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

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heroic humility, he turns even his most perilous moment into an opportunity to win his brothers’ sympathy and esteem. “How glorious a thing is humility,” Bernard exclaims, “that even pride should wear her guise so as to escape humiliation!” 218 The experienced abbot, however, will not be duped by this pious subterfuge, but rather test the truth of the monk’s confession and the sincerity of his intentions. He will not overlook the proud monk’s sin, nor fail to impose some punishment, for he knows that just as the potter’s vessel is tried in the furnace, so the penitent’s sincerity will be proven in the attitude with which he assumes his penance. The genuine penitent will, with the attitude described in Benedict’s fourth step of humility, patiently embrace the penance enjoined on him with a placid conscience, proving his obedience under harsh or even unjust conditions. By contrast, the proud and deceitful monk, who cannot bear to condescend to the humiliation of penance, will no longer be able to sustain his humble pretence, but rather “murmur, grind his teeth, and fume with rage,” so exposing himself as a fraud before his superiors and his entire community. 219 In a momentary flash of anger, his façade of holiness, so painstakingly constructed, will crumble around him, leaving him naked before the enlightened eyes of his brothers: vilescat!” Can you imagine the distress the proud monk will feel in his heart when his fraud is exposed, his peace is lost, his reputation is shattered, and his guilt remains? At last everyone knows him for 218 Hum 47 (III, 52): “Gloriosa res humilitas, qua ipsa quoque superbia palliare se appetit, ne 219 Hum 47 (III, 52): “Cuius vero simulata confessio est, una vel levi contumelia aut exigua poena interrogatus, iam humilitatem simulare, iam simulationem dissimulare non potest. Murmurat, frendet, irascitur, nec in quarto stare humilitatis, sed in nonum superbiae gradum corruisse probatur, qui, secundum quod descriptus est, recte simulata confessio appellari potest.” 143
who he is, everyone judges him, and they are all the more indignant as they see how wrongly they esteemed him. 220 Once he has been exposed as a fraud, the proud monk faces a crucial moment of decision. With his specious reputation in ruins and his deceit exposed to the judgment of his brothers, he might choose to confront himself honestly, to face up to the manifest reality of his own sinfulness, and so embark upon the bitter but life-giving way of self-judgment, humility, and repentance. Yet, Bernard observes, such a choice is extremely difficult for the proud monk as it requires him to bow to the will of his superiors and to accept silently the judgment of the entire community. It is possible, Bernard allows, that by God’s mercy, the proud monk may be moved to humble himself in this way, but it is more likely that the monk who has grown so convinced of his own superiority and so come to define himself in terms of his brothers’ praise will not find himself able to bear such an affront to his pride. And so, driven by his swollen love of his own excellence, he refuses obedience to his superiors, refuses any public confession before his brothers, and instead chooses shamelessly to assert his own will in defiance of both. By this tenth step of pride, rebellion against his superiors, the proud monk inverts Benedict’s third step of humility, that a monk “should submit to his superior in all obedience for the love of God, imitating the Lord of whom the Apostle says: ‘He became obedient even to death’ (Phil 2:8).” 221 On Bernard’s reading of the Rule, it is here, in the third step of humility, that one ascending this ladder enters the monastic enclosure for it 220 Hum 47 (III, 52): “Quanta putas tunc confusio sit in corde superbi, cum fraus decipitur, pax amittitur, laus minuitur, nec culpa diluitur? Tandem notatur ab omnibus, iudicatur ab omnibus, eo que vehementius omnes indignantur, quo falsum conspiciunt quidquid de eo prius opinabantur.” 221 RB 7.34: “Tertius humilitatis gradus est ut quis pro Dei amore omni oboedientia se subdat maiori, imitans Dominum, de quo dicit apostolus: Factus oboediens usque ad mortem.” 144
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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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humbles himself will be exalted”
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Church, enabling scholars to instru
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Through this unflinching self-exami
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soon tempers my bitter vision of my
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edeem him, sanctify him, and offer
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As observed above, in the second ha
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modeled and effected by the Word-ma
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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 127 and 128: condemned. Lifting his eyes in humi
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Page 135 and 136: his rule over the reprobate he woul
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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
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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
Page 167 and 168: experience, lamenting how he has ma
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 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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Page 189 and 190: Reason’s rebuke is powerful, and
Page 191 and 192: In this vision, reason is permitted
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Page 199 and 200: The Self-Awareness of the Bride in
Page 201 and 202: 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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