Bernard of Clairvaux

Abbot of Clairvaux · 1090–1153

Bernard was born near Dijon in Burgundy and joined the new, strict order of Citeaux, the Cistercians, founding the abbey of Clairvaux in 1115. He reformed monasticism and gave it firmer structure, helped heal the papal schism of 1130, advised popes, and preached the Second Crusade. He was called “the hammer of heretics,” and in 1139 he wrote against Peter Abelard.1

You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason he is to be loved.2 Bernard of ClairvauxOn Loving God

Bernard lived a rigid asceticism that damaged his health, and he strongly implied that one could not be a serious Christian without the monastic life. He held a high view of the papacy, calling the pope “the unique vicar of Christ who presides over not a single people but over all.” Yet he wrote with warmth on the love of God, on humility, and on grace, and his hymns are still sung.3

His Legacy

Rome honors Bernard as a saint, and his exalted view of the pope served its claims. But Mark Galli notes that John Calvin “considered him the major witness to truth between Gregory the Great and the 1500s,” and Nathan Busenitz notes that the Reformers saw him as an ally on salvation by grace through faith alone. Bernard wrote:4

For what could man, the slave of sin, fast bound by the devil, do of himself to recover that righteousness which he had formerly lost? Therefore he who lacked righteousness had another’s imputed to him.5 Bernard of Clairvauxas quoted by Nathan Busenitz

Medieval Theologians

Notes

  1. Mark Galli and Ted Olsen, eds., 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), “Bernard of Clairvaux.” Nathan Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide: 13 Lessons to Understand and Appreciate the Basics of Church History (Chicago: Moody, 2020), 81; Michael J. Vlach, “Historical Theology I: A.D. 100–1600” (course notes, TH 507, The Master’s Seminary, Fall 2007), “Bernard of Clairvaux.” Summarized. ↩
  2. Galli and Olsen, 131 Christians, “Bernard of Clairvaux.” ↩
  3. Galli and Olsen, 131 Christians, “Bernard of Clairvaux.”; Vlach, “Historical Theology I,” “Bernard of Clairvaux.” Summarized. ↩
  4. Galli and Olsen, 131 Christians, “Bernard of Clairvaux.” Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide, 82. ↩
  5. Busenitz, Forerunners of the Faith Teacher’s Guide, 84. ↩