Cornelius a Lapide

Verse 8. To my cavalry in Pharaoh's chariots have I compared you, my friend.

In place of "equitatui," the Hebrew has לְסֻסָתִי lesusathi, that is, as the Septuagint has it, τῇ ἵππῳ, that is, "to my mare," or rather "to my cavalry"; the Syriac: "I have compared you to my mare in Pharaoh's chariot"; the Arabic: "I have named (praised, celebrated) you, O my neighbor, by my horse among Pharaoh's chariots." Now

First Sense.

First, some think that Solomon here compares his bride to a certain chariot-mare, most choice, most noble, and most beautiful, which he himself, for his delight, used in driving Pharaoh's chariots; or by which Pharaoh brought his daughter by chariot to Solomon, as a bride to a bridegroom: by which symbol it is signified that the bride and the bridegroom are like a horse and a mare, drawing with equal accord that same chariot of marriage and of life; for from this yoke of horses, marriage has been called conjugium, because spouses are, as it were, two horses yoked together to the same chariot, so that they may bear the works of marriage with equal shoulders, and overcome its difficulties with equal strength. Again, by this symbol it is signified that the bride ought to accommodate herself to the husband's ways, and that he in turn should adapt himself to the bride's weakness, just as, in drawing the chariot, yoked horses accommodate themselves to one another. By this metaphor of the mare, therefore, is signified the mutual love of bridegroom and bride, mutual regard, mutual concord, mutual labor, mutual compliance and duty. Thus the Lyric poet compares a beautiful maiden to a mare: Who, like a three-year-old mare on the broad plains, / frolics friskily, and fears to be touched.

There is a well-known proverb: The Thessalian mare. The mare, therefore, denotes, first, the swiftness of the Church: for mares are swifter than horses, as is especially plain in the Spanish breed; thus Theodoret: The Bridegroom, he says, when he saw the bride, roused by the ardor of love and running hastily to him, declared her like a brazen-footed mare. Second, her obedience and mortification, in that, though she lived untamed in paganism, she has now bowed her neck to the yoke of Christ. So St. Ambrose, Sermon 2 on Psalm 118. Third, her breadth, in that she has run most swiftly through the whole world, and spread abroad the faith of Christ. The bride (of Christ), says the same St. Ambrose, began, through concord and popular gentleness, to be exalted, and to be carried about the whole world as it were a chariot, and, borne above the world by swift horses, she ascends to Christ. Fourth, her fruitfulness; thus St. Ambrose, On Isaac and the Soul, ch. 4: The labor of virtue, he says, seeks victory, that it may be compared to that mare which is Solomon's, swift to run, apt for pasture; since the fruitfulness of the soul is desired and sought. This soul is judged like to that mare, that is, of prophetic or apostolic virtue: because it is numbered among that flock which, by the fruitfulness of its preaching, has sprinkled the whole extent of the world, and though established in the body, has felt no loss of spiritual course.

Second, you may take this more forcefully of war-cavalry. For he alludes to the war-horses which Solomon used to buy for himself from Pharaoh out of Egypt: for Egypt was fertile in the best horses. See the history, 3 Kings 4:26, where among other things it is said: Solomon had forty thousand stalls of chariot horses, and twelve thousand horsemen, etc. The sense, then, is as if he said: You have complained, O bride, that you are discolored by the heat of your persecutors, and that you fear lest, wandering again, you should fall in with companions, that is, my rivals and yours: wherefore you have asked where I lie at midday, that under my shade you may rest safe and secure from all enemies, and pasture and restrain your wanton kids beside the tents of the shepherds: I see you terrified at such great difficulties, persecutors, and enemies; I therefore add courage to you, and I say that I will give you so much strength and vigor, that you may seem like the war-cavalry which Solomon compared from Pharaoh, whereby you may overcome all enemies. For I call you to war, and through you I intend to subject the whole world to myself, that I may drive out from it the prince of the world, the devil, with all his garrison; and I will restore to their own liberty my brothers whom he has reduced to captivity. Indeed, I will send forth from you apostles and apostolic men, who, like noble horses, may run most swiftly over seas and lands, and may carry me, as it were riding upon them, through the midst of the enemy's battle-lines, and bear me about overthrowing peoples on every side. For through me alone, relying on my all-powerful right hand, I will accomplish brave and admirable deeds, and this arduous and memorable war I will finish, conquer, and triumph, by your work as of a victorious horse and cavalry. Hence St. John saw the conversion of the world to Christ through the apostles represented by a white horse: Behold, he says, a white horse, and he that sat upon him had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer, Apoc. 6:2. For this reason he compares the bride, the Church, in chapter 6:9, to a battle-line of encampments set in order.

Again, Pharaoh's chariots, with Aponius, Bede, and St. Bernard, can be understood not as those which Solomon bought from Pharaoh, but as those which God overthrew in the Red Sea: as if he said: You, O my Church, shall be likened by me to my cavalry, which I set against the cavalry and chariots of Pharaoh, when, fighting for the Church and the Hebrews, I routed them and sank them in the sea. In like manner, through you, I will rout all your unbelieving enemies, but in such a way that I make believers out of unbelievers, friends out of enemies, subjects out of rebels, men out of beasts, the living out of the dead, angels out of demons; wherefore I will lead them through the Red Sea, that is, through baptism, reddened as it were with the blood of Christ, into the promised land, not on earth, but in the heavens. So Cassiodorus, Anselm, and Bede, who also add that this was done under the guidance of the pillar of fire and cloud, that is, of the Holy Spirit. See what is said in Exodus 14. Moreover, God's cavalry was angelic: for the angels, fighting for God and the Hebrews, overthrew Pharaoh. Hence John the Carmelite thus explains: To my cavalry in Pharaoh's chariots have I compared you, that is, to the angel by whom, as by my own horse, I was once carried, when I overturned Pharaoh's chariots in the Arabian gulf — you I have made like to him. To this end applies that saying of Habakkuk 3:15: You made a way in the sea with your horses, in the mire of many waters; and verse 8: You who ride upon your horses, and your chariots are salvation, etc. He alludes to Psalm 67:18: The chariot of God is manifold, ten thousandfold; thousands of them that rejoice: the Lord is among them, in Sinai, in the holy place. For that same Psalm 67 treats the same subject of the marriage of Christ and the Church, which

This is concerning, and that you may pasture and restrain your wanton kids beside the tents of the shepherds: I see you terrified at such great difficulties, persecutors, and enemies; I therefore add courage to you, and I say that I will give you so much strength and vigor, that you may seem like the war-cavalry which Solomon compared from Pharaoh, whereby you may overcome all enemies.

This Canticle. So the Chaldean; hear him: When the children of Israel went forth out of Egypt, Pharaoh and his army pursued after them with chariots and horsemen, and the way was closed to them on four sides: on the right and on the left were deserts full of fiery serpents; and behind their backs was impious Pharaoh, and his army; and likewise before them was the reedy sea. What did that Holy and Blessed One do? He was revealed in the power of his might over the sea, when Pharaoh was drowned, and his army, and his chariots, and his horsemen, and his horses; and Israel would likewise have perished, had not Moses the prophet stretched out his hands in prayer before the Lord, and turned away the wrath of the Lord from them; and he himself, and the righteous of that generation, opened their mouth, and spoke a song, and passed through the midst of the reedy sea on dry ground, for the merit of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the beloved of the Lord.

To this Origen adds, who explains it thus: If you wish to understand, O bride, how you ought to know yourself, learn to whom I have compared you, and then you will see that you are such a one as ought not to be put to shame, when you have known your own beauty. For you have been made like to my cavalry in Pharaoh's chariots: since, as much as my cavalry differs from Pharaoh's horses, by so much are you better than all daughters, you, my friend.

But Haymo understands by the cavalry of God the very children of Israel saved in the Red Sea, to whom the Church becomes like, when she is saved through the water of baptism.

Symbolically, Sotomajor thinks this to be the cavalry of love, by which the bride conquered and bound the bridegroom to herself, as if he said: Indeed, O dearest bride, as soon as I saw you, you bound me wholly and entirely to yourself, and you utterly stormed my mind, as it were, by your surpassing beauty and loveliness, so strongly and so vehemently, that you may seem to me no less strong and powerful in love than that cavalry of mine, joined to Pharaoh's chariots, is strong and mighty in war for fighting and conquering, and for routing the enemies of the people of God. Thus Plato in the Symposium, On Love, among the other excellences of love, sets down this as chief, that it is most powerful and most strong, and even stronger than Mars himself, that is, the god of war and the author of war. For thus he says there: As for fortitude, moreover, not even Mars resists love. For it is not Mars who holds love, but love — of the goddess of love, as it is said — that holds Mars. But that which holds is more powerful than that which is held. And he who rules over the strongest of the rest must without doubt be judged strongest of all. More divinely does St. Bernard, Sermon 64, exclaim: O sweetness! he says, O grace! O force of love! Has the highest of all thus been made one of all? Who did this? Love, ignorant of dignity, rich in condescension, powerful in affection, effective in persuasion. What more violent? Love triumphs over God. Yet what is so far from violent? It is love. What is this force, I ask, so violent unto victory, so conquered unto violence? In the end he emptied himself, that you may know that it was of love, that

To this St. Gregory adds: By the kids, he says, unclean thoughts are designated; by the tents of the shepherds the conventicles of heretics are expressed. He, therefore, who does not know how to fight, pastures kids beside the tents of the shepherds: because whoever does not manfully resist the swords of temptation opposing him, nourishes unclean thoughts in his heart like wanton kids, and becomes like to him also who falls away from the faith. But the soul which desires to be made the bride of Christ, Christ teaches how she ought to conduct herself, when he says to her at once, by way of comparison: To my cavalry in Pharaoh's chariots have I compared you, my friend.

And St. Bernard, Sermon 35, who takes this as a threat, as if he said: If you do not know, that is, if you do not consider, do not weigh, do not contemplate the immense heavenly goods which I have partly given you and partly promised you, go forth from my sanctuary, your heart, where you were wont sweetly to draw the secret and sacred senses of truth and wisdom, and entangle yourself rather, as with worldly things, in feeding and delighting the senses of your flesh. By "kids" indeed (which signify sin, and are to be set on the left hand at the judgment) he means the wandering and wanton senses of the body, through which sin, like death, entered through windows into the soul. To which also that which follows in Scripture well agrees: Beside the tents of the shepherds.

covered with the gold of a true conscience, how gleaming in all holy conduct are these, who, having been Pharaoh's, have been made Christ's chariots, is clearly recognized, where the Lord's own horses are said to draw them. To whom also, for sublime praise, Christ likens his own soul, saying: To my cavalry, and the rest.

Hear St. Gregory: We know that the Israelite cavalry, fleeing, left the chariots of Pharaoh sunk in the sea, yet did not at once enter the land of promise; but first endured many temptations in the wilderness for forty years, conquered many kings with many labors, and so at last received, laboriously acquired, what had been promised to it. To this the holy soul, the friend of the Bridegroom, is made like, who first, in baptism, left all her sins extinguished as it were Pharaoh's army; and afterward, while she lives among the inhabitants of this world, that is, the malignant spirits, overthrows the vices pressing upon her as it were foreign kings, and so at last arrives at the blessed land, in which she may delight with the Bridegroom. See St. Bernard, Sermon 39, where by Pharaoh's chariots he understands all the vices, especially malice, luxury, and avarice, and assigns to each its own charioteers and similar horses.

Second Partial Sense, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.

By the mare and the cavalry, first, Philo Carpathius, reading "my horse," and three Fathers in Theodoret, understand the apostles, upon whom, as upon horses, Christ, sitting, routed Pharaoh's chariots, that is, the unbelieving nations, and subjected them to himself, and, riding upon them swiftly and strongly as it were, at once drove the chariot of his Gospel around through all nations. Thus, as Elijah ascended into heaven in a fiery chariot with fiery horses, Elisha cried out after him: My father, my father, (you are) the chariot of Israel, and its charioteer, 4 Kings 2:12, as if he said: You, O Elijah, carried the Israelite people, as a chariot, by your merits, and ruled them, as a charioteer, by your counsels. Now that you are caught up into heaven, who shall carry and rule Israel?

Second, the Nyssene, Aponius, and St. Bernard understand by the cavalry the angels, who, just as of old, as God's horsemen, they overthrew Pharaoh's chariots in the sea, so now overthrow demons, and any men assailing the soul of the just.

Third, Origen, Homily 2 of the Four, and from him Aponius, understand by the cavalry souls, which, out of unbelief or sin, through the preaching of the apostles and the grace of Christ, have been brought over to faith and holiness, and so, out of the devil's cavalry, have been made the cavalry and mares of God; for, as Thomas the Cistercian says here: All who do evil are horses in the chariots of Pharaoh, that is, of the devil, by whom, as by a charioteer, they are directed and driven; but these, once converted, become God's horses in Christ's chariots, when they take up the bridle of his discipline, bear the yoke of the Gospel, and are driven by his spirit. Hence Aponius explains "in the chariots" from Pharaoh's chariots. For they, with Christ as their rider, allow themselves to be bent to every good, whithersoever it pleases him, and to be restrained from every evil, however delightful and desirable, as I said at Apoc. 6:2. When the great rider is changed, says Aponius, the horses that carry the Holy Spirit become great. And he in whom Pharaoh — who is interpreted as "destroying" or "scattering" them, and who is certainly understood as the prince of the world — used to sit, is now carried in them by the prince of the heavenly army, Christ: and those whom the ministers of Antichrist's vices used to lead through the rocky valleys of crimes, are now drawn through the fields of justice by the powerful and gentle horses, the apostles, by life, example, and sound doctrine, in which fields the will and the rational sense are the wheels; the pole, performing its office, is that by which each one is made either Pharaoh's or Christ's chariot. And how splendid they are

Fourth, Origen, Homily 2 of the Four, and Theodoret, understand by the mare the most holy soul and humanity of Christ, upon which the divinity sat, and drove it, as a charioteer, through so many heroic works of every virtue (for the humanity of Christ is here the primary bride, whom the Word, as bridegroom, betrothed to himself, as I said in the Proem, chapter II): for Christ likens the soul of the just to his own humanity, as if he addressed it thus: You, having been made a soul near to me, and therefore called "near," and having in fact obtained the fruit of the name, I say to be like my own mare, using which I submerged the intelligible Pharaoh, and I have bestowed liberty upon you, according to that saying: Who will refashion the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory, Phil. 3:21. And: But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Cor. 3:18.

Fifth, St. Jerome, on that verse, Habakkuk 3:8: You who ride upon your horses, thinks that the soul of the just is here compared to a horse properly so called, in that, like a horse lacking reason and will, it ought to allow itself to be bridled and ruled by Christ its charioteer and rider, and to say with the Psalmist: I am become as a beast before you, Psalm 72:23.

More fully, St. Bernard, Homily 39, shows that the holy soul is not only a mare, but the most powerful cavalry of God: Nor will you wonder, he says, that a single soul is likened to a multitude of cavalry, if you consider how many battle-lines of virtues are held in that one soul, provided it be a holy soul; how great an ordering there is in its affections, how great a discipline in its manners, how great an armor in its prayers, how great a strength in its actions, how great a terror in its zeal, how great

confique its own persistence in conflicts with the enemy, the multitude of triumphs. This manifold victory over the enemy he then narrates point by point, after a few remarks: There the people was led out of Egypt, here man out of the world; there Pharaoh is overthrown, here the devil; there Pharaoh's chariots are overturned, here carnal and worldly desires, which war against the soul, are overthrown; those in the waves, these in weeping; those of the sea, these of bitterness. I think the demons even now cry out, should it happen that they fall upon such a soul: Let us flee from Israel: for the Lord fights for them against us, Exodus 14:25. Therefore the obedient and holy soul is God's mare and cavalry, because, for obeying and for every good work which God commands or counsels, it runs forward most promptly, most swiftly, most effectively, and with the whole force of its spirit, after the manner of the angels, of whom the Psalmist sings, Psalm 103:4; and the Apostle, Hebrews 1:7: Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

Third Principal Sense, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

Rupert, understanding by the mare and the cavalry the rod of Moses, by which, as by a cavalry, God overthrew Pharaoh and sank him in the sea, asserts that the Blessed Virgin is denoted by the same: For just as that rod, he says, devoured the rods of the sorcerers and enchanters, and crushed all Egyptian pride, and afterward budded, put forth leaves, flowered, and brought forth fruit, not planted, not quickened by the sap of the earth, but advanced beyond the use of nature by heavenly power: so you, most beautiful of women, my friend, have destroyed all heretical depravity, have cast down the devil's pride, flowering in conception, fruitful in childbirth; a virgin in conception, incorrupt in childbirth; a virgin before childbirth, incorrupt after childbirth. Are you not, then, the most beautiful of women? Truly the most beautiful.

Hence the Blessed Virgin crushed the head of the serpent, that is, of Lucifer, and of all his followers, Genesis 3:15, such as the heretics are: wherefore the Church truly and rightly sings to the Blessed Virgin: You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world. That this is truly attributed to her is clear from the history of all heretics and of all ages.