Golden Epistles of the Ancient Christians

...is firm. For among the numerous letters of Alcimus Avitus, Fulgentius Ferrandus, Amulo, Paulus Alvarus, Paschasius Radbertus, Ivo of Chartres, Lanfranc, Bede, Pope Nicholas, Peter Damian, John of Salisbury, Peter of Cluny, and Peter of Blois, Stephen of Tournai, and others, there is almost very little that truly serves the living power of the Gospel and true inner Christianity. What has been written during times of tribulation The author reflects a common Pietist view that true spiritual insight is often forged in suffering rather than in comfortable academic or ecclesiastical settings still possesses some taste and earnestness of the old purity and truth. Something of this kind can be found, to some extent, in the seventh-century account by Julian, Bishop of Toledo, regarding his edifying meeting, which is included among his writings in Volume XII of the Great Library of the Fathers original: "Tom. XII. Biblioth. Patrum Maximæ"; the Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum was a massive 27-volume collection of early Christian writings published in Lyon in 1677 on page 590.

LXXXI.

Furthermore, there belongs here a letter of lamentation from Zacharias, Bishop of Jerusalem, written from his captivity Zacharias was the Patriarch of Jerusalem who was taken prisoner when the Persians captured the city in 614 AD, in which he very movingly exhorts his abandoned congregation to repentance and obedience, and also faithfully warns them against a common sense of false security. This is found in the aforementioned Volume XII of the Great Library of the Fathers on page 984 and the following, and it is a fruit and trace of what the Cross original: "Creutzes"; refers to the spiritual discipline and growth that comes through suffering can accomplish.

LXXXII.

Furthermore, the writers of those times are again very unfruitful and sterile, almost until the time of Bernard Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), a Cistercian abbot and influential mystic, whose best letters have already been mentioned in the previously discussed epistles. One final letter, which he dictated shortly before his death to Arnold of Bonneval Arnold was a friend of Bernard and a fellow abbot and author, was intended to be added here, because in it he relies solely on divine mercy...