The Treatise of St. Bernard, Abbat of Clairvaux, Concerning Grace and Free Will, Addressed to William, Abbat of St. Thiery

The treatise of St. Bernard De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio was written at some time shorly previous to the year 1128, and therefore the author had attained his thirty-eighth year. The subject of the treatise was suggested, as is plain from the text itself, as the result of a public, or at any rate semi-public, discussion with some person unknown, in which St. Bernard, in strongly commending the work of grace, had seemed to lay himself open to the charge of unduly minimizing the function of free will. An attempt has been made to present the argument of the treatise by means of a synopsis, in which it is sought to familiarize the reader with the technology of the original, an important consideration from a theological point of view. - Introduction.