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

knows.” 201 Should the topic of conversation turn to religion, he is delighted to boast of
his visions and dreams, to urge vigils, fasting, and prayer, and, Bernard quips, “to offer
interminable and vain lectures on patience, humility, and each of the other virtues.” 202
Again the boastful monk’s aim is neither to instruct nor encourage his brothers, but to
persuade them of his own exemplary and admirable sanctity. He trusts that his brothers
will recall Christ’s saying, “the good man brings forth good things from his good
treasure” (Mt 12:35).
The proud monk knows, however, that his boasts will scarcely be credible if they
are not backed with praiseworthy actions: “He would be ashamed if after boasting that he
is superior to others he did not do something more than others, through which he might
appear to have excelled all others.” 203 And so, in the fifth step of pride, singularitas or
singularity, the proud monk strives to impress his brother monks with various feats of
virtuosic asceticism, contrary to Benedict’s eighth step of humility, that a monk “should
do nothing save what is commended by the common rule of the monastery and the
example set by his superiors.” 204 While his brothers eat, he fasts. While his brothers rest,
he keeps vigil. When his brothers leave the choir after the office, he remains to offer his
own private prayers. Yet the proud monk’s purpose in pursuing these singular devotions
above and beyond the common rule is not to grow in holiness, but rather to appear holy
201 Hum 41 (III, 48): “Aedificare potest, sed non aedificare intendit. Non curat te docere vel a te
doceri ipse quod nescit, sed ut scire sciatur quod scit.”
202 Hum 41 (III, 48): “de patientia, de humilitate, aut de singulis virtutibus plenissime, sed
vanissime disputat.”
203 Hum 42 (III, 48): “Turpe est ei, qui se supra ceteros iactat, si non plus ceteris aliquid agat, per
quod ultra ceteros appareat.”
204 RB 7.55: “Octavus humilitatis gradus est si nihil agat monachus, nisi quod quod communis
monasterii regula vel maiorum cohortantur exempla.”
134