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

matter of compulsion. He is, in truth, less like a god and more like a beast, with his
reason and will enslaved to the promptings of his fleshly desires. As he is dragged into
the whirlpool of vice and handed over captive to the tyranny of his vices, he is truly a
“miserable man” because he has now enslaved himself to the desire for everything that
cannot fulfill him, for everything other than the God for whom he was made and in whom
alone he can find rest for his deepest desires.
What makes this proud man’s plight all the more dire is that he himself cannot see
that he is hopelessly enslaved in this way. To illustrate this point, Bernard draws a
parallel between the state of the proud man who has fallen to the twelfth step of pride and
the state of the monk who has ascended to Benedict’s twelfth step of humility. Recalling
the conclusion to Benedict’s seventh chapter, Bernard writes:
As the just man who has ascended all these steps runs on to life
with a ready heart and the ease of good habit, so the evil man who
has descended these same steps hastens boldly towards death with
the ease of sinful habit, no longer governing himself by reason, no
longer restrained by any fear….The one runs more swiftly, the
other more eagerly. The one is made swift by charity, the other
made eager by cupidity….In the one perfect charity, in the other
perfect malice, casts out all fear (1 Jn 4:18). The former is made
bold by truth, the latter by his blindness. 226
For Bernard both the perfectly humble and the supremely proud experience a love that
casts out all fear, but for the proud this is the love of cupidity, the love of themselves for
their own sake with no regard for the needs of their neighbors or the law of God.
226 Hum 51 (III, 54-55): “Quemadmodum denique ascensis his omnibus gradibus, corde iam alacri
et absque labore pro bona consuetudine iustus currit ad vitam, sic descensis impius eisdem, pro malo usu
non se ratione gubernans, non timoris freno retentans, intrepidus festinat ad mortem. Medii sunt qui
fatigantur, angustiantur, qui nunc metu cruciati gehennae, nunc pristina retardati consuetudine,
descendendo vel ascendendo laborant. Supremus tantum et infimus currunt absque impedimento et absque
labore. Ad mortem hic, ad vitam ille festinat; alter alacrior, alter proclivior. Illum alacrem caritas, hunc
proclivem cupiditas facit. In altero amor, in altero stupor laborem non sentit. In illo denique perfecta
caritas, in isto consummata iniquitas foras mittit timorem. Illi veritas, huic caecitas dat securitatem.”
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