Bernard was clearly a strong-willed person, and he had very definite ideas about religious faith. In a dozen books and many hundreds of letters, he addressed a variety of issues, but always with one or two central themes. In Bernard's view, religious meditation—one of the principal activities of a monk's life—was better than action. Action, in his mind, was an example of man's will, whereas contemplation and meditation forced the believer to submit to God's will. He also maintained that religious faith was infinitely superior to intellectual, or mental, reasoning power. Once again, it was a matter of submitting to God rather than trusting in one's own strength.
In his zeal, Bernard worked to promote his ideas through his writings, and this ironically forced him to leave
Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov and His Family
Bernard of Clairvaux is remembered, along with his many achievements, for his reaction to the efforts of Abelard and others to reconcile religious belief on the one hand and reasoning ability on the other. Catholics such as Bernard were not the only religious believers likely to oppose such efforts to understand faith: many Muslims were slow to accept the ideas of thinkers such as Averroes (see entry) and Avicenna (see box in Moses Maimonides entry), who made a similar attempt to bring together the worlds of faith and reason. Moses Maimonides (see entry) also tried to find a balance between the life of the spirit and the life of the mind—and he too found opposition among fellow Jews.
An interesting case in point is Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov (TAWV; c. 1380-c. 1441) and his son and grandson. ("Ibn" and "ben" are, respectively, Arabic and Hebrew titles meaning "son of." Shem Tov and his descendants each added a "ben" or "ibn" to their father's names, meaning that their names grew progressively longer.)
Shem Tov was a cabalist, an adherent of the cabala (kuh-BAH-luh; also kab-bala and qabala). The latter is a mystical Jewish belief system based on the idea that every single word—and letter, and number, and even accent mark in Hebrew—of the
Jewish scriptures has a specific meaning. To cabalists, the word of God is filled with a sort of secret code that is extremely difficult to grasp and can be revealed only by spiritual means rather than by intellectual or mental effort.
Given these beliefs, it is not surprising that Shem Tov was vehemently opposed to Maimonides's reliance on the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who believed that all knowledge can be perceived through the mind. But there was a sort of generation gap in Shem Tov's family, because his son Joseph ben Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov (c. 1400-c. 1460) took a much friendlier approach toward the work of Maimonides, Aristotle, and others. A court physician in Castile, Spain, Joseph attempted to draw parallels between philosophy and religion, and in particular compared Aristotle's ideas with those of the Jewish scriptures.
By the time of Joseph's son Shem Tov ben Joseph ben Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov (flourished 1461-1489), attitudes in Shem Tov's family had undergone a 180-degree shift. This third-generation Shem Tov was an admirer of Maimonides, and wrote commentaries on Averroes as well. By the grandson's time, of course, the Middle Ages were drawing to a close, and viewpoints were beginning to change.
Behind the life of meditation he valued. He soon became a prominent spokesman for the church, a defender of the faith as he saw it. In the late 1130s, he engaged in his infamous conflict with Abelard, whose teachings challenged established church beliefs. To a modern person, Abelard's ideas, such as his position that reason has a place in religion—that it is possible both to think and to believe—hardly seem controversial; but that was not so in the twelfth century.
Bernard was not the only person who saw Abelard as a danger, but he was certainly the most eloquent spokesperson for the church in the matter. For several years, Bernard and Abelard conducted a heated public argument, rather like two boxers in a shouting match before the big fight. The showdown finally came in June 1140, when the two were supposed to engage in a public debate. But the sides were hardly matched: Bernard represented the power of the church—which in the Middle Ages could call on the police force and legal system to do its bidding—whereas Abelard was merely a brilliant scholar with a strong student following.
On the other hand, Bernard was intimidated by Abelard's nimble skill at argumentation, and he had no intention of engaging in a debate with him. Therefore he arrived at the meeting prepared to put Abelard on trial for heresy, or beliefs that went against the teachings of the church. Given the situation, Abelard had no choice but to back down.
World History
