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

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pride, he does not yet embrace as true the notion of his own superiority, but eagerly entertains it. If, however, he has fallen as far as the decisive sixth step of pride, he embraces this self-deception, proudly judging himself holier than all his brothers. Finally, if he has fallen so far as the final two steps of pride, the monk, now expelled from his monastic community, first entertains and then embraces as true a far more perverse self-deception, namely that he is superior to God himself in the sense that he is, in his mind, no longer subject to God’s law. Prior to his conversion, then, the monk may be found in one of several, increasingly perverse stages of self-deception. Yet, what is common to each of these stages is the monk’s curiositas, his sensitive and mental fascination with everything other than himself, which distracts him from that honest self-judgment which might expose these varied self-delusions as false. Consequently, wherever the monk may be on the ladder of pride’s descent, the first moment of his conversion must consist in the eradication of his curiosity and his return to himself. It is important to note that, for Bernard, it is not the monk himself who takes the first step in this conversion from curiosity to self-regard. It is not in the first place the monk who discovers the Truth in himself, but the Truth who causes the monk to know himself in Truth. 237 Though the abbot does not pause to explain why this must be, it seems clear that he thinks the addiction of curiosity and the delight the monk takes in his self-delusions of superiority are so strong that they can only be overcome by Christ’s 237 Hum 18 (III, 29): “Those whom Truth causes to know themselves (Quos itaque Veritas sibi iam innotescere…fecit)…” M. Ambrose Conway’s translation, “When in the light of Truth men know themselves…” unfortunately obscures Bernard’s emphasis on the prevenient initiative of Truth in bringing the monk to self-knowledge. The Steps of Humility and Pride, trans. M. Ambrose Conway, 45. 159
inward movement in the soul. In any event, for Bernard, it is only by the prevenient grace of Christ, who is Truth himself, that the monk may be recalled, or converted, to his heart and there face himself in the very light of Truth. Further, it is equally important to note that, for Bernard, the monk’s return to himself effected by the Word entails not his passage from some sheer self-ignorance to true self-knowledge, but rather the judgment of his defective self-knowledge as false and the eradication of that amor propriae excellentiae which stands at the root of this self- deception. So the monk’s conversion involves a radical reordering of his affective life, his passage from the love of his own superiority to a love for Truth himself. Bernard writes: Those whom Truth causes to know, and therefore to revile, themselves must now find bitter all those things they once loved, including their very selves. Standing before their own face, they are compelled to see themselves and to blush at what they see. Displeased with what they are, they long to be what they are not, but they know they cannot achieve this by themselves alone. 238 By the prevenient grace of the Word, the monk who once delighted in the delusion of his own superiority now bitterly laments how far his former self-image is from the harsh truth of his own sin and weakness. Painful as it is, this true self-knowledge achieved in the eradication of self-deception is a blessing, for in revealing the chasm between what he is, a truly sinful monk, and what he longs to be, a truly holy one, this self-knowledge opens his eyes to the journey his must now undertake if he is to become what he was created to be. 238 Hum 18 (III, 29): “Quos itaque Veritas sibi iam innotescere, ac per hoc vilescere fecit, necesse est, ut cuncta, quae amare solebant, et ipsi sibi amarescant Statuentes nimirum se ante se, tales se videre cogunt, quales vel a se videri erubescunt. Dum que sibi displicet quod sunt, et ad id suspirant quod non sunt, quod utique per se fore diffident.” 160
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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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consideration of others and their a
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consideration of his treatise as a
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symmetry between these two parts an
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Though this discrepancy at first ap
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self, God, and neighbor. Since it i
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estored in this divine likeness as
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eturn to his suffering brothers and
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much more should the monk not exalt
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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 165 and 166: In recognizing the two distinct mom
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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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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
Page 203 and 204: For Bernard, then, the soul that ha
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Page 207 and 208: Conclusion Having considered three
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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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