Sermon 80 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
A Subtle Disputation Concerning the Image, or the Word of God, and the Soul Which Is to the Image: and Concerning the Error of Gilbert, Bishop of Poitiers.
1. Certain of you, as I have learned, bear it with less than a fair spirit that behold, now for several days, while it delights us to dwell upon the wonder and admiration of the mysteries, the discourse which we have administered has been seasoned either with no salt of moral teaching, or with exceedingly little. This indeed is beyond our custom. But may it be permitted to revisit those things which have been said? I do not proceed unless I first review all things. Come, say, if you remember, from what place in Scripture this defrauding began, that I may take up the matter again from there. It is mine to repair the losses — nay, it is the Lord's, from whom we presume all things. From what beginning, then, must we resume? Perhaps from this: "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves" (Song 3:1)? Unless I am mistaken, it is from there. From that point and onward my one concern has been, having dispersed the dense fog of these allegories, to bring into the light the secret delights of Christ and the Church. Therefore let us return to investigating the moral senses. For what shall be profitable to you cannot be wearisome to me. And this will fittingly be done if the things that have been said concerning Christ and the Church we assign no less to the Word and the soul.
2. But someone says to me: Why do you join these two together? For what has the soul to do with the Word? Very much in every way. First indeed, because there is so great a kinship of natures, that the one is the image, and the other is made to the image. Then, because likeness bears witness to the kinship. For the soul was made not only to the image, but also to the likeness. You ask in what it is like? Hear first concerning the image. The Word is truth, is wisdom, is justice: and this is the image. Of what? Of justice, of wisdom, and of truth. For this image is justice from justice, wisdom from wisdom, truth from truth, as it were light from light, God from God. The soul is none of these things, because it is not the image. Yet it is capable of them, and desirous of them, and perhaps on that account it is to the image. A lofty creature, bearing the mark of majesty indeed in its capacity, and of rectitude in its desire. We read that "God made man upright" (Eccl 7:30), which also its great capacity, as has been said, proves. For it is necessary that what is to the image agree with the image, and not participate in vain in the name of the image, just as the image itself is not called image by a mere or empty name. You have indeed concerning him who is the image, that "being in the form of God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God" (Phil 2:6). Where certainly both his rectitude in the form of God, and his majesty in the equality, are indicated to you: so that when rectitude is compared to rectitude, and greatness to greatness, that which is to the image and the image may appear to correspond to each other harmoniously on both sides; just as the image also no less corresponds in both respects to him whose image it is. For he is the one of whom you have heard holy David singing in the psalms, now indeed: "Great is our Lord, and great is his power" (Ps 146:5); and now: "The Lord our God is upright, and there is no iniquity in him" (Ps 91:16). From this upright and great God, his image has it that it too is upright and great: the soul has it, which is to the image.
3. But I say: Does the image, then, have nothing more than the soul which is to the image, since we assign greatness and uprightness to the latter as well? Very much more. The soul received these according to measure, the image according to equality. Is this not more? Consider also another thing. To the soul, both of these were bestowed either by creation or by gracious condescension; to the image, by generation. And that this is more magnificent admits no doubt. But neither let anyone deny that this too is more eminent: that whereas both belong to the soul from God, to the image they belong also of God, that is, of the substance of God. For the image is consubstantial with God, and everything which he is seen to impart to his image is substantial to both, not accidental. Attend yet to one thing more, in which the image stands out not a little. Greatness and uprightness (and who does not know that these two differ from each other by nature?) are one in the image. Nor is this alone: they are one also with the image. For to the image, to be upright is not merely the same as to be great, but also to be great and upright is the same as to be. It is not so with the soul. Both its greatness and its uprightness are diverse from it, and diverse from each other. For if, as I taught above, the soul is great in that it is capable of eternal things, and upright in that it desires heavenly things: the soul which does not seek or savor the things that are above, but the things that are upon the earth, is plainly not upright, but crooked, even though on account of this it does not cease to be great, remaining as it does even so capable of eternity. For it will never at any time not be capable of eternity, even if it never shall have been actually possessing it, so that it may be as it is written: "Surely man passes through as an image" (Ps 38:7); yet only in part, so that the eminence of the Word may be apparent from its very wholeness. For in what respect could the Word fall from being great or upright, since it so possesses these things that it is what it has? Or it is in part for this reason: lest, if the soul were deprived of the whole, no hope of salvation would remain. For if it should cease to be great, it would also cease to be capable. For the greatness of the soul, as I said, is estimated from its capacity. But what could it hope for, of which it were not capable?
4. And so through the greatness which it retains even when uprightness is lost, man passes through as an image, limping as it were on one foot, and become an alien son. For of such I believe it was said: "The alien sons have lied to me, the alien sons have grown old, and they have limped from their paths" (Ps 17:48). Fittingly they are called alien sons: for sons, on account of the greatness they have retained; aliens, on account of the uprightness they have lost. Nor would he have said "they limped," but rather "they fell," or something similar, if men had entirely put off the image. But as things stand, according to greatness indeed man passes through as an image; but as far as uprightness is concerned, as one limping, he is troubled and cast down from the image, Scripture speaking thus: "Surely man passes through as an image; but indeed he is troubled in vain." In vain altogether: for it follows: "He heaps up treasure, and knows not for whom he gathers it" (Ps 38:7). Why does he not know, unless because, bending himself down to these lowest and earthly things, he heaps up earth for himself? Assuredly he does not know, concerning those things which he commits to the earth, for whom he gathers them: whether for the moth that destroys, or for the thief that digs through; for the enemy that plunders, or for the fire that devours. And thence that lamentable voice from the psalm belongs to the wretched man bending himself down and brooding over the things that are upon the earth: "I am made wretched and bowed down utterly; all the day long I went about in sadness" (Ps 37:7). In himself indeed he experiences the truth of that sentence of the Wise Man: "God made man upright, but he has entangled himself in many sorrows" (Eccl 7:30). And immediately the voice of mockery comes to him: "Bow down, that we may pass over" (Isa 51:23).
5. But whence have we come to this point? From this, surely: when we wished to teach that the upright and the great (by which twofold good we had defined the image) are neither one in the soul, nor one with the soul, just as we taught with equally faithful assertion that they are one in the Word and with the Word. And concerning uprightness indeed, from what has been said it is clear that it is diverse both from the soul and from the soul's greatness: since even when uprightness does not exist, both the soul remains, and remains great. But whence will the diversity of greatness and the soul be shown? For it cannot be shown from the same place whence the diversity of uprightness and the soul was demonstrated, since the soul cannot be deprived of its greatness as it can of its uprightness. Nevertheless, the soul is not its own greatness. For even though the soul is not found without its greatness, that greatness itself is nevertheless found also outside the soul. You ask where? In the angels. For the angels are great from the same source from which the greatness of the soul is established, namely from the capacity for eternity. But if the soul was established to differ from its uprightness by the fact that it can lack it, why should it not equally be clear that it is diverse from its greatness too, which it cannot claim as belonging to itself alone? Since, then, the one is not in every soul, and the other is not in the soul alone, it is evident that both differ from it without distinction. Again, no form is the thing of which it is the form. But greatness is a form of the soul. Nor is it not a form because it is inseparable from it. For this is true of all substantial differences, this is true not only of the most proper properties, but also of certain proper attributes, and also of innumerable other forms. Therefore the soul is not its own greatness, no more than the crow is its own blackness, than snow is its own whiteness, than man is his own risibility or rationality: even though you will never find a crow without blackness, nor snow without whiteness, nor a man who is not both risible and rational. So too the soul and the soul's greatness, even though inseparable, are nevertheless diverse from each other. How are they not diverse, when the one exists in a subject, and the other is the subject and substance? Only the supreme and uncreated nature, which is the Trinity, God, claims for itself this pure and singular simplicity of its essence, such that neither one thing and another, nor yet here and there, nor even now and then, is found in it. For remaining in itself, what it has, it is; and what it is, it is always and in one manner. In it both many things are brought back into one, and diverse things into the same, so that it neither takes plurality from the number of things, nor experiences alteration from their variety. It contains all places, and arranges all things in their proper places, itself contained nowhere by places. Times pass beneath it, not for it. It does not await things future, nor recollect things past, nor experience things present.
6. Let them depart from us, dearest ones, let them depart — these new men, not dialecticians, but heretics — who most impiously argue that the greatness by which God is great, and likewise the goodness by which he is good, and the wisdom by which he is wise, and the justice by which he is just, and lastly the divinity by which he is God, is not God. By divinity, they say, God is God, but the divinity is not God. Perhaps the divinity does not deign to be God, which is so great as to make God. But if it is not God, what is it? For either it is God, or something which is not God, or nothing. Certainly you do not grant it to be God, but neither, I think, will you grant it to be nothing, which you confess to be so necessary to God that not only can God not exist without it, but that he is it. But if it is something which is not God: it will be either less than God, or greater, or equal. But how can that be less, by which God is God? It remains that you must confess it either greater or equal. But if greater, then it is the supreme good, not God; if equal, there are two supreme goods, not one: both of which the catholic sense rejects. Now concerning greatness, goodness, justice, and wisdom, we hold the same in all respects as concerning divinity: they are one in God, and one with God. For he is not good from one source and great from another, nor just or wise from one source and great and good from another, nor finally all these things at once from one source and God from another, and this last from nothing other than himself.
7. But the heretic says: What? Do you deny that God is God by his divinity? No, but I assert nonetheless that that same divinity, by which he is God, is God, lest I should assent that something more excellent than God exists. For I say also that he is great by his greatness, but one which is himself, lest I should posit something greater than God; and I confess him good by his goodness, but not by any other than he himself is, lest I should seem to have found something better than him; and concerning the rest in this manner. Securely and gladly I proceed with unimpeded foot, as they say, into the opinion of him who said: "God is great by no other greatness than that which is what he himself is. Otherwise that greatness will be greater than God." This is Augustine, the most powerful hammer of heretics. If therefore anything can be said properly of God, it will be said more rightly and more fittingly: God is greatness, goodness, justice, wisdom, than: God is great, good, just, or wise.
8. Whence not undeservedly, at the recent council which Pope Eugenius held at Reims, both to him and to the other bishops that exposition appeared perverse and altogether suspect, which was found in the book of Gilbert, Bishop of Poitiers, in which he commented on the words of Boethius concerning the Trinity — words most sound and catholic indeed — in this manner: "The Father is truth, that is, true; the Son is truth, that is, true; the Holy Spirit is truth, that is, true. And these three together are not three truths, but one truth, that is, one true." O obscure and perverse explanation! How much more truly and soundly he would have said the reverse: The Father is true, that is, truth; the Son is true, that is, truth; the Holy Spirit is true, that is, truth. And these three are one true, that is, one truth. Which indeed he would have done, had he deigned to imitate the holy Fulgentius, who says: "For the one truth of the one God — nay, the one truth which is the one God — does not permit the worship and service of the Creator and the creature to be joined together." A good corrector, who would speak most truthfully concerning truth, who would think piously and in a catholic manner concerning the true and pure simplicity of the divine substance, in which there can be nothing which is not that substance itself, and that substance is God. Although in certain other places more plainly that book of the aforesaid bishop was seen to depart from the rectitude of faith; of which, by way of example, I set down yet one more. For when the author said, "When it is said, God, God, God, it pertains to substance," our commentator added, "Not the substance which is, but by which he is." God forbid that the catholic Church should assent to this: namely, that there is a substance, or any thing at all, by which God is, and which is not God!
9. But we no longer say these things against him personally; for in that same assembly, humbly acquiescing in the judgment of the bishops, he condemned with his own mouth both these and the other things found worthy of reproof. Rather, it is on account of those who are reported still to transcribe and eagerly read that book — contrary indeed to the apostolic interdict promulgated there — persisting more contentiously in following the bishop in that wherein he himself did not stand, and preferring to have him as a master of error rather than of correction. But not only for their sake, but also for yours: having taken occasion from the difference between the image and the soul which is made to the image, I thought it worthwhile to make this excursus, so that if any perhaps have at some time drunk something from stolen waters, which seem sweeter (Prov 9:17), having taken the antidote, they may vomit it up, and with the stomach of the mind purged, approaching what remains to be said concerning the likeness according to our promise, they may now draw purer things in joy not from our own, but from the fountains of the Savior, the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God blessed above all things forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.