result.)
Arnold's discourses were directly calculated by their tendency to find
ready entrance into the minds of the laity, before whose eyes the
worldly lives of the ecclesiastics and monks were constantly present,
and to create a faction in deadly hostility to the clergy. Superadded to
this was the inflammable matter already prepared by the collision of the
spirit of political freedom with the power of the higher clergy. Thus
Arnold's addresses produced in the minds of the Italian people, quite
susceptible to such excitements, a prodigious effect, which threatened
to spread more widely, and Pope Innocent felt himself called upon to
take preventive measures against it. At the Lateran Council, in the year
1139, he declared against Arnold's proceedings, and commanded him to
quit Italy--the scene of the disturbances thus far--and not to return
again without express permission from the Pope. Arnold, moreover, is
said to have bound himself by an oath to obey this injunction, which
probably was expressed in such terms as to leave him free to interpret
it as referring exclusively to the person of Pope Innocent. If the oath
was not so expressed, he might afterward have been accused of violating
that oath. It is to be regretted that the form in which the sentence was
pronounced against Arnold has not come down to us; but from its very
character it is evident that he could not have been convicted of any
false doctrine, since otherwise the Pope would certainly not have
treated him so mildly--would not have been contented with merely
banishing him from Italy, since teachers of false doctrine would be
dangerous to the Church everywhere.
Bernard, moreover, in his letter directed against Arnold, states that he
was accused before the Pope of being the author of a very bad schism.
Arnold now betook himself to France, and here he became entangled in the
quarrels with his old teacher Abelard, to whom he was indebted for the
first impulse of his mind toward this more serious and free bent of the
religious spirit. Expelled from France, he directed his steps to
Switzerland, and sojourned in Zurich. The abbot Bernard thought it
necessary to caution the Bishop of Constance against him; but the man
who had been condemned by the Pope found protection there from the papal
legate, Cardinal Guido, who, indeed, made him a member of his household
and companion of his table. The abbot Bernard severely censured the
prelate, on the ground that Arnold's connection with him would
contribute, without fail, to give importance and influence to that
dangerous man. This deserves to be noticed on two accounts, for it makes
it evident what power he could exercise over men's minds, and that no
false doctrines could be charged to his account.
But independent of Arnold's personal presence, the impulse which he had
given continued to operate in Italy, and the effects of it extended even
to Rome. By the papal condemnation, public attention was only more
strongly drawn to the subject.
The Romans certainly felt no great sympathy for the religious element in
that serious spirit of reform which animated Arnold; but the political
movements, which had sprung out of his reforming tendency, found a point
of attachment in their love of liberty, and their dreams of the ancient
dominion of Rome over the world. The idea of emancipating themselves
from the yoke of the Pope, and of reestablishing the old Republic,
flattered their Roman pride. Espousing the principles of Arnold, they
required that the Pope, as spiritual head of the Church, should confine
himself to the administration of spiritual affairs; and they committed
to a senate the supreme direction of civil affairs.
Innocent could do nothing to stem such a violent current; and he died in
the midst of these disturbances, in the year 1143. The mild Cardinal
Guido, the friend of Abelard and Arnold, became his successor, and
called himself, when pope, Celestine II. By his gentleness, quiet was
restored for a short time. Perhaps it was the news of the elevation of
this friendly man to the papal throne that encouraged Arnold himself to
come to Rome. But Celestine died after six months, and Lucius II was his
successor. Under his reign the Romans renewed the former agitations with
more violence; they utterly renounced obedience to the Pope, whom they
recognized only in his priestly character, and the restored Roman
Republic sought to strike a league in opposition to the Pope and to
papacy with the new Emperor, Conrad III.
In the name of the "senate and Roman people," a pompous letter was
addressed to Conrad. The Emperor was invited to come to Rome, that from
thence, like Justinian and Constantine, in former days, he might give
laws to the world.
Caesar should have the things that are Caesar's; the priest the things
that are the priest's, as Christ ordained when Peter paid the tribute
money. Long did the tendency awakened by Arnold's principles continue to
agitate Rome. In the letters written amidst these commotions, by
individual noblemen of Rome to the Emperor, we perceive a singular
mixing together of the Arnoldian spirit with the dreams of Roman vanity;
a radical tendency to the separation of secular from spiritual things
which if it had been capable enough in itself, and if it could have
found more points of attachment in the age, would have brought
destruction on the old theocratical system of the Church. They said that
the Pope could claim no political sovereignty in Rome; he could not even
be consecrated without the consent of the Emperor--a rule which had in
fact been observed till the time of Gregory VII. Men complained of the
worldliness of the clergy, of their bad lives, of the contradiction
between their conduct and the teachings of Scripture.
The popes were accused as the instigators of the wars. "The popes," it
was said, "should no longer unite the cup of the eucharist with the
sword; it was their vocation to preach, and to confirm what they
preached by good works. How could those who eagerly grasped at all the
wealth of this world, and corrupted the true riches of the Church, the
doctrine of salvation obtained by Christ, by their false doctrines and
their luxurious living, receive that word of our Lord, 'Blessed are the
poor in spirit,' when they were poor themselves neither in fact nor in
disposition?" Even the donative of Constantine to the Roman bishop
Silvester was declared to be a pitiable fiction. This lie had been so
clearly exposed that it was obvious to the very day-laborers and to
women, and that these could put to silence the most learned men if they
ventured to defend the genuineness of this donative; so that the Pope,
with his cardinals, no longer dared to appear in public. But Arnold was
perhaps the only individual in whose case such a tendency was deeply
rooted in religious conviction; with many it was but a transitory
intoxication, in which their political interests had become merged for
the moment.
The pope Lucius II was killed as early as 1145, in the attack on the
Capitol. A scholar of the great abbot Bernard, the abbot Peter Bernard
of Pisa, now mounted the papal chair under the name of Eugene III. As
Eugene honored and loved the abbot Bernard as his spiritual father and
old preceptor, so the latter took advantage of his relation to the Pope
to speak the truth to him with a plainness which no other man would
easily have ventured to use. In congratulating him upon his elevation to
the papal dignity, he took occasion to exhort him to do away with the
many abuses which had become so widely spread in the Church by worldly
influences. "Who will give me the satisfaction," said he in his letter,
"of beholding the Church of God, before I die, in a condition like that
in which it was in ancient days, when the apostles threw out their nets,
not for silver and gold, but for souls? How fervently I wish thou
mightest inherit the word of that apostle whose episcopal seat thou hast
acquired, of him who said, 'Thy gold perish with thee.' Oh that all the
enemies of Zion might tremble before this dreadful word, and shrink back
abashed! This, thy mother indeed expects and requires of thee, for this
long and sigh the sons of thy mother, small and great, that every plant
which our Father in heaven has not planted may be rooted up by thy
hands." He then alluded to the sudden deaths of the last predecessors of
the Pope, exhorting him to humility, and reminding him of his
responsibility. "In all thy works," he wrote, "remember that thou art a
man; and let the fear of Him who taketh away the breath of rulers be
ever before thine eyes."
Eugene was soon forced to yield, it is true, to the superior force of
the insurrectionary spirit in Rome, and in 1146 to take refuge in
France; but, like Urban and Innocent, he too, from this country,
attained to the highest triumph of the papal power. Like Innocent, he
found there, in the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, a mightier instrument
for operating on the minds of the age than he could have found in any
other country; and like Urban, when banished from the ancient seat of
the papacy, he was enabled to place himself at the head of a crusade
proclaimed in his name, and undertaken with great enthusiasm; an
enterprise from which a new impression of sacredness would be reflected
back upon his own person.
The news of the success which had attended the arms of the Saracens in
Syria, the defeat of the Christians, the conquest of the ancient
Christian territory of Edessa, the danger which threatened the new
Christian kingdom of Jerusalem and the Holy City, had spread alarm among
the Western nations, and the Pope considered himself bound to summon the
Christians of the West to the assistance of their hard-pressed brethren
in the faith and to the recovery of the holy places. By a letter
directed to the abbot Bernard he commissioned him to exhort the Western
Christians in his name, that, for penance and forgiveness of sins, they
should march to the East, to deliver their brethren, or to give up their
lives for them. Enthusiastic for the cause himself Bernard communicated,
through the power of the living word and by letters, his enthusiasm to
the nations. He represented the new crusade as a means furnished by God
to the multitudes sunk in sin, of calling them to repentance, and of
paving the way, by devout participation in a pious work, for the
forgiveness of their sins. Thus, in his letter to the clergy and people
in East Frankland (Germany), he exhorts them eagerly to lay hold on this
opportunity; he declares that the Almighty condescended to invite
murderers, robbers, adulterers, perjurers, and those sunk in other
crimes, into his service, as well as the righteous. He calls upon them
to make an end of waging war with one another, and to seek an object for
their warlike prowess in this holy contest. "Here, brave warrior," he
exclaims, "thou hast a field where thou mayest fight without danger,
where victory is glory and death is gain. Take the sign of the cross,
and thou shalt obtain the forgiveness of all the sins which thou hast
never confessed with a contrite heart." By Bernard's fiery discourses
men of all ranks were carried away. In France and in Germany he
travelled about, conquering by an effort his great bodily infirmities,
and the living word from his lips produced even mightier effects than
his letters.
A peculiar charm, and a peculiar power of moving men's minds, must have
existed in the tones of his voice; to this must be added the
awe-inspiring effect of his whole appearance, the way in which his whole
being and the motions of his bodily frame joined in testifying of that
which seized and inspired him. Thus it admits of being explained how, in
Germany, even those who understood but little, or in fact nothing, of
what he said, could be so moved as to shed tears and smite their
breasts; could, by his own speeches in a foreign language, be more
strongly affected and agitated than by the immediate interpretation of
his words by another. From all quarters sick persons were conveyed to
him by the friends who sought from him a cure; and the power of his
faith, the confidence he inspired in the minds of men, might sometimes
produce remarkable effects. With this enthusiasm, however, Bernard
united a degree of prudence and a discernment of character such as few
of that age possessed, and such qualities were required to counteract
the multiform excitements of the wild spirit of fanaticism which mixed
in with this great ferment of minds.
Thus, he warned the Germans not to suffer themselves to be misled so far
as to follow certain independent enthusiasts, ignorant of war, who were
bent on moving forward the bodies of the crusaders prematurely. He held
up as a warning the example of Peter the Hermit, and declared himself
very decidedly opposed to the proposition of an abbot who was disposed
to march with a number of monks to Jerusalem; "for," said he, "fighting
warriors are more needed there than singing monks." At an assembly held
at Chartres it was proposed that he himself should take the lead of the
expedition; but he rejected the proposition at once, declaring that it
was beyond his power and contrary to his calling. Having, perhaps,
reason to fear that the Pope might be hurried on, by the shouts of the
many, to lay upon him some charge to which he did not feel himself
called, he besought the Pope that he would not make him a victim to
men's arbitrary will, but that he would inquire, as it was his duty to
do, how God had determined to dispose of him.
With the preaching of this Second Crusade, as with the invitation to the
First, was connected an extraordinary awakening. Many who had hitherto
given themselves up to their unrestrained passions and desires, and
become strangers to all higher feelings, were seized with compunction.
Bernard's call to repentance penetrated many a heart; people who had
lived in all manner of crime were seen following this voice and flocking
together in troops to receive the badge of the cross. Bishop Otto of
Freisingen, the historian, who himself took the cross at that time,
expresses it as his opinion "that every man of sound understanding would
be forced to acknowledge so sudden and uncommon a change could have been
produced in no other way than by the right hand of the Lord." The
provost Gerhoh of Reichersberg, who wrote in the midst of these
movements, was persuaded that he saw here a work of the Holy Spirit,
designed to counteract the vices and corruptions which had got the upper
hand in the Church.
Many who had been awakened to repentance confessed what they had taken
from others by robbery or fraud, and hastened, before they went to the
holy war, to seek reconciliation with their enemies. The Christian
enthusiasm of the German people found utterance in songs in the German
tongue; and even now the peculiar adaptation of this language to sacred
poetry began to be remarked. Indecent songs could no longer venture to
appear abroad.
While some were awakened by Bernard's preaching from a life of crime to
repentance, and by taking part in the holy war strove to obtain the
remission of their sins, others again, who though hitherto borne along
in the current of ordinary worldly pursuits, yet had not given
themselves up to vice, were filled by Bernard's words with loathing of
the worldly life, inflamed with a vehement longing after a higher stage
of Christian perfection, after a life of entire consecration to God.
They longed rather to enter upon the pilgrimage to the heavenly than to
an earthly Jerusalem; they resolved to become monks, and would fain have
the man of God himself, whose words had made so deep an impression on
their hearts, as their guide in the spiritual life, and commit
themselves to his directions, in the monastery of Clairvaux. But here
Bernard showed his prudence and knowledge of mankind; he did not allow
all to become monks who wished to do so. Many he rejected because he
perceived they were not fitted for the quiet of the contemplative life,
but needed to be disciplined by the conflicts and cares of a life of
action.
As contemporaries themselves acknowledge, these first impressions, in
the case of many who went to the crusades, were of no permanent
duration, and their old nature broke forth again the more strongly under
the manifold temptations to which they were exposed, in proportion to
the facility with which, through the confidence they reposed in a
plenary indulgence, without really laying to heart the condition upon
which it was bestowed, they could flatter themselves with security in
their sins.
Gerhoh of Reichersberg, in describing the blessed effects of that
awakening which accompanied the preaching of the crusader, yet says: "We
doubt not that among so vast a multitude some became in the true sense
and in all sincerity soldiers of Christ. Some, however, were led to
embark in the enterprise by various other occasions, concerning whom it
does not belong to us to judge, but only to Him who alone knows the
hearts of those who marched to the contest either in the right or not in
the right spirit. Yet this we do confidently affirm, that to this
crusade many were called, but few were chosen." And it was said that
many returned from this expedition, not better, but worse than they
went. Therefore the monk Cesarius of Heisterbach, who states this, adds:
"All depends on bearing the yoke of Christ not _one_ year or _two_
years, but daily, if a man is really intent on doing it in truth, and in
that sense in which our Lord requires it to be done, in order to follow
him."
When it turned out, however, that the event did not answer the
expectations excited by Bernard's enthusiastic confidence, but the
crusade came to that unfortunate issue which was brought about
especially by the treachery of the princes and nobles of the Christian
kingdom in Syria, this was a source of great chagrin to Bernard, who had
been so active in setting it in motion, and who had inspired such
confident hopes by his promises. He appeared now in the light of a bad
prophet, and he was reproached by many with having incited men to engage
in an enterprise which had cost so much blood to no purpose; but
Bernard's friends alleged, in his defence, that he had not excited such
a popular movement single-handed, but as the organ of the Pope, in whose
name he acted; and they appealed to the facts by which his preaching of
the cross was proved to be a work of God--to the wonders which attended
it. Or they ascribed the failure of the undertaking to the bad conduct
of the crusaders themselves, to the unchristian mode of life which many
of them led, as one of these friends maintained, in a consoling letter
to Bernard himself, adding, "God, however, has turned it to good.
Numbers who, if they had returned home, would have continued to live a
life of crime, disciplined and purified by many sufferings, have passed
into the life eternal."
But Bernard himself could not be staggered in his faith by this event.
In writing to Pope Eugene on this subject, he refers to the
incomprehensibleness of the divine ways and judgments; to the example of
Moses, who, although his work carried on its face incontestable evidence
of being a work of God, yet was not permitted himself to conduct the
Jews into the Promised Land. As this was owing to the fault of the Jews
themselves, so too the crusaders had none to blame but themselves for
the failure of the divine work. "But," says he, "it will be said,
perhaps, how do we know that this work came from the Lord? What miracle
dost thou work that we should believe thee? To this question I need not
give an answer; it is a point on which my modesty asks to be excused
from speaking. Do you answer," says he to the Pope, "for me and for
yourself, according to that which you have seen and heard." So firmly
was Bernard convinced that God had sustained his labors by miracles.
Eugene was at length enabled, in the year 1149, after having for a long
time excited against himself the indignation of the cardinals by his
dependence on the French abbot, with the assistance of Roger, King of
the Sicilies, to return to Rome; where, however, he still had to
maintain a struggle with the party of Arnold.
The provost Gerhoh finds something to complain of in the fact that the
Church of St. Peter wore so warlike an aspect that men beheld the tomb
of the apostle surrounded with bastions and the implements of war.
As Bernard was no longer sufficiently near the Pope to exert on him the
same immediate personal influence as in times past, he addressed to him
a voice of admonition and warning, such as the mighty of the earth
seldom enjoy the privilege of hearing. With the frankness of a love
which, as he himself expresses it, knew not the master, but recognized
the son, even under the pontifical robes, he set before him, in his four
books _On Meditation_, which he sent to him singly at different times,
the duties of his office, and the faults against which, in order to
fulfil these duties, he needed especially to guard.
Bernard was penetrated with a conviction that to the Pope, as St.
Peter's successor, was committed by God a sovereign power of church
government over all, and responsible to no other tribunal; that to this
church theocracy, guided by the Pope, the administration even of the
secular power, though independent within its own peculiar sphere, should
be subjected, for the service of the kingdom of God; but he also
perceived, with the deepest pain, how very far the papacy was from
corresponding to this its idea and destination; what prodigious
corruption had sprung and continued to spring from the abuse of papal
authority; he perceived already, with prophetic eye, that this very
abuse of arbitrary will must eventually bring about the destruction of
this power. He desired that the Pope should disentangle himself from the
secular part of his office, and reduce that office within the purely
spiritual domain; and that, above all, he should learn to govern and
restrict himself.