The history of the professing Church in the Middle Ages is one of such darkness and corruption that it seems impossible that any elements of light or truth could remain within it. Yet we find that there lived amid the gloom men who bear the hallmark of true piety and who held, though mingled with current superstitions, the essential truths of the gospel. That such men influenced others cannot be doubted, and for everyone whose name has been recorded in history we do not doubt there were many others whose names are known to God alone.
Such a man was Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. He reluctantly accepted the See of Canterbury in the time of King Rufus, but everything was in such iniquitous confusion that he retired to the Continent until the King’s death. There he spent his time in writing against certain old heresies which were then being revived. He returned on the accession of Henry I, and among the abuses he was instrumental in correcting was the sale of human beings, which had till then been practiced in England.
It is true he upheld the claims of the Pope against the King. The great subject of controversy at the time was whether bishops should be appointed by the King or the Pope. As a faithful churchman he felt that kings, especially a tyrant like Rufus, had no right in such a matter. The source of all these difficulties lay in the fact that the whole system was unscriptural and the Church was a recognized part of the world.
Anselm’s writings show that he had the fundamentals of the gospel in his heart. He appealed constantly to the Scriptures and expounded them by opening up the plain grammatical sense. A few extracts from his writings will support these statements. The following is part of some directions he composed for the visitation of the sick. First of all, the sick man was to be asked, “Dost thou believe thou deservest damnation?” “Dost thou intend to lead a new life?” If he said yes to these two questions, he was to be told, “Dost thou believe thou canst not be saved but by the death of Christ?” If the answer was again in the affirmative, he was to be told, “See then while life remains in thee that thou repose thy confidence only in the death of Christ; trust in nothing else; commit thyself wholly to this death. ... And if the Lord will judge thee, say, Lord, I cast the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between myself and Thy judgment.”
In another work he says, “If natural possibility by freewill, as the wise of this world say, be sufficient unto salvation, both for knowledge and for practice, then Christ is dead in vain and His cross is of none effect. But so surely as human salvation depends on the cross, so surely is that secular wisdom convicted of folly which knows not the virtue of the cross and substitutes a phantom of human merit and ability in its room.”
How he satisfied his conscience in respect to the superstitions and idolatrous practices in the Church we cannot explain, but he indicates clearly that for him there was but one mediator — the Man Christ Jesus — saying, “To what other intercessor I can have recourse I know not except to Him who is the propitiation of our sins.” He addresses the Son of God as “the Redeemer of captives, the Saviour of the lost, the hope of exiles, the strength of the distressed, the enlarger of the enslaved spirit, the sweet solace and refreshment of the mournful soul, the crown of conquerors, the only reward and joy of the citizens of heaven, the copious source of all grace.”
That he enjoyed as well as believed is demonstrated by the following extract from his writing: “Hasten the time, my Saviour and my God, when what I now believe I may see with eyes uncovered, what I now hope and reverence at a distance I may apprehend, what I now desire according to the measure of my strength I may affectionately embrace in the arms of my soul, and that I may be wholly absorbed in the abyss of Thy love.”
God has had His witnesses in every station of life. An example of such at this period was Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She is said to have been a woman of the rarest piety and to have had a great influence not only on her husband but on the whole kingdom of Scotland. Theodoric, a monk, who wrote her life, says, “She would discourse with me concerning the sweetness of everlasting life in such a manner as to draw tears from my eyes.” Her daughter Matilda, who became the wife of Henry I of England, was also looked upon as a pious Christian.
Still earlier in this century there had appeared at Orleans in France two remarkable witnesses for the truth, Stephen and Ledric, both canons of the Church. They were men of piety and learning, loved and revered by the people. They taught the truth of God in purity and sincerity. A man who pretended to be a seeker after the truth desired to be instructed in their teaching, but it was base hypocrisy; he listened only to betray. They were apprehended, brought before a Council at Orleans, condemned to the fire and burned at the stake in 1022. These were the first martyrs in France since pagan days.
Berengarius of Tours, who lived in this century, deserves a brief mention, for he attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation, which had been hatched by the monk Paschasius Radbertus in the ninth century. He stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest. His scriptural views, which found support all over Christendom, were condemned by a succession of Councils. Brought before the Pope, he recanted but soon lapsed and continued to teach as before. This happened several times, and he finally died in his bed in 1088, greatly regretting his weakness in not standing boldly for the truth.
In 1091 was born Bernard of Clairvaux, author of two well-known hymns, which, in the English translation, are doubtless familiar to the reader: “Jesus, the very thought of Thee with sweetness fills the breast” and “O Head once full of bruises.”
Bernard showed signs of an earnest desire after heavenly things while still a child and, like so many, was attracted to a monastic life. His zeal was unbounded, his austerities so extreme as to damage his health. He was very studious and became a learned as well as a religious man. He joined the strictest of the monastic orders, the Cistercian. Entirely free from ambition, he refused several bishoprics but became abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux. His piety, his learning and his eloquence earned for him a great reputation, and he was looked up to throughout Christendom. He was well versed in Scripture, sound in the fundamentals of Christianity and a true lover of Christ, yet he was an ardent supporter of the Papacy. Doubtless the false notion of Apostolic succession had been inbred in him by his monkish training. To him the Church doubtless appeared as the one universal Church which could trace its origin in unbroken continuity to the days of the apostles. Bernard and others like him were indeed aware that it was besmirched with many evils, which, had they had the power, they would gladly have corrected. They hoped by their influence to improve and reform what they deplored. His zeal for the crusades seems even more inexplicable, but thick darkness pervaded Christendom. The superstitious reverence for the holy places of Palestine and the ill treatment of pilgrims by the Saracens no doubt influenced minds born and bred in such an age.
Pope Eugenius III was one of his scholars. With great pleasure Bernard saw him assume the papal chair, for he looked for great things from him. In a letter to him he wrote, “All the Church of the saints rejoices in the Lord, expecting from you what it seemed to have had in none of your predecessors for many ages past. And should not I rejoice? I own I do so, but with trembling. ... I consider your elevation, and I dread a fall.” After further exhortation, he says, “Oh that I might see before I die the Church of God as in ancient times when the apostles let down their nets for a draught, not for silver and gold, but of souls! How I wish you to inherit the voice of him who said, ‘Thy money perish with thee’ (Acts 8:2020But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. (Acts 8:20)).”
To these he added further sober and wholesome admonitions. In this we see the true desires of a man who, though in the Romish system, was of a different spirit. The Pope to whom he wrote seems to have been an upright, well-meaning man. His term of office was short and full of trouble. He probably knew too much of what was right to be a useful tool of the devil. He incurred only enmity and opposition and finally had to fly from Rome to France to escape the fury of his enemies.
Bernard realized the Church needed to be cleansed, and he went on with it hoping to see the day when, as he said, it would resume its pristine purity. His opposition to the Cathari and other so-called heretics was probably due to false information. They were terribly misrepresented by their enemies. He expressed surprise at their godliness and good behavior, yet it does not seem to have occurred to him that these things were the fruits of the Spirit. Their unpardonable crime was that they had seceded from the Church and therefore were its enemies. It is said he did not favor their destruction.
Bernard effectually silenced, but not by carnal weapons, a real heretic, Abelard, who was writing profusely at that time. Abelard’s teaching was similar to present-day modernism and denied all that was vital in Christianity. He represented the death of Christ simply as a great example, denying its atoning value. The two men met in a public debate before an illustrious assembly, the King and many nobles and bishops being present. Bernard went in faith, making no preparation, relying on the Lord’s words, “It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak” (Matt. 10:1919But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. (Matthew 10:19)). Abelard withdrew from the contest without reply and cast himself on the mercy of the Pope. He spent the rest of his life in a monastery. In answering Abelard’s heresy, Bernard brought into relief the cross of Christ as the very basis of redemption. “Great and necessary,” said he, “was the example of humility; great and worthy of all acceptation was the example of His love. But remove redemption and these have no ground to stand upon. I would follow the humble Jesus. I desire to embrace with the arms of love Him who loved me and gave Himself for me, but I must eat the Paschal Lamb. Unless I eat His flesh and drink His blood, I have no life in me. It is one thing to follow Jesus, another to embrace Him, another to feed upon Him. ... Therefore neither examples of humility nor displays of love are anything without redemption.”
We see from this brief extract how clear Bernard was as to that great foundation of the Christian faith — redemption. As in other days, this attack of the enemy recoiled against himself, and the truth itself was brought into clearer relief and more widely spread abroad. Among his writings is a tract containing the substance of a sermon he preached before the clergy at Paris. In it he insists on the necessity of divine illumination as a requisite to genuine conversion, urges self-examination, and points out the salutary effect of a true conviction of sin.
“Wholesome is that weakness which needs the hand of the Physician, and blessed is the self-despair through which God Himself will raise and establish the heart. Even here the converted soul shall find the pleasures to which he is called a hundredfold greater than those he has relinquished, as well as, in the world to come, eternal life. Expect not from us a description of their nature. The Spirit alone reveals them; they are to be known only by experience. Not erudition but unction teaches here; not knowledge but inward consciousness comprehends them. That the memory of past sins should remain and the stain of them be taken away —what power can effect this? The Word alone, quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword. ‘Thy sins are forgiven’ (Luke 5:2020And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. (Luke 5:20)). Let the Pharisees murmur, ‘Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’ (Luke 5:2121And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? (Luke 5:21)). He who speaks thus to me is God. His favor blots out guilt. Sin remains in the memory but no longer, as before, discolors it. Remove damnation, fear and confusion as they are removed by full remission, and our past sins will not only cease to hurt us but will work together for good that we may devoutly thank Him who has forgiven them.”
Towards the close of this address he rebukes those who bring worldly ambition into the service of God. “Men run everywhere into sacred orders and catch at an office revered by spirits above, without reverence, without consideration, in whom, perhaps, would appear the foulest abominations if we were, according to Ezekiel’s prophecy, to dig into the walls and contemplate the horrible things which take place in the house of God.”
Much else might be quoted to show how closely Bernard kept to the truth of Scripture, that he was a true lover of Christ, and that he was conscious of the power of the Holy Spirit. His sincerity and humility were universally recognized. He disclaimed any virtue or ability of his own, attributing all to divine grace. He studied, among other scriptures, the Song of Songs and discerned in it a figure of the love of Christ for the Church, His great condescension toward it, though sullied and dishonored by sin, and the reciprocal affection of the Church for Christ. He does not seem to have distinguished the visible Church, seen in the Roman system, from the true body of Christ. He hoped and prayed for its reformation. This may explain his attitude towards the professing Church and his willingness to remain in it and serve the Pope, who was, he doubted not, Peter’s successor. It is sad that he was so far carried away by the current of these times as to preach the second crusade and by his eloquence and influence to lead thousands to lose their lives in that awful disaster. Thousands of wives and mothers bemoaned their dead and blamed Bernard for persuading them to go. His reply was that God did not support the crusade because of their sins. His detractors have attributed this reply to cunning, but one cannot doubt his sincerity; he shared in the common delusion.
Bernard died, after a painful illness, in 1153, being sixty-three years of age. His life was probably shortened by the effect of the austerities of his early life as a monk.
Peter De Bruys (D. 1126)
This man labored in the Dauphiné for twenty years. His teaching seems to have been none other than the apostles’ doctrine. He was seized and burned to death in 1126 at St. Giles, North Toulouse. His followers were called Petrobrussians.
Henri the Heretic (1143)
A gospel preacher of great sanctity, Henri traversed a large part of Switzerland and southern France. Such power marked his preaching that his enemies said the enchantment of his voice was enough to melt the very stones. Crowds came to hear him. It is said that where he preached the churches were emptied and the idolatrous customs of the Church neglected. Even Bernard of Clairvaux was stirred up to preach against him, for, as we have seen, Bernard, with all his saintliness, never ceased to be a blind devotee of Rome. Henri was condemned and imprisoned and disappeared. History is silent as to his fate. His followers were named Henricians.
Arnold of Brescia (1155)
A simple monk, this man had great plans for a radical reformation of the Church. The Church of Christ, said he, is not of this world. Set the clergy free, he said, from temporal wealth and temporal duties to become free to serve the flock. “He demanded nothing less than that this hierarchy, which has crowned itself with temporal dignities and which sustained itself by temporal arms, should retrace its steps and become the lowly and purely spiritual institution it had been in the first century.” He was condemned to silence and retired to Zurich where he continue to disseminate his doctrines. Later he dared to enter Rome and carry his teachings into the enemy’s camp. Rome was, in those days, in a state of continual ferment. His teaching fell on barren soil. An outward reform was not God’s way. Arnold paid for his boldness by his life. He was seized and burned to death, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber.
From the twelfth century to the time of Wycliffe there are scarcely any others in the Romish Church whose names come within the scope of our record. Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, spoke boldly against the growing abuses of the Papacy, but his evangelical light was dim.
The testimony of Christ was more and more to be found with a growing body of persons outside the pale of Rome, a body of persecuted and despised heretics by whom the gospel torch was kept burning till that great revival called the Reformation cast its brilliant beams upon the world.