Toleration

Bernard had no heart for theological debates. He was not an advocate of any of the various doctrinal schools. The dialectics of theologians were distasteful to him. He displayed a degree of toleration uncommon in his day. One author put it this way:

For all his zeal he was by nature neither a bigot nor a persecutor. Even when preaching the crusade he interfered at Mainz to stop the persecution of the Jews. As for heretics, “the little foxes that spoil the vines,” these “should be taken, not, by force of arms, but by force of argument,” though, if any heretic refused to be thus taken, he considered “that he should be driven away, or even a restraint put upon his liberty, rather than that he should be allowed to spoil the vines.” [10]

This is certainly a different spirit than that later exhibited by the Catholic church toward those whom they labelled heretics.

Grace

The reformers, who followed Bernard by several centuries, greatly appreciated his insight into matters related to grace, so much so that one author has described Bernard as “a mediaeval champion of their favourite doctrine of the supremacy of grace.” [11] The same author supplies the source of this kinship of spirit:

This is perhaps due to the fact that the source of his own inspiration was the Bible. He was saturated in its language and in its spirit; and this saved him from the grosser aberrations of mediaeval Catholicism. He accepted the teaching of the Church as to the reverence due to Our Lady and the saints, but they were overshadowed in his mind by his idea of the grace of God and the moral splendour of Christ; “from Him do the Saints derive the odour of sanctity; from Him also do they shine as lights.” [12]

The Experience of Christ

Bernard stressed the importance of experiencing Christ versus attaining to a mere mental understanding of Him. Petry describes Bernard’s feeling in this way:

For all of these, love’s possession, or the experience of divine companionship, rather than the mind’s comprehension of God, is paramount. Thus in Bernard, for instance, consideration seeks to think and know but contemplation longs to see, savor, and taste. [13]

He is himself the Loveable [One] in his essential being, and gives himself to be the object of our love. He wills our love for him to issue in our bliss, not to be void and vain. His love both opens up the way for ours and is our love’s reward. How kindly does he lead us in love’s way, how generously he returns the love we give, how sweet he is to those who wait for him! He is rich unto all that call upon him, for he can give them nothing better than himself. He gave himself to be our Righteousness, and keeps himself to be our great Reward. He sets himself to the refreshment of our souls, and spends himself to free the prisoners. [14]

Bernard is not content to stop at the above statement but is compelled to turn to the Word and to turn the Word to prayer. He concludes with the following:

Thou art good, Lord, to the soul that seeks thee. What, then, art thou to the soul that finds? . . . We can both seek and find thee, but we can never be before with thee. For though we say, “Early shall my prayer come before thee,” a chilly, loveless thing that prayer would be, were it not warmed by thine own breath and born of thine own Spirit. [15]

Bernard gave eighty-six sermons on the first two chapters of the Song of Songs plus the first few verses of chapter three. Concerning Song of Songs 3:1 which reads, “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth,” Bernard said the following:

It is a great good to seek God. I think that, among all of the blessings of the soul, there is none greater than this.

It is a great good to seek God

It is the first of the gifts of God; the last degree of the soul’s progress. By no virtue is it preceded; to none does it give place. [Is it not] the consummation of all virtues? . . . God is sought, not by the movement of the feet, but by the desires of the heart; and when a soul has been so happy as to find him, that sacred desire is not extinguished, but, on the contrary, is increased. [16]

Subjective Salvation

In the following passage, Bernard describes the believer’s experience with regard to the love of God, the will of God, transformation, and the renewing of the human will:

So we must fix our love on him, bit by bit aligning our own will with his, who made all for himself; not wanting either ourselves or anything else to be or to have been, save as it pleases him, making his will alone, and not our pleasure, our object of desire. The sating of our own requirements, the happiness that we choose for ourselves, will never bring us to the joy that comes from finding his will done in and concerning us, even as every day we ask in prayer, “Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” O chaste and holy love, affection sweet and lovely! O pure and clean intention of the will, the purer in that now at last it is divested of self-will, the lovelier and the sweeter since its perceptions at last are all divine! To become thus is to be deified. [17]

Bernard gives several illustrations to clarify his meaning when speaking of the deification of man:

“As a small drop of water, mingled in much wine, takes on its taste and color so completely that it appears no longer to exist apart from it; as molten, white-hot iron is so like the fire, it seems to have renounced its natural form; as air when flooded with the sun’s pure light is so transformed as to appear not lit so much as very light itself; so, with the saints, their human love will then ineffably be melted out of them and all poured over…into the will of God….How otherwise could God be “all in all,” if anything of man remained in man? And yet our human substance will remain: we shall still be ourselves, but in another form, another glory and another power. When will that be?...Who will possess it? “When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?” O Lord my God, “my heart hath talked of thee, my face hath sought thee: thy face, Lord, will I seek.” Shall I see…thy holy house? [18]

Thus, transformation does not do away with humanity. It produces a different shape with a different glory and power.

Redemption

Of interest, also, are Bernard’s comments on the subjective work of Christ in redemption:

. . . while Christ had taught righteousness, he had also granted it, and that he had infused love and had not merely exhibited it. Christ as teacher and pattern, even Christ crucified as example, needed to be related to the larger definition of Christ as Redeemer. He who provided the example of virtue must also provide the assistance of grace. [19]

Christ as our example is not sufficient. He must be grace in us if He is to be our reality.

When commenting on the blood of Christ in reference to the verse, “

This medieval saint’s realization of the importance of the Lord’s blood for redemption is clearer than that of many of today’s Christians

For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”(Matt. 26:28), Bernard emphasizes how indispensable for redemption is the blood of Christ. He says that we obtain redemption “through the intercession of the death of the Only-begotten, being justified freely in his blood.” [20] Although he could supply no reason for it, he knew that redemption and forgiveness come through Christ’s blood. This medieval saint’s realization of the importance of the Lord’s blood for redemption is clearer than that of many of today’s Christians.