(istercian Studies uarterly :.

: (:oo,)
Bernard of Clairvaux and Ren Girard
on Desire and Envy
Jonah Wharff, ocso
. iiiiic oi incompleteness is part of the human condition. It is by
comparison with others that we become aware of this feeling. We com-
pare ourselves on the basis of comfort or feelings of well-being. We
compare our insides to others outsides and discover a dierence that is
experienced as an insumciency. Te exterior of the other appears more
substantial than the internal fragility of the self. Awareness of this dif-
ference leads to a sense of insecurity that is dimcult to articulate. Our
consumer culture capitalizes on this unease by ofering us products, ac-
tivities, and celebrities to distract us from anxiety over our inadequacies.
Yet we continue to feel (and resent) this lack.
Tis longing for completion is called desire. It is the seeking of a good
to increase ones own sense of value. Attraction to the other is the way
we know that there is such a value and that we lack it. When the will
gives consent to this attraction, it begins to search. Desire begins to ex-
ercise an ordering function over the elements of daily behavior, gradually
streamlining ordinary choices so that they contribute to the search rather
than retard it.
I
When we are attracted to something the other has but that
we cannot acquire because another already possesses it, we experience
an ofense called envy. Desire as articulated in this paper is distinct from
both need and from letting be.
2
:. Michael Casey, Desire and Desires in Western Tradition. Paper presented to the Humanita
Foundation, Sydney, Australia, :, p. :.
:. Letting be lacks acquisitiveness; need is short-term, capable of immediate gratifcation
and non-contributive to worth, e.g., thirst for water. We commonly confuse needs and desires. For
an excellent study of need vs. desire see Bernardo Olivera, Desire: Anthropological Notes at the
:8 ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
Envy, as a misdirection of desire, is of great import for the spiritual
life of both communities and individuals. As a reaction to ofense, it shifs
our life stance from one of receptiveness to one of acquisitiveness. It is of-
ten a chief hindrance to an enduring relationship with God and neighbor.
Envy recurs frequently in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and
plays decisive roles in both. In the beginning, Adam and Eve envied God
the knowledge of good and evil.
3
Cain envied Abel when God preferred
Abels sacrifce to his own.
4
Most signifcantly, Pontius Pilate was aware
that, it was out of envy that they handed Jesus over.
3
Jesus passion and
death starkly revealed to humanity the perceptual/relational distortion of
envy. His resurrection overcame that distortion.
Two men have given desire and envy a prominent place in their stud-
ies of human nature: Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfh century and
Ren Girard in the present time. By giving an overview of the thinking
of these two men, this study will show: :) how desire, distorted into envy,
afects the image and likeness of God (i.e., simplicity, immortality, and
freedom) in the soul, and how the same dynamic that distorts desire (i.e.,
mimesis or imitation) can potentially recover the image, :) how this dy-
namic serves a purpose consistent with the monastic way of life, and ,)
how the interpersonal dimension of Bernards steps of humility directs
desire to its proper goal in the imitation of Christ.
Bernard of Clairvaux derived his theory of human nature from
Scripture. He developed the anthropological implications of his theology
of the Image and Likeness particularly in his treatise On Grace and Free
Choice
6
and in sermons 8o8: of his Sermons on the Song of Songs.
7
His
work is especially oriented to the development of the individual.
Ren Girard is Professor emeritus of French Language, Literature,
and Civilization at Stanford University. Trough the study of human na-
ture as revealed in great literature, religious mythology, and the Judaeo-
Christian Scriptures, he has arrived at an anthropology that is Biblical,
Service of Monastic Formation. Conference presented at the :oo, OCSO General Chapter, minutes,
pp. :::,.
,. Gen ,.
. Gen :::o. Others include Jacob and Esau (Gen :,:,o,), Leah and Rachel (Gen ,o),
Joseph and his brothers (Gen ,,:), and Herod and the newborn child (Mt ::::8), to name a few.
,. Mk :,::o; Mt :,::8.
o. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Grace and Free Choice, CF : (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :,,).
,. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, CF o (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :8o).
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :8,
Trinitarian, and emphatically more relational than Bernards. Girard does
not consider himself a theologian but an anthropologist of religion, cul-
ture, and the Scriptures. He terms his approach An Anthropology of the
Cross.
8

I will examine each mans understanding of human nature, focusing
alternately on how each understands a) the nature and course of desire,
and b) how desire becomes misdirected.
THE HUMAN CONDITION
The 7ature and (ourse of Tesire
iov civ.vu, uisivi is the spirit that directs . . . toward the goal on
which . . . intention is fxed.
9
Further, it is a potential that must become
activated for an infant to become human.
I0
Specifcally, he emphasizes
that desire is mimetic, that another causes it. Mimetic desire is the fun-
damental desire that shapes and gives meaning to the total behavioral
expression of the person.
II
It can even be said to constitute the person,
for If desire were not mimetic we would not be open to what is human
or what is divine.
I2

Te idea that we desire autonomously is a romantic myth. Girard
uses the term mimesis to indicate that this imitation of anothers desire
is neither a conscious process nor a mere behavioral copying. Te un-
conscious nature of mimesis is designed to relieve anxiety and promote
security through an infated sense of autonomy. It is, indeed, one of the
things hidden since the foundation of the world.
I3
Girard details how this desire is misdirected and how it causes us to
conform ourselves to an alien image, the image of another person. Mi-
metic desire works in the following way: An agent senses a lack and does
not know what will supply it. He directs the aimless desire to an admi-
8. Ren Girard and James G. Williams, ed., Te Girard Reader (New York: Crossroad, :o) :88.
. Ren Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, :oo:) :,.
:o. Girard, I See Satan x.
::. Raymund Schwager, Must Tere Be Scapegoats? (New York: Crossroads, :,8) :,,.
::. Girard, I See Satan :o; see also xxi and :,:o.
:,. Mt :,:,,.
:8o ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
rable other (model/mediator) to see what might remedy the lack without
compromising a sense of autonomy. Tis other desires a specifc object.
Te agent, too, begins to desire that object. Te element that triggers the
agents desire, however, is not the object itself, but the prestige or value
conferred on it by the model. He identifes with and is attracted to the
model. Te confguration of desiring person, model/mediator, and object
form the Girardian mimetic triangle (see Figure :).
I4
Te agents will is not
coerced; it is seduced.
Bernard, on the other hand, tells us that we have been given desire, a
yearning for completeness, a longing for our true identity vis--vis some-
one else. He describes the experience of desire: Every rational being nat-
urally desires always what satisfes more its mind and will. It is never sat-
isfed with something which lacks the qualities it thinks it should have.
I3

Tis yearning is the result of being made in the image and in the likeness
of God. At the heart of Bernards teaching is the notion that God made
us to desire him. Tis is how love returns to its source.
I6
In the Sermons
on the Song of Songs he seems to imply a mimetic efect with a vertical
or heavenly direction:
. . . this noble creature, made in the image and likeness of his Creator . .
. deems it unworthy to be conformed to a world that is wanting. Instead
. . . he strives to be re-formed by the renewal of his mind, aiming to
achieve the likeness in which he knows he was created. (SC ::.o)
]ow Tesire Tecomes ,isdirected
civ.vus s1Uuiis 1.Ucu1 him that the desire we observe in others and
the diference we perceive between others and ourselves would at certain
times be ofensive and lead us into a rivalry with them over obtaining
a common desired object (acquisitive mimesis). As fascination with the
other increases, the other gradually moves from being a model to being
an obstacle to the acquisition of the object and the prestige associated
:. Ren Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, trans.
Yvonne Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, :o:) ::,.
:,. Dil :8; Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, CF :,B (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :,,).
:o. Michael Casey, Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvauxs Sermons on the
Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :8,) o,,,.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :8,
with it (confictual mimesis). Eventually the object is forgotten and the
agent passionately desires to displace the model (metaphysical desire).
Te model becomes a rival.
Model
Agent Object
iicUvi :: mimi1ic uisivi
In a relationship of confict we are locked in a struggle for dominance,
or, as Girard characterizes it, we resort to violence. Girard and the gos-
pels refer to this experience as a stumbling block, scandal, or oense. As
the eforts to dominate escalate, and as the number of conficts within
a community increases, relief from the tension is sought. Tis is a key
moment in the drama. Te enemies make an accusatory gesture toward
another person who is outside of the confict and upon whom the hos-
tility is transferred. Tis person is usually someone innocent who has
a peculiarity like racial diference, minority position, disability, unusual
beauty, or high status. Any kind of diference (good or bad) is dangerous
when a mob is looking for a scapegoat. Tis process is called the genera-
tive mimetic scapegoating mechanism (GMSM). It is generative because
it generates usthem diferences; it is mimetic because mimetic desire
drives it; it is scapegoating because its purpose is achieved through a sur-
rogate victim; it is a mechanism because it operates like a machine with-
out conscious efort.
I7
Te victim is sacrifced, i.e., murdered or expelled. Te result of this
event is that a great peace comes over the feuding parties. Te feuding
parties, who are now molded into a community, unconsciously replace
their dangerous war of all against all (Hobbes) with a safer and less
violent war of all against one (Girard). Tis paradox of the scapegoat
:,. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Te Gospel and the Sacred (Minneapolis: Fortress, :) o,.
:88 ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
as culprit and as peacemaker is the result of a double transference.
I8
Te
violently formed community transfers its hostilities onto the scapegoat
and then its reverence. Tis resulting peace of the GMSM is the peace
that the world gives.
I9
For Girard, the scapegoating mechanism is a thing
hidden since the foundation of the world (Mt :,:,,) that is only revealed
to humankind through the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Trough the ef-
fect of the Scriptures, the emcacy of this mechanism is slowly deteriorat-
ing.
Girard notes that the Hebrew Scriptures revealed God as being on
the side of the oppressed and the unjustly accused (e.g., in the Joseph
and the Exodus stories). He further notes that the Bospels revealed Jesus
as the innocent victim. Tese Gospels also heralded a new kingdom of
God in which the values and distinctions of the ordinary world regard-
ing power, prestige, and possessions, and their accompanying mimetic
rivalries would be overcome. Te absolute value of Western cultures un-
der the infuence of the Gospels will gradually become concern for the
victim.
20
Girard says that it is only when envy enters in and rivalry results that
ofense obstructs the love of God and neighbor. Such enmity is more likely
to occur if the model-turned-rival is someone near and of equal status
for instance, a neighbor (what Girard terms internal mediation)than if
the model is someone distant or of obviously higher statusfor instance
a celebrity (external mediation).
Bernard of Clairvaux in his Lenten Sermons on the Psalm He Who
Dwells makes a similar observation on the efects of misdirected mime-
sis when he writes:
For most [men] beset us because of temporal and transient goods which
they either begrudge our having out of malicious jealousy, [invidiosa]
2I

or, out of unjust greed, bewail not having themselves. Perhaps they will
:8. Kelly, Te Gospel ,.
:. Jn :::,. Note also from the Passion account: Herod and Pilate became friends that very
day, even though they had been enemies formerly (Lk :,:::).
:o. Girard, I See Satan xxxxii.
::. Although invidiosa is translated as jealousy, its proper meaning is envious, causing envy,
hateful, and the context fts the distinction to be made below between jealousy and envy. Te entire
section :, is a good summary of Bernards similar understanding of the destructive efects of acquisi-
tive mimesis.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :8
endeavor to make of with the worlds goods, or mans good opinion,
perhaps even physical life.
22

Te abbot of Clairvauxs doctrine of humanity made in the image
and likeness of God takes its place in this gradual revelation of the failure
of the scapegoating mechanism and consequent concern for the victim.
Te doctrines primary contributions are :) the feshing out of the truth of
our capacity for deifcation and :) the need to direct our natural mimetic
tendencies to the imitation of Christ, the peace-giver. Te frst empha-
sizes our dignity as a noble creature (SC ::.o), which cannot be violated
by victimization; the second moves us away from becoming victimizers
and gives us a whole new way of being in the world.
23
Both emphasize the
primacy of the spiritual for ordering desire.
According to Bernard, the will or faculty of free choice is the locus of
the problem. Te wills freedom makes us praiseworthy if we refrain from
sin and blameworthy if we indulge in sin. Sin corrupts the three powers
of the soul. Te intellect, made to remember the truth of our creatureli-
ness, is corrupted by pride; vainglory infects our concupiscible appetite,
and envy exploits our capacity for anger.
24
Pride, vainglory, and envy di-
minish our capacity to give free consent to the true, enduring good. Tey
leave us vulnerable to ofense.
In his Sermons on the Song of Songs (SC 8:.,) Bernard describes the
human condition as having three phases: formation, deformation, and
reformation. Gods image in us consists in our capacity for righteous-
ness and in our greatness as gif from God. With regard to the frst two,
formation and deformation, he teaches that our frst nature is likeness to
God consisting in three elements: simplicity (by virtue of which we love
one thing), immortality (by virtue of which the one thing, like the soul,
is eternal), and free will (by virtue of which we can choose the object of
our love). How we order these elements will constitute who we are. In our
::. QH ,.:,; Bernard of Clairvaux, Lenten Sermons on the Psalm He Who Dwells, Sermons
on Conversion, trans. Marie-Bernard Sad, CF :, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :8:).
:,. Girard notes, Only when the disciples know that the innocent victim is not simply like all
the other(s) . . . who have been tortured and expelled and killed since the foundation of the world,
only when they experience him as the Risen One . . . is a new religious vision and a new set of values
fully born in human history. What began like a mustard seed . . . now begins to move in human his-
tory . . . into the whole world (I See Satan xxi).
:. John R. Sommerfeldt, Te Spiritual Teaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, CS ::, (Kalamazoo:
Cistercian, ::) 8.
:o ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
fallen state a second nature overlays or deforms the frst. Our simplicity
is not destroyed but covered over by duplicity, immortality is not lost but
covered over by death through the love of perishable things, and freedom
persists but is given over to a compulsive serving of fnite ends. Bernard
says the most basic way by which the soul recovers its lost likeness is the
imitation of the ordering of love exemplifed by Christ (Gra :o.,).
Having examined the thinking of both men on how desire develops
and becomes misdirected, let us now examine the phenomenon of envy
more closely.
nvy: The yes ]ave 1t
ivv is 1ui feeling of ofense at the perceived superiority of another
person. It is to be distinguished from jealousy, which is distress at the
possibility of another person getting ones possession. It difers from
emulation, wherein one tries to imitate anothers achievement without
hostility and without usurping the others place.
23
Finally, it difers from
reciprocity, wherein one simply receives in proportion to ones eforts,
again without hostility or causing loss to another.
26
Girard does not consider all mimetic desire to be envy, but all envy is
mimetic desire. He notes that it begins with two eyes glancing in the same
direction. He says that, like mimetic desire, envy subordinates a desired
something to the someone who enjoys a privileged relationship with it.
27

Envy is directed toward the possessor, not toward the possessed object or
position. It is in this move that desire becomes metaphysical, rather than
merely social or material. It is love by anothers eye.
28
Girard explains:
Envy covets the superior being that neither that someone nor something
alone, but the conjunction of the two, seems to possess. Envy involun-
tarily testifes to the lack of being that puts the envious to shame. . . .Tat
is why envy is the hardest sin to acknowledge.
29
:,. Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Teory of Social Behavior (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, :oo)
::::.
:o. Schoeck 8o.
:,. Ren Girard, A Teatre of Envy: William Shakespeare (New York: Oxford UP, ::) .
:8. Girard, Teatre ,.
:. Girard, Teatre (italics added).
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu ::
Both Biblical and secular psychology have shown us that our experi-
ences are important in proportion to the amount of resistance we mount
to having their truth revealed to us. No one wants to admit a sense of lack
or to acknowledge weak emotions like fear and self-pity. To do so would
involve the confusing admission that we hate someone to whom we are
attracted!
Te Abbot of Clairvaux defnes envy as worry about possible failure,
and the fear of being surpassed . . . fear of a rival. He identifes it with a
drive for power (SC ,.o8). He writes:
What is envy if not seeing evil. If the devil were not a basilisk, death
would never have entered our world through his envy. Woe to the
wretched man who has not forestalled envy. . . . Let no one look with
envious eyes upon the goods of another. For this is, as best one can, to
inject toxin into someone and somehow kill him. Anyone who hates a
man murders him.
30
He also describes envy as curiositas, the frst step of pride. He portrays
the wandering of the eyes and the constant monitoring of the conduct of
others rather than ones own. Envious wandering of the eyes relaxes the
guard of the heart.
3I
THE GIRARDIAN/MONASTIC SOLUTION
. . . a covenant with God opened up a clear deliverance . . . they believed
themselves rich with an irrevocable benediction which set them above
the stars; and immediately they discovered humility. It is always the
secure who are humble. G. K. Chesterton
32
civ.vui. 1uioioci. voviv1 Hamerton-Kelly gives a reading of
Genesis , that says the prohibition against eating the fruit of one particu-
lar tree was an early warning against the danger of alienation through
acquisitiveness. Adam and Eve imagined that God instituted the prohi-
,o. QH :,.; Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on Conversion, CF :, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian,
:8:) ::o.
,:. Hum :8; Bernard of Clairvaux, Te Steps of Humility and Pride, CF :,A (Kalamazoo: Cister-
cian, :8).
,:. G. K. Chesterton, Te Defendant (London: Johnson, :o,) .
:: ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
bition out of envy.
33
Te truth (from the Greek, aletheia or stop forget-
ting according to Bailie)
34
is that the prohibition :) represented the divine
desire to protect humans from acquisitive mimesis and its consequent
violence, :) reminded humans of their dependency as creatures upon the
creator, and ,) was intended to show humans that this dependence on
the creator made them complete and sumcient as beings.
33
Te feeling of
lackwhen not directed to Godis really nothing more than envy look-
ing for a victim.
Jesuit theologian Raymund Schwager uses Girards theory to show
the real efect of temptations like those in the Garden of Eden and those
of Jesus in the desert.
36
Jesus had a deep, inner experience of his calling,
which Satan attempted to unsettle in the desert. Schwager says, It is ex-
actly at this deep personal experience and the words that express it that
temptation attacks.
37
Temptation is aimed not at an object but at an inner
experience; it prompts us to respond to our God-given identity and call-
ing as though it were an ofense.
38

Another Girardian theologian, James Alison, develops Schwagers
emphasis on deep, inner experience and God-given identity. Alison tells
us that overcoming acquisitive and confictual mimesis and learning to
live in non-rivalrous pacifc mimesis requires our receiving the intelli-
gence of the victim. A victim is an arbitrarily chosen other whose expul-
sion brings peace and social order.
39
Te intelligence of the victim entails
:) showing empathy for the victim and :) imitating the totally self-giving
victim, Jesus Christ.
40
Tis intelligence is the way to the heart of the God,
who sides with the victim.
,,. For Bernards thought on this point, see QH :,..
,. Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (New York: Crossroads, :,) ,,.
,,. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, Sacred Violence: Pauls Hermeneutic of the Cross (Minneapolis:
Fortress, ::) :,.
,o. Gen , and Mt ::::.
,,. Nikolaus Wandinger, R. Schwagers New Look at the Biblical Basis for the Doctrine of
Original Sin, http://theol.uibk.ac.at/leseraum/artikel/:::.html (website for Systematic Teology,
University of Innsbruck, Austria).
,8. And blessed is the one who takes no ofense at me (Mt ::::o; Lk ,::,).
,. James Alison, Te Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Trough Easter Eyes (New York: Cross-
roads, :8) :o.
o. Alison, Joy 8o.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :,
]umility
Learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart (Mt ::::)
viv.vu .u civ.vu have shown us a fundamental feature of the hu-
man condition, namely, that the heart was made to admire. Depending
on the object of the hearts admiration, the hearts desire will be directed
either to that in which it can rest securely or to that which prompts con-
fict and rivalry. What is needed then is a way of life that is open to receiv-
ing grace and that will lead us to this place of rest. We need to become
receptive rather than acquisitive.
Te problem is that triangular desire and acquisitive mimesis are
natural mechanisms that direct desire and help people cope with confict.
Tese mechanisms are successful, and this very success hides them from
our awareness and moral evaluation, impairing our capacity for empathy.
Tus our free consent is circumvented and our likeness to God is com-
promised. When questioned by a group of Biblical scholars about how
to deal with this mechanism Girard responded, I think we should begin
with personal sanctity.
4I
We will continue to alternate between the two
thinkers as we examine their respective programs for personal sanctity.
Girard goes on to say that by truly facing our envy and hostility, we
undermine their efectiveness. However, facing up to them is one thing;
learning to live without these mechanisms is another.
Saint Bernard provides us with a program for learning to face this
truth and to live in pacifc mimesis. As a young monk, he wrote his frst
treatise, On the Steps of Humility and Pride, in which he describes the
steps of truth and the way they lead to compassion and mercy. He applies
these same insights in condensed form in Sermon De diversis oo, On
the Ascension of the Lord,
42
where he specifcally addresses the problem
of domination. In what follows, the three descending steps and the three
ascending steps of Div oo will be used as a framework for presenting
:. Gil Bailie, At Cross Purposes, audiotape series (Sonoma, CA: Florilegia Institute) tape
:b.
:. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon De diversis oo, On the Lords Ascension, trans. Elias Dietz,
Tjurunga ,o (:ooo): o:o,.
: ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
Bernards teaching on this point (See Table :), but I will draw freely on a
variety of Bernardine texts.
viv.vus s1ivs oi uisci1 .u .sci1 i uiv oo
(Parallel stages in Christs experience in italics)
uisciuic
:. Renounce will to dominate
(Incarnation)
:. Patient submission
(Cross)
,. Endure unjust treatment
(Death)
.sciuic
,. Devoted service
(Sitting at Fathers right hand)
:. Purity of heart
(Power of judgment)
:. Innocence in action
(Resurrection)
1.vii :: s1ivs oi uisci1 .u .sci1 i uiv oo
From a Girardian perspective, the best way to avoid violence/domi-
nance is by ofering to people the model that will protect them from mi-
metic rivalry. Girard says Jesus regards his relationship with the Father
as the best model because . . . neither [Father or Son] desires greedily,
egotistically.
43
Bernards steps of descent to humility integrate the three
truths of the prohibition at Eden mentioned above.
44
Te steps bring us
into conformity with Bernards understanding of the law of our creation,
i.e., that only through the body can we attain to that form of knowledge
by which alone we are elevated toward the contemplation of truth es-
sential to happiness (SC ,.:). Further, the virtue of humility is aimed at
preserving the deep inner experience that Schwager describes. In short,
humility makes us content to be receivers and directs desire to its proper
object.
Acquisitive mimesis is essentially an efort at domination, and domina-
tion is a reaction to ofense. Tere are two sources of ofense that spur dom-
inance: God and neighbor.
43
Schwager describes this two-fold ofense:
,. Girard, I See Satan :.
. See also Kelly, Sacred Violence :.
,. See Bernard, QH ::.; and Alison, Joy ::.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :,
Because people have fallen away from God, their relationships with
one another are skewed. Everyone becomes a victim of mimesis and
easily falls prey to rivalries. People are unhappy about their condition.
Since they are not capable of admitting their own guilt, they push it of
onto God in the depth of their heart and are secretly full of resentment
against him.
46
Beginning with the steps of descent, Bernard shows us how to con-
front ofense by imitating Christ as a receiver. Tey are meant to lay bare
and undermine the most critical and hidden aspects of these mecha-
nisms. Te steps redirect the anxiety that leads to grasping for certainty
and (self-imposed) order. Tey also reveal the arbitrariness of our victim
selection and the false sense of diference that victimizing gives us. When
we are thus purifed by the steps of descent, i.e., when we become content
to receive, the steps of ascent then lead us to intelligence of the victim.
It is because of this progress from acquisitiveness to receptivity that
the process is called the steps of humility. Bernard defnes humility as
the holding of our own superiority in contempt, and contempt is the
opposite of passionate desire.
47
He teaches that humility is best under-
stood by studying its opposite, pride: Pride is a passionate desire for our
own superiority.
48
Passionate essentially means to be passive before the
desire, unhesitantly obedient to it. In advising contempt for our own su-
periority, Bernard is saying that a course of action is needed to upset this
passivity. Perfect humility is attained through the knowledge of truth that
brings love (Hum ,).
Girard describes pride as a deceptive divinity and equates it with
metaphysical desire.
49
Bernard, like Girard, fnds intense, misdirected
desire to be detrimental to our spiritual journey. However, he fnds that
carnal love (mimetic desire)the love of the heartcannot be denied or
rejected, but must be accepted and redirected to the sensible and carnal
love of Christs humanity (SC :o.o, Dil :,). Mimetic desire, then, is the
starting point of the spiritual journey.
o. Schwager, Scapegoats :o,.
,. Mor :; Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Conduct and Omce of Bishops, On Baptism and
the Opce of Bishops, trans. Pauline Matarasso, CF o, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :oo) ,. Sixteen of
the thirty-seven chapters of this letter-treatise are devoted to humility as the antidote to prideful
domination.
8. Mor : (CF o,: 88); see also Hum : (CF :,::).
. Girard, Deceit ,o,.
:o ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
viv.vu civ.vu
:. Renounce will to dominate
(Incarnation)
:. Patient submission (Cross)
,. Endure unjust treatment (Death)

Humility becomes love of the truth

,. Devoted service (Sitting at Fathers right

hand)
:. Purity of heart (Power of judgment)
:. Innocence in action (Resurrection)
:. Acquisitive mimesiscmsm
:. Deferral
,. Endure accusation / ofense

Love reveals victimage process

,. Intelligence of the victim /self-donation

:. Intelligence of the victim / empathy
:. Faith, not ofense
1.vii :: comv.v.1ivi 1.vii
Steps of Tescent
Step One: Renounce the Will to Dominate (The Incarnation)
viv.vu vicis vv telling his monks to renounce the use of dominance
as a way of transcending experiences of ofense or mimetic confict.
Dominance is an obstacle to receptivity. Te will to dominate is the will
never to be devastated; one cannot follow Christ with that intent.
Bernard prefaces his direction by indicating Christ as our model.
Christ wanting to teach us how we might ascend into heaven, did him-
self what he taught. . . . He took on our nature in which he might descend
and ascend, and shows us the way by which we, too, might ascend (Div
oo.:). He notes that the principal reason for the Incarnation was that
Christ wanted to recapture the afections of carnal men who were un-
able to love in any other way. (SC :o.o)
Bernards proscription of dominance goes to the heart of Girards
theory. Girard tells us that the principal source of dominance between
human beings is mimetic rivalry. At the core of such rivalry is the primal
sin of idolatry of self and the other.
30
Trough the process of internal
,o. Girard, I Saw Satan ::; Girard, Deceit, ch. , Master and Slave.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :,
mediation, pride is born of comparison. Fascination grows out of ob-
serving a similar other with qualities superior to ones own. Te other
seems to enjoy a self-mastery and self-satisfaction that nothing can dis-
turb, and thus seems like a god.
3I
Te observed superiority highlights the
observers inferiority. Te observer can respond with either admiration
or envy. Bernard would call this idolization the primal sin of pride and
its ofspring, envy. Pride, by its fascination with the lofiness of another,
leads to idolatry.
It would be a mistake to apply this step only to those with strong,
perhaps overbearing, personalities. We all will to override ofense by our
own power. Te inner experience that must be renounced is the desire to
acquire from God what God cannot give, namely that we owe nothing to
anyone and exist by our own right.
32
Te behaviors that betray this desire
are described in the abbots treatise On the Steps of Humility and Pride
(the frst four steps that show contempt for the brethren): curiosity, the
ever-wandering eye of envy; light-mindedness and empty laughter, both
of which discount the value of others and of the monastic way of life; and
boasting (Hum :8:). Tese last three behaviors are characteristic of
secular cultures false transcendence of following the crowd or acting
for the approval of others.
33
What is called for is a renunciation of our will to self-assertion. In
short, we have to quit playing God. To renounce self-will is to shif ones
attention from self to the other, so as to make charitable or other-cen-
tered behavior easier and domination unnecessary. Tis attention might
also be called fascination, and its object will become the object of our
imitation. Tus understood, renunciation, when ordered to God, is an act
of humility and conversion.
Girard notes that the will to dominate is unconscious. To the extent
that this habit is a thoughtless pattern of behavior and ultimately an ef-
fort at autonomy, it has qualities similar to the unconscious factors in
acquisitive desire and the scapegoating mechanism. Bringing these pat-
,:. Girard, Deceit :o,.
,:. Nikolaus Wandinger, No One Has Ever Seen God: Problems of Imitating the Invisible
God, Paper presented at the meeting of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, Koblenz, Ger-
many, :oo,, p. 8.
,,. Gil Bailie, Culture, Spiritual Direction, and a Crossroads, Presence: Te Journal of Spiri-
tual Directors International , (:,): :o.
:8 ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
terns of behavior to awareness and thereby subverting them leads to and
necessitates further conversion. It is this further conversion that Bernard
outlines in the steps of ascent (Div oo. :,).
A good model does not necessarily mean a good imitation. Bernard
ofers two models of imitating God. One is the descending and ascend-
ing Christ; the other is Lucifer, who proclaimed, I will be like the Most
High (Div oo.,). Lucifer, the Envious One (Hum ,o), is considered less
a metaphysical being than a personifcation of arrogance. Bernard again
shows awareness of mimetic efects when he notes that those who are not
ofended by arrogance will imitate it (Mor ::). In other words, the lure of
self-exaltation can be so attractive as to easily provoke others to seek their
own self-exaltation. Girard points out that mimesis generates the desire
to distinguish oneself at all costs.
34
Te essential diference between these two models of divinity is that
one involves receptivity and the other acquisitiveness. Te receptive Christ
exemplifes the crucial qualities of non-retribution and forgiveness. To
move from carnal love to rational lovethe love of the soulthe model
imitated makes the critical diference (SC :o.). Renouncing domination
leaves one defenseless before experiences of ofense and insult and feel-
ings of inadequacy and resentment. Such renunciation is an abrupt be-
ginning for this program of recovery of the image and likeness, but both
Bernard and Girard know that further steps will not be taken unless they
are felt to be desperately necessary. Bernard warns that our love for God
cannot be correctly ordered if it is not rooted in a deep sense of our mis-
ery and our need for mercy (SC ,,.,). He explains how this awareness of
misery is part of the steps of truth, and how mercy grows naturally out of
following the steps of humility (Hum of.). Girard elaborates:
[N]o purely intellectual process and no experience of a purely intel-
lectual nature can secure the individual the slightest victory over mi-
metic desire and its victimage delusions. Intellection can achieve only
displacement and substitution, though these may give individuals the
sense of having achieved a victory. For there to be even the slightest
degree of progress, the victimage delusion must be relinquished on the
most intimate level of experience . . . .
33

,. Girard, Deceit :oo (italics in original).
,,. Ren Girard, Tings Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, trans. Stephen Bann and
Michael Metterer (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, :8,) ,.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :
Resistance to admitting ones victimizing tendencies must be shat-
tered. Tis shattering involves everything that we can call our ego, our
personality, our temperament, and so on.
36
Humility is truth, and the
beginning of the return to truth is to be dissatisfed with oneself because
of ones falsehood.
37
Tis break with dysfunctional defenses like arrogance
and vain pride is the beginning of the restoration of the souls freedom.
Step Two: Patient Submission (The Cross)
cuvis1 is . model of trust and obedience, not of managing well. Once
acquisitiveness and domination have been put aside, one has set out on
the way of Christs passion, on the way of sufering. To suer means to
let be; instead of attempting to gain the upper hand, it means submitting
to negative experience as part of Gods plan for oneself and others. Tis
is the mark of one who is following Christ. Here we submit to a process
we cannot control, rather than pray to be exempted from it. What we are
addressing is the fallen human condition, not merely a series of problems
to be solved.
In Div oo., Bernard notes that this submission to God was lacking
in our frst parents, that they preferred to misuse their wills, rather than
be subject to their creator. Bernard adds that they did not presume to
dominate over others of their kind. As a result, their fault was diferent
from the devils pride. Although they were punished by banishment from
Eden, they merited, by Gods mercy, eventual redemption. Te devil, on
the other hand, sufered ruin (Div oo.,). When Cain refused to sub-
mit to God, murdered Abel out of envy, and thus began civilization, the
problem of domination spread to all humans. Bernard acknowledges this
principle of domination (Hum 8-,o and Mor :8). Humility is primarily
about our relationship to God; our submission to superiors and others is
a means to setting that relationship right. Submission or subordination
means the acceptance of an order, as it exists, but with a new meaning
given to it by the fact that ones acceptance of it is willing and meaning-
fully motivated.
38

,o. Girard, Tings Hidden oo.
,,. Te Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse, trans. A. Gordon Mursell, CS :,,
(Kalamazoo: Cistercian, :,), Meditation :o:.
,8. John H. Yoder, Te Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, :) :,: (italics in original).
:oo ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
Te parallel, then, to this step and its meaning is the Cross, in which
Christ exemplifed patient submission in the course of his descent. Te
Cross is the center of Girards theory. It is when faced with the Crosslit-
eral or metaphoricalthat the critical decision for forgiveness and non-
retribution is made. Tis decision is made deep in the heart where pride
lurks. Tis purifcation of the heart is the core of Christian conversion.
Bernard advises that we bear patiently with our lack of certain quali-
ties and that we be grateful to God for what gifs we have (Mor :). Tis
renunciation undermines pride, because pride is the consequence of
comparison with others. Comparison creates the setting for confictual
mimesis and all that follows from it. Bernard is counseling us to accept
our created condition without comparisons.
Girard identifes an inclinationsimilar to humilitythat is part of
our nature and that makes submission to the established order willing
and meaningful; it is called deferral. From his studies of internal and ex-
ternal mediation and of doubles he found that mimetic confict is much
less likely to arise if the model-agent relationship is not one of equality
and proximity. Perceived equality and nearness increase opportunities
for rivalry. Tis rivalry is less likely if the other is regarded as being of
higher status or as being outside of ones sphere of relations. In such rela-
tions admiration and gratitude would be more appropriate.
By rooting Step Two in the actions of Adam and Eve in the garden,
Bernard shows that, as an act of deferral, humility is right relationship to
God. Te defning diference between God and humanity, the one that
has always troubled us, is that God will always be the giver and we will
always be recipients.
39
Humility, however, makes this diference accept-
able and even gratifying.
In his counsel to bishops (Mor :), Bernard describes two types of
pride that are opposed to this submission. First, blind or arrogant pride
arising from erroneous understanding (i.e., one either imagines ones own
goodness or sees oneself as the source of the goodness one has), against
which Bernard urges a modest opinion of self.
60
Second, vain pride arises
from a misdirection of the hearts desire. It involves taking delight in be-
,. Wandinger, No One 8 f.; see also Bernard, QH :.:.
oo. Girardian Gil Bailie tells us a form of false self-transcendence that is akin to this is that of
self-justifcation. At its extreme it leads to scapegoating (Bailie ,:).
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :o:
ing praised by others. Here the abbot cautions against setting too much
stock in ones reputation in the eyes of others. Tese two forms of pride
are parallel to steps fve (singularity) and six (self-conceit) in his treatise
on the Steps of Humility and Pride (:,). Pride ignites envy. We have
already seen that both authors metaphorically locate envy in the eyes.
Girard writes, Te romantic vain person [le vaniteux] always wants to
convince himself that his desire is written into the nature of things, or
that it is the . . . creation ex nihilo of a quasi-divine ego.
6I

Most important, seeing oneself on the lower end of a social diference
prepares one to be able to empathize with the victim. A chief characteris-
tic of the victimage process is the dehumanizing of the person. One who
identifes with those ofended by the order of the world is less likely to be
ofended by Jesus. In step two one becomes acquainted with powerless-
ness. Tis identifcation with the victim is at the heart of Bernards steps
of truth and mercy and is the prerequisite for the intelligence of the vic-
tim in the imitation of Christ.
Tis experience of powerlessnessand the dying to old conscious-
ness that it requireswill produce dread. As phenomenologist Jerome
Miller tells us, Dread demonstrates that real patience is not simply the
power to endure agony but the power to remain open-minded inside an-
guish, the power to postpone indefnitely a judgment about where one
is headed, even if one is headed into an abyss.
62
Dread is preferable to
despair. Dread permits hope, and hope without anguish would be hollow
optimism. Buoyed by the example of the seniors, one can perceive secu-
rity on the other side of this passage through powerlessness and dread.
Ultimately, the object of our hope is God, the source of power. Sub-
mitting patientlyas opposed to inciting others to share our discon-
tentis the way we specify the sole object of our faith. We thus begin the
return to simplicity.
o:. Girard, Deceit :, (italics in original).
o:. Jerome A. Miller, Te Way of Suering: A Geography of Crisis (Washington, D.C.: George-
town UP, :88) 8,.
:o: ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
Step Three: To Endure Unjust Treatment (Death)
N.B. One should not take this step unless one has
a really important reason to do so.
1ui v.v.iiii 1o this step in the descent of Christ is his death. It is an
outgrowth, obviously, of step two: patient subjection to the Cross. Ber-
nard regards it as an important test of our resolve to follow Christ. Carnal
love for the humanity of Christ has started us at the level of sentiment,
but it must grow beyond sentiment to imitation or it will never attain
a mature spiritual level.
63
Citing the parable in Lk 8::,, he says that this
ability to endure unjust treatment is lacking in those who believe for a
while but who fall away in time of temptation (Div oo.,). Te proof of
whether this step has been taken or not will be found later in the frst step
of ascent (Div oo.).
Bernard emphasizes the importance of how we direct our mimetic
tendencies: We say these things in order to know whose example we
should avoid following, because both humans and the devil wanted to as-
cend out of order, humans to knowledge, the devil to power, and both to
pride (Div oo.). Girard might see this step as learning to endure accu-
sation and ofense without resorting or reverting to dominance through
acquisitiveness and scapegoating. He emphasizes strongly that this learn-
ing cannot take place without a divine model.
64
Tis step involves opening the self to a new way of meeting experi-
ences of ofense. Ofense is always personal; its confrontational nature
makes it hard to shrug of. Its power comes from the fact that it usu-
ally attacks what one experiences as the deepest self at the level of ones
strongest allegiances. It precipitates a crisis, and the crisis reveals what
matters most to the heart.
63
For both Girard and Bernard, this crisis is
the moment of conversion. Te opposite of ofense is faith, but such faith
can only be reached through the possibility of ofense.
66
Genuine surren-
der means allowing oneself to be drawn more deeply into what is most
o,. See Bernard, SC :o.o; and Casey, Athirst :o.
o. Girard, I See Satan :.
o,. David McCracken, Te Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story, and Oense (New York: Oxford
UP, :) ,,.
oo. McCracken :.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :o,
threatening. Such surrender is dimcult, given that the whole motive for
becoming an adult was to avoid vulnerability.
Here one learns that the structures holding ones world together
and thus making it a worldcan be shattered. Willingness to endure the
transitory for the sake of something greater than the self is the beginning
of the souls recovery of its immortality. To face ones contingency and to
live as one who is totally dependent on God is a deep admission of the
truth that prepares the monastic to continue the journey out of love. Tis
transformation is not accomplished; it is sufered.
The Transition to Tove
viv.vu wvi1is, so far it is truth that compels your humility, it is
as yet untouched by the inpouring of love (SC :.o). It is love, the ab-
bot says, when we are willing to risk our reputation and let others know
about us what we know about ourselves: You would certainly desire, as
far as in you lies, that the opinion of others about you, should correspond
with what you know about yourself. Tis self-disclosure, though, is to
be regulated by love; it must not ofend (SC :.o). Concern about repu-
tation is a craving for glory. Te order of the world depends on mutu-
ally rivalistic imitation and exclusion in pursuit of a grasped glory that is
possessed with dimculty. Truth, informed by love, changes that dynamic.
Tose who receive their sense of self-worth from the imitation of Christ
and thereby from the Father will discount the opinion of peers.
67
Bernard distinguishes this love-based humility by its voluntary na-
ture: We attain to this voluntary humility, not by truthful reasoning, but
by an inward infusion of love, since it springs from the heart, from the
afections, from the will . . . (SC :.8).
Girard also sees love as crucial to the development of pacifc mime-
sis:
Love is the true demystifying power because it gives the victims back
their humanity. . . . It alone can reveal the victimage processes that un-
derlie meanings of culture. . . . Love . . . escapes from and strictly limits,
o,. James Alison, Raising Abel: Te Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (New York:
Crossroads, :o) :8o8:.
:o ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
the spirit of revenge and recrimination. . . . Only Christs perfect love
can achieve without violence the perfect revelation toward which we
are progressing . . . by way of discussions and divisions that were pre-
dicted in the Gospels.
68

Girard cites Friedrich Nietzsche, in Te Anti-Christ, as an example
of one who might reject this transition. Characteristically, Nietzsche is
half-right, but sadly cynical: Love is the state in which man sees things
most of all as they are not. . . . One endures more when in love than one
otherwise would, one tolerates everything.
69
With this shif in the motive of humility, one is ready to continue the
imitation of Christ in his ascent.
The Steps of ,scent
Step One: Innocence in Actions (The Resurrection of Christ)
viv.vu vi.cis 1uis step in parallel with the third step of descent. In-
nocence of actions proves one has endured the unjust treatment, expe-
rienced conversion, and has undergone a shif in perception. Tis new
outlook is what the disciples experienced upon seeing the Risen Lord.
Te pride of acquisitive desire has been broken by the experience of the
Cross. One can be comfortable as a receiver. Te ordering function of
desire takes on a new character under the impulse of love. For monas-
tics who have had this experience, redemption began at the moment the
person accepted something which he knew he did not deserve, he was given
something for which it was literally impossible for him to pay.
70

Te immortality of the soul and its likeness to God is restored be-
cause the monastic has chosen as Christ chose: to endure all, even death
on a cross, in deferral to the Fathers will. Ofense has been met with faith.
Te one who received harsh treatment now receives eternal life: If the
fear of death itself cannot make [the soul] act unjustly . . . then it loves
with the whole strength; this then is spiritual love (SC :o.).
o8. Girard, Tings Hidden :,o,,.
o. Girard, Tings Hidden :,8.
,o. Samuel Shoemaker, If I Be Lifed Up (New York: Revell, :,:) :, (italics in original).
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :o,
Step Two: Purity of Heart (Christs Power of Judgment)
viv.vu si1s 1uis step in parallel with the second step of descent, indi-
cating that patiently submitting to the Cross leads to purity of heart. Te
Lord, Bernard points out, can judge because he was unjustly judged (Div
oo.). Te seniors who have endured the process of purifcation have
gained knowledge that is helpful to those currently undergoing it. Tey
are in a position to judge what the newcomer needs in order to persevere.
Tey can see through the neophytes balking. Tey can empathize.
Te link between humility and love is empathy. In the steps of de-
scent we encounter our limitations, we experience forgiveness, and we
are then able to see the truth of others. Te forgiveness of the resurrection
makes this new state of afairs possible. As Bernard says, it leads to full
knowledge of the truth: We look for truth in ourselves when we judge
ourselves, in our neighbors when we have empathy with their suferings,
in itself when we contemplate it with a clean heart (Hum o). He notes
that in the Beatitudes Christ placed the merciful before the pure of heart.
[Te merciful] are weak with the weak; they burn with the ofended
(Hum o).
Girardians would see the experience of empathy as the frst compo-
nent of intelligence of the victim. Te empathy that results from humility
leads to love of God and neighbor. God is loved through the neighbor;
quasi bina dilectio, two loves as if one. Simplicity and likeness to God are
restored in the soul. Contemplation replaces fascination.
Step Three: Devoted Service (Christ Seated at the Right Hand of the Father)
i v.v.iiii wi1u the frst step of descent, one who enters this third step
has renounced domination and now prefers to serve. Whoever does not
dominate, Bernard says, can be over others to teach (Div oo.). Again
he says elsewhere: Te only ones who can instruct the brethren are those
who are merciful, those who are meek and humble (Hum :).
Te second component of intelligence of the victim is, then, to set an
example by passing on the example of Christ in total self-donation. Here
we see the distinct historical mark of the Christian. Unlike the myths of
archaic religions, the story of Christianity is told from the perspective of
the victim. When one has this intelligence one has a correct understand-
:oo ,o.u wu.vii, ocso
ing about Jesus, about the Father, and about humans. One knows how to
be content as an undeserving receiver. Ones former consciousness was
constituted in rivalry and survival by exclusion in mimesis of the mob.
7I

Now it is constituted in empathy and self-giving in mimesis of Christ and
those who are imitating him.
Following Christ, the monastic in community has ofered his or her
life (i.e., as it was understood prior to entry) as a ransom for those who
follow afer. A ransom is an act of freeing done by one already free. Like
the child whom Jesus ofered us as a model, the monastic is free to be
vulnerable, free to receive without deserving, free to consent to imitate
those who imitate the self-giving victim, Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION
vic.vuic oUv iocic for completion, Ren Girard says: We expect
our being to be radically changed by the act of possession.
72
Our I is
formed by our relationality with that which masters us, be it God or the
sinful order.
73
In these statements is summed up the whole of our study
of desire and envy. We have the sense that we are not enough and that
there is something we must procure, correct, or conform to, in order to
become enough. Tat thing we will serve. What completes us depends
on what we are: mimetic creatures made to the image of God. Humility,
as intelligence of the victim, restores that image.
Tis study has shown how the same movement of imitating the desire
of another leads to the recovery of obscured qualities of the soul when the
model is Jesus Christ, in whose image it is made. In monastic terms, to
imitate Christ we imitate the desire of our seniors.
When acquisitive and confictual mimesis are carried to their con-
clusion, the result is the scapegoating of an innocent victim and the at-
tainment of communalfalsepeace. Te object of monastic life is true
peace, which is received by pacifc mimesis of the victim, Jesus Christ.
Tis mimesis requires self-sacrifce rather than the sacrifce of others.
,:. Alison, Joy 8o8:.
,:. Girard, Deceit ,,.
,,. Alison, Joy :,o.
viv.vu oi ci.ivv.Ux .u vii civ.vu :o,
By studying Bernard in the light of Girard we are able to see, frst, the
place Bernards teaching takes in the historical unveiling of the scapegoat
mechanism, and, second, his contribution to a way of life lived without
resort to the scapegoating mechanism, the sin of the world.
Given our nature as mimetic creatures, creatures made in the image
of God, we can see that monasticism is something we catch. We each
bring our individual temperament and life history to the community and
ofer it to God. It is important to fnd in each and every one of our broth-
ers and sisters something admirable and imitable. As Guigo I counsels
us, What God did not love in his friends and relativespower, nobility,
wealth and honorsyou are not to love in yours (Meditation ,,).
New Melleray Abbey
oo,: Melleray Circle
Peosta, IA ,:oo8
brjonah@newmelleray.org