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

CONCLUSION
In the sixty-seventh to sixty-ninth of his Sermones super Cantica canticorum,
composed sometime between 1144 and 1148, Bernard devotes his attention to the Bride’s
joyous exclamation, Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi, “My Beloved is mine, and I am his”
(Sg 2:16). The abbot takes a special interest in these words of the Bride because, to his
ear, they are scarcely intelligible. They seem to transcend the ordinary rules of grammar
and therefore contain a mystery beyond his immediate understanding. They can only be,
he concludes, words spoken out of love, which reason cannot comprehend: “It is the
affections that speak here, not the intellect. It is not for the intellect to grasp their
meaning.” 405 “The affections,” Bernard explains, “have their own language, through
which they reveal themselves even against our will.” 406
For Bernard, moreover, the Bride alone may utter these words and alone know
their meaning because she alone possesses affections conformed to those of her
Bridegroom. Though he avers that he is unworthy to speak these words and to
comprehend their significance, the abbot does suggest a possible interpretation for the
benefit of the simple. When the Bride exclaims, “My Beloved is mine, and I am his,”
405 SC 67.3 (II, 190): “Affectus locutus est, non intellectus, et ideo non ad intellectum.”
406 SC 67.3 (II, 190): “Habent suas voces affectus, per quas se, etiam cum nolunt, produnt.”
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