Chapter IX. St. Bernard invites the Pope to consider what he is by nature

Now we see tube you are; but do not forget what you are. I, at all events, have not forgotten my promise to return to that point on a fitting occasion. And is it not most fitting to combine the consideration of who you are with the consideration of what you previously were ? Why do I say 'were ? You are still what you were. Why cease to regard what you have not ceased to be ? What you have been, and what you are, is one and the same consideration ; your new official character is a different matter. In the scrutiny of yourself the one should not exclude the other. For you are, as I have said, still what you were, and no less what you were than what you have since become, perhaps even more. In fact you were that by nature ; this you have borrowed ; you have been changed into it. The former is not thrown away, the latter is thrown in. Let us treat them both together ; for, as I remember saying before, when they are compared one with the other they will both become more useful. When, 1 Apoc. xvii. 15.

fear, full of misery and therefore ever bathed in tears. And, truly, miseries abound, for they are those of body and soul together. How can he escape calamity who is born in sin, with a frail body and a barren mind ? Of a truth he must be full of misery, who through transmitted corruption, the sentence of death, bears the double load of weakness of body and foolishness of heart. It will do you good to unite these two considerations. While you think of yourself as supreme pontiff, bear in mind as well that you not only were, but are, worthless ashes. In your thinking, imitate nature; and, which is worthier of you, imitate the Author of nature, by associating the highest and the lowest things. Has not nature in the person of man bound together poor clay and the breath of life ? Has not the Author of nature in His own Person tempered together the Word and clay ? Take then for your pattern both our original constitution and the mystery of our redemption, in order that, though you sit on high, you may not be high-minded, but may think lowly of yourself, and condescend to men of low degree.