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

degree to which one has either cultivated that likeness to God by a life of virtue, or lost
that likeness by a life of sin. Bernard will also follow Origen’s interpretation of the
second half of the verse, concerning the consequences of failing to seek this self-
knowledge. For Origen, the “goats” mentioned by the Bridegroom refer to the “restless
and wayward senses” 43 which lead the soul to pursue sinful, but ultimately transitory
satisfactions not fit for one made in God’s image. If the soul neglects to know itself, it
will come to resemble not God, but senseless beasts who trail after their senses and
fleshly desires. In this case, however, the soul will descend to a state even lower than
that of the animals, for while the former act according to their nature, the soul will
willfully defy its own nature by seeking its fulfillment apart from the God in whose
image it has been made.
Once he has established the fundamental importance of this self-knowledge to the
soul’s progress in the spiritual life, Origen next proposes to apply this verse to “Christ
and the Church.” In this instance, the Alexandrian refers to the Sponsa of the Canticle as
“the souls of the faithful,” 44 establishing a polyvalent signification for the Bride that
Bernard will adopt in his efforts to unfold the Bride’s simultaneous psychological and
ecclesiological dimensions. The souls of the faithful, Origen continues, ought to seek
self-knowledge in two ways: the soul must consider first “what it is like in its essence,”
sensus.”
43 Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum, II.5.17 (SCh 375:364): “lascivos scilicet et inquietos
44 Commentarium in Cantica Canticorum, II.5.6 (SCh 375:356): “Sed nunc consequentur, ut
cetera, ad Christum haec et ad ecclesiam referamus, qui ad sponsam suam, ad animas scilicet credentium,
loquens summam salutis et beatitudinis in scientia < sui > et agnitione constituit.”
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