Christian History Home > Issue 24 > A Chimaera of His Age
A Chimaera of His Age
A Man of Peace and the Church Militant
Russell K. Bishop is a professor in the department of history at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts. | posted 10/01/1989 12:00AM
I am a kind of chimaera of my age, neither cleric nor layman. I have long since stripped off the way of life, but not the habit, of a monk. I do not wish to write about myself what I suppose you have heard from others: what I am doing, what I am up to, the crises in the world I am involved in, indeed the precipices down which I am being cast." From a letter by Bernard
Like many a devout Christian saint from Augustine in the fifth century on throughout the entire Middle Ages, Bernard of Clairvaux longed above all else to live a quiet life of monastic prayer and contemplation, free from the entanglement of the surrounding world. And yet, like Augustine six centuries before him, Bernard found himself drawn into most of the major events of his time.
Was there an inconsistency in this, that the outstanding representative of the Cistercian Order (noted for austerity of life and the remoteness of wilderness settlements), combined the life of contemplation with one of the most visible public careers ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
|
If you ARE a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please login:
| |
If you are NOT a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please click here to see our membership options. As a member, you will be able to have access to all of the content on ChristianHistory.net.
|
|
Browse More ChristianHistory.net
Home | Browse by Topic | Browse by Period | The Past in the Present | Books & Resources
| |
|
