The cause of Bernard's extraordinary popular success as preacher can only imperfectly be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in Latin, evidently to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level. Like his letters, they are lull of quotations from and reference to the Bible, and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times. "Bernard," wrote Erasmus in his Art of Preaching, "is an eloquent preacher, much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how to reach and move the affections." The same is true of the letters and to an even more striking degree. They are written on a large variety of subjects, great and small, to people of the most diverse stations and types; and they help us to understand the adaptable nature of the man, which enabled him to appeal as successfully to the unlearned as to the learned.
Bernard's works fall into these categories: - (1) Letters, of which over five hundred have been preserved, of great interest. and value for the history of the period. (2) Treatises: (a) dogmatic and polemical, De gratia et libero arbitrio, written about 1127, and following closely the lines laid down by St Augustine;. De baptismo aliisque quaestionibus ad mag. Hugonem de S. Victore; Contra quaedam capitala errorum Abaelardi ad Innocentem II. (in justification of the action of the synod of Sens); (b) ascetic and mystical, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, his first work, written perhaps about 1121; De diligendo Deo (about 1126); De conversione ad clericos, an address to candidates for the priesthood; De Consideratione, Bernard's last work, written about 1148 at the pope's request for the edification and guidance of Eugenius III.; (c) about monasticism, Apologia ad Guilelmum,. written about 1127 to William, abbot of St Thierry; De laude novae militiae ad milites templi (c. 1132-1136); De precepto et dispensatione, an answer to various questions on monastic conduct and discipline addressed to him by the monks of St Peter at Chartres (some time before 1143); (d) on ecclesiastical government, De moribus et officio episcoporum, written about 1126 for Henry, bishop of Sens; the De Consideratione mentioned above; (e) a biography, De vita et rebus gestis S. Malachiae, Hiberniae episcopi, written at the request of the Irish abbot Congan and with the aid of materials supplied by him; it is of importance for the ecclesiastical history of Ireland in the 12th century; (f) sermons - divided into Sermones de tempore; de sanctis; de diversis; and eighty-six sermons, in Cantica Canticorum, an allegorical and mystical exposition of the Song of Solomon; (g) hymns. Many hymns ascribed to Bernard survive, e.g. Jesu dulcis memoria, Jesus rex admirabilis, Jesu decus angelicum, Salve caput cruentatum. Of these the three first are included in the Roman breviary. Many have been translated and are used in Protestant churches.
St Bernard's works were first published in anything like a complete edition at Paris in 1508, under the title Seraphica melliflui devotique doctoris S. Bernardi scripia, edited by Andre Bocard; the first really critical and complete edition is that of Dom J. Mabillon Sancti Bernardi opp. &c. (Paris, 1667, improved and enlarged in 1690, and again, by Massuet and Texier, in 1719), reprinted by J. P. Migne, Patrolog. lat. (Paris, 18J9). There is an English translation of Mabillon's edition, including, however, only the letters and the sermons on the Song of Songs, with the biographical and other prefaces, by Samuel J. Eales (4 vols., London, 1889-1895).1895). See further Leopold Janauschek, Bibliographia Bernardina (Vienna, 1891), which includes 2761 entries, including 120 works wrongly ascribed to Bernard.
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