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

essential starting point of the spiritual life” and at the same time opens us to the
knowledge of God’s mercy and so “brings hope for a change in our condition…the first
step in a lifelong process of conversion.” 22
Though the examples cited above do indicate a certain preoccupation with
Bernard’s doctrine of self-knowledge specifically as it applies the cultivation of humility
and the earliest stages of the spiritual journey, this is not to say that students of the
abbot’s work have not intimated elements of a broader teaching on the question of the
soul’s self-awareness. For example, some have alluded to a Bernadine teaching on the
false or defective self-awareness the soul suffers prior to its first conversion on account of
its pride. In particular, Sommerfeldt has referred to Bernard’s theory of “self-deception”:
“If [for Bernard] humility is self-knowledge, then it is clear that pride is self-deception.” 23
For Bernard, Sommerfeldt notes, this proud delusion or self-deception threatens all types
of persons – monks, clerics, and laity alike – and most be resisted by assiduous and
honest self-consideration. 24
More broadly, Casey has argued that, for the abbot, “self-deception was the cause
of the fall” and that fallen human beings find themselves continually susceptible to this
same self-deception. 25 Though they do not use the expression “self-deception” per se,
other Bernard scholars have identified this same element of his thought in similar terms.
Thus, Denis Farkasfalvy has noted Bernard’s account of how the prideful monk fashions
Songs, 156.
22 McGinn, “Bernard of Clairvaux: ‘That Contemplative’ (Quel Contemplante),” 173.
23 Sommerfeldt, The Spiritual Teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux, 53.
24 Sommerfeldt, Bernard of Clairvaux: On the Spirituality of Relationship, 91.
25 Casey, Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of
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