The cloistered monks at Cluny were devotees of the illuminated manuscript, those elegantly and exotically illustrated copies of the Bible so popular in the Middle Ages. Surely Bernard of Clairvaux, author of such reverential hymns as “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee” and “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” would find them edifying. The painstaking artistry they required testified to the grandeur of the text they served. Bernard’s verdict: “What are the filthy apes doing there? The fierce lions? The monstrous centaurs? . . .You may see many bodies under one head, and conversely many heads on one body.”1 He was not pleased, for he saw these as a waste of money and distractions from the Word of God.

This Abbot of Clairvaux was a preacher, ascetic monk, military leader, and man of prayer—an important figure in the monastic movement of southern and central Europe in the medieval period. His tract, Apology, spoke to creeping idolatry in these monasteries. He was especially irked because the idolaters were monks—the religious “athletes” of the day, who had dedicated their lives to serving and worshipping God.

Due to widespread fascination with this allegedly sacrificial, religious life, money poured into these communities as if through pipelines. The wealthy who could not give their lives to monastic vocations gave of their financial resources. And the monasteries used that money, in many cases, to furnish their increasingly lavish lifestyles. For instance, Cluny became the home of monks guilty of gluttony, drinking too much, wearing furs and extravagant clothing, hiding in the infirmary when they were not really ill, and possessing an abundance of gold and silver images.

In particular, Bernard criticized the cloister of Cluny for extravagant spending on manuscript illustration, for the costly construction of sculptures in religious buildings, and for some monks’ refusal to perform manual labor—they thought themselves too “spiritual” for mundane, earthly work. Distraught at these abuses, he tried to stimulate renewal where many were losing their spiritual fervor and their will to live according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.2 He was convinced that a life dramatically devoted to God had no room for materialistic influences that could effectively dethrone God from His rightful, sovereign position.

While one could quibble with the particulars of his concern, the principles beneath his warnings and admonitions in the Apology stand firm today. If anything threatens the place of God in our hearts, lives, and worship, it must be expunged quickly, whether it is gold in the worship center, lust in our minds, or pride in the hearts; God must reign supreme as the center and focal point of all that we do, think, and say. For those in positions of spiritual leadership, the urgency of this requirement cannot be overemphasized.

Footnotes:
1
Conrad Rudolph, “The Things of Greater Importance”: Bernard Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1990), 283.

2
For further information on Bernard’s quarrel with Cluny and the historical issues which surrounded it, see Anthony Bredero’s Bernard of Clairvaux: Between Cult and History (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1996).
Article adapted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located on Rt. 40 one and a half miles east of Rt. 222.