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

swells in one’s heart that it moves one first to entertain, and then to accept as true, the
delusional belief that one is superior to others and even, in the most serious case, superior
to God himself.
In Chapter 2, we will also see that, for Bernard, even monks removed from the
world are by no means immune to pride. In the monastic enclosure, where holiness is
cherished above all else, the monk is tempted to fall in love with the thought of his own
moral and spiritual superiority over others, and to embrace the self-deception that he is
holier than everyone else. Thus it is especially interesting to find that Bernard may also
have drawn the definition of pride as amor propriae excellentiae from Augustine’s
Sermon 354, which concerns that form of pride to which vowed religious are most
especially prone. In this sermon, Augustine teaches that those who have vowed
themselves to chastity have assumed a noble place among the members of Christ’s one
body; but they must be vigilant, he warns, not to fall victim to pride, to the belief that
they are superior to the Church’s married members. In this case, Augustine explains,
their pride will rob their chastity of its merit: “I dare say,” he concludes, “that those who
are leading the married life, if they hold fast to their humility, are better than those who
are chaste but proud.” 58
Like Benedict, Augustine here invokes the paradoxical spiritual dynamics
disclosed in Christ’s saying, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever
humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11; 18:14). Those who have embraced the
vocation to vowed religious life must resist the temptation to the false ascent of pride and
58 Sermo 354 (PL 39:1565): “et audeo dicere, coniugalem agentes uitam, si tenent humilitatem,
superbis castis meliores sunt.”
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