The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

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.

But to the close of his life, in the year 1153, Pope Eugene had to contend with the turbulent spirit of the Romans and the influences of the principles disseminated by Arnold; and this contest was prolonged into the reign of his second successor, Adrian IV. Among the people and among the nobles, a considerable party had arisen who would concede to the Pope no kind of secular dominion. And there seems to have been a shade of difference among the members of this party. A mob of the people is said to have gone to such an extreme of arrogance as to propose the choosing of a new emperor from among the Romans themselves, the restoration of a Roman empire independent of the Pope. The other party, to which belonged the nobles, were for placing the emperor Frederick I at the head of the Roman Republic, and uniting themselves with him in a common interest against the Pope. They invited him to receive the imperial crown, in the ancient manner, from the "senate and Roman people," and not from the heretical and recreant clergy and false monks, who acted in contradiction to their calling, exercising lordship despite of the evangelical and apostolical doctrine; and in contempt of all laws, divine and human, brought the Church of God and the kingdom of the world into confusion. Those who pretend that they are the representatives of Peter, it was said, in a letter addressed in the spirit of this party to the emperor Frederick I, "act in contradiction to the doctrines which that apostle teaches in his epistles. How can they say with the apostle Peter, 'Lo, we have left all and followed thee,' and, 'Silver and gold have I none'? How can our Lord say to such, 'Ye are the light of the world,' 'the salt of the earth'? Much rather is to be applied to them what our Lord says of the salt that has lost its savor. 'Eager after earthly riches, they spoil the true riches, from which the salvation of the world has proceeded.' How can the saying be applied to them, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit'? for they are neither poor in spirit nor in fact."