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

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Consequently, having deceived himself as to the truth regarding both himself and God, Lucifer exalted his self-will over the will of God and seized equality with God, only to be cast forth by the just judgment of God from the stable peace of heaven to a life of restless misery apart from his Maker. In this supreme, primordial, and paradigmatic act of creaturely pride, Satan’s false knowledge of himself and his Creator drove him to the contempt of both himself and God. Exalting himself against the divine will, he despised the Most High as the rightful Lord of all creation, greeted his Creator’s lavish generosity with ingratitude, and condemned himself to wander eternally in misery apart from the God who created him and in whom alone he could find his true and lasting rest. Yet, in this same act of pride, Lucifer also revealed his false knowledge of and contempt for his fellow rational creatures, both angelic and human. For in aspiring to rival the Son’s lordship and to claim for himself the creaturely worship rightly owed him, Satan came to regard his fellow angels, and likewise future human beings, as creatures made to serve and adore him rather than their Creator. In persuading some to join his vainglorious revolt, he moved them to turn their hearts from God to himself, and so to share in his own eternity of proud misery. For Bernard, that is, Satan could not see his fellow creatures as fellow citizens in the kingdom of heaven, but only as subservient subjects to be valued only insofar as they would mouth his praise and so feed his delusional self-understanding as the rival of the Most High. In the abbot’s words, Lucifer preferred to “reign over others Deum irritasti; aut quia, viso principatu, in oculo statim superbiae trabes excrevit, qua interposita casum videre non potuit.” 127
in misery rather than to be subject with others to God in happiness” and “to rule over the sons of darkness rather than to share the lot of the sons of light.” 192 Through his analysis of these Satan, Eve, and Dinah, then, Bernard shows how curiositas develops according to a common dynamic that ultimately entails his or her self-deception and presumptuous assertion of self-will against the will of God. Bernard concisely summarizes this common dynamic when he says of Satan, “By curiosity, he fell from the Truth, because what he first glimpsed curiously, he then wrongly desired, and presumptuously hoped to attain.” 193 How, then, does this common dynamic of curiositas play out in the heart of the monk? The abbot does not explicitly say, but the answer may be gleaned from his three exempla of curiosity and his eleven subsequent steps of pride. As the monk atop Benedict’s twelve step of humility gradually relaxes his bodily discipline, he allows his eyes and other senses to wander from his proper concern, true self-knowledge before God, to what is not his proper concern, the sensible behavior of his brothers. As he allows his sensitive and then mental regard to pass away from himself, he gradually succumbs to the spiritual disease of incuria sui or neglect of himself and his own position before God. In this way, the monk has already descended from the first step of Truth, the knowledge of the Truth in himself, because he has renounced the practice of regular, humble self-judgment that alone gives birth to genuine self-knowledge. And, as he allows that same regard to pass over to his brothers, his latent amor propriae excellentiae 192 Hum 37 (III, 44): “Nam si praevidisti, quae insania fuit, ut cum tanta miseria cuperes principari, ut malles misere praeesse, quam feliciter subesse? Aut non expediebat participem esse plagarum illarum luminosarum, quam principem tenebrarum harum?” 193 Hum 38 (III, 45): “per curiositatem a veritate ceciderit, quia prius spectavit curiose, quod affectavit illicite, speravit praesumptuose.” 128
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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
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Thus the abbot resolves his spiritu
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of self-knowledge enabled self-dece
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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
Page 97 and 98: modeled and effected by the Word-ma
Page 99 and 100: Ignorance of self breeds pride when
Page 101 and 102: consideration of others and their a
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Page 107 and 108: Though this discrepancy at first ap
Page 109 and 110: self, God, and neighbor. Since it i
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Page 121 and 122: Finally, we should note that Bernar
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Page 135: his rule over the reprobate he woul
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Page 141 and 142: pleases them and avoid what makes t
Page 143 and 144: knows.” 201 Should the topic of c
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 159 and 160: Consumed by this self-centered love
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
Page 171 and 172: share with them in that divine merc
Page 173 and 174: Operating inwardly within this judg
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Page 177 and 178: arguing from both allusions in text
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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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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