Sermon 64 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Temptations of Advanced Monks, Which They Suffer as Foxes, or the Temptations Most Hostile to Them. Likewise on Heretics, the Foxes of the Church, to Be Caught.
1. I am present to my promise. "Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards: for our vineyard has flourished" (Song 2:15). Foxes are temptations. It is necessary that temptations come. For who will be crowned, unless he has competed lawfully? (2 Tim 2:3.) Or how will they compete, if there is no one to attack them? You therefore, coming to the service of God, stand in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation (Sir 2:1), certain that all who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12). Moreover, temptations are diverse, according to the diversity of times. And indeed upon our beginnings, as upon the tender flowers of newly planted vines, the force of cold presses down openly, which we mentioned in the other sermon, and we made beginners cautious against this plague (Above, Sermon 63, n. 6). But now against the holier pursuits of those who are advancing, the opposing powers indeed do not at all dare to set themselves openly, but are accustomed to lie in ambush in secret, like certain deceitful little foxes; in appearance indeed virtues, but in reality vices. How many, for example, who had entered the ways of life, who had progressed to better things, who were well and securely proceeding and advancing upon the paths of justice, have I found to have been shamefully supplanted by the fraud, O the shame! of these foxes, and to bewail too late the fruits of virtues suffocated within themselves!
2. I myself saw a man running well; and behold a thought: was it not a little fox? To how many, he says, could I share the good of which I alone enjoy, if I were in my homeland, with brothers and relatives, acquaintances and friends? They love me, and would easily consent to one persuading them. Why this waste? I shall go there, and save many of them, and myself likewise. Nor need I fear in a change of place. For so long as I do good, what does it matter where? except that there it is without doubt more profitable, where I may live more fruitfully. What more? He goes, and perishes, wretched man, not so much an exile returning to his homeland, as one having returned to the vomit of the flesh. And the unhappy man lost himself, and acquired none of his own. Behold one little fox, namely that deceptive hope which he had in the gaining of his own people. You too can by yourself find or notice in yourself other and yet other foxes similar to this one, if you are not negligent.
3. But do you wish me to show you yet one more? I will do it, and I will demonstrate a third and a fourth as well, if I find you vigilant to catch those which you may have noticed in your own vineyard from among these. Sometimes the soul of someone who is advancing well, when he has felt something of heavenly grace more lavishly sprinkled upon him, is seized by the desire of preaching, not indeed to parents and relatives, according to that word: "Immediately I did not acquiesce to flesh and blood" (Gal 1:16); but as if more purely, more fruitfully, and more strongly, indiscriminately to strangers and to all. Altogether cautiously! Indeed he fears to incur the prophetic curse, if the grain which he has received in secret he should hide among the peoples (Prov 2:26): and to act contrary to the Gospel, unless what he has heard in his ear he should preach upon the rooftops (Mt 10:27). It is a fox, and one more harmful than the former by as much as it comes more secretly. But I catch it for you. First Moses says: "You shall not plow with the firstborn of the ox" (Deut 15:19). Paul interpreting this says: "Not a neophyte, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil" (1 Tim 3:6): and again, "Nor does anyone," he says, "take the honor to himself, but he who is called by God as Aaron" (Heb 5:4); likewise he himself says: "How shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Rom 10:15.) And we know that the duty of a monk is not to teach, but to mourn. From these and similar texts collected together I weave a net for myself, and I catch the fox, lest it destroy the vineyard. From these indeed it is clear and certain that to preach publicly neither befits a monk, nor is expedient for a novice, nor is permitted to one not sent. Moreover, to go against these three things, how great a destruction of conscience it is! Therefore whatever such thing is suggested to the soul, whether it be your own thought, or an immission through an evil angel, recognize a deceitful little fox, that is, an evil under the appearance of good.
4. But behold another. How many fervent in spirit has the solitude of the desert received from monasteries, and either vomited them out grown tepid, or held them contrary to the law of the desert, not only relaxed, but even dissolute? And so it appeared that a little fox had been present, where so great a devastation of the vineyard had occurred, that is, the detriment to the life and conscience of the man. He was thinking that if he lived alone, he would receive far more abundant fruits of the spirit, since he had experienced such great spiritual grace in the common life. And his thought seemed good to himself; but the outcome of the matter showed that the same thought had been for him rather a fox destroying the vineyard.
5. What of that which also disturbs us so often and so gravely in this house: I mean the conspicuous and superstitious abstinence of certain ones who are among us, by which they render themselves troublesome to all, and all troublesome to themselves? How is this very discord, so general, not a dissipation of one's own conscience, and, so far as is in his power, a destruction of this great vineyard which the right hand of the Lord has planted, namely the unanimity of you all? "Woe to the man through whom the scandal comes!" (Mt 18:7.) "Whoever shall scandalize one of these little ones" (Mk 9:41): what follows is harsh. How much harsher does he deserve, who scandalizes so great and so holy a multitude? Truly, he shall bear a most severe judgment, whoever he may be. But of these things at another time.
6. Now let us attend to those things which are said by the Bridegroom concerning these little and crafty animals that destroy the vineyards. I would say they are little, not in malice, but in subtlety. For this kind of animal is by nature crafty, and very ready to do harm in secret: and it seems to me to designate most fittingly certain most subtle vices concealed under the appearance of virtues, of which kind indeed I have already somewhat expressed the form through the examples set forth above for your knowledge, few though they be. For they cannot harm in any other way, except that they feign themselves virtues by a certain likeness to virtues. But they are either the vain thoughts of men, or immissions made through evil angels, angels of Satan, who transform themselves into angels of light (2 Cor 2:14), preparing their arrows in the quiver, that is, in secret, to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart (Ps 10:2). Whence also I think they are called little for this reason, that while other vices manifest themselves by a certain, so to speak, corpulence of their own, this kind, on account of its subtlety, can hardly be recognized, and therefore can hardly be guarded against, except only by the perfect and the trained, who have the eyes of their heart illumined for the discernment of good and evil, and especially for the discernment of spirits, who can say with the Apostle that "we are not ignorant of the devices of Satan, nor of his thoughts" (2 Cor 2:11). And see whether perhaps for this reason they are ordered by the Bridegroom not indeed to be exterminated, or driven away, or killed, but to be caught: because, namely, such spiritual and crafty little beasts ought to be observed and examined with all vigilance and caution, and so caught, that is, comprehended, in their own craftiness. Therefore, when the deceit is exposed, when the fraud is laid open, when the falsehood is convicted, then most rightly is it said that a little fox has been caught that was destroying the vineyard. Indeed, we say a man is caught in his speech, just as you have in the Gospel, that the Pharisees came together to catch Jesus in speech (Mt 22:15).
7. So then the Bridegroom commands the little foxes that destroy the vineyards to be caught, that is, to be detected, convicted, exposed. This kind of malice alone has this proper quality, that once recognized it no longer harms, so that to be recognized is for it to be vanquished. For who, unless he is mad, having discovered a trap, knowingly and deliberately puts his foot in it? It suffices therefore if those which are of this kind are caught, that is, if you expose them and bring them to the open; since for them to appear is to perish. It is not so with other vices. For they come openly, they harm openly; they captivate the knowing, they overcome the resisting, inasmuch as they act by force, not by deceit. Therefore against beasts of this kind that rage openly, there is need not of investigation, but of restraint. Only these little foxes, greatest dissemblers, because once exposed they no longer harm, it suffices to bring them into the light and to catch them in their cunning. For they have dens. For such a reason, therefore, these foxes are both commanded to be caught and described as little. Or they are called little so that, watching vigilantly for vices arising in their very beginning while they are still little, you may immediately apprehend them, lest growing they harm more and be caught with greater difficulty.
8. And if according to the allegory we understand the vineyards as Churches, the foxes as heresies, or rather the heretics themselves: the meaning is simple, that heretics should rather be caught than driven away. Let them be caught, I say, not by arms, but by arguments, by which their errors may be refuted; and they themselves, if it can be done, let them be reconciled to the Catholic Church, let them be called back to the true faith. For this is the will of him who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). Indeed he declares that he wills this, who does not simply say "catch the foxes," but "catch," he says, "the foxes for us." Therefore he commands these foxes to be acquired for himself and his bride, that is, for the Catholic Church, when he says, "Catch them for us." And so a man of the Church, experienced and learned, if he undertakes to dispute with a heretical man, ought to direct his intention to this, that he may so convince the one who errs that he also converts him, considering that word of the Apostle James: "That he who has caused a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins" (Jas 5:20). But if he will not wish to return, even having been convicted after a first and now a second admonition, inasmuch as he is utterly perverted, he must according to the Apostle be avoided (Tit 3:10). From this point on it is better, as indeed I judge, that he be driven away, or even bound, than that he be permitted to destroy the vineyards.
9. Nor on that account should the one who has defeated and convicted a heretic, who has confuted heresies, who has clearly and openly distinguished the plausible from the true, who has shown by plain and irrefutable reasoning that depraved doctrines are depraved, who has finally brought into captivity the depraved understanding that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, think that he has accomplished nothing. For he has nonetheless caught the fox, he who has worked such things, even if not for the heretic's salvation; and he has caught it for the Bridegroom and the bride, albeit in another way. For even if the heretic has not risen from the dregs, the Church is nonetheless confirmed in the faith: and indeed the Bridegroom without doubt rejoices at the progress of the bride. For "the joy of the Lord is our strength" (Neh 8:10). Indeed he does not consider our gains as foreign to himself, he who so graciously associates himself with us, when he commands the foxes to be caught, not for himself, but for us together with himself. "Catch," he says, "for us." For one may observe that he says "for us." What is more companionable than this word? Does he not seem to you to speak thus, like a certain head of a household, who has nothing of his own, but all things in common with his wife and children and household members? And he who speaks is God -- yet he speaks this not at all as God, but as the Bridegroom.
10. "Catch us the foxes." You see how companionably he speaks, who has no companion? He could have said: "For me," but he preferred "for us," delighting in partnership. O sweetness! O grace! O the force of love! Has the highest of all thus become one of all? Who has done this? Love, which knows not dignity, rich in condescension, powerful in affection, efficacious in persuasion. What is more violent? Love triumphs over God. Yet what is so non-violent? It is love. What is this force, I ask, so violent unto victory, so conquered unto violence? Indeed "he emptied himself" (Phil 2:7), that you might know that it was love's doing that the fullness was poured out, that the height was made equal, that singularity was made companionable. With whom, O wondrous Bridegroom, have you so familiar a partnership? "For us," you say, "catch them." With whom do you share? Is it with the Church from the Gentiles? She has been gathered from mortals and sinners. We know what she is. But who are you, so devoted, so ardent a lover of this Ethiopian woman? Surely not another Moses, but more than Moses (Num 12:1). Are you not he who is "beautiful in form beyond the sons of men"? (Ps 44:3.) I have said too little; you are the brightness of eternal life, the splendor and the image of the substance of God (Heb 1:3); and finally, over all things, God blessed forever. Amen (Rom 9:5).
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.