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

e grasped, but emptied himself to assume human misery that he might both learn and
model human mercy. Bernard writes:
If therefore he who knew no misery made himself miserable that
he might learn by human experience that mercy which he always
knew in his divine eternity, how much more should you not exalt
yourself to that which you are not, but rather consider what you
are, that you are truly miserable, and so learn mercy for your
brothers, you who cannot learn mercy in any other way. 160
If, on the other hand, the monk refuses to imitate Christ in humbling himself to accept the
truth of his own misery, he will, Bernard believes, succumb to pride, that amor propriae
excellentiae or passionate desire for his own superiority which lingers in his heart in
consequence of his share in original sin. As he allows this passionate desire for
superiority to swell in his heart unchecked by honest self-judgment born of humility,
Bernard explains, this desire will soon so warp his sensible and mental vision that he will
see nothing of his own misery and only that of his brothers. Seeing only what he wants
to see, seeing only his virtues and his brothers’ vices, his prejudiced perceptions will only
serve to confirm as true his deepest wish, that he should be morally and spiritually
superior to his brother monks. Consequently, the monk’s refusal to judge himself
honestly by true humility simultaneously spawns his false knowledge of himself, that he
is superior to all, and his false knowledge of his brothers, that they are all inferior to him.
And, once he has deprived himself of that true knowledge of his own misery which alone
makes possible compassion, the self-deceived monk will be moved not to commiserate
with his brothers, but to judge and deride them. Bernard writes: “If you have eyes only
160 Hum 13 (III, 26): “Si ergo se miserum fecit, qui miser non erat, ut experiretur quod et ante
sciebat, quanto magis tu, non dico ut te facias quod non es, sed ut attendas quod es, quia vere miser es, et
sic discas misereri, qui hoc aliter scire non potes?”
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