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

humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). The monk who succumbs to self-deception
and proudly imagines himself superior to his brothers will, in time, be humbled by God.
Heedless of the Bridegroom’s warning and recapitulating the self-ignorance of Adam, the
one who vainly aspires to the heights of holiness will be reduced to ruin and despair.
For Bernard, the monk’s descent into despair will occur through his ignorance of
God. 121 Suppose a proud and self-deceived monk finds himself compelled to face the
bitter truth of his sin and weakness and, displeased with what he sees, decides to abandon
his sinful ways and reform his life. Confronted with the stark reality of his inescapable
bondage to the self-imposed shackles of his own sin, he will be required to seek his
deliverance from the hands of God. Yet, if he does not know God, he may be inclined to
imagine that God lacks mercy, and therefore will not save him, or else lacks justice, and
therefore will not punish him for his sins. As his want of self-knowledge led him to
construct a false image of himself, his ignorance of God will lead him to construct a false
image of his Creator: “So iniquity deceives itself, fashioning for itself an idol that does
not resemble God.” 122 Fashioning for himself a god without mercy, the monk despairs of
salvation and immerses himself in the delights of his flesh, hoping to at least find some
gratification in this life before suffering eternal punishment in the next. Or else,
121 On the relationship between self-knowledge and the knowledge of God in Bernard’s thought,
see the excellent articles by Denis Farkasfalvy: “La conoscenza di Dio secondo San Bernardo,” Studi su s.
Bernardo di Chiaravalle nell’ottavo centario della canonizzazione: Convengo Internazionale, Certosa di
Firenzi 6-9 Novembre 1974 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1974) 201-214; “The First Step in the Spiritual
Life: Conversion,” La dottrina della vita spirituale nelle opere di San Bernardo di Clairvaux: Atti del
Convengo Internatzionale. Rome, 11-15 settembre, 1990. (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1991), 271-299;
Denis Farkasfalvy, “Bernard’s Concept of the Spiritual Life,” Analecta Cisterciensia 53 (1997): 3-14. See
also the anthology of Bernard’s writings on self-knowledge and the knowledge of God by Franz Pousset,
The Two-Fold Knowledge: Readings on the Knowledge of Self and the Knowledge of God Selected and
Translated from the Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. Franz Posset, Marquette Studies in Theology,
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2004).
122 SC 38.2 (II, 15): “Mentitur iniquitas sibi, formans sibi idolum pro eo quod non est ipse.”
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