Not Knowing Oneself

Si ignoras te... Vox sponsi. Et facit hic tria: Minatur, blanditur sponsae, ponit etiam facultates quibus Ecclesia cognitionem sui possit obtinere. Continuatio. Quaeris cognitionem mei? ad quam necesse est tibi, o pulchra, virtutibus et electione mea ut te cognoscas, scilicet dignitatem tuam quam per fidem dedi tibi, et dando tibi corpus et sanguinem meum, insuper caetera spiritualia dona, quia si ignoras te in qua dignitate sis, ex hoc quod sponsa mea es, egredere de consortio Ecclesiae, et abi, id est longe fias ab Ecclesia, ut etiam perdas virtutes quas prius habebas. Abi dico, post vestigia, id est imitando opera, gregum, et sic pasce haedos, id est in fetidis actibus tuis delecteris, et sint tibi pastus; et hoc, juxta tabernacula pastorum, imitando eos qui se dicunt pastores et in tabernaculis Deo militantes, et non sunt, sed haeretici, vel juxta tabernacula verorum pastorum, et non intra. Volunt enim haeretici auctoritatem suarum immunditiarum trahere ex Scripturis sanctis in quibus viri sancti militant Deo, ut quidam dicti Nicolaitae quorum haeresis reprobatur. Anselmus Laudunensis, Enarrationes in Cantica canticorum, Caput I Source: Migne PL 162.1193b-c

If you do not know yourself... 1 The voice of the bridegroom. Here three things are done, There is warning, there is persuasion of the bride, and he sets down the ways by which the Church might obtain knowledge of herself. To continue, 'Do you seek knowledge of me? Go to what is necessary for you, O fair one, with virtues and my election you shall know yourself, that is, your dignity which I have given to you with faith, even giving you my body and blood, and other spiritual gifts as well, for if you do not know what dignity you have, by which you are my bride, you shall go out from the gathering of the Church, and to go out is to set oneself far from the Church, so that you ruin those virtues which you once had. To go out, I say, is after the ways, that is, in imitation of the flocks, and thus you shall pasture goats, that is, you shall delight in your vile acts, and they shall be your nourishment, and this beside the tents of the shepherds, in imitation of those who call themselves shepherds and fighters in the tents of God, and they are not, but they are heretics who are beside the tents of the true shepherds and not within them. For the heretics wish to draw the uncleanliness of their authority from Holy Scripture in which they are holy men fighting for God, as it was said was the heresy of the Nicolaitans was reproved. 2 Anselm of Laon, Commentary On The Song of Songs, Chapter 1 1 Song 1.7 2 Apoc 2.6,15