De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
Choosing the Way of Truth
The soul is urged to discern between the way of pride and the way of truth, to pray for mercy, and to resolve to ascend humbled by retracing the path of its fall.
So there is a way of going down, just as there is a way of going up. And there is a way to good, and there is a way to evil. Beware of the evil way; choose the good way. If you cannot do this on your own, pray with the Prophet and say: Remove the way of iniquity from me.1 How so? Have mercy on me by your law — that is, the law you gave to those who go astray on the way, meaning those who abandon the truth, of whom I am one, I who truly fell away from the truth.2 But will not the one who falls add this — to rise again?3 For this reason I chose the way of truth, so that humbled I may ascend from where I descended through pride.
One Road, Two Directions
Drawing on Psalm 121 and Jacob's ladder, the text shows that ascent and descent share the same road, illustrating how divine discipline and angelic movement reveal a single way traversed in opposite directions.
I will ascend, I say, and I will sing psalms. It is good for me, O Lord, that you humbled me; the teaching of your mouth is worth more to me than thousands of gold and silver.✦ David seems to have set before you two ways, but you know there is really only one. Yet it is different from itself and called by different names — either the way of wickedness, on account of those who descend, or the way of truth, on account of those who ascend. For the very same steps are those of people ascending to the ground and of people descending, and the same road is that of those approaching the city and of those departing, and one door is that of those entering the house and of those going out.✦ Through one and the same ladder, finally, angels ascending and descending appeared to Jacob.✦
Reversing the Steps of Pride
The chapter's climax teaches that the twelve steps of pride, once recognized, become in reverse order the twelve steps of humility, so the way back to truth is already known.
What is the point of all this? Namely this: if you desire to return to the truth, you need not seek some new way you have never known, but the well-known way by which you descended. By retracing your own footprints in reverse steps, you may ascend humbled through the very same stages through which you had descended in pride — so that what was the twelfth step of pride for the one descending becomes the first step of humility for the one ascending; the eleventh becomes the second; the tenth, the third; the ninth, the fourth; the eighth, the fifth; the seventh, the sixth; the sixth, the seventh; the fifth, the eighth; the fourth, the ninth; the third, the tenth; the second, the eleventh; the first, the twelfth. Once the steps of pride have been found in you — no, recognized in you — you no longer need to labor at seeking the way of humility.4
Read the original Latin
Est ergo via descensionis, sicut et ascensionis. Et via est ad bonum, et via est ad malum. Cave malam, elige bonam. Si per te non potes, ora cum Propheta, et dic: Viam iniquitatis amove a me. Quomodo? Et lege tua miserere mei, illa scilicet lege, quam dedisti delinquentibus in via, id est derelinquentibus veritate, de quibus unus ego sum, qui vere a veritate cecidi. Sed numquid qui cadit, non adiciet ut resurgat? Propter hoc viam veritatis elegi, qua humiliatus ascendam, unde superbiendo descendi.
Ascendam, inquam, et psallam: Bonum nihi, Domine, quos humiliasti me; bonum mihi lex oris tui super millia auri et argenti. Duas tibi vias videtur David proposuisse, sed unam noveris esse; ipsam tamen a se diversam, et diversis nominibus appellatam, aut iniquitatis propter descendentes, aut veritatis propter ascendentes, quia et iidem gradus sunt ascendentium in solum et decendentium, et eadem via accedentium ad civitatem et recedentium, et unum ostium est ingredientium domum et egredientium. Per unam denique scalam ascendentes angeli et descendentes Iacob apparuerunt. Quo spectant haec? Ut videlicet si ad veritatem redire cupis, non necesse sit viam quaerere novam quam non nosti, sed notam qua descendisti: quatenus reciprocis gressibus tua ipse vestigia sequens, per eosdem gradus humiliatus ascendas, per quos superbiendo descenderas, ita ut qui duodecimus superbiae fuit descendenti, primus humilitatis sit ascendenti; undecimus, inveniatur secundus; decimus, tertius, nonus, quartus; octavus; quartus, nonus; tertius, decimus; secundus, undecimus; primus, duodecimus.
Quibus superbiae gradibus in te inventis, immo recognitis, iam non laboras in quaerendo viam humilitatis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.121.1 — A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
- ↩Deut.30.19 — I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, so that you may live, you and your descendants,
- ↩Gen.28.12 — And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Notes
- 1 ↩The quoted phrase echoes Psalm 118:27 (Vulg.) / Psalm 119:29; final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'lege tua miserere mei' echoes Psalm 118:120 (Vulg.) / Psalm 119:120; the author glosses it immediately with a reference to the 'way of truth' and those who abandon it.
- 3 ↩Echoes Psalm 145:14 (Vulg.); the Latin 'adiciet ut resurgat' reflects a Vulgate reading. Final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 4 ↩immo corrects inventis to recognitis: not merely 'found' but 'recognized,' sharpening the force of self-knowledge.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
Humility is climbed one day at a time
Take the next step each morning with a free daily devotional in Chosen Portion.
Bernard frames humility as a ladder climbed by small repeated acts; Chosen Portion turns that into practice with one daily devotional step at a time.
- A daily 10-minute portion focused on one virtue at a time
- Re-take the 12-step self-check monthly and see real movement
- Historic texts like Bernard's, one readable portion per day