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

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phases of self-knowledge. Invoking Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinitarian image within the soul composed of reason, will, and memory, Bernard here shows how the soul’s restoration in the divine likeness proceeds only gradually. As in the Steps, the soul’s conversion begins with the prevenient grace of the Word who reveals to reason the sad history of the self-deceived soul’s proud self-contempt. Once illumined by the Word, reason boldly sets forth to reform the soul, but soon finds that the will remains enslaved to its former, sinful desires, and that the memory remains filled with the bitter, ineffaceable recollection of its past. Yet, by the grace of the Spirit, the will is liberated from its enslavement, and infused with divine charity; the memory is, in turn, purified by the Word of God, so that the soul’s recollection of its past sins now serve no longer as a source of shame, but as a bright testimony to God’s transforming mercy. Once refashioned in reason, will, and memory alike, the soul that once looked in horror and shame on its own diseased face now rejoices to see itself anew, as one assuming the figure of Christ’s own Bride. Growing ever more like the divine Bridegroom by his gifts of humility and love, this soul begins to radiate a certain divine beauty, expressed in her humble, grateful self-awareness as his Beloved, a beauty which wins the Bridegroom’s love, and draws him to enter the soul as his own dwelling-place. As we saw, moreover, through our study of Bernard’s Apologia, the transformed soul’s self-recognition as Christ’s Bride entails not only its growing conformity to the beauty of the Bridegroom, but also its growing union with all the members of Christ’s body, who together form his Ecclesia-Sponsa. In the grips of its former, proud self- deception, the soul could only regard its brothers and sisters as competitors and rivals to the title of most holy it so coveted for itself. In this state, it could not, as Paul commands, 265
ejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), but only rejoice when it saw others to fail, and weep when it saw itself surpassed by others. Yet once conformed to the humility and compassion of Christ, the soul begins to understand itself and its fellows anew. Through its humble recognition of its own miseria, the soul learns to love its brothers and sisters with compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, and understanding; the soul now regards itself and others not as competitors, but as fellow members of Christ and fellow wayfarers on their common journey towards their eschatological consummation in him. Thus the soul recognizes itself as the Anima- Sponsa only to the degree to which it participates in the Ecclesia-Sponsa, the congregation of holy souls who together form the Bridegroom’s one, perfect, and beautiful Spouse. In Chapter 4, we completed our study of Bernard’s comprehensive theology of self-knowledge with an analysis of the abbot’s Christology, and specifically, his understanding of how the divine Bridegroom, Christ the Incarnate Word, plays an essential role in the soul’s passage from the self-deception of pride to its newfound awareness as the Bride of Christ. Integral to Bernard’s teaching here is the Incarnational Christology he develops across his corpus and expresses most succinctly in his sixtieth sermon De Diversis. According to this Incarnational Christology, the single subject of Christ is the fully divine Person of the Word, the second person of the Trinity, who without loss to himself as fully divine, has taken up and come to express an integral human nature, with a genuine human soul and body, and the full complement of human faculties and passions. Through our study of Bernard’s apparent “digression” concerning Christ’s knowledge in the Steps, we showed how the abbot deploys this Incarnational 266
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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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will contrary to both the law of Go
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in him by her obedience to his will
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contempt not only for herself and h
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his rule over the reprobate he woul
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in misery rather than to be subject
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descending these early steps of pri
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pleases them and avoid what makes t
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knows.” 201 Should the topic of c
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Here abbot Bernard figures the prou
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ut believe in his inmost heart that
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Asserting Self-Will Against Superio
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As so often in his narrative of the
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who he is, everyone judges him, and
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monk’s descent into this deepest
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God in heaven. He will acknowledge
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Consumed by this self-centered love
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their hearts. Hence Bernard’s fre
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done…by whoever would walk in the
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In recognizing the two distinct mom
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experience, lamenting how he has ma
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inward movement in the soul. In any
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share with them in that divine merc
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Operating inwardly within this judg
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the Truth in his own nature? Matter
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arguing from both allusions in text
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upon the “stage” of the soul an
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(Is 46:8). For Bernard, this first
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desperate need for the healing grac
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consolations afforded it by the lif
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thoroughly diseased: reason now see
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Reason’s rebuke is powerful, and
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In this vision, reason is permitted
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conscience she enjoys through the m
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Word of God, “that living and eff
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knowledge and contempt of himself,
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The Self-Awareness of the Bride in
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When the brightness of this beauty
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For Bernard, then, the soul that ha
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figure of this Ecclesia-Sponsa. On
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Conclusion Having considered three
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self-awareness as his own Bride, ra
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CHAPTER 4: SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE M
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Christ’s incarnate, crucified, an
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indeed to the entirety of his theol
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significant individual expressions
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The foregoing elements of Bernard
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descended and ascended and showed u
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Page 227 and 228: excursus has been labeled a “digr
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Page 231 and 232: To resolve this question, Bernard r
Page 233 and 234: You see, therefore, that Christ is
Page 235 and 236: to the Spirit, by contemplation in
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Page 241 and 242: conformed to him. Then, through the
Page 243 and 244: Modeling this laudabilis curiositas
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Page 249 and 250: and humbled by God, so that there w
Page 251 and 252: as essential elements of the Word I
Page 253 and 254: led astray. Their amor carnalis Chr
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Page 259 and 260: death to bring about a real, inward
Page 261 and 262: sins,” “justification,” and
Page 263 and 264: these life-giving virtues, we must
Page 265 and 266: precisely through, a careful approp
Page 267 and 268: perhaps she means, “My Beloved in
Page 269 and 270: To such a soul, the abbot continues
Page 271 and 272: gradually assuming the figure of Ch
Page 273: to judge themselves in Truth, and s
Page 277 and 278: love of himself in the glory of div
Page 279 and 280: I. Works of Bernard of Clairvaux BI
Page 281 and 282: ------. Sermo 29A. Edited by C. Lam
Page 283 and 284: Courcelle, Pierre. Connais-toi toi-
Page 285 and 286: ------. “Le premier traité authe
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