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

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of men.’” 262 It is not without significance, Bernard argues, that the Psalmist attributes this word to God, dixisti, for it is not any human word that will move the students of Paris to conversion, not even Bernard’s, but only the Word of God speaking within the soul. This Word is, in the words of Scripture, “living and effective” (Heb 4:12) and this divine Voice is “powerful and majestic” (Ps 29:4). As at creation, when God said “Let there be light and there was light” (Gen 1:3), so now in the soul’s re-creation, God has only to say “be converted,” and the soul is converted to him. 263 Bernard’s unstated implication is clear: the soul takes no more initiative it its re-creation than it did in its creation from nothing. The initiative remains with God’s Word and though God may speak this divine Word to the soul by Bernard’s human word as his instrument, “the conversion of souls is the working of the divine, not the human voice.” 264 For their part, Bernard’s listeners must not close their ears to this divine Voice, but rather “arouse the ears of your heart to the inner Voice, that you might take care to hear God speaking within you rather than the man speaking without.” 265 When the soul does arouse its inner ear to this divine and inward Voice, it hears God’s first word, his admonition to self-knowledge, “Return, O sinners, to your hearts” 262 Conv 1 (IV, 70): “Et occurrit interim verbum breve, sed plenum, quod os Domini locutum est, ut Propheta testatur: DIXISTI, ait, loquens sine dubio ad Dominum Deum suum: CONVERTIMINI, FILII HOMINUM.” All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. The reader should, however, consult the translation by Marie-Bernard Saïd from which I have benefited much and in some instances borrowed liberally. See Bernard of Clairvaux: Sermons on Conversion, trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, 31-79. 263 Here Bernard follows Augustine’s correlation of creation and re-creation through God’s Word in Confessions XIII.12.13 (CCSL 27). 264 Conv 2 (IV, 71): “Conversio animarum opus divinae vocis est, non humanae.” 265 Conv 2 (IV, 71): “Ad hanc ergo interiorem vocem aures cordis erigi admonemus, ut loquentem Deum intus audire quam foris hominem studeatis.” Bernard’s remark echoes the opening lines of Benedict’s Rule, “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” RB Prol.1: Obsculta, o filii, praecepta magistri, et inclinem aurem cordis tui.” 171
(Is 46:8). For Bernard, this first word “seems to precede all those who convert to their hearts, not only calling them, but leading them back to themselves and setting them before their own face.” 266 For this divine Voice, the abbot continues, is also a divine Light penetrating the soul’s depths and “announcing to human beings their sins and illumining things hidden in darkness.” 267 Introducing for the first time the characters of reason and memory, Bernard recounts how the divine Light now “illumines reason and opens the book of memory before its very eyes” that reason might read within this book “the sad history” of the soul’s past life. 268 Though Bernard does not here explicitly mention the soul’s return from curiosity and the eradication of its prior self-deception, this is surely implied by his description of conversion as a return to the heart and the illumination of truths long shrouded there in darkness. The soul’s memory of its past sins can never be entirely effaced because the record of its sin has been indelibly “inscribed within the book of memory by the pen of truth,” 269 but this memory can be cloaked in darkness, the darkness, presumably, of the pleasant self-delusions the soul entertains as true so long as its amor propriae excellentiae swells unchecked by honest self-judgment. Here too, as in the Steps, this first moment of honest self-judgment is depicted as the soul’s participation in the Son’s own prerogative as Judge of all. For as the divine 266 Conv 3 (IV, 72): “Redite, praevaricatores, ad cor. Hoc nempe initium loquendi Domino, et hoc verbum ad omnes qui convertuntur ad cor, praecessisse videtur, et non modo revocans eos, sed et reducens et statuens contra faciem suam.” 267 Conv 3 (IV, 73): “Est enim non tantum vox virtutis, sed et radius lucis, annuntians pariter hominibus peccata eorum et illuminans abscondita tenebrarum.” 268 Conv 3 (IV, 73): “Aperitur siquidem conscientiae liber, revolvitur misera vitae series, tristis quaedam historia replicatur, illuminatur ratio, et evoluta memoria velut quibusdam eius oculis exhibetur.” 269 Conv 4 (IV, 75): “Volumen grande, cui universa inscripta sunt, stilo utique veritatis.” 172
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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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for your brother’s misery and not
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sinful weakness and nothing of thei
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Finally, we should note that Bernar
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journey to which the monk will comm
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and judge others or to see how they
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condemned. Lifting his eyes in humi
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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 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 179: upon the “stage” of the soul an
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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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Page 207 and 208: Conclusion Having considered three
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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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