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

and judge others or to see how they in turn see and judge him. His single concern,
reflected in this symmetry of body and soul, is to see and know himself, to see and know
himself in the eyes of Truth.
Since Benedict presents his twelfth step of humility as a passage from the interior
to the exterior man, from the heart to the sensible body, Bernard inversely presents his
twelfth step of pride as a passage from the exterior to the interior man, from the sensible
body to the inner disposition of the heart. His readers will recognize a monk suffering
from the inner disease of curiosity by certain exterior, visible symptoms. Shrewdly
inverting Benedict’s twelfth step of humility, Bernard writes:
The first step of pride is curiosity. You will recognize it by the
following signs: if you see a monk whom you have previously
regarded as exemplary now begin, wherever he stands, walks, or
sits, to allow his eyes to wander, to hold his head up, and to keep
his ears pricked, you can discern from these outward movements
that the interior man has changed…from these strange movements
of his body, you can tell he has caught some new disease in his
soul: he neglects to consider himself and grows curious about
others. 177
As Ann Astell has observed, Bernard’s description of curiositas entails a subtle
“rhetorical trick”: if Bernard’s readers have seen such a curious monk, they have been
curious themselves. 178 If they have allowed their eyes to wander over their brother,
177 Hum 28 (III, 38): “Primus itaque superbiae gradus est curiositas Hanc autem talibus indiciis
deprehendes: si videris monachum, de quo prius bene confidebas, ubicumque stat, ambulat, sedet, oculis
incipientem vagari, caput erectum, aures portare suspensas, e motibus exterioris hominis interiorem
immutatum agnoscas…ex insolenti corporis motu, recens animae morbus deprehenditur, quam, dum a sui
circumspectione torpescit incuria sui, curiosam in alios facit.”
178 Astell, “‘Hidden Manna’: Bernard of Clairvaux, Getrude of Helfta, and the Monastic Art of
Humility,” 69. As Astell further notes, Bernard’s rhetorical trick is consistent with his ultimate purpose in
presenting this and the other steps of pride, namely to afford his readers a mirror in which to recognize
their own rather than another’s pride: “Recognizing the danger that his auditors will see in the lively
portraits of prideful monks everyone besides themselves, Bernard catches himself and them in curiosity at
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