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

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and other senses, and despite whatever immediate though ephemeral gratification they may afford her flesh, they are not her Beloved and so only stoke rather than satisfy her burning love for him. Yet, Bernard suggests, this is precisely the meaning of the Bridegroom’s warning: if the Bride neglects to know herself, if she presumptuously aspires to spiritual heights before she is worthy of them, she will be compelled to abandon the inner sanctuary of her heart, go forth after her restless, wandering senses among the world of created things, and there strive to find some small consolation for her deepest yearnings in the satisfaction of her sinful, fleshly desires. By a “shameful exchange of desires,” the Bride who once was eager “to feed her exiled and pilgrim soul on holy meditations and heavenly goods, to seek the good-pleasure of God and the mysteries of his holy will, and to penetrate the heavens by her devotion” will now, abandoned by grace, have to “enslave herself to the shameful servitude of her body, obey her flesh, satisfy her stomach and palate, and beg throughout the whole world, whose form is passing away, to find some little consolation for her ever ravenous curiosity.” 99 In other words, the Bride who does not know herself will have to exchange the spiritual life for life in the flesh and labor in vain to slake her burning thirst for her Beloved by the immediate gratification of sinful desires for all that is not him. Her life in the flesh will therefore be a life of misery as well as sin, for all the 99 SC 35.3 (I, 250): “Turpis mutatio studiorum, ut cui ante studii fuerat peregrinantem et exsulem animam suam sacris meditationibus, tamquam caelestibus pascere bonis, Dei beneplacitum et mysteria voluntatis eius inquirere, penetrare devotione caelos…nunc omnibus his omissis, turpi se mancipet corporis servituti ad oboediendum carni, ad satisfaciendum ventri et gulae, ad mendicandum in universa terra unde, ex ea quae praeterit mundi huius figura, suam semper famelicam curiositatem aliquatenus consoletur.” 59
worldly things her flesh and senses crave—sensual pleasures, riches, knowledge, power, and prestige—fall short of the One her soul loves. 100 The abbot’s doleful reflection on the Bride’s “shameful exchange” evokes another, more primordial turpis mutatio, namely Adam’s own fall from the spirit to the flesh. At the moment of his creation, Adam was an egregia creatura, a noble and beautiful creature, a living witness to his Creator’s gracious love. Placed in a paradise of pleasure, knowing nothing of suffering nor want, and set over all the works of God’s hands, he “excelled them all on account of the divine likeness with which he was sealed and shared the fellowship of the angel hosts.” 101 Bernard’s reference to Adam’s being sealed with the divine likeness recalls the doctrine of humanity’s creation in the image and likeness of God which he elsewhere develops in considerable depth. 102 Here, as in his other treatments of the theme, human 100 Bernard describes the misery of the sinful soul most vividly in his image of the circuitus impii, or the circle of wicked, from On Loving God. The soul that seeks satisfaction for its deepest yearnings in created things rather than its Creator is condemned to wander this earth in circles, passing from one created good to the next, always seeking, but never finding, the rest it so deeply desires. See Dil 19 (III, 135-136) and Gilson’s masterful commentary on this image in The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, 43-45. 101 SC 35.3 (I, 251): “ob insigne divinae similitudinis praecellebat; et erat illi sors et societas cum plebe angelorum.” 102 See especially Gra 28-31 and SC 80-83. Bernard’s “doctrine,” or perhaps better his various “doctrines,” of the image and likeness of God in the soul has generated much literature and considerable debate. It is, of course, beyond the scope of this dissertation to offer a comprehensive account of Bernard’s teaching on this vast subject. For the present purposes, we follow what we take to be a consensus among scholars that when Bernard speaks of humanity’s creation in the “image” of God, Bernard refers to the rational soul’s innate, ineffaceable capacity for God, or its creation capax Dei; and, that when he speaks of the soul’s accidental “divine likeness,” he refers to the realization of that capacity through the soul’s conformity to the divine Word, a conformity effected by the Incarnate Word’s redemptive work. To this consensus, we add only that the conformity to the Word in question for Bernard is a conformity precisely to the Word-made-flesh and specifically to the virtues of humility and charity he models and effects by the mysteries of his incarnate life. Though Bernard never explicitly associates the lost divine likeness with conformity to the Incarnate Word’s humility and charity, I think such an interpretation reflects well his frequent assertion, in his foundational On the Steps of Humility and Pride, his letter against the errors of Peter Abelard, and in the present sermon set, that the soul’s spiritual life, which is to say its renewal in the lost divine likeness, consists in its growing conformity to Christ’s own humility and love in its reason and will respectively. Among the most significant treatments Bernard’s doctrine of the divine image and 60
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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
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
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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 and 64: Why do you judge yourself worthy to
Page 65 and 66: For Bernard, the lesson to be drawn
Page 67: warning and why should it compel he
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
Page 115 and 116: much more should the monk not exalt
Page 117 and 118: 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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