Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard de Fontaine (castle of Fontaine-lès-Dijon, 1090-Clairvault Abbey, August 20, 1153), known as Bernardo de Clairvaux (in French, Bernard de Clairvaux), was a French Cistercian monk and head of the Clairvaux abbey.
With him, the Cistercian Order expanded throughout Europe and occupied the forefront of religious influence. He participated in the main doctrinal conflicts of his time and was involved in the important affairs of the Church. In the schism of Anacleto II he mobilized to defend what was declared the true pope, he opposed the rationalist Abelardo and was the passionate preacher of the second Crusade.
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He is an essential personality in the history of the Catholic Church and the most notable of his century. She exerted a great influence on the political and religious life of Europe.
His contributions have shaped Christian religiosity, Gregorian chant, monastic life, and the spread of Gothic architecture.
The Catholic Church canonized him in 1174 and declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1830.
Biography
at Fontaine-lès-Dijon.
He was born in the castle of Fontaine-lès-Dijon, in Burgundy, France in the year 1090 with the first name of Bernard de Fontaine. He was the third of seven brothers. His father was a knight of the Duke of Burgundy and educated him at the clerical school of Châtillon-sur-Seine. After the death of his mother, he entered the Cistercian Order.
This order had been founded a few years earlier by Roberto de Molesmes under the rule of Saint Benedict. He only had one monastery, and due to the harshness of the life they led, it had few members. Such a monastery was close to his father's house. Odo, Duke of Burgundy, his benefactor, contributed to the construction of this first monastery; likewise, he donated land and cattle to him.
When he entered the Cistercian Order as a novice at the age of 23, in the year 1113, he was accompanied by four brothers, an uncle and some friends (up to 30 people, according to other sources). He had previously tested them for six months, ensuring their loyalty and forming a close-knit group. Convincing so many was hard work, especially his brother Guido, who was married with two daughters, and who eventually left his family. and entered the order. His father and younger brother would later enter the order.
In the year 1115, Stephen Harding, the Cistercian abbot, faced with the double problem of the massive presence of the Fontaine clan and the sudden overcrowding that they had caused in his monastery, decided to send Bernardo to found the monastery of Clairvaux, one of the first Cistercian foundations. He was appointed abbot of the new monastery, a post he held until the end of his life.It was the bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne, the philosopher William of Champeaux, who ordained him a priest and blessed him as abbot.
The beginning of Claraval was very hard. The regime imposed by Bernardo was very austere and affected his health. Guillermo de Champeaux had to intervene, delegated by the Cistercian General Chapter, to monitor Bernardo's health, softening the lack of food and the implacable mortification that he imposed on himself. same. He was forced to leave the community and move to a cabin that served as an infirmary and where he was cared for by some healers.
Throughout his life he founded 68 monasteries throughout Europe. His beginnings were slow. In the first 10 years only three new foundations were established: Tre Fontane (1118), la Fontenay (1119) and Foigny (1121). From 1130 the first abbeys spread throughout Germany, England and Spain (Moreruela, 1132).
He was spiritually a mystic and is considered one of the founders of medieval mysticism. He had a great influence on the development of devotion to the Virgin Mary.[citation needed]
Bernardo was an inspirer and organizer of the military orders, created to welcome and defend pilgrims heading to the Holy Land and to combat Islam. Thus, he had a great influence on the creation and expansion of the Order of the Temple, drew up its statutes and had it recognized at the Council of Troyes, in 1128.
In 1130, the schism of the antipope Anacleto separated him from the cloistered monastic life and he began an intense public activity in defense of Innocent II. He was mobilized from 1130 to 1137 and made the abbot one of the most influential politicians of his time.
He was involved in the major religious controversies of his day. He maintained that the knowledge of the profane sciences is of little value, compared to that of the sacred sciences. His feelings towards the dialecticians were revealed in the confrontations he had with Gilberto de la Porré and Pedro Abelardo. [citation needed ]
Preaching in the medieval Church was essential and Bernardo was one of its great practitioners. Constantly in demand by the local clergy, he traveled extensively in the south of France, the Rhineland, and other regions. He also preached the spiritual excellences of monastic life and convinced many to join the Cistercian order. He was known as &# 34;Mellifluous Doctor" (mouth of honey), for the softness and sweetness of it.
He usually traveled on foot, accompanied by a monk, who acted as his secretary and took dictation during his journeys.
Bernard preached in Languedoc in 1145 to the Cathars or Albigensians, and was praised, but in Verfeil, near Toulouse, he was booed. Years after Bernard's death, in 1209, the Cathars were declared heretics, and several Cistercians led the crusade that suppressed this movement.
In 1145, Eugene III was made pope. He is the first Cistercian pope and a disciple of Bernardo. She had met him on one of his trips and followed him from Italy to Claraval. There he spent 10 years of monastic life. In 1140 Bernardo had sent him back to Italy as abbot of Tre Fontane, the 34th foundation of Clairvaux.
His greatest and most tragic undertaking was the Second Crusade, the preaching of which was entirely his doing. There, with all his strength and with all his weakness, his religious ideal appeared. His failure negatively affected his influence and his charismatic figure, exceptional until then both with religious power and with political.
In 1153, he became sick to his stomach - he couldn't keep food down and his legs swelled - he became very weak and died.
He was canonized on January 18, 1174 by Pope Alexander III, and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pius VIII in 1830. His liturgical feast is celebrated on August 20 on the anniversary of his death, being his patron saint from Gibraltar, from Algeciras, from agricultural workers and from Queen's College, Cambridge. His iconographic attributes are the feather, the book, the dog, the dragon, the beehive and the figure of the Virgin Mary.
Main public interventions
Organization of the Order of the Temple
In 1099, the Crusaders recaptured Jerusalem and the holy places of Palestine. Pilgrims were attacked and robbed on the roads. Some gentlemen decided to prolong their vow and dedicate their lives to the defense of the pilgrims. In 1127, Hugo de Payens asked Pope Honorius II for recognition of his organization.
They received the support of Abbot Bernardo, nephew of one of the nine founding Knights and ultimately fifth Grand Master of the Order, André de Montbard. Thus, a council met at Troyes to regulate their organization.
In the council, they asked Bernardo to draft their rule, which was debated and approved with some modifications. The Temple rule was therefore a Cistercian rule, as it contains great analogies with it. It could not be otherwise, since the abbot was his inspiration. It was typical of medieval societies, with hierarchical structures, totalitarian powers, it regulates the election of those in charge and structures the assemblies to assist them and, where appropriate, control them. After this first wording, there was a second one due to Esteban de Chartres, Patriarch of Jerusalem, called the "Latin rule" and whose text has been maintained to this day.
Bernardo wrote in 1130, the Liber ad milites templi de laude novae militiae (in Spanish: Book of the Knights Templar. Praise of the new Templar militia), which he associated with the places of life of Jesus with countless biblical quotes. He tried to equate the new militia to a divine militia:
It aspires this militia to exterminate the children of infidelity...combating at once on a double front: against men of flesh and blood and against the spiritual forces of evil.Liber ad milites templi de laude novae militiae.
Intervention in the schism of the antipope Anacleto in defense of Innocent II
After Pope Honorius II died, a double papal election took place. Most of the cardinals supported Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni who adopted the name of Anacleto II; while a minority of cardinals opted for Gregorio Papareschi (Innocent II).
The appearance of two popes caused the schism and pitted half of Christianity, which supported Anacleto II, against the other half, which defended Innocent II. The latter had the support of Bernardo, who toured Europe from 1130 to 1137, explaining his views to monarchs, nobles, and prelates.
His intervention was decisive at the Council of Estampes, convened by French King Louis VI. Likewise, the influence of Bernardo favored the confirmation of Innocent II, obtaining the support of Henry I of England, the German Emperor Lothar II, William X of Aquitaine, the kings of Aragon, Castile, Alfonso VII, and the republics of Genoa. and Pisa. Ultimately, Anacleto was rejected as pope and was excommunicated.
Controversy with Abelardo
Abelardo, one of the first scholastics, had been introduced to dialectic and maintained that “the foundations of the faith with similarities based on human reason” should be sought. He thus argued:
I was prepared to explain the foundations of our faith through similarities based on human reason. My students asked me for human and philosophical reasons and asked me for what they could understand and not what they could not discern. They said that it was no use to utter many words, if it was not done with intelligence; that nothing could be believed that had not been understood before; and it is ridiculous that someone predicts nothing that neither he nor his students can cover with the intellect.Pedro Abelardo, History
These new ideas of Abelardo's were rejected by those who thought traditionally, including the abbot. Thus, in 1139, Guillermo de Saint-Thierry found 19 supposedly heretical propositions of Abelardo and Bernardo de Claraval sent them to Rome to be condemned. In the synod of Sens they demanded that Abelardo retract and when he did not do so, the pope confirmed the synod of Sens and condemned him as a heretic to perpetual silence as a teacher.
Bernardo in a letter to Innocent II (Contra errores Petri Abaelardi), refuted Abelardo's supposed errors, since he considered that faith should only be accepted:
Since he was willing to use reason to explain everything, even those things that are above reason, his presumption was against reason and against faith. Because, is there anything more hostile to reason than to try to transcend reason by reason? and what is more hostile to faith than to refuse to believe what cannot be achieved by reason?Contra quaedam capitula errorum Abaelardi
For Bernardo, the truth behind the belief in God is a fact directly infused by divinity and therefore unquestionable. Against the rationalists' claim that theology must be supported by evidence, he asserted in a well-known argument:
We know it [the Truth]. But how do we think we understand her? Disquisition does not understand it, but sanctity does, if it is somehow possible to understand how incomprehensible. But if he could not be understood, the apostle would not have said... "and founded on charity, you can understand in union with all the saints." The saints therefore understand. You want to know how? If you are holy, you will understand and know. If not, be holy and you will know by experience.Tractatus de laudibis Parisius
Bernardo's opinion about Abelardo's misuse of reason earned the support of mystics and irrationalists, who agreed with him.
Preaching on the Second Crusade
In the Second Crusade, he assumed the most important political role of his life, becoming the preacher of the new holy war. The failure of it meant the decline of his political influence.
Fifty years earlier, during the First Crusade, a feudal kingdom ruled by French nobles was established in Palestine. In 1144, the armies of Islam took the Christian city of Edessa. In 1145, Louis VII of France proposed the crusade and asked Bernard to preach it. He replied that only the Pope could entrust him with that preaching. The king made the request to the pope. It was then, when Pope Eugene III, who had been a monk at Clairvaux and a disciple of Bernardo, asked the Saint to preach the crusade and the indulgences that derived from it.
The Bernardo who preached the Crusade showed a different personality than he had been until then. He understood the interior life as the union of the human soul with God and identified the interior life with the life of the whole church, of the whole "mystical body", his conception of the crusade being basically mystical. He considered that the Catholic Church could call the Christian nations to arms to safeguard the order established by God. He seems that he did not need to understand Islam. According to him, if God deemed it necessary for armies to defend his kingdom, if the Pope himself ordered him to preach the Crusade, it was clear to him that it was a divine mission. Therefore he transmitted to the Christians that it was a holy war, as he conceived it that way.
In a subsequent letter to the pope, he reflected on the crusade as follows: “You ordered me and I obeyed. The authority of the one who commanded me made my obedience fruitful. I opened my lips, spoke, and the crusaders multiplied, so that the cities and castles were left empty, and it would be difficult to find one man for every seven women."
The preaching carried out in Germany was done against the will of the pope, and he won over the emperor Conrad III and numerous princes to the cause. According to Maschke, "Bernardo is much more fiery as a preacher than as a statesman and as a politician of the Church, he electrifies the peoples of the West, instilling in them the sole desire to go to the Crusade."
The Crusaders were defeated by Islam, causing great pessimism throughout Christendom. Saint Bernard, who had been the main animator and the one who had inflamed the peoples, was called a trickster and a false prophet. The failure of the second Crusade deeply damaged confidence in the pontificate and it was openly said that the Christian faith had suffered a hard setback.
Bernardo was very affected, however he thought that at least he had been criticized and not God. He thus wrote it in De Consideration , addressed to Pope Eugene III.
His Cistercian Order
Cistercian Abbot
At the age of 23, in the year 1113, he entered the Cistercian Order. Two years later, Esteban Harding, the Cistercian abbot, sent him to found one of the first Cistercian foundations, the monastery of Clairvaux, of which he was appointed abbot, since he held it until the end of his life.
The order, then, was in formation. Esteban Harding was the third abbot to have the order, and in 1119 he endowed the Cistercian with its own rule, the Charter of Charity, which established the community norms of total poverty, obedience to the bishops and dedication to divine worship with neglect of the profane sciences.
Bernardo personally participated in the formation of the Cistercian spirit and was the architect of the great diffusion of the Cistercian order, going from the only monastery when he entered to 343 when he died, of which 168 belonged to Clairvaux and 68 were founded by himself.
The enormous influence that the Cistercians achieved was due to Bernardo who far transcended the order. He has been the most prominent figure of the Order and is revered as its founder.
Cistercian was a totally different conception of medieval monastic life than Cluny. The Cistercian rule was, in practice, a criticism of that of Cluny. This criticism of the Cluniacs was specified by Bernardo in 1124, in his writing Apology for William :
The church shines everywhere, but the poor are hungry. The walls of the church are covered with gold, but the children of the church are still naked. For God's sake, since you are not ashamed of so many stupidities, lament at least so many expenses.Apology to Guillermo
Starting with the Apology for William, the Cistercian rule appeared as a reaction against Cluniac excesses. If during the century XI Cluniac monks had assumed great prominence within the church, occupying its highest positions and exercising their influence over civil power, in the XII that role fell to the Cistercians.
Inspiring Cistercian architecture
His Apologia a Guillermo also established the theoretical criteria that would later be used in the construction of all Cistercian abbeys. In this writing, Bernardo harshly criticized the sculpture, the painting, the ornaments and the excessive dimensions of the Cluniac Churches. Starting from the Cistercian spirit of poverty and rigorous asceticism, he came to the conclusion that his monks, who had renounced the goodness of the world, did not need any of this to reflect on the law of God. Criticism unfolded it on two axes. In the first place, voluntary poverty: the sculptures and ornaments were a useless expense: they waste the bread of the poor. Second, he also rejected images because they distracted the monks' attention, kept them from finding God through Scripture.
When, in 1135, they had some 90 abbeys and were increasing at a rate of 10 new ones per year, Bernardo must have thought that the order was consolidated and with excessive growth, making an abbey model urgent that would guarantee the uniformity of the Order. He also must have reflected that the order could not continue with the ephemeral constructions of wood and adobe, requiring stone monasteries that would serve future generations of monks.
This was materialized in the stone construction of the first two abbeys, Claraval II (starting in 1135) and Fontenay (started in 1137), which were built simultaneously. In both he intervened decisively, since Claraval was his abbot and Fontenay was his affiliate. He was the inspiration for both constructions and their formal solutions. For him, Cistercian architecture should reflect asceticism and absolute poverty led to total dispossession that they practiced daily and that constituted the Cistercian spirit. Thus he ended up defining an aesthetic of simplification and nakedness that was intended to convey the ideals of the order: silence, contemplation, asceticism and poverty.
These first abbeys were built in the Burgundian Romanesque style, which had reached its full potential: (pointed barrel vault and groin vault). Subsequently, when the Gothic style emerged in the Benedictine abbey of Saint Denis in 1140, the Cistercians quickly accepted some concepts of the new style and began to build in both styles, with abbeys often having Romanesque and Gothic rooms from the same period.. With the passage of time, the Romanesque was abandoned.
By dispensing with everything superfluous, the Cistercian style achieved some bare, conceptual and original spaces that make it fully identifiable.
Influence on the Cistercian Pope Eugene III
Eugene III was the spiritual son of Bernardo. As explained, before being elected pope, he spent 10 years in Clairvaux as a monk under the spiritual authority of his abbot Bernardo. Later, for another 5 years, he was the abbot of a Claraval filial monastery, therefore, he continued to maintain that relationship of spiritual dependency.
Already being pope, they maintained frequent correspondence between them, asking Eugenio to write a treatise on the obligations of being pope. The abbot did so and wrote the treatise De Consideratione in 5 books. The first was written in 1149, the second in 1150, the third after the disaster of the Crusade in 1152, and the last two to follow. It is his best-known treatise, and although he wrote it for Pope Eugene, in practice he was also doing for all subsequent popes. In fact, the importance that many popes have given to this text is known.
Bernardo continued to feel that he was his spiritual father, as he stated repeatedly in the prologue to De Consideratione: «the love I profess for you does not consider you as Lord, it recognizes you as its son among the insignia and the splendor of your sublime dignity... I loved you when you were poor, just as I have to love you as a father of the poor and the rich. Because I know you well, not because you have been made a father of the poor do you stop being poor in spirit."
In this writing, he insists on the need for interior life and prayer for those who have the greatest responsibilities in the Church. He wrote about the danger of getting carried away by affairs of state and neglecting prayer and the realities on high.
About the powers of the pope, he wrote defending the supremacy of spiritual power and the right of the Church to employ secular armies. Luke, which he interpreted to refound "the doctrine of the two swords", present in Christian thought since the beginning of the Middle Ages:
If the material sword did not belong to the Church, the Lord would not have replied “It is enough” to the apostles when they said “Here are two swords”, but “It is too much”. Therefore, of the Church they are the spiritual sword and the material sword, but this is to be managed for the Church, and that, for the Church.Of consideratione
He also wrote that the pope's power is not unlimited:
And if, as I think, you think that your apostolic power is the only one instituted by God (says the apostle:) "There is no power that does not come from God...Everyone must be subject to the higher authorities." It does not say “the superior authority”, as if it were referring to one, but “the higher authorities”, as if it were referring to several. Therefore, your power is not the only one that comes from God, they also come from "He", the power of the medium and the small.Of consideratione
He was convinced that all offices in the Church came directly from God and so he wrote to the pope:
Reflect that the Holy Roman Church is not the lady, but the mother of the churches. You are not the lord of the bishops, but one of them.Of consideratione
His doctrine
Mysticism
He was the first to formulate the basic principles of mysticism, helping to configure it as the spiritual body of the Catholic Church.
His devotion to the humanity of the Redeemer was an innovation based on the Christ of the Fathers and Saint Paul. His way of relating to Christ led to new forms of spirituality based on the imitation of Christ.
His mystical theology had as its main purpose to show the path of spiritual union with God. His doctrine of seeking union with God was inspired by the study of the scriptures and the fathers of the Church, as well as his own religious experience. The scheme of Bernardian mysticism proposes to ascend from the depths of original sin to the highest level of love, the mystical union with God. In this ascent he listed 4 degrees of love, described in his treatise Of the love of God :
...In the first place, therefore, man loves himself, for he is flesh, and he cannot like anything outside himself...more, when he sees that he cannot subsist on himself, he begins to seek God by faith, and to love him, as it is so necessary. He therefore loves God in the second degree, but by himself, not by himself. After he began, on the occasion of his own need, to reverence and frequent him, meditating, praying, obeying him, little by little by virtue of this kind of familiarity, God is made known and consequently he becomes also sweeter, and so... he passes to the third degree, to love God no longer by himself, but by himself... in this degree he is long time... and since then, joining him great will be with HimFrom the love of God
We know three comings of the Lord... there is an intermediate coming... hidden, only the elect see it, in themselves... but, so that you do not think... that... the intermediate coming is our invention, hear the same Lord: "He who loves me will keep my word; my Father will love him and we will come to fix in him our abode"...thanks to this coming, we who are the image of the earthly man, we will also be the image of the heavenly man...Sermon 5 in Advent
The influence of Bernardo's thought on mysticism and Marian devotion in the European religious orders was very important. Note the devotional paintings in this article that correspond to orders from Franciscans, Capuchins and Carthusians from Italy and Spain, some of them carried out almost five hundred years after his death.
Marian devotion
In the Christian West and from the end of the XI century, the popular cult of the Virgin Mary developed massively. Bernardo played an important role in the propagation of this Marian cult. His theology on Mary was quickly accepted by the faithful and his sermons spread throughout Christendom. The best known is Of the aqueduct:
... such a great aqueduct... overwhelmed the heavens and could reach that very fountain of the waters that is above the heavens... How did this our aqueduct come to that sublime source? [...] As it is written, the prayer of the righteous penetrates into the heavens...Who shall be righteous, if not Mary, of whom was born to us the sun of righteousness? [...] Whatever you have to offer, remember to entrust it to Mary, so that grace may return, by the same channel where he ran, to the giver of grace... to the one you wish to offer, seek to place it in the hands of Mary... so that it may be offered to the Lord, without suffering from Him...From the aqueduct
The figure of Mary was not understood as it is today. Thus the abbot expressed his doubts about the Immaculate Conception: ...with all certainty, only grace made Mary clean of the original contagion... The feast of the Immaculate Conception is a feast unknown to the rites of the Church, nor does it recommend ancient tradition. It cannot be said that he sponsored the Assumption of Mary (in this he coincided with the anti-assumptionist current that prevailed at the time).
The sources of his doctrine
Their sources were fundamentally the Holy Scriptures and also the sources of the Christian tradition. Both were always his great arguments.
Bernardo believed in “the verbal revelation” of the biblical text. This belief, today considered erroneous by Catholic theology, was inherited from Origen, his teacher in Exegesis. Thus, in every word of the Bible he looked for interpretations and unknown and hidden meanings. When he did not understand some phrases or a sense of the text, he humbled himself and asked God to enlighten him, because he understood that if God had put that word or that phrase and not another, he did it for a specific reason. This faith in verbal revelation gave rise to important mystical periods that were recorded in his writings.
His search for the interpretation of the sacred text, without limiting himself to the meaning intended by the sacred writer, to obtain from it the justification of his personal experiences, deepens reflection and contemplation in the same way as the early Church and following the mystical tradition of the Greek fathers of the catechetical School of Alexandria.
It is illuminating what the two main architects of the Protestant Reformation thought of him. Martin Luther said that "Bernardo surpasses all other Doctors of the Church" and John Calvin praised him: "Abbot Bernard speaks the language of the same truth."
The books of the Bible that he quoted the most and therefore with which he most identified are: the book of Psalms 1519 times; Paul's letters 1,388 times; the Gospel of Matthew 614 times; the Gospel of John 469 times; the Gospel according to Saint Luke 465 times; the Book of Isaiah 358 times and the Song of Songs 241 times.
The second source for him was Tradition. At his time there were two opposing theological schools: the ancient or traditional school, of which he was the main exponent, and the modern school, sponsored by Abelardo, based on speculation and philosophical criticism of ideas. Bernardo considered philosophy sterile, since he argued that it is of no use to man to achieve his ultimate goal. He despised Plato and Aristotle. On one occasion he said: "My teachers are the apostles, they have not taught me to read Plato or to exercise myself in the disquisitions of Aristotle." However, he had a Neoplatonic conception of the human soul, which he considered to be created in the image and likeness of God and destined for a perfect union with Him.
The Church Fathers he followed the most were those who were then considered the most authoritative teachers of the Church: he declared himself a faithful disciple of Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, called them the two pillars of the Church and wrote that it was hardly he would depart from his opinion (in the Treatise on Baptism). In morals, his reference was Gregory the Great.He often copied Cassiodorus without citing him in his commentaries on the Psalms. Many beautiful thoughts that Bernard described are actually Cassiodorus's.Among the Greek Fathers, he often quoted Origen (he loved allegorical exegesis of him) and Athanasius. He had a great devotion to Benedict of Nursia and to his only work, the Régula monasteriorum (the rule of the monks). This work was the teacher of his heart and his intellect, and he was convinced that, like the Bible, it was a book directly inspired by God.
Four of his works have similarities with other patristic literature:
- The sermons on the "Song of Songs". At the Council of Sens, Berenguer of Scotland rebuilt him having shamelessly copied Origen, Ambrose, Rexio de Autun and Beda el Venerable.
- The 17 sermons on Psalm 90 are copied from the doctrine of St. Augustine
- The 4 homilies of praises of the Virgin Mary have plagiarisms of Ambrose and of Saint Augustine
- About grace and free will is a summary of the doctrine of Saint Augustine.
Writings
His writings are not numerous, occupying only volumes 182 and 183 of Migne's Latin Patrology (compilation of the writings of the Fathers of the Church and other ecclesiastical writers published between 1844 and 1865). This figure is small compared to other Church Fathers. His numerous activities did not allow him extensive work. In general, they are quick, second-hand works, requested by third parties. They show the man of action, the Cistercian renovator, a reformer of secular and religious society and defender of the papacy, they also reflect the security of the most religious personality. influential of the 12th century, like Saint Augustine in the V or Saint Thomas in the 13th century.
He left a production of about 500 letters, in the order of 350 sermons and several doctrinal treatises.
His best-known writings are the sermons —the sermon in the monasteries of the Middle Ages had a lot of influence on the religious and intellectual formation of the monk -. Then he treatises, brief but of enormous spiritual value for the Catholic Church, developing a precise and coherent doctrine.
He used elegant Latin and was one of the most notable writers of his time, along with Pedro Abelardo and Gilberto de la Porré.
Iconography of Saint Bernard
It is not known what Saint Bernard looked like, there are no real portraits. Yes, there are a multitude of figurative representations, which usually correspond to pictures of piety and devotion.
This article presents five examples.
The painting, called Dairy Award to Saint Bernardo, was painted by Alonso Cano between 1646 and 1650 for the Capuchins of Toledo. There is another similar painting, which is not shown here, painted by Murillo and also in the Prado Museum, where the Virgin appears to Saint Bernard to offer him milk from her breasts as a reward for his Marian defense.
The legend of the lactatio must have been well known in Spain, being included in the Cancionero de Úbeda. A similar motif was mentioned by King Alfonso X the Wise in his Cantigas de Santa María (54 and 93), “narrating the prodigy of the resurrection of a Cistercian monk, which the Virgin performed by giving him milk from the breast her".
Francisco Ribalta's painting, Christ Embracing Saint Bernard, was painted between 1625 and 1627 for the Italian charterhouse of Portocoeli, for which Ribalta worked in his later years.
Divine Comedy
In the Divine Comedy, Bernardo de Claraval appears located in Paradise from Canto XXXI, substituting Beatriz. By virtue of his contemplative spirit and his devotion to Mary, it is Bernardo who guides to Dante during the last part of his journey: he shows the poet the candid rose dei beati —the paradisiacal rose seat of all the blessed, Canto XXXII— and invites him to turn his gaze to Mary as the face that most resembles Christ.
Veneration
Bernardo de Claraval is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Church (he appears in the Lutheran Calendar of Saints).