St. Bernard assigns to Pharaoh’s chariots that pursued the Israelites certain malevolent qualities, Malice, Sensuality and Avarice. Move over William Langland and make room for Bernard. The Chariot of Malice is described below and St. Bernard goes on with equally metaphoric descriptions of Sensuality and Avarice.
6. And now let us look at the chariots prepared by Pharaoh
for his princes to persecute the people of God. Malice has a chariot with four
wheels named Cruelty, Impatience, Recklessness and Impudence. This chariot’s
swift sorties mean the shedding of blood. 25 nor can it be stopped
by innocence, nor delayed by patience, nor checked by fear nor inhibited by shame.
It is drawn by two vicious horses ready to destroy as they go, earthly Power
and worldly Pomp. They are the source of its dazzling speed, for Power gallops
where evil beckons, and Pomp courts popular favor in pursuit of dishonest ends.
Hence the Psalmist says that the sinner is praised for his evil desires and the
honest man gets a blessing; 26 hence, too, the other words:
"This is your hour and the power of darkness." 27 And
these two horses are driven by two coachmen call Arrogance and Envy; Arrogance
drives Pomp, Envy urges on Power. The former is borne rapidly along by a
diabolical love of vain display that fills his heart. But the man with genuine
self-possession, who is prudently circumspect, seriously concerned about
modesty, firmly established in humility, wholesomely chaste, will never be
lightly carried away by this empty wind. In a like manner the beast of earthly
Power is driven by Envy, urged on by jealousy’s spurs, by worry about possible
failure and the fear of being surpassed. One spur is the haunting fear of being
supplanted, the other the fear of a rival. These are the goads by which earthly
Power is ever disquieted. This is what one finds in the chariot of Malice.
CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES: NUMBER SEVEN - BERNARD OF
CLAIRVAUX - Song of Songs II
