terrifying climaxes of St. Bernard when preaching upon the same topic—the Judgment Day. In one of his famous sermons on Canticles, the saint has been suggesting to his audience, the monks of Clara Vallis, that although the Father might ignore faults, not so the Dominus and Creator: "et qui parcit filio, non parcet figmento, non parcet servo nequam." Listen to the carrying out and pointing of this thought:
"Pensa cujus sit formidinis et horroris tuum atque omnium contempsisse factorem, offendisse Dominum majestatis. Majestatis est timeri, Domini est timeri, et maxime hujus majestatis, hujusque Domini. Nam si reum regiae majestatis, quamvis humanae, humanis legibus plecti capite sancitum sit, quis finis contemnentium divinam omnipotentiam erit? Tangit montes, et fumigant; et tam tremendam majestatem audet irritare vilis pulvisculus, uno levi flatu mox dispergendus, et minime recolligendus? Ille, ille timendus est, qui postquam acciderit corpus, potestatem habet mittere et in gehennam. Paveo gehennam, paveo judicis vultum, ipsis quoque tremendum angelicis potestatibus. Contremisco ab ira potentis, a facie furoris ejus, a fragore ruentis mundi, a conflagratione elementorum, a tempestate valida, a voce archangeli, et a verbo aspero. [Feel the climax of this sentence, which tells the end of the sinner.] Contremisco a dentibus bestiae infernalis, a ventre inferi, a rugientibus praeparatis ad escam. Horreo vermem rodentem, et ignem torrentem, fumum, et vaporem, et sulphur, et spiritum procellarum; horreo tenebras exteriores. Quis dabit capiti meo aquam, et oculis meis fontem lacrymarum ut praeveniam fletibus fletum, et stridorem dentium, et manuum pedumque dura vincula, et pondus catenarum prementium, stringentium, urentium, nec consumentium? Heu me, mater mea! utquid me genuisti filium doloris, filium amaritudinis, indignationis et plorationis aeternae? Cur exceptus genibus, cur lactatus uberibus, natus in combustionem, et cibus ignis?"[1]
As one recovers from the sound and power of this high-wrought passage, he notices how readily it might be turned into the form of a Latin hymn; and also how very modern is its sequence of words. Bernard's Latin could whisper
- ↑ Sermo xvi. (Migne 183, col. 851). The power of this passage keeps it from being hysterical. But the monkish hysteria, without the power, may be found in the writings of St. Bernard's jackal, William of St. Thierry, printed in Migne, Pat. Lat. 180. Notice his Meditationes, for example; also his De contemplando Deo, printed among St. Bernard's works (Migne 184, col. 365 sqq..).
