St Bernard's Four Loves

St Bernard of Clairvaux was a twelfth century Cistercian monk, born in Dijon, France. He’s one of those interesting characters whose actions in his era give us pause. On the one hand, he was a big promotor of the Second Crusade (1147-1150), a Crusade which, put simply, did not go according to plan. It was a mess and it left Bernard feeling humiliated. However, this was not the only aspect of his life worth thinking about.

Bernard is a Doctor of the Church. He was a talented orator and writer and wrote a beautiful series of sermons on the Song of Songs as well as a volume called On the Love of God. His spiritual works are well worth the time and attention.

In his book On the Love of God, he marks out ‘four degrees of love’, or four stages that make up the life of love. If you’re a reader of the mystics and saints, you’d be familiar with these already – and with the tendency of mystics to map everything out into steps and stages – but there is something about these stages that is surprising. One’s assumption might be that the highest degree of love that someone could achieve could be to love God for God’s sake (in Bernard’s language) – that is, for who God is.

What could be higher than that?

Well, for St Bernard, the highest degree of love we could possibly achieve, and one which might not even be possible in this life, is actually to love even ourselves for God’s sake – for who he is.

It sounds a bit weird, but we’ll unpack it.

It should be noted, first, that for Bernard God is both the beginning and the end of love. Not just in an abstract way, either, but in a practical, human way. Our love for God has its beginning and its end in him. As Bernard says, ‘The cause of loving God is God . . . It is He who gives the occasion, it is He who creates the affection, He consummates the desire’ (VII). When we set out on the path of love, we don’t do it alone. The very desire to love God has its origin in God.

In other words, we do not love alone.

1. Love of ourselves for our sake

The first degree of love comes from the fragility of our own nature. Put simply, this degree involves just looking after ourselves with no reference outside of ourselves, either in God or in our neighbours. There is something natural about this, Bernard said, something written into our nature; it is good that we take care of our needs and necessities. But what happens, on this love’s more negative side, is that we become too lavish in how we care for ourselves; we indulge too much in extravagance without thought to anyone else.

God has already provided us with an antidote to this, Bernard says: the commandment, ‘You must love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matthew 22:40).

This commandment, Bernard tells us, is not just a commandment to look after the material necessities of other people but to look after their indulgences, too.

Let him be as indulgent as he likes to himself, so long as he is mindful to show the same degree of indulgence to his neighbour (VIII).

Our obligation to love our neighbours puts a check on us, then. It helps temper us so that we don’t simply pursue our own comfort without thinking, “Would I go to this much effort for my neighbour, too?”

2. Love of God for our own sake

This one is quite simple and very relatable. When we do begin to love God, at first it is usually not for who God is but for the help he brings us.

Bernard prefaces this part by saying that God created us with him as our protector. He created us to be able to depend on him. That kind of dependence is good. We wouldn’t be “creatures” unless we were able to depend on our Creator for help. And this degree of love is something we all experience: turning to God simply in times of need and desperation instead of in times of plenty, too.

3. Love of God for God’s sake

The second degree moves fluidly into the third (hopefully). The more we come to experience God’s help and providence, the more we are able to experience who he is:

For we have tasted and know how sweet is the Lord (IX).

This experience of being loved by God should move us to joy, Bernard says, and in that joy we should be able to ‘love the things which are God’s’ simply because they are God’s. Even when it comes to loving our neighbour, what this means is that we don’t just love our neighbour in order to temper our own extravagance, but we love our neighbour as an expression of our love for God, because they too belong to God. We don’t pursue God for any benefit on our part, but because we want to love the things that God loves.

4. Love of ourselves for the sake of God

This is the hardest of all to achieve. In fact, it’s mostly impossible until we come to our resurrected glory, Bernard thinks. This degree of love involves a recognition that God has made all things for himself. Everything that exists comes from God and is destined to be united with God. Therefore, this degree of love is a stage in which nothing we desire, even for ourselves, is anything but that God’s will be done. We don’t even love ourselves for need or pleasure, but everything that happens we primarily take delight in the fact that through it God’s will is being done.

The reason why this is so difficult to reach in our lifetime is because it involves a certain forgetfulness, an ability to lose ourselves in God. It involves becoming ‘inebriated with divine love’ (X). At the end of all things, when God becomes ‘all in all’ (1 Corinthians 15:28), then we will experience that kind of love. But for now, the experiences of it are fleeting and a result of God’s special grace.