Bernard of Clairvaux
Jason Carr

      Reading Bernard was for me a study in contrast.  The cistercian  
order required such seriousness and dedication that Bernard's lusty spiritualism
was quite unexpected.  He seemed to have a highly sense of self-in-body, and
used physical metaphors and comparisons to help illuminate his spiritual ideas.

      The introduction placed Bernard's mysticism within a larger framework of
sensual mysticism on the global scale (eg Islamic and Tantric mysticism).  Still,
his willingness to use physical metaphor was surprising.  The most obvious
physical metaphor was that of the sublimating kiss, that intimate communication
with God.  "The faithful soul sighs deeply for his presence and rests peacefully
in the thought of him . . ."  (on loving god).  One wonders if there is not some
conceptual identification with the forms which would later become the Courtly
Love role.  Here the believer is the lover of Christ/God, chaste in her desire --
it is her nature, her directedness towards him.  The chaste/desiring monk wishes
to mingle with person of God, to become identified with him.  That identification
is an amoral, or supramoral act.

      As has been observed about the Spanish mystics, they were dangerous
because they had become supramoral, beyond the reproach of the church.  Who
could argue with one who had been participating in the eternal?  This sounds
like the pragmatic theories of human need that Bernard posited.  Man and women
were directed towards each other, oriented that way.  Perhaps the bald simplicity
of the cistercian chapels is a reflection of this pious honest chastity.
Just as the simple farm girl was serious and devoted (and lusty/chaste) the
undecorated church was as serious and devoted.

      in Humility and pride, the supramoral appears again on the other end of
the moral spectrum.  The man who is a constant, unrepentant, unthinking sinner
has lost his frame of reference -- he can no longer see the path of
righteousness.  "He cannot  tell good from evil now.  Nothing holds him back, in
mind, hand or foot, from wrong thoughts, plans or action.  Whatever is in his
heart comes to his mouth or his hand.  He conceives an idea.  He chatters about
it.  He carries it out."  (on humility and pride).



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