In the previous post, we saw Bernard of Clairvaux’s way of confronting the spiritual and moral failures of those seeking and holding clerical offices. In On Consideration to Pope Eugenius, his aim is the reform of the papacy. Writing between 1148-53, Bernard sets forth what Oliver and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan call a “mirror” of the papal office. Eugenius III, who reigned from 1145 until his death in 1153, was the first Cistercian to become pope, which may account for Bernard’s frankness. The Dominican Antonino of Florence (d. 1459) called Eugenius “one of the greatest and most afflicted of the popes”; Eugenius was beatified by Pius IX in 1872.

Bernard’s On Consideration should, therefore, not be considered a condemnation but a warning and a word of hope about what the papacy could be. In his first letter to Pope Eugenius, Bernard hopes that “the bride of your Lord who has been entrusted to your care may be changed for the better, and that no longer Sarai but Sarah shall she be called” (699). The Church, though, does not belong to Eugenius but to Christ, especially if he is a “friend of the Bridegroom”: “Claim nothing of hers as your own, except that for her, if need be, you ought to lay down your life.” Bernard quotes Paul’s words to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 1:23)–“not because we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy”–and says that these words are those of “a true successor of Paul.” The true “heir of Peter” would say with Peter (1 Pet. 5:3) that one should not lord over God’s heritage but be an example to the flock. Bernard points out that this spirit of self-sacrifice was part of Eugenius’s Cistercian formation and that it should follow him to the See of Peter.

Bernard is explicit that he has greater confidence in Eugenius than his predecessors. He says, “having such confidence in you as she seems to have had for a long time in none of your predecessors, the whole assembly of the saints everywhere rightly rejoices and boasts herself in the Lord” (700). Although Bernard says that he is no longer Eugenius’s spiritual father (as he was in the Cistercian Order), he still has “a father’s fear, or anxiety.” “I look,” he continues, “at the height and I fear a fall. I look at the height of your dignity, and I see the mouth of the abyss that lies beneath you.” The papacy was filled with temptation: “you have obtained a higher place, but not a safer; a loftier, not a more secure. … The place, I mean, where you are standing is holy ground, it is the place of Peter, it is the place of the Prince of the Apostles, where his feet have stood.” So, it is a place of testing because it is holy ground, but Bernard also suggests that certain temptations are rooted in its departure from primitive purity: “Deservedly was the Church entrusted to such a shepherd [Peter himself], to such a foster-father; for while she was still tender, still in her swaddling clothes, she was taught by his precept and educated by his example to tread under foot all earthly things, for he had kept his hands clean from every gift, and could say with pure heart and good conscience: ‘Silver and gold have I none.'” The worldliness and wealth of the Church in Bernard’s day would be a temptation for Eugenius.  Bernard makes this point more explicitly when he says, “Who will grant me to see before I die as in the days of old when the Apostles let down their nets for a draught, not of silver and gold, but of souls? How do I long that you may inherit the voice of him whose seat you have obtained!” (702). At the time of Eugenius’s election, Bernard (and others, he reports) said, “Now is the axe laid to the root of the trees” (Matt. 3:10).

On Consideration deals with some of the reasons for this corruption. The Apostle Paul was “free from all men” (1 Cor. 9:19), while the Apostolic See was a place where crowds of “the ambitious, the avaricious, the simoniacal, the sacrilegious, the fornicating, the incestuous and every other kind of monstrous person” gathered “to obtain or retain eccesiastical honors” (269, with reference to the edition in the work of the O’Donovans which used the translation of John D. Anderson and Elizabeth T. Kennan). “What is more servile and more unworthy, especially for the Supreme Pontiff, than every day, or rather every hour, to sweat over such affairs for the likes of these? Tell me this, when are we to pray or to teach the people? When are we to build up the Church or meditate on the law? Oh yes, every day laws resound through the palace, but these are the laws of Justinian, not of the Lord.” The apostles in Acts 6:2 realized that deacons were necessary so that the twelve could give their attention to the word of God. Bernard sees the political and legal and financial concerns of the papacy as suffocating the ability of Peter’s successors to attend to the law of the Lord that converts souls. Instead, the see of Peter was concerned with the laws of the Roman Emperors.

Bernard entertains a familiar set of objections. What if the pope sees these elements of his daily routine as burdens? What if he saw them as tasks taken up unwillingly? “What do you want me to do,” the pope asks Bernard? (270). In reply, he says, “Spare yourself these demands upon you. You may say this is impossible, that it would be easier to bid farewell to the papal throne” (270). He does not ask for the heroic at this point “but the possible,” and this attention to what is possible is an important consideration in later sections of the work. The Apostles did not survey boundaries or distribute lands. In a certain sense, the time for the apostles to sit as judges is for the future, for the heavenly kingdom. For now, Bernard says, “your power is over sin and not property, since it is because of sin that you have received the keys of the heavenly kingdom, to exclude sinners not possessors.” The “base worldly concerns” have their proper judges: secular kings and princes. This is not the task for a successor of the Apostles. The successor of the Apostles should not occupy himself in judging worldly affairs and disputes between the powerful. By contrast, his task is to defend the oppressed and the poor: “We cannot abandon the downtrodden; we cannot refuse judgment to those who suffer injustice” (271). Bernard thus permits ecclesiastical courts and the trying of cases in Rome, but those which are “absolutely necessary.” They should be addressed briefly and in the simplicity of truth. The concerns of the widow and the poor man should be paramount.

Bernard wants Eugenius to know that he was not elected to rule. The task of spiritual labor is best expressed “by the metaphor of a sweating peasant.” The papacy must be a ministry and not a dominion. Rome should not be a place of royal luxury and pomp. It should be an inheritance of “responsibility and labor rather than glory and wealth” (272). Bernard returns to the image of Peter without silver and gold in Acts 3. There is strength in this office but not one of worldly dominion: “Vanquish the wolves, but do not lord it over the sheep” (273). Of course, Bernard does not take away the dignity and even glory of the office. The pope is the prince of the bishops, an heir not only of the Apostles but, in different respects, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, Aaron, Moses, and Samuel. Bernard had a very high view of the papal office, and even here in this “mirror” that condemns the pomp and splendor and worldliness of the papacy before Eugenius, he emphasizes the power of the pope over other bishops. But this is a task of stewardship. Christ possesses and rules; the pope is a care-taker. The pope is to preside but is, in a sense, forbidden to rule (274). The task is to spread the Gospel, not merely to manage the places where Christianity has already been received. And when it comes to the state of the already existing Churches, he asks Eugenius, “How long will you sleep?” (275).

As we will see in future posts, one of the greatest frustrations of reformers is how Rome functions as an appeals court. If an abbot does not want to obey his bishop or a bishop does not want to obey his archbishop, etc., they can often appeal to the pope. Bernard does not deny the fullness or plenitude of papal power in this area. But just because the pope has this power does not mean that he ought to employ it in this way (275). Bernard thinks that most of these appeals are done with “evil intent.” The churches are “dismembered” by this conflict and disorder.

Bernard describes Eugenius as surrounded by wolves. While the pope is also the shepherd of such men, he must consider how to convert them, “so they do not subvert you” (276). These wolves can be changed into sheep. So, the solution is not merely to cast out the “wolves.”  The primary way of reforming the Church is to transform the wolves through the law of the Lord that converts the soul (Psalm 19:7). While there are so many wolves or scorpions or dragons in Rome that it makes the task of being such a shepherd difficult, Bernard reiterates that the evil ones must be attacked “but with the word, not the sword” (276). (And it is in this context that Bernard mentions the famous image of the “two swords,” one of which can be unsheathed by the pope’s command but “not by your hand.”) But what does such a shepherd look like?

Either deny that you are the shepherd of these people or show it by your actions. You will not deny it unless you deny that you are the heir of him whose throne you hold. This is Peter, who is known never to have gone in procession adorned either with jewels or silks, covered with gold, carried on a white horse, attended by a knight or surrounded by clamoring servants. But without these trappings, he believed it was enough to be able to fulfil the Lord’s command, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” In this finery, you are the successor not of Peter, but of Constantine. I suggest that these things must be allowed for the time being, but are not to be assumed as a right. Rather, I urge you on to those things to which I know you have an obligation. You are the heir of the Shepherd and even if you are arrayed in purple and gold, there is no reason for you to abhor your pastoral responsibilities;: there is no reason for you to be ashamed of the Gospel. If you but preach the Gospel willingly you will have glory even among the Apostles. To preach the Gospel is to feed. Do the work of an evangelist and you have fulfilled the office of shepherd. (276)

In his call for reform, Bernard does not ask Eugenius to sell everything that he owns. For good or for ill, he does not call on him to wear only his old monastic robes. While he clearly sees a decline from apostolic purity in the “imperialization” of the Apostolic See (“in this finery, you are the successor … of Constantine”), his call is for the pope–at least for now–to give priority to the task of shepherding souls and not to let the political, financial, and juridical features of the papacy to draw him away from the true obligations of his office. As long as the pope preaches the Gospel and does the work of an evangelist, he can be called a true shepherd and a true heir of Peter.