Before a vast assembly in 1097 Pope Urban II said: "If you must have blood, bathe your hands In the blood of infidels. ...soldiers of hell become soldiers of the living God." Whereupon the multitude shouted: "It Is the will of God." Bernard, the holiest man of his century, cried out: "...Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." In 1188 the Pope ordered prayers against the Saracens to be said daily.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Before a vast assembly in 1097 Pope Urban II said: "If you must have blood, bathe your hands In the blood of infidels. ...soldiers of hell become soldiers of the living God." Whereupon the multitude shouted: "It Is the will of God." Bernard, the holiest man of his century, cried out: "...Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." In 1188 the Pope ordered prayers against the Saracens to be said daily." in the context of "Kirby Page, Jesus or Christianity, A Study in Contrasts (1929); as seen from the above quotes, this Bernard quote was mistakenly transposed from the second Crusade to the first.
• This attribution is unsupported by any published speech, letter, or bull of Urban II. It appears to originate in the work cited above, as no earlier attribution can be found. It most likely refers to the papal bull of Urban II Bullæ Sacræ Cruciatæ Dilucidatio, dated between 1096-1099. The text of this papal bull is currently untranslated into English but summarized in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913). The response of Bernard appears to be from the Christian Bible, Jeremiah 48:10 KJV, "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." It is unclear that Bernard quoted the Christian Bible in this context; the attribution by Kirby Page is unsupported." to mean that wisdom is timeless.