Sermon 81 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Fitness and Likeness of the Soul to the Word According to Identity of Essence, Immortality of Life, and Freedom of Choice.
1. The affinity of the soul to the Word was inquired into before, and that indeed necessarily. For what agreement is there between so great a majesty and so great a poverty, that in the manner and love of spouses, as if on equal terms, that sublimity and that humility should be reported to embrace one another? For if we say this truly, there is a very joyful confidence; if falsely, a very punishable audacity. Therefore it was necessary to inquire about the fitness of these two: and indeed much has already been found, but not all. For who, even if exceedingly dull, does not see how closely the image and that which is according to the image look upon one another from nearby? Of which two things, one was assigned to one and the other to the other by yesterday's discourse, if you recall. Nor was the closeness demonstrated there only from the image, but also from the likeness, except that in what or in which things that likeness chiefly consists has not yet been declared by us. Come, let us now attend to this declaration, so that the more fully the soul recognizes its own origin, the more it may blush at having a degenerate life; or rather, what it discovers to have been vitiated by sin in its nature, it may strive to reform by diligence; so that, governing itself worthily of its lineage, by God's gift indeed, it may confidently approach the embraces of the Word.
2. Let it observe therefore, from this inborn character of the divine likeness, that there belongs to it that natural simplicity of its own substance, by which for it to be is the same as to live, even if not the same as to live well or to live blessedly, so that there is a likeness, not an equality. A close step, yet still a step. For it is not of one and the same excellence or equal height, to have being be the same as living, and likewise to have being be the same as living blessedly. Therefore if the latter belongs to the Word on account of its sublimity, and the former to the soul on account of likeness, with the eminence of the Word preserved, the affinity of natures is manifest, the prerogative of the soul is manifest. And that what is said may become more plain: to God alone, being is the same as blessed being; and this is the first and purest simplicity. But the second is like to this, namely to have being be the same as living; and this belongs to the soul. From this, even if from a lower step, one can ascend not only to living well, but even to living blessedly: not because even then being will be the same as blessed being for the one who has arrived there; inasmuch as one may thus glory on account of the likeness, yet on account of the disparity may always have cause for all one's bones to say: "Lord, who is like you?" (Ps 34:10). Nevertheless a good step for the soul, from which alone one ascends to the blessed life.
3. For there are living things, and of these two kinds: those that sense and those that do not sense. Furthermore, sensible things are preferred to insensible, and to both is preferred the life by which one both lives and senses. Life and a living thing will not stand equally on one step; much less life and those things which are without life. The soul is life, living indeed, but not from any other source than itself; and on that account not so much a living thing as life itself, if we speak properly of it. Hence it is that when infused into a body it vivifies it, so that the body, from the presence of life, is not life but a living thing. Whence it is clear that not even for a living body is living the same as being, since it can be and yet not live at all. Much less will those things which are devoid of life rise to this step. But neither will everything that is called or is life straightaway be able to reach this point. There is the life of cattle, there is also the life of trees: the one endowed with sense, the other lacking it. Yet for neither is being the same as living: since, as indeed is the opinion of many, they existed previously in the elements before the one existed in limbs or the other in branches. But according to this, when they cease to vivify, they cease at the same time to live, but not also to be. They are dissolved and broken apart equally, as things not merely bound but also compounded together. For none of these is one simple thing, but consists of many parts. And therefore it is not reduced to nothing, but flies apart into its parts, so that each part may return to its own principle; for example, air to air, fire to fire, and the rest in this manner. By no means therefore is being the same as living for such a life, which exists even when it does not live.
4. Furthermore, none of those things for which being is not the same as living will at any time advance or emerge to living well and blessedly: inasmuch as it could not even arrive at this lower step. Alone, she who is known to stand in this very step, the soul of man, was created in that dignity — a life from Life, a simple from the Simple, an immortal from the Immortal — so that she is not far from the highest step, where, namely, being is the same as living blessedly, on which alone stands the blessed and alone powerful one, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The soul received therefore in its creation, if not being blessed, nevertheless the power to be blessed; and thus it approaches the highest step as closely as is permitted, yet does not reach it. For not even for the soul itself, as we said above, will being ever be the same as blessed being, not even when it will be blessed. We confess the likeness; we refuse the equality. For example: God is life, and the soul is life; similar indeed, but unequal. Similar, because it is life, because it lives by itself, because it is not only living but also vivifying, just as he too is all these things. But unequal, as much as the created from the Creator. Unequal, because just as it would not exist unless created by him, so it would not live unless vivified by him. I say it would not live, but by the spiritual life, not the natural. For by the natural life, even that which does not live spiritually must live immortally. But what kind of life is that, in which it would be better not to have been born than not to die from it! It is rather a death: and therefore more grievous, because it is a death of sin, not of nature. Finally, "the death of sinners is the worst" (Ps 33:22). Thus therefore the soul that lives according to the flesh is living yet dead; inasmuch as it would be good for it not to live at all, rather than to live thus. From which death, indeed a kind of living death, it will never rise, except through the word of life, nay rather through the Word who is life, living indeed and vivifying.
5. But in other respects the soul is immortal, and in this no less similar to the Word indeed, but not equal. For to such an extent does the immortality of the Godhead surpassingly excel, that the Apostle says of God: "Who alone has immortality" (1 Tim 6:16). Which I think was said for this reason, that God alone is by nature unchangeable, who says: "I am the Lord, and I do not change" (Mal 3:6). For true and complete immortality admits of change no more than it admits of an end, because all change is a certain imitation of death. For everything that is changed, while it passes from one state of being to another, in a certain way must die to what it is, so that it may begin to be what it is not. But if there are as many deaths as changes, where is immortality? And to this vanity the creature itself was subjected, not willingly, but on account of him who subjected it in hope (Rom 8:20). Nevertheless the soul is immortal; because since it is life to itself, just as there is no way it can fall from itself, so there is no way it can fall from life. But since it is established that it is changed by its own affections, let it recognize itself as similar to God in immortality in such a way that it knows a not inconsiderable part of immortality to be lacking in itself, yielding absolute and perfect immortality to him alone, with whom "there is no change, nor shadow of turning." Nevertheless, no small dignity of the soul has been discovered in the present discussion, which by a certain twofold closeness of nature is seen to approach the Word: by simplicity of essence and by perpetuity of life.
6. But indeed one more thing occurs, which I will by no means pass over: for it makes the soul no less distinguished and no less similar to the Word, and perhaps even more so. This is freedom of choice, a plainly divine something shining forth in the soul, as a gem in gold. From this there belongs to it, between good indeed and evil, and also between life and death, and likewise between light and darkness, both a knowledge of judging and an option of choosing; and if there are any other things which similarly appear to look upon one another from opposite sides regarding the disposition of the mind. No less among these very things a certain censorial arbiter (this is the eye of the soul) judges and discerns: just as an arbiter in discerning, so free in choosing. Whence it is also called free choice, because it is permitted to deal in these things according to the choice of the will. Hence man has the power to merit. For everything good or evil that you shall have done, which it was free not to do, is rightly reckoned to merit. And, just as not only he who was able to do evil and did not do it is justly praised, but also he who was able not to do good and did it; so he who was able not to do evil and did it does not lack bad merit, just as he who was able to do good and did not do it. But where there is no freedom, there is no merit. Therefore animals lacking reason merit nothing; because just as they lack deliberation, so also they lack freedom. They are driven by sense, carried by impulse, dragged by appetite. For they have no judgment by which to judge or govern themselves, nor even the instrument of judgment, that is, reason. Hence it is that they are not judged, because they do not judge. For by what reason should an account be required from those who have not received it?
7. This force from nature man alone does not suffer, and therefore alone among living things is he free. And yet, with the intervention of sin, he too suffers a certain kind of force, but from the will, not from nature, so that not even thus is he deprived of his inborn freedom. For what is voluntary is also free. And indeed through sin it has come about that the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul; but by love, not by weight. For the reason the soul can no longer rise by itself, though it could fall by itself, is the will, which, languishing and lying prostrate through the vitiated and vicious love of the corrupted body, does not at the same time admit the love of justice. Thus by a certain perverse and wondrous manner the will itself makes necessity for itself, changed as it is for the worse by sin: so that neither can the necessity, since it is voluntary, excuse the will; nor can the will, since it is enticed, exclude the necessity. For this necessity is in a certain way voluntary. It is a kind of flattering force, pressing while caressing, and caressing while pressing: whence the guilty will, once it has consented to sin, can neither shake itself off by itself, nor by any means excuse itself on rational grounds. Hence that plaintive voice, as if groaning under the burden of this necessity: "Lord," it says, "I suffer violence; answer for me." But again, knowing that it could not justly complain against the Lord, since its own will was rather the cause, attend to what it went on to say: "What shall I say, or what will he answer me, since I myself have done it?" (Isa 38:14-15). It was pressed by a yoke, yet none other than that of a certain voluntary servitude; and it was pitiable on account of the servitude, but inexcusable on account of the will. For it is the will that made itself, when it was free, the servant of sin, by consenting to sin: it is the will no less that holds itself under sin, by serving voluntarily.
8. "See what you say," someone says to me. "Do you call voluntary what is clearly now necessary? It is true indeed that the will bound itself over: but it does not itself hold itself; rather it is held, and unwillingly." You grant this much at least, that it is held. But hold vigilantly to the fact that it is a will that you confess is held. And so you say the will is unwilling? Not at all is a will held as not willing. For will belongs to the willing, not to the unwilling. But if it is held willingly, it holds itself. What then will it say, or what will it answer to him, since it has itself done it? What has it done? It made itself a servant: whence it is said: "He who commits sin is the servant of sin" (Jn 8:34). Therefore, when it sinned (and it sinned when it decreed to obey sin), it made itself a servant. But it becomes free, if it no longer does so. But it does so, retaining itself in the same servitude. For a will is not held against its will: for it is a will. Therefore because it is willing, it not only made itself a servant, but also makes itself one. Rightly therefore — what must often be recalled — what will it answer to him, since it has itself done it and continues to do it?
9. "But you will not make me disbelieve the necessity which I suffer," you say, "which I experience in myself, against which I also constantly struggle." Where, I ask, do you feel this necessity? Is it not in the will? Therefore you will not a little firmly what you also will necessarily. You will greatly what you are unable not to will, and you do not struggle much against it. Furthermore, where there is will, there is also freedom. Yet I say this of the natural freedom, not of the spiritual, with which freedom, as the Apostle says, Christ has set us free (Gal 4:31). For of that the same one says: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). Thus by a certain wondrous and evil manner, under this voluntary and badly free necessity, the soul is both held as a handmaid and is free: a handmaid on account of the necessity, free on account of the will. And what is more wondrous and more wretched, it is guilty inasmuch as it is free, and a handmaid inasmuch as it is guilty, and therefore a handmaid inasmuch as it is free. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the reproach of this shameful servitude? Wretched, but free. Free, because a man; wretched, because a servant. Free, because like God; wretched, because contrary to God. "O keeper of men, why have you set me contrary to you?" You set me so, when you did not prevent it. Otherwise, I set myself, "and I have become burdensome to myself" (Job 7:20). Most justly indeed, so that your enemy is also my enemy; and he who fights against you, fights also against me. But I who have become contrary to you, I who have become contrary to myself, and find in my members that which contradicts both my mind and your law; who will deliver me from my own hands? "For what I will, this I do not do," but it is I, not another, who prevents it; "and what I hate, that I do" (Rom 7:15), but it is I, not another, who compels it. And would that this prevention and this compulsion were so violent as not to be voluntary; for perhaps then I could be excused: or certainly that it were so voluntary as not to be violent; for assuredly then I could be corrected. But now there is nowhere an escape for the wretch, whom both will, as I said, makes inexcusable, and necessity makes incorrigible. "Who will rescue me from the hand of the sinner, and from the hand of the lawbreaker and the unjust?" (Ps 70:4).
10. If anyone asks of whom I complain, it is of myself. I am that sinner, that lawbreaker, that unjust one. A sinner, because I have sinned; a lawbreaker, because by my will I persist in acting against the law. For my own will is itself the law in my members, kicking against the divine law. And since the law of the Lord is the law of my mind, as it is written: "The law of his God is in his heart" (Ps 36:31); through this, my own will is found to be contrary even to myself, which is the greatest iniquity. For to whom is he not unjust, who is unjust to himself? "He who is wicked to himself, to whom will he be good?" (Sir 14:5). I confess, I am not good, because there is no good in me. Yet I will console myself, because this is also the voice of the saints: "I know that there is no good in me," he says. Yet he distinguishes what he says: "in me." He interprets this as "in my flesh," on account of the contradictory law which is in it. For he has a law also in the mind, and that one is better. Is not the law of God good? But if he is evil on account of the evil law, how is he not good on account of the good one? Or is his own that which is in his flesh, and therefore evil from the evil one; and not at all good from the good one? It is not so. The law of his God is in his mind, and so in his mind that it is also of his mind. The witness is he who says: "I find another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind." Is that which belongs to his flesh his own, and not that which belongs to his mind? I say even more. Why should I not say what that same teacher says? For serving the law of God with his mind indeed, but with his flesh the law of sin, he clearly shows which he confesses to be more truly his own, when the evil that is in the flesh he considers so alien to himself that he says: "Therefore it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." And therefore perhaps he pointedly said he found another law in his members, because he reckoned this law as alien and as if adventitious. Whence I too dare something yet more, not rashly indeed: namely that Paul is no longer evil on account of the evil that he has in the flesh; but rather good on account of the good that he has in the mind. Is he not good, who consents to the law of God, because it is good? For even if he likewise confesses himself to serve the law of sin, he does this with the flesh, not with the mind. But when he serves the law of God with the mind indeed, and with the flesh the law of sin, which of these two you think should chiefly be imputed to Paul, you decide for yourself. For to me, I confess, it is easily persuaded that what is of the mind is of greater value than what is of the flesh, not only to me but also to Paul himself, as has already been said, who says: "But if what I do not will, that I do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me" (Rom 7:18, 23, 25, 20).
11. But let these things suffice concerning this freedom. In the booklet which I wrote On Grace and Free Choice, things perhaps different concerning the image and likeness are read to have been discussed; but, as I judge, not contrary. You have read those; you have heard these: which you approve more, I leave to your judgment; or if you have a better understanding than either, in this I rejoice and will rejoice. But however those things may stand, three certain preeminent things you hold commended to you for the present: simplicity, immortality, freedom. And this I now judge appears clearly to you: that the soul, on account of its inborn and noble likeness which shines so eminently in these things, has no small affinity with the Word, 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.