MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE ...

As such, the Steps supplies the natural point of departure for a comprehensive study of
the abbot’s theory of prideful self-deception and the various forms and roles of self-
knowledge in his spiritual theology more broadly considered.
The abbot divides his On the Steps of Humility and Pride into two main parts of
roughly equal length. In the first, he comments on the twelve ascending steps of humility
found in the seventh chapter of Benedict’s Rule. 144 In the second, he deftly inverts these
twelve ascending steps of humility to arrive at twelve corresponding and descending
steps of pride. 145 The Cistercian’s two-fold exegesis of Benedict’s seventh chapter is
evidently inspired by that chapter’s opening in which Benedict quotes Christ’s saying,
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”
(Lk 18:10). For Bernard, as for Benedict, Christ’s words speak to the fundamental,
paradoxical dynamics of pride and humility: those who would exalt themselves towards
the heights of spiritual greatness will be humbled by their descent into eternal misery,
while those who would humbly condescend to the acknowledgement of their present
misery will be exalted to the heights of spiritual greatness. In Benedict’s phrase, “we
descend by exaltation and ascend by humility.” 146
Bernard’s decision to arrange his treatise’s two main parts according to Christ’s
two-fold saying naturally prompts his reader to seek a certain literary and thematic
with some minor changes, remains constant throughout Bernard’s career.” See Kereszty, “Relationship
between Anthropology and Christology. St. Bernard, a Teacher for Our Age,” 271-272.
144 See Hum 1-27 (III, 16-37).
145 See Hum 28-57 (III, 38-59). This division of the treatise into two parts is reflected in the
treatise’s manuscript tradition which places at the head of the work two parallel schemas of the steps of
humility and the steps of pride respectively.
146 RB 7.7: “Exaltatione descendere et humilitate ascendere.”
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