On Consideration: The Complete Text

Amid the endless business of the papacy, keep time for consideration: the recollected gaze of the mind.

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About this edition

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090–1153), first abbot of Clairvaux and the most compelling voice of his age, was named by later ages the Mellifluous Doctor for the sweetness of his teaching. On Consideration is the last and most personal of his works, written in five books during his final years to Pope Eugenius III, a Cistercian who had once been his own monk at Clairvaux.

It is a father's counsel to a son buried under the business of the Apostolic See. Amid the ceaseless press of causes, appeals, and petitioners, Bernard pleads with the Pope not to lose himself, but to reserve time for consideration, that is, for the recollected gaze of the mind: a gaze that begins with oneself, and rises through the things below and around us to the contemplation of God. Along the way he weighs the nature of the papal office, the reform of the Roman court, the meaning of the “two swords,” and the ascent of the soul to God, in pages that have been read and pondered by popes and contemplatives ever since.

This Sanctified Souls Press edition presents the complete treatise, with the Prologue and all five Books in the author's own division, in the English translation George Lewis prepared for the Clarendon Press in 1908. Newly set on cream paper, for reading and keeping.

Details

• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090–1153), first abbot of Clairvaux, of the Cistercian Order, Doctor of the Church, the Mellifluous Doctor
• Translated by George Lewis, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1908
• Complete and unabridged: the Prologue and all five Books, in the author's own division
• Sanctified Souls, Heritage Editions · Saint Bernard, Book Two
• Paperback and hardcover, 6 × 9, 126 pages, cream paper

Cover: S. Bernard, abbé, etching by Jacques Callot (French, 1592–1635) from Les Images de Tous les Saincts et Saintes de l'Année, engraved for the twentieth of August, Bernard's feast. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain.

Orders are placed and shipped through IngramSpark. This page is a catalogue listing.