!istercian "tudies #uarterly $%.% (!&&')

Bernard of Clairvaux and René Girard

on Desire and Envy

Jonah Wharff, ocso

" #$$%&'( )# 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 di(erence that is experienced as an insu*ciency. +e 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 di*cult to articulate. Our consumer culture capitalizes on this unease by o,ering us products, ac-tivities, and celebrities to distract us from anxiety over our inadequacies. Yet we continue to feel (and resent) this lack.

+is longing for completion is called desire. It is the seeking of a good to increase one’s 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.”- When we are attracted to something the other has but that we cannot acquire because another already possesses it, we experience an o,ense called envy. Desire as articulated in this paper is distinct from both “need” and from “letting be.” .

/. Michael Casey, “Desire and Desires in Western Tradition.” Paper presented to the Humanita Foundation, Sydney, Australia, /000, p. /.

!. “Letting be” lacks acquisitiveness; “need” is short-term, capable of immediate grati1cation 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

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Envy, as a misdirection of desire, is of great import for the spiritual life of both communities and individuals. As a reaction to o,ense, it shi;s 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.< Cain envied Abel when God preferred Abel’s sacri1ce to his own.= Most signi1cantly, Pontius Pilate was aware that, “it was out of envy that they handed Jesus over.”> 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 twel;h century and René 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, a,ects 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 Bernard’s 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@ and in sermons 2A–2! of his Sermons on the Song of Songs.B His work is especially oriented to the development of the individual.

René Girard is Professor emeritus of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University. +rough 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 !AAC OCSO General Chapter, minutes, pp. /!–/?.

?. Gen ?.3. Gen 3:/–/D. Others include Jacob and Esau (Gen !C:?A–?3), Leah and Rachel (Gen ?A),

Joseph and his brothers (Gen ?E:3), and Herod and the newborn child (Mt !:/3–/2), to name a few.C. Mk /C:/A; Mt !E:/2.D. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Grace and Free Choice, CF /0 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /0EE). E. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, CF 3A (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /02A).

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Trinitarian, and emphatically more relational than Bernard’s. 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.”O

I will examine each man’s 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

)he *ature and !ourse of +esire

P)8 N&858G, G$:&8$ is “the spirit that directs . . . toward the goal on which . . . intention is 1xed.”Q Further, it is “a potential that must become activated for an infant to become human.”-R Speci1cally, 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.”-- 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.”-.

+e idea that we desire autonomously is a romantic myth. Girard uses the term mimesis to indicate that this imitation of another’s desire is neither a conscious process nor a mere behavioral copying. +e un-conscious nature of mimesis is designed to relieve anxiety and promote security through an inSated sense of autonomy. It is, indeed, one of the “things hidden since the foundation of the world.”-<

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-

2. René Girard and James G. Williams, ed., ,e Girard Reader (New York: Crossroad, /00D) !22.0. René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, !AA/) /?./A. Girard, I See Satan x.//. Raymund Schwager, Must ,ere Be Scapegoats? (New York: Crossroads, /0E2) !?C. /!. Girard, I See Satan /D; see also x–xi and /C–/D./?. Mt /?:?C.

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rable other (model/mediator) to see what might remedy the lack without compromising a sense of autonomy. +is other desires a speci1c object. +e agent, too, begins to desire that object. +e element that triggers the agent’s desire, however, is not the object itself, but the prestige or value conferred on it by the model. He identi1es with and is attracted to the model. +e con1guration of desiring person, model/mediator, and object form the Girardian mimetic triangle (see Figure /).-= +e agent’s 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-à-vis some-one else. He describes the experience of desire: “Every rational being nat-urally desires always what satis1es more its mind and will. It is never sat-is1ed with something which lacks the qualities it thinks it should have.”-> +is yearning is the result of being made in the image and in the likeness of God. At the heart of Bernard’s teaching is the notion that God made us to desire him. +is is how love returns to its source.-@ In the Sermons on the Song of Songs he seems to imply a mimetic e,ect 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 !/.D)

-ow +esire .ecomes /isdirected

N&858G’: :TJG&$: T5J(6T him that the desire we observe in others and the di,erence we perceive between others and ourselves would at certain times be o,ensive 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

/3. René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, trans. Yvonne Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, /0D/) /–/E.

/C. Dil /2; Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, CF /?B (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /0E?)./D. Michael Casey, Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the

Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /02E) DC–EC.

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with it (con0ictual mimesis). Eventually the object is forgotten and the agent passionately desires to displace the model (metaphysical desire). +e model becomes a rival.

Model

Agent Object

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In a relationship of conSict 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 o(ense. As the e,orts to dominate escalate, and as the number of conSicts within a community increases, relief from the tension is sought. +is is a key moment in the drama. +e enemies make an accusatory gesture toward another person who is outside of the conSict and upon whom the hos-tility is transferred. +is person is usually someone innocent who has a peculiarity like racial di,erence, minority position, disability, unusual beauty, or high status. Any kind of di,erence (good or bad) is dangerous when a mob is looking for a scapegoat. +is process is called the genera-tive mimetic scapegoating mechanism (GMSM). It is generative because it generates us–them di,erences; 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 e,ort.-B

+e victim is sacri1ced, i.e., murdered or expelled. +e result of this event is that a great peace comes over the feuding parties. +e 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). +is paradox of the scapegoat

/E. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, ,e Gospel and the Sacred (Minneapolis: Fortress, /003) D–E.

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as culprit and as peacemaker is the result of a double transference.-O +e violently formed community transfers its hostilities onto the scapegoat and then its reverence. +is resulting peace of the GMSM is “the peace that the world gives.”-Q For Girard, the scapegoating mechanism is a thing “hidden since the foundation of the world” (Mt /?:?C) that is only revealed to humankind through the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. +rough the ef-fect of the Scriptures, the e*cacy 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. +ese 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. +e absolute value of Western cultures un-der the inSuence of the Gospels will gradually become concern for the victim. .R

Girard says that it is only when envy enters in and rivalry results that o,ense 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 status—for instance a celebrity (external mediation).

Bernard of Clairvaux in his Lenten Sermons on the Psalm “He Who Dwells” makes a similar observation on the e,ects 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].- or, out of unjust greed, bewail not having themselves. Perhaps they will

/2. Kelly, +e Gospel E./0. Jn /3:!E. Note also from the Passion account: “Herod and Pilate became friends that very

day, even though they had been enemies formerly” (Lk !?:/!).!A. Girard, I See Satan xx–xxii.!/. Although invidiosa is translated as “jealousy,” its proper meaning is ‘envious, causing envy,

hateful’, and the context 1ts the distinction to be made below between jealousy and envy. +e entire section /? is a good summary of Bernard’s similar understanding of the destructive e,ects of acquisi-tive mimesis.

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endeavor to make o, with the world’s goods, or man’s good opinion, perhaps even physical life...

+e abbot of Clairvaux’s 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. +e doctrine’s primary contributions are /) the Seshing out of the truth of our capacity for dei1cation and !) the need to direct our natural mimetic tendencies to the imitation of Christ, the peace-giver. +e 1rst empha-sizes our dignity as a “noble creature” (SC !/.D), 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..< 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. +e will’s freedom makes us praiseworthy if we refrain from sin and blameworthy if we indulge in sin. Sin corrupts the three powers of the soul. +e 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..= Pride, vainglory, and envy di-minish our capacity to give free consent to the true, enduring good. +ey leave us vulnerable to o,ense.

In his Sermons on the Song of Songs (SC 2!.?) Bernard describes the human condition as having three phases: formation, deformation, and reformation. God’s image in us consists in our capacity for righteous-ness and in our greatness as gi; from God. With regard to the 1rst two, formation and deformation, he teaches that our 1rst 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 E./?; Bernard of Clairvaux, “Lenten Sermons on the Psalm ‘He Who Dwells,’” Sermons on Conversion, trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd, CF !C (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /02/).

!?. 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).

!3. John R. Sommerfeldt, ,e Spiritual Teaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, CS /!C (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /00/) 20.

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fallen state a second nature overlays or deforms the 1rst. 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 1nite ends. Bernard says the most basic way by which the soul recovers its lost likeness is the imitation of the ordering of love exempli1ed by Christ (Gra /A.?3).

Having examined the thinking of both men on how desire develops and becomes misdirected, let us now examine the phenomenon of envy more closely.

1nvy: )he 1yes -ave 2t

X'IY &: T6$ feeling of o,ense at the perceived superiority of another person. It is to be distinguished from jealousy, which is distress at the possibility of another person getting one’s possession. It di,ers from emulation, wherein one tries to imitate another’s achievement without hostility and without usurping the other’s place..> Finally, it di,ers from reciprocity, wherein one simply receives in proportion to one’s e,orts, again without hostility or causing loss to another..@

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.”.B 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 another’s eye.”.O 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 testi3es to the lack of being that puts the envious to shame. . . .+at is why envy is the hardest sin to acknowledge..Q

!C. Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A ,eory of Social Behavior (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, /0DD) !/–!!.

!D. Schoeck 2A.!E. René Girard, A ,eatre of Envy: William Shakespeare (New York: Oxford UP, /00/) 3.!2. Girard, +eatre C.!0. Girard, +eatre 3 (italics added).

F$8'58G )# H%5&8I5JK 5'G L$'M N&858G /0/

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!

+e Abbot of Clairvaux de1nes envy as “worry about possible failure, and the fear of being surpassed . . . fear of a rival.” He identi1es it with a drive for power (SC ?0.D–2). 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.<R

He also describes envy as curiositas, the 1rst step of pride. He portrays the wandering of the eyes and the constant monitoring of the conduct of others rather than one’s own. Envious wandering of the eyes relaxes the guard of the heart.<-

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<.

N&858G&5' T6$)%)(&5' L)Z$8T 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-

?A. QH /?.3; Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on Conversion, CF !C (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /02/) !!D.

?/. Hum !2; Bernard of Clairvaux, ,e Steps of Humility and Pride, CF /?A (Kalamazoo: Cister-cian, /020).

?!. G. K. Chesterton, ,e Defendant (London: Johnson, /0A?) 00.

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bition out of envy.<< +e truth (from the Greek, aletheia or ‘stop forget-ting’ according to Bailie)<= 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 su*cient as beings.<> +e feeling of lack—when not directed to God—is really nothing more than envy look-ing for a victim.

Jesuit theologian Raymund Schwager uses Girard’s theory to show the real e,ect of temptations like those in the Garden of Eden and those of Jesus in the desert.<@ 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.”<B 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 o,ense.<O

Another Girardian theologian, James Alison, develops Schwager’s emphasis on deep, inner experience and God-given identity. Alison tells us that overcoming acquisitive and conSictual mimesis and learning to live in non-rivalrous paci3c 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. <Q +e intelligence of the victim entails /) showing empathy for the victim and !) imitating the totally self-giving victim, Jesus Christ.=R +is intelligence is the way to the heart of the God, who sides with the victim.

??. For Bernard’s thought on this point, see QH /?.3.?3. Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads (New York: Crossroads, /00C) ??.?C. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, Sacred Violence: Paul’s Hermeneutic of the Cross (Minneapolis:

Fortress, /00!) 0!–0E.?D. Gen ? and Mt 3:/–//.?E. Nikolaus Wandinger, “R. Schwager’s New Look at the Biblical Basis for the Doctrine of

Original Sin,” http://theol.uibk.ac.at/leseraum/artikel/!!!.html (website for Systematic +eology, University of Innsbruck, Austria).

?2. “And blessed is the one who takes no o,ense at me” (Mt //:/D; Lk E:!?).?0. James Alison, ,e Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin ,rough Easter Eyes (New York: Cross-

roads, /002) 0–/A.3A. Alison, Joy 2A.

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-umility

Learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart (Mt //:!0)

F$8'58G 5'G N&858G 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 heart’s admiration, the heart’s desire will be directed either to that in which it can rest securely or to that which prompts con-Sict 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.

+e problem is that triangular desire and acquisitive mimesis are natural mechanisms that direct desire and help people cope with conSict. +ese mechanisms are successful, and this very success hides them from our awareness and moral evaluation, impairing our capacity for empathy. +us 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.”=- 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 e,ectiveness. 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 paci1c mimesis. As a young monk, he wrote his 1rst 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 DA, “On the Ascension of the Lord,”=. where he speci1cally addresses the problem of domination. In what follows, the three descending steps and the three ascending steps of Div DA will be used as a framework for presenting

3/. Gil Bailie, “At Cross Purposes,” audiotape series (Sonoma, CA: Florilegia Institute) tape !b.

3!. Bernard of Clairvaux, “Sermon De diversis DA, On the Lord’s Ascension,” trans. Elias Dietz, Tjurunga EA (!AAD): D/–D?.

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Bernard’s teaching on this point (See Table /), but I will draw freely on a variety of Bernardine texts.

Z$8'58G’: :T$[: )# G$:9$'T 5'G 5:9$'T &' G&I DA(Parallel stages in Christ’s experience in italics)

G$:9$'G&'(

/. Renounce will to dominate (Incarnation)

!. Patient submission (Cross)

?. Endure unjust treatment (Death)

5:9$'G&'(

?. Devoted service (Sitting at Father’s right hand)

!. Purity of heart (Power of judgment)

/. Innocence in action (Resurrection)

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From a Girardian perspective, the best way to avoid violence/domi-nance is by “o,ering 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.”=< Bernard’s steps of descent to humility integrate the three truths of the prohibition at Eden mentioned above.== +e steps bring us into conformity with Bernard’s 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 C./). 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 e,ort at domination, and domina-tion is a reaction to o,ense. +ere are two sources of o,ense that spur dom-inance: God and neighbor.=> Schwager describes this two-fold o,ense:

3?. Girard, I See Satan /3.33. See also Kelly, Sacred Violence 0!–03.3C. See Bernard, QH /!.0; and Alison, Joy /3!.

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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 o, onto God in the depth of their heart and are secretly full of resentment against him.=@

Beginning with the steps of descent, Bernard shows us how to con-front o,ense by imitating Christ as a receiver. +ey are meant to lay bare and undermine the most critical and hidden aspects of these mecha-nisms. +e steps redirect the anxiety that leads to grasping for certainty and (self-imposed) order. +ey also reveal the arbitrariness of our victim selection and the false sense of di,erence that victimizing gives us. When we are thus puri1ed 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 de1nes humility as “the holding of our own superiority in contempt, and contempt is the opposite of passionate desire.”=B He teaches that humility is best under-stood by studying its opposite, pride: “Pride is a passionate desire for our own superiority.”=O “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 C).

Girard describes pride as “a deceptive divinity” and equates it with metaphysical desire.=Q Bernard, like Girard, 1nds intense, misdirected desire to be detrimental to our spiritual journey. However, he 1nds that carnal love (mimetic desire)—the love of the heart—cannot be denied or rejected, but must be accepted and redirected to the sensible and carnal love of Christ’s humanity (SC !A.D–0, Dil !?). Mimetic desire, then, is the starting point of the spiritual journey.

3D. Schwager, Scapegoats /0D–0E.3E. Mor /0; Bernard of Clairvaux, “On the Conduct and O*ce of Bishops,” On Baptism and

the O4ce of Bishops, trans. Pauline Matarasso, CF DE (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, !AA3) C0. Sixteen of the thirty-seven chapters of this letter-treatise are devoted to humility as the antidote to prideful domination.

32. Mor /0 (CF DE: 22); see also Hum /3 (CF /?:3!).30. Girard, Deceit ?AE.

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Z$8'58G (&858G

/. Renounce will to dominate (Incarnation)

!. Patient submission (Cross)

?. Endure unjust treatment (Death)

ùHumility becomes love of the truth

û

?. Devoted service (Sitting at Father’s right hand)

!. Purity of heart (Power of judgment)

/. Innocence in action (Resurrection)

/. Acquisitive mimesis—(V:V

!. Deferral

?. Endure accusation / o,ense

ùLove reveals victimage process

û

?. Intelligence of the victim /self-donation

!. Intelligence of the victim / empathy

/. Faith, not o,ense

T5Z%$ !: 9)V[585T&I$ T5Z%$

"teps of +escent

Step One: Renounce the Will to Dominate (The Incarnation)

F$8'58G Z$(&': ZY telling his monks to renounce the use of dominance as a way of transcending experiences of o,ense or mimetic conSict. Dominance is an obstacle to receptivity. +e 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 DA./). He notes that the principal reason for the Incarnation was that Christ “wanted to recapture the a,ections of carnal men who were un-able to love in any other way.” (SC !A.D)

Bernard’s proscription of dominance goes to the heart of Girard’s 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.>R +rough the process of internal

CA. Girard, I Saw Satan //; Girard, Deceit, ch. 3, “Master and Slave.”

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mediation, pride is born of comparison. Fascination grows out of ob-serving a similar other with qualities superior to one’s own. +e other seems to enjoy a self-mastery and self-satisfaction that nothing can dis-turb, and thus seems like a god.>- +e observed superiority highlights the observer’s inferiority. +e observer can respond with either admiration or envy. Bernard would call this idolization the primal sin of pride and its o,spring, envy. Pride, by its fascination with the lo;iness 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 o,ense by our own power. +e 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.>. +e behaviors that betray this desire are described in the abbot’s treatise On the Steps of Humility and Pride (the 1rst 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 !2–3/). +ese last three behaviors are characteristic of secular culture’s false transcendence of “following the crowd” or acting for the approval of others.><

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 shi; one’s attention from self to the other, so as to make charitable or other-cen-tered behavior easier and domination unnecessary. +is attention might also be called fascination, and its object will become the object of our imitation. +us 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-

C/. Girard, Deceit /AE.C!. 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, !AAC, p. 2.

C?. Gil Bailie, “Culture, Spiritual Direction, and a Crossroads,” Presence: ,e Journal of Spiri-tual Directors International ? (/00E): !D.

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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 DA. !–?).

A good model does not necessarily mean a good imitation. Bernard o,ers 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 DA.?). Lucifer, the “Envious One” (Hum ?D), is considered less a metaphysical being than a personi1cation of arrogance. Bernard again shows awareness of mimetic e,ects when he notes that those who are not o,ended 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.”>=

+e essential di,erence between these two models of divinity is that one involves receptivity and the other acquisitiveness. +e receptive Christ exempli1es the crucial qualities of non-retribution and forgiveness. To move from carnal love to rational love—the love of the soul—the model imitated makes the critical di,erence (SC !A.0). Renouncing domination leaves one defenseless before experiences of o,ense 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 ?C.E). 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 D,.). 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 . . . .”>>

C3. Girard, Deceit /AA (italics in original).CC. René Girard, ,ings Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, trans. Stephen Bann and

Michael Metterer (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, /02E) ?00.

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Resistance to admitting one’s victimizing tendencies must be shat-tered. +is shattering involves “everything that we can call our ‘ego,’ ‘our personality,’ ‘our temperament,’ and so on.”>@ Humility is truth, and the beginning of the return to truth is to be dissatis1ed with oneself because of one’s falsehood.>B +is break with dysfunctional defenses like arrogance and vain pride is the beginning of the restoration of the soul’s freedom.

Step Two: Patient Submission (The Cross)

H68&:T &: 5 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 Christ’s passion, on the way of su,ering. To su(er means to let be; instead of attempting to gain the upper hand, it means submitting to negative experience as part of God’s plan for oneself and others. +is 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 DA.? Bernard notes that this submission to God was lacking in our 1rst 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 di,erent from the devil’s pride. Although they were punished by banishment from Eden, they merited, by God’s mercy, eventual redemption. +e devil, on the other hand, su,ered “ruin” (Div DA.?). 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 32-CA and Mor !2). 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 one’s acceptance of it is willing and meaning-fully motivated.”>O

CD. Girard, +ings Hidden 3AA.CE. ,e Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse, trans. A. Gordon Mursell, CS /CC

(Kalamazoo: Cistercian, /00C), Meditation /D!.C2. John H. Yoder, ,e Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, /003) /E! (italics in original).

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+e parallel, then, to this step and its meaning is the Cross, in which Christ exempli1ed patient submission in the course of his descent. +e Cross is the center of Girard’s theory. It is when faced with the Cross—lit-eral or metaphorical—that the critical decision for forgiveness and non-retribution is made. +is decision is made deep in the heart where pride lurks. +is puri1cation 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 gi;s we have (Mor /0). +is renunciation undermines pride, because pride is the consequence of comparison with others. Comparison creates the setting for conSictual mimesis and all that follows from it. Bernard is counseling us to accept our created condition without comparisons.

Girard identi1es an inclination—similar to humility—that 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 conSict 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. +is rivalry is less likely if the other is regarded as being of higher status or as being outside of one’s 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. +e de1ning di,erence 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.>Q Humility, however, makes this di,erence accept-able and even gratifying.

In his counsel to bishops (Mor /0), 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 one’s own goodness or sees oneself as the source of the goodness one has), against which Bernard urges a modest opinion of self.@R Second, vain pride arises from a misdirection of the heart’s desire. It involves taking delight in be-

C0. Wandinger, No One 2 ,.; see also Bernard, QH /3./.DA. Girardian Gil Bailie tells us a form of false self-transcendence that is akin to this is that of

self-justi1cation. At its extreme it leads to scapegoating (Bailie ?/).

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ing praised by others. Here the abbot cautions against setting too much stock in one’s reputation in the eyes of others. +ese two forms of pride are parallel to steps 1ve (singularity) and six (self-conceit) in his treatise on the Steps of Humility and Pride (3!–3?). Pride ignites envy. We have already seen that both authors metaphorically locate envy in the eyes. Girard writes, “+e 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.”@-

Most important, seeing oneself on the lower end of a social di,erence 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 identi1es with those o,ended by the order of the world is less likely to be o,ended by Jesus. In step two one becomes acquainted with powerless-ness. +is identi1cation with the victim is at the heart of Bernard’s steps of truth and mercy and is the prerequisite for the intelligence of the vic-tim in the imitation of Christ.

+is experience of powerlessness—and the dying to old conscious-ness that it requires—will 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 inde1nitely a judgment about where one is headed, even if one is headed into an abyss.”@. 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 patiently—as opposed to inciting others to share our discon-tent—is the way we specify the sole object of our faith. We thus begin the return to simplicity.

D/. Girard, Deceit /C (italics in original).D!. Jerome A. Miller, ,e Way of Su(ering: A Geography of Crisis (Washington, D.C.: George-

town UP, /022) 2?.

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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.

]6$ [585%%$% T) 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.@< Citing the parable in Lk 2:/?, 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 DA.?). +e proof of whether this step has been taken or not will be found later in the 1rst step of ascent (Div DA.3).

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 DA.3). Girard might see this step as learning to endure accu-sation and o,ense without resorting or reverting to dominance through acquisitiveness and scapegoating. He emphasizes strongly that this learn-ing cannot take place without a divine model.@=

+is step involves opening the self to a new way of meeting experi-ences of o,ense. O,ense is always personal; its confrontational nature makes it hard to shrug o,. Its power comes from the fact that it usu-ally attacks what one experiences as the deepest self at the level of one’s strongest allegiances. It precipitates a crisis, and the crisis reveals what matters most to the heart.@> For both Girard and Bernard, this crisis is the moment of conversion. +e opposite of o,ense is faith, but such faith can only be reached through the possibility of o,ense.@@ Genuine surren-der means allowing oneself to be drawn more deeply into what is most

D?. See Bernard, SC !A.D–0; and Casey, Athirst !A3.D3. Girard, I See Satan /3.DC. David McCracken, ,e Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story, and O(ense (New York: Oxford

UP, /003) ??.DD. McCracken /0.

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threatening. Such surrender is di*cult, given that the whole motive for becoming an adult was to avoid vulnerability.

Here one learns that the structures holding one’s world together—and thus making it a world—can be shattered. Willingness to endure the transitory for the sake of something greater than the self is the beginning of the soul’s recovery of its immortality. To face one’s 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. +is transformation is not accomplished; it is su,ered.

)he )ransition to 5ove

F$8'58G ^8&T$:, “\) far it is truth that compels your humility, it is as yet untouched by the inpouring of love” (SC 3!.D). 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.” +is self-disclosure, though, is to be regulated by love; it must not o,end (SC 3!.D). Concern about repu-tation is a craving for glory. +e order of the world depends on mutu-ally rivalistic imitation and exclusion in pursuit of a grasped glory that is possessed with di*culty. Truth, informed by love, changes that dynamic. +ose who receive their sense of self-worth from the imitation of Christ and thereby from the Father will discount the opinion of peers.@B

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 a,ections, from the will . . .” (SC 3!.2).

Girard also sees love as crucial to the development of paci1c 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,

DE. James Alison, Raising Abel: ,e Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (New York: Crossroads, /00D) /2A–2/.

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the spirit of revenge and recrimination. . . . Only Christ’s 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.@O

Girard cites Friedrich Nietzsche, in ,e 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.”@Q

With this shi; in the motive of humility, one is ready to continue the imitation of Christ in his ascent.

)he "teps of 6scent

Step One: Innocence in Actions (The Resurrection of Christ)

F$8'58G [%59$: T6&: 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 shi; in perception. +is new outlook is what the disciples experienced upon seeing the Risen Lord. +e pride of acquisitive desire has been broken by the experience of the Cross. One can be comfortable as a receiver. +e 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.”BR

+e 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 Father’s will. O,ense has been met with faith. +e 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 !A.0).

D2. Girard, +ings Hidden !ED–EE.D0. Girard, +ings Hidden !E2.EA. Samuel Shoemaker, If I Be Li7ed Up (New York: Revell, /0?/) /? (italics in original).

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Step Two: Purity of Heart (Christ’s Power of Judgment)

F$8'58G :$T: T6&: step in parallel with the second step of descent, indi-cating that patiently submitting to the Cross leads to purity of heart. +e Lord, Bernard points out, can judge because he was unjustly judged (Div DA.3). +e seniors who have endured the process of puri1cation have gained knowledge that is helpful to those currently undergoing it. +ey are in a position to judge what the newcomer needs in order to persevere. +ey can see through the neophyte’s balking. +ey can empathize.

+e 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. +e forgiveness of the resurrection makes this new state of a,airs 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 su,erings, in itself when we contemplate it with a clean heart” (Hum D). He notes that in the Beatitudes Christ placed the merciful before the pure of heart. “[+e merciful] are weak with the weak; they burn with the o,ended” (Hum D).

Girardians would see the experience of empathy as the 1rst compo-nent of intelligence of the victim. +e 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)

_' [585%%$% ^&T6 the 1rst 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 DA.3). Again he says elsewhere: “+e only ones who can instruct the brethren are those who are merciful, those who are meek and humble” (Hum /3).

+e 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-

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ing about Jesus, about the Father, and about humans. One knows how to be content as an undeserving receiver. One’s former consciousness was constituted in rivalry and survival by exclusion in mimesis of “the mob.”B- 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 o,ered his or her life (i.e., as it was understood prior to entry) as a ransom for those who follow a;er. A ransom is an act of freeing done by one already free. Like the child whom Jesus o,ered 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

L$(58G&'( )J8 %)'(&'( for completion, René Girard says: “We expect our being to be radically changed by the act of possession.”B. “Our ‘I’ is formed by our relationality with that which masters us, be it God or the sinful order.”B< 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.” +at 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.

+is 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 conSictual mimesis are carried to their con-clusion, the result is the scapegoating of an innocent victim and the at-tainment of communal—false—peace. +e object of monastic life is true peace, which is received by paci1c mimesis of the victim, Jesus Christ. +is mimesis requires self-sacri1ce rather than the sacri1ce of others.

E/. Alison, Joy 2A–2/.E!. Girard, Deceit C?.E?. Alison, Joy /CA.

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By studying Bernard in the light of Girard we are able to see, 1rst, the place Bernard’s 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 o,er it to God. It is important to 1nd 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 relatives—power, nobility, wealth and honors—you are not to love in yours” (Meditation CE).

New Melleray AbbeyDD?! Melleray Circle

Peosta, IA C!AD2brjonah@newmelleray.org