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

self-knowledge is the indispensible foundation of Christian life, and a foundation that can
never be transcended. For wherever he and Eugenius may direct their consideration, they
must never lose sight of themselves and the truth of themselves in the undeceived and
undeceiving eyes of their Creator and Redeemer. They may take their example, Bernard
suggests, from “the supreme Father of all, who sends forth his Word and yet retains
Him.” “Your word is your consideration,” the abbot explains, “if it goes forth, let it not
leave you. Let it go forth, but never wander away from you. Let it go out, but not
depart.” 2
Throughout his life as a teacher, preacher, and father of monks, Bernard never
ceased to underscore the importance of this continual recourse to self-knowledge in the
sight of the Triune God. And, with his particular concern for the category of experientia,
or the personal appropriation of the truths of the faith, he did not hesitate to share the
fruits of his own, personal self-encounter with his brothers. 3 Thus, in the thirty-sixth of
his Sermones super Cantica Canticorum, the abbot wrote vividly of his own search for
self-knowledge and the knowledge of God: “As long as I look at myself, my eye is
consumed with bitterness. Yet when I lift my eye to the aid of divine mercy, this joyous
2 Csi 2.6 (III, 414): “Sume exemplum de summo omnium Patre, Verbum suum et emittente, et
retinente. Verbum tuum, consideratio tua, quae, si procedit, non recedat. Sic progrediatur, ut non
egrediatur; sic exeat, ut non deserat.”
3 On Bernard’s concept of experientia, see Bernard McGinn, “Bernard of Clairvaux: ‘That
Contemplative’ (Quel Contemplante),” chap. 5 in The Growth of Mysticism, vol. 2 in The Presence of God:
A History of Western Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 185-190; Jean Mouroux, “Sur les critères de
l’expérience spirituelle d’après les Sermons sur le Cantique des Cantiques,” in Saint Bernard Théologien,
Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 9 (1953): 251-267; Ulrich Köph, Religiöse Erfahrung in der
Theologie Bernhards von Clairvaux (Tübingen: Mohr, 1980); Bernard Bonowitz, “The Role of Experience
in the Spiritual Life,” in La dottrina della vita spirituale nelle opere di San Bernardo di Clairvaux (Rome:
Editiones Cistercienses, 1991), 321-325.
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