Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Chapter Three.
Synopsis of the Chapter.
The bride, seeking the bridegroom in her bed and not finding him, goes around the streets and at last finds him and does not let him go. Then the bridegroom, in verse 5, forbids her to be awakened. Next, in verse 6, the third act of the drama begins, in which those who meet the bride praise her and compare her to myrrh, frankincense, and spices. The bridegroom, however, in verse 7, is praised for the strength of his attendants, and in verse 8, for his cedar, silver, and purple litter. Finally, in the last verse, the daughters of Zion are commanded to turn their eyes from the litter to the crowned bridegroom who was carried upon it. In the first five verses, therefore, Solomon continues to describe and complete the adolescence of the growing Church; but from verse 6 onward he describes the Church's manhood, as it were, and her perfection, as I said in the Prooemium.
Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 3:1-11
1. In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him, and did not find him. 2. I will arise and go about the city: through the streets and squares I will seek him whom my soul loves: I sought him, and did not find him. 3. The watchmen who guard the city found me: Have you seen him whom my soul loves? 4. Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves: I held him and will not let him go, until I bring him into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived me. 5. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the deer of the fields, that you do not stir up or awaken love, until she herself wills it. 6. Who is this that comes up through the wilderness, like a column of smoke from the spices of myrrh and frankincense, and every powder of the perfumer? 7. Behold the litter of Solomon: sixty mighty men surround it, from the mightiest of Israel: 8. all holding swords and most skilled in war: each man's sword upon his thigh, because of the fears of the night. 9. King Solomon made himself a litter of the wood of Lebanon: 10. its pillars he made of silver, its couch of gold, its ascent of purple: the interior he paved with love for the daughters of Jerusalem. 11. Go forth and see, O daughters of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him on the day of his betrothal, and on the day of the gladness of his heart.
VERSE 1. IN MY BED BY NIGHT I SOUGHT HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I SOUGHT HIM, AND DID NOT FIND HIM. VERSE 2. I WILL ARISE AND GO ABOUT THE CITY: THROUGH THE STREETS AND SQUARES I WILL SEEK HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I SOUGHT HIM, AND DID NOT FIND HIM. VERSE 3. THE WATCHMEN WHO GUARD THE CITY FOUND ME: HAVE YOU SEEN HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES? VERSE 4. SCARCELY HAD I PASSED THEM WHEN I FOUND HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I HELD HIM AND WILL NOT LET HIM GO, UNTIL I BRING HIM INTO THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER, AND INTO THE CHAMBER OF HER WHO CONCEIVED ME.
I WILL ARISE AND GO ABOUT (the Arabic has: I will survey) THE CITY: THROUGH THE STREETS AND SQUARES I WILL SEEK HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I SOUGHT HIM, AND DID NOT FIND HIM (the Arabic adds: I called him, and he did not obey me). THE WATCHMEN WHO GUARD (the Syriac has: who went about) THE CITY FOUND ME: (the Arabic adds: and I said): HAVE YOU SEEN HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES? (The Syriac has: have you seen the essence of love, which my soul loves?). SCARCELY HAD I PASSED THEM WHEN I FOUND HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I HELD HIM AND WILL NOT LET HIM GO, UNTIL I BRING HIM INTO THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER, AND INTO THE CHAMBER OF HER WHO CONCEIVED ME. The Arabic has: of her who conceived me.
The connection here is difficult—by what reasoning, that is, these words are linked to what precedes so that the decorum of the drama is preserved. First, our Sanchez says: In the first chapter, the sacred writer eloquently described the desire of the bride, by which she was carried toward her absent bridegroom; in the second, he embraced the bridegroom's blandishments and attentions toward his beloved; in the third, he now draws closer to the nuptials, for he arranges the spouses in the chariot by which, according to custom, they were brought home with applause and music. For among the Hebrews the bridegroom did not approach the bride except after her being led into the bridegroom's house. The meaning of this verse, therefore, is as if to say: I grieved that the bridegroom was absent from my bed, because he could not be in it unless the marriage rites had been performed. Or: I desired to have a companion in my bed, that is, to enter into marriage, because before the nuptials she did not hope that she would ever have in the nights the one she loved. In support of this view, Bernard, in Sermon 75, says the bride, while she was in bed, had sought the bridegroom—not indeed lying in bed, but since she desired the absent one, she had deliberated with herself about searching for him. And the translation of the Septuagint agrees very well with this explanation, for they render it epi koiten, that is, 'unto the bed,' as if to say: I desired the bed, or the marriage union. So says Sanchez.
Second, Genebrard holds that here there is a new drama, or rather a new, namely the second, act of the drama; therefore no connection need be sought here, because the events narrated here took place at a different time, namely at night, while the rest occurred during the day. Better, Gislerius holds that here there is indeed a new act and a new narration, but one connected with what preceded: for the bride, after the bridegroom's departure, narrates what she once did when she noticed that her beloved had gone away from her—with what zeal she sought him, how she found and held him lest he depart again.
Third, John the Carmelite holds that these words of the bride are brought forward to give the reason why the bridegroom said to her in Chapter 2, verse 10: "Arise, make haste, my beloved"; because, namely, he found her lying in bed or idle; hence he calls her forth from there saying: "Arise, make haste."
Fourth, Abbot Gilbert, who continued the Sermons of St. Bernard on the Song, and here begins his work, connects it thus in Sermon 1: "From the mountains," he says, "he had hastily betaken himself to the bride's bed, where she, aroused and fainting from the abundance of delight, fell asleep, exhausted amid the embraces of her beloved. Delighted, she slept a sweet sleep, but upon awakening this woman of delights did not find him in her hands. Passing over those joys, therefore—those ineffable joys—in silence, she nevertheless burst forth into this exclamation: In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves."
Fifth, more aptly, Luis de Leon holds that the bride, having suffered a fainting spell from love, fell into sleep, and in her dreams or half-asleep said to the young maidens her companions: "The voice of my beloved," and the rest that is narrated from Chapter 2, verse 8, to the end of the chapter. But now, he says, the bride, freed from sleep and awakened, believing that the bridegroom, who had seemed to speak to her during her rest, was lying together with her, sought him; and not finding him, she is said to have leaped from her bed and, having gone out of the house, to have traversed all the places of the city searching for him. In this, Solomon is to be understood not as relating what actually happened, but as setting forth, adapted to the matter at hand, what the nature of the subject demands. And so, because he understood that either propriety was being neglected by him or that a good part of this song would have to be omitted, he therefore took a character from the common people and introduced a woman raised in the countryside, so that with propriety preserved he might express in her the whole force of love. Therefore the bride, stirred partly by the goads of love, partly of fear (lest something bad befall her absent bridegroom during the night), could not command herself to remain at home as long as it was dark; but she leaped up at once, neither frightened by the darkness, nor fearing nocturnal mishaps, nor having any regard for herself, and following love alone as her guide, she tracked down her husband. For that the nuptials had already been entered into between the bridegroom and the bride, and that the bridegroom had come to the bride, is sufficiently clear from what precedes, especially from Chapter 1, verse 3, where the bride says: "The king brought me into his storerooms"; and verse 11: "While the king was at his couch, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance"; and Chapter 2, verse 4: "The king brought me into the wine cellar, he set love in order within me," etc.
On the contrary, Aben-Ezra holds that the bride here narrates things she saw while dreaming, and he proves this from the fact that she says: "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves"; for at night one sleeps and dreams. Who indeed would seek one whom she knows to be present, or absent, in bed? And from the fact that in verse 5, the bridegroom commands that no one awaken her from sleep; therefore the bride was already sleeping and dreaming, which is indeed probable, especially on account of the aforementioned verse 5. If one wishes to follow this, say that here there is a new dream of the bride, partly similar to and partly different from the former one, in which the bride dreams that she anxiously sought her beloved through the streets and squares, and at length after long circuits found him, held the one she found, and did not let him go. For the things one loves and greatly desires, about these one frequently and variously dreams. Hence lovers fashion dreams for themselves, and the desires of lovers are the dreams of the wakeful. Thus St. Anselm notes that it is not surprising that the bride sleeps in bed and at the same time ascends like a column of smoke; because the more she is withdrawn from earthly things and, as it were, falls asleep to them, the higher she is elevated to heavenly things.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
First, the Chaldean interprets these words of the Jews, who by worshipping the golden calf lost God's grace and holiness; for he says thus: "And when the people of the Lord Israel saw that the clouds of glory had been taken away from them, and the crown of holiness, which had been given to them at Sinai, had been removed from them, they remained darkened like the night, and they sought the crown of holiness which had been taken from them, and did not find it."
Second, Titelmann and others take these words as referring to the state of the old Synagogue, or more generally to the state of human nature before the coming of Christ, and then to the new Church after His coming. For the human race before Christ, wretched from the fall of Adam, lying in the bed of its infirmity, sluggish and sick for every good, and that in the night of unbelief and ignorance, sought in the law of nature from its wise men, sophists, and philosophers a remedy for so great an evil—namely the supreme good, or where human happiness consisted, and the way to attain it. But it drew nothing solid or true from them, since they trusted in the blind capacity of their own minds, when it ought to have left its bed and passed over to the light of divine grace, without which the bridegroom—who alone makes happy the soul that seeks and loves Him—is sought in vain and is not found. So too the Synagogue lay sluggish and infirm in the bed of the Mosaic law, and in the night of shadows, that is, of figurative ceremonies, and sought the bridegroom through the streets and squares, when, trusting in the letter of the law and attending to the merits and examples of the fathers Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., through purificatory ceremonies and animal sacrifices and those shadowy judgments, she strove to justify herself and earn God's favor. But not finding him there, she went to the watchmen of the city, namely the scribes and Pharisees, and sought him from them; but she received no fitting answer from them. When therefore, having despised their vain traditions and rejected their false teaching, she transferred her ears and mind to the new doctrine of Evangelical grace coming from heaven with Christ, the Synagogue at last found the one she had so earnestly sought and for so many centuries awaited—her beloved, the true Savior of the world, promised to the fathers from the beginning and prefigured by the various enigmas of ceremonies. Him she had until then, albeit secretly, sought through her typical sacrifices and ceremonial observances, all of which looked to Christ the Savior of the world as to the end of the entire law, according to what the Apostle says: that Christ is the end of the law "for justice to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4).
However, because this Song is an epithalamium not of the Synagogue and Moses, nor of the state of the law of nature and God, but of Christ and the Church, as St. Jerome, Cassiodorus, Bede, Origen, Theodoret, and the rest everywhere teach, hence these words must be explained of Christ and the Church. Now, since, as I said in the Prooemium to the Song, the origin, progress, and perfection of the Church are described—and the origin, or infancy, of the Church was described from Chapter 1, verse 1, to Chapter 2, verse 8; and from there to Chapter 3, verse 6, the progress, or adolescence, of the Church is described—it follows likewise that these things contained in Chapter 3, verses 1 and following up to verse 6, are to be referred to that same adolescence, and that here it reaches its conclusion.
Now the infancy of the Church was from the birth of Christ up to His ascension into heaven and the sending of the Holy Spirit, which contains the deeds of Christ from His nativity up to His death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost. From that point, however, begins the adolescence and propagation of the Church, which the apostles brought about by preaching. Therefore the infancy of the Church is described in the Gospels, while its adolescence is described in the Acts of the Apostles.
The bed, therefore, of the bride here, or of the primitive Church, was the rest of the same, by which after Christ's ascension into heaven, she rested with the Blessed Virgin and the apostles in Zion until Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit; and after that she rested in Zion and Judea for several years, during which the apostles preached to the Jews alone (Baronius counts ten years, but I only four, as I showed at Acts 12:1). Indeed, she thought she would rest there perpetually with her bridegroom Christ; but she did not find Christ there, because few of the Jews embraced the faith, while the rest, along with the scribes and chief priests, despised Christ and the Church, and indeed persecuted them. Therefore the Church, namely St. Peter and the apostles, taught by Christ, undertook the laborious journey and burden of evangelizing all nations, and there they found Christ in the faith, religion, and obedience of all the nations, as is clear from the Acts of the Apostles and from ecclesiastical history. The concatenation, therefore, of the Song, and its exposition, must be sought from the course of Christ and the Church, which is described in the Gospels, the Acts, and ecclesiastical history.
The meaning, therefore, is as if to say: I, the Church, sweetly resting in Zion and Judea, and there devoting myself to prayer, the word of God, and frequent communion, to holiness and every Christian virtue and perfection, as is clear from Acts 1:13 and following—there I sought Christ, but did not find Him, because most of the Jews, clinging to the Mosaic law, rejected the faith of Christ. But Christ resides and is found in the Church, and in the multitude and universality of believers throughout the whole world. For the bride knows that Christ dwells through faith in the hearts of the faithful, as St. Bernard notes. Therefore I said: "I will arise and go about the city" of Jerusalem, and will leave Judea subject to it; through "the streets and squares," by evangelizing, "I will seek him whom my soul loves"—Christ, namely, and the faith and worship of Christ: "I sought him and did not find him," because the Jews resisted Christ and the Gospel.
"The watchmen who guard the city found me"—namely the chief priests, the princes of the priests, the scribes, Herod Agrippa, and the other governors of Judea. I questioned them: "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" Do you recognize the Messiah promised to your fathers? Do you believe in Jesus Christ crucified? But they were silent, and by their silence testified that they did not know Christ. Therefore, "scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves"—when, namely, after the persecution by the chief priests and the death of St. Stephen, that is, in the second year after the passion of Christ, Christ converted St. Paul and appointed him doctor of the nations, saying: "This man is a vessel of election for Me, to carry My name before the nations and kings" (Acts 9:15). And when in Acts 10:11, He showed St. Peter a vessel sent down from heaven, indicating that not only the Jews but also the Gentiles were to be called to Christ and the Church, and therefore He commanded St. Peter to convert the centurion Cornelius, as the firstfruits of the Gentiles, and join him to Christ. Whence shortly afterward, namely in the year of Christ 37, which was the fourth from His passion and resurrection, the apostles, having divided among themselves the provinces of the nations, each set out for his own and likewise converted it and joined it to Christ. There, therefore, in the faith of the nations the apostles found Christ, as if residing and reigning in the universal Church. Then, therefore, the Church said: "I held Him and will not let Him go"; because I will found churches everywhere among the nations, and so with priests, deacons, bishops, sacraments, doctors, preachers, miracles, etc., I will establish them in the faith of Christ, so that they may never reject it, but either simultaneously or alternately and successively hold it firmly, so that always a great part of the world may worship and adore Christ: "Until I bring Him into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived me"—that is, of the Synagogue. For the old Synagogue of the Jews was the mother and parent of the Christian Church. For the first Christians, namely the apostles, were descended from the Jews. The meaning, therefore, is as if to say: I will transfer the faith and worship of Christ from the Jews to the nations, and there I will strengthen and establish Him, until at the end of the world through Elijah and Enoch I convert the Jews. For thus I will "bring" Christ and the faith of Christ "into the house of my mother," that is, into the Synagogue of the Jews, so that all Israel may be saved, and from Jews and Gentiles there may be one fold and one shepherd. This is what the Apostle says: "Blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the nations should enter, and so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Zion the one who shall deliver and turn away ungodliness from Jacob"—that is, from the Jews descended from Jacob (Romans 11:25). So St. Gregory says: "She will bring the beloved into the house of her mother, when at the end of the world the Church by its preaching will introduce Christian sacraments into the Jewish people; and into the chamber, as into the more secret part of the house, she will bring him, because from that same people she will convert so many that they will cast off all the burdens of the world, and in their inmost thoughts will desire to please God alone. Such men will make a chamber for the bridegroom: because when they cast off from themselves all the filth of concupiscence, they will prepare, as it were, a secret place in their mind in which he may delight." So also Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Philo Carpathius, Justus Orgelitanus, St. Anselm, Rupert, St. Bernard, and the rest everywhere, who in the same manner as St. Gregory explain this fourth verse: "Until I bring him," etc. From which you may gather that the preceding three verses also are to be explained in the same way that I have set forth. For the very sequence and connection of the history demands this.
Note that when the bride says she sought the bridegroom Christ "by night," understand this as through darkness, when, namely, the darkness of unbelief and ignorance of God, of Christ, and of salvation occupied Jerusalem and Judea and the whole world. Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 75: "This world has its nights, and not a few. What am I saying, that the world has nights, when it is almost entirely night itself, and always dwells in darkness? The night is Jewish perfidy, the night is the ignorance of the pagans, the night is heretical depravity, the night is even the carnal or animal-like conduct of Catholics. Is it not night where the things of the Spirit of God are not commanded? But also among heretics and schismatics: as many sects, so many nights. In vain through these nights do you seek the sun of justice and the light of truth, that is, the Bridegroom, because there is no fellowship of light with darkness."
Mystically, the bed of Christ was the womb of the Blessed Virgin, likewise the manger, and the tomb, where St. Mary Magdalene and her companions, as well as Saints Peter and John, sought Christ and did not find Him, because He had already risen from it. Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 3: "Is not the tomb a bed? Is not the manger a bed? Is not the womb of the Virgin a bed? etc. Rightly, therefore, the bride, placing the bed, calls it her own: because everything that is weak in God is manifestly not from His own nature, but from ours. From us He assumed what He endured for us—to be born, to be nursed, to die, to be buried. Mine is the mortality of the one born, mine the weakness of the infant, mine the last breath of the Crucified, mine the sleep of the buried. The former things have passed away, and behold, all things are made new. In my bed by night I sought Him whom my soul loves. What? You were seeking in your bed the One who had already taken Himself back to His own place. Had you not seen the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? He has already exchanged the tomb for heaven, and the stable, and you still seek Him in your bed? He is risen, He is not here. Why do you seek the Mighty One in a bed, the Great One in a bed, the Glorified One in a stable? He has entered into the powers of the Lord, He has put on beauty and strength; and behold, He sits above the cherubim, who once lay beneath a stone." And with many words inserted, at the end of the sermon, pressing the words 'I will arise and go about,' he says: "How could she not arise, having learned of the resurrection of her beloved? Moreover, O blessed one, if you have risen with Christ, you must set your mind on the things that are above; and you must seek Christ not below but above, where He sits at the right hand of the Father."
A city is so called because of its gathering, a bride because of her love, sheep because of their gentleness." Whence he concludes, and gives this admonition to the pastors of the Church: "Therefore take heed to yourselves, all you who have been allotted the work of this ministry; take heed, I say, to yourselves and to the precious deposit that has been entrusted to you. It is a city—watch over its custody and harmony. It is a bride—attend to her adornment. They are sheep—attend to their pasture. And these three will perhaps not inappropriately be said to pertain to that threefold question of the Lord: Peter, do you love Me? Feed My sheep" (John 21:17).
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
First, the sinful soul seeks God, that is, its supreme good and happiness, in bed, that is, in the pleasures of the flesh through the nights of ignorance and the darkness of sin. For the bed of the miser is gold; of the proud, honor; of the glutton, delights; of the slothful, idleness, according to that saying of Proverbs 26:14: "As a door turns on its hinge, so the sluggard on his bed." These seek him at night, which is caused by the interposition of earth, that is, of earthly desires, which they pursue, and which interpose themselves between them and God and throw up obstacles, so that they cannot draw in His light. Therefore these do not find God, both because they seek in darkness, and because there is no place or rest for God there. So Cassiodorus, Philo Carpathius, Bede, and others. Therefore the sinful but penitent soul, together with St. Mary Magdalene (whose action is here painted to the life, whence the Church reads this passage as the Epistle on the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene), rises from this bed of pleasure and concupiscence, and goes about the streets and squares earnestly seeking Christ, whom at last she finds in the house of Simon, that is, of obedience, reclining at his couch at mealtime, that He might feed the guests and visitors with His divine words. There, therefore, from behind, Mary Magdalene, washing with her tears, wiping with her hair, kissing with her mouth, and anointing with her hands the feet of Christ, received pardon, grace, and salvation from Christ.
In a similar manner, the holy soul seeks Christ in her bed: first, when she seeks Him in her own comfort; but she does not find Him there, because Christ is not found except on the cross, as St. Martin used to say. So Cassiodorus says: "I will rise from the couch of bodily and carnal delight, and I will go about the city of this world, traversing seas and lands: through the streets and squares I will seek, etc., that is, I will look upon those walking along the broad paths of this age, given over to their pleasures, to see if perhaps I may find in them the traces of my beloved."
Second, when she seeks Him in her own will; but she does not find Him there, because Christ did not come to do His own will, but the Father's. Hence in the garden, as His passion approached, He prayed: "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done" (Luke 22:42). Let her therefore strip off her own will and put on the divine will—whether indicated to her by God or by a superior who is God's vicar and interpreter—she who desires to find God and God's grace.
Third, when she seeks Him in curiosity, curiously going around and surveying all the sects, arts, states, studies, and exercises of men: but she does not find Him there, because this going about makes a person a wanderer, unstable and errant. Hence St. Justin the philosopher, in his Dialogue against Trypho, relates that he visited all the schools of the philosophers—namely of Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Epicurus, the Stoics, etc.—and nowhere found wisdom, but was advised by a grave man who appeared to him unexpectedly to read the prophets. By reading them assiduously, he found what he was seeking: whence, having been converted to Christ, he became both a doctor and a glorious martyr. So today, those who change their states, offices, and exercises of piety and virtue, trying now one, now another, make no progress but waste their time in wandering. For nothing is so contrary to progress as frequent change of exercises, as Cassian, Climacus, Dorotheus, and the other masters of spiritual things teach.
Fourth, the one who seeks Him in his own peace, leisure, and tranquility, when God is calling him to warfare, to business, to labors to be undertaken for the salvation of souls—in this he does not find God; because God assists each person with His light and grace in that state to which He calls him, not in another. Hence those whom He calls to the lot of Mary Magdalene, to them He appears in solitude and contemplation; those whom He calls to the lot of Martha, to them He appears in action—to each in that which is proper and peculiar to him, for which He has destined him. Hence Theodoret teaches that God is not found in the bed of prosperity, since God sends us adversity so that through it He may exercise and increase our patience and virtue. Hear St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, Chapter 5: "There are many who seek Christ in leisure and do not find Him, and seek Him in persecutions and quickly find Him, and therefore as it were after trials, because in the dangers of His faithful ones He is present. How little it was, he says, when I had passed by them, and I found Him!"
Fifth, God sometimes withdraws His presence from the holy and fervent soul, as well as His illuminating grace and consolation, in order to sharpen her desire and more greatly kindle her fervor. So St. Gregory, Moralia Book V, Chapter 4: "The bridegroom hides Himself when He is sought, so that not being found He may be sought more ardently; and the seeking bride is delayed from finding, so that rendered more capacious by her delay, she may at some point find more abundantly what she was seeking." For, as St. Bernard says, Sermon 84: "It is a great good to seek God; I consider this second to none among the goods of the soul. It is first among gifts, last in progress. It yields to no virtue, and no virtue yields to it. To which would it yield, when none precedes it? To which would it give way, when it is more the consummation of all? For what virtue can be ascribed to one who does not seek God, or what limit is there to seeking God? 'Seek His face always,' he says (Psalm 104:4). I believe that not even when He has been found will the seeking cease. God is sought not by steps of the feet, but by desires. And assuredly, a happy finding does not extinguish holy desire, but extends it." The same author in the same place teaches that the soul cannot seek God unless it has been preceded by His grace: "since God first loved us" (1 John 4:10). "By no means at all," he says, "unless first loved." Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 69: "Seek Him," he says, "who first sought you and carried you back on His shoulders"—like a wandering and lost sheep.
Again, St. Gregory, Homily 25 on the Gospels, says: "We seek the beloved in bed when in some small repose of this present life we sigh with longing for our Redeemer. We seek by night, because even though our mind already watches in Him, still our eye grows dim. But the one who does not find her beloved must arise and go about the city, that is, traverse in mind and inquiry the holy Church of the elect: let her seek him through streets and squares, that is, let her look upon those walking in narrow and broad ways, so that if she is able to find any traces of him in them, she may search them out. For there are some even of the secular life who have something worth imitating in their practice of virtue. And those who guard the city find us as we seek: because the holy Fathers, who guard the state of the Church, come to meet our good endeavors, so that by their word or writing they may teach us. When we have passed a little beyond them, we find the one we love; because our Redeemer, though by His humility He was a man among men, yet by His divinity He was above men. Therefore, when the watchmen are passed, the beloved is found; because when we perceive that the prophets and apostles are below Him, we consider that He who is God by nature is above men." He then adds the reason why Christ wishes to be sought: "Therefore He is first sought without being found, so that afterward, when found, He may be held more tightly. For holy desires, as we have said, grow by delay. But if they fail because of delay, they were not true desires. With this love burned everyone who was able to attain the truth. Hence David says: 'My soul has thirsted for God, the living fountain; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?'" (Psalm 41:3).
Moreover, St. Bernard, who composed ten sermons on these words, and indeed in them concludes and brings to an end his sermons on the Song, teaches first that the soul seeks God for seven reasons; for he says thus in Sermon 85: "The soul seeks the Word, that she may consent to Him for correction, that she may be illuminated for knowledge, that she may lean upon Him for virtue, that she may be reformed for wisdom, that she may be conformed to Him for beauty, that she may be wedded to Him for fruitfulness, that she may enjoy Him for delight." Second, in Sermon 86, he teaches that the soul ought to seek God modestly, cautiously, and secretly, namely in the privacy of the bed and of the night. For when "nocturnal slumber induces silence, then prayer will plainly be freer and purer." St. Bernard adds that God is sought in the bed of infirmity, that He may heal it in the nights, according to the saying: "The Lord will bring him aid upon his bed of sorrow; You have turned his whole couch in his infirmity" (Psalm 40:4). And in the night of ignorance, that He may dispel it with His light: "And if it pleases you to understand," he says, "that by the name of the bed human infirmity is figured, and by nocturnal darkness, ignorance equally human, it follows and is fitting enough that God's power and God's wisdom, the Word, should be more urgently sought against both original evils. For what is more fitting than that strength be opposed to weakness, and wisdom to ignorance?" Again, St. Ambrose, Sermon 7 on Psalm 118, says: "She sought by night, that is, in persecutions and adversities. For it is night for all who do not have perfect security."
Finally, the soul seeking God has already in some manner found Him, indeed possesses and holds Him: for she would not seek Him unless she knew, desired, and loved Him. She finds Him, therefore, through faith and hope; she seeks in order to possess through charity. She finds Him absent through desire, in order to hold Him present through joy. She finds and holds through patience, in order to possess through consolation. She holds through the beginning of pious affection, in order to possess and hold through its progress and perfection. She holds through love; she seeks in order to possess through fervor. Whence St. Bernard, in his treatise On Loving God, says: "You are good, O Lord, to the one who seeks You; what then to the one who finds? But this is wonderful: that no one is able to seek You who has not first found You. You wish, therefore, to be found so that You may be sought; to be sought so that You may be found." Therefore God is sought through the beginning of faith, hope, penance, patience, and the other virtues; He is found through the increase of these same virtues, especially of love and charity, as Richard of St. Victor teaches, according to that saying: "They shall go from virtue to virtue; the God of gods shall be seen in Zion" (Psalm 83:8).
St. Augustine on Psalm 104, at the words: "Seek the Lord and be strengthened; seek His face always," says: "God is to be sought without end, because He is to be loved without end." And shortly before: "But if He is always sought, when is He found? Did I say 'always' in this whole life in which we live here, from when we knew we ought to do this—when even after being found He must be sought? For faith has already found Him, but hope still seeks Him; and charity both finds Him through faith and seeks to possess Him through vision: where then He will be so found as to suffice for us, and no longer be sought."
St. Ambrose treats the same matter more fully in Book III, On Virgins: "If you also wish to hold Christ, seek Him continually and do not fear punishment: for among the sufferings of the body, among the very hands of persecutors, Christ is better found. 'How brief it was,' he says, 'when I passed from them, until I found Him.' For in a short space and brief moment, when you have escaped the hands of persecutors and not succumbed to the powers of the world, Christ meets you, and does not allow you to be tempted for long."
Frequent repetition has greatly profited one's progress.
VERSE 2. I WILL ARISE AND GO ABOUT THE CITY: THROUGH THE STREETS AND SQUARES I WILL SEEK HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES: I SOUGHT HIM, AND DID NOT FIND HIM.
For 'streets' the Hebrew has שוקים scheuakim, the plural, whose singular is שוק schok, that is, the shin or leg, which runs from the hip to the ankles, and thence by metaphor means a street or alley, which runs off from a square, just as the leg runs from the body. Whence the Septuagint translate it en agorais, that is, 'in the marketplaces.' St. Ambrose, in Book III, On Virgins, reads 'in the marketplace': for agora is a marketplace, where goods are openly displayed for sale to all, or where assemblies of people customarily take place. Moreover, in a city there are many marketplaces: the cattle market, where oxen are sold; the vegetable market, where greens; the pig market, where swine; the grain market, where grain; the wine market, where wines, etc. The bride therefore indicates that she sought the bridegroom in the vineyards and marketplaces where crowds of people are accustomed to gather: but in a crowd the bridegroom is not found, for he loves secrecy and solitude, or certainly faith and order, such as exists in the Church of the faithful. Hear St. Ambrose, Book III, On Virgins: "Christ is not a marketplace hawker: for Christ is peace, but in the marketplace there are disputes; Christ is justice, but in the marketplace there is iniquity; Christ is faith, but in the marketplace there is fraud and perfidy; Christ is a worker, but in the marketplace there is empty idleness; Christ is charity, but in the marketplace there is detraction. Indeed the marketplace is often the place of thieves; Christ is in the Church, in the marketplace are idols. In the Church a widow is justified, in the marketplace she is cheated. Let us flee the marketplace, therefore; let us flee the squares. For it is not merely an injury not to find the one you seek, but often even to have sought where one ought not is a wound: to have sought in the houses of men who falsely assume for themselves the name of teachers, to have sought too boldly rather than modestly." Nevertheless the bride goes about, because "the flame of love did not allow her to stay at home," says Theodoret. Literally, as I said, it speaks of the apostles going about the streets and squares of Jerusalem, evangelizing, so as to convert the Jews to Christ; but in them they found not Christ but Moses, not the spirit but the flesh, not the truth but the shadow. Whence the Chaldean, judaizing in his usual manner, translates thus: "The children of Israel said to one another: Let us arise and go, let us surround the tabernacle of the covenant which Moses set up outside the camp, and let us seek instruction from the face of the Lord, and the holy majesty which has been taken from us; and they went about through the cities and squares and through the streets, and did not find it."
Mystically, by the streets and squares Theodoret and Aponius understand the Sacred Scriptures; but St. Gregory, Bede, and Anselm understand the examples of the saints, who followed either a stricter (which the streets signify) or a more relaxed (which the squares signify) manner of life.
Anagogically, Gregory of Nyssa understands the orders and states of angels and saints in the heavenly Jerusalem. Whence St. Bernard, Sermon 78, holds that the bride here seeks Christ in the streets and squares where shortly before He had preached and healed the sick; but she does not find Him, because Christ, rising from the dead, had ascended from the earthly Jerusalem to the heavenly one.
Tropologically, the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret say: The city, they say, is the pious soul which in itself seeks the bridegroom through the marketplaces of action and through the squares of contemplation, walking back and forth alternately, and going around from one to the other in turn. So the Anonymous authors.
But Philo Carpathius says: "Through the marketplaces and squares—that is," he says, "from the past actions of my life I will arise, from the custom of evils I will depart, I will examine my conscience and diligently investigate the actions of my life all around. I will reconsider the years of my past life; I will studiously seek in the city, that is, in the Church, in the Sacred Scriptures, in the lives and examples of the saints, how I ought to walk rightly toward God, and how I have lived and walked until now. For I have walked along the broad and open ways of sinners, imitating the common manners and customs of others. On account of this she says she will search through the marketplaces and squares, according to the saying: 'I considered my ways and turned my feet to Your testimonies' (Psalm 118:59). For in the marketplaces and squares are displayed, sold, and dealt in all things suited only to bodily pleasure, by which the souls of Christians are miserably captured and killed. She confesses that she too was troubled by these, and prevented by them from finding the Lord by seeking Him: 'for narrow is the way, and strait the gate, that leads to life'" (Matthew 7:14).
Symbolically, the soul goes about the city when in thought it goes about the world, contemplating heaven, earth, and all things that are in them, as the philosophers did; but they did not find God, both because, although they knew God through creatures as through a shadow, they nevertheless did not glorify Him as God; and because, deprived of the light of faith, they fell into many errors and, going about in circles, relapsed into their own ignorance, and served the creature rather than the Creator, indulging their pleasures, ambition, and honors, as the Apostle teaches (Romans 1:25). Hence in the circuit of contemplation and experience of all the goods of the world, Solomon teaches that he found great vanity and affliction (Ecclesiastes 2:3 and following). Therefore St. Augustine wisely says on Psalm 33, verse 5, at the words: "I sought the Lord and He heard me"—he says: "Do not seek anything else from the Lord apart from Him, but seek the Lord Himself, and He will hear you, and while you are still speaking He will say: 'Behold, I am here.' What does this mean: 'Behold, I am here, behold, I am present, what do you want? What do you seek from Me? Whatever I give you is of less value than Myself. Have Me, enjoy Me, embrace Me. You cannot yet have all of Me; touch Me by faith, and you will cling to Me.' This God says to you: 'The rest of your burdens I will remove from you, so that you may cling wholly to Me, when I shall convert this mortal nature of yours to immortality, so that you may be equal to My angels, and always see My face, and rejoice; and your joy no one will take from you, because you sought the Lord and He heard you, and from all your tribulations He rescued you.'"
Morally, note here that the love of the bride generates in her an ardor for seeking the bridegroom. Hence, although she did not find him in bed, nor in the streets and squares, nor with the watchmen, nevertheless after all these efforts she at last found him. Therefore Richard of St. Victor teaches that the bride, by this her anxious circuit, made great progress in love and in the ardor of seeking. For having suffered rejection three times, her love was more inflamed, just as fire in stubble, fanned by adverse winds, burns more fiercely: "For the frustration of a thing loved is a scourge of love for the lover." Whence St. Bernard, in his Sermon on the Threefold Cohesion of Bonds: "Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice. If you rejoice at labors, if with untiring foot you run the way of the commandments, if every day you are fresher in both states of life for advancing and perfecting than for beginning—then truly you seek His face always."
Symbolically, Richard of St. Victor here teaches that God is found in a threefold creature, as in a threefold likeness of God: first, in animals, the heavens, elements, and mixed bodies; second, in man; third, in the angel, who is the seal of likeness, and in whom from the beginning the likeness of God remains stamped. He himself, therefore, is the mirror of God: "For they are pure (the angels)," he says, "as the holy Lord their God is pure, and so the soul passed from those pure beings to the author of purity, and from contemplations to the One to be contemplated, and immediately found Him; since they are so close that nothing stands between, and after them there is no one to be found except Him. Having found the beloved, and congratulating the angels and commemorating the benefit obtained through them, she says: 'Scarcely had I passed them when I found him, etc.'—that is, as soon as I passed these, I found my beloved; I passed these in order to come, and through them I passed in order to find: for by their encounter and assistance I obtained what I desired, for they both provoked and kindled my desire, and obtained the encounter with the beloved."
Symbolically again, Abbot Gilbert, the successor of St. Bernard in the exposition of the Song, in Sermon 1, says that Christ is fittingly sought in the bed of leisure and mental tranquility, and in the night of forgetfulness of cares and temporal things: "You are well placed in the bed," he says, "if by a certain leisure your mind is freed from occupations and enjoys itself freely. What is more suited to the exercise of love than liberty and leisure? And liberty begets allurement; in leisure, affection is set free and not a little is bestowed upon it." And shortly after: "On the contrary, frequent worldly care renders affection almost insensible and draws, as it were, a callus over the mind. Care entangles the soul; rest untangles it. To what growth do you think unfolded desires expand? You see how many goods are contained in the bed: rest, liberty, allurement. For in the bed of quiet and emptiness, prayers burn more ardently. A place suited to the delight of charity urges the bride to seek more ardently. For there she more painfully lacks the beloved, where she could more abundantly enjoy him. 'In my bed,' she says, 'and by night.'" And with many words inserted: "Good, therefore, is the night, which by a prudent forgetfulness conceals all temporal things in order to seek Him who is eternal—a time that frees and clears away occasions; which hides the concupiscence, the care, the thought of the world. For this is what it means to have the world hidden, or to be hidden from the world. Thus also we may be hidden in the secret of Your face, O Lord."
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Rupert thus introduces the Blessed Virgin speaking: "Already from the time He (Christ) was baptized by John, it had begun to happen in my bed, or in my chamber, in that secret place of my dwelling, that I could not find Him. For immediately He was led into the desert by the Spirit, and afterward returned. He placed the Gospel before my affections, so that He said: 'What is it to Me and to you, woman?' He also taught others to do likewise—namely to leave father and mother for the sake of the Gospel. So with longing I sought, and I could not find Him, so as to possess the solitary One in solitude. Therefore I said: 'I will arise and go about the city, through the streets and squares; I will seek Him whom my soul loves.' I said it and did so: for when He was going about through the cities and towns, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, I followed and sought Him. I sought Him and did not find Him. For He, intent upon so great a work, in a certain way pretended not to recognize me as His mother." And after some remarks inserted to this point: "After this, I stood beside His cross. But was this for me to have found my beloved? Rather, it was for me to have found a sword, which also pierced my soul. He was buried, the tomb was sealed and closed; and with what mind was I seeking Him? With what desire was I longing for Him, knowing that He was to rise from the dead? From there I did not find Him. The watchmen who guard the city found me. Who were these watchmen, or guarding what city? His disciples, who were appointed for this purpose: to guard, indeed to build up, the true city of Jerusalem. And I said: 'Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?' etc. Scarcely had I passed them when I found Him whom my soul loves—and not in any ordinary way, but I saw Him ascending into heaven, and the apostles, when the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven, I saw preaching the glory of the Lord." Now let us call each point back to the anvil, and investigate more deeply through the individual verses certain hidden secrets that lie concealed.
VERSE 3. THE WATCHMEN WHO GUARD THE CITY FOUND ME (whom I questioned, saying): HAVE YOU SEEN HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES?
The Hebrew has: 'The guards (watchmen) who go about in the city found me'; so also the Septuagint, Aquila, and Symmachus. St. Bernard, Sermon 79, notes the vehemence of love in the bride confounding her words: "O headlong love," he says, "vehement, burning, impetuous, you who do not allow anything else to be thought of besides yourself! You disdain the rest, you despise everything except yourself, content with yourself. You confound orders, you disregard custom, you know no measure. Everything that seems to belong to opportunity, to reason, to modesty, to counsel or judgment, you triumph over in yourself and reduce to captivity. Behold, all that this woman thinks and speaks sounds of you, breathes of you, and nothing else. Thus you have claimed for yourself both her heart and her tongue. She says: 'Have you seen him whom my soul loves?' As if these men knew what she was thinking! About the one your soul loves—is it about him you inquire? And does he have no name? Who indeed are you, and who is he?" Whence he adds: "Love speaks everywhere; and if anyone desires to attain knowledge of these things that are read, let him love, etc. For just as one who does not know Greek does not understand someone speaking Greek, nor one who is not a Latin speaker someone speaking Latin, and so with the rest—so the language of love will be foreign to one who does not love, and will be like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."
You may ask who these watchmen, or guardians of the city, are. I answer first: literally, properly, and genuinely, they are the lawyers, chief priests, and rulers of Jerusalem. For it was their duty to point out to the people the Messiah, that is, Christ when He came. These, therefore, the apostles and the faithful rightly questioned about Christ, when by preaching they set before them the doctrine, life, and miracles of Christ, so that, convinced by these, they might answer that He was the true Messiah foretold by the prophets and promised to the fathers. But they were expecting the Messiah as a splendid and glorious king, as another Solomon. Therefore, when they saw Christ humble, poor, and crucified, they despised Him and did not believe that He was the Messiah. See what was said at verse 1.
Tropologically, the watchmen, that is, the guardians of the Church and of the faithful soul, are first the angels, who clearly know the Bridegroom, namely God—indeed they see Him face to face—and instill His knowledge and love into men. Hence pious men often invoke them and consult them about doubts and about the way to find God and please Him. So Theodoret and the three Anonymous authors in his work, Gregory of Nyssa (Homily 6), St. Ambrose (On Isaac, Chapter 5), St. Bernard, Psellus, and others.
Second, the watchmen are the apostles, pastors, and prelates, who diligently watch over the flock, that is, over the faithful committed to their care. These, therefore, by the guidance and direction of their pastors find the Bridegroom. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, and St. Anselm, who says: "They found"—that is, they found me seeking; the holy pastors who guard the Church recognized my affection. When she said that she was first found before she herself found, she indicates to us the vigilance and diligence that pastors must have in the Church—namely that from the moment anyone is moved by compunction, they should be ready to admonish him and draw him to the knowledge of God. The words of St. Gregory I cited at verse 1. Now hear St. Bernard, Sermon 76: "How good are the watchmen, who while we sleep keep vigil themselves, as though they were to render an account for our souls! How good are these guardians, who, wakeful in spirit and spending the night in prayer, shrewdly reconnoiter the ambushes of the enemy, anticipate the counsels of the wicked, detect snares, elude traps, scatter nets, and frustrate machinations! These are the lovers of their brethren and of the Christian people, who pray much for the people and the whole holy city (2 Maccabees 15:14). These are they who, greatly solicitous for the Lord's sheep committed to them, give their heart to watching at dawn for the Lord who made them, and pray in the sight of the Most High" (Sirach 39:6).
Therefore the same St. Bernard, Sermon 77, from this example of the bride, teaches that the faithful in doubtful matters must consult their superiors and obey them; otherwise, if without their counsel they trust in their own wisdom, they expose themselves to the danger of falling: "Let them hear this," he says, "who do not fear to enter upon the ways of life without a guide and teacher, being in the spiritual art both their own disciples and masters. This is not enough: they even heap up disciples for themselves, blind guides of the blind. How many have been found to have strayed most dangerously from this path! Indeed, not knowing the wiles of Satan and his devices, it happened that those who began in the spirit were consummated in the flesh, led astray shamefully, fallen damnably." Whence he draws this admonition: "Let those who are of this sort, therefore, see how carefully they walk, and take an example from the bride, who was in no way able to arrive at the one she desired before she met those whose teaching she would use for learning about the beloved—certainly for learning the fear of the Lord. He gives his hand to a seducer who refuses to give it to a teacher. And he who sends the sheep to pasture without a guardian is not a shepherd of sheep, but of wolves."
Here the version of the Chaldean is relevant, who, judaizing, takes the watchmen of the Synagogue to be Moses and Aaron. For this is what it says: "The assembly of Israel said: Moses and Aaron and the Levites who kept the custody of the tabernacle of the covenant, who went about in a circuit, found me; and I questioned them about the majesty of the glory of the Lord, which had been taken from me. Moses the scribe, prince of Israel, answered and said to them: I will ascend to the highest heavens and pray before the Lord, if perhaps He may be appeased regarding your sins and cause His majesty to dwell among you as of old."
Here the explanation of Aponius is relevant, who takes the watchmen to be Isaiah and the prophets: for they foretell and proclaim the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ so clearly that the reader may easily find Christ in them and from them. Likewise the explanation of Philo Carpathius, who takes the watchmen to be the just, who vigilantly search out and carry out the law and will of God. For their examples, counsels, and admonitions lead us to Christ, that is, to holiness and perfection.
Third, others take the watchmen to be the philosophers, whom the pagans questioned about God and the supreme good; but they heard nothing certain or substantive from them. So Justus Orgelitanus, who introduces the Church speaking thus: The wise men of the world and worshippers of idols disputed against me, investigating many things to no purpose and producing many books in fruitless labors, to whom I said: Why do you torment yourselves with superfluous and vain effort? "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?" Since you glory in the false name of wisdom, God has made your wisdom foolish, because you were unable to find Christ there.
Fourth, others take the watchmen to be heretics, who keep watch in order to spread their heresies, and go about cities and kingdoms to seduce the faithful. When a faithful person passes beyond these and proceeds to orthodox teachers, he finds Christ and the faith of Christ, and true religion. So Gislerius.
Fifth, Rupert attributes these words to the Blessed Virgin seeking Christ either when He was lost in Jerusalem and found in the temple, or when He was already dead and buried: "And with what mind," he says, "was I seeking Him? With what desire was I longing for Him, knowing He was to rise from the dead! From there I did not find Him. The watchmen who guard the city found me. Who were these watchmen, or guarding what city? His disciples, because they were appointed for this purpose: to guard, indeed to build up, the true city of Jerusalem—about which, or to which, the Beloved Himself says through Isaiah (Isaiah 62:6): 'Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they will never cease to praise the name of the Lord.' These watchmen were already watching at that time, because in their mourning and weeping they could not sleep. These watchmen found me; and the women who, watching all night, came to the tomb—who had also bought spices to come and anoint Him—found me, vying with each other to bring the good news that He had risen and that they had seen Him. And I said: 'Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?' 'We have seen,' they say, 'we have seen the Lord. He is truly risen, and has appeared to Simon.'"
VERSE 4. SCARCELY HAD I PASSED THEM WHEN I FOUND HIM WHOM MY SOUL LOVES.
The Hebrew has: 'as a little while, when I passed from them, until I found him whom my soul loves'; so also the Septuagint. St. Ambrose reads it with a question and admiration: 'How brief it was when I passed from them, until I found him whom my soul loves!' As if to say: Vehement love caused all the labor, all the journey, all the time that I spent from the questioning of the watchmen to the finding of the bridegroom to seem to me brief and small; just as it is said of Jacob (Genesis 29:20): "Jacob served for Rachel seven years, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the greatness of his love."
Moreover, the Chaldean refers these words to the construction of the Mosaic tabernacle: "It was, as it were, a little while and a brief time, and the Lord returned from the wrath of His fury, and the Lord commanded Moses the prophet to make the tabernacle of the covenant and the ark, and He placed His majesty in its midst." The literal sense is what I gave at verse 1, namely that the Church—that is, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other apostles—when they had passed beyond the chief priests, scribes, and rulers of Jerusalem, who were rejecting the faith of Christ, went to the Gentiles, and there found Christ in the conversion of all the nations, who, hearing the preaching of the Gospel, immediately embraced it and in it embraced Christ.
Tropologically, first, the soul, instructed by the watchmen—that is, by the angels—ascends to the Creator. These angels are nearest to God, so that if you pass beyond them, you immediately find God, as St. Ambrose teaches in Sermon 7 on Psalm 118. The same author, in his book On Isaac, Chapter 5, teaches that angels are ignorant of certain things, and therefore one must pass beyond them to God in order to be fully illuminated: "The soul," he says, "that seeks God passes even beyond the guardians: for there are mysteries which even the angels desire to see. Whence Peter also says: 'These things were announced to you through those who preached the Gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which angels desire to look' (1 Peter 1:12)." So also Gregory of Nyssa here, in Homily 6, teaches that one who contemplates must pass beyond the angels and all creation, in order to fix the gaze of the mind by faith upon the one and supreme God.
Second, the soul, instructed by the watchmen—that is, by the apostles, pastors, and teachers—and obedient to them, finds Christ, but in such a way as to pass beyond them, that is, not to cling to them or fix her hope on any other than Christ. So St. Gregory, Moralia Book XVIII, Chapter 27: "When the Church was seeking her Redeemer," he says, "she did not wish to fix her hope on the ancient preachers, for she says: 'Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves.' For she could not have found him if she had not been willing to pass beyond them." The same St. Gregory at this passage says: "The soul passes a little beyond the watchmen and finds the beloved: because while she considers that the holy teachers were mere men, she raises her mind to the divinity, and there recognizes her Bridegroom above men as equal to the Father; and she says she found Him then, when, aided by holy labors, she fixes the eye of faith somewhat upon the brightness of His divinity, as upon a mirror in contemplation." So also Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, and others. Cassiodorus adds: "'To pass beyond the watchmen,' he says, 'is to diligently search out their words and teaching.'" St. Anselm adds: "She says 'a little,' because without great labor the knowledge of God is obtained: for from the moment God perceives the affection of one who seeks, He Himself offers Himself and spontaneously presents Himself." True, however, is that saying of St. Augustine on Psalm 104, Conclusion 2: "What is sought with greater difficulty is usually found with greater sweetness"—as happened here to the bride, who therefore adds: "I held him and will not let him go."
Third, Justus Orgelitanus, taking the watchmen to be the philosophers, explains thus: When I had passed beyond the wise men of the world, understanding their wisdom to be foolishness (for "God made their wisdom foolish," 1 Corinthians 1:20), I arrived at Christ, who is the power and wisdom of God.
Fourth, St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac and the Soul, Chapter 5, presses the word 'a little,' as if to say: Shortly after trials and tribulations, Christ is present, strengthening and consoling: "Many," he says, "seek Christ in leisure and do not find Him, and seek Him in persecutions and quickly find Him; and therefore, as it were, after trials, because in the dangers of His faithful ones He is present. 'How brief,' he says, 'when I passed from them! I found Him, I held Him, and I did not let Him go.' For everyone who seeks, finds; and whoever has found must cling to Him, lest he lose Him."
Allegorically, St. Bernard, Sermon 79, teaches that Christ passed in the resurrection and passed beyond in the ascension, and that therefore the bride must follow Him by faith in both, so as to find Him seated at the right hand of God. "Now," he says, "since He had already passed by rising, and had added to pass beyond by ascending, she rightly declared that she too had not merely passed, but passed beyond—she who followed Him by faith and devotion even to the heavens. Therefore to believe in the resurrection is to pass; to believe also in the ascension is to pass beyond." And with a few words interposed: "Therefore, instructed by them about what she lacked—namely that He who had risen had also ascended—she too likewise ascended, that is, she passed beyond and found Him. And how could she not find Him, reaching with the mind to where He is in body?"
Finally, do you wish to find Christ? Seek Him in the manger of humility and poverty, on the cross of patience and martyrdom, in the streets and towns of preaching and zeal for souls, and lastly in the bosom of the Blessed Virgin, that is, in purity and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin—there you will find Him. Hear Philo Carpathius: "O how the soul of the faithful holds Him and (so to speak) constrains Him, when she does what is pleasing and acceptable to Him! For the Bridegroom delights—just as the bride does—in the life, conduct, society, and companionship of the just. And He is held by the works of virtue—not by the hands of armed men, not by the pomp of the rich, not by the boasting of the wealthy, not by the pride of the haughty, not by those afflicted with the disease of gluttony, sleep, luxury, or envy—but by the works of mercy, piety, continence, humility, temperance, benevolence, chastity, and the prayers of the righteous. Then the Bridegroom is most willingly and gladly brought into the house of our mother."
By the house of the mother and the chamber of her who conceived, the Roman Church may also be understood, over which the Supreme Pontiff presides as the successor of St. Peter and the vicar of Christ. This Church is therefore the mother and source of all churches—which, namely, either first converted all the others to the faith of Christ, or, having converted them, nourishes them with the milk of her teaching, as a mother feeds, cherishes, preserves, strengthens, and advances them. As if to say: The bride, that is, the Church of the Gentiles, says: I will not let go of Christ and His faith, but will share it with the Roman Pontiff and the Church.
I HELD HIM AND WILL NOT LET HIM GO, UNTIL I BRING HIM INTO THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER, AND INTO THE CHAMBER OF HER WHO CONCEIVED ME.
The Septuagint has: 'until I brought him into the house of my mother, and eis tamieion, that is, into a chamber'; St. Ambrose reads 'into a secret place.' The Hebrew is אל חדר el cheder, that is, into the innermost room (namely into the most hidden and intimate part of the house) of her who conceived me.
In the chamber and cell are kept all dear and precious things; there also lovers say and transact all their secrets. Hence in that place the bride asserts herself to have been conceived and born, as if to say: As soon as I found the bridegroom, uniquely beloved and sought with so much zeal, I seized him (for this is the Hebrew אחזתיו achaztiw), I held and clasped him, and I will not let him go, but I will bring him into the chamber of her who conceived me, so that there I may enclose him like a most precious treasure, that he may no longer depart from me, but that I may continually be with him, speak mouth to mouth, transact in secret, and devote myself entirely to his sacred love and enjoy him: for in the chamber is the nuptial bed. So Theodoret.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
Literally it signifies, as I said at verse 1, that the Church of the Gentiles, once she received Christ through faith and worship, will never let Him go, but will always remain in His faith and love, until she brings Him into the Synagogue, that is, into the heart and chamber of the Jews (for this is the mother of the Christian Church), and betroths her as a bride to Christ: for in the chamber the bridegroom dwells with the bride. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Alcuin, Bede, Justus, Aponius, Anselm, Honorius, Rupert, St. Bernard, and generally all the rest. Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 79: "He who enters the bridal chamber is the bridegroom. Great is the power of love! The Savior had gone out indignant from His house and inheritance, and now, appeased by her grace, He is inclined to return—not only as Savior, but also as Bridegroom. Blessed are you by the Lord, O daughter, who both restrain His indignation and restore His inheritance. Blessed are you to your mother, by whose benefit wrath is turned away, salvation returns, and He returns who may say to her: 'I am your salvation' (Psalm 34:3). This is not enough: let Him add and say: 'And I will betroth you to Myself forever; and I will betroth you to Myself in justice and judgment, and in mercy and compassion. And I will betroth you to Myself in faith' (Hosea 2:19). But remember that the one who brings about these friendships is the bride. How then does she yield the bridegroom, and such a bridegroom, to another—or shall I say, desire to? It is not so. The good daughter indeed desires him for her mother, but not so as to yield him to her, but to share him. One suffices for two—except that they will no longer be two, but one in him. For He is our peace, who makes both one, so that there may be one bride, and one bridegroom, Jesus," etc.
Symbolically, by the house of the mother and the chamber of her who conceived, Sacred Scripture may be understood, which for the most part was received from the mother Church, that is, from the Synagogue. As if to say: I will strengthen myself and my faithful, and indeed I will convert the Jews through Sacred Scripture, introducing them into its sayings and meanings: for these plainly contain and present to readers the dogmas of the true faith. So Justus Orgelitanus. Hence the Chaldean, judaizing in his usual manner, translates: "And the people of the house of Israel offered their oblations and devoted themselves to the words in the upper room of the house of the teaching of Moses their master, and in the chamber of Joshua the son of Nun, his minister."
Anagogically, the meaning is as if to say, from the Church and the holy soul: I will not let go of my Christ, until He Himself introduces me into heaven, as into a nuptial chamber, so that there I may become one spirit with Him. For the heavenly Church of God, of the angels and the blessed, is the mother of the Church on earth, that is, of the Church militant, as the Apostle teaches (Galatians 4:26): "That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother." So Theodoret and Justus Orgelitanus.
Moreover, the bride does not say: 'Until the Bridegroom Himself introduces me into heaven,' but 'until I bring Him'—out of the confidence of love, as if to say: I will so bind and unite the Bridegroom to myself through love that it will not be so much He who introduces me as I who introduce Him into heaven. This is so, first, because love is bold and imperious: for the lover by love commands the beloved even though the beloved is more worthy, and makes him equal to herself, indeed subject to herself. For the lover, being obedient to the friend, makes him in turn obedient to herself, just as Jacob compelled the angel, and in him God, to obey him and bless him, and for that reason was called Israel, that is, 'one who rules over God' (Genesis 32:28). This is the power of love and obedience. Hence also of Joshua (Chapter 10:13), who by his command stopped the sun, it is said: 'The Lord obeying the voice of a man.' Second, because the holy soul is the seat and vehicle of Christ dwelling in her; therefore she carries Him wherever she pleases, even into heaven, according to the saying: 'Glorify and bear God in your body' (1 Corinthians 6:20).
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
Tropologically, the holy soul seizes Christ by faith and hope, holds Him by devotion, clasps Him by charity, and does not let Him go, but brings Him into the house of her mother and the chamber of her who conceived her, that is, into her mind, which is as it were the mother, nurturer, and nurse of all the soul's virtues, senses, and faculties, so that she may continually think and meditate upon Him, converse with Him and delight in Him. So Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, and others. Hear Gregory of Nyssa: "I will no longer let go of God, seized by the handle of faith, until He is within my chamber, which chamber is my very heart. And this happens when it returns to that state in which it was from the beginning, when it was formed by the one who conceived it." He adds that "one would stray from the truth who would understand by the name 'mother' the first mother of our constitution, which is surely none other than God Himself." And Richard of St. Victor teaches that grace is the mother of the pious soul, which spiritually regenerates her and dwells in the mind as in a house. The holy soul therefore says: I will bring Christ into my mind, so that He Himself may fully and completely possess it, and my mind may fail from itself and wholly pass, as it were, into Christ through love.
"God is held," says Richard, "by devotion, desire, importunity, memory, prayer, faith, and the expectation of being heard; and He is not let go if one does not cease from one's intention, and if one's countenance is no longer changed toward diverse things. She therefore holds the beloved, even though it is dawn; nor does she let him go until he has blessed her. She wrestled with him all night—during which she slept, but her heart watched—because she ceased from exterior occupation and labored in seeking the beloved. Even though through the night she has arrived at dawn, she does not cease from the wrestling, that is, from the insistence of prayer, nor does she let go of the beloved unless he gives his blessing, so that she may go from virtue to virtue and see the God of gods in Zion—that is, in contemplation through a mirror and in an enigma she seeks this blessing and the change of name, so that she may no longer be called Jacob but Israel, and it may no longer be necessary to supplant vices, but that with vices vanquished she may enjoy the purity of virtues and contemplate God: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8)."
Hence St. Anselm takes the chamber of the one who conceived to mean the faithful, who by their holiness make their mind a bed in which Christ may sweetly rest. Here Hugh of St. Victor is relevant, in Book VI of his Exposition on the Celestial Hierarchy of St. Dionysius, who thus addresses the holy soul: "Therefore God will enter into you, so that you may enter into Him; for then you enter into Him when He enters into you. When His love enters and penetrates your heart, and His love reaches the inmost part of your heart, then He enters into you, and you also enter into yourself so as to enter into Him. But it is necessary that He arrive at the bridal chamber and enter the bedroom, and penetrate to your inmost parts, and there rest. Indeed, He perhaps does not love the chamber of the father unless He is brought into the chamber of the mother, where love is more tender and caresses sweeter, so that He may find in you no harshness or rigidity of masculine fierceness, but that everything may be melted and softened by the fire of love." And Aponius says: "When you read the divine law with a pure heart and teach what it commands to be done, you bring the rejoicing Christ into the house of the mother. And when you are worthy to expound His wondrous mysteries, announcing to the blind Jew and Gentile the gift of grace, the true redemption of the human race, you bring Christ being reborn into the chamber of His nurse."
Finally, St. Bernard, Sermon 83, teaches that the Bridegroom is held by charity. For love is a conformity, a marriage contract, and an embrace of bridegroom and bride: "Such a conformity," he says, "weds the soul to the Word, when she who is like Him by nature shows herself likewise like Him by will, loving as she is loved. Therefore if she loves perfectly, she is wedded. What is more delightful than this conformity? What more desirable than charity? By which it comes about that, not content with human instruction, you, O soul, approach the Word with confidence, cling to the Word constantly, question the Word familiarly, and consult Him about every matter—as bold in desire as you are capable in understanding. Truly spiritual and holy is this marriage contract. I said too little in calling it a contract: it is an embrace. An embrace indeed, where to will the same thing and not to will the same thing makes one spirit out of two."
And with a few words interposed he adds: "Love is sufficient unto itself. Love, when it has come, draws all other affections into itself and takes them captive. Therefore she who loves, loves, and knows nothing else. He who by merit deserves honor, who by merit deserves wonder and amazement, nevertheless loves to be loved more. They are bridegroom and bride. What other bond or connection do you seek between spouses, besides being loved and loving?" And soon after: "God demands to be feared as Lord, honored as Father, loved as Bridegroom, etc. Love itself is its own merit, its own reward. Love requires no cause beyond itself, no fruit. Its fruit is its use. I love because I love; I love in order to love. Love is a great thing, provided it flows back to its own source, is returned to its origin, and poured back into its fountain, always drawing from it so as to flow unceasingly. Love alone among all the movements, senses, and affections of the soul is that in which the creature can respond to its Author, if not on equal terms, at least by repaying a mutual exchange of like for like."
From all of which St. Bernard finally concludes: "Granted that the honor of a king loves judgment, but the love of the Bridegroom—indeed the Bridegroom who is love—requires only the return of love and fidelity. Let the beloved, therefore, love in return. Why should a bride, the bride of Love, not love? Why should Love not be loved? Rightly, renouncing all other affections, she devotes herself wholly and entirely to love alone, since she must respond to love itself by giving love in return. For even when she has poured out her whole self into love, how much is this compared to the perennial flowing of that fountain?" Finally, Richard of St. Victor, in his treatise On the Degrees of Charity, Chapter 1, says: "Charity is the life of faith, the strength of hope, and the innermost force and marrow of all the virtues. It orders life, inflames affections, informs actions, corrects excesses, composes morals, powerful for all things and prevailing over all, which renders even omnipotence itself in a certain way impotent." He gives the example of Moses, who by praying out of charity for the people worshipping the golden calf, as it were bound the hands of God, so that He said: "Let Me go, that My wrath may burn against them, and I may destroy them" (Exodus 32:10). And after some remarks: "The only force that can hold God is the force of love, which not only allows itself to be held, but piously complains through the Prophet that it is not held: 'I sought among them for a man who would make a hedge and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I might not destroy it: and I found none'" (Ezekiel 22:30). Finally he concludes thus: "Strong in adversity, but stronger in prosperity: for the love of Christ alone is that which purely scorns and spits upon the blandishments of smiling and mocking fortune, delighted by a sweeter savor, in comparison with which all sweetness is bitter, all joy is sorrow, all beauty is ugliness, all pleasure is vexation." Moreover, Bede and St. Ambrose (On Isaac, Chapter 5) apply these words to St. Mary Magdalene holding the feet of Christ after the resurrection.
Symbolically, Philo Carpathius and the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret hold that the mind is called the house of the mother, that is, of the wisdom of God, which is the cause and mother of all things. For the mind, capable of wisdom, is as it were the dwelling place of the Word by reason of its likeness to Him. It is also the chamber, on account of the hidden treasures of His virtues, which it keeps stored within itself like an image. Hence Philo says: "By the house of the mother, I understand the heart of heavenly wisdom, of the Word itself, and by the chamber of the one who conceived, this same heart. For I think 'house' was said on account of what is read: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them' (2 Corinthians 6:16). By 'chamber,' however (since in a chamber the best and most precious things are placed), are meant faith, hope, charity, justice, fortitude, temperance, patience, virtue—these indeed are ornaments not of the body but of the soul."
Examples of this teaching are David, saying in Psalm 72:28: "But for me, to cling to God is good"; and St. Paul, saying in Romans 8:35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword? etc. For I am certain that neither death nor life," etc. Splendidly St. Bernard, Sermon 79, says: "'It is good as glue,' says Isaiah (Chapter 12:7). What is more tenacious than this glue, which is neither washed away by water, nor dissolved by wind, nor cut by swords? Indeed, many waters could not extinguish charity. 'I held him and will not let him go.'" And the holy Patriarch (Genesis 32:26): "'I will not let you go,' he said, 'unless you bless me.' So this woman does not wish to let Him go, and perhaps even more than the Patriarch she does not wish it, because not even for a blessing—since the Patriarch, having received the blessing, let him go, but she does not do so. 'I do not want Your blessing,' she says, 'but You. For what have I in heaven? And besides You, what have I desired upon earth?'" (Psalm 72:25). "'I will not let go.'" He then adds that Christ holds the holy soul even more than He is held by her: "Nor perhaps does He wish any less to be held, since He testifies, saying (Proverbs 8:31): 'My delights are to be with the children of men.' And making a promise He says (Matthew 28:20): 'Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.'" "What is stronger than this bond, which is confirmed by the vehement will of both?" St. Bernard adds that Christ's introduction into the house brings salvation, but His entrance into the chamber brings a special grace: "It would have sufficed for salvation if He entered the house; but the secret of the chamber signifies grace. 'Today,' He says, 'salvation has been made for this house' (Luke 19:9). Why should there not be salvation for the household, when the Savior has entered the house? But she who merits to receive Him into her chamber has apart her own secret for herself. Salvation is made for the house; in the bridal chamber, delights are stored away."
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin, anxiously seeking the lost Christ, found Him among the teachers in the temple, held Him and did not let Him go, until she brought Him into the house of His mother, that is, into Judea, permitting Christ, and depriving herself of His most sweet presence, so that He might go about preaching through the towns and villages, and unite all people to Himself through faith and grace. Whence she was also the cause of Christ's first miracle, namely the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, on account of which the disciples believed in Christ, as St. John teaches (Chapter 2:11). She will be the same cause why the Synagogue of the Jews at the end of the world will be converted to Christ through Elijah, just as she is the cause why most sinners repent and are converted to Christ, as is evident from the histories and lives of the saints. Finally, she herself, having been brought into heaven by Christ, brings thither the souls devoted to her, as St. Bernard, St. Anselm, St. Germanus, St. Bonaventure, and the rest who have written in praise of the Virgin teach.
Voice of the Bridegroom.
VERSE 5. I ADJURE YOU, O DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM, BY THE GAZELLES AND THE DEER OF THE FIELDS, THAT YOU DO NOT STIR UP OR AWAKEN THE BELOVED, UNTIL SHE HERSELF WILLS IT.
These words are repeated here, for we already heard them at Chapter 2, verse 7; hence it seems that the bride here again fell into sleep and ecstasy. First, she fell into ecstasy at Chapter 2, verse 5, saying: "Support me with flowers, surround me with apples, for I am languishing with love." For vehement love produces ecstasy; indeed, ecstasy is the most sublime and most perfect act of love. "For divine love produces ecstasy," says St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names. From this ecstasy the bride seems to have been awakened at this Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, saying: "I will arise and go about the city; through the streets and squares I will seek him whom my soul loves." But partly from the labor and circuit of seeking the bridegroom, partly from the finding and presence of the bridegroom, about whom she presently adds: "I found him whom my soul loves; I held him and will not let him go"—again from the vehement love and joy with which she was flooded, and as it were melted, enjoying the uniquely beloved bridegroom, falling into his arms and falling asleep, she fell into a swoon and ecstasy, from which the bridegroom forbids her to be awakened. Because just as he most ardently loves the bride, so in turn he most ardently desires to be loved by her and to be held by her loving. For many things in this drama, as in others, are left unsaid; but they are understood from the circumstances and must be supplied by the interpreter.
Parabolically, this signifies that the primitive Church, that is, the apostles, after the labor and distraction of several years which they spent on converting Judea, withdrew for some time to the rest of prayer and the leisure of contemplation, so as to restore the powers of their mind and prepare themselves more ardently for new and greater labors, namely for the conversion of all nations. For this work required an immense spirit, which it was fitting to arouse by prayer and to ask of God. Hence Christ forbids them to be awakened from this so pious sleep and rest. Let apostolic men imitate the apostles, so that after the labors of action, they withdraw from time to time to the leisure of contemplation, to restore the powers of their soul and conceive new ardors for evangelizing.
However, I explained this verse at Chapter 2, verse 4; therefore nothing else need be added here.
Here ends the second part of the book, or the second act of this drama; the third follows.
Third Part of the Canticle, or Third Act of the Drama
Just as in the second act, which ran from chapter 2, verse 8, up to this point, Solomon described the Church's adolescence, that is, her growth and expansion: so in this third act, which begins here and extends to chapter 5, verse 2, he describes her mature age or perfection, by which she was advanced and exalted to her highest pinnacle and summit. In this song, says Titelmannus, which lasts to the end of the chapter, the Holy Spirit speaks, and wonderfully commends the Church's beauty under various comparisons. First indeed, under the likeness of a beautiful woman ascending with great glory amid a great fragrance of spices. Second, under the likeness of the precious bed of King Solomon, always guarded by the protection of the strongest men. Third, under the comparison of a most beautiful and delightful litter, or royal chariot. After which the same Spirit concludes by exhorting the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, faithful souls, to the due worship of the Bridegroom, saying: Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon. See what was said in the Preface, chapter III.
The Voice of the Synagogue First Converted to Christ. On the Church of the Gentiles
VERSE 6. WHO IS THIS THAT COMES UP FROM THE DESERT, LIKE A PILLAR OF SMOKE, FROM SPICES OF MYRRH AND FRANKINCENSE, AND ALL THE POWDERS OF THE PERFUMER?
WHO IS THIS, THAT COMES UP THROUGH THE DESERT (the Syriac and Arabic read: from the desert), LIKE A PILLAR OF SMOKE FROM SPICES OF MYRRH AND FRANKINCENSE, AND ALL THE POWDERS OF THE PERFUMER? That is, of the spice-dealer or apothecary, who reduces spices to powder, mixes, and compounds them, etc.
As regards the dramatic form, the Shulamite is introduced here, that is, the bride of Solomon, tall in stature, advancing with beauty and magnificence, and ascending from the desert, that is, from the countryside and suburban fields, toward her bridegroom Solomon, who resides in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion; for there were the temple and palace of Solomon. As if to say: Who is this rustic maiden, who, raised to the royal bridal chamber, advances so splendidly? Hence she is compared to a pillar of aromatic smoke, which ascends straight upward and breathes forth a sweet fragrance; wherefore those seeing her and coming to meet her, admiring the beautiful and magnificent manner of her advance, ask among themselves and exclaim: "Who is this that comes up," etc. As if to say: Whence such delights in the desert? Whence such beauty and majesty in a rustic and foreign girl? Who grows like a pillar of smoke; because the higher the vapor of aromatic smoke ascends, the more its fragrance is perceived.
For 'pillar' (virgula), the Hebrew is temiroth (a word found only here and in Joel 2:30, where the Vulgate and Septuagint translate it as 'vapor'), meaning palms, but artificial ones, such as are represented in likenesses and paintings. For smoke ascending straight upward resembles a palm tree, which, growing together from various branches and compacted, is the straightest, densest, and most beautiful of all trees; for at the top it spreads its branches far and wide in every direction, and is encircled and crowned by them as if by hair. In a similar way, smoke exhaled from various spices coalesces and ascends upward most straight, most dense, and most beautiful, and at the top divides into various parts like branches, and gathering itself into several globes of vapor, is adorned and enveloped by them as if by variegated hair.
Hence the rabbis and Pagninus translate: Who is this that comes up like columns of smoke ascending upward like a palm? Aquila in Theodoret reads: like a likeness of smoke; Symmachus: like the vapor of incense; the Septuagint: 'like a trunk, or stalk, or pillar of smoke.' It is therefore surprising that St. Ambrose, in Epistle 62, reads: like a shoot of a vine. Our translator aptly renders it 'pillar' (virgula), because the Hebrew temiroth is a diminutive of thamar, meaning palm; temiroth therefore is a little palm, or a small palm, or a pillar resembling a small palm. The Syriac reads: like the incense of smoke; the Arabic: as if perfumed with branches of frankincense.
Again, for 'from spices,' our translator with Symmachus reads miketoret, that is, from incense, from fumigation, or from the burning and perfuming that is made from spices; now with other vowel points they read mecuttereth, that is, perfumed, or fumigated; but the meaning comes to the same thing. Accordingly the Septuagint translates: Who is this that comes up from the desert like a trunk of smoke exhaling myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders of the perfumer? Aquila: like a likeness of smoke from the fumigation of myrrh and frankincense, etc. St. Ambrose, Epistle 62: like a shoot of a vine set ablaze with smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense from all the powders of ointment.
The grammatical, literal surface meaning therefore is this, as if to say: Those meeting the bride and admiring her said: Who is this bride, tall and beautiful, advancing so magnificently through the field toward Jerusalem, and breathing forth the sweetest fragrance? For the more she advances ascending, the taller she appears, and the sweeter the fragrance of myrrh, frankincense, and other spices she exhales, and so she appears very much like a pillar, or small column of smoke, which ascends straight upward like a palm, and breathes forth the most pleasing exhalation of myrrh, frankincense, and spices (which, reduced to powder, are mixed and blended together), set ablaze by fire, and wafts it to all who meet her.
The Chaldean, as usual, takes these words as referring typically to the Synagogue; for the Synagogue was a type of the Church: "When, he says, the children of Israel ascended from the desert and crossed the Jordan with Joshua the son of Nun, the peoples of the land said: Who is this chosen nation that comes up from the desert, perfumed with the incense of spices, and aided on account of the merit of Abraham, who served and prayed before the Lord on Mount Moriah, and anointed with the oil of unction on account of the righteousness of Isaac, who was bound in the house of the Sanctuary, which is called the mountain of frankincense, and wonders are done for them on account of the mercy shown to Jacob, with whom he wrestled until the rising of the dawn, and prevailed over him, and he himself was delivered, and the twelve tribes with him."
First Adequate Sense. On Christ and the Church
The primitive Church, gathered from the apostles and other Jews in Zion and Jerusalem, upon hearing of the conversion of St. Cornelius through St. Peter, and of the Gentiles through St. Paul and Barnabas, exclaims in wonder: "Who is this" new and beautiful Church, ascending from the desert of paganism thinly and slenderly like a pillar of smoke, yet by the continuous ascent of smoke gathering itself upward, she grows to great amplitude, and breathes forth the sweetest fragrance of virtues? For she breathes forth frankincense, that is, the divinity of Christ: for she believes Christ to be God, and offers Him frankincense, that is, sacrifices and divine honors; and myrrh of the humanity and passion of Christ: for she believes that Christ, being God, assumed human nature for us, and in it suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried; and she exhales and spreads in every direction the whole aromatic powder, that is, the rest of the doctrine of the Gospel preaching.
So Philo of Carpathia, Justus of Urgel, Theodoret, Aponius, Bede, and Anselm, who consider these to be the words of the faithful of the primitive Church, although Rupert considers them to be the words of the Bridegroom Christ, and Cassiodorus holds them to be those of the companions of the Bridegroom.
Hear Theodoret: "Not without reason is the pious soul said to resemble the smoke of incense, who, as the Apostle says, constitutes her members as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God; she is said to give forth the fragrance of myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders of the perfumer, because she adores the humanity of Christ signified by myrrh, and His divinity signified by frankincense, and both believes in the death of her Bridegroom and confesses His eternal essence, and so from all the powders of the perfumer the holy angels marvel at her myrrh and frankincense; because although she possesses other virtues, drawn as if from the workshop of the perfumer from the divine Scriptures, yet in her there excels myrrh and frankincense, that is, the knowledge of the Bridegroom's divinity and humanity."
Again, the Church breathes forth frankincense, because she is devoted to prayer; and myrrh, because she is zealous for the mortification of passions, to put off the old Adam and put on the new, who according to God was created in justice and holiness of truth (Ephesians 4:24); and all the aromatic powder, that is, humility, obedience, almsgiving, and the other virtues, which are companions, indeed daughters, of prayer and mortification. For just as spices crushed and ground to powder, exhaling the fiery breath they contained within themselves, give forth a sweeter fragrance: so also virtues, as if ground and crushed through humility, smell sweeter to God and men. So St. Gregory, Bede, Aponius and the rest, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5.
This meaning is clear from the event that St. Luke narrates historically in Acts 10:43 and following, where the faithful Jews, hearing of the conversion of the Gentiles, exclaimed in wonder: "The grace of the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the nations also." Therefore God gave repentance unto life to the Gentiles as well. Likewise from what Isaiah foretold concerning this conversion of the Gentiles, chapter 35, verse 1: "The desert and the pathless place shall rejoice, and the wilderness shall exult, and shall blossom like a lily. It shall bud forth and bud, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon: they shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God."
And chapter 41, verse 18: "I will open rivers on the bare hills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will make the desert into pools of water, and the pathless land into streams of water. I will set in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will plant in the desert the fir, the elm, and the box tree together." And chapter 43, verse 19: "Behold I do new things, and now they shall spring forth, surely you shall know them: I will make a way in the desert, and rivers in the pathless waste. The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the desert, rivers in the pathless waste, to give drink to my people, to my chosen one." See what was said there. This is what the Apostle marvels at, Ephesians 2:11: "Because at one time, he says, you Gentiles in the flesh, etc. Because you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the testaments, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus you, who were once far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
Indeed, as the Jews fell from the faith, the Gentiles were brought in to take their place in the Church: at which the Apostle, struck with amazement, exclaims, Romans 11:33: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable are His ways!"
Moreover, the conversion of the Gentiles was admirable with respect to all its causes: first, the material cause, because those converted were proud, carnal, fierce, barbarous men, unfit for the discipline of Christ; second, the formal cause, because Christian conversion and holiness consist in the mortification of the passions, in humility, in chastity, in patience, in love of enemies, and similar things that are repugnant to corrupt nature; third, the efficient cause, because it was accomplished by the apostles, who were fishermen, poor, lowly, uneducated, unlettered, and ineloquent, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Corinthians 1:21; fourth, the final cause, because its end is glory, not earthly but heavenly: hence, contrary to nature, it must as it were ascend into heaven.
Hence it says 'she comes up,' first, because just as a vapor of earthly or marshy smoke, raised by the rays of the sun, ascends from the desert on high, so from the deserted state of paganism, stirred by the rays of the grace of Christ, there ascends the sweetest vapor and fragrance of contrition, prayer, and other virtues. Second, because Christ ascending into heaven draws the Church after Him, to transfer her mind and heart to things above and to heavenly glory; hence the Apostle says: "He made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). For this reason the Church, not only the triumphant but also the militant, is called heavenly, indeed heaven itself, because from heaven she is called by God to the heavenly life, and is itself heaven, according to Revelation 21:2: "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." For this reason the assembly of the Gentiles is here said to ascend from the desert of idolatry and paganism to the militant Church of Christ, which is lofty in its calling, and heavenly in its doctrine and life.
Third, because it alludes to the ascent and journey of the Hebrews from the desert of Arabia, under the leadership of Moses, to Zion and Jerusalem, preceded by the pillar of fire and cloud; for this was a type of the Church of the Gentiles, destined to ascend from the desert of unbelief to the primitive Church of the apostles and of the faithful converted from the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea.
The meaning therefore is, which Cosmas Hortolanus expresses pathetically, as if to say: The primitive Church, that is, the first faithful converted from the Jews, as Paul and Barnabas were converting the Gentiles to Christ (Acts 13:48): What is this, O Paul and Barnabas, that I see rising from the desert of the Gentiles? Who is this new bride, whom you, as groomsmen, bring into the bridal chamber of my Bridegroom, summoned from the desert nations, so thoroughly perfumed, breathing the incense of myrrh and frankincense and all the spices crushed and mixed by the perfumer's art, that the vapor exhaled from her first appears like a pillar, then gathering itself upward seems to resemble the tallest palms and columns? Namely, on account of the constant prayers and pious works of every kind, which proceeding from the faith and charity with which she wholly burns, like the sweet-smelling savors of a most pleasing holocaust, raise themselves in a continuous cloud to the very sight of God in heaven, and greatly delight my Bridegroom.
Who would ever have believed that so great a multitude of Gentiles, formerly ignorant of Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the testaments of the promise, lacking all hope and even God Himself, would now be endowed with the citizenship of the city of God, and indeed, with the Synagogue my mother repudiated, ennobled by marriage to Christ my Bridegroom? The Canaanite nations once marveled and were utterly astonished when they saw our ancestors ascending from the desert of Arabia, and preceded by a column of smoke, sometimes also of fire by night, invading their possessions. Now in turn we Jews marvel that the Gentiles ascend from the desert of unbelief, and breathing upward the smoky yet sweetest-smelling vapor of their faith and charity, like aromatic palms and columns, burst into the evangelical kingdom that was our nation's heritage.
But those whom you teachers have brought, I understand to be fellow heirs with me, and members of the same body, and sharers in the promise, chosen by God. Our city and all its blessings I willingly share with them. Those whom I see to be virgin souls, close to me in faith, charity, and consummate righteousness, betrothed to my Christ by you as their groomsmen, and led to Him (as I recall the Royal Psalmist foretold), I admit to the common bridal chamber, rejoicing and leaping for joy.
Symbolically, three anonymous commentators in Theodoret explain it thus: "Who is this that ascends from a condition removed from perturbations through virtue and knowledge, raised up to God, like a shoot of smoke that is lifted lightly into the air from a fire consuming a forest? For so the soul, kindled by the Spirit, by action thinning the grossness of the flesh, and by contemplation thinning the appearances of things, is borne lightly to God by good morals and good speech, and is not weighed down by earthly heaviness. In this way, giving forth the fragrance of myrrh and frankincense from spices and from all the powder of the perfumer, she is carried upward to the heavenly Bridegroom."
Then they adapt each detail as follows: "By virtue, therefore, as by myrrh, she gives forth fragrance when she mortifies the sense of the flesh; and by knowledge, as by frankincense, she shows herself the divine image through the marks of truth. Thus passing through the natures of things, she smells sweetly and tends toward their Author; from these things, as if from powder, the reasons and modes of those things are stirred up for her, as the accurate discourse of truth's searching paths refines these, and purifies this whole thing as if in the fire of the spirit."
Of the most subtle consideration to be examined, lest anything harsh remain in them.
Furthermore, St. Ambrose, in place of 'like a pillar of smoke,' reads 'like a shoot of a vine,' which, although it differs from the Hebrew and Greek, nevertheless yields a fitting sense. For the Church of the Gentiles was grafted like a branch onto the vine, namely Christ, because from Him she draws all faith, grace, holiness, wisdom, and spirit, just as a branch draws all its strength and sap from the vine. Again, although a branch necessarily takes something from the earth, it does not however suck it up crude and unclean, as earthly matter is, but refined and purified first through the roots of the vine, and already transformed into another, purer nature.
So the Church cleanses, refines, and perfects every use of food, drink, clothing, and earthly things through the grace of Christ, so that she is not polluted by them but sanctified, and becomes not earthly but heavenly; because she uses all these things not for pleasure but for the glory of God, and for her own and others' salvation according to the law and will of God. This is what Christ says: "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches: he who remains in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; because without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4).
Hear St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5: "Who is this who, whereas before she was abandoned in hell, now clings to the Word of God; who through the desert, that is, through this place of earth uncultivated and overgrown with the briars and thorns of our sins, ascends like a vine shoot raising itself upward, like smoke born from fire and seeking the heights? Then moreover she gives forth the fragrance of good works, and that odor has the sweetness of pious prayer, which gives forth fragrance like the sweet ointment of devout supplication; because it is composed of the petition for eternal and invisible things, not corporeal ones; yet she especially gives forth the fragrance of myrrh and frankincense, because she is dead to sins and alive to God."
Second Partial Sense. On Christ and the Soul Tending toward Perfection
The angels, says Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, St. Ambrose and others, and men too, beholding such a soul, say as if in wonder: Who is this, how valiant, how strong, who though she ought to descend, because she was formed from the earth of Adam, and by the weight of her origin cast herself headlong through the depths of sins, now by a new and truly wondrous power ascends to the heights of virtue? She ascends, I say, from the desert of the world, where virtue and holiness are desolate, where among animal and gross men, who think and savor nothing but earthly things, and among dragons, that is, demons, she lives and dwells dangerously, and having passed beyond them all, alone she courageously climbs to the lofty summit of perfection. She is very like a pillar of smoke arising from the burning fire of myrrh and frankincense; for the myrrh of bitter mortification, and the frankincense of prayer, committed to the fire of divine love, are borne upward, and like a kind of directing rod, are extended toward God by the fiery movement of charity: for the mortification of the flesh lightens the weight that presses the mind down; and prayer, which of its own nature is borne upward, is a spiritual lightness, by which the mind yearns for things above: by these two wings of lightness, as it were, the soul is carried upward.
And all the powders of the perfumer, because God, like a most skilled perfumer, crushes the pious soul with temptations, tribulations, diseases, and persecutions, as if with hammers, humbles her and as it were reduces her to powder, in order to test, sharpen, and perfect her patience and virtues; for these virtues, as if ground down by so many hardships, when they are seized by the fire of charity, give forth a sweeter fragrance and are borne more directly toward God like a pillar of smoke: for the fire penetrates them more easily when they are ground, and resolves them into a more subtle nature, just as fragrant pastilles, before they are thrown into incense boxes or censers, are usually ground up, and reduced to powder are thrown on coals, so that the smoke may rise more quickly and that sweet fragrance which is breathed in through the nostrils may more swiftly exhale. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, John Carmelite, and others.
Hear St. Gregory: "In the desert the holy soul lives, while exiled from the kingdom, she dwells among beasts, that is, demons. For here, although she is not entirely abandoned by the Bridegroom, yet while she is in the flesh, she is not yet admitted to the certain vision of Him, while she is a pilgrim from Him through exiles and temptations; because while she does not yet reign with Him, she seems to herself to be abandoned by Him. For this reason she always labors to ascend, so that she may feel more and more the One she loves so greatly; inasmuch as since she does not perfectly possess Him while in the desert, she may at least refresh herself by her very desire for Him, so that thus strengthened on the way, she may at some point arrive at what she has long desired."
Then Gregory adds after some intervening remarks: "They are rightly said to ascend like a pillar of smoke, because they are said to possess both the fragrance of a good reputation and subtlety of mind." He then gives the reason why this smoke is of myrrh and frankincense: "For myrrh is used to embalm the bodies of the dead so they do not decay, while frankincense is burned so that it may give forth fragrance. By myrrh, therefore, the mortification of the flesh is signified: by frankincense, the purity of prayers is understood. The holy soul, therefore, when she mortifies her flesh from the corruption of vices, when she renounces all the pleasures of the world through continence, as it were applies myrrh to the dead body, so that after the judgment it may remain whole from eternal corruption. And when she kindles herself with greater desire for heavenly things, and fervently casts out from the chamber of her heart all superfluous thoughts, she makes her heart as it were a censer before God, in which, while through love she gathers virtues, she arranges as it were coals in the censer, in which her mind sets itself aflame in the sight of God with the fire of charity. And while she sends forth fervent and pure prayers to God, she as it were draws out the smoke of spices from the censer, so that she may give forth a sweet fragrance before the Beloved, and stir her neighbors to His love."
Finally Gregory notes that it says 'the powder of the perfumer,' not 'perfume,' and gives the reason: "We make perfumes when we gather virtues in the heart. But when we more carefully re-examine our very virtues in each individual work, lest anything uncultivated remain in our works, lest a vice lie hidden among our virtues; then without doubt we grind the ointments of virtues as it were into powder, so that our works may be the cleaner, the more subtly we do not cease to distinguish them from every creeping approach of vices. Souls of this kind make themselves delightful to their Beloved through His grace, and while they separate themselves from all worldly noise, they prepare within themselves a place where the Bridegroom may rest."
Therefore the holy soul, offering herself as a holocaust to God through prayer as frankincense, and through mortification as myrrh, and through all the powder of the perfumer, that is, through almsgiving and every other virtue kindled by the fire of charity, ascends directly to God, and exhales to Him the most fragrant incense as a sweet savor, by which God is delighted and fed.
Moreover, by 'the desert,' he first denotes the world and worldly people. First, because, as Richard of St. Victor says, the world is barren and dried up, and bears no fruit; because it does not know Christ, nor can it receive the Holy Spirit. Second, because, as the same author adds, its lovers are 'deserted,' because they are abandoned by God, and because they themselves abandon God. And so through this desert the pious soul ascends, insofar as she separates herself from the company of the wicked and passes by love to the good and imitates them, insofar as among those deserted by grace and among those who are descending, she makes progress. Third, because, as the same adds, the world abandons itself (and its lovers) and fails in itself; for daily with time the joys of time pass away, and as many days as pass, so many joys of days pass by. Hence when the perfected soul despises these joys and tends toward the supreme and true joy, she ascends through the desert.
Hugh of St. Victor says: "The world is a desert on account of the abundance of evils and the scarcity of goods." Again, he says the wicked heart is a desert, because it has no cultivation, and sprouts harmful things, and beasts dwell in it. Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 59 among the shorter sermons: "The penitent soul ascends, he says, through the desert, that is, through a pathless and waterless land, by remembering her sins."
Second, by 'the desert' Rupert understands the solitary life, Bede the holy conversion: "The soul that, separated from the allurements of the world, is dedicated only to searching out the law of God and to the observance of heavenly precepts, that, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, feeds only on the manna of the heavenly word, and drinks from the fountain of life that flows from the spiritual rock, according to that text: 'My soul has thirsted for You, how greatly my flesh longs for You. In a desert, pathless, and waterless land: so have I appeared to You in the sanctuary' (Psalm 63:2). Such is the life of religious."
Third, Hugh of St. Victor, book 1 of The Erudition of Theologians, chapter 3: "The desert, he says, is the good heart, because it is far from noise and tumult, and is not trampled by the crowd of earthly actions and thoughts, but remaining green and blooming, it produces the shoots of virtues, and the turtledove of the Holy Spirit sings there; and the voice of man, or of anything pertaining to man, is not heard."
All these things indicate that God works great and excellent things through humble things and humble people, in the works both of nature and especially of grace.
Second, Cassiodorus: The holy soul, he says, is called a pillar of smoke, because she is slender and delicate, thinned and refined by the disciplines of the Holy Spirit, not having the grossness of carnal desires. So also St. Gregory. Therefore the pious soul ought to be upright and refined, so that she may reach and extend herself into heaven: "Just as a pillar is straight and slender, stretched out in length, says Hugh of St. Victor, book 2 of The Erudition of Theologians, chapter 110: because it tends only upward, it ought to be straight, and because the way is narrow, it must be slender, and because it is long, stretched out. Likewise it is not a pillar of insensible and hard wood, but of smoke, which has appearance but not substance. For when it is seen, it appears to be something; when a hand is applied, nothing is found. So every good person seems to be here through the appearance of the flesh, but is not here through love. Likewise smoke ascends from fire, because desire comes from love. And what kind of smoke? From spices of myrrh. The perfumer is Christ, the perfumes are virtues, myrrh is the mortification of the flesh, frankincense is the devotion of the mind; all the powder of the perfumer is the multitude of all virtues."
Third, St. Bernard, Sermon 59 among the shorter sermons, applies this to the ascent of the sinful soul through penance: "The penitent soul ascends, he says, through the desert, by remembering her sins. She ascends like a pillar, by humbly confessing those same sins. This confession is rightly said to take place like a pillar of smoke, because it is divided through many kinds of sins, just as smoke from a censer is divided through many holes. And it should be noted that, while smoke never has brightness, it can nevertheless sometimes have fragrance. That this smoke of confession has a certain odor of piety is indicated by what follows: 'From spices of myrrh and frankincense, and all the powder of the perfumer.' Confession must always be accompanied by myrrh and frankincense, that is, mortification of the flesh and prayer of the heart: for the one without the other profits little or nothing. For he who mortifies the flesh but neglects to pray is proud." And after a few words interposed he adds: "'And all the powder of the perfumer.' After the remembrance and confession of sins, after mortification and prayer, the fruit of almsgiving must be offered. These are fittingly called 'powder,' because they are made from earthly substance; and 'of the perfumer,' because they send forth a most sweet odor."
You ask what the pillar of smoke from spices of myrrh, frankincense, etc., symbolically signifies.
First, Richard of St. Victor by the pillar of smoke understands humility, which ascends, because it alone exalts those who cultivate it. Therefore the Bridegroom is likened not to a rod but to a thin pillar, to indicate the speed of ascending: "For those pillars, he says, which grow thick as they grow, are not raised very high, but the pillars that grow more swiftly upward are thinner and smaller." This is supported by the fact that balsam, which is the most fragrant and excellent of liquids (as Titelmannus says, we know from the reliable reports of those who have seen that famous garden of balsam, the only one in the whole world, at Cairo in Matarea) is collected not from trees, but from certain shrubs or shoots, in much the same way that among us those shoots grow on which the grapes that we call St. John's grow. In that same garden many other spices are likewise collected rather from herbs or shoots, which require annual cultivation, than from large and broad trees.
Hence St. Anselm notes that the bride sleeps in the bed, as is clear from the preceding verse, and at the same time ascends while sleeping: because, he says, at one and the same time she is lulled to sleep and ascends, when the soul, as far as she is able, alienates herself from outward cares and carnal desires, and by the advances of good work or thought approaches the vision of her Creator. So he says: but it is truer that there is here a different scene of the drama, in which the bride is introduced as awake and ascending, as I said.
Fourth, Rupert and St. Bernard, in the Book of Sentences, by 'the desert' understand Christian simplicity and humility, because it is abandoned by many: "Because there is almost no one who imitates Christ and strives to practice this good. Through this desert it is necessary for us to ascend like a pillar of smoke from spices, when, stirred by zeal for virtues and discipline, we incite our neighbors to the likeness of doing good." So they say.
Anagogically, St. Ambrose on Exodus chapter 16 reads and explains it thus: "Who is this that comes up from the desert like a shoot of a vine, set ablaze with smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense from all the powders of ointment? Grind, he says, you too your faith, that you may be like that soul which stirs up the charity of Christ in herself, at whose ascending the powers of heaven marvel, because she ascends without stumbling, with joy and gladness, like a shoot of a vine, and like smoke raises herself to things above, giving forth the fragrance of a pious resurrection and the sweetness of faith. He beautifully expressed her subtlety by comparison with powder and mention of ointment, because in Exodus we read of a subtle incense composed of many ingredients (Exodus 30:35): that indeed is the prophetic incense, which is the prayer of the saints, that it may be directed in the sight of the Lord, as David also says: 'Let my prayer be directed as incense in Your sight' (Psalm 141:2)."
AND ALL THE POWDER OF THE PERFUMER
That is, of all the virtues that shine forth in each of the faithful: "because just as many spices of the sweetest fragrance, reduced to one powder, are prepared by perfumers for the delights of kings; and when many are collected into one body, a single pillar of great fragrance, set ablaze by fires, is produced: so the confession of the true faith by the unanimous agreement of many peoples is shown to produce one sweet fragrance in the sight of God, just as a rational perfumer gathers celestial spices of the senses."
Accordingly, first, the Church, presenting herself to be seen or known by all, by her splendor invited and attracted all nations to herself; hence she is compared to the smoke of fragrant spices: for smoke ascending strikes the sight of all who have open eyes; but its fragrance reaches the nostrils of those who are blind or have closed eyes. Second, this variety of fragrance, that is, the reputation of all virtues, won over all to herself. For one person is drawn by the fragrance of chastity, another by that of another virtue. Hear Bede: "The Church ascends like a pillar of smoke from spices, etc., because she is built from many persons of the faithful: because, adorned with diverse virtues, some, after the manner of myrrh, apply themselves more to mortifying the pleasures of the flesh; some, after the figure of frankincense, are more particularly engaged in frequent prayers; others labor at other fruits of good works; yet all, inflamed by the one fire of the Spirit, like a single pillar of smoke, with an undivided zeal in all things and a common devotion, seek the heights of the heavenly life."
Third, St. Anselm by 'perfume' understands virtues; by 'powder' humility, because in order that virtues may please God and men, they must be adorned with humility, so that a person may as it were reduce himself to powder, and consider himself to be nothing and to be able to do nothing.
Fourth, St. Gregory, Homily 22 on Ezekiel, and Cassiodorus by 'the powder and pulverization of spices' understand the subtle examination of works: because, says Cassiodorus, the actions of the saints must be considered with great discernment, and winnowed as if with the sieve of the most subtle consideration, lest anything harsh perhaps remain in them.
Fourth and most fittingly, St. Gregory, Justus, Philo, Aponius, Bede, and others by 'the pillar of smoke' understand the soul yearning for heavenly things. I have already quoted above the words of St. Gregory on this passage. Now hear the same, Homily 22 on Ezekiel toward the end: "We shall transcend all things by desire, that we may be gathered in mind into one. No longer by fear of punishments, no longer by the memory of vices, but kindled by the flame of love, let us burn in tears with the fragrance of virtues." He adds the reason: "For the holy Church of the elect, when with ardent love she raises herself from this world in holy prayers, ascends through the desert which she leaves behind; and how she ascends he adds: 'Like a pillar of smoke from spices.' Smoke is born from incense, which signifies prayer: smoke usually provokes tears. And so the smoke from spices is the compunction of prayer conceived from the virtues of love, which prayer is nevertheless called a pillar of smoke; because while it seeks only heavenly things, it proceeds so straight that it is not at all deflected toward desiring earthly and temporal things out of earthly ambition. It is called a 'pillar' and not a 'rod' because sometimes in the ardor of compunction the force of love burns with such subtlety that not even the mind itself that was illuminated to have it can grasp it. And myrrh and frankincense are rightly added: for those who both mortify the flesh and kindle the fragrant sacrifice of their love in the sight of the Lord offer the sacrifice of myrrh and frankincense; myrrh, because they crucify themselves and by crucifying preserve themselves from vices; frankincense, because they love the vision of God, to reach which they burn with ardor from the marrow of their bones, and offer themselves to Him in holy virtues."
Third Principal Sense. On Christ and the Blessed Virgin
Rupert considers these to be the words of Christ, admiring and celebrating the humility of the Blessed Virgin, as if to say: You say (like Abraham): I am dust of the earth, such as the wind scatters and the breeze carries away; and He says: No, but aromatic powder, the powder of the perfumer, the powder of myrrh and frankincense, such as the perfumer the Holy Spirit prepares from the finest frankincense, which is the sweetness of mind; and from the most excellent myrrh, which is the mortification or incorruption of the flesh.
You say: I am foul smoke before the divine eyes, such as rises failing from a chimney or furnace, ascending and fading; and He says: No, but smoke from the spices of myrrh and frankincense, such as befits to rise from the golden censer before the golden altar, up to the mouth and the scent of the Lord. Such a smoke, indeed such a pillar of smoke, you, O blessed Mary, breathed forth a sweet odor to the Most High, instructed and refined by heavenly disciplines; thus you ascended through the desert, that is, having a very solitary soul. These are nearly the exact words of Rupert.
Moreover, the Blessed Virgin ascended like a pillar of smoke of myrrh, frankincense, and all the powder of the perfumer: because daily through very many acts, proportionate to the habits of her grace and virtues (for she cooperated equally with divine grace, so that when she had intensive degrees of grace numbering, say, one hundred, she elicited acts of equal intensity numbering one hundred, and thus merited another hundred degrees, and this constantly always doubling), she grew and progressed wonderfully in mortification, in prayer, and in other virtues, especially in humility, which the powder of the perfumer represents, so that at the end of her life she far surpassed in grace and merits all men and angels, even the cherubim and seraphim taken collectively and all together, as Francis Suarez and others teach.
Again, St. Jerome, volume 9, Epistle 10 to Paula and Eustochium, On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, applies the same text thus: "This feast day, he says, just as Blessed Mary is incomparable among other virgins, so is it incomparable among the feast days of all the saints; and it is to be admired even by the angelic powers. For this reason, speaking in the person of the heavenly citizens, the Holy Spirit, marveling at her ascension, says in the Song of Songs: Who is this that comes up through the desert, like a pillar of smoke from spices? And rightly 'like a pillar of smoke,' because she is slender and delicate, because she was refined by divine disciplines, and inwardly consumed as a holocaust by the fire of pious love and the desire of charity. 'Like a pillar,' he says, 'of smoke from spices,' namely, because she was filled with many fragrances of virtues, and the sweetest odor, flowing from her, was fragrant even to the angelic spirits. The Mother of God was ascending from the desert of the present age, a rod once sprung from the root of Jesse; but the souls of the elect marveled with joy at who this could be, who even surpassed the dignity of the angels by the virtues of her merits."
Note that this epistle is not by St. Jerome; some think it is by Sophronius. Baronius, volume 1, year of Christ 48, chapter 10, asserts that it belongs to neither, especially because it appears to have been written after the time of Nestorius, since the author expresses doubt whether the Blessed Virgin was assumed into heaven in both body and soul, when this itself is certain.
Finally, attribute all that has been said above, before all others, to the most sacred humanity of Christ; for this is the first and primary bride of the Word, as I said in the Preface, chapter 2.
VERSE 7. BEHOLD THE BED OF SOLOMON, SIXTY VALIANT MEN SURROUND IT, OF THE MOST VALIANT OF ISRAEL
The Hebrew reads: behold his bed, which is Solomon's (that is, behold the bed of Solomon, as our translator, the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and the rest render it; to signify the greatness and excellence of Solomon, 'his, who is' is added), around which are sixty mighty ones from among the mighty of Israel; the Septuagint: sixty powerful ones from among the powerful of Israel; Vatablus: sixty heroes from among the heroes of Israel. The Syriac translates: giants; for these were the most valiant.
It alludes to the bodyguards of Solomon, who guarded him both when he was walking and when resting at home or in bed, just as the Swiss Guard attend and protect the Pope and princes. He numbers them at sixty, either because there were precisely that many, or because this number is perfect, says Honorius: for it is composed of six, which is made from the first three principles, namely, from unity, the binary, and the ternary, or from a double ternary, and from the ten, which is the first composite number: for the first nine numbers consist of single digits, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., hence they are called 'digits'; the ten, namely 10, is composed of a unit and a cipher 0, and ten is the first source of the other tens, namely 20, 30, 40, and of the hundreds 100, 200, 300, etc., and of the thousands 1000, 2000, 3000, etc. For if you double, triple, or quadruple ten, you get 20, 30, 40; but if you multiply ten by ten, you get 100, 200, 300; if by a hundred, you get a thousand, two thousand, three thousand.
He alludes again to the 30 mighty men of David, who are listed in 2 Samuel 23:24 at the end, whom Solomon appears to have doubled, so that there were 60. Hence in Jerusalem near the palace, or the palace itself, was the house of the mighty. See Adrichomius in his Description of Jerusalem.
Aben-Ezra considers these to be the words of the Bridegroom, reproving the bride for walking alone, as if to say: I, Solomon your Bridegroom, walk attended by sixty mighty men, and you dare to walk alone through the desert?
Luis de Leon on the contrary considers these to be the words of the bride, who replies to those admiring her progress, to turn their eyes from herself to the Bridegroom carried in a litter, and to admire his magnificence and the pomp of the sixty mighty men.
But the Fathers and commentators generally take these words, like those of the preceding verse, as spoken by those meeting the bride and celebrating her beauty and magnificence; or certainly, as Theodoret and Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 6, say, by the friends of the Bridegroom, to kindle in the bride the love of the Bridegroom, as if to say: So great is your beauty, O bride, that your Bridegroom Solomon posts sixty mighty men as guards for your bed, lest anyone snatch you from him, or in any way harm or afflict you.
The Chaldean, taking the bed as the temple of Solomon, and the mighty of Israel as the priests, renders it in Jewish fashion thus: "When Solomon the king of Israel built the house of the Sanctuary of the Lord in Jerusalem, the Lord said in His word: How beautiful is this house of the sanctuary, which was built for Me by the hands of King Solomon the son of David, and how beautiful are the priests at the time when they extend their hands, and stand at their post, and bless the people of Israel; and the blessing surrounds them like a high and strong wall, and in it all the mighty of Israel prevail and prosper."
St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Philo, and almost all others take the bed of Solomon as the Church, especially of the Gentiles, in which Christ, who is the true Solomon, that is, the king of peace, rests as in a bed. But since the Church is the bride, and the bride is not the bed but rests in the bed, it is more appropriate to take the bed as the city, first Antioch, then Rome: for at Antioch St. Peter first established the pontifical chair, and there he resided for seven years; hence there the faithful were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). But after seven years he transferred the chair from Antioch to Rome, and there by living and dying he firmly established it, and appointed his successors: St. Clement, St. Linus, St. Cletus, etc.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The bed, that is, the place in which Christ and the Church reside and rest, was formerly Antioch, then Rome; for there St. Peter, the Roman Pontiff and the vicar of Christ, resided with his priests and clerics, and there by dying he established and firmly fixed the pontifical and apostolic chair: wherefore the Roman Church is the mother, teacher, and nurse of all the other churches spread throughout the entire world. For this reason Christ assigned and assigns to her sixty mighty men, that is, very many distinguished pastors, doctors, and outstanding saints, who guard and defend her inviolate faith, lest any error creep into the Church; just as to the primitive Church at Antioch He assigned the apostles and other teachers, who condemned and refuted the creeping error of the Judaizers about observing the ceremonies of the Mosaic law (Acts 15:28). And to the Roman Church He first gave the mightiest pontiffs, cardinals, priests, and faithful, who for 300 years fought most valiantly for the faith of Christ against Nero, Trajan, Decius, Diocletian, etc., and sealed its truth with their blood and martyrdom.
For to St. Peter, who established the pontificate at Rome, and to his successors, Christ said and promised: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Hence Christ gave an admirable strength to almost all the Roman pontiffs for defending the faith and championing the Church, as is clear from ecclesiastical histories and the lives of the pontiffs; wherefore they are rightly called the most valiant of Israel, because just as Jacob, wrestling mightily with the angel and prevailing over him, was called by him Israel, that is, 'one who prevails with God' (Genesis 32:28): so each holy pontiff, strengthened by Christ, prevails over tyrants, hell, and demons, and then by ardent prayers and petitions prevails even with God Himself, so that he may rightly be called Israel. As examples let there be so many Leos and Gregorys, invincible in virtue and outstanding in holiness.
Hence Rome is fittingly said to be as it were 'rhome,' that is, strength and fortitude; hence Rome was once called Valentia, as Solinus attests at the beginning of his Polyhistor. Hence again God established the Church at Rome, that it might be better fortified: because the city of Rome, if you consider its location, is most strongly fortified; for on one side it is protected and encircled by the double sea, the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, and on the other by the Apennines and the Alps as a nearly insurmountable rampart. Therefore the safest seat of the Church is Rome, so that in it, as in a bed, she may rest under the protection of Christ. See Bozius, On the Signs of the Church.
Just as therefore, in verse 1, he called Jerusalem and the Church of Jerusalem a bed, in which one sleeps secretly (for this is what the Hebrew mischab signifies), so here he calls Antioch and the Antiochene and Roman Church, just beginning and still in its infancy, mitta, that is, a bed extended and spread out (for the root nata means to extend, to spread out), because namely Peter, seated in it, extended the faith of Christ and the Church through Asia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Pontus, etc.: while the Roman Church, now larger and more magnificent, he calls a litter (ferculum) in the following verse. But both are attended by sixty mighty men.
Antioch therefore first, then Rome, that is, the Roman Church, is the bed in which Christ and the universal Church of all nations rests, because in its faith, doctrine, and governance she sleeps securely. And thus the Fathers are to be understood -- St. Gregory, Philo, St. Thomas, etc. -- when they take the bed as the Church, namely, that they understand the first and foundational one, that is, the Antiochene and the Roman, which is guarded by the most valiant -- both angels, indeed archangels, as her guardians, and pontiffs, prelates, and doctors, and saints both heavenly and earthly.
Now hear Cassiodorus: "The bed of Solomon is the holy Church, because in it the saints of God, their sinful tumults lulled, delight in the embrace of the true Prince of Peace. The sixty mighty men are doctors who either fortify the Church by preaching, or desire to reach the heavenly beatitude by contemplation. The number sixty consists of six and ten: six signifies the perfection of work, because in six days God completed His works: ten signifies remuneration and reward, which will be given to the elect at the end; hence those who came to the vineyard are said to have received a denarius. Moreover, these doctors who guard the Church are called not merely mighty, but 'of the mightiest of Israel,' that is, of all who believe in Christ and love Him, who are called Israel, that is, 'one who sees God.'"
Morally, note here that in pontiffs, prelates, and princes, fortitude is especially required: first, by which they may tame their own passions, lest they allow themselves to be led astray from the right by either fear, or love, or greed; second, by which they may generously resist the unfaithful and the impious, according to Sirach 7:6: "Do not seek to be made a judge, unless you have the strength (the manly spirit and vigor) to break through iniquities;" third, by which they may severely punish and root out the errors and vices of the people.
Hence this counsel Jethro gave to Moses, Exodus 18:21: "Choose from all the people able men who fear God, in whom there is truth, and who hate greed, and appoint from them tribunes, and centurions, and commanders of fifty, and commanders of ten, who may judge the people at all times."
Symbolically, St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5, takes the bed as Christ; for in Christ the Church and the holy soul find rest: "Because true rest, says St. Ambrose, is owed to her in Christ; for the bed of the saints is Christ, in which the hearts of all, wearied by worldly battles, find rest." Hence Revelation 14:13 says: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." And of St. Stephen it is said, Acts 7:59: "He fell asleep in the Lord." And Psalm 4:9: "In peace in the selfsame (that is, in the Lord, says St. Augustine) I shall sleep and take my rest."
Philo of Carpathia by the bed of Christ understands the tomb, which the mighty of Israel guarded, that is, the soldiers who guarded the tomb.
Second Partial Sense. On Christ and the Holy Soul
The bed of Christ is the holy mind, which therefore sixty, that is, very many mighty ones surround and guard: both angels, as Aponius says; and doctors and superiors, as St. Gregory and Cassiodorus say; and saints, as Philo says; saints, I say, both living and departed, that is, the blessed in heaven: for they protect us by their merits, words, and examples. But especially the bed of Christ, who is Solomon, that is, the King of Peace, says Bede, is the quiet soul separated from the tumults of the world, which, having tamed the waves of the passions, imitates the tranquility of eternal peace.
So also Philo of Carpathia: "Whatever bride, he says, purges and empties her heart of worldly cares and fills it with divine love, prepares a chamber for her Bridegroom Christ Jesus, and rests with Him from all disturbance of human affairs." By the sixty mighty ones, he understands the apostles and martyrs.
Hear St. Gregory: "Solomon, he says, that is, the Peaceful One, is Christ, of whom it is written, Ephesians 2:14: 'He Himself is our peace, who made both one.' Therefore we make a bed for Solomon when we entirely cease from worldly cares, when we willingly rest in the desire of Christ alone, and cleanse our heart from every earthly desire so that He may rest with us. Now when the number ten is multiplied by the number six, sixty is completed. By the ten, therefore, we understand the Decalogue of the law; by the six we understand this entire time, which we see revolving in six working days. By the sixty mighty men, therefore, we understand all the perfect who have gone before us in the Church; who, the more spiritually and hence the more powerfully they fulfilled the ten precepts of the law in the six days, the more they completed as it were the number sixty. These surround the bed of Solomon, because they fortify the holy mind in which Christ rests with their words and examples, by which they repel the enemies approaching the entrance to the mind." See the same St. Gregory, book 7 of the Moralia, chapter 8.
Allegorically, the bed of Christ, says Aponius, was the cross, for on it He Himself, dying, rested and fell asleep, and He desires the bride, that is, the holy soul, to find rest with Him on the same, and as it were to repose in the same bed, so that she may be like Him and His spouse, that is, His companion under the same yoke: for who would fear the cross, when on it one has Christ as a companion resting beside him, defending and strengthening him? The cross, therefore, is a bed, because of the union with Christ, and the firm confidence fixed upon His help and grace. Finally, in the cross and in the love of the cross is the rest of the saints.
The mighty ones who guard it are angels, for they are present to those who suffer, to strengthen them, indeed to suggest a greater thirst for suffering. These are from the mightiest of Israel, that is, from the chief angels, whom God sends to martyrs and to the afflicted, to supply them with enormous strength and courage to overcome the fears that the devil thrusts upon them and every bitter thing, just as He sent Raphael to the afflicted Tobias, who said he was one of the seven who stand before the Lord (Tobit 12:15). So Elisha, surrounded by the Syrian army, saw the camps of angels coming to protect him; hence he said to his servant Gehazi, struck with fear: "Do not fear: for there are more with us than with them" (2 Kings 6:16). So Jacob, fearing Esau coming to meet him with armed men, saw the camps of angels fighting for him; hence he called the place Mahanaim, that is, camps of God (Genesis 32:2). So the angels fought for Moses and the Hebrews against Pharaoh and the pursuing Egyptians, and drowned them in the Red Sea; hence Moses said to the trembling Hebrews: "Do not fear: stand still, and see the great works of the Lord which He will do today" (Exodus 14:13). This is what David sings, Psalm 34:8: "The angel of the Lord shall encamp (Hebrew chone, that is, shall pitch camp) around those who fear Him: and shall deliver them."
Tropologically, the bed in which the soul peacefully rests is prayer, for there she enjoys her Bridegroom, and losing herself she is united to Him with her whole affection; there in turn Christ sends peace, strength, grace, and all gifts into the soul. Therefore the demons strive with all their effort to disturb those who pray and to call them away from prayer; but the angels assist those who pray, who break the force of the demons and preserve those praying in their prayer, as St. Nilus teaches, in his Treatise on Prayer, chapters 44 and following, and chapters 69 and 75.
Again, the bed of Christ is charity, which the mighty of Israel defend, that is, all the virtues, especially mortification, which applies the sword to the thigh, that is, cuts off and slays the desires of the flesh. Again, the sixty mighty men are good thoughts, which he who constantly summons to himself thereby wards off all evil thoughts and defends charity. So three anonymous commentators in Theodoret: "The sixty mighty men, they say, are efficacious thoughts, which by divine power on every side protect the soul prepared for God's rest, against the deceits of wicked spirits: for reason, which presides over the five senses, together with those very senses makes the number six. But when he who commands the senses by reason fulfills the divine precepts, which are ten in number, he completes the number sixty, living by virtue, as has been said. 'Of the mightiest of Israel' these are, indeed the concepts of the true mind that sees God, from which those efficacious thoughts for accomplishing good are constituted."
Moreover, "the fortitude of the soul is not mediocre, says St. Ambrose, book 1 of On Duties, chapter 39, which fights in an unending battle against all vices, unconquered in labors, strong in dangers, more rigid against pleasures, hard against allurements, which knows not how to lend them an ear, nor (as they say) to say 'hail' to them, despises money, flees greed as a kind of stain that emasculates virtue: for nothing is so contrary to fortitude as to be conquered by gain, etc. Let it not be tempted by desires, nor broken by fear; because virtue is self-consistent, so as to vigorously pursue all vices as poisons of virtue."
Furthermore, the bed of Christ is obedience and the obedient soul, such as the Blessed Virgin's was above all others; hence Aponius: "Solomon, he says, is interpreted as 'the peaceful one,' Israel as 'seeing God with the mind.' And who else is peaceful but Christ? He made a bed for Himself in the Virgin Mary, because He is shown to rest even upon a soul obedient to Himself. The sixty demonstrate the ministries of the angels, of whom it is said: 'Then the devil left Him, and behold angels came and ministered to Him' (Matthew 4:11): for through each of the bodily senses -- sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch -- five times twelve (that is, in the sacred number sixty) glorious mysteries are fulfilled in her. And 'mightiest,' he said, shows that the saints can do more than the demons. 'Holding swords' taught that they always hold the commandment of the same Creator. 'Most learned in war,' he says, to show that through the good of holiness, teachers are more able to foresee the ambushes of evil demons for the guardianship of souls, than those demons are to devise arts of harming. 'Of the mightiest of Israel' shows that these ministries are from that army which always sees the face of the Father in heaven. And when he says, 'each one's sword upon his thigh,' he taught that the holy angels, armed with spiritual weapons against each prince of the vices who besiege the aforesaid senses, are girded on account of their nighttime and hidden ambushes."
From which it is clear that Aponius, by the mighty of Israel who guard the soul, understands the saints, both angels and doctors.
Symbolically, the bed of Christ is Sacred Scripture, says Theodoret, in which God enters into a mystical sleep with the soul, for there, he says, receiving the seeds of divine teaching, she conceives and brings forth pious desires, which she finally bears and puts into action: for those who devoutly read Sacred Scripture feel that through it the light of God and holy impulses are breathed into them, so that they disdain earthly things and yearn for heavenly things with their whole heart. This bed the heretics attack, but the mighty of Israel guard it, namely doctors outstanding in knowledge, and saints outstanding in virtue, who rout them with the sword of the word of God.
Anagogically, Bede: The bed of the blessed soul, he says, is heavenly glory and beatitude, in which she rests and will rest most happily for all eternity: so Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 6, and from him Psellus and Richard of St. Victor, who adds: "The mightiest of Israel, that is, from among those who contemplate and seek God with their mind, and whose spiritual desires were more fervent, surround this bed: for kindled by vehement desires they go around it on every side and seek an entrance, to taste this rest and to enter into it to some degree; and this is their circuit, and the course of desire around this bed." And Psellus says: The sixty mighty of Israel surround the bed, that is, the glory of Christ, namely, all the saints who are truly of Israel and are able to see God: they are called sixty, because the Israelite people is divided into twelve tribes and parts; and when to each of those parts which make up one Israel, five mighty men are assigned, namely five senses armed for battle through mortification and temperance, then it clearly appears that there are sixty most mighty from one Israel.
The bed in which Christ and the divinity of Christ, espousing humanity to Himself, rested for nine months, is the womb of the Blessed Virgin, as Aponius says: so also the bosom of the Blessed Virgin was the bed of Christ, in which He, already born as an infant, often rested and peacefully slept; and therefore sixty mighty men attended Him, that is, very many angels adoring Christ their God and venerating His mother, and guarding and protecting both against the snares of demons, Herod, the scribes, etc. Rupert, however, by the sixty mighty men understands the sixty patriarchs and leaders who defended Israel, from whom the Blessed Virgin and Christ were born, against all enemies, and whom he enumerates one by one.
Here is relevant that text, Psalm 19:6: "He has placed His tabernacle in the sun: and He Himself comes forth like a bridegroom from his bridal chamber;" and Sirach 24:11: "In all things I sought rest, and I shall dwell in the inheritance of the Lord. Then the Creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and He who created me rested in my tabernacle."
VERSE 8. ALL HOLDING SWORDS, AND MOST LEARNED IN WAR: EACH ONE'S SWORD UPON HIS THIGH, BECAUSE OF THE FEARS OF THE NIGHT
ALL HOLDING SWORDS, AND MOST LEARNED IN WAR: EACH ONE'S SWORD UPON HIS THIGH BECAUSE OF THE FEARS (the Arabic reads: horrors) OF THE NIGHT. The Septuagint reads: all holding a sword, learned in war, each man his blade upon his thigh, from fear in the nights: they read ocheze, that is, holding, grasping; now with other vowel points they read achuze, that is, grasped by the sword, as if to say: They so tightly and skillfully hold and grip the sword that they seem to be grasped by it; hence Vatablus: who are all apt with the sword and accustomed to war, each one having his sword at his thigh because of the fear that arises in the night.
The Chaldean translates, and paraphrastically explains it thus concerning the priests of the old law: "Moreover the priests and Levites, and all the tribes of Israel, all of them grasp the words of the law, which are compared to a sword, and weigh and wield them like mighty men trained in war, and upon each of them circumcision is marked in their flesh, as it was marked in the flesh of Abraham, and they prevail and are strengthened in it like a warrior who is girded with a sword upon his thigh, and therefore they do not fear harmful spirits and demons who walk in the night."
He emphasizes the strength of the sixty mighty men who surround the bed of Solomon, by saying that they are girded with swords and know excellently how to fight and do battle, as men long trained in arms through the practice of war, as if to say: So that the Bridegroom and bride may rest securely in their bed, sixty mighty warriors armed with swords keep watch continuously around it, so that at the slightest fear or movement of enemies, indeed at any noise, which easily arises in the night, they may brandish and draw their swords.
The sword with which the angels guard the Church is their wondrous power and strength; hence Aponius: "He taught, he says, that the holy angels, armed with spiritual weapons against each prince of the vices who besiege the aforesaid senses, are girded on account of their nighttime and hidden ambushes." The sword with which the apostles and apostolic men, pontiffs and doctors guard the bed of Christ, that is, the Roman Church, is the word of God, says Paul, Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is living and effective, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the division of soul and spirit," etc., as the same says, Ephesians 6:13. By this, therefore, they dispel the fears of the night, which in the night, that is, in the darkness of unbelief, ignorance, and impiety, heretics and ignorant Christians and the impious stir up, who especially plot against the bishops and prelates of the Church: for when these are conquered, they easily overcome the remaining faithful. So Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, and St. Gregory, book 10 of the Moralia, chapters 3 and 4, whom hear: "Nighttime fears, he says, are the hidden snares of temptations, and the sword upon the thigh is the watchful guard that suppresses the allurement of the flesh. Lest therefore a hidden and sudden temptation creep in, it is necessary that the sword placed upon our thigh for guard duty suppress it: for holy men are so certain of hope that they are nevertheless always suspicious of temptation, since to them it is said, Psalm 2: 'Serve the Lord in fear: and rejoice in Him with trembling,' so that from hope may arise joy, and from suspicion, trembling."
Tropologically, the sword upon the thigh is, first, mortification and continence, that is, chastity, which cuts off the movements of the flesh and lust, which resides in the loins between the thighs: therefore it signifies that bishops and pastors ought to excel in both. Hence St. Ambrose, book 10 on Luke, chapter 22: "There is the sword of the passion, he says, that you may put off the body, and by the spoils of the slain flesh the sacred crown of martyrdom may be bought for you;" and St. Gregory: "What, he says, do we understand by the sword but the rigor of one's way of life, and what by the thigh but the appetite of the flesh? All the elect, therefore, who have already advanced to the perfection of life, always bear the sword upon their thigh, because by the rigor of their conduct they constantly break the appetite of the flesh, lest the enemy, whom they fear in the night of this world, coming suddenly should find an easy entrance, and through the softness of pleasure should lead them, the more easily as he finds them more given to pleasure, into more serious sins." See the same, book 3 of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 33. The same, book 19 of the Moralia, chapter 29: "It does not say, he says, 'all having,' but 'holding' swords, because evidently it is a wondrous thing not merely to know the word of God, but to do it: for he has but does not hold the sword, who indeed knows the divine word, but neglects to live according to it; and he is no longer able to be learned in war who does not at all exercise the spiritual sword that he has: for it is not enough to resist temptations."
Finally St. Jerome, volume 3, Epistle 140 to Principia: "I think, he says, that you understand this passage excellently, and that you are girded with the sword of Christ and fight. But so that you may know that virginity always has the sword of chastity, by which it cuts off the works of the flesh and overcomes pleasures, even pagan error fashioned virgin goddesses as armed. Peter also girded his loins and had a burning lamp in his hands." And concluding about Christ he adds: "Therefore with His glory and beauty, that is, with the splendor and beauty of His divinity, mortifying the works of the flesh, and born of a virgin, He was the prince of virginity for future virgins."
Furthermore, second, the sword is prayer, by which the fears of the night are put to flight, which the devil sends upon the faithful through tribulations, scruples, anxieties, and pressures; hence Jeremiah, Lamentations 2:19: "Arise, he says, praise in the night, at the beginning of the watches: pour out your heart like water before the sight of the Lord." Third, the sword of the faithful is the love of God; hence Richard of St. Victor: "Upon the thigh, he says, of delights or carnal pleasures, they have the sword of love because of the fears of the night, that is, because of hidden lapses into sin: because if they do not love, through blindness and ignorance they sin in many things: for love begets knowledge, and you take care to avoid the sins of one you love."
Symbolically, Psellus by the sword understands the sign of the cross; for by this the devil is struck and put to flight, just as enemies are routed by a sword.
Finally, Rupert, applying these things to the Blessed Virgin, by the mighty of Israel understands David, Joshua, Judas Maccabeus, and the other princes who most valiantly defended and fought for Israel. He adds the reason, namely: "Because the devil wished to cut down and uproot the root or the good tree, which was the lineage of Abraham, to whom the promise of the blessed seed had first been made, by the barbarian swords of the nations or of impious kings: of which the sacred histories are full. Therefore it was then a time of war, therefore material swords were then needed, so that the lineage of Abraham might be defended, so that the root of Jesse might be defended, so that, I say, the lineage and root of David might be defended and championed, until you, O Blessed Virgin, should be born, the bed, as has already been said, of the true Solomon."
Morally, note 'most learned in war' signifies that the prelates of the Church ought to be in wisdom, prudence, and every virtue by which we contend with heretics, demons, and vices, not beginners, but trained and perfected; hence St. Cyprian, book 4, Epistle 2 to Antonianus, praises Pope St. Cornelius because he had ascended step by step through each grade of orders to the pinnacle of the pontificate: "He did not, he says, arrive suddenly at the episcopate, but promoted through all the ecclesiastical offices, and having often served the Lord in divine ministrations, he ascended to the sublime height of the priesthood by all the grades of religion." For this reason the Council of Trent, Session 23, chapter 11, decrees that orders be conferred on clerics with intervals of time between them: "So that, it says, they may be more carefully instructed as to how great is the weight of this discipline, and may exercise themselves in each office according to the bishop's direction, and that in the church to which they will be assigned, unless perhaps they are absent for the sake of studies; and so they may ascend from grade to grade, so that in them, with age, the merit of life and greater learning may increase; which both the example of good morals, and constant ministry in the church, and greater reverence toward priests and higher orders, and more frequent reception of the Body of Christ than before will especially prove."
Therefore St. Gregory, book 4, Epistle 53, gravely warns King Childebert of the Franks on this matter, and censures the vice of sudden leaps: "It has come to our attention, he says, that when bishops die, certain laymen are tonsured and leap to the episcopate in a headlong bound. And he who was never a disciple becomes a teacher by reckless ambition. And since he has not learned what he might teach, he bears the priesthood only in name: for he continues as a layman in his former speech and conduct. How then will he intercede for the sins of others, who has not first bewailed his own? For such a pastor does not fortify his flock, but deceives it, because when modesty prevents him from urging upon others what he himself does not do, what else is it but that the Lord's people are left to be plundered by robbers, and destruction comes from the very quarter whence they should have received the great support of saving protection?" He then demonstrates how wicked and perverse this is by a military example: "For it is certain that you do not place a commander over the army before his effort and proven loyalty have been established, and before the virtue and diligence of his past life have shown him to be fit. If then the governance of the army is not entrusted to any but men of this kind, what kind of leader of souls he ought to be is well gathered from this consideration and comparison. But it is shameful to us, and we blush to say it, because men seize the leadership of the priesthood who have never seen the beginning of the religious service."
VERSES 9 AND 10. KING SOLOMON MADE HIMSELF A LITTER OF THE WOOD OF LEBANON: ITS PILLARS HE MADE OF SILVER, THE BACK OF GOLD, THE SEAT OF PURPLE: THE INTERIOR HE PAVED WITH LOVE FOR THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
The Chaldean by 'the litter' understands the temple of Solomon, which was a type of the Church: for he translates thus: "King Solomon built for himself the temple of the sanctuary from cedar wood, and juniper, and pine that are brought from Lebanon; and he covered it with the purest gold. And after he completed it, he placed in its midst the ark of the testimony, which was the pillar of the age; and in its midst were two tablets of stone, which Moses deposited there at Horeb, which were more precious than refined silver and the finest gold, and he spread and overshadowed it with a veil of violet and purple."
For 'litter' (ferculum) the Hebrew is appirion, which the Septuagint renders with the consonant word phoreion from pheron or pherein, meaning to carry: thus ferculum is derived from ferre (to carry); a ferculum therefore is a conveyance in which a person is either borne and carried by bearers shouldering it, or conveyed by horses or mules. The Hebrews translate appirion as a couch, or bridal bed, in which the bridegroom and bride dwell; they say it is so called from fecundity, because offspring are begotten in it: for para means to be fruitful; hence appirion is a fruitful bed. Hence the Vatican codices of the Septuagint and St. Ambrose, book 3 On Virgins, read: King Solomon made himself a bed; Rabbi David translates: the bed on which brides are carried; Rabbi Solomon: a bridal chamber of honor; the Syriac: a throne; the Arabic: an edifice.
Therefore here by 'bed' understand the vehicle of the bed, that is, a litter, say Luis de Leon, Sanchez, and others, in which a soft cushion is spread like a bed, which has both the softness of a bed and at the same time the majesty of a throne, says Genebrardus. For this is what phoreion, that is, ferculum, means: for ferculum has three meanings: first, a sedan or litter; second, a triumphal chariot and throne, as Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, and the other Greek Fathers understand it here; third, a conveyance arranged for a procession. These three meanings are all apt for this passage, and this litter seems to comprise within itself these three, that is, the functions of these three.
Furthermore, some, like Sanchez and Gislerius, consider the bed from verse 7 to be the litter; better, others distinguish the bed, in which the bridegroom sleeps at night, attended by sixty mighty men because of the fears of the night, from the litter, by which he was conveyed during the day for procession: for the bed pertains to rest at night, the litter to the pomp of daytime. Solomon, therefore, just as in the preceding verse he described the bed of his domestic chamber for nighttime rest: so here he describes the royal litter or triumphal chariot, by which during the day he was conveyed through the city and displayed his magnificence and glory to the people.
Less correctly, therefore, Aben-Ezra interprets appirion as a magnificent palace; and others (whom St. Gregory, Rupert, and Richard of St. Victor favor) as a platter on which dishes are brought to the table: for the Hebrew appirion, Greek phoreion, Latin ferculum, properly means a conveyance used for processions; hence Suetonius in his Life of Caesar: "In the Pontic triumph, he says, among the processional floats he displayed the inscription of three words: 'I came, I saw, I conquered':" that is, among the conveyances of the triumphal procession, under which name are included idols, enemy spoils, crowns, machines, and other things usually carried in a triumphal procession; just as Titus, in his triumph over Jerusalem and the conquered Jews, carried around the golden lampstand, adorned with seven golden branches, as we see depicted in Rome on the Arch of Titus.
And Livy, book 1: "He himself, he says, a man magnificent both in words and no less a displayer of sacred things, carrying the spoils of the slain enemy commander suspended on a frame aptly fashioned for this purpose, ascended to the Capitol."
Hence the processional floats of the sacred rites are called fercula, on which images of the gods, or statues of the saints, and especially the Holy Eucharist, are magnificently carried and borne in procession.
For 'back' (reclinatorium), the Hebrew is rephide, which the Syriac, Vatablus, and others translate as 'covering' or 'pavement'; better is our translator's 'back-rest' (reclinatorium), and the Septuagint's anakliton, that is, a leaning-piece, namely the back part of a litter or chariot, where the bridegroom and bride, leaning with their backs, recline beautifully and pleasantly.
For 'seat' (ascensum), the Hebrew is merchab, meaning vehicle, seat, chariot: the Septuagint and our translator here render it as 'seat' (ascensus), but in Leviticus 15:9 they translate it as 'covering,' and in Habakkuk 3:7, as 'cavalry.'
Hence first, some, like St. Gregory, Philo, and Hortolanus, by merchab or 'seat,' understand the steps by which one ascends to the litter or vehicle; and by them being purple they think is mystically signified the passions and martyrdoms, that is, the labors and blood, by which the ascent to eternal glory is made. Second, Genebrardus, Sanchez, and others understand the covering of the vehicle, that is, the canopy, which rises above the silver pillars, or is spread over them; hence the Syriac and Arabic translate: covering, or veil of purple. So Theocritus, in Idyll 15, describing the litter of Arsinoe and its veil:
"And above them purple tapestries." Third, properly by 'seat' (ascensum) you may understand the seat or chair, on which the bridegroom and bride ascended and sat: for this is properly called merchab, and it is usually purple: for purple, being soft, provides a soft seat, and is itself the garment and covering of kings and princes. The grammatical sense therefore is, as if to say: Solomon made a litter, that is, a beautiful sedan, or a magnificent chariot for procession, for himself and his bride, the material of which was cedar of Lebanon, its sides were adorned with silver pillars, the back-rest was of gold, and the seat of purple.
The litter signifies the Roman Church, now ample and magnificent, presiding over the other churches scattered throughout the world through the Roman Pontiff, and reigning like Solomon. For just as in verse 1 he called the Church confined in Jerusalem and Judea, and as it were sleeping, mischab, that is, a small bed; then in verse 7 he called the Church gathered at Antioch from Jews and Gentiles, and the Roman Church being born under St. Peter at Rome and hiding in the darkness of unbelief, mitta, that is, a bed extending and expanding to neighboring peoples, but by night, that is, secretly and in hiding, "because of the fears of the night" of the Jews and Gentiles persecuting her: so here he calls the Roman Church, now in broad daylight as it were shining and resplendent, indeed presiding, and triumphing over unbelief and tyrants, a litter, because of its greatness and magnificence, which it especially attained under the times of Decius and Diocletian through the martyrdoms, holiness, and miracles of so many illustrious pontiffs, cardinals, and faithful, such as St. Cornelius, Sixtus, Urban, Marcellus, Lawrence, Sebastian, Cecilia, Agnes, etc., and through the conversion of so many Roman senators and princes, and finally of Constantine the Great himself, who as the first Christian emperor made all of Rome Christian, and in it built royal basilicas, such as the Lateran, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Lawrence's, Holy Cross, etc., as royal litters; indeed he as it were subjected the entire world to them, when by his example and command he made it Christian.
The litter can also be called the magnificent conveyance on which the Roman Pontiff, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, borne on the shoulders of bearers and attended by all the cardinals, bishops, prelates, and all the clergy and people, carries the Holy Eucharist in solemn procession. For this honor is paid not so much to the Pontiff as to Christ, whose vicar the Pontiff is, and whom he carries in the Eucharist and sets before the people to be venerated and adored.
By this litter, therefore, the magnificence of the Roman Church is depicted, and at the same time, by the word 'litter,' it is indicated that the pontifical chair and the Roman Church are not bound to the city of Rome, but are movable, and can be transferred elsewhere like a litter, as two hundred years ago it was transferred to Avignon, and remained there for 60 years, and at the end of the world, when Rome, reverting to paganism, shall expel the Pontiff, he will then transfer his see and the assembly of his faithful elsewhere, as I said on Revelation, chapter 18.
The chair, therefore, and the Roman Church is the litter, in which Christ resides in His vicar the Roman Pontiff: hence it is said to be made of the cedars of Lebanon, that is, most firm and incorruptible: for cedar does not decay, and "eternity commends the cedar," says Pliny. Hence, although in the chair of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch heretical bishops sat who had corrupted the faith and the Church, such as Nestorius, Eutyches, Peter the Fuller, Macedonius, etc., yet in the Roman chair, by Christ's providence, for sixteen hundred years up to now no heretical pontiff has sat, Christ so providing for the inviolate faith of the Church.
The silver pillars denote the doctors and prelates, especially the cardinals, who as hinges and pillars both support and adorn the see and the Roman Church, while they shine like silver with the brightness of wisdom and purity of life, and resound by word and example through the city and the world.
The golden back-rest is the faithful and pious Roman people, conspicuous for gold, that is, for golden piety and religion, in which Christ sweetly rests and reclines: for the inclination of the Roman people toward piety and devotion is remarkable. I myself have seen no nation more disposed to the duties of religion. Hence there is hardly a day in the year in which somewhere in Rome a solemn feast of some saint is not celebrated, with ample indulgences, ornaments, the harmony of musicians, and a great concourse of people.
The seat, that is, the purple chair, says Justus of Urgel, is the enormous and almost immeasurable multitude (Bozius counts three hundred thousand) of the most valiant martyrs, who at Rome poured out their blood for the faith and the Church, from St. Peter until Constantine, in which Christ most joyfully reclines in the seat of His companions and children (for Christ is the father and prince of martyrs). Hence also the Blessed Virgin, the mother of Christ, chose a place for herself at Rome among the martyrs, when, appearing to the patrician John under Pope Liberius, she ordered that a basilica be built for her on the Esquiline, which today is called, from its magnificence, Santa Maria Maggiore: for on the Esquiline was the execution-place of the martyrs; hence near it was the Ursus Pileatus, where we read in the Martyrology that very many martyrs were either slain or buried, and in memory of this, a church built there in honor of St. Bibiana, now beautifully restored by Urban VIII, is visited.
If by 'the seat' you prefer to understand the veil, or canopy of the litter, or the triumphal chariot of Christ, this excellently represents the martyrs, who with their blood veil, cover, and adorn Rome and the Roman Church, and triumphing gloriously over the faithless tyrants, ascended into heaven, and from there protect and champion the Roman Church: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, Justus, Aponius, Bede, and the rest, who by the litter understand the Church, namely the primary or Roman one, in which, as in a magnificent litter, Christ resides and triumphs, and the universal Church as the bride of Christ.
Hear St. Gregory: "The woods of Lebanon are said to be imperishable; therefore King Solomon made himself a litter of the woods of Lebanon, because according to the grace of His foreknowledge, Christ built His holy Church from saints who will endure forever. He made its pillars of silver, because He gave preachers to the same Church, whom He both strengthened with the great uprightness of justice so that they might support it by their examples, and adorned with the brightness of eloquence as with the splendor of silver so that they might instruct by their preaching. He made the back-rest of gold, because when He shone forth in the hearts of the perfect, He showed them the power of His divinity through contemplation. In which contemplation, when He showed them the beauty of heavenly joys, He as it were composed a golden back-rest for them, because He provided a place where they might rest and be refreshed. This back-rest is rightly said to be golden, because wisdom is better than all riches, and all things that are desired cannot be compared with it."
Then he interprets the purple seat thus: "This back-rest is reached by many labors, ascended to through many tribulations, so that if necessary even the shedding of blood is permitted. Therefore the ascent is rightly said to be purple: for when all the holy martyrs gave over their bodies to torments for the sake of eternal life, when they patiently endured scourges, goads, fires, swords, and innumerable other torments, did they not ascend to that back-rest, that is, to the blessed life, by a purple ascent?"
Symbolically, the litter of the divinity is the humanity of Christ: for this is as it were the sedan in which the deity of the Word reclines and rests, says Philo of Carpathia; and the litter of both is the Holy Eucharist, in which the entire divinity and humanity of Christ is contained, and is carried in processions for the glory of Christ and the devotion of the faithful, so that they may give thanks to God, ward off impending dangers, and obtain every grace and blessing from God.
This litter was made of the woods of Lebanon, that is, of the most pure blood of the Blessed Virgin, free from all corruption: for Lebanon in Hebrew means the same as brightness and bright purity. The silver pillars are the wisdom of Christ, His eloquence, the power of speaking and preaching, resonant and effective like silver.
The golden back-rest is the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 2, teaches rested upon Christ, and in which in turn Christ, as if reclining, found rest.
The purple seat is the bloody sweat, passion, death, and martyrdom of Christ: so Bede, who says this signifies that no one enters the Church unless imbued with the sacraments of the Lord's passion.
Again, the litter, that is, the sedan and as it were the triumphal chariot of Christ, was the cross, says Aponius: for this was made from the imperishable woods of Lebanon; hence even now it endures in its relics, which are preserved in various places. For on the cross Christ triumphed over sin, death, the devil, and hell, according to the Apostle, Colossians 2:14: "Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross: and despoiling principalities and powers, He made a show of them confidently, triumphing openly over them in Himself."
The pillars of the cross were humility and obedience, according to that text: "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8).
The golden back-rest was His unconquered patience and magnanimity, leaning upon which He peacefully bore and overcame all wounds, insults, and pains.
The purple seat was the purple cloak with which the Jews dressed Him in mockery as if He were the King of the Jews, or rather the total shedding of blood, which stained and made purple His entire body, according to Isaiah 63:1: "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This one beautiful in his robe, etc. Why then is your garment red, and your vestments like those of men treading in the wine-press? I have trodden the wine-press alone."
THE INTERIOR HE PAVED WITH LOVE
The Hebrew reads: its interior is ablaze with love, because indeed this chariot of the cross of Christ is fiery and burning with charity: for it breathes and hurls forth nothing but love for God and men; hence in this fiery chariot He Himself, like the true Elijah, carries not only Himself but also His elect, indeed snatches them up into heaven.
Aponius adapts these to the cross somewhat differently. For he says thus: "The litter of the cross, made of cedar wood, on whose silver pillars the true body, immaculate and free from the contagion of sin, gleams white, and the radiance of the glorious soul shines like gold, in which up to now the Word of God is shown to have His resting-place, and the bodily and royal sense of the divinity flashes forth."
Tropologically, Gregory of Nyssa and others by the silver pillars understand the doctors, shining with the brightness of heavenly eloquence; by the purple seat, the prelates and princes, for their distinction is purple; by the golden back-rest, the mind upon which all the powers of the soul lean and rest. Cassiodorus and St. Gregory here by the golden back-rest understand heavenly glory, in which is the eternal rest of the saints. The same St. Gregory, Homily 15 on Ezekiel, understands charity, in which the saints find rest in this life: "With the silver pillars, he says, there is a golden back-rest, because through what the holy preachers say brightly, the minds of the hearers receive the radiance of intimate charity, in which they find rest."
The Hebrew reads: its interior set ablaze (or covered) with love, that is, the whole life and person of Christ breathes nothing but charity; for just as He did not live for Himself but for us, so He did and suffered all things out of charity: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Gregory of Nyssa, Philo of Carpathia, and others.
For the daughters of Jerusalem, because they are those who in faith, through faith, admire and celebrate the beauty of Christ and the Church, or who strive to please Christ the Bridegroom and to recline and dwell together with Him.
The continuation of this exposition of the Sage is given elsewhere.
burning with an apostolic spirit, and preaching Christ crucified, is called the litter of Christ: for he carried the name, faith, and worship of Christ throughout all nations; hence the litter of Christ was St. Paul and the apostles, says Theodoret, and Hortolanus, and Gislerius, indeed Christ Himself, Acts 9:15: 'This man is a chosen vessel to Me, to carry My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.' For he himself was a tall and proud cedar of Lebanon while, being a Jew, he persecuted the Church, but afterwards, cut down and hewn, he became the incorruptible litter and triumphal chariot of Christ, according to what he himself says, 2 Corinthians 2:14: 'But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph (that is, causes us to triumph) in Christ Jesus, and manifests the fragrance of His knowledge through us in every place: for we are the good fragrance of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.' His silver pillars were the wisdom and effectiveness of preaching Christ crucified, according to that: 'But we preach Christ crucified: to the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness: but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,' 1 Corinthians 1:23. The golden reclining couch was the invincible constancy of soul, modesty, and gentleness, upon which reclining he bore and overcame all labors, difficulties, and adversities bravely and peacefully. The purple ascent was his continual suffering, wounds, and hardships, in which he gloried: 'Far be it from me,' he said, 'to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,' Galatians 6:14. Read the whole of 2 Corinthians 11, where he enumerates his wounds and sufferings as trophies and triumphs. He paved the middle with charity, because he breathed and poured forth nothing but the fires of love, even toward the Jews who were most hostile to him. See Romans 9:1.
Therefore St. Chrysostom, Homily 22 to the People, near the beginning, gives Paul these praises: 'Paul, the earthly angel, the heavenly man, the receptacle of the Holy Spirit, incomparable in zeal, great in charity, the solicitous guardian of the churches of God, the advocate of piety, the guide of the weak, the matchmaker of believers, the reproof of the Jews, the net of all our people, the teacher after mortification, and the herald after death, who shows us how one must ascend to heaven.' The same, in Book 2 On Prayer: 'Paul, that insatiable worshipper of God, the common parent and progenitor of the servants of Christ, that guardian of the world, who makes temples of Christ out of men.' See what I have said in praise of St. Paul in the Prooemium to his Epistles, and in the Portrait of St. Paul, which I prefixed to the Acts of the Apostles.
Gregory of Nyssa, in Homily 7, aptly notes that God is present in the just in various ways, namely as in a place, as in a house, as on a throne, as on a footstool, as in a chariot, and as on a horse receiving the bridle: but here He is described as being in a devout soul as in a litter, most excellent in its material and workmanship, inasmuch as it no longer lives for itself, but bears God living within it, according to that
Symbolically, Hugh of St. Victor, from Miscellanea II, Book I, chapter 120:
'The litter,' he says, 'is any congregation of saints carrying souls to the eternal banquet; the silver pillars are those who by the example of their most steadfast work support others, and illuminate them with the light of preaching; the golden reclining couch is the splendor of eternal happiness, in which one reclines and rests from all labor; the purple ascent signifies that one arrives at the brightness of that rest only through tribulation.'
Anagogically, this litter signifies the Church of the saints triumphant in heaven, whose foundational pillars, gates, measurements, and gems St. John vividly depicts, Revelation 21:12. God made this for the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, for the blessed ones, both angels and men: for the angels, to restore their ruins; for men, because Christ suffered and died for them.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the holy soul
First, the devout mind, especially one devoted to mortification and bearing the cross of Christ, is the litter of Christ, according to that: 'Always carrying about in the body the mortification of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies,' 2 Corinthians 4:10; and: 'I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body,' Galatians 6:17; and: 'You were bought with a great price. Glorify and carry God in your body,' 1 Corinthians 6:20. Hence St. Ignatius the Martyr was called Theophoros and Christophoros, that is, God-bearer and Christ-bearer; and so he calls himself in the title of his Epistles.
Second, Hugh of St. Victor, in Theological Instruction from Miscellanea I, 60: 'The litter of Solomon,' he says, 'is the heart exercised in the pursuit of virtue: the litter is the word of wisdom; from there it is carried from mouth to ear. The couch is the contemplative mind: this litter must first be of the wood of Lebanon through purity and the incorruption of truth; of silver in precepts and promises: in the brightness of silver, a pure way of life; in its resonance, a sweet promise. It has gold through heavenly wisdom, which does not corrode in eternity but glows red in charity. It has purple when it preaches the Passion. The ascent leads to glorification. In the middle charity is spread out for the daughters of Jerusalem, which is set before the tender and the weak for obtaining salvation: who is so tender that he cannot love? For if you cannot do other things, you can still love, so as to belong to the litter of Solomon.'
Third, the mind burning with charity, zeal for souls, and the spi-
of the Apostle: 'And I live, now not I: but Christ lives in me,' Galatians 2:20.
Symbolically, first, St. Ambrose, in Book 3 On Virgins, shortly after the beginning, reads thus from the Septuagint, and explains it as follows: 'King Solomon made himself a couch from the wood of Lebanon, its pillars of silver: a golden reclining couch, its back inlaid with gems. What is this couch,' he says, 'but the form of our body? For in gems the air is displayed in the appearance of brightness; in gold, fire; water, in silver; earth, through wood: from which the human body consists of four elements, in which our soul reclines, if it does not remain restless on the rough mountains, or on the dry ground, devoid of rest, but rests on high, supported by wood, free from vices.'
Second, three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret take this litter to mean the teachers, by whom, as in a chariot, Christ is carried to teach and perfect men; by the silver pillars they understand the words of the Lord; by the golden reclining couch, the peaceful tranquillity of the mind; by the purple ascent, the heavenly homeland, in which Christ the King, as Solomon the peaceful, makes all the saints purple-clad, that is, kings. Here belongs the exposition of Rupert, who, taking the litter as the instrument by which dishes are brought to the table, understands by it Sacred Scripture, which furnishes the soul with food of every kind.
Third, St. Anselm takes the litter to mean judges, who are from the cedars of Lebanon because they are incorrupt; and silver pillars, because they firmly resound with true judgment; and a golden reclining couch, because they shine with charity and wisdom; and a purple ascent, because with Christ ascending in them, they are prepared for any persecutions.
Tropologically, first, our Sanchez takes the litter of Christ to mean mortification, by which all love of the world is cut away from the soul, so that it may become the bride of Christ, and resign all its love to Him: hence Christ reposes in it with delight. Therefore St. Basil, in Rule 6, in the longer interrogations, teaches that self-denial is the basis and foundation of the spiritual life: 'Because it itself,' he says, 'is the supreme forgetfulness of all things of the higher life, and the withdrawal from one's own pleasures.' Its two pillars are hatred of self and love of God; the reclining couch is patience; the purple ascent is progress in every virtue.
Second, Hugh of St. Victor, in Book 1 of Theological Instruction, chapters 9 and 11, distinguishes three litters: 'Let us posit,' he says, 'three things, that is, the couch of Solomon, and the litter of Solomon, and the chariot of Pharaoh; and let us understand by the couch of Solomon the heart resting in the sweetness of contemplation; by the litter of Solomon, the heart carrying itself about in the exercise of good works; by the chariot of Pharaoh, the heart resting in the desire for carnal things.'
Third, Richard of St. Victor, taking the litter on which dishes are brought, with Rupert, understands by it the holy soul, which feeds and refreshes Christ: 'While He,' he says, 'is delighted by her good works, pursuits, and desires, as it is written: My people has satisfied Me with their voices, filled Me with fragrances; she also refreshes His members by example, prayer, teaching, counsel, and conversation.' This was made from the wood of Lebanon, that is, from the elect, who grow and bear fruit through Christ and in Christ, who is called Lebanon, that is, whitening, on account of His purity. The four pillars are the four cardinal virtues, which support the soul and make it splendid before God and men, like silver. The reclining couch is a pure conscience, in which Christ reclines and rests. It is called golden because it has been refined by the fire of tribulation. The purple ascent is the desire for heavenly things, by which the mind ascends to God, to Christ, and to the saints. These are Richard's extensive remarks, which I have compressed into a few words.
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin
The litter of Christ was the womb and arms of the Blessed Virgin, in which she carried Christ; likewise the manger and cradle served as a kind of movable litter and sedan chair of Christ; the pillars were the two arms of the Blessed Virgin, with which she held Christ tight; the reclining couch was her bosom and breast, on which Christ reclined; the purple ascent was her mind, her head, and her golden and purplish hair, which encircled, warmed, and veiled Christ resting in her bosom. The remaining things that I have said about the Church and the holy soul, apply with even greater right to the Blessed Virgin, changing only the name.
HE PAVED THE MIDDLE WITH CHARITY FOR THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
FOR THE DAUGHTERS. — Refer this both to the charity which immediately preceded, and to the entire litter. Moreover, the word 'media' is not an ablative singular pertaining to 'with charity,' as St. Gregory, St. Bernard, and Cassiodorus thought, but is an accusative plural signifying those things which were the middle or internal parts of the litter: for in Hebrew it is תוכו (tocho), that is, 'its middle was paved,' or 'set on fire,' or 'consumed with its love,' namely the love both of the litter and of the purple ascent, that is, of the seat or throne. This means: The throne of the litter, on which the bridegroom sat, was surrounded with purple; but in the middle, where the bridegroom's place was, it was paved with fiery stones representing charity, or certainly its middle, that is, the middle pavement of the litter, was inlaid with blazing gems.
For 'he paved,' in Hebrew it is רצוף (ratsuph), that is, 'paved' or 'burning with love': for רצף (ratsaph) is composed from צרף (tsaraph), that is, 'to burn' (whence the seraphim are called the highest angels, because they burn with love for God), and רבץ (raphats), that is, 'to be spread out'; hence ratsaph means to be spread out for burning or consuming; from this comes רצף (retseph), that is, 'a live coal' or 'fiery coal'; רצפה (ritspa) is a burning coal upon the pavement, and thence the pavement itself paved with stone, for example, Parian marble or marble. Therefore the Septuagint here and in 2 Chronicles 7:3, and Esther 1:6, translate it as lithostroton, that is, 'paved with cut stone, in varied and tessellated work'; hence they translate here, 'its interior paved with tessellated stones'; St. Ambrose, Book 3 On Virgins, 'its back inlaid with gems'; the fifth edition, 'its middle was composed of pebbles.' Therefore:
First, from the Hebrew you may translate thus: 'its middle was paved with stones of love,' that is, with blazing gems, such as pyropes and carbuncles, which are symbols of the love and charity of the bridegroom and bride, as well as of the daughters of Jerusalem; hence Vatablus translates, 'its interior was paved, or covered, with love'; the Syriac, 'its middle was paved with love on behalf of the daughters of Jerusalem'; the Arabic, 'and its interior was encrusted with gems, and that with the love of the daughters of Jerusalem.'
Second, because the Hebrews lack grammatical cases, which means that the same noun can be rendered in any case; hence from the Hebrew you may translate thus: 'and the middle is held by him who is set on fire with love,' meaning: The one burning with love occupies the middle of the litter, namely the bridegroom, that is, Christ. Hence the Hebrew Gloss on Genesis 2:5, 'And the Lord caused to germinate from the earth,' has this: 'In the middle of the bridal chamber is the Messiah, the son of David, who loves the children of Israel, as it was said in Song of Songs 3:10': 'He paved the middle with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem.' For the heart of Christ was like a most burning furnace of charity: hence He was roasted and scorched on the cross more by love for us than by pain; and on the cross, as on a litter, in the midst of His hands, feet, and side, pierced and bloodied by five wounds through nails and lance, as if with five purple and blazing
For it is established from Suidas and Varro that brides, newly wed, used to be carried by night in a litter to the bridegroom's house, lest they blush: therefore for the sake of honor they sat in the middle of the litter, so that the bridegroom attended the right side, and some relative or groomsman the left.
Fourth, others with the Septuagint translate in the accusative: 'its middle he paved with gems to win the love of the daughters of Jerusalem,' for they delight in gems and a gem-adorned chariot. Thus the Septuagint version can be explained: 'its interior or innermost part, paved with stones (gems), wins or extorts love from the daughters of Jerusalem'; or thus: 'in its middle he placed love or charity,' that is, an image of love or charity, to signify that this entire litter was composed by Christ out of love, or for the sake of love, in order to manifest His charity to all. Therefore some think that in the middle of this litter there was placed a statue or image of charity.
Thus the pagan peoples used to depict Cupid in their bridal chambers; hence Pausanias at the beginning of his Corinthian book asserts that an image of Cupid was depicted on a chariot, in the middle of whose base, he says, the image of the god of love (Cupid) emerged, with nereids attending on either side. Alcibiades also bore on his golden and ivory shield an engraved Cupid bending and deflecting a thunderbolt, by which he signified that love also dominates Jupiter, and wrests from him his anger and thunderbolt.
Fifth, our Vulgate most aptly translates in the ablative: 'he paved the middle with charity': for since in the Hebrew no material is expressed here with which the middle of the litter is paved, except charity, it is necessary that it was indeed paved with charity.
You ask, what is the meaning of the Vulgate version, 'he paved the middle with charity'? First, our Sanchez takes charity to mean dear and lovable things, namely gems, which attract the hearts of beholders to love of them, meaning: The middle of the litter was paved with most precious and dear gems. Hence the Septuagint translates lithostroton, that is, 'paved with tessellated stones'; St. Ambrose, 'inlaid with gems'; the fifth edition, 'composed of pebbles.' Thus in chapter 5:16, where the Vulgate has 'wholly desirable,' in Hebrew it is 'he is entirely desire,' and so the Septuagint renders it exactly. Thus St. John, 1 Epistle 2:16, says that whatever is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh or of the eyes, that is, is desirable to the flesh or to the eyes: for the Hebrews often take abstracts for concretes, and a power, habit, or act for its object.
Second, others take charity to mean an effigy of charity, meaning: Solomon placed in the middle of this litter a statue of charity, as the queen of this sacred marriage, who joined Christ with the Church by the supreme and indissoluble bond of love. By this is signified tropologically, says Sanchez, that charity, the queen of all virtues, has taken her seat in the middle as in her own kingdom, like the heart in the body, by which the other members live and thrive; from her all the virtues, which self-denial and mortification discover and refine, have their life and beauty. She makes the bridal chamber lovely; she brings with her her own natural ornaments, namely the other virtues, which as attendants and handmaids never depart from her side: indeed she alone performs the functions of the remaining virtues. This Augustine taught excellently in his treatise On the Praises of Charity, volume 9, and adds that Solomon, the wisest of men, arranged for this hieroglyphic litter to be made so that the daughters of Jerusalem might use it at weddings, so that gazing upon this model of holy matrimony, stirred by the keen symbols of love and fidelity, they would honor and love their husbands; and this is signified by what follows: 'For the daughters of Jerusalem.'
Third, others take charity to mean the Bridegroom, namely Christ, who is called Charity because He is supremely loving and lovable, meaning: In this nuptial litter Christ sat in the middle as the Bridegroom uniquely loving the bride, the Church, to such a degree that He seemed to be charity itself; and indeed, if by the litter you understand the manger or the cross, in its middle there was nothing but Christ, incarnate, crying, and crucified out of love for us.
Fourth, simply and plainly, take charity to mean an image, name, or symbol, or some emblem of charity, such as carbuncles, doves, turtledoves, and flames, meaning: The throne of the middle of this litter, or at least the pavement, was inlaid with the image of doves, or carbuncles, or fire and flames, which are the insignia of charity; and perhaps the very image and name of charity were engraved in the pavement itself, just as on the breastplate of the priest there was interwoven the Urim and Thummim, that is, doctrine and truth, Exodus 28:30, to signify that the entire adornment of this most splendid litter aimed at nothing other than displaying the love with which the bridegroom pursues the bride and the daughters of Jerusalem, the bride's handmaids or companions, so that he might in turn attract them to love her more and honor her. Thus this litter may deservedly be called the litter of love and charity, indeed charity itself; hence many translate: 'and its middle was burning with ardor,' or 'it was the ardor of love,' or 'it was set on fire with charity.'
It seems therefore that either the seat or the pavement of this litter, or both, were inlaid with an image of Charity, or with fiery things or things bearing the appearance of fire, such as burning coals, flames, carbuncles, etc. For fire is the symbol of charity and ardor, according to Song of Songs 8:6: 'Its lamps are lamps of fire and flames.' Hence also the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles at Pentecost in the form of fire and fiery tongues, Acts 2:3. See what was said there.
Moreover, Charity is depicted in this way: a maiden with a rosy face, but clad in a blazing scarlet garment, furnished with wings; on her head she wears a golden crown studded with carbuncles and gleaming; her finger is adorned with a ring sparkling with pyropes; in one hand she holds a red heart vibrating flames, in the other a bow and fiery arrows. This is the image, this the emblem of charity: and perhaps thus it was depicted in the middle of this litter. So much for the grammatical sense of the outer text; now let us pass to the parabolic and genuine sense contained within it.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Concerning Christ and the Church
Solomon, that is, Christ, paved the litter, that is, the Roman See and Church, with pure charity. First, because so many of Christ's benefits overflow into it that all things seem to be paved with love and charity: for in it sits the vicar of Christ, who possesses the fullness of ecclesiastical power over all churches and faithful, and therefore can and does grant the remission of all sins, indulgences, and most ample graces, especially to the Roman Church. In it is the assistance of Christ and the Holy Spirit, so that it cannot err in faith and religion; upon it greater charisms rain down from heaven; in it the basilicas and churches are full of the relics of holy pontiffs, priests, and virgins, so much so that almost the entire city of Rome is soaked with the blood of martyrs. Hence Christ, appearing to St. Bridget (as her Life relates), commanded her to travel from Sweden to Rome; for there, He said, the way to heaven was easier: she obeyed and set out, and from there she went to heaven.
Second, because Christ instilled illustrious charity into the minds of the pontiffs and faithful of the Roman Church, and still instills it 'for the daughters of Jerusalem,' so that faithful and devout souls, like citizens enrolled in heaven, attracted by this charity of the Roman Church, may love it, honor it, and follow it, and through it, as through a litter, be carried from the earthly Jerusalem to the heavenly one: for there is no salvation for one who is outside the Church, whose head is the Roman Church. St. Gregory the Great alone, to pass over the rest, was of such great charity that he fed all the orphans, monks, and poor of Rome, and very many throughout all Italy, indeed even beyond Italy, and those living in Palestine itself. During the Jubilee, all who flock to Rome from the whole world (who are numbered in many hundreds of thousands) are fed at the expense of the Romans for three days, and are treated generously as guests.
Moreover, the lavish charity of the Roman people is evident from the many hospices, orphanages, hospitals, and other pious establishments with which Rome abounds, not to mention the daily alms of the faithful, by which all the mendicant orders are sustained, very many nuns, boys, girls, and innumerable poor. I pass over the dowries given annually to a great many young women for marriage, the building and adornment of churches, the expenses of confraternities, etc., which indeed have often aroused the admiration of me and others who consider the limited means of the Roman people, so that these works seem to be the doing not so much of men as of God blessing the Roman Church. There are published books on this subject that clearly demonstrate this, particularly the book titled Hidden Treasures of Rome; also pamphlets written about the Roman jubilees. Thus Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Aponius, Bede, and others say that by these things it is signified that Christ, when He suffered and was crucified for us, paved the Church with charity, because in it He kindled the love of Himself and of divine things. These are the tapestries of charity, says Aponius, which are spread in the middle of human nature and of majesty, for the salvation of holy souls, and the joys of the daughters of the heavenly Jerusalem. This is indeed the charity that is spread out, which 'bears all things,' according to the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 13:7, which when trampled upon never yields, but raises up those who have been cast down by the example of its humility.
Symbolically, the litter of the divinity of Christ is His humanity; the litter of both is the cross as well as the Eucharist; for these three are paved with charity, according to that: 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son: that whoever believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life,' John 3:16; and that: 'In this the charity of God appeared among us, because God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him,' 1 John 4:9. The cause is given in verse 16: 'God is charity: and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him.' And that saying of Christ: 'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I desire but that it be kindled?' Luke 12:49. And that: 'He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him,' John 6:57: for the Eucharist represents, indeed actually presents to us for eating the entire divinity and humanity of Christ, roasted and scorched on the cross out of love for us. Therefore the Eucharist is the pure charity and love of Christ, by which He draws to Himself the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, souls who devoutly receive communion; and the sacrifice and sacrament of the Eucharist is most celebrated and repeated at Rome, since there are many thousands of priests there, and no fewer religious and monks, by whom the sacred synaxis is frequented as an established practice; and this is the source and cause of the Roman charity which I commended a little earlier: indeed the priestly order and power to consecrate the sacred Eu-
charistic power is derived from the Roman Pontiff, as from the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy: for by him bishops are created, who ordain priests throughout the whole world. For this reason, when the Pontiff leaves Rome and travels elsewhere, the sacrament of the Eucharist is always carried with him, and in former times he used to send it to meet bishops coming to Rome as a sign of mutual communion of faith and charity, as is clear from the letter of St. Irenaeus to Pope Victor, which Eusebius recounts, Book 5 of the History, chapter 24; from which Baronius concludes, in the year of Christ 198, volume 2, that the Roman Pontiff used to send the Eucharist to all his fellow bishops of the Catholic communion, but those whom he judged unworthy of it were to be avoided by all as excommunicated, inasmuch as they did not communicate with the Pontiff of the Roman Church. Christ therefore on the cross, as well as in the Eucharist, is like a divine and immense image of charity, so that He may more truly than Solomon be called Jedida, that is, 'beloved of the Lord,' 2 Samuel 12:25; and He breathes and inspires the same charity in those who devoutly receive communion. Hence St. Chrysostom, Homily 61 to the People: 'Let us depart from that table,' he says, 'like lions breathing fire, having become terrible to the devil, revolving in our minds our Head and the charity which He showed us.' The type of this was the Ark of the Covenant, whose cover was the golden propitiatory signifying Christ, who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world: the Ark therefore was like this litter, in whose middle was the manna, which was a figure of the Eucharist; hence the Chaldean paraphrase translates: 'And between the cherubim, who were above the propitiatory, there dwelt the majesty of the Lord, who causes His name to dwell in Jerusalem, more than in all the cities of the land of Israel.'
The mortified soul, preaching Christ with an apostolic spirit, is the litter of Christ; and therefore its middle, or as the Septuagint says, its innermost part, namely the heart and mind, is paved with charity: for one who strives to win souls for Christ must burn with love of God and zeal for souls. Such was St. Paul, who says: 'The charity of Christ urges us, etc.; and Christ died for all: so that they who live may live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again,' 2 Corinthians 5:14. 'Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress?' etc., Romans 8:35. And: 'I wished that I myself were anathema from Christ for the sake of my brethren,' Romans 9:3. Hear St. Chrysostom, Homily 32 on the Epistle to the Romans, in the Moral section: 'The heart of Christ was the heart of Paul, and the tablet of the Holy Spirit, and the volume of charity, etc., who deserved to love Christ so much that no one else loved Him thus; who despised death and hell; who from his tears
was ground down by those brotherly tears.' See the same author in the eight homilies that he composed in praise of St. Paul, especially in Homily 2 (found at the end of volume 3), and in the sermon immediately following, which is in commemoration of St. Paul on charity, where, among other things, explaining 1 Corinthians 9: 'I became all things to all men, that I might save all,' he exclaims: 'Did you see, I ask, a soul surpassing earthly things? For he desired to present absolutely every person to God, and as far as it concerned him, he did present them all. For as if he had begotten the whole world himself, he was so troubled, so anxious, and so hastened to bring all into the kingdom of God by teaching, praying, etc., raising the falling, strengthening the standing, lifting up those lying on the ground, healing the brokenhearted, animating the sluggish with the oil of exhortation, thundering terribly against enemies, gazing threateningly at foes, in the manner of an excellent general and a physician carrying the instruments of his art.' He then adds the reason: 'For although he stood high on the citadel of all virtues, he nevertheless surpassed every flame with the special ardor of charity: for just as iron placed in fire becomes entirely fire; so Paul, set ablaze with charity, became entirely charity: who, as if he were the common father of the whole world, so imitated their parents in his love for people, indeed surpassed all parents, not only those of the flesh but also spiritual fathers, in solicitude and devotion, spending his money and words and very soul for those whom he loved.'
Therefore let preachers, who like Paul strive to impress the faith and love of Christ upon the faithful, burn with the charity of Paul, and thus they will set others on fire with the same. So St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, and follower of St. Paul, when he carried with him only the Gospel of St. Matthew as he went to preach through the provinces, and set all on fire with the love of God, being asked from what book he drew such sweet and ardent words for his sermons, replied: 'From the book of charity; study this one book, and you will set all on fire with the same ardor.' For that saying is true:
Let the orator burn, if he wishes to set the people on fire.
Morally, charity perfects all virtues, and lays them under itself and duly orders them, and overthrows all vices: hence without charity no virtue avails for salvation, according to 1 Corinthians 13:4: 'Charity is patient, is kind: charity does not envy, does not act perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, does not seek its own interests, is not provoked, does not think evil, does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth: bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.' So St. Anselm. Hence also Gregory of Nyssa here, in Homily 7, teaches that charity is adorned and crowned with all the virtues, whose pavement he says is virginity; for this shines with the purity of the virtues, as with certain rays of gems.
Moreover, Richard of St. Victor, understanding by 'the middle things' indifferent works, which are midway between virtue and vice, such as eating, drinking, studying, walk-
ing, etc.: 'These,' he says, 'must be paved with charity, so that they may be done in charity and with good intention, and so that with fraternal charity they may be done in such a way that the weak are not scandalized or weakened by them, but rather they may be so paved, that is, done with such equality and discretion, that the soul may walk in all these things without complaint, and may know how to exercise them opportunely, and again to set them aside.'
Again, St. Gregory, following Cassiodorus, taking 'media' as an adjective, as an epithet of charity, considers it to be called 'middle' because through its mediation the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, more imperfect souls, will arrive at the beatitude of the bridegroom, if they tirelessly observe charity, even if they lack the golden reclining couch of contemplation, and the purple ascent of martyrdom, and the silver pillars of preaching. Rupert gives the reason, who taking the litter to mean Sacred Scripture, says: 'He paved the middle with charity,' that is, he placed the primacy of charity in the middle of the Scriptures, because everything else depends on it, according to Christ's words: 'On these two commandments (of loving God and neighbor) the whole law depends, and the prophets,' Matthew 22:40. He adds the reason, that charity makes another's good one's own, for example, he says: 'They are not virgins in the flesh, but by loving the good of virginity in you, O blessed Mary, they make it their own. No other than you bore King Solomon, a king so great, so magnificent: but those women, by loving this so great privilege in you, become mothers of the same king. Likewise they are not martyrs, nor do they have the strength to fight among the brave and pour out their blood for love of King Solomon, but they love the martyrs, and by loving them, make their glory their own. I will say more: They are not gods, but by loving God, they are gods, or sons of God, as it is written: I have said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.'
Finally, St. Bernard, in On the Steps of Humility, near the beginning, taking this litter to mean spiritual feasts, namely of charity and virtues, interprets 'middle charity' as that which is suited to those in the middle, that is, not beginners nor the perfect, but those making progress, who are positioned between the two: 'He paved the middle with charity,' he says, 'for the daughters of Jerusalem, for imperfect souls, namely, who since they cannot yet take that solid food, are to be nourished in the meantime with the milk of charity instead of bread, with oil instead of wine. This charity is rightly described as middle, because its sweetness is not available to beginners, since fear prevents it; nor is it sufficient for the perfect, given the more abundant sweetness of contemplation. The former, still needing to be purged of the noxious humors of carnal pleasures by the most bitter potion of fear, do not yet experience the sweetness of milk; the latter, already weaned from milk, are more gloriously delighted by feasting at the entrance of glory: only to those in the middle, that is, those making progress, who have now experienced certain honeyed sips of charity, is it suited, so that they may be content with them for the time being through their own tenderness. The first food, therefore, is that of humility, purgative with bitterness; the second
of charity, consoling with sweetness; the third of contemplation, solid with strength.' And after inserting a few remarks, he adds passionately: 'Who will invite me to that at least middle and sweet banquet of charity, where the just feast in the sight of God, and delight in joy, so that, no longer speaking in the bitterness of my soul, I may say to God: Do not condemn me, Job 10:2; but feasting on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, may joyfully sing in the ways of the Lord: For great is the glory of the Lord?' Psalm 137:5. But these are more ingenious and pious than solid and genuine: for this litter is not for banquets, but is a seat or magnificent chariot of the bridegroom and bride; and the word 'media' does not signify a position and seat, as I have said; yet charity can be called 'middle' in this sense, that it is placed and paved in the middle of the litter.
The womb and bosom of the Blessed Virgin was a most august litter, bearing and carrying the incarnate Word, as I said above, and therefore paved in its middle with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem: because Christ, who is charity itself, breathed the greatest grace and charity upon the Blessed Virgin, so that she might bring help to the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, to devout souls who in any difficulty have recourse to her. Therefore she is the mediatrix between God and men, as St. Bernard teaches, Sermon 2 On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin: 'She herself,' he says, 'is our mediatrix; she is the one through whom we receive Your mercy, O God; she through whom we also welcome the Lord Jesus into our homes.' Wherefore with great devotion the Church daily invokes her: 'Hail, Queen, Mother of mercy; our life, our sweetness, and our hope, hail. To you we cry, exiled children of Eve; to you we sigh, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, our advocate, those your merciful eyes toward us; and after this exile, show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb, O clement! O pious! O sweet Virgin Mary!'
Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 1 On the Assumption: 'Can anyone doubt that the womb of Mary was completely transformed into the affection of charity, in which that charity which is from God rested bodily for nine months?' And a little later: 'Nor is there on earth a place more worthy than the temple of the virginal womb, in which Mary received the Son of God; nor in heaven than the royal throne, to which today Mary's Son has exalted Mary.'
Hence from the Hebrew it can be translated: 'and He Himself, set on fire with love, holds the middle,' meaning: Christ, who is entirely love and ardor, occupies the middle of the womb and heart of the Blessed Virgin, and in her, as on a throne and royal seat, He sits and pours forth His charity.
Again, the Blessed Virgin paved the manger with charity, when she placed Christ, who is charity itself, newly born, in it as on a couch: therefore the manger was like a tabernacle of charity. Just as the pagans imagined Cupid, the god of love, as a winged boy carrying a bow and arrows, so you may truly depict charity as a winged boy lying in a manger, scattering flames of ardor: for Christ in the cradle is the hieroglyphic and enticement of love; for there the great Lord, exceedingly praiseworthy, became a little child and exceedingly lovable: for what is more endearing than the little one of Bethlehem charming all, as St. Francis used to call Christ from the most sweet delights of love? Moreover, all the faithful and all churches, but especially the Roman Church, are devoted to the Blessed Virgin: hence Rome alone has built magnificent basilicas and churches in honor of the Blessed Virgin, numbering sixty-three (as many as the Angelic Salutations recited in the crown, or rosary, of the Blessed Virgin), and diligently frequents and devoutly venerates them. Therefore, as great is its devotion to the Blessed Virgin, so in return is the generosity of the Blessed Virgin and her outpouring of charity and graces toward it.
VERSE 11. GO FORTH AND SEE, O DAUGHTERS OF SION, KING SOLOMON IN THE DIADEM WITH WHICH HIS MOTHER CROWNED HIM ON THE DAY OF HIS BETROTHAL, AND ON THE DAY OF THE JOY OF HIS HEART
GO FORTH AND SEE, O DAUGHTERS OF SION, KING SOLOMON IN THE DIADEM (the Syriac and Arabic say, 'in the crown'), WITH WHICH HIS MOTHER CROWNED HIM ON THE DAY OF HIS BETROTHAL, AND ON THE DAY OF THE JOY OF HIS HEART. — For mothers used to crown their sons when they became bridegrooms at their weddings; hence Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, objects to Achilles that her daughter had been crowned by her for the wedding: 'In vain, indeed,' she says, 'but nevertheless, as if my daughter were going to marry you, I brought her, after first having crowned her.' Philo also, in Biblical Antiquities, introduces the daughter of Jephthah, devoted to death by her father's vow, lamenting her virginity thus: 'O my mother,' she says, 'you bore your only daughter in vain, because the underworld has become my bridal chamber; the preparation of all the oil that you readied for me will be poured out; and the white garment that my mother wove, the moth will consume it; and the crown that my nurse wove will wither in time.' St. Chrysostom also, in Homily 9 on 1 Timothy in the Moral section, teaches that sons were customarily crowned at their weddings: and he adds the reason, to show that their spirit is higher and superior to all enticements of the flesh: for that crown indicates the brightness and purity of a soul that has never succumbed to lust: 'For this reason,' he says, 'crowns are placed on the head, to be signs of victory, namely that they had previously been impervious to lust. Thus at last they enter the bedchamber, because they were not overcome by pleasure. But if someone, overcome by lust, has given himself over to harlots, for what reason should he walk about crowned, he who has submitted his neck to such foul lust?'
This is the voice of the bride, who calls out the daughters of Sion, that they may go forth from their houses to behold the bride-
groom, who, carried magnificently on the litter paved with charity for those same daughters of Sion, or Jerusalem, and crowned with a diadem by his mother on the day of his wedding, went forth exulting and triumphing, as a new king and bridegroom: for bridegrooms, as well as kings, were accustomed to be crowned with a garland, whether of flowers, or leaves, or gold, or gems, as Tertullian teaches in his book On the Soldier's Crown, Brissonius in On the Rite of Weddings, Alexander ab Alexandro in Book 2 of his Genial Days, chapter 5, and Charles Paschalius in Book 1 On Crowns, chapter 16. Hence Claudian, at the wedding of the Emperor Honorius, sings thus:
You, Hymenaeus, prepare the festive torches; you, Grace, choose the flowers; you, Concord, bind the twin crowns.
And Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown: 'Weddings also crown the bride and groom,' he says. Alexander the Great walked crowned when he, being the bridegroom of one woman, joined a hundred Macedonians with an equal number of Persian women in lawful marriage, as Plutarch testifies in his book On the Fortune of Alexander. The same Paschalius, chapter 17, from Plutarch and others, teaches that these bridal crowns were customarily woven from asparagus and watermint, from verbena, from fir and pine, and that they were signs and tokens of willingness, merriment, joy, and congratulation. Finally, it was the custom that the new bride would crown the doorpost of her husband's house with wool, according to Proverbs 31:13: 'She sought wool and flax, and worked with the counsel of her hands.' That these nuptial crowns were conspicuous, tall, and almost tower-like, is indicated by that verse of Lucan, Book 2 On the Civil War:
The matron pressing her brow with a towered crown.
Such indeed was the crown with which Alexander the Great crowned his bride Roxane, as the depiction of Aelius in Lucian indicates.
Moreover, the bride invites the daughters of Sion to this spectacle of her bridegroom to the end that she may carry them away into admiration, love, and worship of him; hence she calls him Solomon, that is, Peaceful, because he himself will bring them peace, that is, tranquillity, joy, riches, honors, salvation, happiness, and every good (for this is what 'peace' means in Hebrew).
The diadem was originally the first insignia of kings, and it was nothing other than a white and thin band encircling the head: for the Greek diadein means to bind, to bind around, whence diadema is a binding, a fillet. Later, as the power, wealth, and splendor of kings increased, the band was changed into a golden crown adorned with gems. 'The diadem,' says Caelius Rhodiginus, Book 24, chapter 6, 'was a white band which was bound around the heads of kings.' The first to devise this royal insignia was, according to Pliny, Father Liber (Bacchus). When someone had placed a laurel crown tied with a band on a statue of Caesar, the tribunes of the plebs ordered the band to be removed from the crown, and the man to be led away in chains. We read that Alexander the Great once took off his own diadem to bind up a wound that Lysimachus had received on his forehead. They say that this event portended the kingship for Lysimachus, which he also shortly after attained.
Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Pompey was reproached by detractors because he went about with a bandaged leg on account of an ulcer, as if this were a presage of his desire for revolution. Among the Turkish nation it is well known that remnants of the ancient custom are still preserved.
Moreover, the Chaldean paraphrase, referring these words in a Jewish manner to Solomon himself, interprets them paraphrastically as follows: 'When King Solomon came to perform the dedication of the house of the sanctuary, a herald went forth with power, and thus spoke: Go forth and see, O inhabitants of the provinces of the land of Israel and people of Sion, the diadem and crown with which the people of Israel crowned King Solomon on the day of the dedication of the house of the sanctuary; and he rejoiced in the joy of the feast of tabernacles, which King Solomon celebrated at that time for fourteen days.'
Christ, the King and Bridegroom of the Church, was crowned with a fivefold diadem or crown. First, with the robe of human nature, when He clothed His divinity with it as with a crown in the Incarnation: for the robe among the Syrians was considered royal attire and a royal diadem, as Alexander ab Alexandro testifies, Book 1 of Genial Days, chapter 28. Solomon alludes to the wedding hymn of Christ and the Church composed by his father David, Psalm 18:6, where he compares Christ the Bridegroom to the sun: 'In the sun,' he says, 'He set His tabernacle: and He Himself, as a bridegroom coming forth from His bridal chamber.' For when the sun rises at dawn, with its rays reflected in the night vapors and intervening cloud, it presents the appearance of a crowned head: hence, beautifully crowned with splendor, it proceeds like a bridegroom from his chamber. Again, often under the sun there is such an accumulation of vapors and arrangement of clouds that the sun, shining through them, produces a halo, that is, a crown, by which it is encircled, adorned, and crowned: just so the eternal Word, assuming flesh, vibrating through it the rays of His divinity, proceeded beautifully crowned with it as with a translucent and gleaming cloud, as with a halo and crown: for Christ in the Incarnation betrothed to Himself the human nature which He assumed in the inseparable marriage of union, so that He would adhere to it forever, and never abandon it; and through the flesh which He assumed, He consequently betrothed to Himself and united the whole human nature and the whole Church: for it was to this end that He assumed flesh, and went forth adorned with the diadem of flesh.
Moreover, with this robe and crown of humanity He was clothed and crowned by His mother, namely by the Blessed Virgin: because she, from her most pure blood, with the Holy Spirit overshadowing, formed the body of Christ in her womb. Add that Christ through the Blessed Virgin, as the daughter and heir of King David, seemed to have obtained by hereditary succes-
sion the kingdom and royal crown of Israel; hence, alluding to this, the angel who was the attendant of Christ's incarnation said to the Blessed Virgin among other things about Him: 'And the Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father: and He will reign in the house of Jacob forever,' Luke 1:32: for God had promised David this kingdom of the Messiah, that is, of Christ who was to be born from David, saying: 'Of the fruit of your womb I will place upon your throne,' Psalm 131:11. Thus by the diadem they understand the human nature which Christ assumed in the Incarnation: so interpret St. Gregory, Bede, Alcuin, Honorius, Cassiodorus, Philo, and St. Athanasius in his Synopsis, and St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 16, who says thus: 'Blessed is the womb of Mary, which crowned so great a Lord when it formed Him; she crowned Him when she bore Him, because although she formed Him without any work of her own (since the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, whence He Himself says in the Psalm: Your eyes saw my unformed substance, Psalm 138:16), nevertheless by the very fact that she conceived and bore Him for the salvation of all, she placed on His head the crown of eternal mercy, so that through the faith of believers Christ might become the head of every man.' Hear St. Gregory: 'The mother of Christ is believed to be blessed Mary, who crowned Him with a diadem, because He Himself assumed our humanity from her, as is recounted in the Gospel, and this is said to have happened on the day of His betrothal and on the day of the joy of His heart; because when the only-begotten Son of God willed to unite His divinity with our humanity, when by His good will at the opportune time it pleased Him to take to Himself the Church as His bride, then with the exultation of charity He willed to receive our flesh from a virgin mother: in which, living for a time with sufferings, He rejoiced vehemently over our redemption.' Then St. Gregory raises an objection and at the same time responds: 'But since a diadem is assumed for glory, and in the assumption of humanity not the glory but the humility of the Word of God is recognized, how is He said to have been crowned with our humanity as with a diadem? But since His incarnation was truly our glory, because we are His members through communion of the body, Scripture rightly called the diadem of the members the diadem of the Head: here therefore, because He is praised by the bride, He Himself in turn deigns to praise the bride.' This is what Isaiah, foreseeing 600 years before, sang, exulting in spirit, chapter 61, verse 10: 'I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul will exult in my God: for He has clothed me with garments of salvation: and has surrounded me with the robe of justice, as a bridegroom adorned with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.' See what was said there.
The day of the Incarnation, therefore, was the day of betrothal and of joy, both of Christ and of men and of angels: for Christ rejoiced in His humanity so noble, holy, and perfect, because through it He was going to reconcile men to God; hence the angels, exulting, then sang: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will,' Luke 2:13. This is what Zephaniah foretold, chapter 3, verse 14: 'Praise, O daughter of Sion: shout for joy, O Israel: and be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your judgment, He has turned away your enemies: the Lord, the King of Israel, is in your midst, you shall fear evil no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear; Sion, let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, mighty; He will save: He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will exult over you with praise'; the Septuagint: 'And He will rejoice in you with delight as on a solemn day.' See what was said there: for in this Song the primary bride of the Word is the humanity assumed by Him, whose marriage is celebrated here.
Second, just as Christ, in the first year and on the day of His Incarnation, was crowned with the diadem of His humanity on March 25, so likewise in the 34th and last year of His life, as the same day of March 25 returned, He was crowned with a crown of thorns by His mother (more truly His stepmother), the Synagogue, namely by the Jews who crucified Christ: for St. Augustine, Book 4 On the Trinity, chapter 4, Epiphanius, heresies 78 and 79, Francisco Suarez, and very many others teach that Christ suffered and died on the same day on which He was incarnated, namely March 25. For in His death, Christ, paying the price of our redemption, purchased, betrothed, and united to Himself the Church, that is, us the faithful, in what was virtually the perfect act; hence as a bridegroom He was then crowned with a crown, but of thorns, because He was suffering and making satisfaction for the thorns of our sins. Hence Isidore of Pelusium, Book 1, letter 95: 'Because,' he says, 'through the curse by which the earth was punished after the commandment violated by us, the harvest was thorny; and the Lord had come to cure every disease in Himself, therefore He was crowned with a crown of thorns as a victor: just as illustrious and celebrated victors do, who carry in their triumph that very weapon or instrument by whose help they won the victory. Be of good cheer, says the Lord, I have overcome the world.' Christ therefore, crowned with this crown of thorns as with a triumphal wreath, as King of the Jews, that is, of those who confess and praise God, crowned and diademed, triumphed over suffering, the cross, death, sin, the devil, and hell. For this reason, the early Christians were unwilling to be crowned with roses, because Christ had been crowned with thorns, as Tertullian teaches in his book On the Soldier's Crown. And Clement of Alexandria, Book 2 of the Pedagogue, chapter 5: 'It is contrary to reason,' he says, 'that we who have heard that the Lord was crowned with thorns should, mockingly insulting the venerable passion of the Lord, have our heads crowned with flowers.'
Therefore Godfrey of Bouillon, who after the recovery of the Holy Land was the first among Christians to be made King of Jerusalem, refused to be crowned with a golden crown, saying: 'He was unwilling to be crowned with gold in that city in which Christ was crowned with thorns,' as William of Tyre reports in On the Holy War, and Paul Emilius, Book 4 On the Affairs of the Franks, near the end. Thus Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Aponius, Anselm, Philo,
Justus of Urgel, St. Bernard, and others explain this diadem as the crown of thorns of Christ. Hear Theodoret: 'He calls Judea the mother,' he says, 'as pertains to Christ's humanity, for she unwillingly placed upon Him the crown of charity: for she crowned Him with thorns out of contempt, but He Himself through the thorns received the diadem of charity. For He bore ignominy on His brow, and voluntarily submitted to the torments of death: for this reason He called that the day of dispensation and the day of the joy of His heart. For then the communion of marriage was made,' namely at the Last Supper, when shortly before His Passion He instituted the nuptial banquet, that is, the Eucharist, as Theodoret adds.
Moreover, St. Athanasius, in his treatise On the Passion and the Cross, teaches that Christ was crowned with thorns for two reasons. First, to expiate and remove that curse upon the earth: 'Cursed is the earth in your work. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,' Genesis 3:17. Second, to take upon Himself the stings of our thorns, that is, of our cares and anxieties: 'For He Himself,' he says, 'was in pains and cares, so that we might be free from pains, etc., and in place of thorns He would give the tree of life.' Hear St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On Epiphany: 'Go forth, O angelic powers, inhabitants of the heavenly city. Behold your King, but in our crown, in the diadem with which His mother crowned Him. But until now you have lacked these delights; until now you have not tasted this sweetness. You have His sublimity, but you have not seen His humility. Go forth, therefore, and see King Solomon in the diadem with which His mother crowned Him, in the crown of poverty, in the crown of misery. For He was indeed crowned by His stepmother with a crown of thorns, a crown of misery; He is to be crowned by His household with a crown of justice, when the angels will go forth and remove from His kingdom all scandals, when He will come to judgment with the elders of His people, when the world will fight on His behalf against the foolish. And His Father crowns Him with the crown of glory, as the Psalmist says: With glory and honor You have crowned Him,' Psalm 8:6.
The third crown of Christ was that of glory, when on the third day He rose from death to life in a glorious body, and on the 40th day ascended to heaven, and sat at the right hand of God the Father on the throne of glory, crowned with divine light as victor over death, triumphing over it, according to that: 'With glory and honor You crowned Him,' Psalm 8:6; and Hebrews 2:9 and following: 'We see,' he says, 'Jesus, on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.' For the day of Easter, or of the resurrection, as well as of the ascension, was the day of joy and of the betrothal of Christ, by which Christ, no longer mortal and about to die as before, but immortal and glorious in perpetuity, betrothed to Himself the Church both present and future, and promised it a similar glory of resurrection, according to Psalm 92:1: 'The Lord has reigned; He has clothed Himself with beauty.' Tertullian gives the final cause, in On the Soldier's Crown, near the end: 'So that,' he says, '[you, O Christian,] may emulate that crown of Christ which afterwards came to Him, since also honeycombs followed the bitter gall
He tasted, nor was He hailed as King of glory by the heavenly hosts before He was inscribed on the cross as King of the Jews; first diminished by the Father a little lower than the angels, and thus crowned with glory and honor.'
The fourth crown was that of dominion and kingdom, with which He was crowned on the day of Pentecost, when, having sent the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, through them He converted many thousands of Jews and subjected them to Himself, and shortly afterwards through the same apostles subjugated all nations to His faith and obedience. For then He betrothed to Himself and joined in marriage the Church gathered both from the Gentiles and from the Jews, as if by the words of present consent. For just as God on Sinai, by giving the law to Moses and the Hebrews at Pentecost, betrothed the Synagogue to Himself, so also Christ, by giving the new law on Sion and promulgating it at Pentecost through the Apostles, betrothed the Church to Himself. This is what Jeremiah says, chapter 2:2: 'I have remembered you, having mercy on your youth and the charity of your betrothal, when you followed me in the desert.' But the bride is the ornament and crown of the bridegroom: for as the Wise Man says: 'A loving wife is a crown to her husband,' Proverbs 12:4. The Church, therefore, which is the bride of Christ, is also His crown, just as the faithful and saints are the crown of the Church, according to Isaiah 49:18: 'With all these you shall clothe yourself as with an ornament, and bind them around you as a bride'; and chapter 61:10: 'As a bridegroom adorned with a crown'; and chapter 62:3: 'You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a diadem of the kingdom in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be called forsaken, but you shall be called My delight is in her: for the Lord has been pleased with you, etc. And the bridegroom will rejoice over the bride, and your God will rejoice over you.' Hence St. Paul calls the Thessalonians whom he had converted his crown, 1 Thessalonians 2:19: 'For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glory? Is it not you before the Lord? etc., for you are our glory and joy.' And Philippians 4:1: 'My dearest and most longed-for brethren, my joy and my crown: so stand firm in the Lord, dearest ones.' Thus St. Ambrose, Sermon 15 on Psalm 118, says that all the saints, and all their virtues and crowns, are the crown of Christ: 'What,' he says, 'is the crown with which Christ is crowned, if not the crown of glory? Joseph had the crown of chastity, Paul of justice, Peter of faith; there are crowns of individual virtues: but Christ alone has the crown of glory, with which the Church has crowned Him. In this crown are all crowns; for glory is not a portion of one crown, but the reward of all crowns.' So also Aponius and Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 7. Therefore, as many good works as you do by the grace of Christ, so many roses you weave into the head and crown of Christ: just as however many Angelic Salutations you recite to the Blessed Virgin, so many roses you entwine upon her head, to form the rosary and crown of the Virgin.
Moreover, this crown is as much triumphal as it is nuptial and royal: for Christ by the arms of His eloquence and grace, through the apostles, subjected all nations to Himself; hence St. John compares Him
to a rider and a white horse, Revelation 6:2: 'And behold,' he says, 'a white horse, and he who sat upon it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer,' piercing all nations with the arrows of love and subjecting them to himself; and chapter 14, verse 14: 'And I looked, and behold a white cloud: and upon the cloud one sitting like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.'
The fifth crown of Christ, nuptial as well as triumphal, will be that of the blessed in heaven: for on the day of judgment, casting down His reprobate enemies into hell, He will lead His faithful and elect to heaven, and there He will be joined to them by the perpetual conjugal bond of nuptial love in eternal glory, and will be crowned by them as with a crown of glory, according to Revelation 19:6: 'Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty has reigned. Let us rejoice and exult, and give glory to Him: for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself, and it has been granted to her to clothe herself in fine linen, shining and white. For the fine linen is the justifications of the saints. And he said to me: Write: Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb'; and verse 12: 'And on His head many diadems'; and verse 16: 'He has on His garment and on His thigh written: King of kings and Lord of lords.'
Moreover, all these crowns of Christ are in His litter, that is, in the Roman Church. The first, indeed, because the Roman Church most especially preaches and celebrates the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, and defends it most vigorously against all heresies of Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollinaris, the Monothelites, etc., as is evident from the golden Letter of St. Leo written on this subject to the Council of Chalcedon. Hence also at Rome in the basilica of St. Mary Major the manger is preserved, in which Christ was laid down and crowned, as it were, with swaddling bands as with a diadem. Indeed, the house in which the Blessed Virgin received the announcement of the Incarnation, and the Word was made flesh, was transported by angels from Nazareth to Loreto, situated not far from Rome.
The second; because St. Helena brought the holy Cross, the nails, and the thorns of Christ's crown of thorns from Jerusalem to Rome, and placed them in the basilica of the Holy Cross, which was thenceforth surnamed 'in Jerusalem'; where I viewed and venerated them close at hand, and every year they are shown from on high to the people from a distance, and offered for veneration.
The third, because the Roman Church constantly preaches the faith of the resurrection and defends it against all sectarians, as St. Gregory did, who refuted and converted the patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, who denied the resurrection, in the presence of the emperor; and many thousands of martyrs at Rome confessed and professed the resurrection steadfastly in deed, not by speaking but by dying for the hope of it.
The fourth and fifth, because all faithful nations, just as they are a crown of Christ, so also are they a crown of the Roman Church: both because they were converted by the apostles and apostolic men subject to St. Peter and the Roman Pontiff, and sent by them; and because they are subject to it, and by it are instructed in faith and morals, and directed toward the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, toward eternal happiness and glory. For this reason, the Roman Pontiff is crowned with a triple crown, to represent the full kingdom of Christ over all nations, which he administers as vicar of Christ, namely, this is the priestly kingdom and the royal priesthood, as St. Peter says, 1 Peter 2:9. See what was said there; see also Charles Paschalius, Book 9 On Crowns, the last chapter.
Tropologically, St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 5, takes the diadem to mean charity, with which the mother of Christ, namely charity itself, crowned Christ, that is, encircled and filled Him on every side: 'The angels,' he says, 'sing the wedding hymn, the bride having been led to the nuptial rest of the Bridegroom, and they call the other heavenly powers or souls to see the charity which Christ has for the daughters of Jerusalem. Hence the Son of charity also deserved to be crowned by His mother, according to the Apostle's words: God has rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His charity, Colossians 1:13. Therefore the Son of charity is Himself charity, not having charity from accidents, but always having it by His substance, as also the kingdom, of which He says: For this I was born, John 18:37. And therefore they say: Go forth, that is, go out from the anxieties and thoughts of the world, go out from bodily distresses, go out from the vanities of the world, and see what charity the peaceful King has on the day of His nuptials, how glorious He is, because He gave resurrection to bodies, and joined souls to Himself. This is the crown of a great contest. This is the illustrious gift of the nuptials of Christ: His blood and His passion. For who could have given more, who did not spare even Himself?' So also Theodoret and Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 7, who says: 'Love wove this crown.'
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the faithful soul
The faithful soul goes forth to admire, worship, and imitate Christ crowned with the crown of humility in the flesh, and with the thorny diadem of patience on the cross, and from Him to learn not to flee but to desire the thorny crown of mortification, whether voluntarily undertaken or inflicted from elsewhere, and to glory in it: because by these thorns harmful pleasure is pierced through, and the concupiscence innate in us from Adam's sin, for the pain of thorns extinguishes the love and concupiscence of feasting. Christ, he says, shed His blood for you; therefore He rightly demands your blood. The pious, therefore, rejoice in thorns, saying: 'We glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation works patience,' Romans 5:3. But the impious rejoice in roses, saying: 'Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither,' Wisdom 2:8. Hence St. Peter, 1 Peter 4:14: 'If you are reproached,' he says, 'in the name of Christ, you shall be blessed: for that which belongs to honor, glory, and
the power of God, and that which is His Spirit, rests upon you'; and Christ: 'Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' Matthew 5:10. Such was Moses, who 'denied that he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to have the enjoyment of temporal sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians: for he was looking toward the reward,' Hebrews 11:24. 'Let it be a shame,' says St. Bernard, Sermon 5 on the Feast of All Saints, 'for a member to become delicate under a thorn-crowned head, since all the purple that He wears meanwhile is more a mark of mockery than of honor.'
Moreover, these thorns are a crown of joy and gladness, because they produce it, both in this life and in the future; hence St. James at the beginning of his epistle, chapter 1:2: 'Count it all joy,' he says, 'my brothers, when you fall into various trials,' etc. Therefore St. Catherine of Siena, when two crowns were offered to her by Christ, one of thorns and the other of gold, and she was given the choice to select whichever she wished, but to know that the other would be given to her after death, immediately chose the crown of thorns, so that after death she would receive the golden one in heaven; and she pressed it upon her head with such force that she felt severe headaches for many days.
Therefore, as many injuries, diseases, hungers, hardships, and pains as we suffer for the love of Christ, so many thorns of Christ's crown we weave into our head. Hence the angel of Blessed Lydwine (as her Life relates, found in Surius), who had been afflicted with the most severe diseases of head and body for 30 years and more, appearing near the end of her life, announced to her that her crown of thorns was almost complete, and only a very little remained, so she should prepare herself to endure it: once that was accomplished, her crown of patience would be complete, and therefore soon the crown of glory would be placed upon her in heaven. As he said, so it happened.
Therefore Richard of St. Victor here in chapter 13, pressing the word 'go forth,' teaches that those who are afflicted and tempted should look upon the crown of thorns of Christ; for just as this produced for Christ the crown of glory, so also it will produce the same for them: 'Judea,' he says, 'when it inflicted martyrdom on Christ, fashioned for Him a crown and glory, etc. (and so also those who afflict us are the makers of our crown, and therefore are to be loved, not hated). O daughters of Sion, when you suffer adversities, go forth from your imperfection and impatience, that you may bear lightly the evils inflicted upon you; see your King who suffered before you, and was crowned with glory and honor through His suffering: consider the joy of your King. Set this example before yourselves.' So says Richard.
Again, the devout soul beholds Christ in the Eucharist, veiled and crowned with a diadem, that is, with the species of bread like a white band, and receives Him and unites Him to herself and as it were betroths Him: for in the Eucharist the nuptial banquet of Christ and the soul is celebrated, say Theodoret and Aponius.
Tropologically, the daughters of Sion, that is, of the watchtower, namely devout souls, frequently in prayer contemplate with the mind Christ born, suffering, and crowned with thorns as the Bridegroom of their soul, and are wonderfully set on fire with love for Him; therefore they must first go forth from the imagination and love of carnal and worldly things. 'Go forth,' says St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On Epiphany, 'from the sense of the flesh to the understanding of the mind, from the slavery of carnal concupiscence to the freedom of spiritual understanding: go forth from your land and from your kindred.'
The Blessed Virgin as mother crowned Christ with the diadem, or robe, and most white band of humanity, which, suffering on the cross, bound up our wounds, as I said a little earlier; hence the Blessed Virgin invites the daughters of Sion, that is, all angels and men, to behold, gaze up at, and adore Him reclining in the manger. Hear Rupert: 'What,' he says, 'is this diadem? The most brilliant authority of prophetic truth, whose praises are as many gems in the diadem of Christ; on the day of His betrothal, when He came forth from the womb of Mary as a bridegroom from his chamber, and on the day of the joy of His heart, when crowned with a crown of thorns He completed His labor, and was gladdened by the subsequent triumph of the resurrection. Both on the day of His joy and on the day of His betrothal, He is to be seen in that diadem, and from that diadem how great He is must be recognized.'
Hence St. Augustine, Book 4 of Confessions, chapter 12: 'He came,' he says, 'to us first into the virginal womb, where the human creature wedded Him, mortal flesh, but not always mortal, and from there as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber He exulted as a giant to run his course, Psalm 18:6. For He did not delay, but ran, crying out by His words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascent, crying that we should return to Him, and He departed from our eyes that we might return to our heart, and find Him.'
Hugh of St. Victor adds, Miscellanea II, Book 1, chapter 30, that the Blessed Virgin crowned Christ with the crown of justice, which consists in the ordering and balancing of the four passions of the soul, namely love and fear, joy and sorrow: for whoever has these four rightly ordered is just, that is, well-composed; whoever has them disordered is unjust. But Christ assumed them most perfectly ordered from the most pure flesh of the Blessed Virgin, in whom they were supremely ordered and composed, for she herself lacked all concupiscence and perturbation: 'for children for the most part take after their mother,' and put on the character and manners of the mother rather than the father, as Tiraquellus teaches from Galen, Aristotle, Avicenna, Albertus Magnus, and others, Book 2 On Marriage, number 73. To this pertains that saying foretold of Christ, Psalm 44, verse 5: 'In Your comeliness and Your beauty attend, proceed prosperously, and reign. On account of truth and meek-
ness, and justice.' Hear Hugh: 'His stepmother, His father, and His mother crowned Him (Christ): His stepmother was the Synagogue, His mother the Virgin, His Father was God. His stepmother crowned Him with the crown of thorns and misery; His mother with the crown of justice; His Father with the crown of glory. The crown of thorns pierced Him materially on the outside, spiritually on the inside, not for His own, but for our crimes, so that we might not disdain to be pricked for our thorns for His sake. The crown of His mother adorned Him with four precious stones. These are the four principal affections of the soul: joy, love, sorrow, and fear. These affections, as Blessed Augustine says, when ordered, are justice; when disordered, injustice. Because therefore our Solomon assumed these affections well-ordered from the Virgin, she crowned Him with the aforesaid crown of justice. But in order that you may arrive at the full knowledge of the third diadem, with which God the Father crowned Him with glory and honor, go forth from your vices, see by faith, by work, and by imitation Him crowned with the crown with which His mother crowned Him, so that by His example you may have the aforesaid affections rightly ordered, through His help. Who,' etc.