1. To his most beloved father and lord Pope Innocent, brother Bernard, styled abbot of Clairvaux, the little that he is.

To you as pope are necessarily referred all dangers and scandals that arise in the kingdom of God, and especially those affecting the faith. For I think it proper that any damage done to the faith should be patched up precisely where faith cannot feel a defect. This, in fact, is the privilege of the Holy See. Who else was once addressed in the words, ‘I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not’? So what follows is required of Peter's successor: ‘And thou’, it says, ‘being once converted, confirm thy brethren.’ That is what is needed now. It is time for you, most beloved Father, to recognise your position as prince, to prove your zeal, to honour your ministry. You are clearly playing the part of Peter, whose see too you hold, if by your admonition you confirm hearts that are wavering in the faith, if by your authority you destroy men who are corrupting the faith.

We have in France an old Master become a new theologian. He has since he grew to manhood sported in the art of dialectic; now he is playing the madman in Holy Writ. He is trying to revive doctrines long condemned and put to sleep, his own as well as those of others, and adding new ones too. He claims to be ignorant of nothing of all that is ‘in heaven above and in the earth beneath’, except for the statement ‘I do not know’. He sets his mouth against heaven and searches the deep things of God, and then comes back to us with words ineffable ‘which it is not granted to a man to utter’; and while ready to give a reason concerning everything, even things that are above reason, he presumes both against reason and against faith. For what is more against reason that to try to go beyond reason by means of reason?