of three classes: those who are pilgrims in this world; those who are dead to the world; and those who are crucified to the world. All this is a free translation of Bernard’s Seventh Lenten Sermon, De peregrino, mortuo el crucifixo:[1] the vivid phrases of the Ancren Riwle compare very vell with Bernard’s more commonplace Latin, but that the whole discourse is based on Bernard’s sermon is undeniable. There is here no chronological impossibility, however.
The pages which follow are from a book of “Sentences,” but not one issued by Bernard.
The book of “Sentences” from which the author of the Ancren Riwle seems to have drawn is the Sententiæ Exceptæ, also known as the Declamationes, a book compiled from the sayings of St. Bernard by his secretary and biographer Geoffrey of Auxerre. From this book comes the text Vilitas et asperitas,[2] which both treatises associate with the Vide humilitatern et laborem of the Psalmist, and which both treatises speak of as the two sides of the ladder reaching to heaven.
| “Vilitas et asperitas.” Vilte and asprete, þeos two þinges, scheome and pine, ase Seint Bernard seið, beoð þe two leddre stalen þet beoð upriht to þe heouene, and bitweonen þeos stalen beoð þe tindes ivestned of alle gode þeawes, bi hwuche me climbeð to þe blisse of heouene. And forði þet David hefde þeos two stalen of þisse leddre, þauh he king were, he clomb upward and seide baldeliche to ure Louerd “Vide humilitatem meam et laborem meum.” | Vide humilitatem mean et laborem meum. Hæc ergo sint latera scalæ, vilitas et asperitas, quibus deinceps internæ virtutis et gratiæ gradus firmiter inserantur. |
From the same source comes the second sentence quoted as from St. Bernard in this section of the Rule, In sedibus quies imperturbata: in judicio honoris eminentia commendatur.[3] Here again the sentence is quoted in association with the same text of scripture in both
- ↑ Migne, Pat. Lat., clxxxiii. (vol. 2 of St. Bernard’s Works, § 826, col. 183).
- ↑ Morton 354; cf. Gaufridi Abbatis Declamationes, xxxvi., being section 301 or column 460 in Migne, Pat. Lat., clxxxiv. (vol. 3 of St. Bernard’s works).
- ↑ Morton, p. 359; in Gaufridi Abbalis Declamationes this comes at the end of cap. xl., being section 303 or column 463 in Migne, Pat. Lat., clxxxiv. (vol. 3 of St. Bernard’s works). The only difference is that the Bernardine tract has dignitatis where the Rule has honoris.
