Cornelius a Lapide

Song of Songs IV

Table of Contents

• Synopsis of the Chapter
• Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 4:1-16
• The Voice of the Bridegroom.
• Verse 1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are
• Verse 2. Your Teeth Are Like Flocks of Shorn Sheep That Have Come Up from the Wa
• Verse 3. Like a Scarlet Ribbon Are Your Lips, and Your Speech Is Sweet.
• Verse 4. Like the Tower of David Is Your Neck, Which Was Built with Battlements:
• Verses 5 and 6. Your Two Breasts are like Two Fawns of a Gazelle, Twins, that Fe
• Verse 7. You are All Beautiful, my Beloved, and There is No Stain in You.
• Verse 8. Come from Lebanon, my Bride, Come from Lebanon, Come: You Shall Be Crow
• Verse 9. You Have Wounded my Heart, my Sister, my Bride, You Have Wounded my Hea
• Verse 10. How Beautiful are Your Breasts, my Sister, my Bride! Your Breasts are
• Verse 11. Your Lips, O Bride, are a Dripping Honeycomb; Honey and Milk are Under
• Verse 12. a Garden Enclosed is my Sister, my Bride: a Garden Enclosed, a Fountai
• VERSES 13 and 14. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of
• Verse 15. a Fountain of Gardens: a Well of Living Waters, Which Flow with an Imp
• Verse 16. Arise, O North Wind, and Come, O South Wind, Blow Through my Garden, a

Synopsis of the Chapter

The Bridegroom, having been praised by the bride, turns His praises back upon her and in turn lavishes praise on her, not for external and borrowed ornaments (as the singing-girls do in chapter 7), but for internal ones, and those implanted by nature and grace, namely for her dove-like eyes, goat-like hair, sheep-like teeth, scarlet lips, pomegranate cheeks, towered neck, and gazelle-like breasts. Then, in verse 8, He calls her from Lebanon to Jerusalem to be crowned, because He has been wounded by love for her, both on account of the qualities already enumerated, and on account of her breasts more beautiful than wine, her tongue dripping honey, and her garments smelling of frankincense. Finally, in verse 10, He compares her to an enclosed garden, filled with pomegranates, henna, nard, saffron, cinnamon, myrrh, and aloe; and in verse 15, He likens her to a well of living waters.

By all these things, as by emblems, He parabolically represents the beauty, sanctity, and perfection of the Church, gathered from the nations and raised to the summit, up to chapter 5, verse 2, where He treats of her wrinkles, blemishes, and stains as she now grows old.

Again, by all these things He depicts the perfection and beauty of the humanity of Christ, which the Word espoused to Himself when He hypostatically united it to Himself. This, therefore, is the primary spouse of the Word, whose members and qualities are celebrated here, as I said in the Proem, chapter 2, question 1; let it suffice to have noted this at the beginning of the chapter, so that it need not be repeated for each individual verse.

Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 4:1-16

1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are those of doves, besides that which lies hidden within. Your hair is like flocks of goats that have ascended from Mount Gilead. 2. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none among them is barren. 3. Like a scarlet ribbon are your lips, and your speech is sweet. Like a piece of pomegranate are your cheeks, besides that which lies hidden within. 4. Like the tower of David is your neck, which was built with battlements: a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty. 5. Your two breasts are like two fawns of a gazelle, twins, that feed among the lilies, 6. until the day breathes and the shadows decline. I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. 7. You are entirely beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you. 8. Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come: you shall be crowned from the peak of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. 9. You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride; you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes and with one chain of your neck. 10. How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride! Your breasts are more beautiful than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments surpasses all spices. 11. Your lips, O bride, drip as a honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense. 12. An enclosed garden is my sister, my bride; an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain. 13. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of orchard trees, henna with nard, 14. nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloe with all the choicest

The Bridegroom, having been praised by the bride, turns His praises back upon her and in turn lavishes praise on her, not for external and borrowed ornaments (as the singing-girls do in chapter 7), but for internal ones, and those implanted by nature and grace, namely for her dove-like eyes, goat-like hair, sheep-like teeth, scarlet lips, pomegranate cheeks, towered neck, and gazelle-like breasts. Then, in verse 8, He calls her from Lebanon to Jerusalem to be crowned, because He has been wounded by love for her, both on account of the qualities already enumerated, and on account of her breasts more beautiful than wine, her tongue dripping honey, and her garments smelling of frankincense. Finally, in verse 10, He compares her to an enclosed garden, filled with pomegranates, henna, nard, saffron, cinnamon, myrrh, and aloe; and in verse 15, He likens her to a well of living waters.

By all these things, as by emblems, He parabolically represents the beauty, sanctity, and perfection of the Church, gathered from the nations and raised to the summit, up to chapter 5, verse 2, where He treats of her wrinkles, blemishes, and stains as she now grows old.

Again, by all these things He depicts the perfection and beauty of the humanity of Christ, which the Word espoused to Himself when He hypostatically united it to Himself. This, therefore, is the primary spouse of the Word, whose members and qualities are celebrated here, as I said in the Proem, chapter 2, question 1; let it suffice to have noted this at the beginning of the chapter, so that it need not be repeated for each individual verse.

1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are those of doves, besides that which lies hidden within. Your hair is like flocks of goats that have ascended from Mount Gilead. 2. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none among them is barren. 3. Like a scarlet ribbon are your lips, and your speech is sweet. Like a piece of pomegranate are your cheeks, besides that which lies hidden within. 4. Like the tower of David is your neck, which was built with battlements: a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty. 5. Your two breasts are like two fawns of a gazelle, twins, that feed among the lilies, 6. until the day breathes and the shadows decline. I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. 7. You are entirely beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you. 8. Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come: you shall be crowned from the peak of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. 9. You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride; you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes and with one chain of your neck. 10. How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride! Your breasts are more beautiful than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments surpasses all spices. 11. Your lips, O bride, drip as a honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense. 12. An enclosed garden is my sister, my bride; an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain. 13. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of orchard trees, henna with nard, 14. nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloe with all the choicest

...ointments. 15. A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, which flow with force from Lebanon. 16. Arise, north wind, and come, south wind; blow through my garden, and let its spices flow forth.

The Voice of the Bridegroom.

Verse 1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are those of doves, besides that which lies hidden within.

The Syriac and Arabic: "Behold, you are beautiful," etc. The Bridegroom, admiring the beauty of the bride, describes her part by part, and begins with her eyes, which He declares to be most like those of a dove, that is, beautiful, bright, clear, innocent, simple, gentle, lovable, etc., as I explained in chapter 1, verse 45. For He repeats this here because at the end of the preceding chapter the bride had commanded the eyes of her maidens not upon herself but upon the Bridegroom and the Bridegroom's diadem, namely the humanity assumed by Him, and the crown of thorns; by which act she had shown how sincere and faithful she was in her eyes, so that her eyes rightly deserved a new beginning of praises.

Besides That Which Lies Hidden Within.

In Hebrew, mibbaad letsammatech, which the rabbis, Genebrardus, Pagninus, Clarius, and others translate as "within your locks"; Marinus as "within your hair"; Vatablus as "beyond your tresses," that is, gleaming forth, as if to say: Your eyes appear more beautiful when you go about as a bride with flowing hair; for thus, among your flowing locks and curls, your eyes gleam and shine beautifully.

Better, R. Jonah and others translate it as: "Your eyes are doves (that is, they are so like doves that they seem to be very doves themselves) within your veil." For it was the custom that virgins, once given to a husband, would cover their head with a veil, and hence they were called "veiled women" (nuptæ), to signify that they were subject to their husband, as the Apostle teaches in 1 Corinthians 11:7 and 10. This veil was called the bridal flammeum, because the Flaminica, that is, the wife of the flamen, used it constantly, says Festus; hence Martial, book 12, 38: "Torches shone before them, and the flammeum veiled their faces."

In Hebrew it is called tsamma, meaning a binding, or fillet, or veil that binds the head; hence Symmachus here at verse 3, and the Septuagint at Isaiah 47:2, translate it as "veil" or "covering." The sense, then, is as if to say: Not only are your eyes, O bride, beautiful from their dove-like brilliance, but also from that "which lies hidden within," that is, from the fact that the eyes lie concealed under the veil or bridal flammeum; for from there they seem to flash forth like beryls or diamonds, and to ambush those who meet them unawares, and to wound them. For the lights of the eyes, thus hidden within and veiled around, possess a tremendous beauty, and seem to cast and dart forth rays of light from some hidden place, like so many darts, as I discussed more fully at Isaiah 47:2.

Add that the Hebrew tsammat seems to signify not so much a veil as something veiled, that is, a thing worthy of being covered with a veil on account of its beauty or reverence; this is clear from the fact that our translator here, and at verse 3, and at chapter 66, consistently renders it as "that which lies hidden within." Tsammat therefore signifies a thing hidden and concealed under a veil; and from the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, which translate tsammat as "silence" or "quietness," that is, a thing hidden and, on account of its beauty and majesty, to be kept silent and unspoken. By a similar catachresis, fields are said to "be silent" when they have not yet sprouted; and "silent" flowers are those that have not yet opened but lie hidden, closed in their calyx; and the "silent" moon means the hidden moon, according to that verse of Virgil in the second Æneid: "Through the friendly silence of the quiet moon."

Therefore, "besides that which lies hidden within" is the same as if He were to say: Besides the interior grace of beauty that lies hidden in the eyes, as if to say: Your eyes, O bride, are not only like the eyes of doves in that they are lovely, bright, simple, chaste, modest, and lovable; but moreover they contain within themselves a hidden grace and beauty of surpassing quality, which shines through faintly and dimly through the pupil and corners of the eyes, as through a veil; and therefore it does not satisfy the eyes of those who gaze, but allures and draws them to look more deeply into what lies hidden, just as in garnets and certain gems, a certain thin, beautiful, and splendid cloud lying hidden in the depths shines through the outermost surface, which wonderfully delights the eyes of the beholders, and because it does not satisfy, invites them to gaze further, since beneath it something rare and precious seems to be concealed.

For in the eyes of human beings, especially of women, there lies a hidden grace and charm that carries those who gaze upon them into love and admiration. For just as the whole beauty of a woman is, as it were, gathered in her face, so the whole beauty of the face seems to reside, as it were, in the eyes. Therefore at verse 9 the Bridegroom says to the bride: "You have wounded my heart with one of your eyes." Sophronius, in The Spiritual Meadow, chapter 60, relates that a certain nun was loved by a young man; when he pursued her everywhere, she asked what pleased him so greatly about her, and when the young man replied: "Your eyes seduced me," she immediately gouged out her own eyes with a knife, so that they would no longer be a source of scandal, saying as it were: "Take what you loved, and cease to pursue me." He was stricken with compunction and changed his mind and life for the better. Sabellicus, in book 4 of his Examples, chapter 8, writes that Saint Lucy sent her own gouged-out eyes to the tyrant who was persecuting her, as pledges and guardians of her virginity. Some think this Lucy was the celebrated Syracusan martyr, and that she is therefore depicted with eyes displayed on a plate; but she appears to have been a different person. A certain prelate, a man of the highest probity and wisdom, told me that he had been warned by a certain matron, chaste and dignified as well as prudent, that

...he should restrain the priests and confessors under his authority from gazing at and conversing with women, because, she said, in the eyes of women there lies a certain hidden grace and enticement to love, which unknowingly lures even holy men and, as it were, drives them out of their mind. She added: There is no man so devout and holy that I could not persuade him of whatever I wished, if I conversed with him for a quarter of an hour and he gazed fixedly into my eyes. So great a hidden grace and alluring power lies concealed in the female eye. Therefore Sirach wisely warns in chapter 25:28: "Do not look upon a woman's beauty, and do not desire a woman for her appearance"; and chapter 26:21: "As the sun rising upon the world in the heights of God, so is the beauty of a good woman for the ornament of her house"; and chapter 36:24: "The beauty of a woman gladdens the face of her husband and surpasses every desire of man."

The a priori reason is that the eyes are the lights of a person, close to the brain and terminating in it. Therefore they seem to occupy and possess the very soul and mind of the person, so that the soul appears to reside in the eyes and to transmit and display all its beauty through the eyes. Hence in the embryo the heart first forms the brain, then the eyes, as Aristotle, physicians, and anatomists teach.

The same Aristotle, in book 2 of On the Generation of Animals, chapter 5, teaches that the eyes contribute most to generation, as if the whole soul and the whole person were in them: "For the seat of the eyes," he says, "is the most seminal of all parts of the head, which is evident since it alone is manifestly altered by sexual intercourse, and from excessive use of sexual activity the eyes clearly grow weak and sink. The reason is that the nature of the seed is similar to the brain."

Hear Pliny, book 11, chapter 37, who asserts that in the eyes all the affections and movements of the soul reside and shine forth: "There is no part," he says, "in which greater signs of the soul appear in all animals, but especially of moderation, clemency, pity, hatred, love, sadness, and joy." Hence he concludes: "Assuredly the soul dwells in the eyes. They blaze, they strain, they moisten, they close. Hence those tears of pity. When we kiss the eyes, we seem to touch the very soul." And shortly after: "We see with the soul, we perceive with the soul; but the eyes, like certain vessels, receive the visible part of the soul and transmit it. Thus deep thought blinds us, the power of sight being drawn inward; thus in epilepsy the eyes are open but see nothing, since the mind is in darkness." The same Pliny, in book 8, chapter 16, teaches that the strength and power of lions resides in their eyes; and therefore, if anyone is attacked by a lion, the sole remedy is to throw a cloak or something similar over its eyes; for when its eyes are veiled, its ferocity subsides so that it allows itself to be captured, bound, and killed: "In a scarcely credible manner," he says, "that great ferocity grows torpid when, even by a light throw, the head is covered, so that the lion is bound without resistance; evidently all its power resides in its eyes."

Since, therefore, the whole power, grace, and beauty of the soul, both natural and supernatural, lay hidden in the eyes of the bride and shone forth only faintly through the pupils, the Bridegroom says: "How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are those of doves, besides that which lies hidden within." The fifth edition has: "and in the multitude of your beauty." The Septuagint: "beyond your silence," as if to say: Your beauty carries me and all who gaze upon you into admiration of you, so that, as if struck dumb, I cannot speak, but am compelled to be silent, and silently to behold and admire your beauty; for there remain many more things in you that could be praised, but their greatness is better commended by silence. For in your eyes I see a wise mind lying hidden, virginal, burning with heavenly love, filled with every grace and virtue, angelic and divine. Hence Philo Carpathius translates it as: "besides those things which are kept silent about you, or which lie hidden within."

Some explain it thus, as if to say: The grace lying hidden in your eyes is so great that, even while you are silent, it seems to break the silence, and indeed to speak by its very silence, and to proclaim and pour forth to all your modesty, your bashfulness, and all your beauty. Saint Ambrose, however, in his book On the Institution of a Virgin, chapter 1, considers that silence is here commended in the virgin; for this adorns and increases the modesty and bashfulness of the eyes, which loquacity betrays and destroys, sounding more like something of the harlot than of the chaste. Hence our Sanchez thinks that here the eyes of the bride are celebrated for their natural modesty, since they are not free or wandering, as curious and bold eyes tend to be, but lowered and half-closed, as those of modest and chaste women have them, which Porphyrion at Horace, Satires 1, calls "squinting" (pætos). These things concern the grammatical sense of the outer letter; now let us proceed to the inner marrow.

First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.

What the dove-like eyes of the Church signify I explained in chapter 1:45; now what needs to be explained is "besides that which lies hidden within." I say, therefore, first, that by this is signified the interior grace and beauty lying hidden in the mind, which shines through faintly through the body and external works. Hence, first, the external purity, modesty, chastity, reserve, and loveliness, which are signified by the dove-like eyes, in the Church and in the assembly of the faithful, flows from an interior purity, modesty, chastity, reserve, and loveliness, which is far greater and more beautiful than the exterior.

Accordingly Saint Gregory explains it thus: "Very honorable is whatever she works in externals, that she deals simply among men, that she disdains to desire temporally the things she sees, and if anything in this world does please her, she detests going after her desires. But far more beautiful and honorable is this: that she strives to keep the desire of her heart undefiled, that she retains in her mind the brightness of eternal blessedness, contemplates it with uplifted gaze, sweetly rests in those things which she sees interiorly, and is purified." Similar things Nyssen says in homily 7, and Philo Carpathius, who, reading according to the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic, "beyond your silence or taciturnity," explains it thus: "For besides her dove-like innocence and sincerity, another beauty and a certain interior loveliness is signified as belonging to this bride from her silence. Often many of the devout are silent with their mouth, but cry out with their heart; hence it was said to Moses, though he was silent: 'Why do you cry to Me?'" So too the Apostle often calls the interior mind and its virtues and holiness the "inner man," while he calls the body and the external works of the body the "outer man."

Moreover, Lucian in his dialogue Images, aptly compares those who pursue the external beauty of the body while neglecting the interior beauty of the soul, to the temples of the Egyptians, which appeared magnificent on the outside, but to those entering within revealed no other god than an ape, a cat, a dog, or a goat.

Finally, that which lies hidden within is grace, which lies hidden in the mind and wondrously adorns it, to such a degree that it makes the soul beautiful and pleasing in the eyes of God, and hence it is called "grace." Moreover, this grace is adorned by faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues, and is variously ornamented and polished in different ways by other gifts.

Secondly, the bride with dove-like eyes gazes upon Christ the Bridegroom, crowned with the diadem of humanity and the crown of thorns; but that which lies hidden within is greater and more beautiful, namely the interior faith, the keenness of the mind, and the contemplation by which she beholds the divinity lying hidden beneath the humanity, believes in it, and loves, worships, and adores it with her whole heart. Hence the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, reading with the Septuagint "beyond your silence," explain it thus, as if to say: The soul, contemplating the Creator from His creatures, venerates Him more by silent taciturnity, reflecting that He and His attributes cannot be comprehended by man. "The eyes of the devout soul are called doves," they say, "because through them she refers all created things to the praise of the Creator. And these spiritual eyes exist beyond the soul's own silence about God; for this is more spiritual: for in the Holy Spirit she knows about God that which surpasses all knowledge, namely that He cannot be comprehended."

To this Saint Ambrose adds, in his book On the Institution of a Virgin, chapter 1: "Your eyes are doves," he says, "beyond your silence, because, wholly spiritual and simple like a dove (in whose form the Holy Spirit was seen by John descending), she sees spiritual things and knows how to keep silent about the mysteries she has seen. For it is no small virtue to keep silent, Ecclesiastes 3:7. For there is a time for being silent, just as there is a time for speaking, as it is also written in Isaiah 50:4: 'The Lord gives me a learned tongue, that I may know when it is fitting to speak a word.' And so a certain endowment of virginity is modesty, which is commended by silence."

Moreover, all these things apply to all the faithful, but especially to the prophets, who, as the eyes of the Church, foresee and forewarn of future events, and are therefore called "seers"; and to bishops, says Hortolanus, to pastors and prelates, who likewise are eyes, that is, watchmen and overseers of the Church, so that like shepherds they may protect her from wolves, and provide for her food and other necessities and useful things.

Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.

The eyes of doves are exceedingly bright, and clear with a certain innate splendor; they are also simple, gazing upon objects not with a fierce or malicious look, but sincerely. The eyes of the perfect soul are similar to these, for they shine with wisdom, by which they recognize the worthlessness of temporal things; and they are endowed with a lovable sincerity, by which they do not cling to the same things as contemptible; but through them they pass on to God, in whom they rest as in their proper dwelling.

The dove-like eyes therefore signify the rightness of the work and the action; "that which lies hidden within" signifies the rightness of intention: the latter is interior and mental, while the work is exterior and bodily. Again, if by the dove-like eyes you understand the rightness of intention, as I said in chapter 1:15, by "that which lies hidden within" understand charity and the pure love of God, which is, as it were, the soul of right intention, spiritually animating and vivifying it, and as it were deifying it. For if, for example, you give alms to a poor person out of an intention of mercy, unless you also interiorly join to it the intention of charity, namely that you wish to give it out of pure love of God, the work of almsgiving is deprived of great beauty, great grace, and merit. Accordingly Saint Augustine, in his sermon On the Praises of Charity, says: "He grasps both what is hidden and what is manifest in the divine words, who grasps charity in his conduct."

The symbol of this is the dove-like eyes, through which shines the inward love for one's partner. Hence in Greek peristera, that is, "dove," is derived from perissōs eran, meaning "to be excessively devoted to love," as Apollodorus teaches in his book On the Gods, and the lexicographers agree. For as Aristotle says in book 6 of the History of Animals, chapter 4: "Doves breed ten times a year, some even eleven times; the Egyptian ones breed even twelve times. Doves mate within the year, since at six months old they begin to know Venus; some report that pigeons and turtledoves mate even at three months and produce young, the evidence being that their numbers are so abundant." Just as therefore the dove loves no one but its mate and devotes all its love to that one: so the holy soul is intent upon God alone and surrenders and delivers all its love to Him. For it desires nothing else than to please God alone supremely; and this is the most excellent act of all virtues, nor can the human mind ascend higher...

...the human mind can rise: so say Justus Orgelitanus and Aponius, who, understanding by the eyes of the dove the prelates, says: "These are all the more glorious because whatever they do, they do interiorly for God, fleeing the praise of men and vainglory, and therefore it is added: 'besides that which lies hidden within.'"

Again, "that which lies hidden within" signifies meditation and contemplation, which in the holy soul is all the greater and more beautiful, and more pleasing to God, the more it is covered and hidden by the veil of the senses. For the more a person closes the eyes, ears, tongue, etc., the higher he raises his mind to God in prayer and contemplation, and the more intimately he unites the mind with God. Hence from Him he draws wondrous lights and perceptions and all manner of charisms, which Richard of Saint Victor explains with great feeling: "For who can outwardly express those things which you turn over secretly with Christ in the chamber of your heart? That mutual conversation, the daring to speak to Him, the consolation or revelation received from Him, the union of souls, the harmony of delights, the mutual love, the zeal for justice and for souls, the desire for the vision and enjoyment of God, the weariness of pilgrimage, the longing to depart -- who can understand or express these in words? Now such a sense is opened to the soul that she understands the Scriptures; now she is instructed about hidden or doubtful things; now she is so united to God that she becomes one spirit with Him; now she is so absorbed by the Spirit that she does not remember that she dwells in the flesh; now she knows certain secrets of divine inspiration that she did not know before." He then adds what is highest and most excellent: "But now she is so joined to God, and perceives God so joined to her, and so transfers all her will into God, that she either understands the will of God or bends it to her own. For from that purity of heart by which she agrees with God's will in all things, she also comes to understand it and is made worthy to bend it to her own pleasure. Now she so joins and draws God to herself through love that she seems to possess Him alone; now she is so expanded and passes into Him that through charity she comprehends every person in Him, and sees all by the light with which she is illuminated, and (because of one and like charity) has compassion and condescension for all."

The version of the Chaldean is relevant here, who, understanding by the eyes of the dove Moses, the prophets, and the teachers whom God illuminates inwardly, translates thus: "And on that day King Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings upon the altar, and his offering was received with favor before the Lord; a voice rushed down from heaven and spoke thus: How beautiful you are, assembly of Israel, and how beautiful are the princes of the congregation and the wise dwellers in the council, because they always illuminate the people of the house of Israel, and are like the chicks, the children of the dove!"

Anagogically, Saint Gregory, in book 9 of the Morals, chapter 6, takes "that which lies hidden within" as the reward of heavenly glory, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man," 1 Corinthians 2:9: "Her eyes," he says, "are called those of doves, because they shine with a great light, because they gleam with the miracles of great signs. But more marvelous than outward things is what cannot be seen, of which it is added: 'besides that which lies hidden within.' For great indeed is the glory of open work, but far incomparably greater is the glory of the hidden reward." This is what the Apostle says: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory," Colossians 3:2. See what was said there. Empedocles, when asked "why he lived," replied: "That I may gaze upon the stars; take away the sky, and I am nothing." Let the faithful say: I live that I may obtain heaven, and in it secretly behold God with Christ, and by living possess every good in Him.

Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

Rupert, understanding by the seven qualities of the dove the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit infused into the Blessed Virgin, takes "that which lies hidden within" as the interior and ineffable lights and charisms conferred upon her, which God alone sees. For if Paul, he says, "said that he was caught up into paradise, or even to the third heaven, so that he did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body, and heard secret words which it is not permitted for a man to speak; how much more did you, Queen of heaven, often take part in heavenly things, seeing that angels singing glory to God attended you in the role of midwives, and amid these things you learned or attained something that lies hidden and should not remain hidden?" Therefore Rupert holds that the Blessed Virgin was caught up to the third heaven and saw secret mysteries which it is not permitted for man to speak, more perfectly and excellently than Paul. Accordingly, many hold it probable that the Blessed Virgin from time to time saw the divine essence of her Son, as the blessed see it in heaven, especially on the day of the incarnation, nativity, and resurrection of Christ, as Saint Antoninus, Denis the Carthusian, Gerson, Cassalius, Medina, and others hold, whom Francisco Suarez cites and follows in Part III, Question 87, article 4, disputation 19, section 4, and Gabriel Vasquez in Part I, disputations 55 and 56, where he grants this vision of God to the Blessed Virgin alone, but denies it to all other saints in this life, even to Saint Paul and Moses.

Again, "that which lies hidden within" was the interior and ineffable humility, virginity, and charity of the Blessed Virgin, which, covered by the external veil of modesty, simplicity, and poverty, shone all the more brightly before God. For this is what drew the Word from the throne of the Father to Himself, that He might become flesh in her and from her.

Your Hair Is Like Flocks of Goats That Have Ascended from Mount Gilead.

He takes the comparison from goats in pastoral fashion, because the Bridegroom is here presented as a shepherd, and the bride as a shepherdess. Now the bride is wonderfully adorned by her hair, and in it three things are observed: first, length together with abundance, or fullness and density; second, brightness and arrangement, that is, that they be beautifully combed and parted; third, color, that they be golden or tawny, and therefore brilliant, of a golden hue. Hence Virgil, book 4, of Dido: "Not yet had Proserpina taken from her the golden lock." And Catullus in the Epithalamium of Julia: "They shake their golden tresses." So Messalina, the wife of the Emperor Claudius, when she lured her suitors with her black hair, would dye it blonde, as Juvenal testifies, Satire 6. Hence also Horace, book 1 of the Odes, Ode 5: "For whom do you bind back your golden hair?" And Virgil, Æneid 8: "Golden was their hair, and golden their garments." Ovid, Metamorphoses 15: "They make their hair like amber and gold." Claudian, book 3 of the Rape of Proserpina: "Her hair gleams more pleasing than tawny gold." Martial: "She whose locks surpassed the fleece of a Baetican flock."

For the river Baetis in Spain gives a golden color to goats and sheep, as the thing itself shows. Homer assigns golden or tawny hair to those ancient heroes, Menelaus, the Spartan, Meleager, and Achilles. The Emperor Antoninus Verus, says Capitolinus, is said "to have taken such care of his blond hair that he sprinkled gold dust on his head, so that his hair, thus brightened, might appear more golden."

Physicians report that those who have golden hair have a very good temperament. Hence, just as David and Solomon, so also Christ had somewhat golden hair, says Nicephorus, book 1, last chapter.

That the hair of the bride was also of this kind, namely long or flowing, thick, shining, bright, ordered, combed, arranged, and golden or tawny, is clear from chapter 7:5, where it is compared to royal purple; and from verse 9 of this chapter, where the Bridegroom says to the bride: "You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride; you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes and with one chain of your neck."

Add that the hair of the bride is not precisely and immediately compared here to the hair of goats, but to the flock of goats itself; though by means of the flock, they are compared to the goats' hair, because a flock appears as nothing but a mass of hair, as if to say: Just as goats, grazing in flocks and troops on Gilead, present to those looking down from above a long stretch of hair dwelling together, heaped up and in order. Delrio explains "ascended" as "withdrew." For thus the Hebrew alah, that is, "ascended," our translator renders as "withdrew" in 2 Samuel 2:2 and 2 Kings 12:18.

He alludes to Jacob, who, fleeing from Laban his father-in-law with goats and livestock, as well as with Rachel and Leah his wives and their children, ascended this mountain; and there, making a covenant with Laban and piling up a heap of stones as a testimony, he called it Gilead, that is, "heap of testimony," saying: "This mound shall be a witness between me and you today," Genesis 31:48. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And also the rest of the children of your congregation, and the people of the land, are righteous, like the children of Jacob, who gathered stones and made a heap on Mount Gilead."

Such was the hair of goats on Gilead. For Gilead is a rich and fertile mountain, indeed abounding in resin, storax, and spices. Therefore goats feeding there put on thick, shining, golden or tawny fleeces; especially because, by rubbing against the trees, the goats' fleeces absorbed the resin and golden, oily liquid dripping from them. Evidence for this is that in 1 Samuel 19:43, Michal, in order to cover David, whose hair was red, with a fake likeness and save him from those seeking to kill him, clothed the decoy with goat hair, which was reddish. That the goats' hair was also shearable, and therefore combed and shiny, is clear: for from sheared goat hair curtains were made, that is, coverings for the tabernacle, according to Exodus 36:14: "Eleven curtains of goat hair, to cover the roof of the tabernacle." So say Luysius Legionensis, Sanchez, and others. Hence for "which ascended," the Hebrew is sceggalescu, which R. David translates as: "which rubbed, or wiped, or stripped themselves among the bushes of the forest, and became beautiful." Marinus and others: "which are smooth, polished, sleek, and clean," not lean and scrawny, as goats or sheep that are well-fed are; hence from galasch, by metathesis they derive scheleg, that is "snow," because snow, when it falls to the ground, is smooth, sleek, and clean. Saint Jerome, at chapter 6, verse 3, translates "which appeared"; the Septuagint, "which were revealed"; R. Jonah, "which appeared in the morning," that is, they appeared early: for since the peaks of Mount Gilead are the first to be illuminated by the splendor of the sun, the shiny hair of the goats, golden from the spice rubbed on them, then gleams brightly. The Tigurina: "which by grazing have rendered Mount Gilead bare"; Vatablus: "which look out upon Mount Gilead," that is, which present themselves to be seen, or are beheld and observed, as if to say: Your hair adorns you, as the flock of goats adorns Mount Gilead, from which if they were to descend, the mountain would look bare, as if it had been shaved. Therefore "ascended" does not signify a particular direction of climbing (for sheep grazing on a mountain descend as much as they ascend), but merely existence and presence, and means the same as "they were there" or "they appeared," as R. Abraham has it: "which stand out and are beheld." Yet he preferred to say "ascended" because goats are accustomed, while grazing, to climb mountains right up to the summit and dwell there.

The hairs of the Church are the weak, simple, uneducated, poor, and lowly faithful, that is, the vast common Christian people. For they adorn the Church: first, by their multitude and density; second, by their brightness, equality, connection, and order; third, by their color, because through faith, hope, and charity they are golden and tawny, that is, fiery and of a golden hue and beauty. Hence of the first Christians it is said: "The multitude of believers was of one heart and one soul," Acts 4:32. So say Justus Orgelitanus and Philo Carpathius. Hear Saint Gregory: "The hairs of the bride are said to be like a flock of goats: because the peoples of the Church, ruminating on the precepts of the law and contemplating heavenly things by faith, are clean animals and feed in the heights. Now Gilead is interpreted as 'heap of testimony.' And what do we understand by the heap of testimony, if not the multitude of martyrs? For since they held to the faith of Christ invincibly, we know that they bore testimony to the truth even through their death. Therefore this flock of goats ascends from Mount Gilead, because the people of the Church suspends itself by faith toward eternal things all the more, the more strongly it knows that the holy martyrs bore testimony to the same faith." Philo has almost the same words verbatim, so they seem to have been transcribed from Saint Gregory, whose style they bear.

Nyssen adds, in homily 7, that the hairs signify the modesty and chastity of the faithful: for the hair of a woman was given by nature as a covering for modesty. Moreover, goats, because they are smelly, signify the righteous converted from idolatrous pagans, says Eucherius in On Spiritual Formulas, 5: for just as goats are washed clean with water, so the gentiles are washed and made to shine by baptism and penance.

Aponius, however, takes the hairs as the wealthy, but pious and devout, "who," he says, "covered with delicate garments, gleam with gold and gems, are sprinkled with the most fragrant powders of spices, anointed with ointment, attended by the service of servants, adorned with the plate of their upright faith and mercy, and adorn the whole body of the Church. For because they take pleasure in bodily things and cannot follow the apostolic philosophy with full gravity, they are compared to flocks of goats."

Conversely, Gregory of Nyssa in homily 7, Justus Orgelitanus, and Anselm here, as well as Saint Ambrose, Paulinus, and Eucherius to be cited shortly, take the hairs as men devoted to perfection, such as religious. This too is fitting, because religious profess humility and poverty, and in outward appearance and dress they seem thin, worthless, and abject to worldly people, and they say with the Psalmist: "I have chosen to be abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners," Psalm 83:11. For they trample upon all the glory, riches, and pomp of the world, and fix their minds on heaven. I now add another, more important reason.

Cassiodorus, Bede, Richard of Saint Victor, Rupert, and the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, and many interpreters, take the beautiful hairs as holy thoughts. First, because just as hairs grow from the head, namely from the vapors and warm fumes rising from the head, so holy thoughts proceed from the heart, which is like the head, and from the warmth of the heart, that is, from love and affection, say the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret. Second, because the same thoughts adorn the heart and mind just as hairs adorn the head, leaves adorn a tree, and rays adorn the sun from which they proceed. Third, these hairs are golden, tawny, and fiery; so too these heavenly thoughts, sent by the Holy Spirit, inflame the mind with the fire of charity. For the thoughts of the mind arouse similar affections in the appetite; hence, as a person's frequently recurring thoughts are, so too are his loves and affections, for each one loves what he often thinks about and turns over in his mind. Fourth, just as these hairs are many, thick, combed, orderly, and well-arranged, so too are holy thoughts: for they are rightly ordered, thickened, and composed by the Spirit, because they are directed and ordered toward God and Christ. Fifth, these hairs are those of goats that ascend from Gilead: so holy thoughts belong to the devout, who dispose ascents in their hearts and go from virtue to virtue, until they see the God of gods in Zion, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 83:8; and therefore they daily ascend higher toward God in heaven. So Cassiodorus. Gilead, that is, "heap of testimony," signifies Sacred Scripture, says Justus Orgelitanus, and the words, deeds, and writings of the holy prophets and apostles, says Philo Carpathius, and of Christ Himself: for by these, holy thoughts are nourished and kindled. Therefore many understand Gilead as Christ, inasmuch as all the oracles and testimonies of the saints of both the Old and New Testament converge upon Him. For Christ, by His teaching, example, inspiration, and grace, produces in every holy soul these holy thoughts about Himself, and through them He forms the likeness and imprint of Himself in the soul, and as it were stamps it with a seal, according to chapter 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart." Hear Saint Paulinus, epistle 4 to Severus: "In these He struck the sacred coin of His image, imprinting upon their hearts and tongues the word of His truth, and appointing them as money-changers, so that according to His own

...form they might coin money acceptable to the Lord, and, having effaced from us the image of Caesar, might stamp the living coin of the eternal King, so that, inscribed with the spirit of redemption, our necks now free from the yoke, and our foreheads marked with the title of salvation, we might sing: 'The light of Your countenance has been signed upon us, O Lord,'" Psalm 4:7. These thoughts, therefore, which savor of Christ and are tinged with Christ's wounds and, as it were, born from Christ's heart, imprint the likeness of Christ in the holy soul, and thereby make it most like Him and most pleasing to Him. Such a soul, then, says Richard of Saint Victor, has the testimony that Christ dwells in it, because from Him it has the ascent of these thoughts and meditations.

Again, in Gilead resin grew, and medicines effective for curing all diseases of the body. So too from Christ flows the resin of penance and grace, which heals all the wounds and sicknesses of the soul, according to Jeremiah 8:22: "Is there no resin in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the wound of the daughter of my people not been healed?" Hence Theodoret takes the hairs as penitents. The Chaldean translates Jeremiah's passage thus: "I desired the teaching of Elijah the prophet, who was from Gilead, whose words were medicine." For Elijah was given by God to the Gileadites, to correct their idolatry, plundering, murders, and other crimes, as he also did through himself and his disciples, whom he established as a kind of religious community, and widely propagated their assemblies and colleges, who are therefore called in Scripture "the sons of the prophets," namely of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah therefore seems to have been the first founder of monks, both elsewhere and on Mount Carmel, where he most frequently dwelt; hence from him the Carmelite religious took their name and profess themselves disciples and followers of Elijah.

Moreover, just as the wool of goats feeding among the bushes of Gilead appears more beautiful because, intertwined with herbs and foliage, it seems to form one whole with them, so these thoughts, joined to the words and deeds of Christ, the apostles, and the prophets, appear more beautiful because, mixed with them, they seem to coalesce into one. Hence many take the hairs as holy men devoted to perfection and given to contemplation. Nyssen in homily 7, Justus, Saint Anselm, Rupert here, and Saint Ambrose to be cited shortly, and Saint Paulinus, epistle 4 to Severus: "Let us strive," he says, "to be adorned with those hairs which God counts, as He Himself says, Luke 12:7: 'Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.' And whose hairs would He deign to number more than those of him whose own head is the crown? Of whom it is said, Song of Songs 5:15: 'His head is like the gold of Paz,' by which name I think a purer and finer gold is signified, like that of the land of Havilah. For this gold is the form of the saints, who like lights gleam on the head of the body, and are the refined gold of God." And after some further words: "Let us therefore strive with all our might to prepare ourselves so that we may deserve to be the hair and gold of the divine Head (which by the grace of God is Christ for us): for from that Head springs forth that hair of which it is written: 'Her hair is like flocks of goats,'" Song of Songs 6:4.

Religious, therefore, are the hairs that adorn, cover, and protect the Head of the Church. For these were prefigured by the ancient Nazirites, whose religious observance was to grow their hair long and not to drink wine, Numbers 6:9. Hence Nazianzen, in oration 20 in praise of Saint Basil, calls religious "Nazirites," as does Saint Thomas, II-II, Question 86, article 6. Hear Origen, homily 6 on Leviticus: "The Nazirites do not cut their hair, because whatever the just do shall prosper, and their leaves shall not fall. Hence even the hairs of the heads of the Lord's disciples are said to be numbered, that is, all their acts, all their words, all their thoughts are preserved with God, because they are just and holy.

A Nazirite, therefore, that is, a religious, should grow the hair of his head, that is, he should not have a bare mind, but one adorned with divine thoughts and knowledge. For just as hairs grow from the head, so holy thoughts sprout from a holy mind, by which a person is made holier; and these are cherished and nourished by religious, whose work is to think, speak, and do nothing but heavenly things. To them applies the passage of Lamentations 4:7: "Her Nazirites were whiter than snow, brighter than milk, ruddier than old ivory, more beautiful than sapphire." See what was said there. Such was Samson, the strongest of men, whose strength consisted in the hair of his Nazirite vow: "No razor," he told his Delilah, "has ever come upon my head, because I am a Nazirite, that is, consecrated to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, my strength will depart from me, and I shall become weak and be like other men," Judges 16:17.

Again, the hairs signify the qualities of religious, that is, humility. For first, hairs are lowly and insignificant; so too religious life is a state and profession of humility; the humbler a person is, therefore, the more religious. Second, just as shaggy goats climb the highest summits of mountains, so it is the work of the religious to ascend to heavenly things and constantly climb with Our Lady into the mountains of virtues. So says Eucherius in On Spiritual Formulas, chapter 5: "Just as goats seek pasture in the heights, so the saints desire nourishment in heavenly things, according to the words: 'Our citizenship is in heaven,' Philippians 3:20." So too Saint Ambrose, whose words I shall recite shortly. Third, just as hairs are thick, intertwined, and well-arranged, so in religious life there ought to be the highest union, subordination, and order among the religious. Fourth, just as hairs cling intimately to the head, so do religious cling to Christ. Fifth, just as individual hairs are thin and weak, but joined and braided together they form the strongest cord, so individual religious are weak by themselves, but united by the bond of love they form an invincible and most powerful army, according to the saying: "A threefold cord is not easily broken," Ecclesiastes 4:12. Sixth, just as hairs are insensible, lacking life and feeling, says Nyssen in homily 7, so too are religious who have mortified their affections and, as it were dead to the world, are not entangled in earthly affairs, says Theodoret; they seem, as it were, insensible, and therefore do not, as it were, feel the injuries, slanders, afflictions, and hardships of this life, because, as though dead on earth, they live in heaven, according to Colossians 3:3: "You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Such was Elijah who, separated from the crowd on Mount Gilead, led a heavenly life, and there established swarms of religious who, like hairs springing from one head, occupied the summit of Mount Gilead and adorned it like flowing locks. And therefore he was terrifying to King Ahab, Jezebel, and the false prophets, 1 Kings 18:40 and following. Hence Rupert says: "And rightly they are said to have appeared, because their founder Elijah is so suddenly introduced that Scripture nowhere previously records who he was or from where he was born."

Hear Saint Ambrose, who elegantly and keenly summarizes most of what has already been said, in sermon 16 on Psalm 118. For he reads thus: "Your hair is like a flock of goats, which were revealed from Mount Gilead." And he explains: "You see that this flock feeds in the heights, bold on the mountain. Where for others there are precipices, there for goats there is no danger; where for others there is peril, there is this flock's nourishment, there the sweeter food, there the choicer fruit. They are seen by their shepherds hanging from the bushy cliff, where wolf attacks cannot reach, where fruitful trees supply their fruit intact. One may see them swollen with rich milk, anxious with maternal devotion over their tender offspring. Therefore the Holy Spirit chose them for comparison with the assembly of the venerable Church. And to hear it mystically: The hair of the Word is the loftiness and a certain eminence of righteous souls, since the mind of the wise man is in his head." He immediately adds the reason: "For it is certain that wisdom resides in the heights of human thought; and just as goats are shorn so that they may lay aside what is superfluous, so too the holy Church possesses the flock of shorn and bitter ones, that is, the virtues of many souls, in which flock you can find nothing senseless, nothing superfluous: because faith has made them wise, and spiritual grace has cleansed them from every stain of superfluity. Rightly, therefore, were the souls of the just revealed, and revealed from Mount Gilead, that is, from the migration of testimony, because the heavenly testimony migrated from the Synagogue to the Church. On this mountain, therefore, grows incense, resin, and other aromatic substances, which those Ishmaelite merchants, as you have it in the first book of the Old Testament, used to carry. These fragrances the Church possesses, which merchants gathered from the nations brought with faith and devotion."

The Blessed Virgin's hairs, that is, all her thoughts, were beautiful, holy, rightly connected and ordered, because they were directed toward her Head, that is, toward Christ. Again, just as Elijah, fleeing Jezebel, went into the wilderness and Mount Gilead, according to Hebrews 11:37: "They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy: wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in caves and holes in the earth" -- so the Blessed Virgin suffered great persecutions, afflictions, and hardships on account of Christ, and long endured martyrdom in her thoughts, foreknowing the future passion of her Son, says Rupert; and fleeing the mobs of the Jews, she dwelt alone like a turtledove with God and her Christ on Gilead, that is, on the heap of testimony which she had gathered for herself from Sacred Scripture and the oracles of the prophets concerning Christ. From this mountain she constantly gazed upon heaven and heavenly things.

Finally, Nicephorus attributes golden and beautiful hair to the Blessed Virgin. For he says, in book 2 of his History, chapter 23: "She was wheat-colored in complexion, with golden hair, sharp eyes, having somewhat golden and olive-colored pupils in them." And shortly after: "In all her affairs there was much grace given from God." The same author, in book 1, chapter 40, depicting the appearance of Christ, reports that He was very similar to His Mother: "He had a distinguished and vivid countenance. His bodily stature was exactly seven palms. He had somewhat golden hair, etc. From His somewhat golden eyes a wondrous grace shone forth; they were keen, and His nose was rather long; the hair of His beard was golden and not excessively long; the hair of His head He wore rather long. For no razor ever came upon His head, nor any human hand except His Mother's, and that only in His tender age. In all respects He was most like His divine and immaculate Mother."

Verse 2. Your Teeth Are Like Flocks of Shorn Sheep That Have Come Up from the Washing, All Bearing Twins, and None Among Them Is Barren.

"Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep" (Vatablus: like a flock of neatly shorn sheep) "that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none among them is barren." Vatablus: all bear twins, nor is there a barren one among them. In Hebrew it is in the singular, "like a flock of shorn ones." Hence Agathius thinks the Vulgate should be read as "like of a flock of shorn sheep." And so it can be translated from the Hebrew, and so Hortolanus and Titelmannus explain the Vulgate by antiptosis, who consider that here the bride's teeth are compared to the teeth of the flock of shorn sheep. For just as sheep recently shorn and washed have a greater appetite because of the cold and seem to have sharper teeth, with which they crop and devour herbs more eagerly -- especially since they must feed not only themselves but also the twin offspring they have borne, and supply them with their milk -- so too the bride has a keen and strong stomach and teeth for eating, which signifies that she is healthy and robust in body, and strong enough to generate twins, that is, many offspring, and to nourish them with the milk of her teaching. It is a metalepsis: for from strong teeth we understand a strong stomach and appetite, from this a strong nature, and from this strong powers for bearing and nourishing children. This sense seems very plain and fitting, and connects excellently the phrase "all bearing twins" with the teeth of the bride, namely that they are so sharp and strong in feeding that by chewing they sustain both the bride and her twin offspring and make them robust, which fits preachers very well, who are represented here by the teeth. In this sense, therefore, the Vulgate should be understood, whether by antiptosis:

...so that "like flocks" is taken for "like those of flocks," or rather so that "have" is understood, as if to say: Your teeth are such, O bride, as, or like those which, flocks of shorn sheep have -- understand flocks of sheep; or, as Saint Ambrose says in sermon 16 on Psalm 118, of goats, for their teeth are sharp and, in their kind, handsome, though not the handsomest. Moreover, he mentions the teeth both because the brightness, order, and beauty of teeth contribute greatly to a person's elegance, and because, as Nyssen says in homily 7, by the beauty of the teeth a sweet smile of the mouth is suggested: for through this smile, when the lips are drawn back, the beauty of the teeth is opened up and displayed. Finally, men have 32 teeth, of which the first four are incisors, and an equal number next to them are canines, which cut food and separate the good from the bad; the middle ones, or maxillary teeth, prepare the food; the last, or molars, grind it and completely pulverize it. So says Pliny, book 7, chapter 16, who also adds: "Teeth are unconquered by flames, but are hollowed out by the rot of phlegm. Some are born with continuous bone in place of teeth."

But since all codices of the Vulgate, as well as the Septuagint, read in the nominative plural, "like flocks of shorn sheep," and most others explain it in the nominative, I too shall offer a similar explanation. The teeth of the bride, therefore, are compared to flocks of shorn sheep in abundance, order, equality, whiteness, integrity, and closeness, because they are many, orderly, equal, white, complete, and closely set, like flocks of shorn sheep: for shorn sheep, because of the cold, gather together and press close, so that the whole flock seems to be one thing, and a small one at that.

For first, "like flocks" indicates the abundance and order of the teeth: for just as in a flock there are many sheep, and they are orderly, so in the mouth there are many teeth, namely 32, and they are properly arranged and ordered. Just as therefore there is a flock of sheep, so too there is a flock of teeth. Second, "of shorn sheep" indicates the equality and closeness of the teeth: for shorn sheep do not have fleece sticking out unevenly, but evenly shorn. So one tooth is not longer than another, but all are equal and cut as if to a level; again, shorn sheep press close together because of the cold, and so too the teeth are dense and tightly packed. Third, "which have come up from the washing" indicates the brightness and whiteness of the teeth. Fourth, "all bearing twins" indicates their completeness and fullness, about which more shortly.

Which Have Come Up from the Washing.

For it is customary for sheep, when they have been shorn, to be washed, both so that they may shine more brightly and so that sweat, vapors, and dirt clinging to the skin may be washed away, lest they generate scab or any rough condition. For unwashed sweat clinging to the body generates scab, as Columella says in On Agriculture, book 7, chapter 4. In like manner the bride often washes her teeth, and therefore has them cleaner and brighter, not dirty, unclean, or scabrous. Again, just as washed sheep grow cold and therefore come together and press close, so that they may be warmed by mutual heat, so too the bride's teeth are close-set, dense, and tightly packed, not sparse, not hollow, and there is no empty space between them.

For "bearing twins" the Hebrew is matimoth, which Aben-Ezra translates passively as "twin," as if to say: Just as twin sheep, born of the same birth, are similar and equal to each other, so too are the bride's teeth. But matimoth is a participle, and an active one of the hiphil conjugation, and therefore should be translated actively as "twinning," that is, "producing twin offspring," as our translator and the Septuagint render it. Moreover, R. Solomon reads poorly methomoth, translating it as "whole and undefiled"; for the correct reading is matimoth, that is, "bearing twin offspring."

For "barren" the Hebrew is schaccula, that is, "bereaved," which means one deprived of its offspring, one that has lost the young it had, through death or seizure. "Barren" in the strict sense means infertile, one that has not given birth. R. Solomon erroneously translates it as "and there is no blemish in them." Thus a jaw is called "barren" which does not produce a tooth; and "bereaved" which has lost a tooth it once produced, whether it fell out on its own from decay or rot, or was knocked out by force.

Moreover, the Chaldean translates: "How beautiful are the priests and Levites, who offer your oblations and eat the sanctified meats, and the tithes, and the firstfruits, and are clean from all violence and robbery, as the flocks of Jacob's sheep were clean at the time when they were shorn and came up from Jacob's stream, among whom there was no violence or robbery, and all were alike, and bore twins at every season; and there was no barren or bereaved one among them."

One may ask what contribution it makes to the praise of the bride's teeth that all these shorn sheep bear twins and none among them is barren. Some do not refer this to the praise of the teeth but to the praise of the sheep, as if to say: The sheep to which I compare the bride's teeth I take not as any sheep, but as whole and fruitful ones, namely those that bear twins. But most others refer it to the teeth, and this in various ways. First, some think it pertains to the larger teeth and molars, which are cleft and seem, as it were, double. Others relate it to the front teeth, which, though sharp, are fixed in the jaw with cleft and, as it were, double roots. And they explain it thus: Just as fruitful sheep bear twins and produce two lambs, so your jaw, O bride, produces teeth that seem to be twins in themselves, or at least have cleft, seemingly double roots.

Secondly, Gislerius considers that by this comparison only the equality of the teeth is signified, namely that the teeth are similar to each other and perfectly equal, like twin lambs, which are both equal to each other and at the same time fill and level with their bodies the empty space between the feet of the mothers, so that the whole flock of sheep is everywhere pressed together and leveled, above indeed by the bodies of the sheep, and below by those of the lambs.

Thirdly, Sanchez considers that the front teeth, because they appear when the lips are drawn back and therefore seem wider than the rest, are reckoned as mothers; while the lateral and back teeth, because they appear less and therefore seem less wide, are reckoned as lambs, as if to say: Just as twin lambs accompany their mother, one at her side and the other following behind, so attached to the sides of the front teeth, which seem like mothers, are the lateral teeth, which like lambs accompany the mother, and behind follow the molars, which because they are less visible seem smaller (though in reality they are larger), and therefore are compared to lambs following their mother.

Fourthly, and more aptly, there is a double row of teeth: some are upper, others lower, and each upper tooth so equally matches and rests upon the lower one beneath it that it seems, as it were, to be a twin offspring born from the same root of the jaw, as from a mother's womb. These teeth, therefore, are called matimoth, that is, "twinning," that is, imitating twin offspring and very similar to them. In the same way, the front teeth match front teeth, and the canines next to them match canines, and the middle teeth match middle teeth, and the last match the last, namely the molars match the molars opposite them on both sides equally, so that they seem to be perfectly equal twins. "And none among them is barren," as if to say: There is no place in the matrix of the teeth, namely in the jaw, that does not produce a tooth; in Hebrew, "there is no bereaved one among them," as if to say: There is no place in the jaw that has lost the tooth it originally produced and been deprived of it. It is a poetic metaphor: for Greek and Latin poets use similar figures, especially the bucolic poets, like Theocritus and Virgil.

Fifthly, and most plainly, the bride's teeth are compared not to flocks, but to the teeth of flocks, that is, of shorn sheep that nurse twin offspring: because the teeth of those sheep, as I said at the beginning, seem sharper and stronger than others, inasmuch as they must both satisfy their own hunger, which they feel more acutely because of the cold from shearing, and moreover sustain and nurse the twin offspring they have borne. As if to say: The bride is so strong that she has teeth strong enough to crop and digest food sufficient not only for herself, but also for her twin offspring. These things concern the outer bark of the letter; now for the sense of the marrow.

Teeth both digest food and distinguish and articulate the voice and speech, "catching the stroke of the tongue in a kind of harmony," says Pliny, book 7, chapter 16. Therefore they represent the teachers of the Church and the masters of the faithful, who instruct them in faith and piety. For these, like teeth, first divide and chew the doctrine of Christ as food, so as to send it down into the stomach of the Church. For the first digestion of food takes place in the mouth through the teeth, and it is this chewing that makes the second digestion, which takes place in the belly and stomach, easy. Therefore physicians, as being most useful for health, urge that food not be swallowed by gulping down whole pieces, as wolves do, but first be well chewed and broken up in the mouth, and thus digested, be sent to the stomach. Hence the last teeth are called molars, because they grind and crush food, like millstones, and reduce it, as it were, to flour. Hence Saint Augustine, book 20 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 6, teaches that the teeth signify holy and perfect people: "By whose life and conduct," he says, "the Church of Christ cuts away from every superstition those who come to her, and by the imitation of good people incorporates them, as it were, into herself. These good, faithful, and true servants of God, laying aside the burdens of the world like a flock of shorn sheep, came to the sacred washing of baptism, and ascending thence, by the conception of the Holy Spirit they bear the fruit of the twin charity, of God and neighbor."

Secondly, just as mothers or nurses pre-chew harder food with their teeth, soften it, and make it liquid, and so put it into the mouth of the infant who lacks teeth, so teachers, by explaining, break down the more solid mysteries of the faith, and render them plain and clear, so that the uneducated and the young can grasp and understand them.

Thirdly, just as teeth soften what is hard, sweeten what is bitter, temper and season what is distasteful so that it seems smooth and pleasant, so preachers and masters of virtue, by smoothing over and ennobling with their gentle eloquence those things in Christianity that are harsh and frightful, make them agreeable and welcome. What is harsher than the cross, mortification, and martyrdom? And yet the masters of the faithful, by chewing these things with their teeth, as it were, render them sweet and desirable to the faithful.

Fourthly, these are not canine, nor wolfish, nor even leonine teeth, which breathe intolerable stench and nausea upon the foods they chew, as Aristotle attests in book 8 of the History of Animals, chapter 28. Rather, they are of sheep and lambs, similar to flocks of shorn and washed sheep, because after the manner of those sheep, they have shorn off, that is, by mortification cut away, not only every filth and stain, but also all superfluous wool, that is, gluttony, lust, avarice, and every pursuit of earthly things they have cast away from themselves; and as though washed by penance, they are white and clean, bearing a heavenly brightness, which they breathe and inspire into their disciples. Hence Theodoret says: "Your teeth, that is, your teachers, O Church, are so pure and free from all superfluous disputation, from all loquacity, buffoonery, falsehood, and obscenity of words, clean and whole, that they seem similar to those who have recently been deemed worthy of the saving baptism, like flocks of shorn sheep that have come up from the washing."

Hence, just as shorn sheep must be washed with sea water, or rain water to which salt has been added, as Columella prescribes in book 7, chapter 4, so teachers should rub away all softness from themselves with the salt of austerity, frequent penance, and mortification, and lead a life of austerity, which may be an example to the faithful of a continent, holy, and austere life.

Fifthly, teeth are the weapons of animals, with which, by biting, they defend themselves and their own, attack enemies, and seize prey; and therefore they are hard, strong, and bony. Hence Aristotle, in book 4 of On the Parts of Animals, chapter 11: "The function of the tooth," he says, "is to bite and to cut." Hence also combative animals either have protruding teeth, like boars; or serrated and closely packed teeth, like lions, panthers, and dogs; or else nature changes the upper teeth into horns, as it does for cattle, buffalo, rams, and goats. Therefore horned animals lack the upper row of teeth, because God transferred their material into horns, which are stronger weapons, as Aristotle teaches in book 2 of the History of Animals, chapter 1. So likewise the preacher should bite heretics and all other wicked people with his teeth, and should not fear anyone however powerful, but when necessary should show his teeth like a boar. Manius Curius was born with teeth, and therefore was surnamed "Dentatus" (Toothy), says Pliny, book 7, chapter 16: so too should the preacher be well-toothed when he attacks vices.

Sixthly, all teeth cling to the head and from it receive all their strength: so teachers cling to Christ and from Him draw all their power of teaching and speaking. Hence if teeth are loosened from the jaw, or become corrupted and decay, they not only infect and destroy themselves but also their neighbors, and indeed they rub their stench and rot into the food: so likewise, if teachers depart from Christ and from Christ's doctrine and law, they fall into errors and bad morals, with which they infect and corrupt both themselves and their disciples.

Seventhly, there is a threefold series of teeth: the front ones are sharp, the middle ones broad, and the last ones broadest. The front teeth cut food, and are therefore called tomikoi (cutters) by the Greeks, says Celsus, book 8, chapter 1; the middle ones grind it down; the last ones mill it and turn it, as it were, into the finest flour, and hence are called molars. So too, some teachers, by explaining, cut into sacred doctrine; others, by expounding it further, grind it down; and a third group, by thoroughly crushing it, mill it fine.

Eighthly, animals that have dense and close-packed teeth are long-lived and live a long time; while those with sparse and loose teeth are of short age and life, as Aristotle teaches in his Problems, section 10, number 47. He also adds the reason, that sparse teeth are an indication that the bone of the head is dense, and therefore: "The brain," he says, "is weak: because it is less suited to breathing, and therefore quickly decays, since by its nature it is moist. For other things too that do not move or exhale are easily corrupted." Dense or sparse teeth, therefore, are a symbol and cause of long or short age and life: so where there are many preachers, rightly connected and joined together in the same faith and charity, there the Christian faith and piety lives and flourishes; but where they are few, and not sufficiently connected with each other, but discordant in doctrine and morals, and opposed to one another, there certain ruin and destruction of religion threatens.

Ninthly, and most importantly, just as strong sheep bear twin offspring and have strong teeth for feeding them, with which they vigorously cut, crop, and chew grass sufficient not only for themselves but also for nursing their twin offspring, so outstanding preachers should be endowed with strong power of speaking and teaching, by which they are able to beget, nurse, and make strong twin, that is, many spiritual children for God. Therefore among them none is barren, but all are fruitful and fertile.

Moreover, that the teeth signify teachers and preachers is taught by Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory, Bede, Justus, Aponius, Philo, Anselm, and Saint Augustine in book 2 of On Doctrine, chapter 6. Hear Saint Gregory: "The teeth are rightly called holy preachers, because when they elucidate Sacred Scripture by expounding it for their lesser brethren, they chew bread for the little ones, as mothers do for their children, so that the weak may grow strong for more solid fare. These are indeed rightly said to be like a flock of shorn sheep that came up from the washing, because when they remember that they were washed clean from all sins in baptism, they willingly lay aside the burdens of the world, so that they may advance more freely and easily toward attaining and preaching heavenly things. Of these it is added: 'All bearing twins, and none among them is barren.' All holy preachers bear twin offspring, because while they surpass other men in the two commandments of charity, they preach the twofold love, and in it they do not cease to beget the two peoples, Jewish and gentile. Among them none is barren, because a man is certainly not to be called a preacher if he disdains to beget spiritual children." To this Gregory of Nyssa adds, in homily 7, noting that in these mystical teeth, that is, in preachers, it is required: first, that they be shorn, that is, stripped of earthly attachments; second, that they be pure and bright from the washing of conscience; third, that they always ascend by progress; fourth, that they be barren in no kind of virtue or exercise, but fruitful and fertile in every one. The twins they must bear, he says, are the soul's freedom from suffering and the honorableness of bodily life. So says Nyssen. Moreover, first, Bede, Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory, and Saint Augustine in the Psalm take the twin offspring as the charity of God and neighbor: for good preachers must engender both in their hearers. Secondly, Theodoret takes them as contemplation and action: for if the former...

...by cutting breaks it down and explains it, so that whatever good or evil is in it may be discerned. Furthermore, just as teeth cling to the head, so meditation and deliberation must rely on Christ, and on the invocation, help, and grace of Christ. Again, just as teeth in themselves are pure, white, and free of all filth, so deliberation must be free of every sinful affection and passion, and look only to the dictate of right reason and the light of God. Moreover, just as teeth, emerging from the soft gum, become bony and hard, so that they cannot be consumed even by fire, so prudent deliberation brings a matter from a thin and weak beginning to such great size and strength that it cannot be overcome by any force; and indeed it produces twin offspring, that is, most beautiful and greatest fruits. For nothing in it is barren, and no thought is without fruit. So say the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, Nyssen in homily 7, and Saint Ambrose, sermon 16 on Psalm 130.

To this Richard of Saint Victor adds, who by the teeth understands the discernment of spirits: "The discernment of spirits must be learned," he says, "for when the devout soul judges and examines all things, she crushes and grinds them, as it were, with certain teeth of discernment. These are the teeth of the bride, which are likened to flocks of shorn sheep. The shearing represents innocent thoughts cutting away external things, namely the love of earthly things and the desire of possessing worldly prudence. Moreover, when discernment, after innocence and the rejection of worldly things and the mortification of one's own will, is purified by the grace of compunction and trained in spiritual understanding and examination, it is rightly said to ascend from the washing." He then assigns the twin offspring or fruit of discernment, which I related a little earlier.

Accordingly, Saint Bernard aptly, in sermon 64 among the short sermons, takes the teeth as religious: for they devote themselves to prayer and meditation, and consequently to preaching. The more ardently one absorbs through meditation the love of virtue and hatred of vice in the mind, the more effectively one speaks that very thing through the mouth and teeth to the people and persuades them. Therefore religious devoted to prayer and meditation become the best and most effective preachers, as experience teaches.

Hear Saint Bernard, who first enumerates thirteen qualities of teeth thus: "Teeth are white and strong; they have no flesh; they lack skin; they cannot endure anything within themselves; there is no pain like their pain; they are enclosed by the lips so as not to be seen; it is unseemly when they appear, except in smiling; they chew food for the whole body; they derive no flavor from it; they are not easily worn out; they are set in order, some upper and some lower; and while the lower ones move, the upper ones never do." Then he applies the first five in order to religious and monks: "For what is whiter than those who, avoiding all filth and impurity, bewail the sins of their thoughts as well as of their actions? What is stronger than those for whom tribulation serves as consolation, insult as glory, poverty as abundance? These have no flesh, because in the flesh, having forgotten the flesh, they hear from the Apostle: 'You, however, are not in the flesh but in the spirit,' Romans 8:9. They lack skin, because, not having the brightness and tension of worldly cares, they sleep and rest in peace in the same thing, Psalm 4:9. They tolerate nothing lingering within themselves, because they consider not even the slightest offense tolerable, either in themselves or in the consciences of individuals." Then, pursuing the next five analogies of teeth, he applies them to religious: "There is no pain like their pain, because nothing is so terrible and horrible as murmuring and dissension in a community. They are enclosed by the lips so as not to be seen: so too we are surrounded by material walls, so that we are not exposed to the eyes and access of worldly people. It is unseemly if they appear, except sometimes perchance for a smile, because nothing is more shameful than a monk running about through cities and towns, unless forced by that charity which covers a multitude of sins: for charity is a smile, because it is cheerful -- joyful indeed, but not dissolute. Teeth chew food for the whole body, because they are appointed to pray for the whole body of the Church, namely for both the living and the dead. They ought to derive no flavor from it, to assign no glory to themselves, but to say with the Prophet, Psalm 113:1: 'Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory.' They will not easily be worn out, because the older they grow, the more fervent they become, and they run the more swiftly the nearer they approach the prize." Finally, he assigns the last three properties of teeth, relating to their order and position: "They are set in order, for if order is not here, where food and drink, waking and sleeping, working and resting, walking and sitting, and all other things would be established in number, measure, and weight? Wisdom 11:21. Some are upper and some lower, because among us there are prelates and subjects, and the upper are so joined to the lower that the lower do not disagree with the upper. And while the lower ones move, the upper ones should never move: because even if the subjects are sometimes disturbed, it is the prelates' role to persevere in a composed mind. 'Like a flock of shorn sheep,' he says, because monks are rightly compared to shorn sheep, since they are truly shorn, having nothing left as their own property, neither hearts, nor bodies, nor anything worldly. 'Which came up from the washing': the washing is baptism, from which one ascends who aims at the height of a more perfect life; but one descends who gives himself over to a dishonorable life. 'All bearing twins,' because they give birth both by word and by example. 'And none among them is barren,' because none is unfruitful."

All these things already said apply above all to the Blessed Virgin, who had the whitest teeth, because she was the teacher of innocence, says Rupert. For she herself was the instructress of the apostles and of the other faithful, and therefore she constantly devoted herself to meditation. In her mind, therefore, she conceived twin offspring, namely the divinity and humanity of her Son, whose works and mysteries, which she heard and saw with her eyes, she perpetually turned over and ruminated upon in her mind, according to the words: "But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart," Luke 2:19.

Again, the Blessed Virgin led a most religious life in the highest chastity, poverty, and obedience. For she was the first of mortals to consecrate her virginity to God, and so she was the first to raise the standard of virginity, which other virgins thereafter followed, as Saint Augustine teaches in his book On Virginity, chapter 4, and Saint Bernard in his sermon on Revelation 12: "A great sign." Her poverty is demonstrated by the manger, the two young doves, and many other things. Her obedience is shown by her very marriage, which made her subject to her husband, even though she was so far superior in sanctity and wisdom, and had no need of a husband for offspring, since she was to conceive by the Holy Spirit, but only for the exercise of obedience. Therefore she herself founded all the religious orders: the Carthusians, Premonstratensians, Cistercians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and the Society of Jesus, as our Hieronymus Platus demonstrates from the annals of each in his book On the Good of Religious Life, book 1, chapter 34. And therefore she is the guardian and patroness of all religious as their offspring, as she has shown by very many examples. Accordingly, the Blessed Virgin bore twin offspring, because by her example and word she taught the observance of both the commandments and the evangelical counsels. So says Rupert.

Verse 3. Like a Scarlet Ribbon Are Your Lips, and Your Speech Is Sweet.

In Hebrew, nave, that is, "beautiful"; the Septuagint: "like a scarlet cord" (Saint Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 18: "a scarlet string"; Aquila: "of scarlet") "are your lips, and your speech is comely." The Hebrew chut signifies both a thread, and a cord, and a ribbon. Hence Vatablus translates: "Your lips are like a scarlet thread." By the ribbon, then, understand also the thread that fastens the ribbon below around the neck and binds it. In the right order of nature, he descends from the praise of the eyes to the praise of the hair, thence to the teeth, then to the cheeks and lips. He compares the mouth and lips of the bride to a ribbon, to indicate that they do not protrude or stick out excessively, but are curved with a modest and becoming roundness, as if traced with a scarlet thread or cord, that is, outlined in red, so as to close the teeth becomingly.

For there are three things that commend the lips: first, their position -- if they are not elongated, thick, protruding, or gaping, but slender, round, and becomingly fitted to each other like a ribbon; second, their color -- if they are not black, or yellowish, or pale, but scarlet, that is, rosy and suffused with a certain blood-red blush bearing dignity, which poets call "purple" and "rosy," for these represent virginal modesty and beauty; third, their closure -- if, like a ribbon that might unravel, they are bound and fastened with a cord, so that the teeth do not show through any gap.

He notes her silence as well as her grace in speaking, as if to say: The bride has closed lips and is a lover of silence; but when she opens her lips, she does so with wondrous grace. Therefore whether she closes or opens her lips, they are most beautiful; "and her speech is sweet," that is, comely, because in speaking she has a wondrous charm, order, discretion, and grace, so that she always preserves the prepon (what is fitting), which Cicero, and indeed Saint Augustine, highly commend in an orator. For this gives speech both charm and weight, and dignity and majesty.

He alludes to the scarlet cord that Rahab the hostess, receiving the spies sent by Joshua into the city of Jericho, hung from her window, so that by that sign the Hebrews, when devastating the city, would preserve her house unharmed, Joshua 2:18. So say Theodoret, Philo, and Justus. Hence R. Solomon considers that the bride's lips are compared to the scarlet cord to signify that she is faithful in her promises, so that what she promises she certainly performs, just as the security which Rahab and the spies mutually promised each other and signified by the scarlet cord, both sides exactly kept.

By the lips, just as by the teeth (for by both the voice and speech are formed), the teachers and preachers of the Church are signified, say Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory, Bede, Aponius, Justus, Philo Carpathius, and Anselm, whose speech ought to be like a ribbon. First, it should be thin, plain, and easy, not stuffed with elegance, pretense, and pomp of words. Second, it should be bound, connected, and controlled, so that one does not rashly blurt out whatever comes to mind that might offend God or neighbor, but says only what one has previously and prudently premeditated as pleasing to God and useful to people here and now, arranged and connected in proper order; and what should be left unsaid, one should keep silent about. Third, just as a scarlet ribbon is both elegant and skillfully woven, so the preacher's speech should have a fitting texture, be well-crafted, pleasant, and agreeable, so as to soothe and hold the hearers and not permit them to leave, says Theodoret, but like a net and a reticulated ribbon draw people to itself like fish, and having plucked them from the sea of concupiscence, bind them to Christ. Fourth, the speech of the lips should be like a scarlet ribbon, which is of a blood-red color, that is, dyed with the blood of Christ, which the preacher drinks daily in the sacrifice of the Mass, so that with Paul he may preach not himself but Christ crucified. So say Theodoret, Nyssen...

...Saint Thomas, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and Saint Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 18, verse 4, who says: "Like a scarlet string are your lips, because in the scarlet the appearance of fire glows red, and the blood of the Lord's cross gleams. The Lord's lips were scarlet, because they spoke of His own passion."

Hear Theodoret, who thinks an allusion is being made to Rahab's cord, as I said. He says: "The Bridegroom beholds this sign placed, as it were, in the window of the bride's mouth, saying: 'Like a scarlet cord are your lips,' as if to say: Your mouth has taken its color from My blood, and it utters words of truth, by which, as by a kind of cord, the hearers are captured and bound. For your speech soothes and holds them, and does not allow them to depart, but compels them to serve your lips."

Aponius adds to this, who considers that preachers are likened to the scarlet ribbon: "Because," he says, "what they preach, they confirm by the testimony of martyrs," so that those who do not believe the law, which promises eternal life to the obedient, may believe the testimony of the martyrs who shed their blood for it, and thus, as with a ribbon, they bind the unbelieving.

Again, speech should be like the scarlet ribbon, that is, it should blush, and indeed burn with charity, so that it breathes and exhales nothing but the love of God and neighbor, so that whatever it speaks with the mouth proceeds from a heart of charity. So say Saint Gregory, Cassiodorus, and Bede. Hear Saint Gregory: "The same preachers are called the lips of the Church, because through them she speaks the commandments of life to the peoples. They are rightly said to be like a ribbon, because when by their preaching they restrain the wandering thoughts in the hearts of men, they repress them like scattered locks of hair, lest they flow about immoderately. But why are they compared not merely to a ribbon but to a scarlet one? It is because by 'scarlet' the flame of charity is understood, with which they burn and through which others are set on fire. Through them the speech of the holy Church is sweetened, because when they practice what they preach, they set before people their sermons as, it were, savory dishes."

Therefore the preacher should strive to unite the quarrelsome and the discordant with each other and with God through mutual love, and to bind them like a ribbon. For this is one of the primary duties of the preacher, says Nyssen in homily 7, who, reading with the Septuagint "a scarlet cord are your lips," explains thus: "By the cord is signified concord and charity, so that the whole of it is one and the same chain woven from different threads; and by the scarlet, the blood of Christ, by which we were redeemed, is referred to, inasmuch as she has the confession in her mouth of Him who redeemed us by His blood."

Again, the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret consider that the cord signifies the measure of speech: for speech must be measured by its own measure of prudence, just as we measure the length of things with a cord; and if this is done, the speech will be sweet and comely. Conversely, Psellus asserts that the mouth should be closed with the cord, that is, with silence: "By the cord," he says, "understand the gift of silence; by 'sweet speech,' divine preaching, as if to say: You so excel in the grace of silence that nothing superfluous, nothing absurd falls from your lips; for if you ever wish to speak, you speak only those things that pertain to the proclamation and teaching of the faith."

And Your Speech Is Sweet.

"Rightly," says Richard of Saint Victor, "the speech of the devout soul is sweet and delights, is pleasing and edifies, because it proceeds from charity and flows from the fountain of grace. For she tastes that the Lord is sweet; hence the sweetness she experiences she pours back out, and the fullness she enjoys she proclaims forth. Because her heart is filled with spiritual delights, she proclaims forth the good word of sweetness, consolation, instruction, and admonition. The storehouses of her heart are full of these riches, pouring forth from this gift of grace to that one, from this spiritual meditation to that one."

The lips of the holy soul are like a scarlet ribbon when they pour out ardent prayer to God. The scarlet ribbon, therefore, is prayer: first, because like scarlet it blushes and burns, both with the blood of Christ, through whose merits it asks to be heard; and with the love and desire of obtaining what it asks. For prayer should flow from the inmost heart and the heart's affection, and burst forth from the heart to the mouth and lips.

Secondly, just as a ribbon covers, adorns, and binds the head, so prayer adorns and protects the mind, restrains it from earthly thoughts, and binds it to God and Christ, so that one praying through the lips seems, as it were, to kiss God, to embrace Him, and, as it were, to bind and compel Him to grant what is asked. For God is nourished and delighted by the devotion, humility, love, and effective ardor of those who pray, and He is pleased to be, as it were, bound and compelled. "This violence is pleasing to Him," says Tertullian, On Prayer; hence their speech is sweet, pleasing, and beautiful to Him.

Thirdly, just as a scarlet ribbon is fastened beneath the neck with a scarlet cord, so prayer is fastened by charity, so that it asks nothing except what the charity of God, or of one's own soul, or of one's neighbors requires. For charity is like a cord binding and uniting to itself both all the other virtues and all other people, and God Himself. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And the lips of the high priest pleaded in prayer on the day of atonement before the Lord, and his words turned aside the sins of Israel, which were like a scarlet ribbon, and whitened them like clean wool."

Therefore, the lips of the holy soul, who is the bride of Christ, whether conversing with God or with her neighbors, should be scarlet, that is, red and coral-hued, full of charity, so that it seems not so much they themselves who speak, as the love in them, and charity itself speaking through their mouths.

"In your lips," says Rupert, "is confession and beauty; in your lips is sanctity and magnificence. She (Eve) was mute before God, but you magnified the Lord with a most ardent mind, with a most sweet voice, and this is the scarlet ribbon, because charity is like fire, with which, well bound to it, you so clung to God that you are one spirit with Him. Hence your speech is sweet, because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and the sweetness that abounds within flavors the speech that pours forth without."

Then, explaining the cord of Rahab mystically and applying it to the Blessed Virgin, he adds: "Behold, Rahab the harlot tied the scarlet ribbon or scarlet cord of your sweet speech in her window, a sign of her faith that she had received and saved the messengers of Joshua, that is, of Jesus. While the Church, once a sinner and soiled with the harlotry of idolatry, continually sounds forth your sweet speech, with which your soul magnified the Lord, as the pledge of her salvation, and preaches with faith ever whole the entire evangelical doctrine, in which your lips without doubt confirmed the apostles themselves. And indeed concerning every soul, she binds together those who hold different views into unity by her preaching, so that all may say the same thing; and she does this in charity and unfeigned faith. It is truly said that her lips are like a scarlet ribbon, but in this grace you are incomparable above all others after me, your Beloved, to whom the Spirit specially says in the Psalm: 'Grace is poured forth upon your lips,'" Psalm 44:3.

Finally, Nicephorus, in book 2 of his History, chapter 23, thus depicts the lips of the Blessed Virgin from Saint Epiphanius: "Lips blooming and full of the sweetness of words." And a little earlier: "She was in all things honorable, dignified, speaking very few words and only what was necessary, easy to listen to and very affable, showing honor and veneration to all, etc. She used a becoming freedom of speech toward all people, without laughter, without agitation, and above all without anger."

Like a Piece of Pomegranate Are Your Cheeks, Besides That Which Lies Hidden Within.

For "piece" the Hebrew is pelach, that is, a division, part, piece, fragment. Therefore Aben-Ezra (and the ancient Spanish interpretation of the rabbis, says Sanchez) less correctly translates it not as a piece, but as the flower of the pomegranate, which blushes to the highest degree and seems the most beautiful circle of redness: because he reads perach, that is, "flower," instead of pelach.

The "pomegranate" (malum punicum) is the same as the granatum: it is called "punic" because it was brought from Carthage (Pœni); "granatum" from the multitude of seeds (grana) with which it is filled, or because it abounds in the Kingdom of Granada. Hence Pliny, book 13, chapter 19: "Near Carthage," he says, "the punic apple claims its name for itself (in Africa); some call it the granatum." The method by which pomegranates become red is explained by Cassius Dio, book 10, chapter 33.

For "cheeks" the Hebrew is racka, which Luysius, Vatablus, Genebrardus, and others translate as "temples," because they are delicate and thin: for the root rac signifies "to be thin." But better our translator, the Septuagint, Symmachus, and others translate it as "cheeks": for these are soft, thin, and delicate. They are first round, second plump, and third rosy.

Like a Piece of Pomegranate.

The Septuagint: hōs lepuron, that is, "like the rind of a pomegranate," and so some codices of the Vulgate read, such as the Complutensian, and so all read at chapter 6:6. Hence it is clear that the cheeks are compared not so much to the seeds as to the rind of the pomegranate. Yet he says "piece" (fragmen): first, because one part of the pomegranate is red while another is green; but the cheeks are only red, not green. Second, because a piece, besides its color, also exhales the sweet fragrance of the seeds lying within, says Rupert. Third, because for "cheeks" the Hebrew and the Septuagint have "cheek" in the singular; and a single cheek can only be compared to a fragment, that is, half a pomegranate. Or rather, the fragment means the rind itself, because it is divided from the pulp and, as it were, broken apart. So the "fragment" of a nut is the shell itself: for this must be broken so that the kernel hidden beneath it can be taken and eaten. Similarly, at Job 41:15, in the Hebrew pelach tachtit, that is, "lower fragment," designates the lower millstone, which is called the meta, because it is separated from the upper stone, which is called the catillus, and as it were broken apart. Hence Philo Carpathius reads here: "like the rind of a pomegranate is your apple," on account of what lies hidden within you. Hence the cheeks are called in Greek mēla, that is, apples, because they are similar to pomegranates, says Nyssen, since they bulge out like rounded apples, says Pollux.

For the interior modesty and chastity is greater than the exterior blush and shame of the cheeks that proceeds from it. He said something similar about the eyes at verse 1; see what was said there. For just as the beauty and vigor of the eyes, so also that of the cheeks flows from the heart and the mind.

The cheeks, purple like a piece of pomegranate, signify the modesty, chastity, and virginity of the Church: both literal, such as exists in virgins; and mystical, which consists in undefiled and chaste faith, hope, and charity, such as exists in all the faithful, as I shall shortly say from Saint Augustine. For virgins represent the ornament and beauty of the Church, just as the cheeks represent the beauty of the face and of the whole person. Therefore virginity and celibacy flourished wonderfully in the primitive Church, because the apostles ardently commended it to the faithful. Indeed, Saints Peter, Paul, John, Matthew, Clement, and very many other leaders of the Church underwent martyrdom to defend it, as I have said elsewhere. Hence almost all the Fathers wrote the most ample praises of virginity in entire books: Saint Basil, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, Saint Athanasius, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Saint Chrysostom, and Saint Gregory Nazianzen.

The cheeks, therefore, purple like a pomegranate, signify the modesty of virgins: for this is their purple; for them no color is more honorable than that which is born of shame. So says Nazianzen, in his oration Against Women Who Adorn Themselves: "The only lovable color in a woman," he says, "is that blush which shame produces." And in his second oration In Praise of Gorgonia: "The only redness that pleased," he says, "was that which modesty brings; the only whiteness, that which comes from abstinence. For cosmetics and paints and living pictures (he calls these 'masks,' because a painted woman is a masked one) she left to actresses and women of the streets, for whom it is a disgrace and dishonor to blush." Solomon signified the same thing with another image, that of the turtledove, in chapter 1, verse 10, saying: "Your cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove's." See what was said there: for the Christian faith and the Church have always held chastity and virginity wonderfully dear and close to the heart. For whoever preserves chastity also preserves the faith; but whoever falls from chastity easily loses the faith as well.

Hence those swarms of virgins in the Thebaid, Egypt, Syria, Rome, Africa, and Greece, of whom Palladius, Theodoret, Cassian, Sophronius, and Baronius write in their ecclesiastical histories. Hear Saint Cyprian, On the Dress of Virgins: "She is the flower of the Church's seed, the beauty and ornament of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, a whole and uncorrupted work of praise and honor, God's image reflecting the sanctity of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ's flock. Through them the glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices, and in them she abundantly flourishes; and the more copious virginity adds to its number, the greater grows the joy of the mother." Saint Augustine, On Holy Virginity, at the beginning: "Christ," he says, "the son of a virgin, the spouse of virgins, born bodily from a virgin womb, spiritually joined in a virginal marriage. Since, therefore, the whole Church is a virgin betrothed to one husband, Christ, as the Apostle says: how worthy of honor are those members of hers who guard even in the flesh what the whole Church guards in faith, imitating the mother of her husband and Lord! For the Church too is both virgin and mother. Whose integrity are we protecting, if she is not a virgin? Whose children are we addressing, if she is not a mother? Mary bodily bore the Head of this body; the Church spiritually bears the members of that Head. In both, virginity does not impede fruitfulness; in both, fruitfulness does not diminish virginity. Therefore...

...since the whole Church is holy both in body and in spirit, but not the whole Church is a virgin in body, only in spirit, how much holier she is in those members where she is a virgin both in body and in spirit!" The same Augustine, in book 2 of The City of God, chapter 26, teaches that the Romans reverently worshipped a virgin goddess, namely Vesta. Saint Basil, in his Praise of Virginity, assigns to it these praises: "The virgin is Christ's living vessel; the virgin is the image of chastity; virginity is above the law of nature; virginity makes a person most like God; virginity gathers our life from corruption to glory."

Hear Nazianzen in his poem In Praise of Virginity, where he scattered these praises: "The love of virginity lifts minds to the stars. Virginity is a thing wondrous in every age. Virginity is the glorious portion of great Christ. Virginity (of Daniel) was able to fence in tawny lions. Virginity is adorned by Christ as its spouse. The first Trinity is Virgin. A virgin is another angel." The same, in his Precepts for Virgins: "A virgin among human beings is what a pearl is among rocks, and Lucifer among the stars of heaven, a branch of the leafy olive among forests, a lily in grassy fields, and a dove among the birds." The same, in his Poem on the Beatitudes: "Happy is the virginal choir, which, having rejected the flesh, in its purity is not far from the supreme Godhead."

Moreover, this exterior shame of virgins in the cheeks proceeds from the interior chastity and purity that lies hidden in the soul, and this is what is signified by "besides that which lies hidden within." For this the Septuagint translates: "beyond your silence"; others: "within your veil," hence they translate: "like a piece of pomegranate are your cheeks within your veil." Symmachus: "covered with a covering." For virgins, to guard their modesty, cover their cheeks and face with a veil. Hence Tertullian, in his book On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter 15, calls this veil the wall and rampart of virginity: "True virginity," he says, "takes refuge under the veil of the head, as under a helmet, as under a shield, to protect its good against the blows of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions and whispers and jealousy, and even envy." And in chapter 16: "Put on," he says, "the armor of modesty, draw around you the rampart of bashfulness, build a wall for your sex, which neither lets out your own eyes nor admits those of strangers." Hence also Sirach 26:19: "Grace upon grace," he says, "is a holy and modest woman." Again, for virgins, in place of veil and rampart, there are the cloisters of monasteries, which, if exactly observed, keep them free from every temptation and danger to chastity, so that, removed from men, like angels they may converse continually with God and Christ their spouse in all quiet, sanctity, and joy, and seem to dwell in paradise. In the cloister, therefore, the piety, sanctity, prayer, charity, virtue, and heavenly life of virgins lies hidden, but is manifest to God and the angels, just as under the fragment, that is, the rind of the pomegranate, there lies hidden the wine-like sweetness and copious density of its seeds.

Finally, Nicephorus teaches that the Blessed Virgin veiled her cheeks, in book 2 of his History, chapter 23, where from Saint Epiphanius he describes the garments of the Blessed Virgin: "She was content with garments of their natural color, as the holy veil of her head still shows, and, to put it briefly, in all her things there was much grace from God." Thus Justus Orgelitanus explains this passage about modesty, virginity, and celibacy: "Those," he says, "create beauty in the face of the Church who observe chastity accompanied by modesty." And Aponius, who compares virgins to Christ, who in chapter 2 is called an "apple tree," and that, as he himself interprets, a punic one: "Like a pomegranate among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons. This tree brings forth from itself a fruit most beautiful to behold and sweetest to taste, and a quite suitable medicine for the sick. Because He who was shown to the world through a virgin for the salvation of mankind scattered the flowers of purity and chastity throughout the whole earth. He shows that virginity and continence have a part, that is, a fragment, of His beauty, in which the face of the Church is shown to be most beautiful by the preservation of untouched purity." And Philo Carpathius: "By the pomegranate," he says, "the Church herself and the faithful soul are designated; for just as in the pomegranate there are many sweeter seeds, so in the bosom of the Church many faithful peoples are contained in the unity of faith. And when many of them bind and devote themselves to the divine service more strongly than others, so as to despise and flee all worldly things, deny their own wills, thoroughly purge and wash their vices, humble themselves, and exalt others, while by their examples they nourish and prepare many for God -- these, like pomegranates now ripe and truly sweet to the taste, open themselves as saving food and drink for their neighbors. But more and greater things lie hidden in them than are exposed to the eyes of the faithful, and therefore he said: 'Besides that which lies hidden within you.'"

Moreover, the fact that the Septuagint translates "beyond your silence," Theodoret, Nyssen, and Psellus consider to commend the silence that supremely befits virgins: "He has brought forth a twofold praise of beauty," says Psellus here. "For with the cheeks of her face praised for their purple beauty of modesty, he also commends the beauty of the soul, saying as it were: 'I pass over the beauty of your one cheek's silence.'" See what was said at verse 1.

Secondly, by the cheeks like a piece of pomegranate, Cassiodorus, Saint Gregory, Philo, and Bede understand the patient and the martyrs: for these are reddened with their own blood like the rind of the pomegranate, but when the pomegranate is broken open, the interior whiteness of the seeds appears, because after death they gleam with miracles. Add that many virgins have dyed their virginity purple with their own blood. So too Saint Ambrose, in book 3 of the Hexameron, verse 13, whom hear: "Pomegranates quickly bloom, but they cannot bear fruit unless watered by fitting rains...

...they are cultivated; usually the inner juice vanishes, and outside its beautiful appearance is extended. The pomegranate is not undeservedly compared to the Church, as you have it said in the Song of Songs: 'Like the rind of a pomegranate are your cheeks'; and below: 'The vine has blossomed, the pomegranates have bloomed.' For the Church extends the bright radiance of faith and confession, made beautiful by the blood of so many martyrs, and, what is more, endowed with the blood of Christ, preserving within herself at the same time very many fruits under the protection of this apple under one defense, embracing the many affairs of the virtues. For the wise person conceals affairs in the spirit." Bede presses the phrase "like a fragment": "because," he says, "the more it happens that the Church is broken, the more clearly it is revealed that she embraces the seeds of the virtues under the covering of one faith. For while the pomegranate is still whole, the seeds cannot be seen, but when it is broken, how innumerable they are becomes clear." True is that saying of Prudentius: "The number of martyrs has always grown from every storm." And that of Tertullian, at the end of the Apology: "Your cruelty is rather an enticement to the sect; we become more numerous the more we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed."

For, as Saint Cyprian teaches, book 4, epistle 3: "Martyrs provide the mastery of morals; confessors, the beginnings of virtues." Hence Saint Augustine, explaining Psalm 67:28: "The princes of Judah, their leaders" (that is, the martyrs, he says: for Judah means "confession"): "For the martyrs hold the highest place in the Churches and excel at the pinnacle of holy dignity."

Thirdly, Cassiodorus and Bede take the cheeks as preachers, because when, they say, they announce the passion of Christ, they display, as it were, redness on the outside; but when they demonstrate how great a benefit has come to us from our redemption, and that through the passion of Christ a person has deserved not only to be justified from sins but also to attain divine fellowship, what is hidden within is, as it were, white. For when a pomegranate is broken, on the outside redness appears, but on the inside whiteness. And since they reverently commemorate the passion of Christ and are not ashamed of His cross, according to the counsel of the Apostle, 2 Timothy 1:8: "Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord (that is, the cross of Christ), nor of me, His prisoner" -- for instead of the blush of shame that is poured upon the cheeks from one's own blood, they are suffused with the redness of their Redeemer. So they say, and so too Saint Gregory.

The Chaldean version is relevant here: "And the king," it says, "who was their prince, was full of commandments like a pomegranate, apart from the overseers and princes who approach the king, who are righteous, in whom there is nothing evil."

Moreover, the reason why priests and preachers are called the cheeks of the Church is given by Saint Gregory, in book 13 of the Morals, chapter 11, saying: "The face of the holy Church are those who, placed in positions of governance, appear first, so that from their appearance comes the honor of the people, even if something unsightly lies hidden in the body." Hence he concludes how shameful it is if they themselves dishonor the Church by their wicked morals, and how greatly those sin who defame them and breathe infamy upon them. The honor and beauty of priests, as well as their shame and dishonor, is therefore the glory or disgrace of the whole Church.

By cheeks like a piece of pomegranate is signified, first, the modesty, continence, temperance, gravity, and austerity of the holy soul. First, because, as Nyssen says in homily 7, just as the rind of the pomegranate preserves and nourishes the sweetness of the fruit contained within it, so a continent, austere, and harsh life is the guardian of the goods of temperance. So too the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, whom hear: "Your cheeks are like the rind of a pomegranate, as lovers of severity and remote from all dissoluteness, even when you are not silent. Although merriment is customary in meetings and many conversations, yet you, because of your temperance in them, repress what is excessive and dissolute."

Secondly, Saint Anselm takes it as the saints who suffer persecutions, because, he says, like such a fragment, which is red on the outside but white on the inside, outwardly they are worn down by many persecutions and are contemptible to the world, but inwardly they are found to be white when known: by the words "besides that which lies hidden within," the intention is commended, which is far more beautiful. So says Anselm.

Richard of Saint Victor adds to this, who by the redness of the cheeks understands the soul that does not refuse to blush for Christ, but willingly suffers for Him reproaches, shames, poverty, and pains: because all these things are only a fragment, a small portion, if compared with the reproaches and pains of Christ. For Christ was the whole pomegranate, because He was entirely reddened in His suffering, and never was there sorrow like His sorrow. Such souls, therefore, according to the command of Christ, fearlessly offer the other cheek to one who strikes one cheek, Matthew 5:39.

A striking example is found in Saint Sotheris, a noble virgin and martyr, whom Saint Ambrose wonderfully celebrates in book 3 of On Virginity: "Sotheris," he says, "in the time of persecution, raised to the summit of suffering even by servile insults, gave to the executioner even her very face -- that part which amid the tortures of the whole body is usually free from injury, and which is accustomed rather to watch torments than to endure them. And so strong and patient was she that, when she offered her tender cheeks to the punishment, the executioner gave out from striking before the martyr yielded to the injury. She did not turn her face aside, she did not avert her countenance; she uttered no groan, she shed no tear. Finally, when she had overcome all other kinds of punishment, she found the sword she was seeking." And in his Exhortation to Virgins: "But Sotheris took no care for her appearance, who, though she was very beautiful of face and a noble virgin of illustrious lineage, set aside the consulships and prefectures of her ancestors for the sake of her holy faith, and when ordered to sacrifice refused to comply. The savage persecutor commanded her to be beaten with the palms of the hand, so that the tender virgin might yield either to pain or to shame. But when she heard this sentence, she uncovered her face, unveiled and bare for martyrdom alone, and willingly went to meet the injury, offering her face, so that the sacrifice of martyrdom might take place where the trial of modesty usually occurs. For she rejoiced that by the loss of her beauty the danger to her purity was removed. But although they were able to furrow her face with the welts of wounds, they were by no means able to furrow the face of her virtue and the grace of her interior beauty."

Thirdly, the same Richard takes the red cheeks as the shame for sins, which is covered by the rind of humility, not whole but in fragments, because even though the penitent tries to conceal it, it nevertheless betrays itself through the cracks and fragments and bursts forth.

Finally, Saint Chrysostom, in homily 8 from various passages on Matthew, thinks that here is noted the practice of giving alms in secret: "Of this faithful work of almsgiving, under the silence of devout taciturnity, Solomon, praising the Church, once declared saying: 'Your cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove's because of your silence,' namely that silence of which the Lord says, Matthew 6:3: 'Let not your left hand know what your right hand does.' For the pomegranate is the proper symbol of charity, whose rind represents external beneficence and whose pulp of seeds represents interior love. Of this more will be said below."

Aponius considers that by the two cheeks are signified the two Marys, who were the princesses of virgins: the first is Mary the sister of Moses in the Old Testament, the other is the Blessed Virgin in the New, who were the first, he says, to make the cheeks of the bride Church wondrous by preserving their integrity. And the Blessed Virgin, like the rind, contained within herself the noblest fruit, namely Christ: for her virginity was not barren but fruitful, as I said at the beginning from Saint Augustine.

Rupert says more fully: "A piece of pomegranate," he says, "both blushes and is more fragrant than the whole pomegranate. So you are singularly modest, and you will benefit many by your good reputation and good example. And what does it mean to say: 'Besides that which lies hidden within,' except as if he were saying: And what lies hidden within in the conscience is more praiseworthy? O truly laudable modesty, where both the conscience within is clean and the face without is bashful! For where there is something that makes the mind blush, it is not so praiseworthy if a blush suffuses the visible face. Therefore your modesty -- what is it but the highest devotion? And this virtue without doubt had to be likened to the pomegranate, because it is pleasing to the eyes of beholders, and sometimes by its silence it edifies no less than the word of preaching." Rupert adds that this was represented in the garment of the high priest, in which pomegranates were mixed with bells, Exodus 28:33: "The pomegranate in the midst of the bells represents the devout and laborious silence, especially of the female sex, in the fellowship of faith or in the doctrine of preachers. Such above all were you, O Virgin of virgins, in helping, or even in governing the preaching apostles; whose words, though they are not read or heard where they preached, yet whose works and merits are not unknown, no less, indeed greater, than the ringing of preachers."

Verse 4. Like the Tower of David Is Your Neck, Which Was Built with Battlements: A Thousand Shields Hang from It, All the Armor of the Mighty.

The Septuagint: "all the darts of the mighty." For it was the custom of old for princes to hang shields and arms from towers, both for ornament and for defense. Solomon deposited the same in the house of the forest of Lebanon, 1 Kings 10:16. Ezekiel plainly attests this in chapter 27:10, where, speaking of the garrison of Tyre: "Persians," he says, "and Lydians, and Libyans were in your army, your warriors: they hung shield and helmet upon you for your ornament. The sons of Arvad with your army were upon your walls round about; and the Pygmies, who were in your towers, hung their quivers upon your walls all around." The pagans did the same, as is clear from Virgil, Æneid 1: "Or Capys, or the arms of Caicus on the lofty sterns." And book 10: "To beg peace with their hand, to display arms upon the sterns," where Servius teaches the same thing.

The tower of David is either the citadel of Zion, as Rupert maintains, which David wrested from the Jebusites and made the capital of his kingdom; or rather that taller, more beautiful, and stronger tower which David built next to the citadel of Zion, to fortify it on the side of Millo, or the Tyropoeon, as well as the city of Jerusalem lying below it, as is sufficiently indicated in 2 Samuel 5:9. Hence Adrichomius, in his Description of Jerusalem, number 170: "The tower of David," he says, "was fortified and very lofty, built in the corner of two valleys, on the hill of a precipitous cliff, of square stones indissolubly joined with iron and lead, constructed by King David. Its singular strength and distinguished beauty is brought forth by Solomon for the commendation of Christ's bride, the Church, when he says: 'Like the tower of David is your neck.'" The same Adrichomius then displays it for viewing in his image of Jerusalem, next to the Fish Gate on one side, and on the other next to the Tomb of David and the kings of Judah. So too Brocard, chapter 7, number 43, and William of Tyre, book 9 of The Sacred War, chapter 3; indeed Ezra also seems to have mentioned it in book 2, chapter 3, verse 25, where he calls it the tower that rises above the king's house...

"A thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty;" and these can also be called battlements, as our translator renders it.

Sixthly, and best of all, our translator renders it "with battlements," for Aquila also translates it as eis epalxeis, that is, into genuine battlements, pinnacles, or summits; and Symmachus translates it as eis hypse, that is, into heights, says Theodoret: for pinnacles fortify a tower and exhibit the form of openings. Others, according to Pagninus, derive talpiijoth from tel, that is, strong, elevated, high, and piijoth, that is, of mouths; which rightly fits the pinnacles, between which are intermediate gaps or fissures like mouths. Others by mouths understand the two chasms between which the tower of David was situated, as I said from Adrichomius. Nyssenus agrees in homily 7, who interprets the Hebrew talpiijoth, which the Septuagint retains, as battlements, whether these were pinnacles, walls, or anything else.

For "a thousand shields," as the Hebrew has it, St. Ambrose in Psalm 121, sermon 4, reads "a thousand doors"; but he seems to have had a faulty manuscript, and to have read thyreoi, that is, doors, when the Septuagint reads thyreoi, that is, shields, which are so called because they are broad and similar to doors. Moreover, the shield is an emblem of warlike fortitude; hence on the shield of Agamemnon, as Pausanias testifies, a lion was engraved with this inscription:

This is the terror of men, and he who bears it is Agamemnon.

For "armor" the Hebrew has scilte, which elsewhere our translator and others render as pelta or shield; hence also the German Schild is the same as shield. However, since "shield" has already preceded here, our translator better renders it as "armor": for the Septuagint also translates it as bolides, that is, javelins or missiles, for with these soldiers schaleta, that is, dominate their enemies; the Syriac, however, translates it as "all powerful princes": for from schalat, that is, to dominate, sultans are so called, that is, princes ruling far and wide.

FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: On Christ and the Church.

Solomon, in chapter 1, verse 10, compared the neck of the bride to necklaces; hence there he noted by the neck the obedience of the Church; but here he compares the neck to the tower of David, equally beautiful and fortified: therefore here by the neck, says Titelmannus, he denotes the invincible strength, fortitude, and constancy of the Church, by which she most bravely resisted both tyrants and heretics and all persecutors, indeed overcame and subjugated them all: for the strength of oxen, horses, and animals resides in the neck and throat. The neck therefore is a symbol of strength, likewise of confidence, boldness, and courage; hence that verse from Psalm 128:4: "The just Lord has cut the necks of sinners."

lofty. Genebrardus adds that this is the tower of which Micah says in chapter 4, verse 8: "And you, tower of the flock, mist-covered daughter of Zion, unto you shall the Lord come": but what that tower is I have explained in that place.

To this tower, therefore, he compares the neck of the bride, because like it, the neck was tall, round, robust, and strong; perhaps also this tower resembled the appearance of a neck, for it stood beneath the citadel of Zion, as a neck beneath a head; but it rose above the city of Jerusalem, which is called the daughter of Zion, as a neck above the other members subject to it; hence St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, octonary 4, verse 7: "David built that tower, and raised its heights above the walls, so that it might serve equally for defense and for beauty: for defense, because it foresees and repels the enemy; for beauty, because it towers not only above lowly things, but even above lofty things." Therefore less precisely R. Salomon, Luysies, Sotomajor, Delrio, and others by the neck understand the entire erect stature of the bride's body, as if to say: Just as the tower of David surpasses other towers, so you, O bride, surpass other women in your tall and beautiful stature.

For "with battlements," the Hebrew has letulpiijoth, which various authors render variously. First, the Septuagint, and the Syriac and Arabic following them, retaining the Hebrew word as if it were a proper place name, translate it as "in Talpioth." The Septuagint is followed by St. Ambrose in Psalm 121, sermon 4.

Secondly, R. Salomon and Aben-Ezra, deriving talpiijoth from alaph, which in Piel means to teach, translate it as "teaching and monuments," because that tower, like a lighthouse showing the port to sailors, showed the way to those passing into the city; hence the Tigurina translates it as "for the purpose of directing men," for thus the Church shows the faithful the way to heaven, as Vatablus explains; or because, constructed with remarkable workmanship and skill, it taught the method of building a tower and citadel, and displayed its design and form to those beholding it; or because in it were monuments of those who had accomplished something heroic, as Philo testifies in his Embassy to Gaius.

Thirdly, Marinus in his Lexicon derives talpiijoth from tel and piijoth, that is, a heap or accumulation of mouths, which is the plural of os, oris (mouth): it therefore signifies very great buildings constructed from hewn stones in such a way as is commonly called in Italian fatti a diamanti, that is, in a diamond pattern, which is that the stones are squared in such a way that they end in an edge and point, and thus are not exposed to the blows of siege engines, but deflect and repel them sideways, such as the foundation of the Palace of St. Mark in Venice, and the Palace of Cardinal d'Este in Ferrara.

Fourthly, others according to Pagninus interpret talpiijoth as stones of the tower, hewn in the likeness of a mouth.

Fifthly, Quinquarboreus thinks talpiijoth is said as if lithloth piijoth, that is, for hanging up mouths, that is, the edges of swords, namely the swords themselves, as if there were hooks projecting from the tower, from which swords hung, according to what follows:

explains concerning the praises of the ancient Roman Church. By the tower, shields, and battlements, he judges are denoted the victory of the martyrs, and the admirable holiness of the ministers of the Gospel amid persecutions.

Hear St. Gregory, who applies these things to preachers: for the pontiffs too are heralds of the Gospel, and they preach and propagate it everywhere, whether by themselves or through priests ordained and sent by them: "Rightly is the neck of the holy Church called the tower of David, because the holy preachers observe from afar the enemies coming against the holy Church, and bravely resist if they attempt to harm anything in the Church, and freely despising earthly things, contemplate heavenly things. They are called neck on account of watching for enemies, but tower on account of their fortitude, and on account of the lofty contemplation of heavenly joys." Then he continues the rest in order: "This tower is rightly said to be of David, because David is interpreted as 'strong of hand,' by which Christ is signified, whose it is to accomplish whatever is strong and exalted. Of which it is added: 'Which was built with battlements: a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty.' The tower of David is said to be built with battlements, because the holy preachers are armed with miracles against hostile men, if need be. Against vices, however, they fortify themselves with shields, because lest they succumb to spiritual enemies, they defend themselves with virtues. In which all the armor of the mighty hangs, because whoever wishes to resist bravely the battle formations of enemies, sees in them the examples by which, being armed, he is able to overcome enemies vigorously. 'A thousand' here is placed for perfection, because in the number one thousand all perfect numbers are completed." The Apostolic See, therefore, is like a lighthouse for the Church, so that those navigating on the sea of this life may recognize from it the true Church, which leads her faithful to God and to happiness; its battlements;

with outstretched neck." And that verse of Horace, epistle 13:

Fierce with untamed neck.

And that passage of Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods: "You have placed upon our necks an eternal dominion." So Philo Carpathius, and from him Delrio: The neck, he says, of the Church is the pillar of faith, by which it joins the Church to Christ the Head: this is similar to the tower of David, from which hang very many shields and arms, which adorn and beautify it, just as necklaces and jewels adorn the neck. Hence the Apostle, in 2 Timothy 3:15, calls the Church "the pillar and foundation of truth": for a pillar is similar to a tower, indeed sometimes it truly is a tower, such as in Rome are the columns of the emperors Trajan and Antoninus: for these are so wide that six men can scarcely embrace them with their arms, and they are hollow inside, and so spacious that one can climb from bottom to top by a spiral staircase with steps, as in a tower.

Again, by the neck and tower are denoted prelates, doctors, pontiffs (who are called bishops, that is, watchmen from towers), who are always at war fighting for the defense of the Holy Church, says Cassiodorus, and especially the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, because just as the neck is the middle between the head and the members, connecting them to the head, and just as the head through the neck sends the spirit and life into the members and conveys food to the stomach: so the Pontiff is, as it were, the middle between Christ and the rest of the faithful; and Christ, as the head, through the Pontiff, as the neck, conveys His doctrine, governance, strength, and spirit to the faithful, connecting them to Himself. This is what Christ promised to St. Peter and his successors, Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and, Luke 22:32: "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail: and you, being once converted, confirm

your brothers." Hence also St. Paul, Galatians 2:9, calls St. Peter, James, and John, as apostles and leaders, pillars of the Church. In them therefore is talpiijoth, that is, true doctrine, the monuments of ancient faith, the sublimity of supreme power, and the suspension of mouths, because the rest of the faithful depend on them, and with gaping mouth, as it were, await spiritual food for the soul.

Some understand by the thousand shields the protection and guardianship of many angels, who watch over the Pontiff and the Church, likewise all the safeguards of divine defense, says Cassiodorus, likewise the examples of the saints, and moreover the cross of Christ, says Aponius. Therefore, just as the neck clings to the head and draws all its strength from it, so the prelate and pontiff should cling to Christ and be familiar with Him through prayer, so as to draw from Him the wisdom and strength for teaching: for as Paul says, Hebrews 5:1: "Every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in the things that pertain to God." And Moses, Deuteronomy 5:5: "I stood as mediator and intermediary between the Lord and you at that time, to announce to you

the words of His mouth: for you feared the fire and did not ascend the mountain." Therefore Moses in doubtful matters would go to the tabernacle, and consult God, and be taught by Him what should be done.

Hear St. Gregory, Part II of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 5: "Let the ruler be near to each person through compassion, elevated above all through contemplation, so that through the bowels of piety he may transfer to himself the weakness of others, and through the height of contemplation he may transcend even himself by seeking invisible things, lest either in seeking lofty things he despise the weaknesses of his neighbors, or in accommodating the weaknesses of his neighbors he abandon seeking lofty things." And in chapter 6: "Let the ruler be a companion to those doing well through humility, upright against the vices of offenders through zeal for justice; so that he may prefer himself to the good in nothing, and when the fault of the wicked demands it, he may immediately recognize the authority of his primacy; so that with his honor suppressed he may consider himself equal to his well-living subjects, and may not fear to exercise the rights of justice against the perverse." Thus by the neck and the tower of David they understand the prelates and doctors of the Church: Cassiodorus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, Psellus, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, and Richard of St. Victor. Hence also the Chaldean paraphrase translates: And he who is the leader of the school, who was your strong teacher in justice, and teacher of good works, like David king of Israel, and by the word of his mouth the world was built, and in the teaching of the law, in which he labored, the people of the house of Israel trusted, and conquered in battle, as if they held in their hands all kinds of weapons of the mighty.

Moreover, Nyssenus gives the example of St. Paul: "Such a neck," he says, "was Paul, who indeed bore the name of the Lord, having become a vessel of election for the Lord, and the head was accurately fitted to him by God, so that whatever he said, it was no longer he who was speaking, but his head was speaking, as he indicated to the Corinthians, that Christ was the one speaking in him, and who directed by the spirit the word of truth. From those divine eloquences the fruits became altogether sweet, so that through himself he nourished the entire body with those divine teachings."

Symbolically, Justus Orgelitanus and St. Gregory, homily 17 on Ezekiel, understand by the tower of David Sacred Scripture, from which is sought the full armor for defeating all errors and wicked morals.

SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: On Christ and the Holy Soul.

First, the mystical neck of the holy soul is prayer, so say Theodoret and three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, and this fittingly, first because just as the neck is raised on high, so prayer raises the mind from earth to God in heaven; in it therefore is talpiijoth, that is, the suspension of the mouth and mind, or the sublimity and elevation of the spirit toward God. Second, just as through the neck the breath is drawn in to refresh and strengthen the interior, so through prayer we draw in the Spirit of God, who cools the heat of concupiscence, and animates and strengthens the mind; hence the Psalmist, Psalm 118, verse 131: "I opened my mouth and drew in breath: because I desired Your commandments."

Third, just as a tower fortifies a city, so prayer fortifies the soul; and just as a tower is surrounded by battlements, shields, and both defensive and offensive weapons, so the battlements of prayer are the virtues that protect it and inflict wounds on the enemy, such as constancy and fortitude; the shields, however, are those that receive and repel the enemy's darts without injury, such as humility and patience; finally, in it is all the armor of the mighty, that is, every kind of weapon, namely every species of graces and remedies that God supplies to those who pray, so that, strengthened and made brave by them, they may not only repel any enemies, but also drive them back and defeat them. Therefore Cassian, Climacus, Sophronius, and others unanimously and constantly teach that prayer is the most efficacious remedy against all temptations of the flesh, the world, and demons. Do you want examples? Take them. From this tower of prayer Esther prevailed against the power and edict of Ahasuerus; from this tower Judith against the Assyrian general Holofernes; and from this tower innumerable others; from this tower, finally, Christ went forth armed for the harsh combat of death. Fortified by this, the Maccabees, few in number, won glorious victories over innumerable enemy forces; but when they are said not to have offered prayer beforehand, they received a heavy blow from the enemies: first in 1 Maccabees 5:33 from Antiochus Eupator; again in the same book, chapter 13:18, where Judas Maccabeus was slain. So Sanchez.

Secondly, St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 4, verse 4, by the towered neck understands the constancy and loftiness of the holy soul: "The neck raised toward God," he says, "and fitted to the yoke of Christ, which is curved by no bending toward earthly allurements, just as there is a tower of Christ's rules, upon which Nebuchadnezzar cannot place his yoke: for David, that man of strong hand, built that tower, and raised its heights above the walls, so that it might serve equally for defense and for beauty: for defense, because it foresees and repels the enemy; for beauty, because it towers not only above lowly things, but also above lofty things. Yet it serves for defense or beauty only if it has in itself the teachings of the Word, like certain ornamental jewels, and also has the javelins of the mighty prophets, which are directed against every height that exalts itself, as with certain sinews of faith." Here Theodoret agrees, who by the towered neck understands the mind, or reason, which contemplates exalted and heavenly things, whose shields and full armor are the prophets and apostles. And more clearly the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret: "Just as the tower of David," they say, "is the interior tower of your mind, both in action and in contemplation the especially excellent reason, which through virtue has been built upon the divine commandments above the battlements, that is, above the temptations of the adversary; and it is raised through knowledge to the height of contemplation. For David means 'strong of hand and keen of sight.'" Now what was said: Which

was built in talpiijoth; Aquila indeed translates, upon battlements; Symmachus, however, in height. Therefore it is signified that the bride's reason surpasses the enemy's counsels in action, and in contemplation is raised to the sublimity of true knowledge.

Thirdly, John the Carmelite understands by the neck and tower charity. For, first, he says, just as the neck is lofty, so charity is the highest of all virtues and most directly raised toward God. Second, just as the neck supports the head and connects it to the members, so charity unites and binds Christ to the soul, so much so that Christ is not bound to the soul by the bonds of other virtues, but only by the single bond of charity. Third, just as the neck has an artery through which the breath is admitted and flows into the interior, so charity has grace through which it draws and attracts the Spirit from heaven. Fourth, just as the neck has a throat through which food is conveyed to the stomach, so charity opens its mystical jaws: for it always hungers and shrinks from no kind of labor, but consumes all arduous things like a violent fire consuming wood cast upon it. Fifth, the neck rises above the shoulders and bears burdens upon them, so charity has broad shoulders upon which it bravely sustains and bears the difficult manners of neighbors, injuries, persecutions, tribulations, and all the burdens of this life. In like manner, charity is similar to a tower or citadel, both on account of its loftiness and on account of its firmness and strength: for those who inhabit this citadel acquire a certain plainly divine power, by which they become utterly invincible, as Paul candidly confesses of himself when he says, Romans 8:35, that neither death, nor life, nor other enemies of that fierce kind can tear him away from the charity of God. The battlements are the evangelical counsels, which are most vigilantly observed by those who desire the citadel of charity to be secure: for the practitioners of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and of the other counsels, following in the apostolic footsteps, guard the tower of David most excellently, and from these battlements, as it were, they very often wound the enemy and make themselves formidable. The shields of charity are humility and patience, by which it receives and repels all adversity; for these depend upon and, as it were, proceed from charity. All the armor of the mighty is the array of the other virtues, which flowing from charity make a person strong and invincible, so as to overcome and transcend all things, and ascend as victor and triumphant to blessed eternity. For "all the armor" the Hebrew has "all the shields of the mighty," as if to say: Patience, manifold and varied, which is like shields, is equivalent to all armor by which we receive the weapons of all enemies and overcome them. Finally, in charity is talpiijoth, that is, a heap of mouths, because it divides its love into several mouths, as it were, namely into the love of God, the love of neighbor, and the love of self.

Fourthly, Rupert and Gislerius by the towered neck understand humility and obedience, which is so sublime and exalted that it is conspicuous to all and draws everyone's eyes to itself.

Secondly, like a neck and tower it is round on every side, that is, perfect, continuous, and persevering unto death. Thirdly, it is equally straight through the rectitude of holy intention. Fourthly, the battlements of obedience are humility, meekness, and faith, by which one believes that he obeys God when he obeys a superior, and through him is ruled and directed by God. For God said, Luke 10:16: "He who hears you, hears Me." Fifthly, the shields and weapons of obedience are invincible, for the obedient person conquers all difficulties, temptations, scruples, and distrusts: because he rests securely and joyfully in the obedience and command of his superior, as of God's interpreter. Sixthly, it is called the tower of David, that is, of Christ, because it reflects and imitates the supreme obedience of Christ: for Christ "humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross," Philippians 2:8. Seventhly, the obedient person is in talpiijoth, that is, in the suspension of the mouth, because he depends entirely on the mouth of his director: therefore, although he may seem blind like a mole, he is in truth sharp-sighted like an eagle.

THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

The Blessed Virgin is called and invoked by the Church in the Litany of Loreto as the Tower of David. She is also called the neck in the mystical body of the Church: for the head of that body is Christ, the neck is the Blessed Virgin, and the members are the rest of the faithful. "The neck," says Hailgrinus, "is the eminence of her sublimity, and it is like the tower of David, that is, fabricated by Christ, the true David, so that it might be a refuge and protection for sinners. The battlements of this tower are the virtues of grace and the prerogatives by which she protects sinners and conquers the enemy."

Many causes and analogies between the neck and the Blessed Virgin our Fr. Pinellus accumulates in his Praise of the Blessed Virgin, chapter 16, number 8: The most holy Virgin, he says, is called the neck in the body of the Church, not only because, as in position, so also in dignity she is nearest to Christ the head, and stands above the other members, joining them to the head; but also because all sensitive and motive power is transmitted from the head to the body through the neck, and thus God's mercy is conveyed to us through the Virgin; and better than through a neck, which has no power of drawing to itself, but is merely a passage for what is sent through it; whereas the Mother of God by her merits and prayers obtains God's mercy for us and draws it to us. And just as, if anything is to be transmitted from the members to the head, it must be transmitted through the neck; so also let us offer ourselves to Christ through the most pure hands of the Virgin, saying to her with St. Bernard: "Through you may we have access to the Son, O blessed finder of grace, mother of life, mother of salvation, that through you He may receive us, who through you was given to us;" indeed the neck is the passage of breathing, by which the life of the animal

is preserved: it is the passage through which the food necessary for the nourishment and growth of the animal is transmitted: in the neck is the throat, one of the chief instruments for speaking: from the neck necklaces and all precious things are hung: children grasp their mother's neck out of fear or out of affection; all of which things, it is clear, are most fittingly applied mystically to the Virgin.

Therefore St. Bernardine of Siena, tome 1, Conclusion 61, article 2, chapter 10: "The fullness of grace," he says, "was in Christ as in the head pouring it forth; in Mary, however, as in the neck transmitting it." And Germanus in his sermon On the Girdle of the Blessed Virgin: "If you, most holy Mother of God, should abandon us, what will become of us, the spirit and life of Christians? For just as our body has breathing as the sign of vital activity, so also your most holy name, most blessed Virgin, which is constantly on the lips of your servants at every time, place, and manner of life, is not only a sign of joy and help, but also procures and obtains them." And St. Bernard, sermon 3 for the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord: "God willed," he says, "that we should have nothing that did not pass through the hands of Mary." The same author, in his sermon On the Aqueduct, gives the reason, namely that God willed that His mother be so honored: "Look more deeply," he says, "at how great the devotion is with which He wished her to be honored by us, He who placed the fullness of all good in Mary, so that accordingly if there is any hope in us, any grace, any salvation, we may know it overflows from her, who ascends overflowing with delights." And below: "Let us venerate this Mary with all our prayers, because such is the will of Him who willed that we should have everything through Mary."

Moreover, Rupert understands by the tower the humility of the Blessed Virgin, for this exalted her like a tower reaching to heaven and God, so that she might become the Mother of God: "Your neck," he says, "was by no means stretched out, but is like the tower of David, that is, like the humility of David, through which he stood strong before God and unconquerable against men: for he, as the most tender worm of a tree, who even when he was an anointed king said to Saul, when Saul was pursuing him: 'Whom do you pursue, O king of Israel? Whom do you pursue? You pursue a dead dog and a single flea,' 1 Samuel 24:15. This tower was built with battlements, and a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty, that is, all the other virtues followed upon this great humility of his, especially fortitude and wisdom: 'David sitting in his chair was most wise, like the most tender worm of a tree, who slew eight hundred at one assault.'"

And after a few more words: "Add what is greatest, that the substance of the Word, whose mystery the humility of your father David was granted to sing of, I say, the substance of that same Word your humility conceived and brought forth incarnate, O daughter of David."

Moreover, Aponius understands by the tower of David Christ Himself; by the battlements, the examples of virtues that Christ displayed in His life; by the thousand shields and all the

Verses 5 and 6. Your Two Breasts are like Two Fawns of a Gazelle, Twins, that Feed Among the Lilies, Until the Day Breathes and the Shadows Decline. I Will Go to the Mountain of Myrrh and to the Hill of Frankincense.

YOUR TWO BREASTS ARE LIKE TWO FAWNS OF A GAZELLE, TWINS, THAT FEED AMONG THE LILIES (that is, among the lilies that grow in the fields, such as the lily of the valleys, of which chapter 2, verse 1), UNTIL THE DAY BREATHES AND THE SHADOWS DECLINE. - For "among the lilies" Symmachus translates "among the flowers": for fawns or young gazelles, playful and frolicking in the white lilies of the field, feed on flowers.

"Keen observers of beauty," says Hortolanus, "affirm that the beauty and praises of the breasts of an uncorrupted and well-formed maiden consist especially in these qualities: namely that they be small, round, firm, not spreading, but compact, matching, gleaming, and full. And by all these marks the breasts of the bride are here praised, through their likeness to the twin fawns of a gazelle, grazing in choice pastures: for the fawns of a gazelle please by their smallness, especially when they draw themselves together and, contracted into a round form, seem about to burst forth and leap; they please also very much when they are not lean, gaunt, or muddy, but sleek and plump. And such indeed are those that in flowery meadows, not at all marshy, crop their pasture among the lilies growing there; they please finally as twins, because born in one birth they are equal and most similar to each other."

Add that fawns have a pleasing color, as well as scent, especially when they feed among fragrant lilies, and appear festive, lovable, and graceful in their form, cleanness, agility, and leaping, just as the breasts of the bride are likewise. Moreover, our Delrio, Sanchez, and Luysius arrange this parable, which at first glance seems remote and unfitting, so elegantly that the breasts of the bride are compared to the heads of the fawns that rise above the lilies: for these heads, in their smallness, roundness, and whiteness, are similar to breasts; and their small and slightly reddish mouths resemble the nipples of breasts. No less elegantly, a religious and clever man in Rome suggested to me this adaptation, namely that the breasts of the bride are here compared not so much to the heads of the fawns, as to the hinder part of the back; for this curves roundly and protrudes like breasts, when

the fawns with lowered head graze among the lilies; for the lilies cover and hide their heads while the back is prominent, so that the meaning is, as if to say: Your two breasts, O bride, are white, small, round, turgid, and beautiful, like two fawns which, when they graze among the lilies and lower their heads to the shoots, protrude and stand out only in their hinder parts: for this part of them is likewise white, small, round, turgid, and beautiful.

Finally, some authors cited by Titelmannus think there is a hypallage, and that by it the breasts of the bride are compared not so much to fawns, as to the udders of the gazelle which the fawns suck; so the words should be explained and applied thus, as if to say: Your two breasts are like the two udders of a gazelle nursing two twin fawns, which graze among the lilies: for the udders of a gazelle, just like the bride's breasts, are full and distended with milk. Or in this way: Your two breasts are such that two twin fawns of one gazelle are nursed at two udders, which also graze among the lilies. And thus by the two fawns they understand two peoples, namely the Jews and the Gentiles, who both, as twins of one gazelle, that is, of the Church, regenerated at the same font of baptism, are nursed at her same breasts, as St. Gregory, Philo, Aponius, Justus, and Anselm understand: for the Hebrews in speaking are simple and concise, and leave some things to be supplied and adapted by the hearer: thus in verse 1 he said: "Your hair is like flocks of goats," that is, your hair is similar to the hair of flocks of goats; and in verse 2: "Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep," that is, your teeth are such as flocks of shorn sheep have. In just the same way explain this passage: "Your two breasts are like two twin fawns of a gazelle," that is, your two breasts are such as two twin fawns have and suck from a gazelle: for most fittingly the breasts of the bride are compared to the udders of a gazelle nursing fawns, since the fawns themselves do not have breasts nor nurse, but are nursed; just as therefore a gazelle nurses its fawns, so the Church nurses Jews and Gentiles.

Moreover, the rabbis by the two breasts and the twin fawns understand Moses and his brother Aaron, who nursed and governed Israel; hence the Chaldean paraphrase translates: "Your two saviors, who are to save you, are like Moses and Aaron the sons of Jochebed, who are compared to two twin fawns of a gazelle, and they fed the people of Israel by their merits, for forty years in the desert, with manna, and with fat birds, and with water from the well of Miriam."

R. Solomon, however, by the two breasts understands the two tablets of the Decalogue, given by God to Moses for teaching the people.

Finally, our Alcazar in his Allusion to the Apocalypse, book III, explains the first verses of this chapter thus according to the surface of the letter: in verse 1, in the eyes, he commends the brightness and chastity of veiling them; in the hair, that it be well arranged; in verse 2, in the teeth, eagerness and avidity for chewing; in verse 3, in the lips, persuasion, that is, the grace of persuading dwelling therein; in the cheeks, modesty; in verse 4, in the adorned neck, the upright trophies of obedience; in verse 5, in the breasts, the unceasing power of nourishing.

The breasts denote the fruitfulness, the power of nursing, and the beneficence of the Church, as I said in chapter 1, verse 1: for a woman's breasts do not give milk except after childbirth; it therefore denotes the Church, pregnant with the Spirit of God, giving birth to and nursing many children for Christ. Moreover, just as by the neck are denoted the pontiffs, so by the breasts, which are subject to the neck, are denoted the priests and deacons, says Hortolanus, who are subject to the pontiffs: for priests nurse the people by celebrating Masses, distributing the Eucharist, hearing confessions, instructing, and exhorting to every good. Deacons likewise nurse the people with a double breast, namely of temporal and spiritual goods: for deacons were ordained by the apostles, Acts 6:5, to preside over the distribution of alms, and to serve the apostles and priests; hence the Roman Church was formerly divided into various deaconries, over each of which individual deacons presided, who distributed alms to the poor of their deaconry, as is evident from several letters of St. Gregory. Again, deacons in the absence of a priest baptize, minister the Eucharist, and preach the word of God, as did St. Stephen and St. Vincent; and this was established by the Council of Nicaea, chapter 4, and Vaison II, chapter 2, and St. Gregory, book 4, letter 88. To deacons likewise by office belongs the solemn recitation or chanting of the Gospel, prayer with the pontiff, and care for peace and silence in the Church, as St. Clement says, book 2 of the Constitutions, chapter 61.

These therefore are like fawns that feed among the lilies, because flourishing in age and virtue, they excel in purity and chastity, and dwell among virgins and saints, by whose virtues and examples they are nourished; hence to the diaconate from the institution of the apostles continence and celibacy are annexed, as the Council of Carthage II, chapter 2, and St. Leo, letter 95, teach: see what was said at Acts 6:1. Therefore deacons formerly in the Church were most illustrious in life, doctrine, and martyrdom, nor did they yield to pontiffs: such were St. Stephen, St. Lawrence, St. Vincent, St. Sisinnius, St. Cyriacus, St. Largus, St. Smaragdus, and very many others, who like angels shone before the whole Church by their heavenly manner of life and fervor, and converted very many to the faith of Christ, and in it cherished and nourished them. The breasts of the Church, therefore, like twin fawns are deacons, since they think humbly of themselves, says Hortolanus, and draw themselves into a small compass, ministers and pupils of all, flowing with no luxury, collected and as it were drawn into a circle, yet active and exceedingly inclined to beneficence, like the offspring of heavenly gazelles, they please very much by their smallness and zeal for beneficence. Moreover, grazing on the pure meadows of Sacred Scripture, flourishing with all examples of purity, and on my supersubstantial food (the Eucharist) with the greatest purity, they are filled with heavenly sap: and being equal in faith and morals, and most similar to each other (since they have one heart and one soul), they appear as twins, brought forth in one birth of faith. They are pleasant to behold, comely and gracious, on account of the double

St. Paul, who, burning with zeal for God and the salvation of souls, displayed to all, as it were, maternal breasts; hence writing to the Galatians he says in chapter 4:19: "My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you;" and to the Corinthians, 1 Epistle 3:1: "As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food: for you were not yet able." Therefore St. Ambrose, sermon 68, calls Paul the nourisher of the Church, and his epistles the breasts of the Church, and asserts as a symbol of this that when his head was cut from his neck it poured forth milk instead of blood, which St. Chrysostom also attests in his oration on the Chief Apostles, 3; but hear St. Ambrose: "For what wonder if the nourisher of the Church abounds in milk? etc., whose epistles, like the breasts of the Churches, nourished peoples unto salvation."

Again, the two breasts of charity are temporal almsgiving, which nourishes the body, and spiritual almsgiving, which feeds the soul. Hear Richard of St. Victor: "These breasts are filled with the milk of charity, with which they refresh the younger and more tender, and like mothers nurse and nourish them. The soul that is still carnal does not have these breasts, until it grows in grace and converts the blood of carnality into the milk of devotion. But when it has grown in grace and conceived piety, then it becomes a mother, nurses the tender, consoles the desolate; struck by insults or affected by injuries, it pours forth the milk of patience and compassion, not the blood of carnal agitation: for because it is filled with the milk of piety, it displays the sweetness it has received, and compassionates more the miseries of the one who harms it than it is moved by the injury."

He then adds that carnal and imperfect persons, when they are injured, are moved to anger and revenge; but perfect persons to mercy, because these have the breasts of charity, which the others lack: "If the one struck, that is, assailed by injury, had breasts, he would pour forth milk." Of such a one it is said in chapter 8:8: "Our sister is little, and has no breasts." After some further remarks, Richard adds: "The two fawns are the active and the contemplative, who indeed never cease running to the milk of grace, and desire this, and always tend toward perfection, and seek heavenly things, always considering themselves new, always beginners, and insufficient, because they extend themselves toward interior things." And shortly after: "In their own eyes they are always little, that is, humble, and therefore they seek the milk of grace, they strive for this, they pursue this; hence because they run unceasingly to this milk, they receive it, and are refreshed by it, and are so filled with its sweetness that its abundance suffices to supply the want of others." And after a few more words: "But these feed among the lilies: by the lilies, which shine and have fragrance, we understand the purity of those who live well and the fragrance of their virtues. Among these the twins feed, because they delight in the purity of the good and in the good odor of those with whom they live."

See St. Bernard, sermon 10 on the Song of Songs, where he teaches that these breasts of charity are filled with milk by God in prayer and frequent meditation.

To this many Fathers agree, who by the two breasts understand the Old and New Testament, for priests and deacons are occupied in reading, citing, and explaining these, and feed the faithful: the faithful, I say, twins, that is, Jews and Gentiles: so Aponius, Philo, Justus Orgelitanus, and Anselm, and St. Gregory, book 24 of the Moralia, chapter 10.

Moreover, St. Gregory in this passage, and many others, attribute all these members of the body recounted so far to the doctors and preachers of the Church, but for different reasons and aspects, namely, that the same are called the eyes of the Church, because they see hidden things; teeth, because they correct the wicked, and once crushed by the tooth of correction, bring them into the body of the Church; the neck, because they supply the vital spirit of grace and spiritual food to the rest of the body; the breasts, because they offer milk to the little ones in Christ. Nevertheless, others better distribute these among the various orders, states, and degrees of the Church: for all of these constitute the beauty and completeness of the Church; hence the Holy Spirit wished to describe them all here. By the hair, therefore, are represented the religious; by the teeth, the doctors; by the scarlet lips, the preachers and martyrs; by the cheeks, the virgins; by the neck, the pontiffs; by the breasts, the priests and deacons, as I said.

Therefore, that by the breasts are denoted the doctors (who among the people are the priests and deacons) Cassiodorus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, Philo, Bede, Aponius, and Anselm judge: for these feed the people with the milk of doctrine; hence like a gazelle they see most keenly, say Nyssenus and Theodoret, and ascend to high places, and just as fawns feed more on the branches of shrubs than on the grass of the earth, that is, they feed more on the divine Scriptures than on human sciences, says Aponius: and they are twins, because they are concordant in doctrine and preaching, says St. Gregory.

Symbolically, Psellus says: The two breasts are the blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ on the cross, from which the souls of the faithful draw nourishment and salvation.

their office, given to you as two most beautiful breasts. These therefore are your most beautiful breasts: small, round, compact, matching, gleaming, and full, with which you abundantly nourish your children, and perfect in every respect; and this "until the day breathes" of blessed eternity, "and the shadows decline" of this mortality: for until the end of the world this hierarchical order of priests and deacons will endure.

The two breasts of the holy soul are the twin charity, namely of God and of neighbor; for by these she nurses and feeds both herself and others: so Philo Carpathius. Such was

The Blessed Virgin with her breasts nursed the DIVINE FAWN, that is, Christ, who is a twin because of His double nature, divine and human; hence that woman in the Gospel exclaimed, Luke 11:27: "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that You sucked." For the same material from which the offspring is formed in the womb is what, converted into milk, nourishes it afterward, as Aristotle teaches in book 4 of On the Generation of Animals, chapter 8. Therefore, since the Blessed Virgin conceived and bore Christ above nature by the Holy Spirit, it follows that by the same power she received milk in her breasts with which to feed Christ; hence the Church sings at the Feast of the Circumcision: "The virgin alone nursed with a breast filled from heaven": for virgins naturally cannot have or give milk.

Moreover, an infant, such as Christ was, in whiteness and stature and grace is similar to a fawn; and the breasts of the Virgin are compared to a fawn because Christ, sucking the breasts of His mother, first filled them with milk and grace; hence He Himself, though being nursed, was rather the one nursing His mother.

Again, Rupert by the two breasts understands the virginity and fruitfulness of the Blessed Virgin, for with both she nurses and feeds the Church among the lilies of purity and chastity. He then adds that the seven angelic ornaments of the Blessed Virgin reviewed so far, namely the dove-like eyes, the goat hair, the teeth of shorn sheep, the lips of a scarlet ribbon, the pomegranate cheeks, the neck of the tower of David, and the fawn-like breasts, are opposed to seven diabolical deformities by which the daughters of this age are defiled, which are: the haughtiness of the eyes, the curling of the hair, the voracity of the teeth, the incontinence of the lips, the irreverence of the cheeks, the excessive erection of the neck, and the frequent injury of broken breasts: these are the seven demons that Christ expelled from Magdalene, Luke 8:2.

Moreover, Richard of St. Victor says: "The Blessed Virgin has two breasts of twin love, pouring forth milk, because she obtains pardon for the guilty and grace for the just: these breasts are like two fawns of a gazelle. By these fawns we can understand angels and the souls of men already transferred to the kingdom, who are rightly called fawns, because they have ascended the mountain of the heavenly dwelling, and are refreshed by the sweetness of divine contemplation, just as fawns are wont to seek high places and are nourished by milk. These twin fawns are of the gazelle, that is, of Christ, from whom they equally receive and suck the milk of twin sweetness, namely of divinity and humanity: for the gazelle is Christ, because He leaped upon the mountains and bounded over the hills; and so He leaped into the womb of the Blessed Virgin, and from there into the world, and from the world into heaven, where He feeds these fawns with heavenly milk. And so, since both angels and holy souls are solicitous for sinners and assist them both by their merits and their intercession, it is to be believed that the Blessed Virgin

alone can do as much in this as both of these creatures, indeed she is judged more powerful than both, because both are restored through her, and the ruin of the angels was repaired through her, and human nature was reconciled." And after many intervening remarks: "She is compared to the speed of fawns, because her piety runs to help more swiftly than she is invoked, and she anticipates the causes of the wretched; she is compared to fawns, because the sweetness of goodness which she bestows, she herself sucks from above." Finally, after some further words, he opens the cause and source: "For just as wherever the body is, there the eagles are gathered, Matthew 24:28: so wherever there is misery, your mercy both runs and succors. By God your breasts are filled with piety, so that, touched by knowledge of any misery, they pour forth the milk of mercy, nor can you know of miseries and not come to their aid. And what wonder if you overflow with mercy, you who bore Mercy Himself? Christ sucked carnal breasts in you, so that through you spiritual ones might flow to us; for when you nursed Mercy, from that same Mercy you received your breasts."

Until the Day Breathes and the Shadows Decline.

Some, with the rabbis, Psellus, and Hortolanus, refer these words to what follows: "I will go to the mountain of myrrh," etc., and this in a fitting sense, as if to say: Meanwhile, as evening approaches, "I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense," so that by their shade as well as their fragrance I may be fed and delighted; hence the Chaldean paraphrase, Judaizing in its usual manner, translates thus: "And at every time when the people of the house of Israel held in their hands the tradition of their just fathers, the harmful spirits darker than darkness fled, and the morning and noonday demons from their midst, because the majesty of the glory of the Lord resided in the house of the sanctuary, which was built on Mount Moriah, and all the demons and harmful spirits fled from the odor of the incense of spices."

But more rightly all the Fathers refer this saying to what preceded, as if to say: The fawns feed among the lilies as long as the day lasts until evening, when, having fed with their mothers, they return home, according to that verse of Virgil:

Go home full-fed, the evening star comes, go, my goats.

Moreover, I explained this opinion in chapter 2, last verse: therefore I will not add a jot here.

I Will Go to the Mountain of Myrrh and to the Hill of Frankincense.

In Hebrew, "I will go for myself," as if to say: I will go alone for pleasure and for the soul's sake. The Bridegroom says this so as to instill in the bride a desire to go with Him, and so that she might say: I too wish, O my Bridegroom, to go with You: for Your will and delight are also my will and delight; hence the Syriac translates, "go," that is, O bride, to the mountain of myrrh; and the Arabic, "I will go with her." These are the words not of the bride, as some would have it, but of the Bridegroom, for here He immediately in the following verse returns to the praises of the bride, which He briefly interrupts here by inviting her

to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense, which was likely the garden of Solomon near Jerusalem, planted with the most beautiful and precious shrubs and trees of myrrh, frankincense, and other spices brought from Lebanon, Arabia, and other regions, which was therefore called the forest of Lebanon, of which 1 Kings 7:2 speaks. Hence these mountains are called mountains of spices, in chapter 8:14, and chapter 6:4: "My beloved," it says, "went down into his garden to the bed of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies."

First, Christ the Bridegroom had praised the Church His bride for the fruitfulness of her breasts, that is, for her zeal for souls; now, lest she be so intent on those things that she neglect herself, He calls her back to Himself, as it were, to go with Him to the mountain of myrrh, which is bitter to the taste, that is, to the pursuit of mortification; and to the hill of frankincense, that is, to the pursuit of prayer, so that through them she may further purify, sanctify, and unite herself to God, and be filled with His spirit, which she may then more fruitfully pour out on others. Hence the Hebrew mor, that is, of myrrh, alludes to Mount Moriah, on which Isaac was sacrificed and Christ was crucified, as if to say: Let us go to Mount Calvary, which is part of Mount Moriah, and there let us contemplate the cross, the nails, the lance, the wounds, the pains, the injuries, the insults which I endured for you, O Church, O my faithful soul, so that from these you may learn to suffer similar things for Me your Bridegroom, and to give yourself to the pursuit of mortification both active and voluntary, as well as passive and inflicted by others: for near this mountain is the hill of frankincense, for the cross and suffering teach a person to pray and to invoke God in affliction. Moreover, who would flee the myrrh of suffering, which Christ willingly embraced? For the soul that is wise seeks Christ; and finds Him only on Calvary and the cross, that is, in the myrrh of mortification and the frankincense of prayer. Christ therefore teaches here that the way to holiness is mortification and prayer, and that one must be joined to the other; for mortification without prayer is tasteless and horrible, prayer without mortification is sterile and fruitless; let mortification therefore be supported by prayer, and prayer seasoned with mortification: mortification tames and slays the lusts and passions, namely the desire for honor, pleasures, riches, and comforts; prayer, however, lifts the mortified mind up to God, and from Him draws heavenly loves, feelings, and spirit: therefore mortification is like myrrh and salt, drawing out the putrefaction of lusts from our flesh and mind, drying it up and preserving it from corruption; prayer, however, is like frankincense, offering and sacrificing it to God through smoke and fire. So Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Philo, Justus Orgelitanus, and others.

The holy soul becomes more holy when she goes to the mountain of myrrh, that is, when she contemplates Christ crucified and imitates Him through mortification and the endurance of sufferings for Christ; and to the hill of frankincense, that is, when she offers to God the incense of prayer, devotion, and religion. Hear St. Gregory: "What do we understand by the mountain of myrrh, if not the strong height of mortification in action, and what by the hill of frankincense, if not the high humility in prayer? Therefore the Bridegroom goes to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense, because He familiarly visits those whom He sees making progress through the mortification of vices toward lofty things, and breathing forth a sweet fragrance through pure and humble prayers. For it is by these virtues that the holy Church, or each soul, is made pure; because, while through the mortification of pleasures she struggles against vices, and through holy prayers is frequently washed with tears, she washes away her stains so as to please the Bridegroom, for whom she strives to appear beautiful,

whose effort the Bridegroom, through His grace, brings to fulfillment, and kindly praises His own work in the bride and says: 'You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no stain in you.'"

He places mortification on a mountain, because it is arduous and difficult; prayer on a hill, because it is easier and sweeter. Again, he places myrrh before frankincense, because mortification ought to precede prayer, and indeed is itself the direct way to sincere, pure, and ardent prayer, which deserves to be heard by God. Finally, mortification is the merit of the gift of prayer, and prayer is the reward of mortification.

Symbolically, St. Anselm understands by the mountain of myrrh the choir of martyrs, and by the hill of frankincense the choir of confessors: for all saints are either martyrs or confessors. Christ says "I will go" when He visits each one with His grace, and rouses them to martyrdom or to virtues worthy of a confessor, and this "until the day breathes" of blessed eternity, "and the shadows decline" of mortality: for in heaven myrrh and gall will be turned into sugar and honey, and smoky frankincense into the clear fire of the vision and love of God. Thus the Blessed Virgin, attended by choirs of the blessed, appeared to a certain holy virgin, holding in her hand Blessed Hyacinth of Poland, of the Order of Preachers, who had already departed this life, and leading him into heaven she sweetly sang: "I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of Lebanon with Blessed Hyacinth," as Leander Albertus relates in his Life, found in Surius, on August 16 or 17. Moreover, on the very feast of her Assumption the Blessed Virgin took him up into heaven.

Secondly, Nyssenus, Theodoret, and three Anonymous authors cited by him, Psellus and Rupert, understand by the mountain of myrrh the Passion of Christ, and by the hill of frankincense the Resurrection: indeed Philo understands Christ Himself suffering and rising, for nothing so animates the bride to love and imitation of the Bridegroom as His Passion and Resurrection. Moreover, Christ proposes these things for the bride's consideration not from afar, but close at hand, namely that she should approach in mind and contemplation Mount Calvary itself, and there, as though present, behold with her eyes Christ present and crucified for her, just as if she were to see the very event, once accomplished, being performed again before her: for this living and efficacious contemplation of Christ suffering and rising wonderfully excites love, hope, and every virtue: "If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him," says Paul, Romans 8:17.

Hear Psellus: "Come with Me, who am affixed to the cross, be crucified, that you too may be endowed with great glory from the Father with Me: for I willingly intend to meet death, so that I may breathe the day of salvation upon the faithful and dispel the shadows of impiety;" come therefore to the mountain of myrrh, where I put off mortality, so that from there you may proceed to the hill of frankincense, where I, rising again, put on immortality and glory. Hear also Theodoret: "Since you are so beautiful and wounded with the wound of love for Me, I will meet death for you and willingly ascend the mountain of myrrh; but I will rise again and return to the hill of frankincense, so that by myrrh He signifies death, and by frankincense the divine nature." And after some remarks: "'I will go for Myself' (for so the Septuagint has it) 'to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense'; for I do both willingly, compelled by no force, constrained by no necessity. For no one takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, that I may take it up again, John 10:17."

Then Theodoret asks why He called death a mountain, but the divinity a hill, when the latter is far greater than the former; and he answers, because that God should die is so exalted and mysterious that it cannot be comprehended by the human mind and thought." The three Anonymous give the reason: "For myrrh," they say, "is the symbol of mortality, but frankincense of divinity": for dead bodies are embalmed with myrrh, as the body of Christ was embalmed; but frankincense is burned for God, to whom after the Resurrection Christ returned in heaven. For immortality and blessedness are proper and essential to God, and therefore are represented by frankincense, which is properly given to God; hence when it is burned in fire, it entirely evaporates as smoke and ascends to heaven to God. Again, through the Resurrection the divinity of Christ was recognized by the world; hence it believed Him to be God, and accordingly offered Him frankincense as to the true God, says Rupert.

Mystically, Theodoret says: Myrrh, that is, the Passion and death of Christ, is called a mountain; but frankincense, that is, the divinity, is called a hill, because it seems more exalted and admirable to men that God should suffer and die, than that God should exist.

Tropologically, the way to the mountain of myrrh, that is, of mortification and martyrdom, is arduous and lofty; but from there the ascent is easy to the hill of frankincense, that is, of prayer, devotion, and contemplation; and anagogically to the hill of frankincense, that is, to heaven, where

the blessed perpetually offer to God the frankincense of thanksgiving and jubilation. For a martyr is only one step from heaven, for as soon as the soul departs from the body, it is caught up into heaven; hence that saying of St. Augustine: "He does injury to a martyr who prays for a martyr." It is therefore very easy for a martyr to go to heaven, but difficult to go to martyrdom: therefore, that God might encourage the patient sufferer and martyr to nobly ascend the mountain of myrrh, He placed beside it this most blessed hill of frankincense, and one very easy to climb.

Therefore that illustrious heroine of the faith in our age among the English, Margaret Middleton, condemned to a cruel punishment because she had given hospitality to Catholic priests and refused to betray them, proceeded to the place of execution with the most joyful countenance, saying: "So brief is the way that leads to heaven, whether by this or by any other kind of death; in a few hours I shall tread upon the heavens and the earth with my feet, and from the lofty summit of the empyrean I shall, happy and blessed, look down upon this tiny point of earth and all earthly things." Therefore, lying on her back on the ground, with a huge stone placed beneath her back, and indeed a very sharp one, and a plank loaded with a weight of a thousand pounds laid upon her body, gradually pressed and crushed, armed with heavenly patience and constancy, she died a glorious death for Christ, and from the mountain of myrrh flew, as is to be hoped, to the hill of frankincense. Her struggle is represented to the life in the Theater of Heretical Cruelty, page 77:

The millstones cast upon her did not disturb her; Rather, she said: Pile all these mountains on my limbs, My innocent spirit shall transcend to the stars through the ruins.

In like manner that noble heroine among the Japanese, named Susanna, who died intrepidly for the faith at Nagasaki in the year 1626 (in which year likewise, on July 20, Father Francis Pacheco, provincial of Japan, together with two Fathers and six Brothers of the Society of Jesus, underwent the glorious agony of slow fire for the faith in the same place, arming himself and his companions with the same consideration of brief suffering and eternal rewards), continually encouraged herself, her husband, and their companions to constancy amid all punishments with this exhortation: "Let us stand, O companions, magnanimous in all torments for the faith of Christ, because a brief life and suffering will be followed by the eternal and immense glory of paradise." Therefore she bravely endured both harsh and lengthy imprisonment, and the horrifying disgrace of public nakedness among the Japanese, and hunger, and cold, and the rack, and the cross both her own and that of her three-year-old daughter bound to her, and threats of violation, and servitude, and six months of chains such as belong to slaves, and finally the sword and death for Christ, indeed she overcame them all while giving thanks to God and rejoicing, as the Japanese letters published in Rome this year in print testify. She is truly worthy to be compared with the ancient Susannas, Lucys, Cecilias, Agathas, and Catherines, inasmuch as she set many men aflame for martyrdom by word and deed, as with the torches of fire, and by her own example, enduring the most cruel things with more than manly fortitude, led the way.

So great a deed with a woman for its leader,

whose honor and glory all future ages of Japan will celebrate.

Verse 7. You are All Beautiful, my Beloved, and There is No Stain in You.

From the beauty of the individual parts, namely the members of the bride reviewed so far, He concludes the beauty of the entire body. These words, as to the first hemistich, we heard in chapter 1, verse 15, where I explained them. Here only this is added: "And there is no stain in you." The Hebrew mum signifies not only a blemish of color, or a birthmark, but also any vice, as the Arabic translates it, or any defect and deformity, as I showed in Leviticus 22:22. Thus the meaning is, as if to say: You are all beautiful, O bride, (and, that is, because) in you there is no deformity but all things are harmonious and beautiful.

The entire Church is beautiful: first, in the beauty of the evangelical law which she professes: for this law is the most beautiful of all that have ever existed in the world; and in it there is no stain and no defect; indeed in it are handed down many evangelical counsels, which contain the highest holiness and perfection, as is evident from Matthew 5 and following.

Secondly, she is beautiful in the beauty of the knowledge of God, of true faith, worship, and religion, because she worships God not by external rites in the burnt offerings of animals, as the Synagogue of the Jews, but in spirit and truth, John 4:24; hence she has the noblest sacrifice, namely the Eucharist, in which she daily immolates and offers to God the Father Christ crucified, His only-begotten Son, in an unbloody manner.

Thirdly, she is beautiful because she has beautiful ceremonies, rites, adornments of churches, organs, harmonies, etc., and especially beautiful sacraments, among which baptism purges the soul from all guilt so as to make it most spotless; hence Optatus of Milevis, book 5: "Baptism," he says, "is the life of virtues, the death of sins, immortal birth, the acquisition of the heavenly kingdom, the harbor of innocence, the shipwreck of sins."

Fourthly, properly and subjectively, the Church is all beautiful through grace and the justice inherent in the faithful who are just and holy, who alone are the chief and most perfect members of the Church, and therefore are here understood under the name of bride, as I said in Canon 17: for in these there is no stain of graver guilt or mortal sin, which alone renders the bride deformed, that is, displeasing and hateful to God. For granted that no one is free from venial guilt, this however is lighter and is not reckoned as a stain in this passage: yet from this too she will be free in the other

life through love, glory, and the beatific vision; hence Bede, Nyssenus, St. Augustine, Retractations 1, chapter 19, St. Jerome, book 3 Against the Pelagians, and others apply "you are all beautiful" to the Church triumphant in heaven; yet also to the Church militant in the sense I stated. The same is assigned by Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Philo, Anselm, and others.

Finally, the Church is all beautiful because in each of her parts and degrees she is beautiful and holy, namely in the religious, who are, as it were, her hair; in the doctors, who are, as it were, her teeth; in the preachers and martyrs, who are her scarlet lips; in the virgins, who are her cheeks; in the pontiffs, who are her neck; in the priests and deacons, who are her breasts; and consequently in the laity, who are nursed by these, as I said above: so Justus Orgelitanus. This is what the Apostle says, alluding to this: "Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word of life, that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and immaculate," Ephesians 5:25. See what was said there.

To this the Chaldean version is pertinent: And at the time when the people of the house of Israel do the will of the Ruler of the world, He praises them in the highest heavens, and says thus: You are all beautiful, O congregation of Israel, and there is no stain in you. For the beauty of the Church consists in this, that she conforms herself to the law and will of God, for this is most just and most holy, and therefore most beautiful.

The holy soul is all beautiful through the garment of grace, charity, and all the virtues, which God Himself pours into her to adorn her and make her beautiful; hence she, exulting in this beauty of grace, says in Isaiah 61:10: "Rejoicing I shall rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall exult in my God: because He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, and with the robe of justice He has covered me, like a bridegroom adorned with a crown, and like a bride adorned with her jewels." For grace is the supreme adornment of the soul; because it makes her the friend of God, His daughter, His bride, His heir, indeed a sharer in the divine nature, as St. Peter says, 2 Epistle 1:4. Theodoret gives the reason: "The bride became immaculate and beautiful," he says, "because she was made close to the Bridegroom, and thus received all His splendors, and was rendered bright from the Light Himself." Hear St. Gregory, who, objecting to himself: No soul is free from venial sin; how then is she all beautiful? answers: "While the holy soul cleanses herself from daily sins through penance, while daily she washes away minor sins with tears, and guards herself from greater ones, although she frequently sins, yet through constant penance she constantly preserves her purity; hence elsewhere it is commanded in Ecclesiastes 9:8: Let your garments be white at all times. And that passage, Romans 1:17: The just man lives by faith: for although as soon as he sins he deviates from justice, yet while he always believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, and constantly bewails his sins under His faith, through constant washings he retains his justice." Moreover St. Ambrose, in book 1 On Virgins, applying these words especially to them: "What beauty can one consider greater," he says, "than the grace of her who is loved by the King, approved by the Judge, dedicated to the Lord, consecrated to God? Always a bride, always unwed, so that love may have no end, nor modesty any loss. This indeed is true beauty, which lacks nothing, which alone deserves to hear from the Lord: You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no reproach in you."

Finally, the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret: "You are all beautiful, because you are beautiful," they say, "in mind, and soul, and flesh: and indeed in flesh, inasmuch as you have been cleansed from the force and effect of passions, and adorned with the habits of virtues; in soul, however, inasmuch as you have been freed from every vice of concupiscence, and adorned with the words or reasons of the commandments; in mind, however, inasmuch as you have been freed from base thoughts and shine with the splendid deification in the Holy Spirit through grace. And therefore there is no stain in you, because through your perfection you have become close to Me."

The Blessed Virgin is all beautiful, indeed the most beautiful of all, not only among human beings but even among the angels, and there is no stain in her of guilt or punishment, whether original, or mortal, or even venial, as the whole Church holds and agrees, as the Council of Trent testifies, session 6, canon 22. Hence St. Augustine, On Nature and Grace, chapter 36, when he had said that all human beings, even the just, are subject to venial sin, adds: "Except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish to raise absolutely no question when sins are being discussed: for we know that to her more grace was granted for overcoming sin in every respect, since she merited to conceive and bear Him who certainly had no sin."

Hence these words of the Song of Songs: "You are all beautiful, and there is no stain in you," Rupert, Psellus, both Hugos (namely, the Cardinal and the one of St. Victor), St. Thomas, Galatinus, and St. Ildefonsus in his Praises of the Blessed Virgin appropriate to the Blessed Virgin alone.

Verse 8. Come from Lebanon, my Bride, Come from Lebanon, Come: You Shall Be Crowned from the Top of Amana, from the Summit of Senir and Hermon, from the Dens of Lions, from the Mountains of Leopards.

The Hebrew itti, that is, "with me from Lebanon, bride,"

"with me from Lebanon you shall come." But our translator, as well as the Septuagint, for itti, that is, "with me," read with a different vowel point, that is, "come"; although the meaning comes to the same thing, for if you read itti, that is, "with me from Lebanon, bride," you must supply "come" or "you shall come," which follows. For "you shall be crowned" the Hebrew has tascuri, which Vatablus and others translate as "you shall look," as if to say: You shall look from the summit of Amana, Senir, and Hermon upon the valleys and plains below, green and blooming with trees, flowers, herbs, and fruits: following this, Lyranus refers these words to the Hebrews in the time of Joshua, asserting that from these mountains they contemplated the land of Canaan promised to them, so as to sharpen in themselves the desire to enter it. Others translate tascuri as "you shall sing for delight and joy," for scir is a song. Others, "you shall go" or "you shall proceed"; hence the Septuagint says, "you shall pass from the summit of faith." For Amana in Hebrew signifies truth and faith; hence the Syriac with the Arabic also translates, "you shall come and pass through"; others translate tascuri as "you shall be directed" or "you shall be made straight" or "you shall become upright," from the root iaschar, that is, he directed, he made straight; our translator for tascuri, with shin, reads tasuri with sin: for sur means to rule, govern, command: tasuri therefore means "you shall rule, you shall command," and as a queen you shall be crowned.

Lebanon is the well-known, very great mountain bordering Judea; it is called Lebanon either from the whiteness of the snow with which it abounds, for laban in Hebrew means white and bright; or from the frankincense, of which it is productive: for libanon in Hebrew signifies frankincense; hence Philo Carpathius explains "come from Lebanon" thus, as if to say: Come from the frankincense of idolatry that you offered to idols, to the true worship of God in the temple of Zion. Amana is a very high mountain beyond the Jordan near Lebanon, Hermon, and Senir; the Gloss, however, by Amana understands Mount Amanus, which separates Cilicia from Syria. Senir is a part or extension of Mount Hermon, as is clear from Deuteronomy 3:9. Adrichomius, in his Description of the Holy Land, page 93, number 83, holds that Senir is the same mountain as Seir: for this lies adjacent to Mount Hermon. Seir was so called from its inhabitant Esau, who was called Seir, that is, hairy, because he was hirsute. Senir therefore is a high mountain beyond the Jordan, situated on the eastern side of the land of Uz, and it is joined to Mount Hermon from the north and to Mount Gilead from the south: from the cities of Capernaum and Chorazin toward the east it is distant in some places four, in some six and more miles.

Hermon is a high mountain beyond the Jordan, situated opposite the city of Paneas, which it faces from the east; from the south it is joined to Mount Seir, and turning toward the north, where it surrounds the region of Trachonitis, near Damascus it joins with Lebanon: hence in Sacred Scripture we frequently find that the land of the children of Israel beyond the Jordan toward the east extends from the torrent Arnon to Mount Hermon. There is also another Mount Hermon on this side of the Jordan near Tabor; and a third in

the tribe of Asher, so high that it has perpetual snow. Therefore Lebanon, Amana, Senir, and Hermon are mountains near each other outside Judea, but on the borders of Judea and its limits, in which there were vast caves where lions and leopards dwelt: hence it says here: "From the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards," although Adrichomius, following Brocardus and Bredenbach in the Description of the Holy Land, page 186, number 20, establishes a separate mountain, which he says was called the mountain of leopards from the leopards dwelling there, as well as lions, from whose crossbreeding with leopards are born leopards: The mountain of leopards, he says, is deep and high, and to the north it is two miles from Tripoli, to the south three from the city of Arqa, and one mile from Lebanon; and he adds that there is shown an immense monument in a cave, which the inhabitants think is the tomb of Joshua, but which more truly seems to be the tomb of Canaan the son of Ham, the son of Noah.

Some by Lebanon, Amana, Senir, and Hermon understand Jerusalem and Judea, and judge that from these Christ calls forth the apostles and the faithful, so that from the Jews, as unbelievers who cruelly raged against Christians like lions and leopards, they might go out to the Gentiles and preach the Gospel to them: for thus by Lebanon Jerusalem is signified, Zechariah 11:1; Ezekiel 17:3, and elsewhere.

Better, others by the mountains of Lebanon, Amana, Senir, and Hermon, as situated outside Judea among the Phoenicians, understand the Phoenicians, that is, the Gentiles; hence St. Athanasius in his Synopsis of Sacred Scripture on the Song of Songs judges that by these mountains is designated the Church of the Gentiles: for the Gentiles are here called from idolatry and paganism to faith and Christianity, so as to be engrafted into the Church of Christ; so also Tertullian, book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 11; somewhat differently Theodoret, who by Lebanon, that is, whitening, judges is denoted the calling of the Gentiles, who, dark with unbelief, were washed and whitened by baptism. By Hermon, however, which is dewy, and Senir, that is, the way of lamps, he thinks is signified the calling of the Jews, who received the light and dew of the Law from Moses: again, by lions he notes the bold Jews, by leopards the wise men and sophists of the Gentiles. So Theodoret.

The meaning therefore is, as if to say: You, O Church of the Gentiles, who have been predestined by Me, Christ, from eternity, and in the appointed time are to be called to Christianity so as to become My bride, come from the rugged and wooded mountains, from Lebanon, I say, Amana, Senir, and Hermon, that is, from unbelief and paganism, where among idolaters, unbelievers, and the wicked you lived as among savage lions and leopards, in the manner of wild beasts, and among beasts you led a dreadful life: come to beautiful Jerusalem and Zion, where God is worshipped in His temple; come, I say, to the Church and the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, that is, to the Mount of Olives and Calvary, where Christ was seized and crucified, so that you may believe in Him; and to Zion, where the Church of Christians began, so that you may be joined to it. Come therefore to Christianity; there among humble, meek, and kind Christians, as among doves, fawns, and lambs, you will lead a most sweet and most holy life; indeed there you will be crowned as the bride of Christ the King, and therefore as queen; you will be crowned, I say, in this life through grace, and in the future through glory. Or more fittingly and forcefully, as if to say: You, O primitive Church, who through the apostles and their companions and followers labor in Lebanon, Amana, Senir, and Hermon, that is, in the Gentile world to be converted to Christ, come from there with great sheaves of Gentiles converted by you, so as to bring them into Zion, that is, to the Church of Christ: and if you do this, "you shall be crowned from the summit of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards," that is, you shall triumph over the Gentiles converted by you, and shall lead them, as it were, in triumph, and shall be crowned with a triumphal crown.

So our Alcazar in his Allusion to the Apocalypse, book 3, where he says that in this verse is promised to the new Rome, that is, the Christian Rome, a complete victory over the old Rome, that is, the pagan, and over the entire empire. He therefore names the regions of which the Church is to carry, as it were, the images on the floats of her triumphs before her: first from Amana, that is, from the faith planted, as a crown of faith; second from Senir, that is, the tooth of the lamp (for this is what Senir means in Hebrew), on account of the preachers shining with the light of doctrine and virtues, through whom you converted those regions; third from Hermon or Chermon, because you consecrated, dedicated, and sacrificed the Church of the Gentiles to God as under cherem, that is, anathema; for in them you slew

unbelief, vices, and the devil, and caused faith, virtues, and Christ to live in them; fourth from the conquered lions and leopards, that is, tyrants and persecutors, whom you, O Church, subdued for yourself.

The Chaldean paraphrase is pertinent here: "The Lord said," he says, "in His word: With Me you shall dwell, O congregation of Israel, who are like an honorable bride, and with Me you shall enter the house of the sanctuary, and the princes of the people who dwell upon the river Amana and the inhabitants who abide on the summit of the snowy mountain shall offer you gifts, and the nations that are in Hermon, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who are mighty as lions, shall offer you tribute, and a gift from the cities of the mountains, who are stronger than leopards." So Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Philo, Bede, and Justus Orgelitanus, who however say that the Church is called from Lebanon, that is, from the whitening of baptism, to the heavenly crown through the conversion of the faithful and the wicked, and indeed also to the crown of the present life, with which the Church is adorned by the multitude of the faithful, says Bede.

With a similar figure, Isaiah, chapter 11, depicts the triumph of the Church over the subdued and tamed nations: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them," etc. Moreover, what he says about "from the summit" denotes the summits, that is, the princes of the Gentiles, namely those who among them excelled in authority, wisdom, riches, and power, to be converted to Christ, and here he tacitly advises apostolic men to convert the summits, that is, the princes; for when these are converted, subjects are easily converted. Hence St. Francis Xavier approached kings and princes of the Indians, and had planned to approach first the great king of China and win him over, so as to obtain from him permission to evangelize throughout the entire kingdom; and he advised our men to first win over prelates and magistrates, so that they would promote their efforts, otherwise they would labor in vain.

Hortolanus adds that these four mountains are situated at the four quarters of the world in relation to Palestine. For Lebanon is situated to the north, Amana to the west, Hermon to the east, Senir to the south; and that by this situation is signified that all nations from the four quarters of the world will come to the faith and submit themselves to the Church, according to that passage, Isaiah 43:5: "Fear not, for I am with you: from the east I will bring your offspring, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north: Give; and to the south: Do not withhold: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." And that saying of Christ, Matthew 8:11: "And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness."

For all these things that are said in Song of Songs 4 pertain to the mature age of the Church, when, propagated among all nations, she established her spiritual kingdom throughout the entire world; hence, as queen of the world, crowned with the faith and obedience of all nations, she ad-

vanced, according to that passage, Isaiah 49:18: "Lift up your eyes round about and see: all these have been gathered together, they have come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall clothe yourself with all these as with an ornament, and shall surround (or crown) yourself with them as a bride."

Moreover, the Septuagint version, which has "you shall come and pass from the beginning of faith," Philo Carpathius interprets thus: "You shall come from the Gentiles, you shall pass from the law, from the first-fruits of faith, from the summit of Senir and Hermon. Senir is interpreted as bush, and Hermon as spirit, or sublime voice: for the beginning of faith was from Him who spoke to Moses in the bush, and spoke with a sublime voice to the children of Israel when He led them out of Egypt and gathered them together."

Differently, St. Augustine on Psalm 67, near the end: "From the beginning of faith," he says, because in order that good works may follow, faith comes first, nor are any good works done except those that follow preceding faith: for faith is the beginning of all good and virtue; hence the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, reading "you shall come and arrive from the beginning of faith, from the summit of Senir," etc., explain thus, as if to say: You will begin to come through faith, but you will arrive at the crown through hope and charity, when you have been tested by various temptations, which are signified by the names of lions and leopards.

Finally, our Sanchez explains "from the beginning of faith" of the Blessed Virgin, as if to say: The Blessed Virgin from the beginning of her conception was faithful, holy, and immaculate, and therefore conceived without original sin, inasmuch as Christ called her to Himself; hence the Hebrew has, "with me from Lebanon you shall come."

All these things that have been said of the Church, apply to the soul, changing the name; first, therefore, these can be attributed to the soul that from the state of sin and vices, which she served in a bestial manner, is called by Christ to penance, virtues, and grace, so that she may no longer serve concupiscence but charity: for, as St. John says, 1 Epistle 2:16: "All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." The concupiscence of the flesh is denoted by Amana, that is, nurse, for the concupiscence of gluttony nourishes the flesh; the concupiscence of the eyes, that is, avarice, is denoted by Senir, that is, the repetition of new plowing, for avarice gapes for new fields and riches to be accumulated; the pride of life is denoted by Hermon, that is, destruction and anathema, for pride destroys all good. From these mountains of vices, therefore, the sinful and penitent soul is called to the contrasting valleys of abstinence, poverty, and humility. Richard of St. Victor and others interpret and apply these names Amana, Hermon, and Senir differently, but less accurately and suitably to the Hebrew etymology.

Secondly, these can be attributed to the holy soul, who is called by Christ to greater holiness and perfection, and especially to the three vows of the religious life: for she is called from Amana, that is, gluttony and lust, to chastity; from Senir, that is, avarice, to the pursuit of poverty; from Hermon, that is, pride, to humble obedience. Hence "come" is repeated three times: first, to signify the ardent desire of Christ, by which He wishes the soul to follow Him who calls, and therefore calls her three times, that is, fully and perfectly; second, to signify the enormous present and future goods to which she is called; third, to signify that she is called to serve the Most Holy Trinity through three vows, and through three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, says St. Gregory; fourth, to signify that she must constantly wage war against the world, the flesh, and the devil; for the world is signified by Senir, that is, the change of the lamp or new plowing: for in the world there is perpetual change and succession of honors and riches, for these are continually taken from one person, whether by death or by some turn of fortune, and conferred upon another: thus in the world the wheel of fortune constantly revolves, so that as some ascend on high, others descend and fall. The flesh is signified by Amana, that is,

nurse, as I already said: the devil is represented by Hermon, that is, destruction and anathema, because the devil destroys all good things, and therefore, as it were, as an anathema is consigned to eternal malediction and hell.

Cassiodorus and Bede add that the triple "come" denotes a triple progress of the soul, namely in thought, speech, and action; St. Gregory, however, says: The first progress of the soul is the advance in virtues; the second occurs through departure from the body; the third through the resurrection of the flesh. Moreover, the holy soul is crowned with the crown of virtues in this life, and with the crown of glory in the future; then from Hermon she becomes Herem or Cherem, that is, death and consecration, because she dies to herself so as to live for God, and as an anathema consecrates herself entirely to God and makes herself a holocaust for Him. For this soul was shortly before called all beautiful, and was called to the mountain of myrrh, buried with Christ through baptism; she also ascended the hill of frankincense, through resurrection from sins being made a partaker of the divinity, which is signified by frankincense. But here she is further called to pass from the beginning of faith, as the Septuagint has, to its consummation, and to progress through works of charity and virtue: so Nyssenus, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5, whom hear: "Go out from the body," he says, "and strip yourself entirely: for you cannot be present to Me unless you first become a stranger to the body, since those who are in the flesh are strangers from the kingdom of God. Be present, he says, be present: well did He repeat it, because whether present or absent you must be present to and please the Lord your God. Be present when present, be present when absent, even though you are still in the body: for to Me all are present whose faith is with Me." Then he beautifully explains the same by antitheses: "He is present to Me who departs from the world; he is present to Me who thinks of Me, who contemplates Me, who hopes in Me, whose portion I am: he is present to Me who has been absent to himself; he is present to Me who has denied himself. He is with Me who is not within himself, since he who is in the flesh is not in the spirit; he is with Me who goes forth from himself. He is near Me who has been outside himself; he is whole for Me who for My sake has lost his soul. And therefore be present, O bride, you shall pass and pass through from the beginning of faith. She passes and passes through the rest, who arrives at Christ: she passes by the merit of faith and the brightness of works, who shines like Senir and Hermon, that is, by the way of the lamp she passes having conquered the temptations of the world and overcome spiritual wickedness, seeking the crown of the lawful contest, and therefore she deserved to be praised by Christ as judge.

Tropologically, by lions St. Gregory understands demons, but Bede understands the proud and powerful, such as unfaithful kings and princes; by spotted leopards he understands hypocrites, the fraudulent and deceitful, such as heretics are, says Philo Carpathius. Moreover, demons and unfaithful tyrants dominated the nations before Christ savagely and cruelly, like lions: "for these," as St. Gregory says, "truly imitate the variety of leopards, because while with vir-

tues they also pursue vices, they are divided, as it were, by the dissimilarity of colors in a varied skin. But the Church is crowned from the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards, because when through her preaching both the cruel are converted to piety and hypocrites to the unity of a humble life, for all of these she will receive the reward she deserves.

Anagogically, this signifies the calling of the holy soul from the perils, temptations, and hardships of this life, on account of her patience and victory, to the heavenly crown and glory: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and St. Augustine on Psalm 67; hence St. Ambrose, in book 3 On Virgins, past the middle,

applying them thus: "Dedicate the first-fruits of your vigils to Christ," she says; "sacrifice the first-fruits of your actions to Christ. You have heard that He called you, saying: Come from Lebanon: you shall pass through and pass beyond from the beginning of faith; you shall pass through into the world of creation, you shall pass beyond to Christ, triumphing over the world. You have heard that He separated you from the assaults of lions and leopards, that is, of spiritual wickedness."

St. Jerome has similar things in book 1 Against Jovinian; hence John the Carmelite explains "you shall be crowned from the summit of Amana," etc., thus, as if to say: You shall receive a crown from persecution, while living in Lebanon, you will suffer hostile assaults from the mountains where wild beasts dwell: for it was fitting that mountains of persecution be set against the mountain of love, so that the measure of labor and trial might be as great as the magnitude of your love toward Me.

First, the Blessed Virgin was called from Lebanon, Amana, Hermon, and Senir, when from Judea and this world she was called to Christ in heaven, and there crowned queen of heaven and earth with a triple aureole, namely of eminent virginity, the doctorate, and martyrdom: for she herself was the foremost of virgins, doctors, and martyrs. Hence secondly, the crown of those is the crown of the Blessed Virgin, because it was obtained by her invocation, prayers, and merits: so Rupert, who, interpreting the Hebrew names of the mountains in a novel and therefore not entirely fitting way, says thus: "Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come, you shall be crowned. Whence shall you be crowned? From the summit of Amana, which is interpreted as nocturnal bird; from the peak of Senir, which is interpreted as tooth of the watchmen, and Hermon, which is interpreted as anathema. You shall come from Lebanon, which is interpreted as whitening, that is, you shall depart from this body, a white body, a virginal body, and you shall be crowned from all these, that is, from the body or members of him who is rightly denoted by these names, from the kingdoms of this world; for the kingdoms of this world, certain heads or certain summits, are rightly called nocturnal birds, and teeth of the watchmen, and truly anathematized devils separated from God, who, since he is the prince of darkness and such a

lion going about seeking whom he may devour, 1 Peter 5:8, he is rightly called both a nocturnal bird and the tooth of the watchmen."

Finally, understanding by lions and leopards the kings of the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, and Greeks, he weaves the same into the crown of the Blessed Virgin: these kings "shall believe in Me (Christ), the fruit of your womb, and the salvation of those who believe shall be your crown. Thus you shall be crowned, so that you may be queen of the saints in heaven, and queen of kingdoms on earth. For wherever that saying about the Beloved shall have been preached, Psalm 8:6: 'You have made Him a little less than the angels, You have crowned Him with glory and honor; and You have set Him

over the works of Your hands,' it shall also be preached of you that you are, O beloved, the mother of this crowned One; and therefore queen of the heavens, by right possessing the entire kingdom of your Son; and with this in view, kings and emperors shall crown you with their crowns, shall consecrate their palaces to your name, shall dedicate them to your honor, so that they may cease to be what they had been: mountains of leopards, dens of lions."

Hence St. Epiphanius, heresy 78, book 3, calls the Blessed Virgin a lioness, who is the queen of all animals: because she brought forth Christ as the DIVINE LION, through whom she tamed all earthly lions, indeed made lambs out of lions. And he adds that the Blessed Virgin brought forth only one Son, just as a lioness bears only one cub, and gives birth only in secret; for a lioness does not have a second delivery. The reason is, he says, that a lioness carries her cub in the womb for 26 months, during which the cub grows and develops teeth and claws, with which it tears and cuts the womb: therefore he asserts that the mother in giving birth expels the womb together with the cub, and therefore can no longer conceive offspring in the womb, since she no longer has the place and seat of conception, namely the womb. So Epiphanius, but natural scientists and experience teach that this is false, for a lioness gives birth many times. See what was said at Ezekiel 19:2.

Verse 9. You Have Wounded my Heart, my Sister, my Bride, You Have Wounded my Heart with One of Your Eyes and with One Chain of Your Neck.

The Bridegroom, says Theodoret, having called the bride to Himself from Lebanon, when He had beheld her and her beauty, says He is captivated by her love, and wounded by her eye and her chain.

YOU HAVE WOUNDED MY HEART, MY SISTER, MY BRIDE, YOU HAVE WOUNDED MY HEART. - For "you have wounded" the Hebrew has libbautini, which is derived from lebab, that is, heart; hence the Septuagint translates ekardiosasemas, that is, "you have taken our heart out," that is, as Vatablus says, you have taken my heart from me; R. David, you have pierced my heart; the Complutensian, you have stupefied me; the Arabic, you have inflamed our hearts; others, you have "enhearted" me, that is, you have wounded me in the heart, and a wound of the heart is one of the greatest pain and is mortal: thus love causes the soul, as it were, to die in the body of the one who loves, and to live in the body of the one who is loved. Or "you have enhearted me," that is, as Nyssenus says,

you have snatched my heart from me and enclosed and captivated it in your heart; St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 11, translates, "you have captured us with your heart"; Symmachus as cited by Theodoret, "you have aroused my heart"; the fifth edition and the Syriac, "you have made me trust"; others, "you have given me a heart," that is, a mind, as if to say: You have shown me what I ought to behold and love, namely nothing other than you; or rather, as if to say: You have inserted your heart into me, so that it may work in me, and I may do everything that your heart desires.

"With one chain" (that is, as Symmachus says, by one chain) "of your neck," a chain not simple, but woven from many strands, namely a braid and cord twisted from hair; for the Hebrews used to gather their hair into various folds, or rather braids, as Samson did in Judges 16:13, and to encircle the neck with one or another of them, and thus to twist the hair around the neck: for the Hebrew is anac, that is, a cord or torque; hence the Septuagint, "with one enthymati," that is, ornament or necklace of your neck: so also the Syriac and Arabic; Aquila, "with one garland (hanging) from your neck"; Symmachus, "with one of the necklaces of your neck." Thus Pliny uses "hair" for a bond and cord twisted from hairs, book 17, 23: "Let the yoke be a pole, or a reed, or a hair cord, or a small rope." Therefore our Alcazar in his Allusion to the Apocalypse, book 3, by one chain of the neck understands one of the two circuits of the torque around the neck.

WITH ONE OF YOUR EYES. - The Arabic: "on account of the beauty of your eyes." "With one," because the bride, with her head veiled in the bridal fashion, showed only one eye, since she had to bare it for the journey and other activities. The same was practiced by the maidens of Jerusalem as well as the Arabian women, of whom Tertullian, in his book On the Veiling of Virgins, near the end: "The Arabian pagan women will judge us," he says, "who cover not only the head but even the entire face, so that with one eye freed, they are content to enjoy half the light rather than expose the entire face."

Add that where one eye turns and looks, the other follows by the natural guidance of nature, turning and looking in the same direction. The eye is the seat of the soul, for in the eye the heart, mind, and affections are reflected: therefore the eye of a beautiful, loving, and alluring woman wounds the heart of the man who beholds her and draws it to herself: for the eyes send forth rays and, as it were, shoot arrows of love, as Theocritus writes of Helen, Idyll 18.

James of Vitry relates that a certain holy nun so wounded the heart of a prince by the beauty of her eyes that he wanted her to be given to him by every means: therefore she tore out her eyes and sent them to the prince, saying: "Behold the arrows that wounded your heart." Sophronius relates in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 60, that another virgin did something quite similar, and Sabellicus relates the very same about St. Lucy, book 4 of Examples, chapter 8. Hair, blond and well-combed, on women does the same and even more; therefore the gradation grows from the eyes to the hair, because blond, tawny, saffron, golden, and shining hair marvelously dazzles,

and thus they seize the eyes of those who behold them; hence by the poets they are compared to the brightness of the stars and are said to flash like lightning: thus Virgil, in Aeneid 2, calls it "a blazing lock." Add that women place their beauty in adorning, polishing, tinting, and combing their hair; hence the Comic poet says: "While they are being combed, while they are being polished, a year passes;" and Catullus: "They shake their shining tresses." Moreover, the hair is beautifully curled and crimped; by one lock therefore understand one curl of the hair, which makes a beautiful head of hair; hence Virgil, Aeneid 12: "Hair curled with the hot iron," that is, crimped with a curling iron. In addition, they used to anoint their hair with the most fragrant ointment, from which they breathed forth the sweetest odor. Hear Horace, Odes 5:

Her shoulder adorned with fragrant hair.

And Ovid, epistle 21:

Our hair does not smell of Arabian dew.

And Tibullus, book 3:

Her locks breathed with myrrh and Tyrian dew.

And Silius, book 11:

She drenches her hair with amomum.

Moreover, women comb their hair so neatly, and part and separate it with a parting pin, that it appears most beautiful, as is evident in brides, whose elegance consists in polished and beautifully parted and flowing hair. Hence Festus says: "Hair (crines) is so called from the parting (discretio)." Finally, hair twisted around the neck was woven and adorned by fastening a golden torque over it; some even gilded the hair itself, or made it brilliant and radiant with an elegant coloring; hence Virgil, Aeneid 4:

Whose quiver was of gold, whose hair was knotted in gold.

The same, book 8:

Golden was their hair, and golden their garments.

The same, book 10:

Her milky neck receives the flowing hair, And a circlet of soft gold binds it beneath.

And Ovid, Metamorphoses 15:

They make their hair like amber and gold.

And Claudian, book 3 On the Rape of Proserpina:

More beautiful than gold Her hair, and her tresses gleam more gracefully than tawny gold.

With hair therefore so elegant and dazzling, the bride wounded the heart of the bridegroom.

Christ the Bridegroom says: You have wounded My heart, O Church My bride, by one of your eyes, because with one entire eye, and that a dove-like one, that is, modest, humble, and simple, you behold Me: for you love Me alone with spiritual love, you strive to please Me alone, and with one chain, that is, with the braided torque of your neck: this torque is obedience, by which you willingly subject your neck to My law, as I said in chapter 1, verse 10: for by this, as by a torque, you bind My heart and fasten and attach it to yourself. The eye therefore denotes intention and love; the chain, or torque, obedience: for these two, like two arrows, sharp and fiery, wound the heart of Christ, so that His heart, wounded by love, may supremely love in return the Church that so loves Him; indeed they, as it were, take out His heart, that is, take His heart from Him and give it to the bride, so that she may bend it where she wills and use it at her pleasure, indeed so that she may live, move, and act by it, just as St. Catherine of Siena asked for and obtained the heart of Christ in exchange for her own, so that by it she might be animated, live, and do whatever she did. Hence St. Paul, Galatians 2:20: "And I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me," namely the heart of Christ.

Moreover, the eye here denotes several things. First, knowledge and faith, for with the eye we behold and know things, as if to say: You, O Church, have one faith in Me, Christ your Savior, and with St. Paul you now know nothing else but Jesus and Him crucified: therefore you compel Me to in turn behold and look upon you alone. Hence our Alcazar in his Allusion to the Apocalypse, book 3, explaining this entire chapter 4 as concerning the praises of the ancient Roman Church, by the one eye understands the faith of St. Peter, by the one chain of the neck the obedience of St. Paul, as if to say: The origin and cause of the entire victory and glory that Christian Rome achieved over subdued lions and leopards, that is, over unfaithful tyrants, was the faith of St. Peter and the obedience of St. Paul. Hence many by the eye understand contemplation, by the hair pious thought which fosters contemplation; or by the hair they understand holy action, which follows from contemplation.

Secondly, the eye denotes hope, for what we hope for we look at with our eye; hence the fifth Edition translates, "you have made me trust," as if to say: Because you, O Church, have fixed your entire eye, that is, your entire trust, upon Me; hence I in turn will have singular care of you as My most dear bride, and will care for you as if I cared for nothing else.

Thirdly, the eye denotes love, for what we love we gaze upon with a fixed eye; hence that saying: "Where the eye is, there is love; where the hand is, there is pain." For the member which we frequently touch with the hand is the one that is in pain. The Chaldean paraphrase is pertinent here, which in its usual Judaizing way explains these things of the Synagogue of the Jews, which was a type of the Church of Christians: "The love of you is fixed," it says, "on the tablet of my heart, my sister, congregation of Israel, who is compared to an honorable bride. The love of the least of your children, who is just, is fixed on the tablet of my heart,

like one of the princes of the council, and like one of the kings of the house of Judah, upon whose neck the diadem of the kingdom is placed."

Finally, the Church is called the sister of Christ, because He, as to the flesh, was begotten from the same father Adam as she: so St. Anselm; hence St. Isidore, book 9 of the Etymologies, chapter 6: "Sister," he says, "is so called from the same seed, because she alone is held with the brothers in the lot of kinship;" although others give a different etymology for sister. Hear the Gellian problems as cited by Julius Scaliger, number 91: "Why is she called sister? Is it because she is born separately from the household? Or does sister seem to be, as it were, an additional burden, and does not increase the family? For among the ancients sororiari meant to swell: thus she is, as it were, a growth on the family." Nonnius Marcellus, On the Propriety of Words, chapter 1, number 258: "Sister is said," he says, "because she is born, as it were, separately, and is separated from the house in which she is born." This etymology of sister also fits the Church, for she, separated from the house and family of her parent Adam, corrupted by sin, passed through baptism into the house and family of Christ. Finally, St. Bernard, or whoever is the author of the book On the Passion of the Lord: "Brides not yet bound by the conjugal bond," he says, "are usually loved more ardently than afterwards: for with the passage of time, love itself settles; our Bridegroom therefore, to intimate the greatness of His love, which does not diminish with time, calls His beloved His bride, because His love for her is always new; He calls her sister, to signify the purity and chastity of this love of His, which savors nothing carnal." Finally, the Church of Christ is a sister by chastity, a bride by fruitfulness.

Symbolically, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others by the one eye understand the unity of the doctors, by the one chain the unity of the faithful, whom the doctors, like a neck, join as members to Christ the head. "By one of the eyes," says St. Gregory, "and by one chain of the neck of the bride, the Bridegroom is wounded, because indeed He is affected even to death on the cross, so that the unity of preachers and people in the Church may be confirmed."

Moreover Nyssenus, who holds that these are the words not of the Bridegroom, but of the companions of the Bridegroom, namely the angels, and translating the Greek ekardiosasemas as "you have given us a heart" or "you have bestowed a heart upon us," explains thus, as if the angels were saying: You, O Church, and holy soul, have bestowed upon us a heart, that is, a mind and understanding; for in you and from you we understand and admire God's wisdom and beneficence toward you. For we see that God has given you one eye of the mind, by which you behold and contemplate in all your acts nothing other than God and the true good; and the torque of the neck, that is, obedience, by which you plainly obey His commands and fully bind and conform yourself to His will, just as we angels do; but we are pure spirits, whereas you consist of flesh and labor under concupiscence.

Better, Philo Carpathius, translating from the Septuagint,

she gazes upon earthly things with what might be called the left eye, 1 Samuel 11:2: so Justus Orgelitanus, and St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 11.

Fourthly, St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, by the one right eye understands the pursuit of virginity, by the left, marriage and the pursuit of offspring, for just as the right eye surpasses the left, so virginity surpasses marriage. "I do not reject marriage," he says; "you also have the left eye, which I gave you on account of the weakness of those who cannot see straight; but the right eye of virginity pleases Me more, which if it is blinded, the whole body is in darkness. And lest we should think that Christ the Bridegroom signifies the love of the flesh and bodily marriage, He immediately excludes this meaning and says, Song of Songs 4:9: 'You have wounded My heart, My sister, My bride'; where by the name of sister every suspicion of foul love is excluded."

Moreover, the wound by which a virgin and holy soul, intent upon Christ alone, and therefore first wounded by Christ, in turn wounds the heart of Christ, is a wound of charity, which is healed only by loving, because by loving it is more wounded and grows, for the lover desires the wound of love to increase, because by this wound one is animated and lives; therefore the more Christ sees Himself loved by the soul and wounded by love, the more He loves her, the more He delights and rejoices in this wound of love: for this wound is not bodily, which harms the body, but spiritual, which penetrates the soul with love, and by penetrating strengthens it in love, and therefore in turn more vehemently wounds the soul with love: for just as the sun casts its rays upon a mirror, which, collected in it, produce one concentrated ray of the brightest light, and reflected back from the mirror are turned back upon the sun itself, and as it were wound it, but only with light, not with blood: so likewise Christ, the sun of justice, casting the rays of His love upon the soul, which collects them and through a single intention of love, as a most brilliant and burning ray, reflects them back upon Christ, Christ Himself is as it were wounded by the same, but with a wound of light, not of blood, because He is pierced by the spiritual arrow of love, so that He may love in return more ardently than before the soul that so loves Him: therefore this spiritual wound pours forth not blood, but love.

Again, St. Gregory and Justus Orgelitanus refer "you have wounded" to the wounds that Christ received in His Passion for us, as if Christ were saying: Your love, O soul, wounded Me on the cross: for in order to sanctify you and join you to Myself in love, I received the wounds of nails and scourges. For the wound of love that Christ bore in His soul impelled Him to receive so many and such great wounds in His body; hence St. Bernard, or whoever is the author of the book On the Passion of the Lord: "Through the bodily wound," he says, "which Christ received in His side on the cross, the spiritual wound is shown, and this is perhaps signified when 'you have wounded' is said twice. For of both wounds the sister and bride herself is the cause, as if the Bridegroom were openly saying: Because with the zeal of your love you wounded Me, by the lance also

Now apply what was said of the Church to the holy soul; and first, by the eye understand that what is principally signified in the literal sense is the intention of chaste love, by which the holy soul strives and contends to please Christ alone, as her Bridegroom whom she loves, in all things supremely; by the chain or braided torque, however, is signified obedience, by which she strives to obey each of God's laws and inspirations, and those of her prelates (for the neck denotes these). For just as a braided torque is twisted from many strands of hair, so full obedience is accomplished from the ready execution of all laws and inspirations. For the intention of love, together with obedience, wounds the mind of Christ and carries it away, so that He may wonderfully love in return the soul that so loves Him. Hence John the Carmelite explains thus: "You have wounded my heart with one of your eyes," that is, by your faith working through love, as with a kind of arrow you have wounded Me. "And with one chain of your neck," that is, by your obedience, which is the chain or torque binding your neck to compliance, you have wounded Me, who do not need chains or iron bonds to draw you; for with one hair I most sweetly lead you where it pleases Me. To these add:

First, by the eye is denoted the contemplation of heavenly things and the contemplative life; by the torque of the neck, action and the active life, and those virtues which consist in action, such as beneficence, justice, patience, etc., which unite us to our neighbors and bind us together like hairs: so Theodoret and three Anonymous authors cited by him. Here Richard of St. Victor agrees, who by the eye understands care for one's own salvation, by which the soul unites herself to God; by the chain of the neck, care for the salvation of others, because just as the neck joins the members to the head, so the soul caring for the salvation of others strives to join them, as members, to Christ the head; she herself therefore is like the neck.

Secondly, Aponius by the one eye understands the pure heart, by which God is seen; by the one chain or braided torque, the faithful intertwined and bound together by the one bond of charity, who distribute their goods to the poor through almsgiving.

Thirdly, the one eye is the right, which is intent on spiritual and eternal things; the other eye is the left, which is intent on temporal and passing things. Hence Nahash, king of the Ammonites, wishing to gouge out the right eye of the Hebrews, so as to make them unfit and blind for battle (for they covered their left eye with their shield), signifies the devil, who strives to tear from the mind the pursuit of heavenly things, so that the soul

"you have wounded our heart," by "our" he judges are signified the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, who, moved by love for mankind, decreed that the Son should become incarnate for their salvation.

of the soldier I was wounded: for who would allow his heart to be wounded by a javelin, unless he had first received the wound of that love?

Finally, the fact that Vatablus and others translate "you have wounded my heart" as "you have taken my heart from me," that is, my mind, signifies the highest degree of love, which even according to Plato is madness: for just as excessive worldly love makes lovers mad, so that they seem to be insane, so also spiritual love: for a young man captivated by love of his beloved, a merchant by love of money, an ambitious man by love of glory, hands over his entire heart and mind to that object, so that he can think of nothing else: therefore he forgets his own honor, and loses all sense of shame, and nothing can hold him back or prevent him, neither labor, nor trouble, nor danger, nor death, nor the counsel of friends, nor the fear of God or of hell, but all these things are to him like a tale; whether he sleeps, he dreams of it; whether he is awake, he speaks or listens to nothing else, to the point that he loses all reason and sense, and becomes as it were foolish, drunk, and insane: for "to love and to be wise is scarcely granted even to the gods," as the saying goes. Thus Christ, captivated by divine love for mankind, emptied Himself when from heaven and the throne of His Deity He descended to earth, becoming man, and was not ashamed to lead a poor and lowly life among men, indeed for their salvation to be tortured, crucified, and to die like a criminal: therefore He feared no contempt, avoided no insults, no reproaches, no beatings, not even the death of the cross, and so by the Jews He was reckoned a criminal, by the Gentiles a fool; hence that saying: "Love triumphs over God."

Christians perfected in love followed Christ, such as the Apostles, of whom Paul says, 1 Corinthians 4:10: "We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ: you are noble, but we are ignoble; we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all even until now;" read the rest of what he writes; hence the apostles rejoiced in beatings, gloried in tribulations, triumphed in persecutions. Hence that passage, 2 Corinthians 5:13: "Whether we are beside ourselves," in Greek exestemen, others translate, "whether we are mad, it is for God; whether we are sober, it is for you;" and Agrippa said to Paul, Acts 26:24: "You are mad, Paul; much learning has turned you to madness." For to King Agrippa, Paul seemed to be insane, who with zeal in the very tribunal was trying to persuade him to faith in Christ, on account of which he was there bound and being tried as a capital offender.

Such also, above others, was St. Francis, who called himself a little fool of the world, and showed himself to be such in words and deeds: for the true wisdom of God is to be wise for God and to become foolish for the world. Therefore Gerson, in his treatise On the Mountain of Contemplation, chapters 19-20, beautifully teaches that the model of perfect love is the lovers of the world, and that a spiritual man ought to examine his love to see how far he is from the perfection of the love of God, and accordingly he who wishes to be perfect in the love of God must imitate the acts

of lovers of the world, so that just as they do difficult and even foolish things for the world, so he may do similar things for God and Christ; but the former from vice, the latter from virtue. For where there is love, there is neither shame nor fear, for love casts out fear, as St. John says, 1 Epistle 4:18. A literal example is in St. Mary Magdalene, who, penitent and wounded by love of Christ, without shame burst into the house of Simon the Pharisee, and there before the guests, prostrating herself at the feet of Jesus, wounded Him not with one, but with both of her eyes, as she poured forth abundant tears of love from them and washed the feet of Jesus with them; and with not one, but all the chains of her neck, as she wiped them with her hair; hence she deserved to hear from Him: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much," Luke 7:47. She had therefore taken the heart of Jesus, and Jesus had taken her heart, because the heart of Jesus lived in Magdalene, and the heart of Magdalene lived in Jesus, as Origen beautifully and movingly describes in his homily On St. Mary Magdalene, where among other things he says: "She had forgotten to fear, she had forgotten to rejoice, she had forgotten herself, she had forgotten everything except Him whom she loved above all things, and what is wonderful, she had so forgotten that she did not even recognize Him when He first appeared to her after the Resurrection in the guise of a gardener. He gives the reason below saying: "For Joseph placed your body in the tomb, and Mary buried her spirit there as well, and so indissolubly joined and in a certain way united it with your body, that she could more easily have separated her soul, which gave her life, from her living body, than her spirit loving You from Your dead body: for the spirit of Mary was more in Your body than in her own body; and when she was seeking Your body, she was equally seeking her spirit, and where Your body lost its spirit, she lost her spirit with it. What wonder, then, if she had no sense, who had lost her spirit? What wonder if she did not know You, who did not have the spirit by which she should have known? Give her back, therefore, her spirit which Your body holds within itself, and immediately she will recover her sense and abandon her error."

Rupert by the one eye understands the unity of thoughts and prayers that the Blessed Virgin directed toward God, and by the one chain, the uniformity of her humility; hence, bringing forward the example of Hannah the mother of Samuel, of whom it is said in 1 Samuel 1, after her prayer: "Her countenance was no longer changed into various expressions," he adds: "What was that uniformity of countenance, no longer changing into various expressions? Namely, the constancy of her thoughts and the very intent perseverance of those same prayers." And then applying the same to the Blessed Virgin: "This is

of the bride, and again commends her words and lips. The twin breasts denote the Church's power of nursing, by which through teachers, preachers, confessors, and zealous men, she nurses and feeds the more unlearned and weaker ones with word, example, doctrine, and sacraments; likewise with the twofold alms, spiritual and corporal, as I explained at verse 5: wherefore I shall not repeat them here: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Nyssen, Anselm, Justus, Philo, and others. Moreover the Septuagint translates, how beautiful are your breasts! that is: Just as when women bear twins or more children, their breasts swell and overflow with milk so that they can nurse all their offspring, which is the beauty of breasts: so likewise you, O Church, having borne very many children to Christ everywhere among the nations through faith and baptism, you abound in the milk of doctrine and a wealth of teachers, who nurse and nourish your children born in the faith, which is your beauty: for all these things pertain to the propagation and growth of the Church. For in this chapter the mature and perfect age of the Church is described, as I said.

Morally, let those who are devoted to the conversion of souls learn from this never to be wearied by their number, nor fear that they cannot suffice to nourish them all in the spirit: because the more children they bear for God, the more aids God will supply to them, by which they may feed and cherish them; just as God gives a woman, the more children she bears, all the greater breasts swelling with milk, by which she may nurse them all.

Hence her breasts are more beautiful than wine, that is, than all carnal delights, and mystically than wine, that is, than the austerity of the Synagogue and the Mosaic law; likewise than the wine of strict justice, says Richard of St. Victor. See what was said at chapter 1, where the same was said of Christ's breasts: for the breasts of Christ and of the Church are similar.

Symbolically, the breasts of doctrine and preaching surpass the wine of contemplation: for although the contemplative life is more perfect than the active, yet more perfect than either is the life mixed from both, namely contemplation which communicates itself to others through action, and pours out upon neighbors what it has drawn from God: for the more it illuminates others, the greater light it receives from God, for it is given by God for this purpose. Hence that saying, Hosea chapter 6, verse 6: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice," see what was said there; and that saying of Christ, Mark 12:33: "To love one's neighbor as oneself is greater than all burnt offerings and sacrifices;" and that passage, Ecclesiasticus 40:47: "Grace (almsgiving) is like a paradise in blessings, and mercy endures forever;" whence it so pleases God that He, marveling at her beauty, exclaims: "How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride!" So Nyssen, and Bede who teaches that God here marvels at that soul which does not refuse to teach others the rudiments of the faith: "Rightly, he says, the Lord declares such a soul to be His sister and bride.

Verse 10. How Beautiful are Your Breasts, my Sister, my Bride! Your Breasts are More Beautiful Than Wine, and the Fragrance of Your Ointments is Above All Spices.

HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR BREASTS, MY SISTER, MY BRIDE! MORE BEAUTIFUL (in Hebrew, better) ARE YOUR BREASTS THAN WINE, AND THE FRAGRANCE OF YOUR OINTMENTS IS ABOVE ALL SPICES. — The Arabic reads, how beautiful is the appearance of your breasts! By ointments, understand sweet-smelling spices that comfort the heart, which she wore around her breasts and chest, according to that passage, chapter 1, verse 12: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts." The Septuagint for the Hebrew manaiich, that is, of your ointments, read salmotaiich, that is, of your garments, whence they translate, and the fragrance of your garments is above all spices; the Chaldean renders, how beautiful are your affections toward me, my sister, the congregation of Israel, who are compared to a chaste bride! how good are your affections toward me, more than those of seventy nations, and the good name of the righteous is more fragrant than all spices! The bridegroom returns to the praises

he speaks, because indeed he judges her most worthy of his love and union, whom he sees becoming an imitator of his work. For He Himself, in order to make us strong from weak, did not refuse to become weak for a time, indeed even to die, so that we might live. He Himself, though He was the bread of angels in His divinity, willed to become milk through the assumption of flesh, so that He might nourish the faintheartedness of men, and render them capable of that same heavenly bread."

Wherefore the fragrance of your ointments surpasses all spices, that is, the good reputation which you obtain from your charity, mercy, and zeal for souls, and spread far and wide, is better than all fragrant virtues before God, who, as I said, prefers mercy to sacrifice. For, as Ecclesiasticus says, chapter 31, verse 28: "The lips of many shall bless him who is generous with bread, and the testimony of his truth is faithful." And Solomon, Proverbs 22:9: "He who is inclined to mercy shall be blessed," that is, he shall be praised by men as well as by God. See what was said at chapter 1, verse 1, on those words: "Your breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the finest ointments." Richard of St. Victor gives the reason, that charity is the mother and queen of all virtues, and therefore the bridegroom here repeatedly commends and reiterates it in the bride through the breasts; indeed in Hebrew dodim, that is, loves, are derived from daddim, that is, breasts, says Marinus: for breasts are the seat and symbol of love.

Moreover Theodoret and three anonymous authors cited by him, and Philo of Carpathia, explain "than wine" not comparatively, as "more than wine," but causally, as "from wine" (for so the Septuagint translates), that is: Your charity draws all its goodness from wine, that is, from the divinity and goodness of God and of Christ.

Again, that the Septuagint translates "garments" instead of "ointments," amounts to the same sense: for the ointments or spices of the soul are her alms, compassion, mortification, says St. Ambrose, book 1, On Virgins, and other good works, with which she is adorned as with most precious and fragrant garments, according to that passage, Colossians 3:12: "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, patience: bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord forgave you, so also do you. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." So Nyssen, Theodoret, and three anonymous authors cited by him. Hence the Arabic translates, the sweetness of the fragrance of your garments is the most excellent of all sweetnesses.

Finally, some apply these words literally to St. Mary Magdalene, who anointed Christ three times; whence her ointments were better than the ointments of others, because she anointed the very body of Christ; while others anoint other faithful, who are merely members of Christ. Hence Rupert, mystically applying the same to the Blessed Virgin: "These, he says, are the spices

true, precious ointments: to give food to any hungry person among my enemies, to offer drink to the thirsty, to take in the stranger or traveler, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, and if he is in prison, to go to him. Above all these spices is the fragrance of your ointments, that is, the sweetness of your acts of charity, because not as others did in my members, but in my very self you were most generous to me, and indeed by maternal right, and by natural affection you owed me all things; nevertheless to me, who regards your faith and humility, or rather your charity, as more than maternal, all things were as the finest ointments, all were as the sweetest alms, so that no spices of almsgiving, whatsoever may be spent on me in my least ones, can be in any way compared to those ointments."

Gilbert, who continued the sermons of St. Bernard on the Canticle, sermons 31 and 32, treats at length of these ointments and their fragrance, where among other things he says: "What else is patience itself, but as it were a certain fragrance of future impassibility?" And again: "Let us compare, he says, these three among themselves: wines, breasts, ointments: in wine, the destruction of the old man; in the breast, the refreshment of the new; in ointments, a certain delight. By wine the carnal sense is intoxicated, and lulled to sleep, and overwhelmed; by the breast the new man is nourished; by ointments the mature man is delighted: in the first the old man is destroyed, in the second the new man is restored, in the third he who is already approaching perfection is filled with ineffable joy."

Verse 11. Your Lips, O Bride, are a Dripping Honeycomb; Honey and Milk are Under Your Tongue: and the Fragrance of Your Garments is like the Fragrance of Frankincense.

YOUR LIPS, O BRIDE, ARE A DRIPPING HONEYCOMB; HONEY AND MILK ARE UNDER YOUR TONGUE. — The Syriac and Arabic read, like the fragrance of Lebanon: some refer these words to a kiss, others to the breath of the mouth, which women are careful about, that is: You have a most sweet breath, as if you held honey under your tongue. Better, others refer it to the grace and sweetness of speech. Honeycombs are the wax cells in which bees store their honey: a honeycomb therefore is nothing other than honey in wax, says Cassiodorus: for combs are the houses and cells of bees, so called because in them they nourish their offspring, according to that line of Virgil, Georgics IV:

First they lay the foundations of the combs, then hang the tenacious wax.

In Hebrew and Greek, your lips drip honeycomb: so also the Syriac and Arabic; whence Willeramus:

Your lips give forth honeycomb, honey liquefied through wax.

To this belongs that saying of the Comic poet: "Your tongues are set in honey:" the sense amounts to the same, that is: Your lips are like a honeycomb, which drip honeycomb, that is, the honey of the comb: this means, your speech is most sweet, so that you seem to distill and pour forth as many drops of honey as words from your mouth, just as if bees had fixed their

combs in your mouth as in a hive. This sentence is fittingly added to the preceding one about the breasts, because the breasts of the Church, that is, of her teachers, are lips dripping the honeycomb of wisdom and Christian eloquence, by which she begets children, that is, the faithful, and feeds those already begotten: and therefore the bridegroom here repeats and doubles his praise of the bride's breasts and lips alone: for shortly before he praised the same at verse 3, saying: "Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon: and your speech is sweet," where I said more on this topic: wherefore I shall be brief here.

I reviewed many analogies between the honeycomb and a sweet tongue at Proverbs 16:24, and chapter 24, verse 13, on those words: "Eat honey, my son." The fundamental reason is that speech and its quality flow from the affection of the heart: for as the heart is, so is the mouth and speech; the sweetness of speech therefore reveals, and as it were carries with it, the sweetness and love of the heart: wherefore one who speaks sweetly to another as it were pours out his heart upon him, and pledges his love to him, indeed actually delivers it: but the magnet of love is love, for by nothing are human souls so drawn as by love: for he who sees himself loved by another is as it were compelled by that love to love him in return, to obey his counsels, and to submit himself. This is what is meant by: "Honey and milk are under your tongue;" the Syriac reads, all honey is under your lips, that is: Under your tongue lies hidden the heart, which as a storehouse of honey and milk communicates and instills its honeyed and milky sweetness and love to the tongue, so that it may bring forth sweet and lovable words, by which it may attract and capture the hearts of its hearers. Sweet words, therefore, are first formed in the heart and by a sweet heart, and from it they pass to the tongue: wherefore by St. Augustine, book 15, On the Trinity, chapter 10, they are called words of the heart. And for this reason a preacher, and anyone who tries to persuade another to virtue or some good work, must first arouse in himself the affection and love for it, so that inflamed by it he may more easily and ardently impress the same upon others by speaking: for this affection and love makes even bitter things, such as the fear of death, judgment, and hell, which preachers must instill in their hearers, savory, sweet, and pleasing: St. Gregory adds, Moralia chapter 5, that preachers, when they rebuke vices and sinners more bitterly, should sweeten the bitterness with the honey of gentleness mixed in.

Again, honey and milk are stored under the tongue of the bride, that is: You do not rashly display your grace of speaking, nor boast of it, but you conceal it and as it were cover it with the tongue. To this John the Carmelite notes that honey and milk are hidden under the bride's tongue, lest she pour out both at once, if it floats on the tongue and is not enclosed by a barrier, but rather that she should pause with prior meditation, so that from it as from a cellar she may bring forth either honey or milk, as the occasion demands, milk indeed for the tender and those still in the infancy of virtue, but honey for the more mature.

Symbolically, the honeycomb is Sacred Scripture, so Cassiodorus, Aponius, Philo, and Theodoret, whom hear: "Now the honeycombs, which are borne on the lips of teachers, are the divine Scriptures, which contain

on the lips of teachers, are the divine Scriptures, which contain the bees that produce both wax and honey, namely the sacred prophets and apostles, who, flying through the meadows of the Holy Spirit and constructing the cells of the divine Scriptures, and filling them to bursting with the honey and nectar of doctrine, have transmitted their usefulness to us; and the letter indeed seems similar to wax, while the sense hidden within it is like honey." Hence in ancient times newly baptized persons were given milk and honey, so that the sweetness of Christian doctrine and life might thus be represented; whence Tertullian, On the Crown of the Soldier, chapter 3: "Three times, he says, we are immersed, and then we taste beforehand the harmony of milk and honey."

FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.

The Church, that is, the Church's teachers, preachers, and other faithful and saints, are a dripping honeycomb, or have mouths and lips dripping the milk and honey of sacred doctrine, and therefore full of sweetness and delight, as well as discretion, so that they drip milk for the tender and unlearned; but honey, that is, more solid doctrine, for the more advanced. The sense therefore is, that is: Your lips, that is, your speech, O Church, imitates a dripping honeycomb: for it is a certain instillation of honey, which you, O bride, preserve as in a wax cell of the comb, while you store me, who am secretly called honey on account of my sweetness, in the receptacle of your mind, and from there, when you speak, you pour me forth: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Aponius, Philo, Justus, Anselm, and others. Hear Bede, who shows how the lips of preachers are both a honeycomb and a ribbon, as I said at verse 3: "Since this one, he says, delights by satisfying the palate, that one restrains by binding the hair; the one refreshes inwardly, the other binds outwardly. For the same teachers are both ribbons in salutary precepts, and a honeycomb in heavenly promises: ribbons, when they restrain us from the flow of carnal pleasures; a honeycomb, when they promise us the gifts of heavenly joys; likewise they are ribbons in those things which they teach must be openly done or avoided; a honeycomb in those things which, spoken or done in type, reveal the saving mystery hidden within."

The speech of the saints is compared to a honeycomb: first, because just as a honeycomb drips honey, so their speech drips wisdom and sweetness. Second, just as a honeycomb is constructed by bees with marvelous skill, so the speech of a wise man is conceived and connected most prudently, and from this flows its grace and sweetness, according to that passage, Proverbs 10:20: "The tongue of the just is choice silver;" and chapter 16:24: "Gracious words are a honeycomb: sweetness to the soul, and health to the bones." Third, just as a comb is formed by the bee dwelling within, so speech is formed by the heart, according to that passage, Proverbs 14:33: "Wisdom rests in the heart of the prudent, and instructs even the unlearned;" and chapter 16:23: "The heart of the wise instructs his mouth: and adds grace to his lips." Fourth, just as bees in the comb bear and nourish their offspring, so the sweet speech of the saints begets many children for Christ: for the saints know how to give sweetness and grace to their words, so that they may entice and capture their hearers with them as with honey, according to that passage, Proverbs 10:21: "The lips of the just instruct many; but the unlearned shall die in the poverty of their heart."

SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.

The mental lips of a holy soul drip milk and honey, when they pour forth prayers and petition seasoned with the sweet tears of compunction and love into the ears of God: wherefore then the soul gives a kiss and in turn receives one from God; indeed the soul pours out its spirit as it were into God, and in turn receives and draws in the spirit of God. Therefore then the fragrance of its garments is like the fragrance of frankincense; the garments are the external virtues, such as modesty, humility, reverence, obedience: these exhale a fragrance of frankincense, that is, most pleasing to the nostrils of God, and so they are as it were frankincense, that is, a mystical offering and sacrifice, which God savors as a sweet fragrance. Again, they are frankincense to men, because they breathe and inspire in them the most sweet fragrance of virtues. He compares them to frankincense above other spices, because frankincense is the most fragrant and the most luminous of all; whence in Hebrew it is called labanon from laban, that is, white. Hence frankincense, and the brighter it is, the better and more fragrant it is; whence, Exodus 30:40, in the incense that was burned to God, the brightest frankincense is commanded to be used: so virtues in themselves are most bright, because most pure, while to others they are most fragrant: for, as St. Bernard says, morals have their colors and their fragrances; fragrance in reputation, color in conscience." Moreover, just as a garment is woven from many threads, so holiness from many virtues: the threads therefore from which it is woven are charity, joy, peace, etc., which Paul enumerates, Galatians 5:22. So Nyssen.

To this belongs the version of the Chaldean: "And at the time when the priests were in the court of the sanctuary, their lips dripped honeycombs: and your tongue is like a chaste bride in your speech; songs and praises sweet, like milk and honey: and the fragrance of the garments of the priests, like the fragrance of the spices of Lebanon." Hear Gilbert here, sermon 34: "He who does all things so as to please God, to whom he has proved himself, so as to merit His favor, surely the fragrance of his garments is like the fragrance of frankincense. And indeed incense is neither wont nor ought to be offered to anyone but God alone; therefore the fragrance of his garments is like the fragrance of frankincense, since whatever he does, whether openly or in secret, he refers to obtaining divine favor."

Finally the bridegroom fittingly joins the frankincense-like fragrance of garments with the honeyed tongue of the bride, both because speech of the tongue, as well as external actions, which are signified by garments, pertain to the external beauty of the bride, just as faith, hope, charity, etc., pertain to the internal; and because honeyed speech is wonderfully adorned and perfected by honeyed external actions of beneficence, humility,

modesty, patience, and especially religion, devotion, and prayer; for then all actions, and every outward manner and bearing, breathe frankincense, when they breathe piety and devotion, and from this arises and flows the sweet and gracious eloquence of the tongue. Moreover, every faithful person, especially one zealous for souls, should do this, so that all his speech and action may breathe the frankincense of religion, indeed the frankincense of divinity, so that his words and deeds may seem not so much human as divine, and proceeding from God. Wherefore Nyssen, in his treatise What the Christian Profession Means, defines Christianity, or the Christian life, thus: Christianity is the imitation of the divine nature, or the imitation of Christ and God incarnate, so that Christ may seem to live, speak, and work in the Christian. If anyone therefore, he says, takes upon himself the name of Christ, but does not express His character in his life, he falsifies the name of Christ; just as an ape imitating a man falsifies the person of a man. For Christ is justice, purity, and truth, and the avoidance of every evil: wherefore he cannot be a Christian who does not show the communion and fellowship of these virtues in himself; but he is truly a Christian who represents Christ's meekness, beneficence, devotion, and spirit in all his actions, and breathes them upon his neighbors, so that whoever sees a Christian may consider himself to be seeing and beholding Christ speaking and working in him. Now just as the fragrance of frankincense is strong, sharp, abundant, and fervent, such likewise was every action of Christ, and such ought to be the action of a Christian, especially of an apostolic man.

Gilbert notes, sermon 34, that "dripping" signifies first, that the soul is full of honey, that is, of the sense of spiritual things, so that it is compelled to distill it; second, that it distributes it discreetly and sparingly according to the capacity of the hearers: "Honey does not flow, he says, but rather drips: for she does not indiscriminately and intemperately pour forth those sublime and hidden meanings of heavenly secrets, the mysteries of the Deity, nor does she serve the drink of milk without discernment." He enumerates the acts of this distilling thus: "She forgives, permits, promises, sends ahead. She forgives offenses, permits weakness, promises eternal things, and sends ahead certain firstfruits of them. She speaks wisdom among the perfect, wisdom indeed not of this world; but the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, and among the less spiritually wise she considers herself to know nothing except Christ Jesus and Him crucified. She exhorts to perfection, does not compel, but rather consoles the fainthearted, supports the weak: and if she rebukes the restless, the rebuke itself savors of maternal sweetness; she has compassion on the sinner, is indulgent to the converted, and does not set a fixed number and as it were a limit which she will not exceed for pardons, she who is commanded to forgive seventy times seven times a day to one confessing offenses that many times. See how great a multitude of sweetness is in the lips of the bride, who as often as you overflow into evil, so often if you are converted, she drips to you what is good, and is not exhausted by the turns of granting pardon.

THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

Rupert applies these words to the Blessed Virgin thus: "You are sweet in mouth, sweet also in heart. This is what I now say, your lips are a dripping honeycomb, adding, honey and milk are under your tongue, that is, in your soul; there the honeycomb of your speech tastes sweet to you yourself, a honeycomb dripping from your lips, your gracious lips. Your honeycomb am I, your honey and your milk am I, because your God and your Son am I. This your soul feels, this your lips sound: you cannot speak anything other than what you have in your heart; from the abundance of the heart your lips speak." He adds that the lips of the Blessed Virgin dripped honey, when with her lips she gave the most sweet and devoted kisses to the infant Christ, and said: "Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth." About the fragrance of her garments he adds: "The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense, because with more than maternal love you wrapped me in swaddling clothes, and laid me in a manger; and so in all things you served me as mother and faithful virgin, as to God, to whom alone is owed the fragrance of frankincense in His sacrifice, although I was your little one, a little man."

Hugh of St. Victor, however, volume 2, sermon On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, adding: "And the fragrance of your ointments is above all spices," considers that here the Blessed Virgin is praised by the Holy Trinity for three gifts, namely that on her lips she received the kiss of the Father, on her tongue the Word, that is, the Son, and in her ointments the Holy Spirit. Hear him: "A honeycomb has honey and wax: the honey is the divinity, the wax is the humanity, the honeycomb is the Word made flesh in the Virgin; as if God were to say: I have experienced what I praise. Your lips are a dripping honeycomb; I, bound to you by love, pressed my lips to yours with the kiss of my mouth, and at once I infused sweetness, and from the sweet I drew forth sweetness. I deeply impressed sweetness, and truly drew forth delight, when I joined mine with yours in you, and through yours from you I went forth equally with mine and yours. My divinity was honey, and your humanity was wax, and from these I made myself a honeycomb." He then continues: "Honey and milk are under your tongue, the Word under your flesh; under your tongue, because it is the Word; under your tongue, under your flesh, because hidden. Honey and milk are God and man; honey is the divinity, milk the humanity: honey comes from the dew of heaven, because the divine nature is above all things: milk is drawn from flesh, because the humanity was assumed from below. The fragrance of your ointments is above all spices, because your sublimity surpasses all grace, your dignity exceeds all perfection; because the Spirit rested uniquely in your humility, who in your virginity wrought a miracle comparable to none."

Verse 12. a Garden Enclosed is my Sister, my Bride: a Garden Enclosed, a Fountain Sealed.

A GARDEN ENCLOSED (with a bolt or bar, for this is the Hebrew naul: the Arabic, barred) IS MY SISTER, MY BRIDE: A GARDEN ENCLOSED, A FOUNTAIN SEALED. — The Hebrew min chatum, that is, sealed with a seal; the Arabic, sealed. Understand an implied note of comparison or likeness "like," that is: My bride is like an enclosed garden, or the bride is like an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain, that is, a garden planted with the choicest plants, and arranged with topiary art for all elegance and pleasantness, and therefore enclosed, lest any heresy, impiety, or other vice or harm either violently break into it, or stealthily creep in; but that it may be preserved whole and untouched for Christ alone, and may produce for Him the flowers and fruits of all the virtues, by which it may delight and feed Him. "Enclosed" is repeated twice, so that its double enclosure and bolt may be signified: the first is the guardianship of the holy angels and teachers; the second is the protection of God and Christ Himself, according to that passage, Zechariah 2:5: "And I will be to it, says the Lord, a wall of fire round about:" so Cassiodorus, Bede, and others. Again, the Church is like a spring that is pure, most limpid, and most wholesome, and therefore sealed, lest its crystalline liquor of truth and doctrine be defiled by the mud of errors or vices: "For, as St. Ambrose says, book 2, On Virgins, it is shut, lest its streams, scattered by the wallowing-places of spiritual things, be muddied by filth;" whence John the Carmelite explains thus: "You have drunk the water of divine grace and life, which I gave you, and you have become a fountain of water springing up into eternal life, into which grace ascends by its own power. And lest this water be stolen or contaminated, I have sealed you with myself, as with a royal seal."

He compares the Church to a garden and paradise, which delights and feeds all the senses, namely the eyes with the verdure of plants, and the variety of flowers and fruits; the ears with the song of birds, the nose with the fragrance of flowers and spices, the taste with the savor of fruits, the touch with the handling of the same. For so the Church refreshes and strengthens all the senses, all the powers of the mind, all the forces of the soul with her doctrine, her sacraments, her rites and ceremonies, her virtues, examples, and other charisms, which she explains symbolically, when she adds: "Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates," etc. So St. Gregory, who considers the bolt, by which the Church-garden is enclosed, to be charity. "The holy Church, he says, exists as a garden, because while she begets many peoples in the faith, she sends forth beautiful flowers as it were from good soil. This garden is rightly said to be enclosed, because it is fortified on all sides by the rampart of charity, lest any reprobate enter within the number of the elect." So also Philo of Carpathia considers the Church to be called a garden, because she produces fruits of holiness of every kind, such as apostles, virgins, martyrs, widows, married persons, the chaste, etc.; she is called enclosed twice, he says, because by the faith, hope, and charity

Our translator renders "garden," for so also the Septuagint translate, and some manuscripts for gal have gan, that is, garden, and this seems to be the true and genuine reading.

The Church is like a garden, or paradise, flourishing with all graces and virtues as with heavenly plants, beautifully divided into its beds, and skillfully arranged with topiary art, and therefore enclosed lest it be despoiled by travelers or trampled by beasts; and like a fountain gushing forth the most limpid and delicious waters, and therefore sealed, lest it be in any way contaminated, disturbed, or muddied.

Moreover, Adrichomius depicts the enclosed garden of Solomon literally from Josephus, Brocard, and Bredenbach in his Description of the Holy Land, page 170, number 189: "The royal garden, which is called the enclosed garden, was a garden in the suburbs of Jerusalem, walled and fortified on all sides: and like a paradise, pleasant with the abundance of trees, shrubs, herbs, spices, flowers, and fruits, suitable for soothing and cherishing the senses, and fit for pleasurable retreats. In it was that famous fountain of Rogel and the stone of Zoheleth, which are frequently mentioned in Scripture: where Adonijah, when he had undertaken to reign, sacrificed victims, and held a feast with his followers," 1 Kings 1:9. Hence consequently the sealed fountain was the royal fountain of Rogel, irrigating the enclosed garden, as I already said, from which the king drank. Just as among the Persians there was a fountain from which only the king and his firstborn son drank, to such an extent that if anyone else drank from it, he would be punished by death, as Athenaeus testifies, book 12, chapter 3. A similar closed fountain exists in Spain near Alcala, from which water is drawn only for the king. In the same way, in desert places and others where there is a scarcity of water, fountains are closed and sealed, lest the water be exhausted by travelers, or contaminated by mud or some other thing. Such was the fountain at which Rachel watered the sheep of her father, Genesis chapter 29, verse 3.

He compared the bride above to frankincense, myrrh, and spices; now in general he compares her to a garden abounding in these and other foliage, flowers, and fruits, and therefore enclosed; especially because the luxurious Solomon fed on such things, as is clear from Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Now for "garden" in the second place the Hebrew has gal, which first, Isidore Clarius and Rabbi Solomon translate as gate, so that there is here a threefold comparison, namely that the bride is compared to an enclosed garden, a closed gate (as also in Ezekiel chapter 44, verse 2), and a sealed fountain. Second, others translate gal as a rolling of waters (for galal means to roll, to revolve), that is, a spring or fountain; whence they translate this verse as: an enclosed garden is my sister, my bride; a sealed fountain. Third, most aptly

is closed and barred against all the snares of both demons and men. So St. Ambrose, book On the Good of Death, chapter 5, where he adds that Plato in the Symposium borrowed his fable about the garden of Jupiter from this passage in the Canticle, as well as from Genesis chapter 2, verse 8: "Hence, he says, Plato composed for himself that garden which elsewhere he called the garden of Jupiter, and elsewhere the garden of the mind: for he called Jupiter both God and the mind of all things. Into this garden entered the soul which he calls Penia, that she might fill herself with the abundance and riches of the garden, in which Porus, having drunk his fill, lay pouring out nectar. He composed this therefore from the book of the Canticles: because the soul adhering to God entered into the garden of the mind, in which there was an abundance of diverse virtues and flowers of discourse. But who does not know that from that paradise which we read of in Genesis as having the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and other trees, he thought the abundance of virtues should be transferred and planted in the garden of the mind? This garden Solomon signified in the Canticle of Canticles as the garden of the soul, or the soul itself; for thus it is written: A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride: a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed: your shoots are a paradise."

A holy soul, especially a perfect one, is an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain, because flourishing with the pleasantness of all virtues as with flowers and fruits, and abounding in the waters of wisdom, she guards, encloses, and seals them most diligently, lest the devil, the world, or the flesh steal or defile them. Hear Richard of St. Victor: "The soul is a garden, in which the seedlings of virtues and the sprouts of spiritual pursuits are cultivated: this garden is then dug when those vices are uprooted from the ground and morals are changed. It is dug even deeper when a person strives to know the nature and origins of vices: for a lazy worker, ignorant of the nature of vices, will never be able to properly mortify vices. The memory of the divine Passion must therefore be dug, and those nails with which the wicked pierced the hands and feet of the Lord dig into it when we have the memory of these things, and feel compassion for this sorrow, and consequently grieve for our sins, by which we recall that we were ungrateful for such great benefits. From this conclude that the holy soul is God's garden, in which He not only casts the seeds of flowers, that is, of holy desires, but also scatters the seeds of fruits, that is, of holy actions.

You will ask, what is the bolt by which the garden of this soul is barred, and what is the seal by which its fountain is sealed? First, St. Gregory rightly answers that it is right intention: "A holy soul, he says, is an enclosed garden, because while she produces virtues, she begets flowers; and while she refreshes herself with the delight of virtues, she guards the same fruits she has produced. For the garden is said to be enclosed, because while she hides her goods with her intention set on eternal life, while she utterly despises human praise, she fences herself in with good intention, lest the ancient enemy be able to break in to seize the interior goods. She is also called a fountain, because while she constantly contemplates heavenly things, while she always gathers the knowledge of the Scriptures into the belly of her memory, like living waters, the holy mind does not cease to produce within herself, which she is able to offer to thirsty neighbors so that they may be refreshed; whence it is written, the Lord saying, John 4:13: Whoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. And elsewhere, chapter 7:38: He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly. But why is this fountain said to be sealed, unless because the spiritual sense is hidden from unworthy minds? For to the unfaithful man the Lord says, John 3:8: The Spirit breathes where He will: and you hear His voice, but you know not whence He comes, or where He goes."

Second, Justus of Urgel considers this bolt to be the grace of Christ: so also St. Augustine, book 2, Against Cresconius, chapters 14 and 15, refuting the opinion of Cresconius who said that the seal of the bride the Church is baptism, teaches that the seal is the Spirit, who joins the faithful in one Church: "With the copious and invisible stream of this fountain, he says, God gladdens His city, of which the Prophet foretold, Psalm 45:5: The stream of the river makes glad the city of God: for to this fountain no stranger comes, because no one comes unless he is worthy of eternal life. This is the fountain proper to the Church of Christ,

she refreshes herself, she guards the same fruits she has produced. For the garden is said to be enclosed, because while she hides her goods with her intention set on eternal life, while she utterly despises human praise, she fences herself in with good intention, lest the ancient enemy break in to seize the interior goods."

Fourth, others say: The holy soul is a garden enclosed by God's protection, and a fountain sealed by the practice of humility.

Fifth, three Fathers cited by Theodoret assert that the sealed fountain is the mind sealed by the thought and love of God, whose image it is, which admits no thoughts of the devil, concupiscence, or the flesh; whence St. Ambrose, book On Isaac, chapter 1: "Take care, he says, lest the vigor of your mind, bent by a certain intercourse of bodily pleasure, be weakened, and be wholly dissolved in its embraces, and open its fountain, which should be closed and fenced by the study of right intention and the consideration of reason."

Sixth, Richard of St. Victor asserts that the bolt of the soul's garden is silence and the guarding of the senses: "For by silence, he says, she is cultivated in progress and justice, because the cultivation of justice requires silence. In this she restrains herself not only from harmful things, but also from idle and superfluous ones, because through small things one arrives at greater, and through idle things the mind is deceived and drawn outside itself; as Gregory says: Because by superfluous words the mind is dissipated from the discipline of its silence, it is as it were drawn outside itself by so many streams. Therefore, so that she may remain within herself and see herself, know herself, correct herself, she restrains and controls herself from idle and superfluous words. She also shuts hearing and sight, lest they draw inward what might disturb or stain the mind."

He then adds another bolt for the soul, namely concealing one's good deeds: "For not only, he says, does she fortify and close it against external dangers, but she hides her good deeds within herself and conceals them from men, knowing that when good works become known and are praised, they weaken and enervate the mind: for it is difficult for someone to be praised and venerated and not to be somewhat delighted by his own praise, or even to glory inwardly; it is difficult for someone to consider himself a useless servant when he is proclaimed good by the testimony of good people; indeed it usually happens that one, deceived by praise, believes reputation more than conscience: for the soul is enchanted by praises, so that it does not see its own evils, and falsely exalts itself for its justice;" and after many intervening words he adds: "By the sealed fountain, understand spiritual understanding, stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit, and fortified by the teachings of Sacred Scripture and the examples of the Fathers. For what such a soul savors and feels is neither corrupted by an evil spirit, nor does it in any way disagree with sound doctrine, nor is it found contrary to the examples of the saints, nor is it vitiated by harmful novelty or presumption. By this fountain the plantings of this garden are irrigated, because by this knowledge the virtues and good endeavors are informed, and they advance and are done with discretion."

Symbolically, Gregory of Nazianzus in his Oration addressed to Gregory of Nyssa, by the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain understands friendship and a true friend: for to him in every necessity there is a safe refuge, as to a garden abounding in the salutary fruits of every kind of help, and a fountain of the most limpid counsel: "A faithful friend, he says, is an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain, which are opportunely opened and shared" with friends, not with enemies and foes.

Third, Nyssen and Philo consider it to be the observance of God's commandments: "For by this the soul is closed and fortified, they say, lest she do any good for the sake of human praise; lest she labor for these vain, earthly, and perishable things, but rather live most honorably for those eternal and heavenly things, which alone can satisfy and bless us: watching with the utmost care lest the ancient enemy break in to seize the interior goods."

The Blessed Virgin is called and invoked by the Church in the Litany of Loreto as an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain. Blessed Mary, as Justus of Urgel says, "a virgin conceiving and a virgin giving birth, displayed in herself the unsullied glory of the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain:" so also Nyssen, On the Nativity of the Lord, St. Epiphanius, sermon On the Praises of the Mother of God, St. Ildephonsus, and St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 8, and others teach that the Blessed Virgin is a garden and a fountain on account of her fecundity, but enclosed and sealed on account of her virginity; whence "the serpent had no access to this paradise," says Damascene, oration 2, On the Assumption, and St. Jerome, book 1, Against Jovinian, near the middle: "That which is closed, he says, and sealed bears the likeness of the Mother of the Lord, both Mother and Virgin; whence also in the new sepulcher of the Savior, which had been hewn from the hardest rock, neither before nor after was anyone placed. And yet this perpetual virgin is the mother of many virgins; for there follows: Your shoots are a paradise," etc.

Hence by the imitation and example of the Blessed Virgin, every virgin is an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain; sealed, I say, by the guarding of virginity, the guarding of the eyes and ears, by virginal modesty, silence, solitude, and avoidance of men. So St. Ambrose, book 1, On Virgins: "A virgin, he says, is like a garden inaccessible to flowers, she breathes the fragrance of the vine, is fragrant with the olive, gleams with the rose, so that in the vine there may grow religion, in the olive peace, in the rose the modesty of consecrated virginity: gird yourself therefore, O virgin, and if you wish such a garden to breathe upon you, enclose it with the prophetic precepts: Set a guard over your mouth, and a door of enclosure upon your lips," Psalm 140:3. And St. Jerome, letter 22 to Eustochium on the guarding of virginity: "Again, he says, you will hear from the bridegroom: An enclosed garden, etc., a sealed fountain. Beware lest you go out of the house, and wish to see the daughters of a foreign land, although you have patriarchs for brothers, and rejoice in Israel as a parent. Dinah went out and was corrupted: I do not want you to seek the bridegroom through the streets, I do not want you to go around the corners of the city."

Moreover St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 8: "You are an enclosed garden, O virgin, keep your fruits, let not thorns spring up in you, but let your grapes blossom, let no one remove the hedge of your modesty, because it is written, Ecclesiastes 10:8: The serpent will bite him who breaks through the hedge. You are a sealed fountain, O virgin: let no one defile your water, let no one disturb it, so that your image

Rupert adds that the Blessed Virgin is an enclosed garden on account of her bodily virginity, a sealed fountain on account of the inviolable integrity of her soul and mind: "because her mind was never penetrable to any idleness, to any particular wickedness." Hear Sophronius, sermon On the Assumption of the Mother of God: "So Christ came forth from the Virgin, that she might be, as Ezekiel declares, a gate entirely closed: whence it is sung in these same Canticles about her: An enclosed garden, a sealed fountain: your shoots are a paradise. Truly a garden of delights, in which every kind of flower and fragrance of virtue is planted; and so enclosed that it knows not how to be violated, nor corrupted by any cunning of snares: a fountain therefore sealed with the seal of the whole Trinity, from which the fountain of life flows, in whose light we shall all see light, because according to John, chapter 1, verse 9, He Himself is the one who enlightens every man coming into this world, whose emission from the womb is indeed the paradise of all the citizens of heaven."

VERSES 13 and 14. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of fruit trees. Henna with spikenard: spikenard and saffron, reed and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon: myrrh and aloes with all the finest ointments.

In Hebrew besamim, that is, spices, from which ointments are made: the pomegranate, or granate, is frequent and most beautiful in Palestine, and therefore he mentions it here above other fruits.

Shoots, — in Hebrew scelachajich, can refer, first, to the sweet breath and fragrances which the trees of the enclosed garden exhale, that is: You, O bride, breathe forth a sweet fragrance, such as the trees of paradise exhale; so Martial says:

It smells of what Hybla and Attic flowers smell;

second, to the gifts which the bride sent to the bridegroom as a dowry, or which she distributed among her companions: for these are called emissions, or missiles, that is: You sent me, your bridegroom, the gift-fruits of paradise, or of your garden, namely spikenard, saffron, cinnamon, myrrh, etc.; whence Theodoret says, all these you sent to me, and brought at the time of the wedding: so also Origen. To this is added St. Ambrose, book On Isaac, chapter 5, where by emissions he understands the gifts which the bridegroom sent to the bride: "He praises, he says, the gifts of the soul, which were sent by the bridegroom with which she came endowed; the dowry of a pious soul consists of sweet fragrances, myrrh and aloe, by which the grace of gardens breathes, and the stench of sins is abolished." Third, Abbot Gilbert, sermon 35, and Titelmann understand the emissions of waters, which the sealed fountain lets flow into the bride's garden, to irrigate and make it fruitful. Fourth and genuinely, the emissions are the shoots of plants and trees, namely the sprouts which the roots or branches put forth, to produce leaves, flowers, and fruits: for these seem to be sent forth from the bosom of the earth or of the trees; whence Vatablus and

others translate, plantations, or your plants; Rabbi Solomon, your plots; others, your gardens, that is: Your plants propagating themselves, O bride, are so many and so precious that they constitute a paradise, indeed taken together they are a paradise of pomegranates and fruits of every kind. For he explains what he said, an enclosed garden, that is: You are an enclosed garden because you are a precious paradise planted with pomegranates, fruit trees, henna, spikenard, etc., which therefore must be closed lest it lie open to thieves or beasts to pluck and trample; whence the Arabic, instead of emissions, etc., translates, a fruitful garden of foliage, branches, flowers with a variety of colors of Lebanon.

For "fruits," the Hebrew is megadim, which signifies the best fruits, the sweetest, and the very delights of paradise: for megadim both in letters and meaning alludes to maadannim, that is, delights, luxuries, delicacies; fruits here therefore signify figs, pears, cherries, almonds, and all fruits, including nuts: otherwise fruits (poma) are called those with a softer skin; nuts, those with a harder one: the Septuagint translates akrodruon, which the Complutensian and Vatican editions translate as "of nuts." St. Ambrose, book On Isaac, chapter 5, and St. Jerome, book 1, Against Jovinian, translate "of fruits": for akrodrua is the name given to all fruits, whether soft fruits or nuts; whence expressing these fruits in detail, he adds, henna with spikenard, etc. Hence also in Hebrew "henna" and "spikenard" are in the plural; therefore the fruits of the shrub which is next called spikenard, and of the other which was called henna above, are signified here; whence he adds, with all the trees of Lebanon. The Hebrew kane is an aromatic and fragrant reed, as the Septuagint and others translate. He alludes to the earthly paradise, for this was created by God in March with all these shrubs and trees, together with their fruits already ripe.

For "Lebanon" the Hebrew is lebona, which properly signifies frankincense; whence the Arabic, Syriac, and Vatablus translate, with all the trees of frankincense, that is, frankincense-bearing trees: moreover frankincense, says Nyssen, "is a symbol of divinity: therefore whoever in all the pursuits of life shows in himself the likeness of the divine form, shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of Lebanon (frankincense), through which the divine form is expressed."

For "aloe," the Hebrew is ahaloth, which word the Septuagint, retaining and contracting by crasis, translate as aloth; but the Hebrew ahaloth signifies aloe. Symmachus translates thymiama (incense), because, as Cassiodorus says, "the wood of aloe is of the sweetest fragrance, to such an extent that it is burned on altars in place of incense."

He combines henna with spikenard, spikenard with saffron, reed with cinnamon, myrrh with aloe, because these plants have a certain sympathy among themselves, and when one is planted alongside another, both grow more happily, so that they seem to be twin sisters: hence also if ground with a pestle into a lozenge or bundle, they are wonderfully fragrant. Similar is that passage of Virgil, Eclogue 2:

And you, O laurels, I shall pluck, and you, O myrtle nearby, So placed, since you mingle your sweet fragrances.

The shoots are the particular Churches, which the universal Church and its head, namely St. Peter and the Roman Pontiff, through their priests and legates sent throughout the whole world from Jerusalem or Rome, has founded, or founds, or promotes in the various kingdoms and provinces of Asia, Africa, Europe, and India, according to that which the Psalmist sang about the Church under the metaphor of a vine, Psalm 79:12: "She extended her branches unto the sea, and her shoots unto the river;" so Cassiodorus: for these breathe forth the most sweet fragrance of all virtues, as of trees and spices, to such an extent that they seem to be a paradise, indeed they truly lead their faithful to the heavenly paradise. Hence again in them are the most precious plants of every kind, that is, all the orders of saints, which are numbered as seven, according to the seven spices which are named here, namely patriarchs, prophets, apostles, bishops, doctors, martyrs, and virgins, with the other trees of Lebanon, that is, with the remaining company of the just, who breathe most sweetly with their holiness, and strive with all their might toward the heavenly paradise. The Church therefore is not a vegetable garden, but a paradise of the most precious trees and spices.

Wherefore for "shoots," the Hebrew is scelachim, the Greek apostolai, that is, apostolates: for apostle in Hebrew is said scaluach, in Chaldean sceliach, in Latin legate, or one sent: whence Philo of Carpathia: "By the shoots of paradise, he says, which are called apostolai, the most holy apostles are understood, as having the washing of the sacred font of the garden of delights; who, like pomegranates blushing on the outside in labors and hardships, and finally in the blood of martyrdom, begot very many people for the faith of Christ, like seeds; and to them, as to little children, they offered the sweetest fruits of the heavenly trees, for the increase of faith and works of charity." The shoots therefore are the particular Churches, erected and founded by Christ and the apostles, and especially by St. Peter the Roman Pontiff through those sent by them, in which are pomegranates and the fruits of fruit trees, that is, the harmony of all virtues both sublime and ordinary, says St. Jerome, book 1, Against Jovinian, and Nyssen: because the pomegranate bristles with thorns, says Sanchez, which keep away thieves, and has a bitter and austere rind, which is the best guardian of virtues. In the thorny branches and in the bitter rind he thinks are signified continence and a severe manner of living, which drives far from itself whatever lies in ambush against the fruits of the pomegranate plant, that is, the virtues, which are both elegantly red and pleasing to the palate. Theodoret however, by pomegranates understands charity, which contains the other virtues within itself, just as the pomegranate contains many seeds

within itself, and unites and joins them together. St. Gregory, however, Anselm, Hugh, and others, by pomegranates understand the martyrs, reddened by their own blood, whom the Church sent forth as her first fruits: for these abounded in a heap of all virtues as of seeds, and they were a paradise of delights, because all torments seemed sweet and delightful to them out of love for Christ. Cassiodorus adds that any faithful who always keep the memory of Christ's passion in their minds and live under the bark of the Church are pomegranates.

Now he expresses in detail this complex of virtues in what follows, saying: "Henna with spikenard, spikenard with saffron;" henna, spikenard, and saffron denote the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity, says Philo of Carpathia, and he gives the reason: "For henna is a small shrub with white flowers hanging like ringlets, with the most fragrant foliage, and leaves like the olive. From it is made an ointment called cyprinum, most useful for many purposes: it has the most useful leaves, flowers, fruits, and branches: for the best of it grows in Ashkelon of Judea and in the plains of Egypt. Spikenard is also a medicinal shrub of Syria and India of the highest quality, reddish in color, leafy, most fragrant, bitter in taste, retaining the sweetness of its fragrance for the longest time: it heats, dries, and stays green perpetually: it is mixed with antidotes, and has the most effective properties against very many diseases." He then continues to saffron and the other fruits: "Saffron likewise is a very well-known herb, whose use in medicine is most proven, especially that which comes from the promontory of Cilicia, called Corycus, and is of the greatest fragrance: it has a narrow leaf like a strand of hair, a flower very similar in color to the heavenly rainbow, opening itself from narrow to wide like a cup: within which it produces a triple fruit like a peak of fiery color from a single root, guarded on each side by a double thread of yellow color; it delights in being trampled and trodden underfoot, and by perishing it grows more happily: therefore it is at its most luxuriant beside fountains and along the paths of roads, and is dissolved not by honey and sweetness, but by wine or water;

to this saffron therefore are compared those who are exercised in the virtue of patience and illustrious in deeds of charity; who (like the triple fruit of saffron emanating from one root of love) proved useful to God, to themselves, and to their neighbors; cramped in earthly things, but most spacious in heavenly things; chastised and afflicted in body, but vigorous, most joyful, and immortal in soul."

It is easy to apply these properties of henna, spikenard, and saffron to faith, hope, and charity; henna therefore, because it is small, etc., denotes faith; spikenard, because its root, the better part of it, is buried in the ground, and because it heals cold diseases of the head, stomach, and spleen, denotes hope that dispels the cold of sloth, which is as it were the bond of faith and charity: hence spikenard is repeated twice, and joined with both henna and saffron. Hear Aponius: "Since spikenard drives cold from chilled limbs, it signifies the consolation and hope of the Holy Spirit, according to what is said, Matthew 5:8: Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Saffron, which glows red with three threads of golden color, denotes charity toward the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; which the more it is trampled and pressed, the more it rises and grows: so Cassiodorus, Angelomus, Aponius, Willeramus, and Hailgrin. The remaining four kinds of spices signify the four cardinal virtues, namely: the reed, or calamus, because it is straight and resembles a royal scepter, denotes justice, for kings must administer this: cinnamon, because it is sharp, hot, and savory and makes food equally savory, signifies wisdom and prudence, so Aponius and three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret; myrrh, because it is bitter and resists corruption, and keeps dead bodies uncorrupted, denotes fortitude, which consists chiefly in the unconquered endurance of bitter things; aloe, which purges the belly and body, and expels or restrains noxious humors from the body, and thereby cures diseases, denotes temperance, which is the singular remedy for all diseases, and the medicine for the health of both body and soul. The other trees of Lebanon denote the other virtues: so Delrio, Hugh of St. Victor, and others.

Again, these seven spices, representing the seven virtues already mentioned, signify the seven states of the Church and orders of saints, whom we invoke successively in the litanies, in which these seven virtues respectively shine. Henna therefore, denoting faith, represents the patriarchs: for in them the faith in the coming Messiah, of grace and the Gospel, shone forth: whence, Romans chapter 4, verse 3: "Abraham believed God: and it was reckoned to him as righteousness;" and therefore he was called the father of believers. Spikenard, denoting hope, represents the prophets, who hoped for the good things of the Messiah, which they prophesied; whence from this hope, sighing for Him, Isaiah exclaims, chapter 45:8: "Drop down dew, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one:" the other prophets do the same. Saffron, denoting charity, represents the apostles, for they, burning with the love of God, set the whole world ablaze with the same: for saffron glows red, heats, dries, contracts, gladdens, to such an extent that people who consume it in abundance sometimes die bursting into laughter, says Matthiolus from Dioscorides: the apostles did the same.

The reed, denoting justice, represents bishops, prelates, and princes, whose task it is to protect private and public, sacred and profane rights. Cinnamon, denoting wisdom and prudence, represents doctors and preachers. Myrrh, denoting fortitude, represents the martyrs, who, enduring all adversities most bravely, fought to the death for faith and religion. Aloe, denoting temperance and continence, represents virgins and the continent: for aloe is bitter, heats the body, dries and purges it, and heals diseases of the genitals, says Matthiolus from Dioscorides; continence and virginity do the same thing spiritually in the soul. All these are the shoots, that is, the sprouts and fruits which the Church sends forth and puts forth from herself: so Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Justus, Bede

All these things which I said about the Church are easily applied to the holy soul, with a change of name: the shoots therefore, that is, the offshoots and sprouts which the garden of a holy soul, cultivated by pious discipline, sends forth from itself, are acts of virtues, both theological and cardinal. Likewise holy discourses, which she sends forth from her mouth, to lead her neighbors from vices to these same virtues and to the discipline of Christ: so Cassiodorus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, homily 9, Bede, and St. Ambrose, On the Good of Death, chapter 5, who reading, your transmissions are a paradise: "In that garden, he says, there are good discourses, one which restrains fault, another which rebukes iniquity, another which causes insolence to die and as it were buries it, when someone who is corrected renounces his errors."

Now attribute the virtues which I enumerated to the individual spices one by one in the way I described; but because various Fathers attribute them differently, and that in various ways, I have decided to weave their views together here for the benefit of the readers.

OF POMEGRANATES: — Gilbert, who continued the sermons of St. Bernard, sermon 33, by pomegranates understands regular unanimity, or religious living unanimously in the same college or convent under regular discipline: "With almost indistinguishable face, he says, the seeds of this fruit cling to one another, differing more in individuality of number than in appearance: let us also learn to differ from one another in number, not in spirit. They do not quarrel among themselves, they do not murmur against the rind, they do not try to break through it, they patiently allow themselves to be enclosed as if in its belly, so that they seem in a way to say that verse, Psalm 132:1: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." He gives as an example his own religious whom he addresses saying: "Do not brethren in this order of ours, as it were in the rind of the pomegranate, glow red with the color of Christ's Passion through imitation? Finally, those who say that their natural disposition is contained under the leather of discipline, who consider themselves not so much pressed as protected, are as it were seeds of this fruit. Let there be no love of property, let there be no love of private power, and you will show yourself a seed of this fruit. Let others, invited by our example, say how good and how pleasant it is to dwell in a certain garden of communion, and under the protection of the rind; let charity unite and the rind protect. As many ordered communities as you see, so many pomegranates, as it were, understand them to be."

OF HENNA. — First, by henna understand faith, as I said; Nyssen, however, and three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, understand charity: for henna is warm, and charity is the warmth of the spirit. Cassiodorus and Bede agree, who by henna understand grace, which rains down from heaven like manna: for just as manna was like a white seed similar to coriander, so is henna. Second, St. Anselm: "Henna, he says, since it is a slender branch which grows to a great height, and has seeds from which royal ointment is made, signifies those saints who grow to a great height of virtues and produce the seeds of good works, by which God is anointed and delighted."

To this is added Aponius, who by henna understands patience, for this "has a perfect work," as St. James says, Epistle chapter 1:4: "Whence therefore, says Aponius, do the orders of good people in the Church come? From sorrow if it is patiently endured:" for henna is interpreted as sorrow.

OF SPIKENARD. — First, by spikenard understand hope with Aponius; Richard of St. Victor, however, understands love: "Spikenard, he says, with which the Lord's body was anointed, signifies the anointing of the love of God in the heart, because we are so anointed that we are not overcome by the fire of tribulation; when grace refreshes and fills us, it makes us strong against adversities." Cassiodorus agrees: "Spikenard, he says, is a type of the Lord's Passion; whence Mary Magdalene anointed the head and feet of Jesus with spikenard. And spikenard is in the garden of the Church when any holy persons venerate the memory of the Lord's Passion, and give thanks to Him that He deigned to die for love of them." Second, St. Anselm, Hugh, and others by spikenard understand humility, for spikenard is a lowly and fragrant herb: such also is humility. Third, three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret by spikenard understand prudence, which mixes itself with all virtues, just as spikenard mixes with all spices and ointments.

Moreover St. Jerome, book 1, Against Jovinian, who by the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain understands virginity and the virgins of the Church, by these seven spices understands the seven virtues of virgins: "In the pomegranates, he says, and fruits, the harmony of all virtues in virginity is signified." Alcuin, however, applying each one individually: "The shoots, he says, signify good works, which are a paradise, that is, delightful, because in Hebrew Eden signifies a garden of delights: and indeed it is called a paradise of pomegranates, because just as the pomegranate is red on the outside, and in one rind contains a multitude of seeds, so in a virgin a multitude of good works is held enclosed within the faith of the Lord's Passion. With the fruits of fruit trees, that is, with her honest and chaste words, from which the fruit of instruction has proceeded into the minds of the faithful: namely henna signifying virginity, spikenard true charity, saffron divine wisdom, the reed humility and patience, cinnamon the sweetness of interior contemplation, all the trees of Lebanon all other virtues which have some strength and spiritually whiten the mind, myrrh which signifies the mortification of the flesh, aloe good reputation, the finest ointments the gifts of the Holy Spirit."

and beside fountains it is most luxuriant." But Christ sought the cross, insults, and scourges, and pressed and trampled by these, He rose to the highest glory on the third day. The same happened to all the holy followers of Christ: for the cross is the way to happiness, humility to sublimity, contempt to glory. Finally, John the Carmelite by saffron understands humility, which delights in being trampled like saffron; and just as saffron resists intoxication, so humility resists pride, which intoxicates and maddens the mind with a vain estimation of itself.

THE REED. — The reed denotes, first, justice, which resists avarice, just as the reed-plant resists dropsy: for avarice is the dropsy of the soul; Cassiodorus however by the reed understands humility: "From the fact, he says, that it is a small shrub, which is also called cassia, with a purple bark, the reed signifies saints distinguished for humility and patience, namely the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven; the purple bark moreover signifies the Passion of Christ, which the humble in spirit always retain in their hearts and strive to imitate." Second, Aponius and three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, by the reed understand temperance, which like the reed-plant heals the infirmities of the bowels by drying up the humors through abstinence, and like a reed raises the sober mind on high to contemplate heavenly things. Third, Hugh of St. Victor: "The reed, he says, represents contrite penitents who, whether in themselves or in others, expel the hidden troubles of lurking sins through the grace of compunction, confession, or even more effective admonition: for the reed is useful for curing ailments of the bowels." Fourth, John the Carmelite, who by the reed, or calamus, understands a cane containing sugar, by it understands prayer: for this is as it were a heavenly reed, drawing from God the sweetness of consolations sweeter than all sugar.

CINNAMON. — By its sharpness, liveliness, and flavor, cinnamon denotes wisdom and prudence, as I said; Cassiodorus and Anselm, however, understand humility, because cinnamon grows from a small shrub of ash color. Cosmas Damian understands piety: for this, like cinnamon, breathes forth a sweet fragrance, and is useful for all things, as the Apostle says, 1 Timothy 4:8. Moreover, some attribute marvelous powers to cinnamon, such as that when thrown into boiling water it immediately cools it, that when placed in the mouth of a sleeping person it makes him answer all questions asked, etc., which Nyssen recounts and applies to perfect men: but these are fabulous and false. More truly, Philo of Carpathia by the reed and cinnamon understands Sts. Peter and Paul, who filled the whole world with the fragrance of their preaching and holy life. Finally Gilbert, sermon 36: "It is a reed, he says, when the bride exceeds herself for God; cinnamon, when she tempers herself for us;" and after some words: "Be like cinnamon; let your conversations, your common manner of life breathe grace; and if concerning your will

and resolve you are sometimes bent back, let your will be bent and as it were broken to the judgment of an elder: let no murmur sound, no complaint. Be cinnamon: send forth the breath of grace, not the reply of injury: for this reason when broken it sends forth a visible breath, because the virtue of humility profits and is proven in the weakness of vexation and as it were of breaking. And it is called both a breath and visible: a breath, because tranquility is preserved in the heart; visible, because it shines in the face."

WITH ALL THE TREES OF LEBANON; — which signify the other virtues, as I said, although Cassiodorus, Anselm, and Richard by the trees of Lebanon understand eminent men and doctors. Hear Cassiodorus: "The trees of Lebanon excel in beauty, height, and strength, and therefore signify holy doctors and all who are perfect in the Church." For "Lebanon" the Hebrew is levona, which properly signifies frankincense; whence the Arabic, Syriac, and Vatablus translate, with all the trees of frankincense, that is, frankincense-bearing: moreover frankincense, says Nyssen, "is a symbol of divinity: therefore whoever in all the pursuits of life shows in himself the likeness of the divine form, shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of Lebanon (frankincense), through which the divine form is expressed."

MYRRH AND ALOE. — Myrrh denotes fortitude, aloe temperance; Theodoret, however, by myrrh understands mortification, by aloe the bitterness of temptations; Cassiodorus by myrrh understands continence, by aloe chastity; Anselm by myrrh understands the passion of martyrdom, by aloe the mortification of the flesh and penance.

Symbolically Nyssen says: By these things, he says, the fellowship of Christ's burial seems to be demonstrated; for no one becomes a partaker of the glory of God who has not first been conformed to the likeness of His death. So also Philo of Carpathia.

With all the finest ointments, — that is, with all the foremost charisms and gifts of the Holy Spirit: so the three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, St. Anselm, Richard, and Hugh of St. Victor; Cassiodorus however by the finest ointments understands charity, of which the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 13: "I show you a more excellent way;" Nyssen however by these ointments understands the sincere doctrines of the Church and faith.

PARADISE. — Finally, the paradise of pomegranates consists of religious orders and the cloisters of religious, in which all the spices of virtues germinate most joyfully and breathe most sweetly, as St. Bernard teaches, On Conversion, to Clerics, chapter 21. See Jerome Plati, book 3, On the Good State of Religious Life, chapter 14, where he shows that religious life is a paradise of pleasure.

The Blessed Virgin, says Rupert, is an enclosed garden and a paradise of delights, bringing forth the fruit of life, namely Christ, who filled the world with seven spices, that is, the sevenfold grace of the Spirit. "Spikenard, he says, is your humility, which greatly delighted the Most High, delighted me the king your beloved, as you yourself say, because while the king was at his couch, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance. Whatever graces, whatever virtues, whatever heavenly works the world has received, they are your shoots, and where there were its thorns and brambles, and thistle, burdock and caltrop, nettle and thorny bush, the universality of wickedness, there let there be henna with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, reed and cinnamon, myrrh and aloe, the universality of graces." Then the finest ointments, he says, are all the corporal works of piety and mercy, by which the Blessed Virgin supplies the deficiency of spiritual goods in the trees of Lebanon, that is, in the rich and powerful. Hear also William: "The shoots are the fruits sent forth from her; her unique fruit is He who from the efficacy of salvation is called Jesus; but in that one fruit there is a manifold fruit. In the one Savior of all, Jesus, Mary bore very many to salvation; by giving birth to Life, she bore many to life. By the very fact that she is the mother of the Head, she is the mother of many members. The Mother of Christ is the mother of the members of Christ; because the Head and the body are one Christ; by bodily giving birth to the Head, she spiritually bore the members; whence she is also called mother by all, and honored by all with the due worship of a mother.

Verse 15. a Fountain of Gardens: a Well of Living Waters, Which Flow with an Impetus from Lebanon.

A Fountain of Gardens (the Arabic, a fountain, a garden): A WELL OF LIVING WATERS, WHICH FLOW WITH AN IMPETUS FROM LEBANON. — The Septuagint reads, a well of living and rushing water from Lebanon; St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 17, and an impetus descending from Lebanon; the fifth edition and Vatablus, which flow forth from Lebanon, namely with great abundance as well as impetus, for the abundance of waters falling from on high produces this impetus. Living waters are so called which continually flow and gush from the veins of the earth, as happens in wells and springs: for these are as it were the blood of the earth, and like something alive they bubble up from their sources, move, and flow perennially, while stagnant waters stand still and motionless, and are therefore called dead.

A Fountain of Gardens. — Some understand this generally of any fountain that irrigates and makes fruitful several gardens, such as many that arise in Lebanon and flow down into the valleys below; indeed Rabbi Solomon and Gislerius by Lebanon understand any pure and bright mountain from which springs flow forth: for Lebanon in Hebrew means the same as white and bright. But others understand these words specifically of a certain clear fountain gushing from Lebanon, and flowing with a gentle murmur into the neighboring gardens, irrigating and making them fruitful: so Hortolanus, Titelmann, Sotomaior, and others. Adrichomius describes this fountain from Brocard, Saligniac, Bredenbach, and others in his Description of the Holy Land, page 107, number 48: "The fountain of gardens, which is mentioned in Solomon's Canticle, gushes with force from Mount Lebanon six miles from Tripoli, and in a short space, growing larger, swells into a powerful and swift-flowing river, and with its waters, which are most limpid, cold, and sweet, irrigates and makes fruitful all the gardens (whence it is called the fountain of gardens) and the whole region which lies between Lebanon and Tripoli. Besides some smaller ones, it divides itself into three great streams, of which the first flows between Tripoli and the Mountain of the Leopards into the Great Sea; the second, going around the Mountain of the Leopards, flows into the same sea; the third, flowing between Arqa and Raphanea, cities of the kingdom of Agrippa, through the middle, and washing Antaradus, finally empties itself into the said sea." Josephus, book 7 of the Wars, chapter 24, writes that this river is called the Sabbatical River, because by miracle it flows copiously on the Sabbath day, but dries up and fails on the other days. Moreover, fountains bring not only fertility to gardens, but also great pleasure, refreshment, and satisfaction to those who behold, bathe in, and drink from them, especially when led from high mountains through channels into garden valleys, where they leap up to the height of their origin by their natural force and weight. They burst forth through the mouths of birds and beasts fashioned in art, and then present to the ears the concert of birds and the harmony of organs, such as the hydraulic fountains of the Este, Aldobrandini, and similar ones, which we behold at Tusculum and Tivoli. For he compares the bride, similar in all respects in elegance and beauty, to these.

A WELL OF LIVING WATERS. — Adrichomius describes this well on page 6, number 67: "The well of living waters, which is mentioned in Solomon's Canticles, situated near the road that leads to Tyre, is outstanding and admirable, and it is distant from the Castle of Scandelion toward the north a little more than a mile, and from Tyre toward the south a short mile. Although it is called a well in the singular, there are nevertheless four square fountains, of which the principal one measures forty cubits on each side of the square, while the others measure twenty-five cubits. All are enclosed by the strongest walls, reinforced with the hardest stones in an indestructible construction. From them various aqueducts and channels are led, which irrigate and make fruitful the whole plain of Tyre and all its gardens. These fountains are distant from the Great Sea a little more than a bowshot, in which tiny space they drive six mills, and then mingle with the sea." William of Tyre also mentions this well, book 7 of the Sacred War, chapter 22, and book 13, chapter 3. He alludes to the Jordan, which in Lebanon is formed from the confluence of two springs, Jor and Dan, and is called Jordan, or Jordanes: for this, flowing through the whole land of Israel, brings to it a wondrous fertility as well as pleasantness and gladness, according to that verse: "The stream of the river makes glad the city of God," Psalm 45:5. This river is literally the waters of Siloam, which irrigate the gardens of Jerusalem, to which there is also an allusion here; whence the Chaldean translates: "And the waters of Siloam, which are led quietly, with the other waters which flow down from Lebanon, to irrigate the land of Israel, because they devote themselves to the words of the Law, which are compared to a well of living waters, and in the justice of the libation of waters, which are poured upon the altar in the house of the sanctuary, which is built in Jerusalem, which is called Lebanon."

The Church is a fountain of gardens and a well of living waters, that is, of the purest wisdom, sacred doctrine, and grace, which flow with force from Lebanon, that is, from Christ, lofty and bright, abounding in the waters already mentioned, say Aponius, Richard, and others, according to that passage, Isaiah 12:3: "You shall draw waters with joy from the fountains of the Savior;" and that passage, Ecclesiasticus 24:35: "He who fills up wisdom like the Phison, and like the Tigris in the days of the new fruits. He who fills up understanding like the Euphrates: who multiplies it like the Jordan in the time of harvest. Who sends forth discipline like light, and stands like the Gihon in the day of vintage:" see what was said there. For the Church derives all the doctrine and grace which she draws from Christ into gardens, that is, into particular Churches and communities, especially of clerics and religious, who are as it were the garden and paradise of the Lord: she is also called a well, on account of the depth of doctrine and mysteries which lie hidden in her, and with which she abounds and flows out upon her faithful: so Cassiodorus, Aponius, Anselm, and others.

Now because the Church draws her doctrine, preaching, and the grace of Christ from Sacred Scripture, and from baptism and the other sacraments, hence the same can consequently be understood here. Whence by the fountain and well they understand Sacred Scripture: St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Bede, Justus, three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, Anselm, and Ambrose, On Isaac, chapter 4. Hear St. Gregory: "What is designated by the fountain and the well, unless Holy Scripture? which so produces the water of wisdom that it always refreshes those who drink, and yet does not cease to flow; which is rightly said to belong to gardens, because Holy Scripture belongs especially to those in whose minds the seeds of virtues arise. But we must inquire why it is called both fountain and well, both at once, since a fountain appears on the surface, while a well, lying hidden in the depths, exercises all who seek it with greater labor. But we should know that divine Scripture, being manifest in some places, but showing itself obscure in others, is sometimes found easily like a fountain and drunk like a fountain, and sometimes requires great investigation, like a well, so that once found it may be drawn up." Cassiodorus adds that the doctrines of Sacred Scripture are called a fountain,

and a well of living waters, in contrast to the doctrine of heretics, of which it is said, Jeremiah 2:13: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns."

Again, by the fountain and well of living waters understand baptism and the other sacraments: for these are as it were seven fountains of grace: so St. Anselm. Hear St. Gregory: "The waters of the well flow from Lebanon, because in baptism all the elect receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, illuminated by which they understand the meaning of Sacred Scripture: which knowledge of Holy Scripture flows with such force that when it touches the elect, it removes them from love of this life, and carries all who cling to it with the force of its impetus to eternal joys. Hence it is that in the Psalm it is written, Psalm 45:5: The rush of the river makes glad the city of God: for the rush of the river makes glad the city of God, when the wisdom of Scripture, flooding powerfully through the gift of the Holy Spirit, gladdens the holy Church, or the mind of any wise person, by its infusion."

Bede considers that by the impetus is denoted the power and efficacy of apostolic preaching, which no one was able to resist.

And Richard of St. Victor: "By Lebanon, he says, from which these waters flow, he understands Christ, the brightness of eternal light, because from Christ the time of grace began. From Lebanon, he says, these waters flowed, that is, from Christ, when the Holy Spirit flowed into the disciples like a torrent, and inebriated them with the sweet abundance of His gifts. And when, with Christ blessing the bread at the supper, the sacrament of the Eucharist began to be celebrated, and, His one passible presence having been removed, He remained with us in many places until the consummation of the world; and He who was once offered on the cross is offered many times on the altar for us."

Moreover Theodoret and Anselm by Lebanon understand Jerusalem and Judea, from which the streams of the law flowed with the force of the Spirit to the Church: for Lebanon is the boundary of Judea.

Moreover St. Ambrose, book On Naboth, chapter 12, by the well of living waters understands almsgiving, and gives the reason: "A well, he says, if you draw nothing from it, is easily corrupted by lazy idleness and ignoble stagnation; but when exercised it shines in appearance and grows sweet to drink: so also a heap of riches, sandy in its pile, is beautiful to see, but held useless in idleness. Therefore draw something from this well, extinguish the burning fire, because almsgiving resists sins." See what was said at 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9.

Finally St. Anselm by Lebanon understands the perfect, who are made bright by virtues, from whom living waters flow for the correction of their subjects in great abundance and force.

The Blessed Virgin was and is a fountain and well of living waters, who so irrigated the barren world that she made it fruitful and pleasant like a paradise, according to that passage, Ecclesiasticus 24:41: "I am like a river Dorix, and like an aqueduct I came out of paradise; I said: I will water my garden:" so Rupert, who mystically applies the four rivers of paradise to the Blessed Virgin, and adds that she is the fountain and well of living waters, because she is the sanctuary of all the Sacred Scriptures. The Blessed Virgin therefore is a fountain, both because she bore and poured forth Christ for us; and because by praying to her Son she obtains and communicates all good things to us. Hence Methodius in the Hypapante addresses the Blessed Virgin thus: "Hail, fountain of the son of humanity, hail, shelter of humanity;" and St. Epiphanius, oration On the Mother of God: "Hail, he says, full of grace, who satisfy the thirsty with the sweetness of the perennial fountain;" St. Ephrem also, On the Praise of the Mother of God, calls her the fountain of grace and of all consolation; St. Chrysostom: "Hail, he says, who are the well of ever-living water." For, as Antoninus says, Part 4, title 45, chapter 17, section 4, "she gave to us wretches her Son, God, to captives as a ransom, to the hungry as provisions, to laborers as a reward, to the sick as a medicine, and with Him she gave us the kingdom of heaven and every good."

Finally, the Sabbatical River rightly corresponds to the Blessed Virgin: for worship is religiously offered to her by the Church in the Ecclesiastical Office and the sacrifice of the Mass on Saturday, on which day she, after Christ's death, sustained the Church like a pillar, firmly believing and hoping that Christ would rise on the following Sunday,

the following day. Hence she confers greater benefits on the day of Saturday itself; whence many faithful also fast on Saturday in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and perform other offices of piety and penance, so that they may obtain from her a sabbath, that is, rest in temptations and tribulations, and be led to the sabbath of eternal peace in heaven.

Verse 16. Arise, O North Wind, and Come, O South Wind, Blow Through my Garden, and Let its Spices Flow.

Instead of "its" the Septuagint reads "my;" St. Jerome in Habakkuk 3, Theodoret, and St. Ambrose, book 1, On Virginity, read "your." Both are true, for what belongs to the bride also belongs to the bridegroom: for between spouses all things are common: wherefore the Church-bride is the garden and paradise of Christ her bridegroom.

For "arise" the Hebrew is uri, that is, be aroused, awake; the Syriac, wake up, you who are as if sleeping; this word is ambiguous, for first "arise" can be taken as, that is: Arise to depart, hasten your flight, quickly leave, O north wind, because you are a cold and dry wind, scorching, drying, and killing plants, so that the south wind may come and take your place, which by its warmth and moisture enlivens and makes fruitful the trees, so that they produce leaves, flowers, and fruits. Hence the south wind (auster) is so called, as if from haurio (to draw up), from drawing up waters, says Isidore, book 13 of the Etymologies, chapter 11; "whence it also makes the air thick and nourishes the clouds." In Greek it is called notos from notis, that is, moisture, says Nonius Marcellus: wherefore when the south wind blows, one should sow and plant, not when the north wind blows. Hear Pliny, book 18, chapter 34: "When this (north wind) blows, do not plow, do not sow grain, do not cast seed: for it pinches and strikes the roots of trees that you are about to plant." For although the south wind is heavy and harmful in Italy and Spain, yet in Palestine and other regions it is pleasant, gentle, and salutary: while the north wind is troublesome with its cold and harshness: wherefore the north wind is called as if "binding and freezing waters," says Richard of St. Victor, and therefore in Sacred Scripture it is taken in a bad sense, because it is sinister and unlucky; whence Lucifer wished to sit in the sides of the north, Isaiah 14:14; but the south wind is taken in a good sense, and therefore in Hebrew is called theman, that is, right and fortunate, from iamin, that is, the right hand; whence when it blows, the spices flow and exhale a pleasing fragrance, which when the north wind blows is restrained and constricted; hence that passage, Jeremiah 1:14: "From the north all evil shall be spread;" and Ecclesiasticus 43:22: "The cold north wind blew, and the water froze to crystal, upon every gathering of waters it shall rest, and shall clothe the waters as with a breastplate. And it shall devour the mountains, and burn the wilderness, and extinguish the green, as with fire."

Second, by force "arise" can be taken as referring to "blow through," that is: You, O north wind, as well as you, O south wind, come, arise, blow through my garden: for the north wind tightens the plants in winter, so that the roots may take firmer and wider hold in the ground; and the south wind succeeding in the spring

Some, such as Nyssen, Theodoret, Psellus, the rabbis, Genebrard, and Sotomaior, consider these to be the words of the bride; but almost all the rest consider them to be the words of the bridegroom, who having called the bride an enclosed garden, now commands the winds to blow through and agitate it, so that the sweetness of its spices may more fully breathe forth, be perceived, and refresh both the bridegroom and bride, as well as the companions and followers of both. Moreover, the Chaldean by the north wind understands the table of the showbread, and by the south wind the lampstand, which was situated on the south side in the temple: for he says thus: "And on the north side there was a table, and upon it twelve loaves of showbread; and on the south side there was a lampstand for illumination, and upon the altar the priests offered oblations, and burned upon it aromatic incense."

According to the first explanation already given, in which "arise" means the same as "depart" and "flee," O north wind, the sense is, that is: Arise, O north wind, that is, O devil, who delight to sit in the north, and who have brought the north wind, that is, cold unbelief and the torpor of virtues, upon men in the time of the Mosaic law and the law of nature. Therefore with the coming of Christ let the south wind come with Him, that is, the Holy Spirit, who by the warmth and fervor of His grace may cause the Church and the faithful to breathe forth the most sweet fragrance of all virtues through their holy works. Depart therefore, north wind, far from our gardens, be gone, dreadful unbelief and impiety, which, as the north wind contracts plants, so you contract the hearts of men, and having extinguished the heavenly warmth, you force them to freeze. But you, south wind, come, blow through my gardens; warm up the myrrh and aloe, the reed and cinnamon, and the rest of our aromatic plants, so that, growing warm from your warm breath, they may bring forth their native warmth, and pour forth their most sweet humors, liquefied by its force: so St. Gregory, Philo, Rupert, Anselm, Nyssen, Theodoret, Psellus, and St. Ambrose in Psalm 1, and St. Augustine, letter 120 to Honoratus, chapter 22. This actually happened at Pentecost, when the 120 disciples, who had been planted in the house of the Lord, by the breath of this south wind, that is, the Holy Spirit,

sent forth streams of doctrine in every kind of tongue, says Nyssen, and adds that by the power of the Holy Spirit the streams of waters were changed into streams of spices. Hear St. Gregory: "What is designated by the north wind, which constricts by cold and makes people torpid, except the unclean spirit, who, while he possesses all the reprobate, makes them torpid for good works? But by the south wind, namely the warm wind, the Holy Spirit is figured, who, when He touches the minds of the elect, releases them from all torpor and makes them fervent, so that they may do the good things they desire. Hence the harshness of persecution that blows back is no less profitable than the sweetness of prosperity and consolation that breathes upon them. Luke the abbot, continuator of Aponius, gives the reason, because just as the cold of the north wind and the heat of the south wind produce a temperate climate in paradise, so the cold of tribulations mixed with the heat of consolations produces a just temperance in the soul, so that it neither grows proud in prosperity, nor loses heart in adversity, but overcomes both with equal constancy. To this St. Anselm adds: "The north wind, he says, shaking the trees makes them germinate, so that the south wind succeeding may make them produce fruit: so persecution, when the fervor of charity succeeds, by the grace of the Holy Spirit makes the Church bear fruit." Here belongs the exposition of Richard of St. Victor, who says that God sends or permits the north wind, that is, tribulations and temptations, upon the soul, but immediately after it sends the south wind of consolations, which drive away, or mitigate and sweeten the tribulations and temptations, when namely the Holy Spirit "shows sweetness to the tempted and afflicted soul, so that from the very adversities themselves it receives pleasure: for then, with such a south wind not only blowing, but blowing through, that is, occupying the whole garden of the soul, so that in nothing does it have sadness, the spices of its virtues flow, with such abundance indeed that it considers any adversity as prosperity, and converts external losses into the soul's gain; then patience becomes joyful, charity kind, humility devout, obedience prompt, and it possesses the virtues not so much in desire as in effect." Finally, just as the north wind, opposite to the south, by its cold increases and intensifies the heat and moisture of the south wind through antiperistasis; whence when the north wind blows, the south wind is warmer and more moist, says Aristotle in the Problems, section 26, number 29: so tribulation increases and intensifies the warmth and consolation of the Holy Spirit, and causes the spices of tears of pious devotion and spiritual joy to flow.

According to the latter exposition, however, in which the north wind is commanded to arise, so that with the south wind it may blow through the garden of the Church: first, Justus of Urgel, by both the north wind and the south wind, understands the Holy Spirit: for He, he says, is called "the north wind, when He provides refreshment to those who are feverish; the south wind, when He softens those who are hard to believe or do good; and since in the two one is perceived, he does not say: Blow through (plural), but Blow through (singular) my garden, and let its spices flow; inspire the believing people, so that their good works may overflow." Second, St. Ambrose, by the north wind, which includes the neighboring West, and by the south wind, which includes the neighboring East, understands the four regions of the world, so that the sense is, that is: Come, O mortals, from all the regions of the world through faith in Christ to the Church, so that you may produce the fruits of good works, by which you may be saved. The same St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 12, by the cold north wind understands the unbelieving Gentiles, by the south wind the faithful Jews, as if both were being called to Christ, that is: "Arise, O north wind, that is, rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, O people of the nations, who have long slept before, wake up at last, and Christ shall shine upon you."

According to the first sense, "arise" means, that is: Flee from the penitent soul, O north wind, that is, O sin, O devil; and come, south wind, that is, O grace of God, O Holy Spirit; according to the latter sense, however, symbolically but fittingly, first, by the north wind understand adversities, by the south wind prosperities; for Christ sends or permits both upon faithful souls (or, as some say, the Church and the holy soul desires both to be sent upon herself and her own), because both contribute to her progress, so that from her may flow the spices of patience, temperance, modesty, and other virtues: for to these it is said, Psalm 125:4: Convert, O Lord, our captivity, as a stream in the south. Let the north wind therefore arise, and let the south wind come, and blow through the garden of the bridegroom, and let its spices flow, so that namely the evil spirit may depart from the Church, or from each elect soul, and the Holy Spirit may come, who coming may pour the fire of charity into its thoughts, and release it from the torpor of negligence when He has poured it in." Then he adds the effect and fruit: "While He does this, the spices flow, because when the Holy Spirit comes and the heart that was previously torpid rouses itself to works, soon the reputation of holy works runs sweetly through all the neighbors, so that all who hear are kindled to the same things, and, with the south wind blowing, that is, with the Holy Spirit pouring Himself in, they send forth the fragrances of virtues, so that everywhere the holy garden may bloom, and after the flower may produce fragrant and refreshing fruits."

Second, by the blast of the north wind understand the fearful inspirations and impulses of the Holy Spirit, such as the fear of death, judgment, and hell, which He sends upon sinners or the tempted, to restrain them from evil; but by the blast of the south wind understand gentle inspirations, such as the hope of happiness, impulses of divine love, the desire for heavenly glory, etc.: for by both, as by contrary winds, the Holy Spirit works, and urges the soul to progress, so that the spices may flow, that is, the works of virtue. Moreover Cassiodorus, Bede, and Cosmas, by both

the north wind and the south wind, understand temptations and tribulations, but by the raging north wind they understand persecutions, threats, and torments; by the caressing south wind, however, blandishments composed to deceive, that is: "Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden," that is, break now (by my permission) upon my saints, you wicked men: swords, axes, crosses, beasts, furnaces, fires, indeed all whirlwinds of punishments gathered by your craft, O demons, send them upon my Church, rage as much as you will through the gardens of my Church: you will excite nothing other than the warmth of the plantation which my heavenly Father planted. Nothing other than professing my faith in the midst of torments, pouring forth vows and prayers for their torturers, will you hear from my saints. Nothing other than evidences of faith, charity, and a great and unbroken spirit will you see in them. Nothing other than noble words and brave deeds will you experience from my saints: the fragrance of whose spices will torment you eternally, but delight me beyond measure. St. Basil says excellently, letter 2 to the presbyters of Nicopolis: "Persecutions, he says, are hailstorms and torrents and whatever other things are sudden and temporary, which easily harm and scatter soft things, but from solid and resisting things, if they fall upon them, they suffer more than they cause harm: so also those violent temptations raised against the Church were too weak to break the strength of faith which is in Christ. And so, just as when the cloud of hail has passed, and the torrent has flowed out of its channel, the one is dissolved into fair weather, the other, swallowed by the deep, leaves the path by which it flowed dry and arid: so also the storm which has now seized us will shortly cease to be, provided we endure, not

looking at present things, but extending hope to those things which are a little further ahead." And St. Chrysostom, homily 25 on Matthew: "Whoever, he says, strikes an adamant, is himself struck more, and whoever kicks against the goad, without doubt is himself pricked, and is wounded by his own blows: and whoever fights against those who hold to virtue, is himself certainly undermined, and wickedness becomes all the weaker, the longer it fights against virtue; and just as one who wraps fire in a garment does not extinguish the fire, but burns the garment, so also those who persecuted, seized, and frequently bound those who were established in virtue, indeed made them more illustrious by all these things, but utterly destroyed themselves."

According to the first sense, the south wind which made the Blessed Virgin fruitful so that she might bear God in humanity was the Holy Spirit, according to that passage, Luke 1:35: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you;" and therefore the north wind, that is, Lucifer, was driven away by Him, and the south wind was sent, that is, Gabriel, who would bring her the joyful news of the Word's incarnation. Again, the south wind, that is, the fervor of the Holy Spirit, continually impelled her to unceasing love of God and heroic acts of virtue.

According to the latter sense, the life of the Blessed Virgin was, more than that of all the just, a mixture of north wind and south wind, that is, of adversity and prosperity, desolation and consolation, sorrow and joy, as is evident to one who considers it.