Liber Secundus, Caput IX. Propriae naturae considerationem commendat.
The Two Lenses of Self-Knowledge
Bernard calls the reader to consider both present identity and past condition, distinguishing what one is by nature from what one has been made into.
Look at who you are. But don't forget what you were, either. And I haven't forgotten that I promised to come back to this at the right moment. How fittingly you're reflecting on both who you are now and what you were before! What am I saying — 'were'? And you still are. Why stop looking at what you haven't stopped being? One line of reflection is what you have been and what you are: who you are by nature. The other is what you were made.
Born a Human, Made a Bishop
Comparing what one is by birth with what one has been made into by office or addition, the reader is urged to weigh which belongs more fundamentally to the self.
There's no need for that to beat her down when she's searching into yourself. You are, as I said, still what you were — and you are that no less than what you were made into afterward, perhaps even more so. In short, you were born with that, borrowed this, and were not changed into it. That wasn't rejected; rather, this was added on. Let's consider both together, for — as I recall saying beforehand — when the two are compared with each other, both become more useful. I said earlier that to the one considering who you are, the nature by which you are a human being presents itself — for you were born a human being. Furthermore, if someone asks who you are, the name of the person will answer — that you are a bishop, which is something you were made, not born into. Which of these, in your view, seems to belong to your pure self and to pertain to you more fundamentally?
Above All, That You Are Human
The reader is urged to consider first and foremost that they are a human being — born into the same nature as all people.
Is it what you were made, or what you were born? Isn't it what you were born? This, then, I urge you to consider above all: that you are most fully a human being — which is also what you were born as.
Stripping Away Every Veil
Stripping away inherited coverings, fleeting honors, and worldly adornments, the reader is brought face to face with the naked, wretched reality of fallen human nature in body and soul.
And so you must pay attention not only to what you were born, but also to what kind of person you were born, if you don't want to be cheated of the fruit and benefit of your consideration. So take away now these hereditary loincloths, cursed from the start. Tear off the veil of leaves that hides your disgrace, not the wound that would heal it. Wipe away the paint of fleeting honor and the falsely colored brilliance of glory, so that you may see naked the one who is naked, because you came out naked from your mother's womb. Are you wearing a priestly headband? Are you glittering with jewels, or decked out in silks, or crowned with feathers, or stuffed with metals? If you scatter and blow away all these things, like morning clouds passing swiftly and soon to vanish, from the face of your consideration, there will meet you a naked person, poor and wretched and pitiable: a person grieved at being human, ashamed at being naked, weeping at having been born, murmuring at what they are; a person born for toil, not for honor; a person born of a woman, and born with guilt; living for a short time, and therefore with fear; filled with many miseries, and therefore with tears. And truly with many miseries, because of body and soul together.
The Highest Priest, the Lowest Ash
Reflecting on the misery of one born in sin with a fragile body and barren mind, the reader is called to imitate both nature and its Author by joining the highest office to the lowest humility.
What, after all, is free from calamity for someone born in sin, in a fragile body, and with a barren mind? Truly, then, that person is filled up — heaped with bodily weakness and foolishness of heart, passed down through the stain of corruption and the bondage of death. A wholesome bond, this: that in reflecting on yourself as the highest priest, you should attend equally to the fact that the most wretched ash did not merely once exist but still does. Let your thinking imitate nature; and let it also imitate what is more worthy — the Author of nature — joining the highest and the lowest together. Did not nature, in the person of a lowly human being, bind the breath of life to mere mud?✦ Did not the Author of nature, in his own person, unite the Word with that same mud?✦ So take your pattern as much from our common origin as from the Sacrament of redemption: so that, seated on high, you may not be wise in lofty things, but think humbly of yourself, standing in solidarity with the lowly.
Read the original Latin
En quis es. Sed noli oblivisci etiam quid? Nam et ego non sum oblitus, id me promisisse repetiturum in opportunitate. Quam opportune cum eo qui es, etiam quod ante eras, consideras! Quid dico, eras? Et nunc es. Quid desinas intueri, quod non desisti esse? Una sane consideratio est, quid fueris, et quid sis: nam quis sis factus, altera.
Non oportet ut ista extundat illam in scrutinio tui. Es enim, ut dixi, adhuc quod eras: et non minus hoc es, quam quod factus es post, forte et magis. Denique illud natus es, mutuatus hoc, non in hoc mutatus. Non rejectum illud, sed istud adjectum. Tractemus utrumque simul: nam, ut praefatum me memini, collatae ex invicem ambae res utiliores fient. Dixi supra consideranti quid sis, naturam occurrere, qua es homo: nam homo natus es. Porro percunctanti quis, personae respondebitur nomen, quod es episcopus: quod quidem factus, non natus es. Quid tibi horum videtur ad purum esse tui, et ad te principalius pertinere?
quod factus, an quod natus? Nonne quod natus? Hoc ergo consulo consideres maxime, quod maxime es, hominem videlicet, quod et natus es.
Nec modo quid natus, sed et qualis natus, oportet attendas, si non vis tuae considerationis fructu et utilitate fraudari. Tolle proinde nunc haereditaria haec perizomata ab initio maledicta. Dirumpe velamen foliorum celantium ignominiam, non plagam curantium. Dele fucum fugacis honoris hujus, et male coloratae nitorem gloriae, ut nude nudum consideres, quia nudus egressus es de utero matris tuae. Nunquid infulatus? numquid micans gemmis, aut floridus sericis, aut coronatus pennis, aut suffarcinatus metallis? Si cuncta haec, veluti nubes quasdam matutinas, velociter transeuntes et cito pertransituras, dissipes et exsuffles a facie considerationis tuae, occurret tibi homo nudus, et pauper, et miser, et miserabilis; homo dolens quod homo sit, erubescens quod nudus sit, plorans quod natus sit, murmurans quod sit; homo natus ad laborem, non ad honorem; homo natus de muliere, et ob hoc cum reatu; brevi vivens tempore, ideoque cum metu; repletus multis miseriis, et propterea cum fletu. Et vere multis, quia corporis et animae simul.
Quid enim calamitate vacat nascenti in peccato, fragili corpore, et mente sterili? Vere ergo repletus, cui infirmitas corporis, et fatuitas cordis cumulatur traduce sordis, mortis addictione. Salubris copula, ut cogitans te summum Pontificem, attendas pariter vilissimum cinerem non fuisse, sed esse. Imitetur cogitatio naturam; imitetur et, quod dignius est, Auctorem naturae, summa imaque consocians. Nonne natura in persona hominis vili limo vitae spiraculum colligavit? Nonne Auctor naturae in sui persona Verbum limumque contemperavit? Ita tibi sume formam tam de nostrae concretione originis, quam de sacramento redemptionis: ut altus sedens, non alta sapiens sis, sed humilia de te sentiens, humilibusque consentiens.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.2.7 — Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
- ↩John.1.14 — And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
De consideratione (On Consideration) companion
Make consideration a daily appointment
Bernard told Eugene to set aside time every day. Chosen Portion holds that time for you, free.
Bernard's core prescription — a fixed daily time reserved for examining the soul — is exactly the habit Chosen Portion installs with its daily devotional portion.
- One 10-minute daily portion for self-examination and prayer
- Reflection prompts drawn from historic texts, not improvised journaling
- A visible streak that protects the daily interval Bernard insisted on