PRIMUS SUPERBIAE GRADUS: CURIOSITAS
The First Step of Pride
Curiosity is named as the first step of pride.
So the first step of pride is curiosity.
Reading the Restless Body
Wandering eyes, lifted heads, and restless limbs reveal a soul that has turned outward in curiosity, feeding on what it should not.
You will recognize it by signs like these: if you notice a monk you once trusted completely — wherever he stands, walks, or sits — beginning to let his eyes wander, head held high, ears pricked up, you will know from the way his outer behavior changes that his inner self has changed too. A perverse man nods with his eye, rubs his foot, speaks with his finger, and from the unusual movement of his body, a fresh sickness of the soul is detected — one that, while he grows sluggish through neglect of watching over himself, makes him curious about others. Because it does not know itself, it is sent out to feed goats. Goats, which signify sin, I would rightly call eyes and ears, since just as death enters the world through sin, so through these windows it enters the mind.
The Wonder of Watching Yourself
The curious person busies himself with others while neglecting the wonder of his own inner life.
In these matters, then, the curious person busies himself with feeding others, while he does not care to know what sort of person he has left behind within himself. And truly, O man, if you watch yourself carefully, it is a wonder if you ever turn your attention to anything else.
Guard Your Heart
Solomon's counsel to guard the heart challenges the curious soul to stop fleeing from itself and to consider to whom it has entrusted its care.
Listen, O curious one, to Solomon; listen, O fool, to the Wise One: 'With every vigilance,' he says, 'guard your heart, so that all your senses may keep watch over that from which life proceeds.'✦ For where are you retreating to, away from yourself, O curious one? Meanwhile, to whom are you entrusting yourself?
Look at the Earth and Know Yourself
The proud curiosity that dares lift its eyes to heaven is recalled to the earth—to mortality and self-knowledge.
Why do you dare lift your eyes to heaven, you who have sinned against heaven?✦ Look at the earth, so that you may come to know yourself. The earth itself will show you to yourself, because you are earth, and to earth you will return.✦
Read the original Latin
Primus itaque superbiae gradus est curiositas. Hanc autem talibus indiciis deprehendes: si videris monachum, de quo prius bene confidebas, ubicumque stat, ambulat, sedet, oculis incipientem vagari, caput erectum, aures portare suspensas, e motibus exterioris hominis interiorem inmutatum agnoscas. Vir quippe perversus nuit oculo, terit pede, digito loquitur, et ex insolenti corporis motu, recens animae morbus deprehenditur, quam, dum a sui circumspectione torpescit incuria sui, curiosam in alios facit. Quia enim seipsam ignorat, foras mittitur, ut haedos pascat. Haedos quippe, qui peccatum significant, recte oculos auresque appellaverim, quoniam sicut mors per peccatum in orbem, sic per has fenestras intrat ad mente.
In his ergo pascendis se occupat curiosus, dum scire non curat qualem se reliquerit intus. Et vere si te vigilanter, homo, attendas, mirum est si ad aliud umquam intendas. Audi, curiose, Salomonem; audi, stulte, Sapiente,: Omni custodia, inquit, custodi cor tuum, ut omnes videlicet sensus tui vigilent ad id, unde vita procedit, custodiendum. Quo enim a te, o curiose, recedis? Cui te interim committis? Ut quid audes oculos levare ad caelum, qui peccasti in caelum? Terram intuere, ut cognoscas te ipsum. Ipsa te tibi repraesentabit, quia terra es et in terram ibis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Prov.4.23 — Above all else, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.
- ↩Isa.14.13-Isa.14.14 — And you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north." Keep the quotation open into v.14 for continuity. Isa.14.14 — I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'" Close the quotation here so the transition to v.15 lands clearly.
- ↩Gen.3.19 — By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, for from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
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