The first letter is addressed ‘to his most loving father and lord, Innocent, Sovereign Pontiff by the grace of God, from Brother Bernard, called the abbot of Clairvaux.’ From the first line he aims at determining the case in the pope’s mind. ‘It is necessary that there be scandals amongst us—necessary, but assuredly not welcome.’ Hence have the saints ever longed to be taken from this troubled world. Bernard is equally tired of life. He knows not whether it be expedient that he die, yet ‘the scandals and troubles’ about him are pressing his departure. ‘Fool that I was to promise myself rest if ever the Leonine trouble[33] was quelled and peace was restored to the Church. That trouble is over, yet I have not found peace. I had forgotten that I still lingered in the vale of tears.’ His sorrow and his tears have been renewed. ‘We have escaped the lion [Pierleone], only to meet the dragon [Abélard], who, in his insidious way, is perhaps not less dangerous than the lion roaring in high places. Did I say insidious? Would indeed that his poisoned pages did lurk in the library, and were not read openly in the streets. His books fly in all directions; whereas they, in their iniquity, once shunned the light, they now emerge into it, thinking the light to be darkness.... A new gospel is being made for the nations, a new faith is put before them.’ After Pierleone it is useful to remind Innocent of his second great _bête noire_. ‘The Goliath [Abélard] stalks along in his greatness, girt about with that noble panoply of his, and preceded by his weapon-bearer, Arnold of Brescia. Scale is joined to scale, so closely that not a breath can get between.[34] For the French bee [Abeille-ard] has hummed its call to the Italian bee; and they have conspired together against the Lord and his anointed.’ He must even deny them the merit of their notoriously ascetic lives: ‘Bearing the semblance of piety in their food and clothing, but void of its virtue, they deceive many by transforming themselves into angels of light—whereas they are devils.’ The pope must not be misled by rumours of Abélard’s present fervour of life; he is ‘outwardly a Baptist, but inwardly a Herod,’ Bernard assures him. Then follows a passage we have already quoted. He tells the pope the edifying story of the archbishop’s summons, his refusal, the entreaties of his friends, the gathering of Abélard’s supporters, and his final resolve to go: ‘Yielding to the counsel of my friends, I presented myself at the appointed time and place, unprepared and unequipped, save that I had in mind the monition: “Take ye no thought what and how ye shall speak.”’ Then ‘when his books had begun to be read [he does not say by whom], he would not listen, but went out, appealing from the judges he had chosen. These things I tell thee in my own defence, lest thou mayst think I have been too impetuous or bold in the matter. But thou, O successor of Peter, thou shalt decide whether