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

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find her perfect happiness in their eternal embrace of reciprocal knowledge, love, and vision. In the context of this spiritual journey of growing beauty and vision, the Bridegroom’s rebuke is intended to restrain his Bride’s presumption lest through self- ignorance she prematurely judge herself capable of seeing him face to face. At the root of the Bride’s presumption and self-ignorance is her curiositas, her inquisitive desire to know the things of heaven and to see her Bridegroom as he is. Her Bridegroom does not fault this desire in itself; he has created her for and called her to just this knowledge and vision. 92 Yet, he also warns her that her desire to contemplate heavenly realities may distract her from the contemplation of herself, her present condition, and her need for growth in Christ’s own humility, charity, and beauty. Curiosity for the things of heaven thus breeds ignorance of herself and this self-ignorance in turn renders her susceptible to pride, the presumption that she is greater than she truly is, that she is already in this life capable of that direct vision afforded only to those who have been purified by their gradual, graced conformation to the Word. While on her earthly pilgrimage, Bernard warns, the Bride must not, in the words of Proverbs, “investigate too curiously the things which are in heaven lest the searcher of majesty be overwhelmed by glory” (Pr 25:27). So the Bridegroom admonishes his Spouse, “Know yourself, and do not seek after things to high for you, nor scrutinize things too powerful for you to bear (Si 3:22).” 93 92 See 4 Asc 3 (V, 139-140): “We all desire to ascend. We all long for exaltation. For we are noble creatures, possessing a certain greatness of soul, and so we long for the heights with a natural desire (Cupidi siquidem sumus ascensionis: exaltationem concupiscimus omnes. Nobiles enim creaturae sumus, et magni cuiusdam animi, ideo que altitudinem naturali appetimus desiderio).” fueris.” 93 SC 38.5 (II, 17-18): “Teipsam attende, et altiora te ne quaesieris, et fortiora te ne scrutata 55
For Bernard, the lesson to be drawn from the Bridegroom’s salutary rebuke is that the only way to the beatific vision of Christ is Christ’s own way of humility: “The one who strives towards the heights must have a humble knowledge of himself. Otherwise, when he is raised above himself, he will fall beneath himself, unless he is firmly grounded in himself by true humility.” 94 The Bridegroom himself teaches just this when he says in the Gospel, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). In Christ’s words, Bernard discerns the most elemental dynamics of the spiritual life: paradoxically, those who would ascend to the heavenly heights of likeness, vision, and a share in the divine life must first descend by voluntary self-humbling in accord with the divine will. Conversely, those who contrary to the divine will presumptuously aspire to the heavenly heights will descend beneath themselves into a region of unlikeness, blindness, and spiritual death. Essential to these spiritual dynamics is the question of self-knowledge. If the Bride should know herself, she will rightly judge herself as yet unworthy of the heavenly heights and therefore embrace the descending way of voluntary self-humbling that ascends to glory and life. If, however, the Bride should fail to know herself, she will falsely judge herself already worthy of these heavenly heights and therefore embrace the ascending way of willful self-exaltation that descends to ruin and death. In the subsequent sermon, SC 35, Bernard will identify Christ and Adam as the respective exemplary figures of these opposed and inverted patterns of ascent and descent. 94 SC 34.1 (I, 246): “Oportet namque humiliter sentire de se nitentem ad altiora: ne, dum supra se attollitur, cadat a se, nisi in se firmiter per veram humilitatem fuerit solidatus.” 56
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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
Page 13 and 14: For Bernard, then, humble self-know
Page 15 and 16: likeness of charity. Within the Cis
Page 17 and 18: When Gilson asserted that by self-k
Page 19 and 20: Bernard, Sommerfeldt continues, hum
Page 21 and 22: a “false image” of himself. 26
Page 23 and 24: some newfound and joyous moment of
Page 25 and 26: ecognize that same sinfulness in hi
Page 27 and 28: foundations of man’s return to Go
Page 29 and 30: the descent of humility begins the
Page 31 and 32: saving work of Jesus Christ in the
Page 33 and 34: the humility, obedience, and love C
Page 35 and 36: Of particular importance to Bernard
Page 37 and 38: and second, “what it is like in i
Page 39 and 40: In his ground-breaking study of med
Page 41 and 42: direct links between the two. 52 It
Page 43 and 44: swells in one’s heart that it mov
Page 45 and 46: pride as “the desire for a perver
Page 47 and 48: The knowledge of self and God in th
Page 49 and 50: mercy until you renew all that is i
Page 51 and 52: CHAPTER 1: THE SCOPE OF BERNARD’S
Page 53 and 54: Prior to its first conversion, Bern
Page 55 and 56: Origen, Bernard here and elsewhere
Page 57 and 58: of God, they will grow ever more un
Page 59 and 60: and love as she is loved, and the B
Page 61 and 62: In the interim or “meanwhile” o
Page 63: Why do you judge yourself worthy to
Page 67 and 68: warning and why should it compel he
Page 69 and 70: worldly things her flesh and senses
Page 71 and 72: aspired to seize a kind of parody o
Page 73 and 74: thousands of evils upon our entire
Page 75 and 76: edemptive work is suitably adapted
Page 77 and 78: emains forever, this grass too rema
Page 79 and 80: graciously condescending to assume
Page 81 and 82: Thus the abbot resolves his spiritu
Page 83 and 84: of self-knowledge enabled self-dece
Page 85 and 86: humbles himself will be exalted”
Page 87 and 88: Church, enabling scholars to instru
Page 89 and 90: Through this unflinching self-exami
Page 91 and 92: soon tempers my bitter vision of my
Page 93 and 94: edeem him, sanctify him, and offer
Page 95 and 96: As observed above, in the second ha
Page 97 and 98: modeled and effected by the Word-ma
Page 99 and 100: Ignorance of self breeds pride when
Page 101 and 102: consideration of others and their a
Page 103 and 104: consideration of his treatise as a
Page 105 and 106: symmetry between these two parts an
Page 107 and 108: Though this discrepancy at first ap
Page 109 and 110: self, God, and neighbor. Since it i
Page 111 and 112: estored in this divine likeness as
Page 113 and 114: 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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self, neighbor, and God. He has sho
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own, and from your own experience l
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excursus has been labeled a “digr
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“learned” (didicit) is being pr
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To resolve this question, Bernard r
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You see, therefore, that Christ is
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to the Spirit, by contemplation in
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worse, misguided view of the abbot
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Christ’s Ascension culminates in
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conformed to him. Then, through the
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Modeling this laudabilis curiositas
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The theme of Word’s example of vo
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equally deadly, extreme of despair.
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and humbled by God, so that there w
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as essential elements of the Word I
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led astray. Their amor carnalis Chr
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delivered us from sin and enabled u
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miseria and fires it with the confi
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death to bring about a real, inward
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sins,” “justification,” and
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these life-giving virtues, we must
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precisely through, a careful approp
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perhaps she means, “My Beloved in
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To such a soul, the abbot continues
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gradually assuming the figure of Ch
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to judge themselves in Truth, and s
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ejoice with those who rejoice and w
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love of himself in the glory of div
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I. Works of Bernard of Clairvaux BI
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------. Sermo 29A. Edited by C. Lam
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Courcelle, Pierre. Connais-toi toi-
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------. “Le premier traité authe
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