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

estored in this divine likeness as he comes to imitate and participate in the Incarnate
Word’s humility and charity. As he is ever more likened to God made manifest in the
sacred humanity of Christ, he is by the principle of knowledge through resemblance ever
more able to know, love, and contemplate God, and so to share in God’s own divine life,
imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the life to come.
Earlier in the Steps, Bernard assigns each of these three degrees of Truth,
humility, compassionate charity, and contemplation, to the three traditional stages of the
spiritual life. 153 In the first stage, that of the beginners, the monk will come to know the
Truth in himself by humble self-judgment. In the second, that of the proficient, he will
come to know the Truth in his brothers by compassionate charity. In the third, that of the
perfect, he will come to know the Truth in his own nature by contemplating Truth with a
heart cleansed by humility and love. The three steps of Truth therefore comprise a
tripartite itinerary of the spiritual life from conversion to eschatological vision. 154
Beyond simply identifying these three stages of the spiritual life, Bernard takes
great care to explain the relationships between them. Before seeking the Truth in his own
nature by contemplation, the monk must first seek him in his brothers by compassionate
153 See Hum 4-5 (III, 19-20). Bernard McGinn argues that though the abbot employs various
enumerations of the stages of the soul’s progress in the spiritual life, such as the twelve steps of humility
and pride in the Steps or the four degrees of love in De Diligendo Deo, “Bernard’s most frequent mode of
presenting the soul’s progress is through a threefold division: stages well known in Christianity since the
time of Origen and whose classic form had been shaped by the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius – the
division into ascetical purification, virtuous illumination, and loving union, later canonized as the via
purgativa, via illuminativa, and via unitiva.” McGinn goes on to note that while Bernard does not use these
terms themselves, “his formulations are variations on the same pattern.” McGinn, “Bernard of Clairvaux:
‘That Contemplative’ (Quel Contemplante),” 183. In the present instance, Bernard’s three steps of truth
correspond to the purgative, illuminative, and contemplative ways respectively.
154 It should also be noted that Bernard’s tripartite schema structured according to the progression
from beginners (incipientes) to the proficient (proficientes) to the perfect (perfecti) respectively closely
resembles that presented by his friend and fellow Cistercian William of Saint Thierry in his Golden Epistle.
See Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei 41 (CCCM 88:236).
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