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

eings all too often attempt to ascend by exalting themselves, through self-deception,
pride and self-will, in a ceaseless recapitulation of the false ascents of Lucifer and
humanity’s first parents. If fallen human beings are to ascend rightly, they must, as we
saw in Chapter 3, ascend by humbling themselves, by the way of self-knowledge,
humility and charity.
Since fallen human beings are, through their share in the sin of Adam, so inclined
ceaselessly to recapitulate their forefather’s false ascent, the Word of God must, Bernard
believes, teach them the true and salutary way of ascent by descending and ascending
before their very eyes. And this is, for Bernard, the very essence of the Word’s saving
work: “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, wishing to teach us how we should ascend to
heaven, himself did what he taught, by ascending into heaven.” 323 Yet, in this, Bernard
continues, the Word of God as God faces a certain metaphysical obstacle. For, as God, in
the divine nature he eternally possesses and expresses, the divine Person of the Word
cannot descend or ascend, or suffer change in any respect. For this reason, the abbot
concludes, the divine Person of the Word assumed to himself our own human nature, that
in and through this human nature, he might descend and ascend, and thus reveal to us the
true way of our ascent to glory. Bernard writes:
Since he was not able to ascend unless he first descended, and
since the simplicity of his divinity could not suffer either to
descend or ascend – indeed it was not able to be increased or
diminished or changed in any way – he assumed our nature into the
unity of his Person, that is, our human nature, in which he
323 Div 60.1 (VI-1, 290): “Dominus et Salvator noster Iesus Christus, volens nos docere quomodo
in caelum ascenderemus, fecit ipse quod docuit, ascendit scilicet in caelum.” All translations of Div 60 are
my own.
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