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

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continual recollection of herself and her true condition by her restless gaze, she allows the serpent’s deception to become her own self-deception. Bernard writes: If your mind guarded itself with more care, you would not find time for such curiosity. Even if this is not itself a sin, it is an occasion of sin, the origin of your sin, and its cause. For while you are intent on something else, the serpent slips secretly into your heart with flattering words. He restrains your reason with flattery, your fear with lies: “You will not die,” he says. He arouses your interest as he entices your pallet; he sharpens your curiosity as he excites your desire. He offers what is forbidden you, and takes what is given you: he grants you an apple as he steals your paradise! 187 For Bernard, Eve’s curiositas results not only in her false knowledge of herself, but also in her false knowledge of God. For in convincing herself, at the serpent’s suggestion, that she “will not die,” she at once deludes herself into believing that she is exempt from God’s law and that God will not execute the judgment he has plainly promised her disobedience. Perhaps she believes, as Bernard will suggest in the case of Lucifer, that God is a god of mercy, but not justice, who either will not or cannot punish his creatures. With the fear of God no longer before her eyes, having deceived herself as to the truth of her own being and the truth about God, she stretches forth her hand in the primordial act of human presumption, seizing the Son’s Wisdom for herself and exalting her own will over his. 188 In this paradigmatic act of self-deception and self-will, she shows her 187 Hum 30 (III, 39-40): “Nisi enim mens minus se curiose servaret, tua curiositas tempus vacuum non haberet. Etsi culpa non est, culpae tamen occasio est, et indicium commissae, et causa est committendae Te enim intenta ad aliud, latenter interim in cor tuum serpens illabitur, blande alloquitur Blanditiis rationem, mendaciis timorem compescit: inquiens, . Auget curam, dum incitat gulam; acuit curiositatem, dum suggerit cupiditatem Offert tandem prohibitum, et aufert concessum: porrigit pomum, et surripit paradisum.” 188 On Eve’s sin as her attempt to seize the Wisdom of the Son, see 1 Adv 4 (IV, 163-164); 4 Asc 4 (V, 140-141), SC 69.2-5 (II, 202-205). On Eve’s sin as her exaltation of her self-will over the will of God, see 3 Sent 94 (VI-II, 150). For an discussion of this aspect of Bernard’s thought, see Roch Kereszty, “Relationship between Anthropology and Christology. St. Bernard, a Teacher for Our Age,” 275-279. 123
contempt not only for herself and her Maker, but also for her fellow human beings, for in this act she condemns them as well as herself to the twin misery of voluntary enslavement to sin and the certainty of bodily death. In his analysis of Eve’s curiosity, then, Bernard reveals how her curious gaze evoked in her heart a particular desire, namely her amor propriae excellentiae or the desire for her own excellence, which in turn proposed for her intellect’s assent the delusion that she was superior to God in the sense of being superior to or exempt from his law. In the case of his final exemplum of curiosity, that of Satan, Bernard pursues this same theme while adding that Lucifer’s original curiosity entailed not only his false knowledge of himself and God, but also of his fellow rational creatures. If Bernard introduced Eve as a living witness to her Creator’s generosity and care, the abbot introduces Lucifer as the supreme such sign of God’s creative love. Like the monk atop Benedict’s ladder of humility, the prelapsarian Lucifer stands radiant atop of the ladder of creatures. Sealed with the divine likeness and resplendent with beauty and wisdom, he is the most perfect created image of the only-begotten Son of God. Had he but fixed his gaze on his created beauty and wisdom, he would have perpetually acknowledged the splendorous gift of his own being, and offered his Creator eternal praise and thanksgiving, sharing an eternity of delight with his Maker. Yet, Satan too allowed his self-knowing gaze to wander into what was not his proper concern, to pass from himself to another, to the only other who excelled him, the Son of God whom he most perfectly resembled. Pondering the Son’s dominion over all his Father’s works, the highest angel conceived in his heart the supreme form of amor propriae excellentiae, the desire to seize for himself some share in the Son’s divine right 124
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MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SE
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MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SE
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To my Father, James U. DeFrancis, S
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Christ as the Model of Self-Knowled
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esearch: John Cavadini, Cyril O’R
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self-knowledge is the indispensible
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For Bernard, then, humble self-know
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likeness of charity. Within the Cis
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When Gilson asserted that by self-k
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Bernard, Sommerfeldt continues, hum
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a “false image” of himself. 26
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some newfound and joyous moment of
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ecognize that same sinfulness in hi
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foundations of man’s return to Go
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the descent of humility begins the
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saving work of Jesus Christ in the
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the humility, obedience, and love C
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Of particular importance to Bernard
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and second, “what it is like in i
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In his ground-breaking study of med
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direct links between the two. 52 It
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swells in one’s heart that it mov
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pride as “the desire for a perver
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The knowledge of self and God in th
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mercy until you renew all that is i
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CHAPTER 1: THE SCOPE OF BERNARD’S
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Prior to its first conversion, Bern
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Origen, Bernard here and elsewhere
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of God, they will grow ever more un
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and love as she is loved, and the B
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In the interim or “meanwhile” o
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Why do you judge yourself worthy to
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For Bernard, the lesson to be drawn
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warning and why should it compel he
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worldly things her flesh and senses
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aspired to seize a kind of parody o
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thousands of evils upon our entire
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edemptive work is suitably adapted
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emains forever, this grass too rema
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graciously condescending to assume
Page 81 and 82: Thus the abbot resolves his spiritu
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Page 89 and 90: Through this unflinching self-exami
Page 91 and 92: soon tempers my bitter vision of my
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Page 95 and 96: As observed above, in the second ha
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Page 99 and 100: Ignorance of self breeds pride when
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Page 107 and 108: Though this discrepancy at first ap
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Page 121 and 122: Finally, we should note that Bernar
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Page 145 and 146: Here abbot Bernard figures the prou
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Page 149 and 150: Asserting Self-Will Against Superio
Page 151 and 152: As so often in his narrative of the
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Page 161 and 162: their hearts. Hence Bernard’s fre
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Page 165 and 166: In recognizing the two distinct mom
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Page 169 and 170: inward movement in the soul. In any
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Page 173 and 174: Operating inwardly within this judg
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Page 179 and 180: upon the “stage” of the soul an
Page 181 and 182: (Is 46:8). For Bernard, this first
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desperate need for the healing grac
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consolations afforded it by the lif
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thoroughly diseased: reason now see
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Reason’s rebuke is powerful, and
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In this vision, reason is permitted
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conscience she enjoys through the m
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Word of God, “that living and eff
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knowledge and contempt of himself,
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The Self-Awareness of the Bride in
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When the brightness of this beauty
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For Bernard, then, the soul that ha
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figure of this Ecclesia-Sponsa. On
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Conclusion Having considered three
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self-awareness as his own Bride, ra
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CHAPTER 4: SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE M
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Christ’s incarnate, crucified, an
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indeed to the entirety of his theol
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significant individual expressions
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The foregoing elements of Bernard
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descended and ascended and showed u
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self, neighbor, and God. He has sho
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own, and from your own experience l
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excursus has been labeled a “digr
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“learned” (didicit) is being pr
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To resolve this question, Bernard r
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You see, therefore, that Christ is
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to the Spirit, by contemplation in
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worse, misguided view of the abbot
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Christ’s Ascension culminates in
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conformed to him. Then, through the
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Modeling this laudabilis curiositas
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The theme of Word’s example of vo
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equally deadly, extreme of despair.
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and humbled by God, so that there w
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as essential elements of the Word I
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led astray. Their amor carnalis Chr
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delivered us from sin and enabled u
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miseria and fires it with the confi
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death to bring about a real, inward
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sins,” “justification,” and
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these life-giving virtues, we must
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precisely through, a careful approp
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perhaps she means, “My Beloved in
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To such a soul, the abbot continues
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gradually assuming the figure of Ch
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to judge themselves in Truth, and s
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ejoice with those who rejoice and w
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love of himself in the glory of div
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I. Works of Bernard of Clairvaux BI
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------. Sermo 29A. Edited by C. Lam
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Courcelle, Pierre. Connais-toi toi-
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------. “Le premier traité authe
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