QUINTUS GRADUS: DE SINGULARITATE
The Hunger for Distinction
Boasting about one's superiority is shameful when it is not matched by genuine excellence, and the singular monk seeks only the appearance of being better, echoing the Pharisee's prayer.
It is shameful for someone to boast about the very thing that sets him above others if he does not actually do more than they do — something by which he might genuinely stand out from them. So it is not enough for him that the common rule of the monastery or the examples of the elders encourage him. Nor does he strive to be better — only to be seen as better. He is not eager to live better but to be seen as superior — so that he can say, "I am not like other people."✦
Fasting and Prayer as Performance
A single private fast or prayer is prized above communal discipline, and the monk torments himself at meals, envying anyone thinner or paler.
He flatters himself more about one fast — which he does while the others are eating lunch — than he would if he had fasted seven days alongside everyone else. One little private prayer seems more impressive to him than the entire night's psalmody. During meals he is constantly casting his eyes around the tables so that if he spots someone eating less, he grieves over his own food and begins cruelly to deny himself the very sustenance he had foreseen was necessary — fearing the loss of his reputation more than the torment of hunger. And if he notices someone thinner, or someone paler, he considers himself worthless and never rests.
Scrutinizing the Body for Signs of Holiness
Unable to see his own face, the monk examines his limbs to infer the pallor that would signal his holiness to others.
And since he cannot see his own face — that is, the face he presents to those who look at him — he gazes at his hands, as much as he can, and at his arms; he feels his ribs, handles his shoulders and his loins, so that from how thin his body's limbs prove to be, whether less than enough or just barely enough, they may discern the pallor and color of his face.123
Vigil for Self, Sloth for the Common Good
The singular monk is energetic in private devotions but negligent in common duties, sleeping in choir while performing conspicuous piety in the chapel.
In short, he is vigorous in all that serves his own interests, but lazy when it comes to what is shared in common. He stays awake in bed but sleeps in choir; and whenever others are singing psalms at the night offices, he dozes through the whole night. After the offices, while the others rest in the cloister, he stays alone in the chapel — clearing his throat and coughing, filling the ears of those sitting outside with groans and sighs from his corner.4
The Simpler Brothers' Misplaced Praise
Less discerning brothers, seeing only outward works, bless the singular monk and thereby confirm him in his error.
But when, from these things that he does in his own distinctive way — yet to no real purpose — a reputation has grown among the simpler brothers, who certainly approve the works they can see but do not discern where those works come from, they call the wretched man blessed, and in doing so they lead him into error.5
Read the original Latin
Turpe est ei, quo se supra ceteros iactat, si non plus ceteris aliquid agat, per quod ultra ceteros appareat. Proinde non sufficit ei quod communis monasterii regula vel maiorum cohortantur exempla. Nec tamen melior esse studet, sed videri. Non melius vivere, sed videri vincere gestit, quatenus dicere possit: Non sum sicut ceteri hominum. Plus sibi blanditur de uno ieiunio, quod ceteris prandentibus facit, quam si cum ceteris septem dies ieiunaverit. Commodior sibi videtur una oratiuncula peculiaris, quam tota psalmodia unius noctis. Inter prandendum crebro solet oculos iactare per mensas, ut si quem minus comedere viderit, victum se doleat, et incipiat idipsum sibi crudeliter subtrahere, quod necessarium victui indulgendum praeviderat, plus gloriae metuens detrimentum quam famis cruciatum. Si que macriorem, si quem pallidiorem perspexerit, vilem se aestimat, numquam requiescit.
Et quoniam vultum ipse suum videre non potest, qualem scilicet se intuentibus offert, manus, quas potest, et brachia spectans, palpat costas, humeros attrectat et lumbos, ut secundum quod corporis sui membra, vel minus, vel satis exilia probat, pallorem ac colorem oris discerant.
Ad omnia denique sua strenuus, ad communia piger. Vigilat in lecto, dormit in choro; cumque aliis psallentibus ad vigilias tota nocte dormitet, post vigilias, aliis in claustro quiescentibus, solus in oratorio remanet: excreat et tussit, gemitibus ac suspiriis aures foris sedentium de angulo implet. Cum autem ex his quae singulariter, sed inaniter agit, apud simpliciores eius opinio excreverit, qui profecto opera probant quae cernunt, sed unde prodeant non discernunt, dum miserum beatificant, in errorem inductunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.18.11 — The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed these things toward himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.'
Notes
- 1 ↩quoniam rendered as 'since' with explanatory force; scilicet marks an appositive clarification ('that is').
- 2 ↩ut + subjunctive (discerant) taken as purpose ('so that…they may discern'); a result reading is possible but purpose fits the context of the singular monk's self-display.
- 3 ↩vel minus, vel satis exilia — the monk tests whether his limbs are 'less than sufficiently thin' or 'sufficiently thin enough,' i.e., whether his fasting has produced the visible emaciation he desires others to notice.
- 4 ↩excreat: a rare verb, rendered here as 'clearing his throat' based on context alongside tussit (coughs); the cumulative effect is one of performative noise.
- 5 ↩inductunt: the reading is attested; some manuscripts read inducunt ('they lead'). The sense is the same — the simpler brothers' misguided praise draws the solitary into the error of believing himself holy.
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.
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