Значение слова "BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, SAINT" найдено в 2 источниках

BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, SAINT

найдено в "Encyclopedia of medieval literature"

(1090–1153)
   Bernard of Clairvaux was the most important and influential figure of the mid-12th-century Latin church. He is best known as the maker and confidante of popes, the opponent of Peter ABELARD, and the major force behind the Second Crusade. His literary legacy includes hundreds of letters and a number of sermons, the most important an influential series of sermons on the Song of Songs in which he allegorized the text to portray the mystical union of Christ and the soul.
   Born of noble parents in 1090 near Dijon in France, Bernard studied the trivium at a local school as a boy. When his mother died in 1107, however, Bernard seems to have experienced a spiritual crisis that, in 1111, led him to withdraw from the world. Ultimately he became a monk at the abbey of Citeaux, where he so distinguished himself that after three years he was chosen to found a new Cistercian house as its abbot. He and 12 companions chose an isolated valley near the Aube river in France and named it Clairvaux. Bernard’s reputation as a preacher brought crowds of pilgrims to Clairvaux to hear him, and his personal charisma also brought many new monks into his order. In a short time, the extraordinary growth of Clairvaux and the Cistercian order generally made Bernard famous throughout the western church.
   Bernard was involved in a number of controversies in his time. Already in 1119, he was embroiled in a debate with the Cluniac monks, charging them with lax discipline, though ultimately he befriended the abbot of Cluny, the famous Peter the Venerable. In 1130, when the traditional cardinals of the church elected Anacleus II pope while the monastic party supported Innocent II, Bernard threw all of his influence behind Innocent, who ultimately was recognized. In the mid-1140s, Bernard opposed the preaching of Arnold of Brescia, who was inciting rebellion by condemning the wealth of the church.Most famously, Bernard challenged the controversial Abelard in 1140 at the Council of Wens. Bernard, who believed in the primacy of faith and held a mystical view of man’s relationship with God, believed that the rational approach of Abelard was a true threat to the church. It is said that at the council, Bernard defended his own position so passionately that Abelard had no chance to offer a defense, and left the council—though an alternative account suggests that there was never any intention of allowing Abelard to speak.He was subsequently condemned.
   In 1145, Bernard’s influence reached its apex when Eugenius III, one of his own disciples, was elected to the papacy.When Eugenius called for western Europe to mount a crusade after the Muslims captured the city of Acre in the Holy Land, Bernard became the official preacher of the Second Crusade. He traveled extensively to preach the crusade and successfully inspired an army that launched a disastrous campaign into the Near East. Widely blamed for the failure of the crusade, Bernard spent his final years in the shadow of that failure. He died at Clairvaux on August 20, 1153.
   Despite reputed chronic illness and constant pain, Bernard traveled and preached extensively; he was constantly called—often by the pope—to combat perceived threats to the church, so that he came to be known as “the Hawk of Rome.”He was charismatic, impulsive, passionate, and often (in his writing) eloquent. Some of his hymns are still sung today, but his most important literary contributions are his sermons on the Song of Songs. These seem to indicate a genuine mystical experience on Bernard’s part—at least their imagery inspired later mystical writers. In these sermons, the soul longs desperately for God:
   a holy soul ardently desires the presence of Christ, he endures the deferment of the kingdom painfully. (Bernard 1971, Sermon 59, 3.125)
   But Christ will come as the bridegroom in a mystical marriage with the soul, whom he loves with all his heart:
   anyone who is united to the Lord becomes one
   spirit with him. . . . Hence he lays claim to our
   land for himself. . . . From there is his bride,
   from there his bodily substance, from there the
   Bridegroom himself, from there the two become one flesh.
   (Bernard 1971, Sermon 59, 3.121–22)
   With imagery like this, Bernard’s influence on subsequent Christian writers, mystical or otherwise, was pronounced. A century and a half later, DANTE thought so highly of him that he placed Bernard in the highest regions of paradise in his DIVINE COMEDY.
   Bibliography
   ■ Bernard of Clairvaux. On the Song of Songs. Translated by Killian Walsh. The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux. 4 vols. Cistercian Fathers Series 4. Spencer,Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1971.
   ■ Billy, Dennis J.“Redemption and the Order of Love in Bernard of Clairvaux’s ‘Sermon 20’ on ‘The Canticle of Canticles,’ ” Downside Review 112, no. 387 (April 1994): 88–102.
   ■ Botterill, Steven. Dante and the Mystical Tradition: Bernard of Clairvaux in the Commedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
   ■ Evans, G. P. Bernard of Clairvaux. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.


найдено в "Catholic encyclopedia"

Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint
Article on the life and works of this twelfth-century Cistercian and Doctor of the Church

Catholic Encyclopedia..2006.



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