the theories for which he stood and the actual policy of the Curia. It
was, for example, against his better judgment that he organised the
Second Crusade in deference to the express commands of Pope Eugenius
III; and on the other hand, the Papacy preserved towards the pioneers of
scholasticism an attitude which he thought unduly lenient. Rome was more
broad-minded than Clairvaux, more alive to realities, more versed in
statecraft and diplomacy; while Clairvaux fostered a nobler conception
of the spiritual life, and was more consistent in withholding the Church
from secular entanglements. The qualities which made the monk
invaluable as a leader of public opinion also made him an incalculable
and intractable factor in political combinations. He was most useful as
the missionary and the embodiment of an ecclesiastical idea which,
unconsciously perhaps but none the less emphatically, attacked the
foundations of the secular State. The founders of the great orders,
whether they found their inspiration (with St. Bernard) in the Rule of
Benedict, or rather strove (with St. Francis) to follow literally the
commission imposed by Christ upon his twelve Apostles, returned upon a
past in which the State and Caesar were nothing to the Christian but
"the powers that be." The monastic or mendicant order, designed as an
exemplar of the Christian society, was a voluntary association governed
by the common conscience, as expressed in the will of representative
chapters and an elected superior. The absolute obedience of the monk or
friar was self-imposed, the consequence of a vow only accepted from one
who had felt the inner call and had tested it in a severe probation. In
virtue of his self-surrender he became dead to the world, a citizen of
the kingdom of heaven upon earth. No secular duties could be lawfully
demanded of him; he had migrated from the jurisdiction of the State to
that of God. The religious orders claimed the right to be free from all
subjection save that of the Church, as represented by the Pope. Though
far from holding the State a superfluous invention--they regarded it as