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

descended and ascended and showed us the way by which we too
might ascend. 324
Thus, by taking up and expressing our human nature, the divine Person of the Word is
able to do what he could not do before; namely, to model before our eyes the salutary
ascent of self-knowledge, humility, charity that inverts the false ascent of self-deception,
pride, and self-will, and thereby reveals our true way to God. Evoking 1 Pet 2:21,
Bernard concludes, “Through the mystery of his Incarnation, the Lord descends and
ascends, leaving us an example, that we might follow in his footsteps.” 325
Yet, Bernard is equally keen to emphasize that, in the act of his Incarnation, the
divine Person of the Word suffers no loss to his divinity. This is of great significance for
Bernard because it enables the Word to serve as both the way and the goal of the spiritual
journey. The Word as Incarnate models the way of our ascent; the Word as God is the
height to which we ascend. 326 Bernard writes:
When [Christ] says, “No one ascends except he who descended,”
he refers to his assumption of human nature. When he says, “who
is in heaven,” he refers to the immutability of his divinity. By
these same words, he also indicates that he himself is the way by
which we ought to ascend and that he himself is the homeland
were we ought to remain once we have ascended; the way, that is,
for those going, and the homeland for those who have arrived.
And so, remaining what he was in his own nature, he descended
324 Div 60.1 (VI-1, 290): “Et quoniam ascendere non poterat, nisi prius descenderet, descendere
autem eum vel ascendere non patiebatur divinitatis suae simplicitas, quippe quae nec minui potest, nec
augeri aut aliquo modo variari, assumpsit in unitatem suae personae naturam nostram, id est humanam, in
qua descenderet et ascenderet, viam que nobis, qua et nos ascenderemus, ostenderet.”
325 Div 60.2 (V-I, 292): “Sic per incarnationis suae mysterium descendit et ascendit Dominus,
relinquens nobis exemplum ut sequamur vestigia eius.”
326 Here Bernard follows Augustine’s teaching on Christ the Incarnate Word as both via and
patria, as in, for example, De doctrina christiana I.11.11 (CCSL 32).
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