The renewal of preaching in the medieval era is traced to the rise of the crusades, the monasteries, and the scholastics. Bernard combined the enthusiasm of crusade rhetoric with the ascetic lifestyle of the monk and reflected a scholastic influence through his struggle with Abelard. His fiery eloquence was powerful enough to make an impression even on those who did not understand his language. Unusually gifted, he was a master of the art of public speaking.
Bernard’s Personality and Preaching Style
Bernard of Clairvaux commonly called St. Bernard, a devoted monk and a fervently pious man, lived from 1090 to 1153 in France. Pale, meagre, attenuated through much fasting, looking almost as insubstantial as a spirit, he made an impression the moment he was seen. He possessed extraordinary talents, and though he made light of human learning, he at least did so only after acquiring it.
His sermons and other writings do not indicate a profound metaphysical thinker, like Augustine or Aquinas, but they present treasures of devout sentiment—pure, deep, and delightful—mysticism at its best. His style has an elegant simplicity and sweetness that is charming, and while many of his expressions are as striking as those of Augustine, they seem perfectly easy and natural. His speech and gesture are described as impressive in the highest degree. His power of persuasion was felt by high and low to be irresistible. Even his letters swayed popes and sovereigns.
The Last of the Fathers
Bernard is often called “the last of the Fathers.” If we were asked who is the foremost preacher in the whole history of Latin Christianity, we should doubtless find the question narrowing itself to a choice between Augustine and Bernard. His sermons show more careful preparation than those of the early Latin Fathers. Anselm’s principal works appeared before Bernard was born, and Abelard was his senior by a dozen years. Therefore, he felt to some extent the systematizing tendencies of the scholastic thought and method, which one can see in the orderly arrangement of his sermons, though they do not show formal divisions.
He greatly loved to preach, and we are told that he preached oftener than the rules of his order appointed, both to the monks and to the people. He was accustomed to putting down thoughts and schemes of discourses as they occurred to him, and work them up as he had occasion to preach—a plan that many other preachers have found useful. His methods of sermonizing have considerable variety, and his manner of treatment is free. He was devoted to allegorizing, which was universal in that age.
Bernard wrote eighty-six sermons on the Song of Solomon. When the series was cut short by his death, he had just begun the third chapter. In his other sermons, he quotes the Song of Solomon as often as Chrysostom quotes Job. Bernard was warmly praised by Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin. I think that beyond any other medieval preacher, he will repay the student of the present day.