CHAPTER VII
SAINT BERNARD
persistence in works of mercy, is the spiritual sight cleared from all stain, whether due to weakness, ignorance or disposition.
And to it truth promises to reveal itself in its purity.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
There are then three kinds of degrees of truth ; we rise to the first by humble effort, to the second by loving sympathy, to the third by enraptured vision.
In the first truth is revealed in severity, in the second in pity, in the third in purity.
Reason, by which we analyze ourselves, guides us to the first, feeling which enables us to pity others conducts us to the second ; purity by which we are raised to the level of the unseen, carries us up to the third.
CHAPTER VII
The -work of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in leading men through the three degrees of Truth.
Here I seem to discern a certain marvellous and individual operation of each Person of the Trinity if indeed it is possible for the limited intelligence of man to conceive a difference such as cannot be expressed in words between persons who co-operate.
On this supposition, the first degree appears to be due to trie action of the Son, the second to that of the Holy Spirit, and the tKird to that of the Father.
Would you wish to hear 1 Matt. v. 8.
DEGREES OF HUMILITY
about the work of the Son?
I/, saith He, I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, how much more ought ye to wash one another's feet.
The Master of truth thus presented to His disciples a pattern of humility, that they might therein discern the first degree of truth.
Mark also the work of the Holy Spirit, Love is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is
Love is indeed the gift of the given to us.
Holy Spirit, and this makes it possible for those who, under the instruction of the Son, have by humility already attained the first degree of truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to reacti the second by sympathy with their neighbours.
Hear also what is said about the FatHer.
Blessed art thou Simon Baw Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my father who is
And there is another passage, The in heaven. father shall make thy truth known to the children.*
And yet again, I thank thee, Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and hast
You see then how revealed them to little ones. the Father at last receives into glory those to whom the Son first taught humility by precept and by practice, and on whom the Holy Spirit then shed love.
The Son receives them as learners, the Comforter encourages them as friends, trie 1 John xiii. 14.
The verse is given as Bernard quotes it not quite correctly from the Vulgate.
2 Rom. v. 8.
3 Matt. xvi. 17.
* Is. xxsviii. 19.
5 Matt. xi. 25.
SAINT BERNARD
Father raises them as sons.
For this reason the title of 'The truth' is rightly given, not only to the Son, but also to the Father and to the Holy Ghost.
From this it follows that one and the same truth preserving the characteristics of each of the Persons performs this threefold work in the three degrees.
In the first one it gives instruction as does a master ; in the second it affords counsel as does a friend or a brother
; in the third it provides a bond of union as does a father to his sons.
Thus the Son of God that is to say the word and wisdom of the Father first found that intellectual faculty of yours which is called reason, fettered by the flesh, a captive to sin, blinded by ignorance, and surrendered to things external.
In His mercy He took it up, by His power He raised it, by His wisdom He taught it, drew it to Himself, and in a marvellous manner made it His representative.
He then caused it so to sit in judgment upon itself that, with due reverence to the Word with whom it was associated, it might act as its own accuser, witness and judge, and honestly pronounce condemnation on itself.
It is from this first alliance between the Word and reason that humility has its origin. We then come to the second faculty, which is called will, and which was contaminated by the poison of the flesh, though this has already been in a measure counteracted by reason.
This the Holy Spirit honours
DEGREES OF HUMILITY
with a visit, administers to it a gentle purgative, imparts to it a genial warmth, and thus renders it compassionate ; in such a way that after the fashion of a skin which is stretched by the application of an ointment, so the will that has been treated with the heavenly ointment may be so expanded as to become friendly to those that were its enemies.
And this second alliance between the spirit of God and the will of man produces love.
The Father finally takes the two faculties reason and will the one taught by the Word and sprinkled with the hyssop of humility, the other inspired by the spirit of truth and influenced by the fire of love, and unites them into a perfect soul, from which humility has removed all wrinkles and in which love has left no stain.
In it will resists not reason.
Nor does reason trifle with truth, for the Father unites it to Himself as His glorious bride, in such a way that reason may not be allowed to think of itself, nor will of its neighbour, but the entire delight of that blessed soul will be to say, The king has taken me into his chamber.
It was fitting that 1 Cant. i.
Here again the quotation is from the Old Latin which has cubicnlum ' bed chamber ' instead of cellaria which is the reading of the Vulgate, and is rightly rendered by the Douai version ' store-houses .
St. Bernard is thus led to assign to the whole passage an erotic sense which does not properly belong to it.
This is somewhat remarkable because in the following sentence he uses the right word cellaria, and in one of his sermons he comments on the difference in meaning between it and cubiculum, which occurs in Cant. iii. 1
('Sermons on Various Subjects,'
Serm. xci.
See Bales' Eng. Trans.).
SAINT BERNARD
that soul should first learn in the school of humility under the tuition of the Son, to enter into herself in accordance with the warning given.
If thou knowest not thyself, go forth and feed thy kids.* Thus did she become fit to be brought from the school of humility under the guidance of the Holy Spirit through affection into the store rooms of love by which undoubtedly is meant the hearts of her neighbours.
Thence, seated on flowers and surrounded by friends, that is by good habits and holy virtues, she may at last gain entrance to the chamber of the King, for whose love she longs.
There, when silence irias O ' been made in heaven for a space, it may be of half an hour, she rests calmly in those dear embraces herself asleep, but her heart on the watch how she may in the present range over those regions of hidden truth on whose memory she will feast as soon as she returns to herself there she sees things invisible and hears things unutterable, of which it is not lawful for man to speak.
These are the things that surpass all that knowledge which night showeth to night.
Yet day unto day throws out language, and the wise 1 Cant. i. 7.
2 The sequence of thought in the last two sentences of this chapter is not clear.
The passage reads like a mosaic otScriptural allusions, without much connexion with each other.
The train of thought may be that these are illustrations of the ecstatic condition of the bride (i.e., the regenerate soul) and so to lead on to the reference, in the next chapter, to the rapture of St. Paul from an earthly to a heavenly sphere.