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

sinful weakness and nothing of their virtue and goodness, a sight which only corroborates
his delusions of excellence and stirs his contempt for his fellows. So it is not without
reason that Bernard associates the proud monk with the proud Pharisee of Christ’s
parable who declares, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of human beings,
unjust, robbers…” (Lk 18:11). Like that proud Pharisee, the self-deceived monk exalts
himself by putting others down. He gives thanks to God, Bernard explains, “not because
he is good, but because he is superior, not so much for any goodness he possesses as for
the evils he sees in others.” 165 Consumed by his passionate desire for moral and spiritual
superiority, and no longer seeking true self-knowledge through honest self-judgment, he
has come to a false knowledge of his brothers which inspires his contempt for them, and
a false knowledge of himself which blinds his mind’s eye to Truth and so constitutes the
severest form of self-contempt. Having sketched this initial picture of pride’s self-
deception and its harmful consequences, Bernard turns to his treatise’s second main part,
on the twelve steps of pride, in which he offers a more thorough analysis of this how this
prideful self-deception originates, develops, and ultimately leads to the monk’s false
knowledge and contempt of self, neighbor, and God alike.
The Twelve Steps of Pride
Bernard’s twelve steps of pride have been described as satirical descriptions of
“twelve proud men” 166 or “portraits of twelve monks” 167 with each one representing some
165 Hum 17 (III, 29): “Et gratias agat, non quia bonus, sed quia solus; non tam de bonis quae habet,
quam de malis quae in aliis videt.”
166 See Jean Leclercq, “Introduction,” in Cistercians and Cluniacs: St Bernard’s Apologia to
Abbot William, trans. Michael Casey (Kalamzoo: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 21.
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