Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The bridegroom, invited by the bride into the garden, feasts there with her and their companions. After the feast, verse 2, the bride retiring to bed at night, waking in the morning, tells her companions what happened to her while sleeping, namely that she was called by the bridegroom at night, but being sluggish with sleep she rose too late to open the door for him, and that he, as if offended by this laziness and discourtesy, had gone away elsewhere: wherefore she sought him through various dangers, and barely found him, who shortly before had voluntarily presented himself at her door. Moreover, when young maidens offered themselves as companions to the bride in seeking the bridegroom, they ask her what the bridegroom's appearance and attire are, so that they might recognize him; to whom the bride responds, and paints the bridegroom in vivid colors, asserting that he has a golden head, dove-like eyes, cheeks like beds of spices, lips like lilies, hands like turned gold, an ivory belly, marble legs, and a most sweet throat. Finally she declares that he is in all things supremely beautiful and desirable.
Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 5:1-17
1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his choice fruits. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride, I have gathered my myrrh with my spices: I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, dearest ones. 2. I sleep, and my heart watches: the voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. 3. I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? 4. My beloved put his hand through the opening, and my belly trembled at his touch. 5. I arose to open to my beloved: my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh. 6. I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: but he had turned aside, and was gone. My soul melted when he spoke: I sought him, and found him not: I called him, and he did not answer me. 7. The watchmen who go about the city found me: they struck me, and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. 8. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love. 9. What manner of one is your beloved among the beloved, O most beautiful of women? What manner of one is your beloved among the beloved, that you have so adjured us? 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. 11. His head is the finest gold: his locks are like branches of palm trees, black as a raven. 12. His eyes are like doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, and sit beside the fullest streams. 13. His cheeks are like beds of spices set by perfumers. His lips are lilies dripping choice myrrh. 14. His hands are turned gold, full of hyacinths. His belly is of ivory, set with sapphires. 15. His legs are pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold. His form is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. 16. His throat is most sweet, and he is wholly desirable: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. 17. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful of women? Where has your beloved turned aside? and we will seek him with you.
The bridegroom, invited by the bride into the garden, feasts there with her and their companions. After the feast, verse 2, the bride retiring to bed at night, waking in the morning, tells her companions what happened to her while sleeping, namely that she was called by the bridegroom at night, but being sluggish with sleep she rose too late to open the door for him, and that he, as if offended by this laziness and discourtesy, had gone away elsewhere: wherefore she sought him through various dangers, and barely found him, who shortly before had voluntarily presented himself at her door. Moreover, when young maidens offered themselves as companions to the bride in seeking the bridegroom, they ask her what the bridegroom's appearance and attire are, so that they might recognize him; to whom the bride responds, and paints the bridegroom in vivid colors, asserting that he has a golden head, dove-like eyes, cheeks like beds of spices, lips like lilies, hands like turned gold, an ivory belly, marble legs, and a most sweet throat. Finally she declares that he is in all things supremely beautiful and desirable.
1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his choice fruits. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride, I have gathered my myrrh with my spices: I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, dearest ones. 2. I sleep, and my heart watches: the voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. 3. I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? 4. My beloved put his hand through the opening, and my belly trembled at his touch. 5. I arose to open to my beloved: my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh. 6. I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: but he had turned aside, and was gone. My soul melted when he spoke: I sought him, and found him not: I called him, and he did not answer me. 7. The watchmen who go about the city found me: they struck me, and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. 8. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love. 9. What manner of one is your beloved among the beloved, O most beautiful of women? What manner of one is your beloved among the beloved, that you have so adjured us? 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. 11. His head is the finest gold: his locks are like branches of palm trees, black as a raven. 12. His eyes are like doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, and sit beside the fullest streams. 13. His cheeks are like beds of spices set by perfumers. His lips are lilies dripping choice myrrh. 14. His hands are turned gold, full of hyacinths. His belly is of ivory, set with sapphires. 15. His legs are pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold. His form is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. 16. His throat is most sweet, and he is wholly desirable: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. 17. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful of women? Where has your beloved turned aside? and we will seek him with you.
The Voice of the Bride.
Verse 1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and EAT THE FRUIT OF HIS CHOICE FRUITS.
For "beloved" the Hebrew is dod, which the Septuagint generally translates adelphideos, that is, nephew or grandson; the Syriac and Arabic: cousin, or brother's son; the Chaldean understands the temple by "garden," whence he translates, let God my beloved enter the house of the sanctuary, and willingly receive the offerings of his people.
Instead of "let him come" the Septuagint and the Arabic translate "let him descend," which word denotes the bride's supreme humility and reverence toward the bridegroom, as well as the bridegroom's loftiness, that is: May the divine majesty of Christ deign to descend from the high throne of His divinity to me, the Church, who am His lowly and insignificant creature, and who once gravely offended Him with my sins, and to visit me with His grace, to correct, polish, and perfect me: for although I am entirely the work of Christ, yet because I cooperated with this work of His by my free will, I fear that through some negligence, imprudence, or desire I may have stained and disfigured this work of His; let Him therefore descend, to wash away these stains of mine, and make me entirely bright and beautiful, so that I may please His eyes in all things. Whence the Syriac translates, let my kinsman come through my garden into his garden, namely that he may purge and perfect my garden, insofar as it is mine and therefore defective, and so make it his garden, that is, in all respects pleasing and conformed to himself. Hear Nyssen: "Because it cannot be that we are assumed to the Most High unless He inclines Himself to humility and lowliness, because the Lord takes up the meek; therefore the bride ascending on high, calling for the descent to be made by Him who inclines Himself, desires that He Himself descend in His greatness."
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
Christ the bridegroom compared the bride, the Church, to an enclosed garden, and celebrated her various and excellent fruits in the preceding chapter, verse 12 and following; now the bride invites the bridegroom into the garden so praised by her, that is, to herself, so that he may delight and feed himself with its fruits which, with the south wind blowing, that is, the Holy Spirit, he himself produced: for she professes that this whole garden has been arranged for the service of the one bridegroom, and therefore lies open to him alone, but is closed to all others; whence she says: "Into his garden," not mine, that is: My garden is not so much mine as his, because I who am this garden am not so much my own as my bridegroom's. For Christ made, adorned, and arranged me, the entire Church, as great as I am: wherefore whatever beauty and ornament is in me, I have not from my own nature, but from His gift and grace, and I attribute it to Him, and offer and return it to be used and enjoyed together with me: for I am entirely Christ's, wherefore to Him alone I give, dedicate, and return my entire self.
to look upon present things, but to extend hope toward those which are a little further ahead." And St. Chrysostom, homily 25 on Matthew: "Whoever," he says, "strikes an adamant is himself more struck, and whoever kicks against the goad is without doubt himself pierced, and is wounded by his own blows: and whoever attacks those who hold to virtue is himself indeed overthrown, and malice becomes the weaker the longer it wars against virtue; and just as one who wraps fire in a garment does not extinguish it but burns the garment, so also those who persecuted, seized, and frequently bound those established in virtue, rendered them indeed more illustrious by all these things, but completely destroyed themselves."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
According to the former sense, the south wind that made the Blessed Virgin fruitful so that she might bear God in human nature was the Holy Spirit, according to that passage in Luke 1:35: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you;" and therefore by Him the north wind, that is, Lucifer, was driven away, and the south wind was sent, that is, Gabriel, who brought her the joyful message 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, above that of all the just, mixed with the north wind and the south wind, that is, with adversity and prosperity, desolation and consolation, sorrow and joy, as is evident to anyone who considers it.
The Bridegroom, invited by the bride into the garden, feasts there with her and their companions. After the feast, at verse 2, the bride, having retired to bed at night, awakening in the morning, narrates to her young companions her nocturnal dream, or what happened to her while she slept: namely, that she was called by the bridegroom at night, but being sluggish with sleep she rose too late to open the door for him, and he, offended by this laziness and discourtesy, had gone elsewhere. Therefore she sought him through various dangers and scarcely found him who a little before had voluntarily presented himself at her door. Moreover, when in seeking the bridegroom the young women offered themselves as companions to the bride, they ask her what appearance and bearing the bridegroom has, so that they might recognize him; to which the bride responds and depicts the bridegroom in vivid colors: she declares that he has a golden head, dove-like eyes, cheeks like aromatic gardens, lips like lilies, turned hands, an ivory belly, marble legs, and a most sweet throat. Finally, she affirms that in all things he is supremely beautiful and desirable.
1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apples. I am come into my garden, O my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrh with my spices: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, dearest ones. 2. I sleep, and my heart watches: the voice of my beloved knocking:
Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the night. 3. I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? 4. My beloved put his hand through the opening, and my inward parts were moved at his touch. 5. I arose to open to my beloved: my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with the choicest myrrh. 6. I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: but he had turned aside and was gone. My soul melted when he spoke: I sought him, and found him not: I called him, and he did not answer me. 7. The watchmen who go about the city found me: they struck me, and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took away my mantle from me. 8. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love. 9. What manner of one is your beloved of the beloved, O most beautiful among women? What manner of one is your beloved of the beloved, that you have so adjured us? 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. 11. His head is the finest gold: his locks are as branches of palm trees, black as a raven. 12. His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters, which are washed with milk, and sit beside the fullest streams. 13. His cheeks are as beds of spices set by the perfumers. His lips are lilies dropping choice myrrh. 14. His hands are turned as of gold, full of hyacinths. His belly is of ivory, set with sapphires. 15. His legs are pillars of marble, that are set upon bases of gold. His form is as of Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. 16. His throat is most sweet, and he is wholly desirable: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. 17. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned aside? And we will seek him with you.
Voice of the Bride.
Verse 1. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apples.
For "beloved" the Hebrew has dod, which the Septuagint generally translates as adelphideos, that is, cousin or nephew; the Syriac and Arabic: uncle's son, or brother's son; the Chaldean understands "garden" as the temple, hence translates: let my beloved God enter the house of the sanctuary, and willingly receive the offerings of his people.
For "let come" the Septuagint and Arabic translate "let descend," which word denotes the supreme humility and reverence of the bride toward the bridegroom, as well as the bridegroom's loftiness, as if to say: May the divine majesty of Christ deign to descend from the high throne of His divinity to me, the Church, who am His lowly and base creature, and who formerly gravely offended Him by my sins, and to visit me with His grace, correct, polish, and perfect me. For although I am entirely the work of Christ, nevertheless because I have cooperated with this work of His by my free will, I fear that by some negligence, imprudence, or desire I may have stained and disfigured this work of His; let Him therefore descend, that He may wash away these stains of mine, and render me wholly bright and beautiful, so that I may please His eyes in all things. Hence the Syriac translates: let my cousin come through my garden into his garden, namely so that he may purge and perfect my garden, insofar as it is mine and therefore defective, and thus make it his garden, that is, pleasing and conformable to himself in all things. Hear Nyssenus: "Because it is not possible for us to be otherwise assumed to the Most High unless He inclines Himself to humility and lowliness, because the Lord raises up the meek; therefore the bride, ascending on high, summoning the descent to be made by Him who inclines Himself, desires that He Himself descend in His greatness."
whatever ornament and beauty is in me, I have not from my own nature, but from His gift and grace, and I attribute it to Him, and offer and return it to Him for His use and enjoyment together with myself: for I am entirely Christ's, wherefore I give, dedicate, and return my whole self to Him alone.
For "apples" the Hebrew has megadim, which, as I said above, signifies any choice and delicate fruits, whether of soft rind or hard, like nuts. St. Ambrose, book 5 of On the Sacraments, chapter 3, reads "of his fruit-bearing trees" (others read, "of his delights"), namely trees, by which he understands baptized souls: "What," he says, "are these fruit-bearing trees?" and responds: "You were a dry tree in Adam, but now through the grace of Christ you have sprouted as a fruit-bearing tree." Therefore by apples understand any virtues, and their exercises, advances, and perfections, which Christ eats as He feeds upon and delights in them. The Church before Christ was a garden not of apples but of thorns and briars of infidelity; and then it was a garden, or rather a thicket and briar patch of the devil; through Christ it became a garden of apples, that is, of charity and virtues, and therefore the garden of Christ: for the garden and food of Jesus, that is, of the Savior, is none other than the salvation of humanity, as Nyssenus teaches, and the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret.
For "apples" the Septuagint translates akrodryon, which St. Ambrose, book 1 of On Virgins, translates as "of nuts" (others, "of fruits," that is, of any kind of fruits, as I said above): "The Word of God," he says, "is invited into a garden of the nut tree, in which is the fruit of prophetic reading and priestly grace, which is bitter in temptations, hard in labors, but fruitful in interior virtues. Hence also the rod of Aaron was of nut wood, not so much by nature, but by a hidden power," Numbers 17:8. For Christ feeds upon these nuts and fruits, according to that passage in John 4:32: "I have food to eat which you do not know." For so great, says Philo Carpathius, and so admirable is the union of divine charity between the Creator and the creature, namely of Christ the Bridegroom to the bride the Church and to every holy soul, that now they have all things in common between them.
Moreover, the Church invites Christ to her garden, that is, to herself, since she had already flourished, like a perfect garden, in every ornament of graces, every variety of states and nations, and every splendor of virtues under the time of Constantine: for in this entire chapter is described the perfect state, and as it were the manly age, of the Church. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Behold, I the Church, founded by Christ, having struggled and fought for three hundred years with tyrannical emperors, have germinated and brought forth innumerable ranks of holy martyrs, doctors, pontiffs, virgins, priests, etc.; indeed I have subjugated the emperors themselves, and first of all Constantine himself, to the faith and to Christ, and made him a Christian, by whose command and authority basilicas, monasteries, and temples are now being built everywhere for Christ, all peoples submit themselves to Christ as well as to Constantine, the victorious cross of Christ triumphs throughout the whole world — grace, faith, religion, charity, etc. Let Him therefore come into this garden of His, and taste these fruits, and bedew, increase, and perfect them with the visitation of His spiritual grace.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul often prays that Christ may come into the garden of her mind, and may visit it both with His grace and personally through Himself in the Eucharist, both that He may feed upon and delight in her apples, that is, the virtues produced by His grace, and that He may purge, strip, increase, and consummate those same virtues: for in the Eucharist Christ feasts with us, and we with Christ. He does the same in every exercise of virtue, according to that passage in Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if anyone hears My voice, and opens the door to Me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." See what was said there. For in the Eucharist we really eat the flesh of Christ hidden under the species of bread, although we do not change it into our substance, as we change other foods that we eat; and Christ in turn eats us, because He more closely unites and incorporates us into Himself, so that we become co-corporeal and co-sanguineous with Christ, indeed Christ-bearers, says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis 4. Hence that saying of Christ the Lord to St. Augustine: "You will not change Me into yourself (as happens in the eating of bodily foods), but you will be changed into Me." For the Eucharist is the fruit of delights, that is, most delicate and most delicious: therefore one who communicates devoutly puts on the ways and loves of Christ, the affections and effects of Christ, the works and pursuits of Christ. The supreme communication of Christ therefore takes place in the Eucharist: for there He communicates Himself by His essence, whereas elsewhere He communicates Himself only through inspiration and grace; hence this sacrament is called the synaxis and communion. For this reason some, in the sacred synaxis, use this practice of mentally inviting and leading Christ into the garden of their soul, showing Him its defects, and asking Him to correct them, to plant new virtues, to water those already planted, and to increase them. Others lead Christ in as a physician into the hospital of their soul, and there show Him all its passions and infirmities, and ask Him to deign to cure and heal them.
Hence St. Gregory teaches that the holy soul is the garden of Christ, in which He Himself feeds and delights upon the lilies of chastity, the pomegranates of fraternal union, the nuts of fortitude, the henna of faith, the spikenard of hope, the saffron of charity, etc.: "The beloved," he says, "comes into the garden and eats the fruit, when Christ visits the minds and satisfies Himself with the delight of good works." Following St. Gregory as usual are Bede, Justus of Urgel, St. Anselm, Richard, and others. Justus of Urgel adds that Christ properly eats the fruits of mercy and almsgiving that are given to the poor: for He eats these, not with His own mouth, but through the mouths of His poor, according to what He Himself will say to the charitable
on the day of judgment, Matthew 25:34: "Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink, etc. As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me."
St. Ambrose, however, in book 3 of On Virgins, applies these things to virgins: for virginity is the most beautiful fruit in which Christ delights. Hence Luke the abbot, the continuator of Aponius, by "the fruit of apples" understands the first fruits of virginity. For he says thus: "The bride invites Christ, that He Himself may consecrate the first fruits of good work, the fruit of the apples of virginity, that He Himself may taste them by proceeding from a virgin, that He Himself may transmit to heaven the fruit of joyful penance received from the Church to the angels." St. Jerome, in letter 22 to the virgin Eustochium, urges her to shut herself up at home and not wander abroad: "Always," he says, "let the seclusion of your chamber keep you. You will hear from the bridegroom: 'An enclosed garden, my sister, my bride: an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain.' Be careful not to leave the house, and not to wish to see the daughters of a foreign land. 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. Let the foolish virgins wander abroad; you be within with the bridegroom. Jesus is jealous; He does not want your face to be seen by others." These are the words of St. Jerome in the same place, but scattered throughout.
In the same way apply these things to religious: for the religious life and the monastery is an enclosed garden and paradise of Christ, which Christ Himself established and founded through His vicars, in which He delights in the humility, obedience, poverty, chastity, etc. of religious. See our Jerome Plati, book 3 of On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 14, where from St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Bernard, and others he demonstrates that the religious life is the paradise of God, not only earthly, but also heavenly: for, as Blessed Lawrence Justinian says and proves at length, in On Monastic Perfection, chapter 6: "In human affairs and in this pilgrimage, nothing so effectively bears in itself the image of the heavenly fatherland as monastic life, and a manner of life dedicated to divine worship."
Anagogically, Bede and Hugh of St. Victor, in book 3 of On the Moral Ark, chapter 14, attribute these things to the holy soul which desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, as if to say: "Would that the Lord would come more quickly, that He might graciously restore to us the reward of our devout devotion; and just as we have always striven to love Him and to return to Him the fruit of justice which He Himself bestowed, so may He manifest to us the most happy recompense of His charity by receiving us to Himself." Hence Theodoret also considers that the soul is here asking for the same thing as when saying in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come."
The Blessed Virgin invited the eternal Word at the beginning of spring, namely on the 25th of March, that is, on the Feast of the Annunciation, says William, into her garden, that is, first, into her womb, so that in it He might eat the fruit of his apples, that is, assume the flesh prepared and organized by her, in which He might offer Himself to God the Father as a holocaust for the redemption of mankind. So say St. Athanasius in his Synopsis, Rupert, and Caesarius, dialogue 3: for Christ, as soon as He united flesh to Himself in the Virgin's womb, namely at the first instant of His conception, offered Himself as a propitiatory victim for the salvation of the whole world to God the Father, according to Hebrews 10:5: "Therefore entering the world He says: Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have fitted for Me, etc. Then I said: Behold, I come: in the head of the book it is written of Me: To do Your will, O God." Then, therefore, with the Father revealing, foreseeing all the afflictions, sorrows, and torments to be inflicted upon Him, He willingly accepted them, began to taste them, and offered them to God the Father. Secondly, the Blessed Virgin invites Christ into the garden of her soul, so that there He may feed upon her angelic purity, Michaelic humility, and seraphic charity, etc., as if upon virtues planted by Himself, according to John 4:34: "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, to accomplish His work;" and the will of the Father who sends is the salvation, virtue, and perfection of the Blessed Virgin and of all other people. Thirdly, the Blessed Virgin invites Christ, says Rupert, as if to say: "Eve invited her husband to eat a fruit not his own, a fruit belonging to another, a forbidden fruit; I invite my beloved to his own garden," etc., namely to myself: "Let him therefore come into his garden, and by transferring me to that third heaven, to that third paradise to which he went, to which he ascended while I watched, let him eat the fruit of his apples, let him perfect to the end, let him bring to completion the grace of those works of his which have been accomplished in me. Since you went to heaven, you frequently return to that which you call the paradise of my plantings, and you eat of the pomegranates, which are the best among the first fruits of those same plantings of mine. For you now eat as many fragments of pomegranates as you are blessed souls of your martyrs and confessors, whom you take from here and transfer to that secret place of eternal life. When will you thus come into this garden of yours, to that which you call the fountain of gardens? When will you thus come to me, that where you are, there I may be with you?"
One may ask why the Blessed Virgin is called a garden, and not a field or a plain. The answer is: "A garden (replies Rupert), because something is always growing there, for whereas other land produces something once a year, a garden is never without fruit. Why then are you a garden, O beloved of the Beloved, unless because in you something was born that never ceases, never withers, nor fails?" Add to this that the Blessed Virgin, like a garden, was continually irrigated by the flowing streams of divine grace, so that she might continually produce the most beautiful flowers and fruits of all the virtues.
Voice of the Bridegroom. I Have Come Into my Garden, my Sister, my Bride, I Have Gathered my Myrrh with my Spices.
I HAVE COME INTO MY GARDEN, MY SISTER, MY BRIDE. — The Bridegroom, invited by the bride into His garden, willingly accepts, indeed He anticipates her invitation by saying: "I have come," in the past tense, that is, I have already entered, as the Septuagint translates it, into My garden, which is none other than you yourself, My bride, whom in the preceding chapter, verse 12, I called an enclosed garden. You therefore are a garden for yourself and for Me, both yours and Mine, because what is yours is also Mine — both because all things are common between bridegroom and bride; and because whatever good you have, you have from Me and from My grace; and because the same has been offered to Me by you, given through gratitude, indeed returned; and finally Mine, because what is altogether opposed to My taste wondrously feeds and delights Me. In you therefore, as in My garden, I have plucked, eaten, and drunk the fruits of the garden, as follows.
"I have gathered my myrrh." — In Hebrew ariti, that is, I plucked, I picked; hence ari means lion, because it tears apart prey, and ariel means strong lion, or lion of God. The Septuagint and Arabic translate "I have harvested," that is, I plucked, I gathered, whether by reaping, which properly applies to grain; or by vintaging, which applies to grapes; or by plucking, which applies to branches and fruits; or by collecting, as the liquid flowing from incised myrrh, namely stacte, is collected. It is a catachresis; by a similar trope the poets call a harvest of grapes a vintage, and even a collection of fruits, figs, honey, etc. "I have gathered (therefore) my myrrh," that is, I have collected the myrrh-liquid dripping from the myrrh bush, or at least I have plucked the fragrant branches of myrrh; for both the branches and the sweet liquid of myrrh were employed at tables and banquets, especially garden banquets such as the one arranged here, for the pleasure of their scent and to strengthen the brain.
The Chaldean, as I said a little earlier, understands the garden as the temple of Solomon, in which spices, namely frankincense and incense, were burned for God.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: On Christ and the Church.
Christ the Bridegroom, invited by the bride the Church to the garden, that is, to herself adorned and flourishing with all spices and virtues, to be visited and enjoyed, accepts the invitation — indeed anticipates it, says Nyssenus, saying: I have already come into My garden, that is, I have already visited you, O My Church, and first of all I have reaped and gathered from you My myrrh, that is, the penance and tears which are the beginning of conversion and the holy life. Hence St. John the Baptist, Christ, and the apostles at the beginning of their preaching, both among the Jews and among the Gentiles, all began to cry out: "Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Matthew 4:17. For penance destroys the old life of concupiscence and builds the new life of charity. Hence He says "My" myrrh, that is, suggested by Me; again "My," that is, most pleasing to Me: for what is bitter to the sinful and penitent soul is sweet and pleasant to Christ, according to that saying of St. Bernard, sermon on the Song of Songs: "The tears of the penitent are the wine of the angels, because in them is the fragrance of life."
By myrrh, therefore, understand first penance — either that which takes place in baptism, or that which in the case of the relapsed takes place after baptism in the sacrament of penance, or in the act of contrition and satisfaction. Hence by myrrh, St. Chrysostom, homily 41 from various texts on Matthew, and St. Ambrose, book 9 on Luke 20, understand baptism. Christ therefore reaped myrrh when He brought all the nations through baptism and penance from idols and vices to Himself and to the holy life: for in baptism we spiritually die and are buried with Christ, so that with our sins sunk and buried in Him we may emerge into newness of life, as the Apostle teaches, Romans 6:4. Just as Christ, therefore, when He was buried, was anointed with myrrh and spices by Joseph of Arimathea, so also the faithful person in baptism is anointed with penance and the other virtues.
Secondly, by myrrh understand the persecutions and tribulations of the Church, and especially the martyrdoms and martyrs, which Christ reaped and gathered to the number of many hundreds of thousands in the first three hundred years of the Church, in Rome and elsewhere, before Constantine. By spices understand the doctors and confessors of the Church in the time of Constantine and afterward. So say Cassiodorus, Bede, Honorius, and Nyssenus, whom hear: "The tree bearing myrrh was Paul, who died daily, and gave himself the answer of death, and by his purity and the ordering of his divine life, exhaling fragrance, he became in a certain way the fragrance of life to those who are being saved," 2 Corinthians 2:15.
Symbolically, many Fathers apply these things to Christ, but in various ways. First, St. Athanasius in his Synopsis of Holy Scripture refers these things to the incarnation of Christ, in which He assumed a mortal body: for myrrh is the symbol of mortality, since dead bodies are embalmed with it. Hence to the newborn Christ the three Magi offered frankincense as to God, gold as to a King, and myrrh as to one mortal and destined to die for the salvation of mankind. Hear St. Athanasius: "Entering into His own garden, namely of creatures, God assumed flesh from the Virgin, and was made man. The body was indeed mortal, yet joined with the fragrance of the most holy Word." So also Rupert and Luke the abbot. Secondly, Philo Carpathius, Rupert, and Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 13, refer these things to the passion of Christ: for Christ praying in the garden poured out and reaped myrrh, when being in agony He sweated blood from anguish; and again when about to be crucified He drank wine mixed with myrrh, says Cyril. Thirdly, Justus of Urgel refers it to the burial
of Christ: for then Christ was embalmed with myrrh and spices. Fourthly, Luke the abbot says that Christ gathered myrrh when He converted Mary Magdalene during His life, and the thief on the cross, to penance.
Christ descends into the garden of the holy soul, and from it gathers the myrrh of mortification and the spices of virtues, all of which He Himself implanted and grafted into it: for the mortification of the passions must precede the holy life, so that through it the soul may ascend to the other virtues and to perfection. So say Theodoret, Nyssenus, St. Gregory, Justus, and Anselm. Hear St. Gregory: "The beloved gathers myrrh with spices when Christ, having brought His elect to perfection through the mortification of life, cuts him from this life and leads him with a holy reputation to the heavenly storehouse."
Again Justus of Urgel: "The devout soul is invited," he says, "to the garden of Christ's passion," so that she may read it, ruminate upon it, meditate upon it, and through mortification, both active and passive — namely through the endurance of persecutions and tribulations — imitate it, and represent it in her body, according to Paul's words: "Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in our bodies," 2 Corinthians 4:10.
To this Richard of St. Victor adds his explanation, as if to say: "O bride, you have undergone the affliction of penance, the fight, the temptation, the labor of correcting your ways, and you have come to the harvest of the perfection of virtues, from a laborious life to the more tranquil state of contemplation. I have therefore reaped in you myrrh with spices, because together with the bitterness of labors, the spices of virtues have been prepared and perfected in you, and with the keeping of the commandments, wisdom has advanced. For when carnality and one's own will have been mortified, then the spices of virtues flow, and through the consummation and triumph of this labor one reaches the summit of perfection. Christ reaps the myrrh when He brings to completion in the soul the aforementioned labors by which she attains to virtues and perfection, and He sweetly strengthens her, so that she does with delight what she formerly dreaded, as is read in Job."
Morally, learn here that mortification, tribulations, and afflictions are the banquets and delights of Christ; therefore the Christian soul should not shrink from them but, following Christ's example, should seek and hunger for them, and exult and feast in them: for this is the cup of the passion, which Christ thirsted for and ardently desired to drink, who accordingly gave this moral teaching to St. Catherine of Siena: "Embrace bitter things as sweet, and sweet things as bitter." For this reason Honorius tropologically teaches that the soul is then invited by Christ when she diligently imitates Christ and keeps His commandments; she reaps myrrh when she mortifies her members and crucifies herself to vices and concupiscences; she reaps the other spices when she accumulates the other virtues; she eats the honeycomb with honey when she is meek and mild in conduct and conversation; likewise when, having attained understanding of Sacred Scripture, she elucidates it for others; she drinks wine with milk when, nourished on the wine of wisdom and the milk of doctrine, she nourishes others; she is inebriated with these when she is filled not with new wine but with the Holy Spirit. So says Honorius.
Repeat here what I said about her in the preceding half-verse, to which add that she herself, and Christ in her, reaped myrrh when she stood beside Christ crucified and dying, and when she continually ruminated in her heart, preserving throughout her whole life His sorrows and torments. Hence she could say with Naomi, Ruth 1:20: "Do not call me Naomi, that is, beautiful: but call me Mara, that is, bitter, because the Almighty has filled me exceedingly with bitterness." Mary therefore was mara, that is, bitter, indeed mor, that is, the myrrh of death, and a sea of bitterness and sorrows; hence some give this as the etymology of her name, and certainly it alludes to that name. Hear Rupert, in On Christ and the Virgin, explaining these things and noting here the four principal mysteries of His life: "For by descending into your womb, and assuming flesh, so that I might be born as true man who was true God, I came into My garden; by dying and descending to the underworld, to return with all My saints and elect who had been awaiting Me from the beginning of the world, I gathered My myrrh with My spices; by rising again, I ate the honeycomb with My honey; by ascending into heaven, I drank My wine with My milk."
I Have Eaten the Honeycomb with my Honey, I Have Drunk my Wine with my Milk.
I HAVE EATEN THE HONEYCOMB WITH MY HONEY. — In Hebrew iari, that is, my honeycomb; Symmachus: I have fed upon my forest, for iaar also signifies a forest; the Syriac translates honeycomb as sweetness: for the honeycomb is made of honey, and therefore most sweet; the Septuagint and Arabic translate honeycomb as bread, namely a cake or a honey-cake; St. Ambrose, in On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, last chapter, reads: "I have eaten my food with my honey." So Ezekiel 16:13. The Bridegroom says the bride ate fine flour and honey, that is, fine flour sweetened with honey: for wedding feasts are usually seasoned with confections and delicacies, to entice the bride's affection. Moreover, the honeycomb is said to be eaten when the honey contained in it is sucked out: for the wax, which properly constitutes the honeycomb, cannot be eaten. "I have therefore eaten the honeycomb with my honey," that is, I have eaten a honeycomb not empty but full of honey, and from it I have sucked out my honey.
"The Lord Jesus Christ," he says, "is Himself both the guest and the banquet; Himself the one eating, and He who is eaten." And Christ experienced the fruit of the sacrament, namely a new actual delight of spiritual sweetness, though not an increase of grace: for this, being in Him at its summit, could not be increased, as St. Thomas teaches, III part, Question 81, article 1, reply to objection 3.
Moreover, the body of Christ in the Eucharist is rightly called a honeycomb. First, because just as the honeycomb contains honey, so the body of Christ contains His soul, says Honorius, and His divinity, which is most sweet, like honey; because it is full of every good, joy, and happiness, which it communicates to creatures, especially to those who devoutly receive the sacred synaxis. Secondly, just as the honeycomb is made by bees, which are virgins, from flowers in the hive, so the Blessed Virgin formed the body of Christ in her womb from her purest blood, with the Holy Spirit working. Hence the Septuagint and Arabic translate honeycomb as bread, because Christ imparts His flesh to us under the species of bread. Thirdly, just as honey is supremely sweet to the mouth and stomach, so the Eucharist instills a wonderful consolation and spiritual delight, and, as the Syriac translates, sweetness. Thus Nyssenus, Psellus, Philo, Rupert here, and St. Ambrose, book 5 of On the Sacraments, chapter 3, explain this passage of the Eucharist. For reading with the Septuagint, "I have eaten bread with my honey," he says: "Do you see that in this bread there is no bitterness, but all sweetness? Do you see that such is the joy that is polluted by the stains of no sin? For as often as you drink, you receive the remission of sins, and you are inebriated with the Spirit." For this reason, in ancient times the Eucharist was given to the newly baptized, and then milk and honey, so as to represent to them the sweetness of Christ and of the Christian law, as I said above.
I HAVE DRUNK MY WINE WITH MY MILK. — That is, I have drunk with the apostles, indeed I drank before them, and gave them the example of devoutly drinking My blood latent in the Eucharist under the species of wine. "With My milk": the milk is the divinity of the Word hidden under the blood, and its richness and sweetness, and the most sweet doctrine, grace, inspiration, and consolation, by which He nourishes, enriches, and gladdens the soul in spirit. For just as milk flows from the breast of a mother, so the Word proceeds from the generative power of the Father, as from a breast, to nurse, teach, and feed mankind. So says Clement of Alexandria, book 1 of the Pedagogue, chapter 6, who confirms this from 1 Peter 2:1, where for "rational milk," the Greek is logikon gala, by which Clement understands "verbal milk," that is, milk which is the Word itself of the eternal Father. Hence he reads thus: "As newborn infants, desire the verbal milk, that you may grow thereby unto salvation, if you have tasted that Christ is the Lord," that is, God. As if to say: Desire to drink the blood of Christ in the Eucharist, so that together with it you may drink the Word Himself and His divinity, as divine milk; so it will come about that you grow in grace, which will lead you to salvation and glory — if indeed you have tasted, that is,
by the internal taste of the soul from the very sweetness of the Eucharist, and from the inpouring of Christ into the soul, you have known that Christ is God. Clement adds that milk signifies the blood of Christ; for milk is nothing other than blood that has been concocted, rendered white and sweet, and most suitable for nourishing. St. Augustine, however, in Psalm 33, discourse 1, teaches that the Word is the bread of angels, which in itself pure and unmixed feeds the angels; but this bread, by its external appearance, seems changed into flesh, when the Word was made flesh; and the flesh into milk, when, in order to nurse mankind as little children, and to nourish them like milk, He put on the white and, as it were, milky species of unleavened bread in the Eucharist: "Just as," he says, "because the infant is less fit to eat bread, the mother incarnates the bread (that is, by eating and digesting it, she converts it into flesh by the force of natural heat), and through the moisture of the breast and the juice of milk, she feeds the infant from that very bread" — namely with milk, into which she converts the bread. Moreover, Christ at the Last Supper personally drank this wine with milk, because He Himself was the first to receive the Eucharist under the species of both wine and bread; mystically, however, He drinks the same daily in the faithful who devoutly communicate: for they are His members, as He Himself says in Matthew 25. Therefore what they drink, Christ Himself, who is their head, seems to drink.
Symbolically, the honeycomb with honey denotes religious persons dedicated to prayer and contemplation (for this is to them like the most sweet heavenly honey): for they hide in their cells like bees in honeycombs, and there they make honey, and produce the honey-like fruits of charity, prayer, patience, etc. Wine denotes courageous men burning with zeal for God, who chastise vices and instill in all the love of virtue and of God; milk denotes men of a pure, simple, and innocent life, as St. Gregory teaches. Hence Homer also calls just men galaktophagous, that is, milk-eaters, says Clement, book 1 of the Pedagogue, chapter 6. In support of this,
the Chaldean, who holds that God ate the honeycomb and drank the wine when He consumed and, as it were, devoured the holocausts, which were like the food of God, with heavenly fire: "I sent," he says, "fire from heaven, which consumed the holocausts and sacrificed victims; the libation of red wine and white wine, which the priests poured upon my altar, was voluntarily received before me."
Anagogically, Rupert understands by myrrh the passion and death of Christ, by the honeycomb the resurrection, by the wine the ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit, as if Christ were saying: After death I rose again, and appearing to the disciples I ate a honeycomb and a piece of roasted fish. "I drank wine with my milk," that is, I was gladdened with the joy of the ascension, which brought me forgetfulness of all past labors; likewise I gave the apostles the Holy Spirit, who is one and the same both my wine and my milk: my wine, because He is joy from present goods; my milk, because He is consolation from past evils. My wine, because He is the love
of God; my milk, because He is the love of neighbor. St. Athanasius in his Synopsis understands by milk the works of Christ's humanity, just as by wine the works of His divinity: "Although," he says, "He admitted the food of milk to His body — namely the incarnate Word — nevertheless He also bestowed upon it the wine of His perfection: for just as He ate milk, so also He accomplished the works of divinity in it."
Christ eats in the holy soul, as in His garden and paradise, the honeycomb with honey — when He feeds and delights upon her spiritual delights and consolations, which He sends to her when she is placed in prayer or tribulation or martyrdom, for her solace and strength, especially in the sacred synaxis. For with these, as with honey, He sweetens all the bitterness of tribulation: for the delights and consolations of the saints belong to Christ, who is their head and bridegroom. Hence Christ "tasted honeycombs after the bile," says Tertullian, in On the Soldier's Crown, chapter 14 — when after the gall offered to Him on the cross, gloriously rising, He ate the honeycomb offered to Him by the apostles, so that by this act He might symbolically teach and encourage martyrs and those who suffer to constancy, by considering and hoping that, just as Christ, so they too would taste honeycombs and honey after the gall.
Again, Christ eats the honeycomb with honey when He delights in and feeds upon the holy works of His faithful, and especially their almsgiving, which is, as it were, like honey and instills honey upon the needy. So says Nyssenus, homily 10, where he adds that milk signifies the pure intention required in giving alms. So also Theodoret, the three Anonymous authors, and Richard of St. Victor, whom hear: "He ate the honeycomb with my honey," that is, He feeds upon the sweetness of good morals which the soul has within; He is refreshed by honey when someone does good works: for honey is indeed the outward action that is displayed externally. Christ also eats wine and milk in the soul when He rejoices and delights in her twofold contemplation — namely, of His divinity and of His glorified humanity, which are designated by wine and milk. But the soul herself likewise eats and drinks the same; however, she first eats the honeycomb and honey, and afterward drinks the wine and milk, because it is necessary that amended morals and worthy action precede before the grace of contemplation is granted: for the eyes of the heart must first be purified, that God may be seen.
Moreover, St. Ambrose, in On the Good of Death, chapter 5, understands by the honeycomb, wine, and milk the gentle, sharp, and candid words by which the conscience of a sinner is soothed, struck, and pricked by a superior, a preacher, or a devout man, and, as it were, inebriated with wine, according to Proverbs 16:24: "Pleasant words are a honeycomb: sweetness to the soul, and health to the bones."
Symbolically, Cassiodorus understands by the honeycomb and wine the preachers, because they instill into others the sweet but ardent words of Sacred Scripture; by honey and milk he understands the hearers, who receive them with a honeyed and milky heart. For Christ feeds and delights upon both: for just as the honeycomb contains honey, and wine contains hot spirits which it breathes into the drinker, so Sacred Scripture contains divine doctrine sweeter than honey and hotter than wine.
Anagogically, St. Gregory takes these things as referring to the saints, whom Christ, as it were, eats while He enjoys them in heaven: "He eats the honeycomb with honey," he says, "when He brings to perfection the holy desire hidden in holy works, and sends the holy soul to the banquet of the saints to be enriched with His delight. He drinks His wine with milk when He refreshes Himself with the perfection of some and, lovingly cherishing the innocence of others with piety, brings both to the eternal banquet." Cassiodorus and Bede, however, understand by wine the saints insofar as their souls enjoy the vision of God; by the honeycomb, those who are blessed both in body and in soul, as are the patriarchs who rose with Christ and ascended gloriously into heaven: for just as the honeycomb contains honey, so the glorified body contains the glorified soul. Christ eats both kinds of saints when He associates them with His body, that is, with the Church Triumphant exulting in heavenly glory. Finally, some attribute eating to those who meditate, who by meditating, as by chewing, taste and savor divine things; but drinking to the contemplatives, who by contemplating at once absorb and imbibe divine things as if by drinking.
Christ ate honey in the Blessed Virgin, and drank wine with milk: first, when as a child He was nourished on her maternal milk and honey, according to Isaiah 7:15: "He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" — see the commentary there. Secondly, when He enjoyed the most sweet conversation, holiness, and charity of the Blessed Virgin His mother until His thirtieth year. Thirdly, when He delighted in her interior purity, devotion, faith, hope, love, and other virtues, which were more than angelic and seraphic. Fourthly, when in heaven He continually enjoys her glorious humanity elevated above all the choirs of angels, even to the throne of the Most Holy Trinity, and will enjoy it forever.
Eat, O Friends, and Drink, and Be Inebriated, Dearest Ones.
Just as a friend full of joy and, as it were, intoxicated, pours out his overflowing joy into the bosom of his friend, so the Bridegroom here, as if intoxicated with the delights of honey and wine, invites his friends to the same.
I HAVE DRUNK MY WINE WITH MY MILK. — For "milk" the Arabic translates "honey," for honey or sugar is usually mixed with harsh and austere wine to sweeten it. But in villas and gardens, where there is an abundance of milk, guests drink now milk, now wine; hence the old French proverb: Vin sur lait fait souhait: Lait sur vin, c'est venin — that is, wine after milk I desire; milk after wine is poison. He alludes to the banquets of villas and gardens, at which toward the end of the meal desserts and sweets are served, such as cakes made with honey, indeed whole honeycombs, likewise milk prepared in various ways and forms, whether liquid or thickened and made into cheese.
Moreover, it seems far-fetched that some rabbis, according to Aben-Ezra, understand by milk white wine, and by wine red wine; following whom the Chaldean translates: "There was received," he says, "before me the libation of old and red wine, and of white wine." For Alexander of Alexandria, book 5, Genial Days, chapter 8, teaches that milk was sometimes called wine: "When in the sacred rites of the Good Goddess," he says, "wine was used in libation, they did not call it by its own name, but said it was milk; nevertheless they set out an amphora of wine, wrapped up, in the sacred rites, which they called mellaria" — hence also the saying: wine is the milk of old men. But the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the rest consistently have milk, not wine. Moreover, Clement of Alexandria, book 1 of the Pedagogue, chapter 6, teaches that sweet wine was usually mixed with milk, and that this mixture is pleasant and beneficial: for wine adds tartness to the sweetness of milk, while milk nourishes supremely, as physicians teach and is evident in children. Hear Clement: "Milk is also mixed with sweet wine; and the sweet mixture is as a blending tempered toward incorruption: for milk curdles and separates from wine; and whatever is adulterated in it is, as it were, expelled through a conduit. In the same way, the fellowship of spiritual faith (especially in the Eucharist) relates to the passible man (one subject to passions): for by curdling carnal concupiscences, it draws man toward immortality, rendering him immortal by divine things." "I drank therefore wine with my milk," that is, I drank wine and also drank milk, or I drank wine with the milk I had eaten before, so that I might temper and digest the coldness of the milk with the warmth of the wine.
I HAVE EATEN THE HONEYCOMB WITH MY HONEY. — Christ, after the myrrh — that is, the penance and baptism of the faithful — ate the honeycomb with honey in the Eucharist, in which He left His body for us to eat; indeed, He Himself was the first to eat it with the apostles at the institution of the Eucharist, so as to give the apostles and the faithful an example of eating it and devoutly communicating, as St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Euthymius, Bede, and others teach on Matthew 26, and St. Jerome, question 2 to Hedibia.
BE INEBRIATED. — That is, be satisfied and gladdened, but within the limits of temperance, short of the derangement of mind that properly so-called drunkenness produces. So Joseph inebriated his brothers, that is, satisfied and gladdened them with abundant wine, Genesis 43:34. So of the saints it is said, Psalm 35:9: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of your house: and you shall make them drink of the torrent of your pleasure." So the Apostles, having received the Holy Spirit, seemed drunk with new wine — not of wine, but of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2:13.
DEAREST ONES. — For "dearest ones" the Hebrew has dodim, that is, loves — that is, the supremely beloved, and as if nursed at the breast. The Septuagint translates "brothers"; Symmachus, "brotherly" or "cousins"; Aquila, "companions"; the Syriac and Arabic, "uncle's sons"; St. Ambrose, in On Cain and Abel, chapter 5, "fathers." Dodim could also be taken in the ablative, so that you translate: "Be inebriated with loves or with breasts," as if to say: Be inebriated with the wine, honey, and milk which the bridegroom and bride offer you with bountiful and supreme love. So it is said of the bride, Proverbs 5:19: "Let her breasts inebriate you at all times"; others translate: "Let her loves inebriate you." And chapter 7:18: "Come, let us be inebriated with breasts (others: with loves), and let us enjoy the desired embraces." For dodim signifies both. See what was said there — although it seems truer to me that dodim signifies loves, while daddim signifies breasts, as I said in chapter 1, verse 4.
First, Cassiodorus, Honorius, Bede, Sanchez, and others understand by "friends and dearest ones" the angels, as though Christ here invites them to rejoice with Him and, as it were, feast together over the progress, grace, and glory of His saints, and to cooperate with Him wholeheartedly, so as to draw them, as it were, into their own bosom, as their brothers and co-heirs.
Secondly, Philo Carpathius understands by "friends" the patriarchs and prophets, who learned much about the passion and death of Christ by divine revelation, so that they seem to have drunk of His doctrine; by "dearest ones" he understands the apostles, because, being as it were inebriated with the spirit of Christ on the day of Pentecost, they proclaimed the mighty works of God. Justus of Urgel and Anselm join this view, understanding by "friends and dearest ones" doctors and preachers, who consume sins and sinners when they convert them to Christ — at which conversion they so rejoice and are, as it were, inebriated with joy, that they forget all the sorrows and labors they endured in the process of conversion.
Thirdly, more plainly and fully, St. Gregory and others understand by "friends and dearest ones" all the faithful and just, who are first here invited by Christ to the synaxis of the Holy Eucharist: for it, with its spiritual taste and sweetness, as it were inebriates the soul, so that, forgetful of all things, she thinks of and loves none but Christ. But before this tasting of wine and honey in the Eucharist, it is necessary to send ahead the myrrh, that is, mortification, penance, and confession of sins, especially mortal sins, as the Council of Trent defines, session 13, chapter 7. Hence He first said "I have gathered my myrrh." So say Nyssenus, Philo, Rupert, and others.
Hear St. Cyprian, letter 64 to Caecilius: "Indeed the inebriation of the Lord's chalice and blood is not such as the inebriation of secular wine. When the Holy Spirit said in the Psalm, Psalm 22:5: 'Your inebriating cup,' He added: 'How excellent it is!' — meaning that the Lord's cup so inebriates its drinkers as to make them sober, to lead their minds to spiritual wisdom, to make each one return from this worldly taste to the understanding of God. And just as with ordinary wine the mind is loosened, the soul relaxed, and all sadness set aside, so by drinking the blood of the Lord and the cup of salvation, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there comes forgetfulness of one's former worldly way of life, and the sorrowful and sad breast, which was formerly weighed down by oppressive sins, is dissolved by the joy of divine pardon." Spiritual inebriation, therefore, which the sacred synaxis induces, is an estrangement of the mind from the love of the flesh and the world, from the cares and anxieties of this age, and its translation and ecstasy toward loving heavenly things, so that, clinging to and united with Christ alone, it loves crosses and thirsts to suffer much with Him for the love of God. "This inebriation," says St. Ambrose, book 1 of On Cain and Abel, chapter 5, "makes one sober; this inebriation belongs to grace, not to drunkenness; it produces joy, not staggering." And St. Bernard, treatise On Loving God: "That sober inebriation," he says, "gorging on truth, not on unmixed wine; not soaked in wine, but burning with God." I have explained this inebriation at length in Acts 2:15, on the words "they are full of new wine," where I reviewed eight analogies between spiritual and bodily inebriation. To this pertains the Chaldean version, which in Jewish fashion takes these things as referring to the eating of victims, which were a type of the Eucharist: "Now," he says, "come, O priests who love my precepts, and eat what is left of the offerings, and delight in the good things that are prepared for you."
Hence mystics and contemplatives apply these things to spiritual inebriation, by which the contemplative, as our Salianus says in On the Love of God, when God floods into his heart, is drenched with such a torrent of pleasure that he cannot contain himself, but is compelled by unusual movements and gestures to reveal the immense force of interior delight. For in this preliminary union with God, the heart is inflamed by so sharp a stimulus of divine love and desire for divine fruition, and with its pores opened, as if to receive God, is so distended that the breast seems too narrow for it. From this the flame of love, which is fed and strengthened there by pleasure as by oil, bursts forth violently outward, like bubbling new wine by which new wineskins are burst. This seems to have happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, when the Jews thought those whom the Spirit had filled were soaked with new wine.
Hence those songs, groans, and formless sounds, indeed also the clapping, leaping, and running, which we read about in certain holy disciples of Blessed Francis, movements which should be attributed to the divine Spirit stirring them rather than to any natural animation. Such also occurred in St. Francis himself, when he received from God the revelation of his predestination: for then, clapping his hands, stamping his feet, and dancing with his whole body, he so exulted with joy that he was considered by the bystanders to be drunk, indeed out of his mind and beside himself.
Anagogically, the saints are here invited to the banquet of heavenly glory and felicity, which is rightly called a honeycomb and wine, because in it the immense sweetness and delight of the divine essence is perceived, tasted, indeed penetrated — and that without any veil or intermediary, so that the blessed are plainly overwhelmed, absorbed,
and inebriated, according to that Psalm 35:9: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Your house: and You shall make them drink of the torrent of Your pleasure." So says St. Bernard, sermon On the Aqueduct for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.
Christ invites all the angels and saints to the garden and paradise of all delights — namely of spiritual wine, honey, and milk, that is, of all consolation, grace, and glory — which He planted in the soul of the Blessed Virgin, so that they might feed upon and be inebriated with these things, and incorporate them through meditation and imitation as food, and take them into the stomach of the mind. Those therefore who are devoted to the Blessed Virgin, through her intercession and imitation, produce the myrrh of mortification, the spices of piety and prayer, the honeycombs of devotion and charity, the milk of integrity, and the wine of fortitude in the service of God, overcoming and transcending all things however hard and arduous.
Fourth Part of the Drama, or Fourth Part of the Book, in Which is Described the Decline and Falling Away of the Church, that Is, of the Faithful.
For just as in the first part, from chapter 1 to chapter 2, verse 8, he described the infancy of the Church; and in the second part, from chapter 2, verse 8, to chapter 3, verse 6, he described the adolescence of the Church; and then from there to chapter 5, verse 2 — that is, up to this point — as a third part, he described her perfection and, as it were, her manly age; so now from this verse to chapter 6, verse 3, he depicts the decline and, as it were, the old age of the Church as she grows old. The Church began to suffer this after the time of Constantine, when, with full peace given to the Church by him, and its right and dominion propagated throughout the entire world, the luxury and ambition of many powerful men began, which tore the Church apart into various heresies and schisms. The result was that they and the other faithful fell away into sloth, gluttony, lust, and other vices. The beginning of the evil was Arius, who drew most of the bishops to his opinion, so much so that at the Council of Rimini the condemnation of the Homoousios and of the Nicene Synod was acclaimed through the fraud of the Arian bishops Valens and Ursacius, and virtually the whole world, says St. Jerome, was amazed to find itself Arian. The origin of the evil was the negligence, avarice, and pride of certain prelates. For while men slept, the enemy (the devil) came and sowed weeds in the midst of the wheat, Matthew 13:25. Hence at that time most of the faithful, given over to pleasures, defiled the Church with their gluttony, lust, and wickedness; yet the sounder part of the Church persisted in faith and holiness. So says Cosmas Damianus.
Voice of the Bride. Verse 2. I Sleep, and my Heart Watches: the Voice of my Beloved Knocking: Open to Me, my Sister, my Love, my Dove, my Undefiled: for my Head is Full of Dew, and my Locks with the Drops of the Night.
I SLEEP, AND MY HEART WATCHES. — The Hebrew reads: "I sleeping and my heart watching," that is, as an anonymous rabbi translates, "I was sleeping, and my heart was watching." For it represents a past event as present, as is usually done on the stage, as if to say: Behold, I sleep, that is, I was sleeping, etc., when at once the voice of the beloved knocking sounded. For the bride here narrates (as Nyssenus and St. Ambrose, in On Isaac and the Soul, rightly teach) — having awoken in the morning — to her young companions her nocturnal dream, or what happened to her after the previous evening's feast with the bridegroom in the garden, as she went to bed at night: namely, that while she was sleeping the bridegroom came and knocked, and while she lingered lazily and delayed in opening, the bridegroom, offended by this laziness and discourtesy, went away elsewhere. Therefore she paid just penalties for her sloth when, finally rising from bed, she long sought him in vain, and was punished by the watchmen of the city and deprived of her mantle. Moreover, our Sanchez by a hyperbaton begins from here the sequence of the drama of the entire Song of Songs; for the bride, searching and groaning, said: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth." Hence what is said here seems to be the same as what was said in chapter 3, verse 1, and chapter 1, verse 6.
But this hyperbaton seems rather forced and inverts the whole sequence of the drama, as I said at the beginning.
First, R. Salomon refers "I sleep" to the bride, but "my heart watches" to the bridegroom, as if to say: While I the bride sleep, the bridegroom, who is my heart, watches and vigilantly looks after my salvation. For lovers are accustomed to call each other "my heart, my soul, my life," because they love each other as their own heart, as their own life and soul. Hence gather how securely the soul united and betrothed to God rests in Him, and with what joys of spirit she exults, inasmuch as she has placed her heart in the divine, and the divine in her heart. But simply and genuinely both apply to the bride, as if to say: After the feast I was sleeping at night, but my heart, that is, my imagination and my mind, was watching, because always my heart, that is, my fancy and my mind, burned with love, desire, and memory of the bridegroom. Therefore this sleep of mine was light, and so while sleeping I was not sleeping, but watching, that is, I was thinking or dreaming about the bridegroom. For those who sleep soundly and peacefully do not dream, as Aristotle teaches in Problems, section 12, number 13. Hence Climacus, step 30: "I," he says, "sleep because of the necessity of nature, but my heart watches because of the abundance of love." Secondly, St. Gregory, Philo, Luke, and St. Ambrose, book 3 of On Virgins, who reads "I slept, and my heart watches," consider these to be the words of the bridegroom, and attribute both — namely the sleeping and the watching — to him. Thirdly and genuinely, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Nyssenus, Bede, Honorius, and the rest consider these to be the words of the bride, and assign everything to her — namely they say she slept, but lightly, always thinking and dreaming of the bridegroom. For sleep is broken by dreaming, so that one sleeping, or rather dreaming, seems to be watching rather than sleeping, according to the saying: "Dreams are the vigils of those who sleep; but hopes are the dreams of those who are awake" — which Aelian, book 13 of Miscellaneous History, attributes to Plato, while Laertius, book 5, chapter 1, attributes it to Aristotle. The Church slept, that is, she enjoyed full peace in the time of Constantine, but she watched in her heart, that is, applying herself to reason, love, and contemplation, she dealt with God.
Honorius of Autun expresses the sense of this passage more genuinely and in detail than others: "Up to this point," he says, "the fullness of the Gentiles has entered; from here to the entry of the Synagogue is noted the time of the Church's peace. And so, with the banquet of the victors finished, the queen went to sleep, saying to the guards of her chamber: If the king seeks me, tell him: 'I sleep, and my heart watches, to receive him.' It was as though the Church had a great banquet with the victors, when the Church held the great Council with the confessors in the city of Nicaea, at which the various courses were the diverse chapters of the Scriptures. When it was finished, she went to sleep, because there every heresy was condemned, persecution ceased, the quiet of peace returned, and the Church withdrew from the cares of the world, instituted the divine offices, and devoted herself to divine contemplation. She now says to imperfect people still gaping at earthly things: By my example, set aside earthly things and seek heavenly ones; just as I sleep, that is, I rest from the business and cares of the world, and my heart watches in meditation on Scripture and in contemplation of eternal life, to receive lasting goods. While the queen slept, dissension arose among the soldiers — born not from enemies, but from idleness. As it increased, the king rouses the queen, warns her to rise and quell the tumult of the soldiers. That is, while the Church rested in contemplation, many vices arose among the faithful — new heresies, discords, sects, schisms, and much else. Hence Christ warned her through the Scriptures to intermit the quiet of contemplation and to calm the tumult of vices by exhorting and correcting."
Again, Cosmas Damianus understands the sleeping as the sloth, idleness, and luxury of the pastors and prelates of the Church, which was the reason she declined, as if growing old, from her first fervor and splendor. Christ the Bridegroom, he says, when He went to heaven, forbade idleness and luxury to me, His bride the Church — that is, to the pastors of the Church. He enjoined the evangelical function and the care of the poor; He commanded sober watching, and anxious observance of the hour at which He Himself would return. But I, having cast off the evangelical function, now waste away in idleness and luxury; I defraud the household of my bridegroom, committed to my faith, of its provisions. Nor do I any longer care that some perish consumed by hunger and cold, others raging with hatreds and civil wars destroy one another, still others, shrouded in the darkness of ignorance, are carried headlong into heresies and the abyss of all vices — while I daily clothe myself in purple and fine linen, gleam with gold and gems, dine sumptuously, sup more sumptuously still, bathe while still full, and from the baths, perfumed and anointed, retire to soft bedding, and there with the door closed, not waiting for my bridegroom Christ (just as the adulterous Synagogue once slept, having shamefully repelled and excluded her own bridegroom), I sink into sleep, and never see the rising sun. But what is this other than, having set aside the garments and shoes of the Gospel, to sleep and pass life in luxury and sleep, after the manner of the Synagogue? But in truth the conscience of my sloth, negligence, and luxury watches perpetually as a witness: it strongly accuses me, condemns me, and, like sleepless anxiety, terrifies me. Indeed I dread above all the name and majesty of my bridegroom, whom I seem to hear at night knocking at the door of my heart and crying out to me: Open to me, my sister.
To this applies the saying of St. Gregory, part 3 of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 6: "The sluggard watches by thinking rightly, although he is torpid by doing nothing."
Moreover, St. Gregory explains this aphorism about Christ the Bridegroom as follows: "The bridegroom sleeps," he says, "and his heart watches, because while Christ, now glorified, rests in blessedness, whoever perfectly loves Him (for this is the heart of Christ) labors to reach Him." Psellus and Philo Carpathius say that Christ slept in death, yet watched by His divinity, protecting the apostles and His faithful, and, as Philo says, despoiling the underworld. Hence prelates should learn morally that even when they are occupied with other affairs, and even when they sleep, they should nevertheless watch over and guard their flock in their mind, lest some wolf or wild beast attack it.
To this pertains the Chaldean version, which explains these things of the watching rod, Jeremiah 1:11, that is, of the avenging vigilance of God, to chastise the Jews by the Chaldeans: "After all these words," he says, "the people of the house of Israel sinned; the Lord delivered them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and brought them into captivity, and they were like in captivity to a sleeping man who cannot awaken from his sleep; and the voice of the Holy Spirit admonished them through the hands of the prophets, and roused them from the sleep of their hearts."
The holy soul, mystically sleeping, watches in her heart when, free from concupiscences and worldly cares, she vigilantly attends to God alone and to His love and worship. So St. Ambrose, Exhortation to Virgins, near the middle: "Let your flesh sleep," he says, "let faith be awake; let the enticements of the body sleep, let the prudence of the heart watch; let your members bear the fragrance of the cross of Christ and the odor of His burial, so that sleep may infuse no heat into them, nor stir up any movements." And St. Gregory, book 5 of the Morals, chapter 22: "I sleep," he says, "and my heart watches, because the holy mind, the more it restrains itself from the noise of temporal concupiscence, the more truly it knows interior things; and the more eagerly it watches toward the innermost things, the more it hides itself from outward disturbance. This is well figured by Jacob sleeping on his journey, who placed a stone at his head and fell asleep: he saw a ladder from earth reaching to heaven, God leaning upon the ladder, and angels ascending and descending," Genesis 28:12-13. And after many intervening words, explaining this vigil of the sleeping soul: "The saints," he says, "are lulled from worldly works not by torpor but by virtue; they sleep more laboriously than they could have been awake, because in overcoming the actions of this world by abandoning them, they fight daily against themselves in vigorous conflict, lest the mind grow torpid through negligence, lest, subdued by idleness, it grow cold with impure desires, lest in those very desires it burn more than is just, lest under the appearance of discretion it grow faint from perfection by sparing itself. The soul does this and completely withdraws herself from restless concupiscence of this kind, abandons the noise of earthly actions, and by the pursuit of quiet, intent upon virtues, sleeps watching. For one is not brought to contemplate interior things unless one is studiously withdrawn from those things that entangle outwardly, according to Psalm 45:11: 'Be still, and see that I am God.'"
Again, some understand by sleep here an ecstasy, such as was Adam's sleep, Genesis 2:21: for ecstatics, with their senses lulled, as it were sleep and are wholly rapt to contemplate divine things. So Sotomajor. "This vital and watchful slumber illuminates the interior sense: it is truly a sleep, yet one that does not lull the sense but draws it away," says St. Bernard, sermon 52. "Does not lull," that is, does not extinguish, as fire is quenched when water is thrown upon it. Hence John the Carmelite explains thus: "I sleep, and my heart watches": I scarcely exercise my external life through my senses; but my will, gaping for the bridegroom, watches. Literally, the sleeping soul watches when she so fills herself during the day with holy meditations, affections, and loves, that at night she dreams about the same things — indeed, while sleeping, she repeats them, as St. Francis Xavier used to do. For what we studiously think about while awake, we dream about while asleep: the images of daytime thoughts recur in sleep, just as from the striking of a lyre there results a resonance of tinkling strings, which is heard even when the striking has ceased. Hence Claudian, in On the Rape of Proserpina, book 3, sings:
All the desires that the senses revolve during the day, Friendly rest returns to the slumbering breast.
Therefore it is a sign of perfect virtue to dream about virtue and to exercise it, as it were, while dreaming. Hence Aristotle, book 1 of the Ethics, chapter 13, says: "The visions of the virtuous are better than those of others." And Plutarch, in On Progress in Virtue, among other signs of progress in virtue, assigns this one: "If a person suffers no foul or quarrelsome fantasies at night." Hence Cassian, Climacus, and others teach that the perfect and, as it were, highest degree of chastity is if one dreams nothing impure, but everything pure and holy. Hear Climacus, step 15: "He is chaste who in sleep feels no movement and no change of his state. He is chaste who even in sleep has always possessed perfect insensibility amid the appearance and variety of bodies." This rule is the goal of perfect and consummate chastity: that we regard living beings as if they were lifeless, and that we be affected by rational bodies no differently than by those of brute animals. Let Lawrence Justinian be heard, in The Tree of Life, treatise On Continence, chapter 6: "The sixth (last and highest) degree of chastity is that one not be mocked even in sleep by alluring fantasies of women: for although this deception should not be believed to be sinful, it is nevertheless a sign deep within of concupiscence still lurking." Therefore let the truly chaste person say: "I sleep, and my heart watches," that is, my body sleeps in such a way that it has a guardian of its purity.
"My heart watches: that virtue which by God's gift, after many groans and petitions, I have received — that which is dear to my heart, and which I love no differently than my own heart — watches over me and girds me against the fears of the night. Or: my heart watches, that is, the Spirit of the Lord, by whom as by a heart I am quickened and warmed, watches while I sleep, so that in sleep I may not suffer impure things, but may accomplish something similar to what I am accustomed to do while awake." "For, as St. Ambrose says, book 3, letter to Anisius, the sleep of the saints is a holiday from all bodily pleasures, from all disturbance of soul, bringing tranquility to the mind and peace to the soul, so that, as though freed from the bond of the body, it may uplift itself and cling to Christ." I have said more on this subject in Deuteronomy 6:7, on the words: "You shall meditate on them, etc., sleeping and rising."
Moreover, St. Augustine, tract 57 on John, teaches that those devoted to wisdom sleep and watch in their heart: "What does it mean," he says, "'I sleep, and my heart watches,' unless: I rest in such a way that I may hear? My leisure is not spent in nourishing sloth, but in acquiring wisdom. 'I sleep, and my heart watches': I am at rest and see that You are the Lord, because I write wisdom in the time of leisure, and he who is diminished in activity will himself receive it. 'I sleep, and my heart watches': I rest from busy activities, and my spirit attends to divine affections. But while those who in this manner sweetly and humbly rest, while the Church is pleasantly at leisure — behold, He knocks who says, Matthew 10:27: 'What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops.'"
Tropologically, Theodoret says: "Although," he says, "I am compelled by nature to close my eyes and take sleep, yet I watch in my mind and in no way welcome the sleep of sloth, since I await the coming of the bridegroom, according to the counsel of the Lord who says, Matthew 24:42: 'Watch, for you know not at what hour your Lord will come.'"
Anagogically, Justus of Urgel explains it thus, as if to say: "I am prepared to die for Christ, but after death I believe I will reign with Him. Therefore, even while resting from temporal delights, with my senses, as it were, lulled to sleep, I seek future things and pursue eternal ones."
The Blessed Virgin slept, and yet watched in her heart. First, mystically, because being free from worldly cares and as it were slumbering to them, she was wholly intent upon heavenly things. Secondly, because during the day she was carried with such fervor to meditate on divine things and to continual acts of love toward God, that she repeated the same while sleeping and dreaming, indeed her light sleep was frequently interrupted by them, and upon awaking she would pour herself out in these customary ardors of love: therefore her whole life was one continuous and unbroken contemplation. Thirdly, many hold it probable that the Blessed Virgin, with her senses lulled during sleep by a special gift of God, had her mind free and watchful, so that she might elicit free acts and break forth into ardent sighs of prayer and love. For these words, "I sleep, and my heart watches," precisely signify this, which applies properly to none of the faithful as it does to the Blessed Virgin, as Rupert rightly explains: "It has been and is the practice of many souls," he says, "not only to sleep in holy repose according to that likeness — that is, to be free from earthly cares and to watch in heart through contemplation of heavenly things — but also to sleep in body in the same manner as Jacob then slept, and to see heavenly things through the soul during sleep, according to Joel 2:28: 'Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.' But you, O heaven of God, sole seat of the Lord, in both modes of wakefulness you far surpassed all mortals and earthly persons, and you were far more devoted and more apt to contemplate Him into whom the angels desire to gaze." And St. Ambrose, book 2 of On Virgins, speaking of the Blessed Virgin: "To sleep," he says, "was not first a desire, but a necessity. And yet while the body rested, the spirit was awake, which frequently in sleep either revisits what has been read, or continues what sleep interrupted, or carries out what has been planned, or announces what is to be done." And St. Bernardine, volume 2, sermon 51, article 1, chapter 2: "The sleep," he says, "which buries and entombs in us the acts of reason and free will, and consequently the act of meriting — I do not believe that it worked such things in the Virgin; but her soul freely, meritoriously, and actively tended toward God; hence at that time she was a more perfect contemplative than any other person ever was while awake. Hence she herself says, Song of Songs 5:2: 'I sleep, and my heart watches,' namely in perfect contemplation weakened by no action." And Denis the Carthusian here: "This," he says, "the most holy Virgin could preeminently say, because she led the most contemplative life, and completely abstaining and lulled from outward tumult, all inordinate noise and superfluous care, and the restlessness of sin, she attended to God with the most watchful mind, prayed for the Church, and was continually intent upon the most perfect acts of virtue at the summit of excellence. Finally, in bodily sleep her heart was ever watchful — from the constant habituation of perfectly adhering to divine things, from her most ardent and practiced charity, from the most splendid and overflowing wisdom infused into her, and from contemplation in her vigils — almost or entirely continuously, even during the time of sleep, she was with watchful heart united to God, and did not cease to watch over the Church committed to her."
So also Albert the Great, St. Antoninus, and others, whom Francis Suarez cites and follows, III part, Question 37, article 4, disputation 18, section 2, near the end, explain these words of the Blessed Virgin working and loving God in her sleep, and he proves this. First, because Augustine, book 1 Against Julian, chapter 9, teaches that this was granted to Adam and Eve: "The dreams of the sleeping," he says, "were as happy as the life of the waking." Therefore much more was the Blessed Virgin as happy sleeping as waking. Secondly, because from the first instant of their creation the angels were turned toward God and never ceased from His actual love; therefore much more can this be believed of the Blessed Virgin, the queen of angels. Hence St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine, and our Canisius relate that it was revealed to several saints that the Blessed Virgin spent nearly entire nights in prayer and meditation. Thirdly, because the Blessed Virgin was given knowledge infused in itself, which she could use without turning to sense images; therefore even at night, sleeping with her imagination at rest, she could make use of it.
The Voice of my Beloved Knocking: Open to Me, my Sister, my Love, my Dove, my Undefiled.
As if to say: I was sleeping, but watching in my heart — that is, I was thinking in my dream and anxious about the bridegroom — when behold, I hear him knocking at the door and saying to me: "Open, my sister," etc. Here note that the bridegroom knocks at the door of the bride's mind with as many blows as the titles and obligations of love he suggests to her, as if to say: O bride, you are my sister, because by assuming flesh I deigned to become your brother; open therefore to me, your brother. Again, I anticipated you with love, and deigned to honor you with my friendship; open therefore, O friend, to one who so loves you. Moreover, you are my dove, that is, you are most chastely betrothed to me alone, as a dove to her mate, knowing no other male; open therefore to me, your only bridegroom. Finally, you are undefiled (in Hebrew tamma; the Septuagint has teleia, that is, you are perfect); open therefore to me, who am the author, preserver, and promoter of your purity and perfection. For when, as you open, I enter into you through your consent, I wipe away your stains with my purity.
The bride, the Church, had already opened the door of her heart to the bridegroom and given Him her whole heart, as is evident from chapter 2, verse 16: "My beloved to me, and I to him." Yet the bridegroom knocks on it here so that the bride the Church may also open the closed hearts of her neighbors through her preachers with the key of preaching, says Cassiodorus, Bede, Honorius, Justus, Haymo, Richard, Anselm, Rupert, and others.
Moreover, already before, in chapter 2, verse 10, the bridegroom had knocked at the door of the bride, but while she was still a young girl, and had roused her to procure the salvation of the Jews in the primitive Church. But here he knocks at the door of the same bride now grown up under Constantine, and spurs her to procure the conversion of all nations, and especially of heretics and the impious. For under Constantine the Church was enjoying full peace, and therefore many prelates gave themselves to the leisure of holy quiet and contemplation. From that leisure, therefore, Christ here calls them to the business of preaching. So St. Augustine, sermon 57 on John: "I sleep," he says, "and my heart watches: I rest from busy activities, and my spirit attends to divine affections. But while those who in this manner sweetly and humbly rest, while the Church is pleasantly at leisure — behold, He knocks who says, Matthew 10:27: 'What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops.'" And shortly after: "He knocks, therefore, to rouse the holy from their idle quiet, and cries: Open to me — by my blood, my sister; by my coming, my kinswoman; by my Spirit, my dove; by my word, which you have learned more fully in leisure, my perfect one; open to me, preach me! For to those who have shut their doors against me, how shall I enter without someone opening? For how shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14.
Hear Honorius adapting each detail precisely and point by point: "These words signify Christ's solicitude for the negligent and the erring, so that they may be corrected through spiritual persons, and the Church's fervor for contemplation and its reluctance toward the administration of worldly affairs. The voice of Christ knocking at the door of the hearts of the faithful is: O Church, my sister, because through me you are co-heir of the kingdom; my friend, because through me you are privy to heavenly secrets; my dove, through me filled with the Holy Spirit; my undefiled, because through me cleansed from sins — open to me by exhorting the door of the hearts of those who have closed it with the bolt of evil works, and who have become drops of the night, that is, members of demons. And you will be my sister if you make those disinherited through malice into my co-heirs through grace; you will be my friend if you make enemies through perfidy into friends through the constancy of faith; you will be my dove if you make the double-hearted simple; and you will be my undefiled if you make those stained with vices unstained with virtues." He then continues the rest in this manner: "Because my head is full of dew, that is, the faith of my divinity is filled with error, and my locks are full of the drops of the night, that is, my faithful are filled with the sins of demons. For my head is God: by the head is understood the faith of divinity; by the dew that falls in the night and retreats before the heat of the sun is understood the error of infidelity, which comes from the night of ignorance but retreats before the light of truth. The locks, that is, the hairs, are the faithful adhering to Christ their head through faith. The drops of the night are those who have fallen from the faithful, like drops from hairs, into the opinions of heretics, or into the sins of demons, who are nights leading to eternal darkness. Open to me the door of their hearts, that I may enter through grace and dwell through faith in their hearts, and make my abode in their minds through good works."
The holy soul is here called to greater sanctity, so that she may open the inmost places of her heart to Him, and He may fill them with a fuller knowledge and love of Himself. So say Nyssenus and St. Ambrose, in On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 6, who says that Christ knocks and enters the soul through the door of devotion and prayer: "Even if you sleep," he says, "if Christ knows the devotion of your soul, He comes and knocks at her door, and says: 'Open to me, my sister, because the marriage of the Word and the soul is spiritual. Open to me, but close to strangers, close to the world; do not yourself go forth to those material things, nor, leaving your own light, seek another's. Open yourself to me; do not be constricted, but expand yourself, and I will fill you.'" Hear Philo Carpathius: "Whoever obeys God and most studiously keeps His precepts feels himself called and admonished daily at the door of his heart, to do always better and higher works of charity, which the appellations themselves signify." Christ therefore says: O holy soul, open to me as I strive to penetrate the inmost recesses of your soul: for as many consents as you give, so many retreats you open to me, into which I swiftly pour myself. And I admonish you to unlock these doors, because you are my friend; hence by the law of friendship, all the corners and recesses of your house ought to be shared between you and me, because you are my sister, adopted as a daughter by my Father and joined by the kinship of the assumed nature. Therefore those whom God has joined in nature and grace, it is unlawful to separate and exclude behind a closed door.
Again, Christ knocks at the soul that is already advancing and perfect, when He impels her to procure the salvation and perfection of others. Hence to this end He presses her with four titles as with goads. First, He says, you are my sister, because it is fitting that you be like me, who am your brother: just as I descended from heaven into the flesh and spent my entire living self for the salvation of mankind, so you too should spend your whole self with me for the same end. For, as St. Dionysius says, the most divine of all works is to cooperate with God in the salvation of souls. Secondly, you are my friend; if therefore you love me, "feed my sheep," John 21:17. Therefore strive that others too may love me and become my friends. Thirdly, you are my dove (that is, my bride), and a fruitful one — for a dove bears young every month. You therefore also should continually bear children for me, and nourish those who are born. Hence St. Basil, letter 175 to Julitta, teaches that the saints ought to imitate dove-keepers, who send out a dove anointed with fragrant scents to other doves, so that it may attract them by its fragrance and lead them back to its own dovecote: "Calling the holy soul His dove," he says, "God seems to say something like this: I have chosen you as my dove and drenched you with the fragrance of heavenly graces. It is fitting, therefore, that you likewise, by the fragrance of your virtues and by the sweet scent you pour out in preaching, lead the throng of sinners, brought back to the purity of doves, with you into the dovecote of my wounds."
Fourthly, you are my undefiled (pure and perfect) one; why then will you allow your purity to be, as it were, stained by the crimes of your neighbors? Rather, strive to cleanse them, perfect them, and make them like yourself — indeed, like me. Some think that here a sinful soul is being called from sin to penance, according to Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door to Me, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me." So Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, and others. Hence the Chaldean translates: "And the voice of the Holy Spirit admonished them through the hands of the prophets, and roused them from the sleep of their hearts. The Ruler of the whole world answered: Turn to penance, open your mouth, and exult and praise me, my sister, my beloved, O Synagogue of Israel, who are compared to a dove in the perfection of your works." But it is far truer that these things are said to the holy soul — indeed, to the perfect soul: for she is called sister, dove, and undefiled.
Anagogically, Cassiodorus and Bede consider that the holy soul is here admonished to open at once to Christ knocking at death, indeed inviting her to her departure — or rather her transit — into heaven: "For we immediately open to the Lord knocking thus," they say, "if we joyfully receive death and do not fear His judgment being brought, since we remember that we pleased Him in good works, that we always honored Him." Hear St. Gregory, homily 13 on the Gospel: "The Lord comes when He hastens to judgment; He knocks when, through the afflictions of illness, He indicates that death is near. We open to Him at once if we receive Him with love: for one who dreads leaving the body and fears seeing as judge the one whom he remembers having despised does not wish to open to the judge who knocks. But one who is secure in his hope and his works opens at once to the one who knocks, because he joyfully awaits the judge, and when the time of approaching death arrives, he is gladdened by the glory of the reward."
First, St. Bernard, sermon 4 on the Missus est, considers that here the door of the will of the Mother of God is knocked upon, so that she might consent to St. Gabriel announcing the mystery of the incarnation: "Open," he says, "O blessed Virgin, your heart to faith, your lips to confession, your womb to the Creator: behold, the one desired by all nations knocks at the door from outside. O if, while you delay, He should pass by, and you should begin again in sorrow to seek Him whom your soul loves — arise, run, open: arise through faith, run through devotion, open through confession." Secondly, more fittingly to the literal sense about the Church assigned at the beginning, Rupert considers that the Blessed Virgin is here roused so that, after the resurrection of Christ, she might preach His faith to all, especially to women: for she above all is Christ's sister — indeed His mother — His friend, dove, undefiled, and perfect. Hear Rupert: "But you, O heaven of God, sole seat of the Lord, surpassed all others. And indeed you desired, with your son dead, to fly like a dove in contemplation and rest, to flee far away, to become more remote than the Baptist, more hidden than Elijah, where only you would be known and only the holy angels would serve you. But you add that your son, who loves us, alas, too much, did not wish this, when you say: 'The voice of my beloved,' etc. You indicate that your beloved was standing outside in the open air, as if lacking a home: for the synagogue of the Jews had excluded Him, and the Gentiles had not yet received Him. Therefore He asked: 'Open your mouth to me, speak what is apt to confirm the Gospel, and in this endure the loss of the quiet you desire, so that for my sake you may break the silence pleasing to your singular modesty.'"
For my Head is Full of Dew, and my Locks with the Drops of the Night.
DROPS OF THE NIGHT. — Aquila and Symmachus translate "nocturnal"; the Arabic, "which drip at night." The second hemistich says the same thing in other words as the first, for the head contains the locks, that is, the hairs of the head. Dew consists of the drops of the night, for dew is vapor condensed by the cold of the night and resolved into drops that drip onto herbs and plants. Locks, properly speaking, says Festus, are twisted curls, that is, curled and crimped hair; but by an extended meaning they denote any hair. For in Hebrew it is kevutsetai, which some derive from kets, that is, a thorn, because the hairs are fine and sharp like a thorn. Others, and better, derive it from kasats, that is, he cut off, because kevutsot, that is, the outermost hairs which are curled into a lock, are usually cut and trimmed. Others derive it from kavats, that is, he gathered, because the multitude of hairs is gathered into one mass of hair, or even into one plait, that is, a fold and a curl, as women still gather their hair today.
Young men burning with love are accustomed, while seeking the bride, to go about the bride's door at night and watch for access to her, and therefore to spend many hours in the open air. Hence they are tormented by the cold and the drops of the night. They do this from carnal love, but the bridegroom here does it from spiritual love: therefore he asks the bride to open the door for him, so that indoors he may be protected from the dew and rain, and may dry the drops of dew and rain that he contracted at night from love of the bride.
The head of Christ is His divinity; the locks or hairs that veil the head are His humanity and His members, which veil the divinity — likewise His saints and beloved. The dew and drops of the night are the blasphemies and injuries of heretics and other sinners, which they inflict upon Christ. So St. Gregory, Bede, Philo, Justus, Anselm, and St. Augustine, tract 57 on John, whom hear: "Open to me, my sister, my kinswoman, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night — as if he were saying: You are at leisure, and against me the door is closed; you pursue the leisure of the few, and because of abounding iniquity the charity of many grows cold. For night is indeed iniquity, and its dew and drops are those who grow cold and fall away, and cause the head of Christ to grow cold — that is, cause God not to be loved, for the head of Christ is God. But they are borne in the locks, that is, they are tolerated in the visible sacraments, yet they in no way touch the interior of sense. He knocks therefore to rouse the holy from idle quiet, and cries: Open to me, by my blood my sister, by my coming my kinswoman, by my spirit my dove, by my word which you learned more fully in leisure, my perfect one, open to me, preach me! For to those who have closed their doors against me, how shall I enter without someone opening? How indeed shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14. Thus the head, that is, the divinity of Christ was attacked in the time of Constantine by Arius, who said Christ was a creature and consequently not the Creator and God. And Macedonius, who took from Christ the spiration of the Holy Spirit, asserting that the Holy Spirit was not God. And Sabellius, who denied the Most Holy Trinity, and consequently denied the Father and the Son, asserting that God is one in person just as He is one in essence. Hence Christ appeared to St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria and martyr, with His garment torn, saying: "Arius has torn my garment, which is the Church," as Eusebius, book 7, Bede, and others attest. And the humanity of Christ was blasphemed by Manes, and his followers the Manichaeans, who taught that Christ assumed flesh not real but only apparent and phantasmal, as demons often assume shadowy bodies — that is, specters and ghosts. And Nestorius, denying the hypostatic union of Christ's humanity with the person of the Word, said that in Christ there were two persons, just as there are two natures, and therefore one was the person of the man, another of the Word. And Eutyches, teaching that in Christ there was one nature, mixed from humanity and divinity, just as there is one person. And Apollinarius, who took away from Christ a human mind and substituted the divine. And Polychronius, who took away from Christ a human will. And Valentinus, who also took away an earthly body, saying that Christ brought a heavenly body from heaven, and therefore passed through the Blessed Virgin not as through a mother but merely as through a channel.
Again, bad Christians with their depraved morals, as if by casting dew upon it, contaminate the head of Christ and drive Him from themselves, as they repel His holy inspirations, and thus compel Christ, rejected by them, to spend the night, as it were, in the open. And by their torpor and their concupiscences, like frost and icy drops of a winter night, they defile the locks — that is, the thoughts sent by Christ. Hear St. Gregory: "The head of Christ," he says, "is full of dew, because many placed in the Church both believe Him to be God, and yet persist in coldness and are not kindled to the ardor of charity. By His locks we understand the peoples whom we know to hang upon and weigh down the faith of divinity as upon the head of Christ. But the locks are said to be full of the drops of the night, because while they hang suspended in the torpor of this dark temporality, they flow more and more with the drippings of iniquities. To kindle these, the bride is roused, as any spiritual person is called for the edification of many from leisure to the government of the Church." So also Cassiodorus and Bede, who however understand by the locks the devout and holy, who like curls collect themselves within the custody of their mind and cling more closely to the love of their Creator; these, they say, are full of the drops of the night when the impious oppress them with the cold of harsh and blind persecution. Justus and Anselm, however, understand by the head of Christ the prelates full of the dew of ignorance; by the locks, the clergy and the faithful, who are infected with the drops of the night, that is, with works of darkness, for example, gluttony and lust. Thomas of Cantimpre, book 2 of the Bees, chapter 1, part 13, relates a memorable example: namely, that the Lord Jesus appeared in the form of a most elegant boy in Brabant to a certain Cistercian religious, sitting alone in the cold of snow, and from the cold let out great weeping and wailing. And when the religious asked him the cause, the trembling child said: "Woe is me! Woe is me! Why should I not weep? Why should I not wail? Behold, you see that I sit needy, alone, and in the cold, and there is no one to take me in and give me shelter." Therefore the religious took him upon his horse, but the boy, leaping from the arms of the one holding him, suddenly disappeared, planting a great stimulus of sorrow and love in his heart. For what person can hear without tears such a great and grievous wrong — that the only-begotten Son of God the Father, being Himself God, seeks shelter on earth, lacks food, is contracted with cold, and as the charity of many grows cold because of the abundance of iniquity, there is no one to receive Him into the hospitality of the heart, refresh Him with what pleases the Father,
enfold Him with a beneficent will, warm Him in the bosom of devotion, and cover Him with the garment of charity.
Richard of St. Victor partly approaches this view, understanding the dew filling the head of Christ as the abundance of God's mercy, and by the drops of the night upon the locks, the sins and miseries of mankind — as if Christ were saying to the devout soul: "Because I have bestowed so much upon you, you too respond to my benefits, and exercise around my members the grace with which you are especially endowed. For from the fact that I am God, I abound in mercy and the dew of grace, and those who adhere to me in faith are filled with the drops and blindness of sins."
Moreover, other Fathers take the dew and drops of the night in a good sense: by the dew of the head they understand the doctrine and grace which distills from Christ, as from the head, upon the faithful; by the drops of the night, the doctrine of the prophets and apostles (Philo adds, and of the angels) which flows from them, as from the locks of Christ, to Christians. So Nyssenus, homily 11, Philo, Richard, the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, and St. Ambrose, book 3 of On Virgins, near the middle: "Just as the dew of heaven," he says, "drives away the dryness of the night, so the dew of our Lord Jesus Christ distilled the moisture of eternal life upon the nocturnal and worldly darkness. This is the head that never knew how to dry up from the heat of the world. This head bedews others and abounds in itself." St. Paulinus, however, letter 4 to Severus, understanding by the head Christ God, by the locks the saints of Christ, and by the dew and drops the works of the saints, by which they refresh their soul in the thirst of dryness: "Therefore," he says, "your head Christ rejoices at being filled with such dew, and is the illuminator of our nights; yet He rejoices that His locks are drenched with the drops of our night, because the refreshment and restoration of the faithful's works, by which either brethren are helped or the needy are comforted, is His own."
Anagogically, Philo understands by the head of Christ full of dew the resurrection of Christ, which took place in the morning when dew descends upon the earth; by the locks he understands the peoples converted to the faith of Christ — as if the Church were commanded by Christ to instruct, refine, and perfect them more fully in the faith.
The dew of the head and the drops of the locks signify the tribulations and afflictions of Christ and of the saints: therefore Christ here invites the other faithful to have compassion on them and to lighten or mitigate those sufferings. So St. Ambrose, On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 6, and on Psalm 118, sermon 12: "Consider," he says, "when your God the Word knocks at the door, when He is filled with His nocturnal dew: for He deigns to visit those placed in tribulation and temptation, lest anyone perhaps succumb, overcome by hardships. His head is therefore filled with dew or drops when His body suffers; then therefore one must watch, lest when the bridegroom comes, he depart excluded." Hence the Chaldean translates: "Because the hairs of my head are full of tears."
they would strike against, but they walked with the upper part of the foot bare. Therefore, those about to dine or go to bed would wash their feet, lest with dusty or muddy feet they stain the bedding. So Abraham, preparing a banquet for the angels appearing in human form, first washed their feet, Genesis 18:4; Lot did the same for them, Genesis 19:2; and Joseph for his brothers before the feast, Genesis 43:24. Hence Mary Magdalene, at the banquet of Simon, washed Christ's feet with her tears, and Christ Himself washed the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper before the sacred synaxis. Athenaeus, book 12, chapter 5, and book 15, chapter 15, teaches that the pagans did the same.
Hence Nyssenus symbolically teaches that the feet of the devout soul's mind must be bared, so that without the shoes of earthly affections she may freely advance toward God. For shoes, being made from the skins of dead animals, are symbols of sins. He proves this: first, by the example of Moses, who when approaching God in the burning bush was commanded by Him to remove his shoes, Exodus 3:5; secondly, from the fact that we read nothing prescribed by God concerning the shoes of the priests, as we do concerning their other vestments — therefore the priests seem to have ministered and sacrificed barefoot; thirdly, because Christ forbade shoes to the apostles going throughout the world, Luke 10:4.
Rupert teaches that Christ here speaks to the Blessed Virgin, and exhorts her to preach the faith of Christ to the Jews, and to assert the reason that the Jews defile His head with dew — that is, His divinity — by denying that He is the Son of God; and with the drops of the night — that is, with darkened senses — they pervert the Sacred Scriptures, which like locks cling to the head of Christ as the Word of God: "Just as on that night (of My passion) they spat in My face, so now they obstinately hurl blasphemies at My head and defile My locks, being themselves like falling dew, or the perishable drops of the night, because they have fallen from the grace of God, inasmuch as blaspheming they deny that I am God, the Son of God, and they confound the Scriptures that bear witness to Me with a contrary interpretation. Open therefore your mouth with My other witnesses, and see to it that in whatever places I may have somewhere to lay My head."
Rupert adds that at the beginning of the Church women equally with men established the religious life and had all things in common, but soon a murmuring of the Greeks arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the distribution of food. Therefore the Blessed Virgin, at Christ's command, calmed this murmuring, reconciled the widows, and kindled others to the pursuit of evangelical poverty and perfection.
Verse 3. I Have Put Off my Garment, How Shall I Put It On? I Have Washed my Feet, How Shall I Defile Them?
The Septuagint: "I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on?" The bride, reclining sweetly in her bed, refuses to rise and open for the bridegroom who is knocking, or at least delays, as those half-asleep and drowsy are accustomed to do. Therefore she offers an excuse for this sleepiness and torpor of hers, saying not so much to the bridegroom (for that would have been too rude) as to herself: I have taken off my tunic; it is hard for me to rise and put on my tunic. I have washed my feet lest I soil the blankets; it is troublesome for me to take my feet out of bed, to tread the ground, to dirty them with the dust of the earth. I shall therefore remain in my bed. For in ancient times people walked barefoot, or at most covered only the sole of the foot with a sandal, lest they strike it against rocks.
Note here that the tears of the devout fill the head and hair of God, because He feels them as if they were His own. Therefore He sympathizes with them, consoles them, strengthens them, and in His own time delivers them, according to Zechariah 2:8: "He who touches you touches the pupil of My eye."
having put off the old tunic of guilt in baptism and put on the new tunic of innocence, she fears lest she put on the old one again if she involves herself in the conversion of sinners — lest while she thinks to convert them, she be perverted by them and rolled back into the old mire of crimes. So Nyssenus, Philo, Psellus, and the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret. Hence some press the word "I have stripped off," as if to say: The filthy garment of sins I have stripped off from myself as if an enemy's, and returned it as spoil to its master, namely the devil; therefore it is unlawful for me to reclaim it. Hear St. Ambrose, book 3 of On Virgins: "See what the soul devoted to God says: she has so put off bodily actions and earthly habits that she does not know how, even if she wished, she could put them on again: 'How shall I put it on?' — that is, with what shame? with what embarrassment? with what memory afterward? For the habit of good has lost the practice of old wickedness." And shortly after: "'I have washed my feet' — she does not say: How shall I wash them again? But: How shall I defile them again? As if forgetful of the old stain, forgetful of the contagion. Therefore, once you have washed your feet with the irrigation of the eternal font and cleansed them with the sacrament of the mystery, beware of the filth of bodily desire again, lest they be defiled with the mud of sinful acts." Hence learn how carefully the penitent must guard against relapse into sin, and therefore avoid the former occasions and enticements of sin.
Thirdly, St. Augustine, letter 57, and from him Delrio, understand by the tunic the ancient holy doctors who had clothed the Church as with a tunic, but had already died through martyrdom; by the feet, the younger doctors still surviving, as if to say: You command me, O Christ — me the Church — to soften and open for You the hearts of mortals, harder than rock. I would wish it, but suitable workers are lacking; certainly I have not yet sufficiently discerned what they can bear, what they refuse. The earlier ones, whom I knew to be capable and boldly sent into battle, the hostile storm has swept them all away — especially the recent, past, and scarcely ended most cruel persecution of Maximian, Maxentius, Diocletian, and the nearly continuous persecution of Licinius. These warriors, most closely joined to me, surrounded me, protected me, and in the manner of an inner tunic veiled me. While doing your bidding, not sparing my own, I was left almost naked and stripped. Those who remain and survive — some are broken by age and labors, some by wounds and the rack. The rest, the younger ones, whom you wish through their zeal, as on feet, to run throughout the world — they have been recently washed and are still tender. I rightly fear that they may faint under the burden, or at least be soiled again, and so I be defiled again in my feet. This sense is devoutly very apt, but seems not so much literal as symbolic and anagogical, as for instance that of Philo, who refers these things to Christ's resurrection, in which Christ put off the mortal tunic of the human body and put on an immortal one: "For Christ, rising from the dead, now dies no more; death shall no more have dominion over Him," Romans 6:9. But these are the words of the bride the Church, not of the bridegroom Christ.
Fourthly and genuinely, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, Anselm, Richard, Honorius, and others understand by the tunic temporal occupations, in which those who undertake the care of their neighbors necessarily entangle themselves as in garments, and thereby defile their feet — that is, their affections. The Church therefore — that is, the prelates of the Church in the time of Constantine — indulging in peace, leisure, prayer, a quiet and quasi-contemplative life, and therefore shrinking from the labor of preaching, refuting the Arians and other heretics and infidels, and converting wicked Christians (to which they were summoned by Christ by reason of their office), offered as an excuse for their sloth and torpor the plea that since they were consecrated to God, they did not wish to occupy themselves with temporal affairs, in which occupation it is inevitable to contract the defects and stains of sins, according to that saying of St. Leo: "It is inevitable that even religious hearts be soiled by earthly dust." Hear Honorius: "She says this not in disobedience, but in fleeing worldly care: for one who is set over secular affairs is cast down in spiritual ones. For just as the body is clothed with a tunic, so the mind is entangled with worldly care, which spiritual persons, having put it off, do not wish to put back on, but wish to attend to God alone in spiritual things. But when called by God they set aside their own will and reluctantly take on the burden of governance for the sake of their neighbors; hence groaning they say: 'I have washed my feet,'" etc. Then he explains these mystical feet, adding: "The feet of the soul are the affections, by which it is carried to various desires, just as the body walks by its feet — namely, concupiscence, fear, joy, and sorrow. For it desires earthly things, fears lest it fail to obtain what it desires, rejoices in what it has obtained, and grieves over what it has lost. She washed these feet when she washed away earthly concupiscences with the tears of penance. She fears to defile them again, because one who is placed in the governance of secular affairs can scarcely or in no way avoid the stains of sins."
But they err, both because these light specks of dust
One may ask what the tunic is with which the Church stripped herself and fears to put on again. First, our Sanchez: "The bride had laid aside," he says, "her wedding garment, that is, she had somewhat relaxed her love for the bridegroom, while she loved her own ease and sleep more than enough." But Gregory, homily 38 on the Gospel, teaches that the wedding tunic is charity. Therefore to take up that tunic — that is, to love the bridegroom more than oneself — seemed hard while she was following her own inclination rather than obeying the will of the bridegroom. To this fits the Chaldean version, though Jewish in its manner: "The assembly of Israel answered before the prophets: 'Behold, I have already taken from myself the yoke of His commandments, and I have served the idols of the peoples; how then shall I have the face to turn back to Him?' The Ruler of the world answered through the hand of the prophets: 'I also have taken My majesty from your midst; how shall I turn back? But you have done evil works. I have sanctified My feet from your impurities; but how shall I defile them among you with your evil works?'"
Secondly, others take the opposite view and understand by the tunic the old man — namely, the old way of living in concupiscences and sins. So the Apostle, Ephesians 4:21, commands "to put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error;" and immediately, verse 24, adds: "Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth." The bride therefore
Many who are excessively devoted to the quiet and contemplative life, although endowed with the grace of preaching, when called by Christ through their superiors to win souls for God, refuse the labor, lest they be torn from their sweet quiet, and lest amid the crowd of people they fall into the dangers of sin. For whoever strives to win sinners must, as far as is lawful, accommodate himself to them, just as Christ ate with sinners and publicans, and Paul "became all things to all men, that he might save all," 1 Corinthians 9:22. The slight dust of venial sins easily clings to the feet of such persons, and, as St. Jerome says in his letter to Damasus on the first vision of Isaiah: "It is natural that something of the earth should cling to one who walks upon the earth; if preaching succeeds, there is danger of vainglory; if we are reproved, disturbance; if we are praised, inflation is to be feared."
But they err, both because these light specks of dust are easily wiped away, and therefore such useful labors should not be avoided; and because in these labors there is great spiritual consolation, according to the saying: "There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance," etc., Luke 15:7; and because the just are not so much defiled by winning sinners as they are purified by hearing from them and receiving the affection of devotion. Hence St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 13, on the words "How sweet are your words to my palate, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth!": "Good inebriation," he says, "which produces a kind of transport of mind toward better and more pleasant things, so that our spirit, forgetful of anxieties, is gladdened by the wine of delight: good is the inebriation of the spiritual table." Hence St. Gregory teaches that the "friends" drink — that is, ordinary faithful read and keep the words of God — while the "dearest ones," that is, the perfect, are plainly inebriated with them: "There are indeed others," he says, "who hear or read divine Scripture with such eagerness that, immediately renouncing all earthly occupations, they seek only heavenly things; they cast away parents, wives, homes, even children, and all transitory things; they desire only to follow Christ and embrace Him. They afflict themselves with fasting for desire of Him, move themselves to tears, exercise themselves in divine meditations, think only of eternal things, devote themselves to contemplation, laboring to this end: that forgetting the things that are behind, they may stretch ever more and more toward what lies ahead. What indeed do these do, what else, but drinking they become inebriated, so that while they forget all earthly things through desire, they rightly deserve to be called by the heavenly bridegroom not merely friends, but dearest ones?
through the hearing He impresses upon the memory the mystery of His passion, in what manner He went forth from the glory of the heavenly kingdom, undertook the labors of this exile, and preached penance and the kingdom of heaven to His enemies with such great labor and danger, so that, moved by this example, she might shake off torpor and not fear to lay down her soul for her neighbors.
Furthermore, Cosmas Damianus takes the hand to mean schism, for he introduces the Church as the bride speaking thus: My Bridegroom, greatly offended by the shamelessness of my idle and luxurious life, having caused a great schism, as if the house were broken into, having sent in three doubtful pontiffs as the matter of so great a schism, as if thrusting His hand through the opening of our broken house, terrified me while I lay secure in all things and lulled to sleep by pleasures: with kings and princes throughout the world conspiring and plotting against me alone, a great fear struck and terrified my soul, just as once the army of the Chaldeans, that heavy hand of God, through the broken wall of Jerusalem, dismayed King Zedekiah with the whole Synagogue, 4 Kings 25:7, and Jeremiah 39:6. Then in a fuller commentary he extensively laments the defects and vices of the Church, that is, of certain prelates and faithful, such as ambition, avarice, lusts, schisms, civil and foreign wars, just as St. Bernard does in his work On Consideration to Eugene, John Gerson, Alvarus Pelagius in his Lament of the Church, and Bellarmine in The Groaning of the Dove.
Christ sends His hand through the opening of the soul when He impels her by the hidden but powerful working of grace to heroic works of virtue; hence Cassiodorus says: "The Beloved sends His hand through the opening and touches the belly, when the interior Creator visits the heart by inspiration and kindles it to the advancement of virtues." Hear what Rupert here narrates about himself as if about another, when keeping vigil at night he experienced this hand of Christ caressing his breast and signing it with the sign of the cross in a perceptible way, with wondrous delight of his soul: "The Beloved, visible in a night vision, in a wondrous manner thrust His hand into his breast as through an opening, and grasped his heart within, and held it for some time most sweetly pressing it, and that heart rejoiced with ineffable joy, leaping and dancing within that hand." Again St. Gregory says: "The Beloved sends His hand through the opening to the bride that she may arise, when by subtle understanding He manifests by inspiration how great is the power of divine operation: namely, that He can save even amidst dangers; that even in peace no one is saved except through Him; that in the tumult of battle He does not abandon those who hope in Him. At His touch the belly of the bride trembled, because the holy soul, the more she perceives the divine power through interior visitation in a present way, the more strictly she judges whatever she finds carnal in herself. For the greater the charity with which she burns for God, whom she desires in her mind,
Augustinus, Fulgentius, Gregory, and many others; but all of these at length obeyed Christ calling them to the governance of souls and promising His aid, and submitted their shoulders to the pastoral burden; and they generously resisted so many Arian bishops and their followers the emperors Constantius, Julian, Valens, etc., and gloriously triumphed over them.
Hear Richard of St. Victor: "While the pious soul trembles at being entangled in the affairs of the world, if she should take up the burden of caring for her neighbors and devote herself to procuring their salvation, the Beloved, who had stirred her to that office, consoles her and visits her heart with more abundant grace, penetrating it. The bride calls this visitation of grace the sending of the hand through the opening: because Christ pours in grace as through a crack, when He does not flood the whole soul, but visits with a certain measure of grace, and when He thus visits in part He does not fully illuminate. The hand of the Beloved, therefore, can be understood as this working of grace and gift; but the belly is the mind itself, in which thoughts are digested, just as food in the belly." St. Anselm says similar things: for, as Philo Carpathius says, God places before the eyes of the soul the certainty of His providence and grace, which knows how to preserve sweet-smelling roses among thorns and wheat among weeds, lest they be harmed, inasmuch as it has never abandoned anyone hoping in it. Hence three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret take the hand to mean the Holy Spirit: "My Beloved," they say, "sent from the Father the Spirit proceeding from Him and consubstantial with Him, by whose hand as it were He accomplishes the divine gifts of grace, through my mind as through some opening, and as I bring forth the beginning of wisdom, namely the fear of my Beloved as judge, the vice of gluttony and of the belly is corrected, from which every kind of intemperance arises."
Symbolically, Nyssenus teaches that the opening through which God instills in us His knowledge, fear, and love is creatures, that is, works created by God, from which by reasoning we come to know the greatness, omnipotence, goodness, and wisdom of God the Creator: therefore our belly trembles when, admiring and astonished at these things, we humbly praise, love, and venerate their Maker. Hence Theodotion translates, "and my belly was heated": so also Theodoret, who takes the opening to mean a sense, for example the eye, in which the aforementioned hand of God operates: so also St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 6.
More properly, Honorius takes the hand to mean the work of Christ's obedience: for when the soul delays in opening to Christ who calls, because she fears to undertake the governance of her neighbors, the Bridegroom sets before her eyes the work of His own most perfect obedience, so that, struck with awe, she may do for her neighbors what God did for His enemies. The hand of the Bridegroom is the work of His obedience, and by the hand the work of His hands is expressed. The opening of the chamber is the ear of the body, which is the chamber of the soul: He sends His hand through the opening when
are very easily wiped away, indeed overwhelmed by the many acts and labors of charity that they continually pour out for the salvation of others; also because labor undertaken out of obedience carries with it the grace and protection of God, so that it does not stain the feet with filth, but rather makes the feet clean and beautiful, as is evident in the apostles, whom God continually confirmed in grace, according to Paul's words from Isaiah, Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach peace, who preach good things!" So today in our Society we experience the wonderful help of God in the chastity and purity of our members, amid the many occasions in which it is necessary to deal with sinners, Indians, women, princes, etc., in guarding and preserving it, especially when they do not neglect the remedies that religious life suggests to them, such as daily prayer, meditation, examination of conscience, confession, communion, custody of the eyes and mortification of the senses, etc.: for by these means they continually wash the feet of their affections and keep them clean.
Rupert introduces the Blessed Virgin, most devoted to contemplation, responding thus reverently but ardently to Christ who invites her to the care of widows: "I speak to my Beloved who knocks, and I repeat to Him what is known, because I above all others have stripped off my tunic; in mind and in act and habit I have left all things; and I have so washed my feet, the Holy Spirit cleansing my conscience and intention, that absolutely no residue of the aforesaid dust remains. How shall I now put on a tunic, so that when I have left all that is mine, I should care for the affairs of others, being anxious for others, made the mother of the household of widows who come daily or of virgins who will come? How shall I soil my washed feet, that is, shall I incline my eyes, or my other senses or thoughts, to any earthly things? For although Your protection is always with me, yet true humility is always anxious, and my soul especially, which is singularly filled with love of You, regards as dust and counts as filth whatever at any time, by any necessity, it says or thinks apart from You, even though it be lawful, even though it be not idle, indeed even though it may seem to some degree useful."
Verse 4. my Beloved Put his Hand Through the Opening, and my Belly Trembled at his Touch.
MY BELOVED PUT HIS HAND THROUGH THE OPENING (the Arabic has, from the opening), and my belly trembled (Genebrardus wishes it to be read as "groaned inwardly," for this is what the Hebrew hamu signifies) at His touch. -- While the bride, being lazy in bed, delays rising and opening the door, the Bridegroom Himself, to punish her delay, having thrust His hand through the opening, seeks to open the door
He says, when He touches a man with the pain of death; but the belly trembles at His touch, because she fears for the least sins which she committed through the weakness of the flesh; yet she rises to open to Him, because she longs for the vision of that which is above; her hands drip myrrh, because she presents to Christ the works for which she was mortified here, so that she may receive eternal rewards for them." So says Honorius. Likewise Philo by the hand in the opening understands the divine power, which brought and will bring back the soul of Christ and of the saints into the dead body, so that it may rise again living and glorious.
Tropologically, William says: "The belly of the soul is the memory; for in it we store up what we may at the proper time chew over through thought, like clean animals ruminating. At this touch of the Beloved, our memory, astonished, trembles with fear: because in the face of so great divine condescension toward us, it recalls nothing worthy in itself."
Symbolically, Philo Carpathius refers these words to St. Thomas the apostle, who, being incredulous and putting his hand into the side of Christ, believed that He had truly risen, and, filled with sacred awe and love, trembled, indeed groaned inwardly saying: "My Lord and my God," John 20:28.
Nyssenus teaches that the Word of God, omnipotent and immense, contracted Himself as it were into a narrow space, when He sent His hand, that is, His power and operation, indeed Himself, into an opening, namely into the small human body distinguished by its own senses and organs, when He assumed it in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, and therefore the hearts of all angels and men should adore and marvel at that mystery with trembling. The hand in the opening, then, is the omnipotence of the Word operating wonders and miracles in His humanity.
So also Cassiodorus says: "The Beloved sends His hand through the opening when He recalls us to the memory of His works, that we may consider that, though He was God, He deigned to become man for us, so that, taking upon Himself our earthly nature, He might make us heavenly, and by dying for us might give us eternal life. When this happens, the belly trembles, because when we begin to think on such things, the depths of our heart are shaken, as we begin to be amazed at how great a condescension our Creator deigned to undertake for us." Hear Honorius: "My Beloved, God, whom I chose above all, sent His hand, His Son, into the world, through the opening, through me (says the Mother of God), who became for Him, coming to men, an opening narrow in humility, bright in chastity, and therefore passable for Him alone; and my belly trembled, was astonished at His touch, at His entrance."
Verses 5 and 6. I Arose to Open to my Beloved: my Hands Dripped Myrrh, and my Fingers
Were Full of the Choicest Myrrh. I Opened the Bolt of my Door to my Beloved: but He Had Turned Aside and Passed On. my Soul Melted When He Spoke: I Sought Him, and Did not Find Him: I Called, and He Did not Answer Me.
MY HANDS DRIPPED MYRRH, AND MY FINGERS WERE FULL OF THE CHOICEST MYRRH. I OPENED THE BOLT OF MY DOOR TO MY BELOVED, BUT HE HAD TURNED ASIDE AND PASSED ON. -- Aquila translates, "he turned aside, he passed by"; Symmachus, "returning he passed by": for "full of the choicest myrrh," the Hebrew has, "full of myrrh passing through the hands," that is, the choicest myrrh, which as such is handled, tested, and celebrated by all hands. The Masoretes punctuate so as to refer the word "bolt" to the myrrh, not to "I opened"; so also the Septuagint, who accordingly translate, "my fingers (dripped) full myrrh (that is, perfect and abundant) upon the handles of the bolt," as if to say, My fingers dripped myrrh so abundantly that they even moistened the bolt, and thus it could easily be moved and opened: so also the Syriac and Arabic: "My fingers," they say, "distilled myrrh upon the bar"; the Arabic adds, "before my hand was the key, I opened, but he had already gone." She speaks in the likeness of a delicate bride whose hands are anointed with myrrh ointment so copiously that it drips in drops from her hands and fingers when she begins to extend them to open the door or to do anything else; for brides in the morning, when they arise, adorn and polish themselves and anoint themselves with ointments, so that they may exhale a sweet odor, especially when the bridegroom is present, as he was here. Some add that the bride had taken a vessel of myrrh ointment, which is warm and drying, to pour it over the head of the bridegroom wet with dew and drops, and thereby to warm and dry him. Moreover, myrrh by its fragrance and bitterness strengthens the brain and disperses the vapors that fill and stupefy it: therefore the bride anoints herself with it to shake off sleep and laziness, and to rise quickly and eagerly to open the door immediately to the bridegroom, but he had already turned aside. For these are the games of love among lovers: You want, I refuse: You do not want, I want: You seek me, I depart: You depart -- I follow.
The Church, as soon as she felt the hand, that is, the grace and impulse of Christ effectually stirring her to the labor of preaching and the conversion of souls, flushed with shame, shook off her tardiness and began through her bishops and doctors to oppose the Arians, to convert unbelievers, to strengthen the faithful in faith and piety, so that Christ, coming to dwell in their neighbors' hearts, now opened, might find access to enter, says St. Gregory. Therefore then her hands and fingers dripped the choicest myrrh: both because through the labor of preaching even to the point of exhaustion --
Therefore the bride was confused and disturbed, so much so that her belly groaned at his touch, by which the bridegroom was touching the bolt and opening the door; hence in Hebrew it reads, "and my bowels hamu," that is, they groaned, resounded, produced tumult and noise over him, namely the bridegroom; the Septuagint, "my belly was troubled over him"; Symmachus, "my inward parts were troubled"; the Syriac, "my bowels were moved with compassion for him," as if to say, From my innermost bowels I had compassion on the bridegroom when I felt him struggling with the cold of night and the drops of dew, and laboring to open the door: therefore I immediately arose from bed and unbarred the door for him; hence Theodoret translates, "my belly was heated," with love for the bridegroom, as well as with grief and shame that I delayed in opening to him. Theodoret seems to have read chammu for hamu.
By the opening, R. Abraham understands the crack in the door, through which the bridegroom inserted his finger or a knife to lift or slide the bolt to open the door; others generally take the opening properly, namely as a small window, as Nyssenus says, which is sometimes made in doors for pulling back the bolt or unfastening the bar. Therefore less truly and less chastely do Rupert, Honorius, and certain others refer the opening to the belly of the bride, since it is clear from the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and others that it is to be referred to the door. It is further confirmed by the fact that the bride was in bed; but a bed is not placed at the door -- otherwise it would block the entrance to those coming in -- but against the wall facing the door.
Christ sent His hand through the opening when, as the great men, doctors, and prelates of the Church in the time of Constantine were professing the monastic life or fleeing the episcopate from fear and dread of sinning, He took away this fear and gave them the courage to generously undertake the governance of souls, namely to resist the Arians and other impious persons, and to preach and feed the Lord's flock.
The opening of the soul is the intellect and the will; for to both Christ secretly and hiddenwise, as through an opening, imparted His hand, that is, grace and strength to accomplish this: for to the intellect He showed the excellence, merit, and ease of the pastoral office through divine help, etc.; to the will He imparted love and boldness to embrace and undertake it. Thus at first St. Athanasius shrank from and fled the episcopate, to whom Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, on his deathbed said, and as if prophetically foretold: "You flee, Athanasius, but you will not escape -- the hand of God will seize you and make you a bishop, indeed an athlete and adamant of the faith, and an insuperable scourge of the Arians." Likewise SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augus-
He seems to flee from them, just as mountains and forests seem to flee from those sailing when they sail past them.
Symbolically, Philo Carpathius applies these words to the apostle Thomas: "Then," he says, "his hands dripped myrrh, etc., when at that command of the Lord, John 20:25: 'Put your hand into my side, and be not unbelieving, but faithful,' he touched the side of Jesus with his hands and put his fingers into the places of the nails. Moreover his hands distilled myrrh to the Gentiles when he also preached to them what, by doubting, he had verified for the benefit of others. He had previously closed the door of his heart to the Lord his brother risen from the dead; he soon opened it, and his hands touched Christ Himself, who had said: 'Tell my brethren to go into Galilee; there they will see me,'" Matthew 28:10.
THIRD PARTIAL SENSE: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, refer these words to the continual mortification of the Blessed Virgin, by which she opened the door of her mind to Christ, to grow daily in every virtue and holiness; second, she arose when, having conceived the Word in her womb, she went into the hill country and by her greeting sanctified John the Baptist and Elizabeth. Hear St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 6: "After the soul conceived in the womb and conceived the desire of seeing God, she arose so that she might see Him more closely; and she arose through vigor and strength: for by the presence of the Word the soul drew in strength, just as the presence of Mary when she was heavy with child instructed John dwelling in the womb, so that he leapt, recognizing the presence of the Lord."
Thirdly, refer these words to the zeal and eagerness she had to convert the Jews and all nations through the apostles and others; hence Rupert says: "I opened the bolt," that is, he says, I broke my silence, I opened my mouth to instruct others: and he adds, first, that her hands dripped the myrrh of mortification; second, that her fingers were full of the choicest myrrh of testing and discernment; third, that the bolt, that is, her mouth, was opened for preaching: for this is the proper order, that preaching may be effective and convert many.
Fourthly, the words "but he had turned aside" may be referred to the loss of the child Jesus at age twelve, when His mother, seeking Him late, namely in the evening, did not find Him, and after searching for Him for three days with great labor and sorrow, at last found Him in the temple among the doctors: again, anagogically, it may be referred, with Philo Carpathius and Rupert, to the ascension of Christ departing into heaven.
Fifthly, the Blessed Virgin dripped myrrh when she saw Christ suffering on the cross and shared His sufferings with deepest sorrow and love: for the mother suffered in the son; hence the Second Council of Seville, chapter 13, attributes these words concomitantly and as it were correlatively to Christ, although it is established that they are properly and precisely said of the Blessed Virgin: "Solomon," it says, "in the Song of
that is, while prelates and princes were either sleeping or favoring heresy; but God at length opposed to them St. Joannicius, St. Plato, St. Boniface. Around the year 900, the sect of the Nicolaitans grew strong, and gluttony and luxury overflowed everywhere, since men were voluntarily promoting them; but God at length opposed to them St. Romuald and the Camaldolese, men of holy and austere life, and Berno, Count of Burgundy, founder of the Cluniacs, and St. Bruno, who established the Carthusian order in the year 1084, and St. Bernard, who was the founder of the Cistercians around the year 1100. Again, around the year 1200, when the Waldensian heresy arose and the world had fallen into every crime, God at length raised up St. Dominic and St. Francis, who through the religious of their orders might chastise vices and restore the ancient faith and virtue. Two hundred years later the Hussites burst forth from the underworld onto the earth, against whom God sent St. Bernardine of Siena and St. Vincent Ferrer. Finally, in the previous century Luther, Calvin, and Menno boiled up from Tartarus, who renewed all the monstrous heresies of the ancients, against whom God set St. Ignatius with the Society of Jesus and other men distinguished in learning and religion. See Thomas Bosius, On the Signs of the Church, book 9, chapter 4 and following, where he shows that the orthodox faith was propagated by religious everywhere among all nations, and the morals of the faithful were reformed in every century.
Furthermore, the Chaldean paraphrase, in its customary manner, applies these words to the Jews and the Synagogue, from which, because of slowness in believing, God removed Himself and His faith and worship. Hence it translates: "When the blow of the Lord's might prevailed against me, I was stupefied on account of my works, and the priests offered oblations and burned incense of spices, and it was not accepted with favor, because the Lord of the world closed the gates of power before me. Christ of Israel said: I wished to seek the teaching from the face of the Lord, but He took away His majesty from my midst."
What has been said of the Church, say the same, changing the name, of the pious soul: for the soul called forth by Christ to greater perfection and the conversion of souls, while she obeys with trepidation and tardiness, at last offers as penance for her torpor the myrrh, that is, mortification and penance, to Christ, by which she chastises her laziness; but He passes on, and denies that former heroic grace which she had rejected when it was offered, and gives a lesser one instead. Again He denies her the spiritual joys and consolations and the fruit of souls which she would have gathered if she had immediately obeyed Christ's call. Moreover He gives her only slow and difficult helps, and He does this for just reasons, as Titelmannus rightly observes: first, to punish our past tardiness and disobedience, by which we long neglected Him knocking and allowed Him to stand outside, when we ought rightly to have admitted Him with both hands at the first knock and received Him with open arms: for the bride's tardiness cannot be better punished than by the bridegroom in turn making her wait, so that just as when the bridegroom wished to enter, she did not immediately consent or come to meet Him, so in turn when the bride wishes to be united with the bridegroom and to admit Him to herself, the bridegroom does not immediately comply with her desire in this; and just as she drew out useless delays and alleged unjust excuses not to receive the bridegroom at once, so for just reasons he does not immediately show himself when sought, and defers the desires of the bride who ardently sighs for the embraces of her beloved, so that she is now forced to seek with sorrow and labor Him who formerly seemed to offer Himself willingly before her door. Secondly, He does this lest the presence and grace of Christ the Bridegroom become cheap to the soul, but rather that she may esteem it greatly, seeing that she recovered it with such difficulty, and therefore may carefully and cautiously preserve what she has recovered, lest she seek in vain what she has lost.
Let her hands and fingers therefore, that is, all her works, drip myrrh, that is, mortification of the flesh and penance, which is the only way to recover God's grace, especially heroic grace. Let such a soul therefore give herself to fasting, vigils, groaning, disciplines, hair shirts, almsgiving, etc., in order to recall the Bridegroom. Moreover the myrrh must be the very choicest, that is, it must be undertaken voluntarily for the honor of God alone, for the eradication of sloth and vices, for the increase of fervor and virtues, for the conversion of souls, not for any temporal gain or advantage: thus through it she will bring the Bridegroom back into the dwelling of her heart as well as of her neighbors. Hence Nyssenus says: "The pious soul arose to the practice of mortification, so as to open the door to God through it." So Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, Justus, Richard, and St. Gregory, whom hear: "But the fingers are said to be full of the choicest myrrh, because in everything that is done it is always necessary that mortification of the flesh be maintained; and this is rightly called the very choicest when, in every suggestion that is thrust upon us by the enemy, carnal pleasure is guarded against without ceasing, lest it be accepted; and when this happens, all hardness of heart is dissolved, and access is prepared for the Bridegroom to enter the heart." The Bridegroom therefore departs from the holy soul by the denial of greater grace, joys, and spiritual consolations; yet He is present to the soul through justice and the ordinary helps of grace: thus often Christ is present to pious souls by His grace, but absent in sweetness and consolation.
See how dearly this delay cost the bride; hence Theodoret says: "Let us learn from this how much harm laziness begets and how much labor negligence brings: for while the bride makes excuses and does not wish to open the door immediately to the bridegroom, she is forced shortly after not only to go to the door but to run through the city and wander the streets, and to encounter the watchmen, from whom she also received wounds, and she barely found the bridegroom as she wished. But if she had immediately obeyed his call, she would have avoided all these troubles." Hence angels are depicted with wings and bare feet, to signify their swiftness in obeying God: hear St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15: "Theology represents the feet of the holy spirits as winged: for by wings is signified the swiftness that soars on high." And immediately: "The lightness of wings," he says, "indicates in the holy angels that, free from the burden of an earthly body, they are wholly borne aloft without any admixture or weight; and that they are described as bare and unshod signifies that they are free, unbound, and unimpeded, and pure from every stain of outward debasement, and strive with all their might toward the likeness of divine simplicity." This is the punishment that Christ threatens to the lukewarm and slow angel, that is, the bishop of Laodicea, Revelation 3:16: "Because you are lukewarm," He says, "and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth." For what is said there -- to vomit out that bishop like lukewarm water that causes nausea -- is the same thing as passing by the lingering bride in this passage, who while she weaves delays and wastes time, turns the stomach of her bridegroom. And she only recognizes this when she has opened the door to the bridegroom, which before, while she was living in luxury and abusing riches, she did not know -- namely that she (as is often objected to the aforementioned bishop) was then most wretched, pitiable and poor, blind and naked, when she seemed to herself rich, wealthy, and in need of nothing. Furthermore, Richard of St. Victor takes the bolt or bar to mean small and slight defects: "The bar," he says, "though it is small and narrow, yet closes up the width of the door so that unless it is unfastened the door cannot stand open: so these very small things, unless they are cut away, the Beloved does not deign to come to the soul so as to enter it perfectly and fill it with perfect grace: for small negligences darken the soul and create an obstacle to greater grace."
Tropologically, the same Richard teaches that God deliberately withdraws Himself from the holy soul so as to excite a greater desire for Himself in her: "When the soul," he says, "has shown herself more worthy of receiving God, God does not present Himself to her as she desires, but turns aside from her, so as to preserve her in humility and to excite her desire more and fulfill it more perfectly. For when she has been humbled and made more fervent by His turning aside, from this both her merit grows and she becomes more worthy to receive Him more fully. And He is said to turn aside when He does not allow His presence to be felt, although He is nevertheless present to her." St. Gregory and Nyssenus teach that God hides Himself from the contemplative, because the higher they ascend to God in contemplation, the higher they discover God to be above their contemplation, so that God seems
and I was delighted by His fiery eloquence, so that my mind seemed to go out of itself, to melt, to be deprived of strength and to faint in spirit. Wherefore, repenting late of my tardiness, I sought Him, but did not find Him; I called, and He did not answer me. This very thing Wisdom threatened, Proverbs 1:24, saying: "Because I called and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none who regarded. I also will laugh at your destruction and will mock when that which you feared comes upon you. When sudden calamity rushes upon you and destruction comes like a tempest: then they will call upon me, and I will not hear: they will rise early and will not find me." The Chaldean paraphrase translates: "And my soul desired the voice of His words; I sought the majesty of His glory, and did not find it; I prayed before Him, and He overshadowed the heavens with clouds and did not receive my prayer."
The soul of the prelates of the Church was melted with love and grief when they heard the voice of Christ complaining about the many and great blasphemies and injuries inflicted on Him and on God by the Arians, Mohammedans, Lutherans, Calvinists, etc., and by impious Christians: therefore they began to oppose them vigorously; but because at the beginning they were slow to do so, and by their tardiness the heresies and vices were more widely propagated and rooted, they could not immediately eradicate them. Therefore they sought Christ in many places and persons and did not find Him, as I said a little before: here the saying is true: "You were unwilling when you could; therefore you will not be able when you wish." For this is the just judgment of God and the just punishment of tardiness. Add to this that many Catholics, even princes and prelates, favored and defended the Arians and other heretics, and betrayed to them the churches and their territories, and thus they themselves became Arians and heretics, indeed the standard-bearers of heretics: therefore their treachery is an immense and nearly inexpiable crime, on account of which God permitted heresies to dominate in their territories, and still permits it, because the shepherds of the sheep became their wolves and betrayers, and devoted and delivered them to the devil: for the sheep willingly followed their shepherds on account of the license of life and flesh that they taught them by word and example.
The pious soul, sensing the internal and fiery voice of Christ speaking in her mind, as it were melts with love and desire for Him, because love is like heat that dissolves and melts the heart; just as fire by its heat melts wax, so Christ by love melts the mind and all its powers and faculties: so
Songs, proclaiming the passion of the flesh of Christ, says: 'My hands dripped myrrh, and my fingers a drop'; where it is specifically shown in the hands and fingers the flesh of Christ alone fixed upon the cross, as in the Psalm: 'Pierce my flesh with the nails of Your fear,' Psalm 118:120.
Sixthly, the Blessed Virgin dripped myrrh when she anointed the dead body of her Christ with myrrh through Nicodemus for burial; hence St. Ambrose, book 3 On Virgins: "What myrrh," he says, "do her hands distill, if not that which the just Nicodemus, a master in Israel, offered, who merited first to hear the mystery of washing, who brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds, and applied it to the body of Jesus? He surely brought the perfect fragrance. This fragrance is emitted by the soul that begins to open to Christ, so as to receive the first fragrance of the Lord's burial, and to believe that His flesh did not see corruption."
Finally, St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 12, takes "had turned aside" to mean "had penetrated into the depths of the mind": for he says: "It can indeed also be understood thus: My brother passed through, as we read that he penetrated the innermost marrow of the beloved, and as was said to Mary, Luke 2:35: 'And a sword will pierce your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'" Furthermore, Honorius attributes the door and the bolt to the Blessed Virgin thus: "The Holy Virgin," he says, "was the door through which Christ entered into the world, and the bolt was the mass of men's sins, which is said to have been opened by her because, preserved by the Holy Spirit, she is not believed to have been conceived in sin like the rest, and moreover by living holily she avoided sins; and thus the entrance lay open to the Beloved, because through her mercy came into the Church. Daily too she removes the bolt of sins, and through her the entrance of Christ's grace comes to us." So says Honorius in his Sigillum.
My Soul Melted When (my Beloved) Spoke: I Sought Him, and Did not Find Him: I Called, and He Did not Answer Me.
I CALLED, AND HE DID NOT ANSWER (the Arabic has, did not obey) ME. -- The Hebrew reads, "my soul went forth at his speech": so also the Arabic. It is a metalepsis: for just as wax, melted by fire, as it were goes out of itself, that is, flows out and dissolves, so too the soul, kindled by love through the heat of the Word of God, as it were melts, dissolves, and flows away, so that it seems to go out of itself and to pass over and flow into the bridegroom whom it loves. These are the words of the bride repenting and grieving over her drowsiness and tardiness, that she did not immediately open the door to the bridegroom when he knocked, as if to say: O wretched me, that I did not immediately open to the bridegroom -- to the bridegroom, I say, who, out of love for me, exposing himself to the cold and the dew of the night, so courteously and gently urged me to open, saying and beseeching: "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is full of dew": therefore by His sweet, loving
Cassiodorus, Bede, and St. Gregory, whom hear: "Hear the word of the bride: she says she was melted, because when Christ pours Himself through His Spirit into the desiring soul, He immediately dissolves all hardness of heart, and sometimes melts the mind into such great tears that it can scarcely contain this at which it exults within itself to contain, and inwardly marvels at what it was and suddenly sees what it has become. When it feels this melting, it longs to grasp it more perfectly; and sometimes while it reflects on this very thing, what it was just feeling it no longer feels; hence it is urged to seek so that it may find it again; but sometimes even when it labors long it does not find what it had just now so present."
The same, in book 4 of the Morals, chapter 30: "Had she not," he says, "found herself wearied by her own strength, she who said: 'My soul was melted,' etc.? For indeed, when the mind is touched by the breathing of a hidden utterance in the state of its own strength, it is melted by the very desire by which it is absorbed; thence it finds itself wearied in itself, whence it perceives that the strength it has scaled is beyond itself; hence the Prophet, when he said he had seen a vision of God, adds: 'I languished and was sick for many days,'" Daniel 8:27. "Melting," says St. Thomas, I-II, Question 28, article 3, "implies a certain softening by which the heart renders itself disposed so that the beloved may enter into it." For, as St. Augustine says, Treatise 2 on the Epistle of St. John: "Love transforms the one it affects into that toward which it is borne by loving: such," he says, "is everyone as his love is; if you love the earth, you will be earth; if you love God, what shall I say? Will you be a god? I dare not say it of myself; let us hear the Scripture: 'I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High,'" Psalm 81:6. Hence let the one who is affected inwardly or outwardly by the word of God know that he is being deluded by the devil, if the hardness of his heart does not melt so as to change his conduct for the better; hence John Carmelita explains it thus, as if to say: When the bridegroom, knocking, addressed me, having conceived His fire,
The mystics, or contemplatives, consider this melting to occur in the soul through the vehemence of contemplation and divine love, which Richard of St. Victor explains thus in his treatise On the Degrees of Violent Charity: "The third degree of love is when the human mind is caught up into that abyss of divine light, so that the human soul in this state, forgetful of all external things, utterly loses knowledge of itself, and passes wholly into its God, and accomplishes what is written, Psalm 67:19: 'Even the unbelieving, that the Lord God may dwell among them.' In this state, therefore, the crowd of carnal desires is fully subdued and deeply lulled to sleep, and there is silence in heaven for about half an hour; and whatever trouble there is, is swallowed up by glory. In this state, while the mind is alienated from itself, while it is caught up into that sanctuary of the divine mystery, while it is surrounded on every side by the fire of divine love, intimately penetrated, inflamed throughout, it wholly strips off itself, puts on a certain divine disposition, and, configured to the beauty it beholds, passes entirely into another glory." He gives the example of iron, which, cold and black in itself, by the force of fire gradually grows warm, then white-hot, and finally completely ignites, "so that the whole melts and wholly fails from itself and passes entirely into another quality: so then, just so the soul, absorbed by the furnace of divine ardor and the fire of intimate love, surrounded on every side by the orbs of eternal desires, first grows warm, then white-hot, and finally melts entirely, and wholly fails from its former state." Denis the Carthusian adds, in his treatise On the Fountain of Light, chapter 18: "While the mind is intent on mystical contemplation, with love inflamed and as it were agitated and excited, love itself begins in a certain manner to boil over and to super-fervent, and by its sacred violence to shake the whole body. And what boils is by a certain violence of its heat and desire cast outside itself and lifted above itself, as if it were worthy to be
I was melted: for the soul, as if its spiritual pores were loosened, wholly submitted to Him: for by cold the body is contracted and compressed; by heat it is loosened, and the pores are opened. So the soul is pressed and contracted by the winter chill of sin; but by the divine heat of charity it becomes rarefied, and wholly gapes open, as it were with pores opened, so as to absorb the Bridegroom like a sponge.
Again, Philo Carpathius, Cassiodorus, Justus, Richard, and others, from this passage teach that the pious soul desires to live quietly for God alone and to enjoy His consolations; but that God sometimes does not hear her and denies them to her: "The bride," says Philo, "seeks peace in the troubles that afflict her in this valley of tears, and does not find it in the body or in the perishable nature of things. She calls, and is not heard, when by praying and meditating she seeks to be satisfied by the sweetness of that divine presence, and what she desires is not given to her. For she would wish to enjoy continually that interior sweetness, but impeded by the corruptible mass of the body, she often falls back dazed."
tore apart with heresy, and stripped from her the glory of her modesty and integrity (which the cloak denotes). Theodoret adds that tyrants stripped the martyrs of their cloak, that is, their body, when by killing them they despoiled them of their bodies; Justus, however, takes the cloak to mean the temples that they demolished and the Sacred Scripture that they burned. Finally, by the cloak can be understood the distinguished doctors, bishops, and martyrs whom Huneric and the like either killed or drove into exile: for these adorned and defended the Church like a cloak. See Victor, On the Vandal Persecution. Nevertheless the Church escaped safe from the hands of these suitors of Penelope, and through sincere bishops and courageous doctors did not cease to teach and propagate the integrity of faith and morals. For this reason Christ, with His tunic torn, appeared to St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria and martyr, saying: "Arius has torn my tunic," as his Life records.
To this the Chaldean paraphrase agrees, which in the Jewish manner takes these words as referring to the Chaldeans devastating Jerusalem: for they were a type of the tyrants devastating the Church: "The Chaldeans seized me," it says, "who were guarding the roads and besieging on every side against the city of Jerusalem; some of my people they killed by the sword, and some of my people they led into captivity. They took the royal necklace of Zedekiah king of Judah from his neck, and led him to Riblah, and the people of Babylon who were besieging the city and guarding the walls blinded his eyes."
Symbolically, Abbot Luke takes the watchmen to mean demons, who wound souls with their temptations and strip them of the cloak of baptismal purity.
Souls eager for virtue and perfection sometimes fall in with false and wicked teachers, advisers, confessors, companions, etc., who wound them with pernicious doctrines, counsels, and suggestions, so that they barely escape the loss of their purity and innocence, like Joseph leaving his cloak behind. Therefore pious souls should skillfully discern such hypocrites and, once recognized, flee them as plagues: for these are not faithful shepherds but treacherous lions, who by the greatest crime offer innocent and pure souls devoted to God to Venus and the devil to be violated, indeed sacrifice and immolate them, and this through the flattering enticements of words and writings, which under a disguise of honey conceal the most bitter gall and deadly poison.
Tropologically, St. Jerome, in Epistle 22 to Eustochium, argues from this passage that a virgin ought to keep herself at home, lest, if she goes out, she fall in with those who lie in wait for her chastity, who would take away from her the cloak of modesty.
Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Bede, Justus, Anselm take them to mean the more holy; Theodoret, Honorius, and Rupert take them as the less holy or novices; Philo, Psellus, and Abbot Luke understand them as angels and blessed humans. More fully, with St. Gregory and Haymo, you may take all of these together: for the Church, languishing and wounded with love of Christ, beseeches all the saints, both angels and humans, whether living or deceased, to announce to Christ this languor of hers, that He may heal it, namely by sending apostolic men who may convert the heretics, unbelievers, and wicked Christians who, injurious to Christ, have badly mistreated the Church, so that they too may love and worship Christ. Therefore she does not complain about the injury and violence inflicted on herself and on her doctors and martyrs, but covers them with silence, wishing them mercy and salvation, not her own vengeance upon them, saying with Christ on the cross, Luke 23:34: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"; and with St. Stephen, Acts 7:59: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." The bride therefore, yearning for the beloved with all her soul, employs every effort both her own and external; she therefore enlists for her wishes even outside prayers, because with these joined together the collected forces assail the divine heart, and indeed conquer it more forcefully: so Delrio, Sanchez, and others.
The pious soul beseeches all the holy angels and humans to intercede for her with Christ the Bridegroom, and to announce to Him her burning desire to love Him more, to please Him more, and to serve Him more, so that He may fulfill it, especially in the zeal for souls with which she languishes, that He may convert very many, indeed all, to Himself. Hear Nyssenus, homily on verse 13: "Because the illustrious Bridegroom of souls proved His love for us, by which He did not disdain to die for His enemies, therefore the bride in turn, burning with love toward Him by whom she had been anticipated, shows by these words the dart of love hidden deep in her breast, namely the communication of His very divinity: for God is love, which penetrates the heart through the sharp point of living faith. And the name of the dart (as St. Paul testifies) is faith efficaciously declaring itself through love." Such persons say with St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:2: "I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God. For I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." "Thus languish without failing, thus grow in love of the Bridegroom together with me," says William. This languor and failing, therefore, "is not the end of love, but its increase," says St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, octonary 11, 1.
William applies these words to the scribes and Pharisees, who by blaspheming and wounding Christ equally blasphemed and wounded His mother: "By the very fact," he says, "that they so cruelly lacerated the reputation of my Beloved with the sword of their tongue, they pierced the maternal affection in me with inflicted wounds of sorrow. Moreover, as far as they could, they stripped me of the robe of my glory, the cloak of praise with which I was covered, when it was said, Luke 2:27: 'Blessed is the womb that bore the good Master, and the breasts that He deigned to suckle.' Stripping me of this glory, as much as they could, they clothed me with a double garment of confusion, defaming me as the mother of the most pestilent deceiver; but I escaped the hands of all of these, nor did my Son allow them to rage against me any further."
Verse 8. I Adjure You, Daughters of Jerusalem, If You Find my Beloved, Tell Him that I Languish with Love.
The Hebrew has mah cholah, that is, "I am sick"; the Septuagint, "I adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and forces of the field, if you find my kinsman (the Complutensian has 'nephew,' Greek adelphidon, of which I treated above), what will you announce to him? That I am wounded with love (or by love)"; the Arabic emphatically, "because I am love wounded." What does wounded love not do, what does it not suffer? We heard a similar adjuration and languor of love in the bride, but as a young woman, in chapter 2, verses 4 and 5 (see what was said there); here, however, the languor of a woman of full and mature age is greater. "I languish with love" therefore means the same as: I fail and waste away with love, both in body and in mind, on account of the absence of the beloved, from excessive desire for him. This languor is most pleasing to God, hence the bride commands nothing else to be reported to the bridegroom than "I languish with love": for in this all her wishes are contained, which the bridegroom will understand from this more than sufficiently. Love therefore is a languor, love exhausts the spirit and strength, love makes the weak and the sick, but at the same time makes those suffering from love in their weakness powerful and strong. Therefore Hugh of St. Victor, in The Cloister of the Soul, chapter 12, speaks thus of sick brethren: "They confess they fulfill none of the rule, but unless I am mistaken they fulfill all of it: they are confined in the cloister of infirmity, disciplined by the rods of anxieties, and by the thorns of pains they fast, keep vigil, and labor, because their sickness denies them food, sleep, and rest."
awakened, I was delighted; and what shall I say? My soul was melted, my soul failed before the Lord, it was almost poured out from the body." He then asserts that he was flooded with such great joy that if that inundation of holy pleasure had not quickly restrained itself, it would have swiftly torn his soul from his body.
The Virgin languished with love of Christ and zeal for souls, and with the desire of enjoying Christ after His ascension into heaven. Hear Rupert: "O daughters of Jerusalem, you who are truly daughters of Abraham, seed of Judah, daughters also of David according to faith, believing in Him who is the King of the heavenly Jerusalem and became the Son of David according to the flesh, I adjure you by that very faith by which you have become daughters of Jerusalem -- if you find Him before me, as often happens, disciples departing from the body before the teacher, admitted to His presence -- that you announce to Him that I languish with love, from the great desire of seeing His face, I endure weariness of life and barely sustain the delays of this present exile. Why does she adjure here? Did not the Beloved know all things, and among them the love of His loving bride, etc.? To what end then does this adjuration tend? Is it not that, herself stricken, she may strike; herself wounded, she may wound; so that the daughters hearing of such a great desire for the future life in the mother who is not seen may perceive in their minds that the Beloved is such that for His sake one rightly despises this present world, and amid the delays of present life they may more and more desire to know Him at least through a mirror, at least in a riddle?"
Hear Sophronius, in his Sermon on the Assumption of the Mother of God: "I think," he says, "that whatever the heart possesses, whatever the mind, whatever human strength, even if you applied it all, it would not suffice for you to be able to conceive with what ardor of pious love she was unceasingly consumed, by what urgings of heavenly secrets she was moved, being filled with the Holy Spirit; because although she loved Christ with her whole heart and with her whole soul and with her whole strength, yet she was daily inflamed by new longings of desire for His absent presence; all the more powerfully indeed, the more she was inwardly illuminated by divine visitations, she whom the grace of the Holy Spirit had wholly filled, whom divine love had wholly set aglow, so that in her there was nothing that worldly affection could violate, but only a continuous ardor and intoxication of overflowing love: for Christ is to be loved by all with the whole heart and sought with the whole soul and the whole strength; but most ardently by her, whose Lord He was and Son."
Voice of the Daughters of Jerusalem. Verse 9. What is Your Beloved Among Beloveds, O Most Beautiful of Women? What is Your Beloved Among Beloveds, that You Have So Adjured Us?
BELOVED AMONG BELOVEDS. -- In Hebrew dod middod, which you may clearly translate as "the beloved above all beloveds," namely any beloved, that is, he whom you love above all others; hence the Syriac and Arabic translate "from among beloveds"; the Septuagint, adelphidos apo adelphidou, that is, kinsman from kinsman, or cousin from cousin, or nephew from nephew; or precisely, Christ is called the Beloved from the Beloved, because as God He was begotten by God the Father, most beloved to Him as His Son; but as man, He descended from David, who was uniquely beloved of God, indeed a man after God's own heart, 1 Kings 13:14: so Nyssenus, Philo, Anselm, and Gilbert, sermon 47.
He calls the Church the most beautiful of women, because she is more beautiful than all the assemblies of the Gentiles, the synagogues of the Jews, the academies of the philosophers, the dens of the atheists, the caves of the heretics: for these are the harlots of the devil, but she is the virgin and bride of Christ. So the Blessed Virgin is the mother of mothers and the virgin of virgins, says William. The daughters of Jerusalem, that is, the holy souls of angels and men, asked by the Church to find the Beloved whom she has sought in vain among the haunts of the impious, in turn ask what her beloved is like, for whose love she languishes -- not because they are ignorant of this, but to sharpen and kindle her desire for Him, and to give her occasion to praise Him most effusively and to depict graphically His form, gifts, and beauty from head to foot. And this is the remedy for her languor, for one who wishes to revive those languishing with love can do nothing more fitting than to engage in conversation with them about the one they love; hence St. Dominic, burning and languishing with the love of God, could think and speak of nothing other than God.
Tropologically, we are taught here by frequent meditation, prayer, and reading to ruminate on who, what, and how great is the Bridegroom of our soul, namely Christ God and our Redeemer, so that from a greater knowledge of His goodness, greatness, wisdom, holiness, etc., we may rise to a greater admiration, veneration, and love of Him: so Philo. Hence the daughters of Jerusalem repeat the question "What is your beloved among beloveds," because the more ardently they love, says St. Gregory, the more sweetly they repeat words about Him, so that through the repetition of love the greatest love may be shown."
Voice of the Bride. Verse 10. my Beloved is White and Ruddy, Chosen out of Thousands.
The Septuagint and Arabic have "from myriads"; the Hebrew merebuba, that is, "above a myriad," that is, above ten thousand. The bride, struck by the question in verse 9, pours out all the depths of her love in praise of the bridegroom, all the sounds of her tongue and voice: for the lover cannot think, speak, or praise anything other than the beloved.
For "white," the Hebrew has tsach, that is, white, bright, clear, cloudless, serene, pure, like the noonday sun; Symmachus has lampros, that is, shining: for excessive whiteness, such as that of snow, especially when struck by the rays of the sun, gleams and flashes.
For "ruddy," the Hebrew has adom, that is, red-haired, such as Esau was, who was therefore called Edom; hence also our first parent was called Adam, because he was formed by God from red earth, Genesis 2:12; the Septuagint has pyrros, that is, tawny, fiery, or with a fiery face or fiery eyes, ruddy red.
For "chosen," the Hebrew has dagul, that is, standing out, an excellent prince, and eminent above the rest like a banner; thus Saul is called chosen and good, that is, handsome: "And there was not a man among the sons of Israel better (that is, more handsome) than he: from the shoulders and upward he stood above all the people," 1 Kings 9:2. For dagul is derived from deghel, that is, a banner; daghel therefore literally means the same as if you said "bannered, magnified, distinguished." Marinus translates, "distinguished by the banner of a myriad, or ten thousand"; another, "standard-bearer among ten thousand, who bears the standard before ten thousand"; the Tigurina, "having under his standards an army of ten thousand"; R. Solomon, "surrounded by many armies"; Vatablus, "bannered among ten thousand," that is, he says, "bearing the standard (of the cross) among all Christians."
Beauty, says Plato, consists in two things: first, in the sweetness of color; second, in the fitting harmony of the members. The bride therefore begins her praises of the bridegroom's beauty from the color of his face, and teaches that he is most beautiful, namely white mixed and interwoven with red, that is, rosy, such as the poets attribute to the most beautiful Adonis; hence Statius, book 1 of the Achilleid:
"...In his snowy face swims a purple fire."
And another:
"There was a whiteness such as the Latonian Moon presents, And a purple color in his snowy body."
Sidonius says of his Theodoric, book 1, epistle 2: "A milky skin, which when inspected more closely is suffused with a youthful blush; for this color is frequently produced in him not by anger but by modesty." Plutarch, On Alexander: "Apelles, painting Alexander holding a thunderbolt, did not represent his color, but made it darker and more swarthy, whereas he was, as they say, fair; and this color in his chest and face especially tended toward purple." And Galen teaches that this white-red color is "the best temperament"; Aristotle says it is a mark of "good character and talent"; Polemon says it makes one "keen and quick in grasping learning"; "it produces one who is temperate, grave, modest, and magnanimous,"
"and ruddy, bearing in himself the image of Christ," in whom innocence was made purple and slain, and for this reason Christ was not only white and splendid in Himself, but also made purple and white all who believe in Him by His blood, and reconciled them to His Father, when He washed them from all sins by His grace in baptism and penance, and made them pure and holy, indeed martyrs, exulting and glorying in calumnies and every adversity, according to Paul, Romans 5:3: "We glory in tribulations." To Christ belongs that saying, Ecclesiastes 7:29: "One man among a thousand I have found," who is the only Son of God, chosen and beloved by Him, in whom He was well pleased, Matthew 3:17. Therefore Ezra thus depicts Him crowning the saints: "And in their midst," he says, "was a young man of lofty stature, taller than all of them, and he was placing crowns on each of their heads, and was more exalted," 4 Ezra 2:43; and when the one who saw the vision asked the angel: "Who is that young man who places crowns upon them and gives palms into their hands?" he received the answer from the angel: "He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world." So Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Philo, Bede, Anselm, Richard, Rupert. Thus St. Agnes, to the son of the Roman prefect who was seeking her as his bride, objected the far greater beauty, dignity, and excellence of Christ her Bridegroom, saying: "Depart from me, you fuel of sin, food of death, because I have already been won by another Lover, who is far nobler than you. He has betrothed me with the ring of His faith: His nobility is loftier, His power stronger, His countenance more beautiful, His love sweeter, and more elegant in every grace." And shortly after: "Whose mother is a virgin, whose father knows no woman: whom angels serve, whose beauty the sun and moon admire, by whose fragrance the dead are revived, by whose touch the sick are healed, whose riches never fail: to Him alone I keep faith, to Him I commit myself with all devotion: when I love Him I am chaste, when I touch Him I am clean, when I receive Him I am a virgin." So St. Ambrose, Epistle 34. St. Bernard adds, in sermon 28, that Christ is called chosen from thousands because thousands of thousands attend the Beloved, and ten times a hundred thousand surround the Beloved, and no one equals the Beloved.
Alexander," says Plutarch. So our author Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 11. Such was the color of Christ, as Nicephorus testifies, book 1, last chapter; hence the Psalmist, Psalm 44:3: "Beautiful in form above the sons of men"; again Nyssenus, homily 13: "Christ is called white on account of His most white flesh, ruddy on account of His blood."
Symbolically, first, Christ is white on account of His most pure and most splendid divinity, which He has from eternity; ruddy on account of His humanity with red blood, which He assumed in time from Adam, who was created from adamah, that is, from red earth, and from David, who was ruddy: so Theodoret, Justus, and Gilbert, who continuing his sermons here concludes the exposition of St. Bernard; and St. Ambrose, book 1 On Virgins, and Anastasius of Sinai, book 4 of the Hexaemeron, where he calls Christ the most pure and most brilliant sun of the world: for He is the uncreated Light from Light, God from God, as the Nicene Creed has it. For He is "the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness," Wisdom 7:26; He is "the brightness of glory and the figure of His substance," Hebrews 1:3. Secondly, and more fittingly, Christ was white and splendid on account of the purity of His innocence and the splendor of His holiness, by which, born of the most pure Virgin, He was most holy; ruddy on account of His passion, by which He was made purple with His own blood, according to the words: "Who is this that comes from Edom, with garments dyed from Bozrah? He that is beautiful in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength. Why then is your apparel red, and your garments like those who tread in the winepress?" Isaiah 63:1. So Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Philo, Anselm, Rupert, St. Jerome on Isaiah 53, who also in book 1 Against Jovinian adds: Christ is called white in His virginity, ruddy in His passion.
The ruddy color mixed with white therefore signifies that Christ who suffered and was bloodied was white, that is, pure, innocent, and sinless, indeed that on account of His innocence and the innocent truth by which He taught that He was the Christ, He suffered death and martyrdom, which is the supreme honor and glory to be imitated by Christians, indeed to be sought after: for to suffer when innocent because of guilt is a disgrace, but for an innocent one to suffer is an honor of holiness and holy patience. For then he can truly be called chosen from thousands, as Christ was, who as the leader and standard-bearer of patience and martyrdom bore its banner before all nations and ages, which banner so many thousands of martyrs, virgins, and confessors have eagerly followed and will continue to follow, who endured and overcame calumnies, reproaches, scourges, temptations, and every kind of affliction with courage through the love and example of Christ, and continue daily to overcome them; so much so that Christ can be called the standard-bearer of patience and of the patient. This is the image of Christ, says St. Ambrose, On the Death of the Emperor Valentinian: "My Valentinian," he says, "was white
white in the resurrection, and therefore chosen from thousands, because He is the firstborn from the dead."
The holy soul is white through faith, ruddy through charity, and, as Philo says, through the Holy Spirit. Again, she is white through innocence, ruddy through patience, and therefore chosen from thousands: for scarcely one out of a thousand people (if you count all who are in the world) rises to true holiness and the perfection of patience; hence the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret: "Christ," they say, "is white to those who have been cleansed from all the stain of sins; but ruddy to those who have been proved through temptations, like the fiery splendor of gold."
Finally, because here the mature, indeed the aging phase of the Church is described, when after Constantine nearly the whole world was fighting under the standard and banner of the cross of Christ, you may very fittingly explain it thus: Christ is white in virgins and confessors, ruddy in martyrs, and therefore chosen from thousands, that is, to translate the Hebrew, the standard-bearer and leader of myriads, that is, of innumerable faithful throughout the whole world, fighting under the banner of the cross of Christ, because, as St. Jerome says in the Epitaph of Paula, He bestows the same rewards on the victors both in peace and in battle: "Be at peace," he says, "Eustochium, you have been enriched with a great inheritance: the Lord is your portion, and that you may rejoice the more, your mother has been crowned with a long martyrdom: for not only is the shedding of blood reckoned as a confession, but the devout and immaculate service of the mind is also a daily martyrdom: the one crown is of roses, the other of lilies; hence also in the Song of Songs it is written, Song 5:10: 'My kinsman is white and ruddy,' bestowing the same rewards on the victors both in peace and in war." And St. Bernard, sermon 28 on the Song: "Christ," he says, "is called white and ruddy, whom the flowers of roses and the lilies of the valleys surround, that is, the choirs of martyrs and virgins, and He who sits in the midst is certainly not at variance with them, being Himself a virgin and martyr."
Christ communicates His gifts and praises to His mother: therefore the Blessed Virgin was white in her virginity, ruddy in her charity and martyrdom, which she underwent in Christ and with Christ. Therefore she was chosen from thousands, to be the Virgin Mother of God, the mother of Christ, the standard-bearer of virgins, the leader of martyrs, the banner-carrier of confessors. Hear Nyssenus on Christ: "Among all the myriads of men from the time they began to exist and as long as they shall be born, He alone came into this light by a new manner of birth, for whose birth nature did not cooperate but served; His nativity did not arise from the union of two, His birth was in no way defiled, His delivery free from pain. His bridal chamber was the power of the Most High, like a cloud overshadowing virginity itself; the nuptial torch was the splendor of the Holy Spirit; His couch was free from vices, His condition was nuptials; His uncorrupted purity neither began to exist through pleasure nor came into the light with pain. It befitted the mother of death (Eve) to conceive and give birth in pain on account of sin; but both were unfitting for the mother of life (Mary), who was full of grace. Thus He is called Chosen on account of His birth free from all pain: He the firstborn of all creation, begotten from the Father without pain; He the firstborn of regeneration, reborn through the water of baptism without pain; He the firstborn of the resurrection from the dead, born from the sepulcher without pain: thus in all His generations His birth was free from pain. And thus He is most fittingly called: Chosen from thousands."
Verse 11. his Head is the Finest Gold: his Locks are like Clusters of the Palm Tree, Black as a Raven.
HIS HEAD IS THE FINEST GOLD. -- For "finest" the Hebrew has paz, which by aphaeresis is the same as ophaz, namely gold brought from the region of Ophaz (in the Septuagint one now reads cephaz, but they seem to have formerly translated it as ophaz, for so the Hebrew has it), or Ophir, which was the finest. Others translate gold paz as gold of solidity, for pazaz means to make solid, to strengthen, and gold is the most solid of metals. Others, with our Pineda, translate gold paz as ductile gold, for the finest gold is that which is flexible and can be beaten into thin sheets. See what was said on Jeremiah 10:9.
These words can be explained in three ways. First, so that you take the head for the crown of the head, as if to say: The hair and locks of the bridegroom, namely of Solomon and Christ, were golden or sprinkled with golden filings. For Josephus testifies in book 8 of the Antiquities, chapter 7, that the young men of Solomon did this: "On the finest horses of Solomon," he says, "sat riders, the flower of youth, conspicuous for their tall stature and long hair; moreover, they daily sprinkled their hair with gold filings, so that when the sun's rays struck them, a flash of light was reflected from their heads." Lampridius, Spartianus, and Trebellius teach in their Lives that the emperors Commodus, Lucius Verus, and Gallienus did the same. But concerning the hair of the bridegroom, the text soon adds: "His locks are like clusters of the palm tree"; therefore this gold seems to be attributed rather to the head itself than to the hair. Secondly, as if to say: The head of the bridegroom was gold not in reality but in resemblance, that is, like the finest gold, namely bright, pure, beautiful like gold. Thirdly, as if to say: The head of the bridegroom was adorned with a diadem or crown fashioned from the finest gold. For the Hebrew ketem signifies not so much gold as a golden ornament, namely a diadem or a torque. That this is so is clear, first, from Psalm 44:10: "The queen stood at Your right hand in gilded clothing," in Hebrew beketem Ophir, which St. Jerome and Theodotion translate as "in a golden diadem." Secondly, because the fifth edition, according to Theodotion, translates, "his head was distinguished with gold," and so also Theodotion; Aquila and Symmachus, "his head was a stone of gold"; the Syriac, "his head was a rock of gold," that is, a mass of gold, or rather a gem of gold, as if to say: His head was clothed with precious stones or gems interwoven in a golden diadem. Vatablus: "His head was adorned with refined gold."
Thirdly, because the bridegroom here is King Solomon, and the distinguishing ornament and glory of a royal head is a golden diadem; hence in Song 3:11 she said: "See, daughters of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him on the day of his betrothal and on the day of the gladness of his heart"; and Psalm 20:4: "You placed on his head a crown of precious stone."
Grammatically, the beautiful form and figure of Solomon, and of his antitype Christ the Lord, seems to be described here. For Christ appears to have been very similar to Solomon; both therefore were of a rosy color, that is, white and ruddy; both had a head adorned with gold, hair abundant like a palm and black like a raven, dove-like eyes, bright and milky, rosy and fragrant cheeks like beds of spices, purple lips like lilies; hands and fingers turned on a lathe, that is, elegant and delicate, adorned with golden rings set with hyacinths; a belly strong and solid like ivory and shining like sapphire; legs robust like marble columns. So Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 4.
Parabolically, the head of Christ the man is His divinity, according to 1 Corinthians 11:3: "The head of Christ is God." The sense therefore is, as if to say: The humanity of Christ is crowned with the golden diadem of His divinity, as it were of a head. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Bede, Philo, Anselm, Rupert, Richard, and the others generally. Hence John Carmelita explains it thus, as if to say: "The divine hypostasis of the nature assumed by the Bridegroom, presiding over the body as a head and imparting divine motion, is gold, because it possesses a royal majesty denoted by gold. It is the finest or refined gold, that is, free from all admixture: for although the hypostasis of the Word is intimately united to the human nature, it is nevertheless in no way mingled with it." For the first and proper bride of the Word is the humanity assumed by Him, whose nuptials Solomon celebrates in this epithalamium of the Song of Songs, as I said in the Introduction, chapter 2.
Furthermore, the divinity of Christ is rightly compared to gold paz, that is, solid and ductile, and therefore the finest, first, because just as gold surpasses all metals, so God infinitely surpasses all created things; what gold is therefore among metals, God is among creatures.
Again, gold is the most brilliant of metals; what is more splendid than the divinity? So Bede, Philo, Justus, Cassiodorus, and St. Gregory, whom hear: "The head of the Bridegroom is called gold because His humanity governs us through the brightness of His divinity." Secondly, because, as Philo says in his book Who Is the Heir of Divine Things: "Among the many praises of gold, two are especially noted: one, that it does not feel the injury of rust; the other, that it is beaten into the thinnest sheets without breaking. Rightly, therefore, it signifies the greater nature, which, spread out and extended everywhere, is wholly full throughout the whole, most fittingly weaving together all things." The divinity therefore is like gold: both because it feels no rust of corruption or change, but remains the same, always impassible and immutable from eternity; and because just as gold, the better it is, the more it is beaten into thinner sheets, which cover, adorn, and gladden all things, and then shines and radiates all the more: so God communicates His gifts to all creatures, especially to angels and men, most of all when He makes those soiled by sin beautiful and radiant by His grace, just as a common piece of wood, polished by the sculptor's art, is clothed in gold and shines far and wide; in which the beneficence, magnificence, and glory of the divinity especially resplends. Therefore Christ teaches that this gold is to be sought by us with all zeal, Revelation 3:18: "I counsel you," He says, "to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich." See what was said there. So Theodoret, Anselm, Rupert, Richard, and others. Thirdly, the divinity in Christ communicated these gifts of its own to the humanity assumed by Him: therefore this humanity far surpasses in dignity all the created natures of men and angels; it is solid and sinless; it communicates itself through grace to all men; "because in Him (in Christ the man, namely in the humanity of Christ) the whole fullness of the divinity dwells bodily," Colossians 2:9. So Nyssenus.
The holy soul participates in the golden divinity of Christ through grace. Hear St. Paulinus, Epistle 1 to Severus: "Of whom (namely Christ) it is said, Song 5:11: 'His head is like gold paz, that is, pure.' For this gold is the model of the saints, who shine as lights in the head of the body, and are gold refined by fire for God, because He found them melted in the furnace of this world through the trials of sufferings, as it is written, worthy of Himself, and in them He struck the sacred coin of His image, imprinting on their hearts and tongues the word of His truth, and establishing them as money-changers, that according to His own image they might stamp coins acceptable to the Lord, and, abolishing from us the image of Caesar, might stamp the living coinage of the eternal King, so that, inscribed with the spirit of redemption, with necks now under the yoke
that is, because she conceived, bore, and nourished God: and the Fathers often assert that the whole honor of the mother is referred to the Son. Thirdly, because in human affairs the same disposition that inclines one to adore the king also inclines one to honor the mother of the king as such; however, this adoration is not absolute, which is owed to God alone, but diminished, participated, and relative, for it regards the dignity and divinity of the Son, on account of which the Mother of God is honored as such. Therefore this honor does not stop at the mother but through her tends toward the Son, nor is so much the mother adored in herself as the Son adored in the mother.
Furthermore, Philo Carpathius says the head of the Church is the patriarchs and doctors, who, like gold refined in the furnace of tribulation, shone with wisdom, and especially St. Peter, who after Christ was the head of the Church; hence he was called Cephas, that is, the rock of the Church, just as the Septuagint here translates, "gold of Cephaz." For Christ is here described as the head, leader, and ruler of the Church spread throughout the whole world, whose vicar was St. Peter, and his successors the Roman Pontiffs, and especially in the time of Constantine, St. Sylvester,
The Locks (of his Head) are like Clusters of the Palm Tree, Black as a Raven.
THE LOCKS (OF HIS HEAD) ARE LIKE CLUSTERS OF THE PALM TREE. -- For "like clusters of the palm tree," the Hebrew has taltallim, that is, mounds, heaps, accumulations; the Septuagint translates elatai, which our Latin translator retained, rendering "clusters," and adds "of the palm tree"; the Complutensian translates "ductile"; the Syriac translates, "his hair is extended"; the Arabic is silent here; Vatablus, "thick"; Clarius, "dense"; Agathius, "heaped up"; Pagninus, "curly," hence some translate, "the tips of his hair are raised like a mound," that is, curly; the Tigurina, "his ringlets like linden"; Nyssenus, "like a fir tree," for elatai also signifies a fir tree; hence St. Ambrose, in book 2 On the Holy Spirit, reading "his locks are fir trees," says that the saints sprouting from Christ the head of the Church are well compared to fir trees, since from fir wood are made the ships of Tarshish, which float above the waves of the world and provide a safe passage of salvation.
One may ask, what are the "clusters of the palm tree"? First, Rupert says: The raised branches of palm trees are called "elevated" (for the Hebrew taltallim is derived from talal, that is, to elevate, to suspend) to distinguish them from those that are lowered and curved; they are therefore called elatae, as if "raised upward." So Rupert. Secondly, others better judge that thalal is a Greek word and signifies the young shoot of a new palm, which is of a pleasant color and perpetually green: so Galen, book 8 of Simple Medicines, Hesychius, Genebrardus; hence also Pliny, book 13, chapter 4, calls the new shoots that sprout upright from the crown the "hair": "The hair of this tree," he says, "is at the crown." For the palm from root to crown has no branches, but rises on a knotty trunk and grows thick up to the top, where it puts forth its many dense branches, which are always green and enduring in such a form and arrangement that they clearly resemble the appearance of hair: so much so that the palm with its branches appears to be a man crowned with his own hair. Thus by the "clusters" the branches of the palm that like hair cover and adorn its top are understood by Cassiodorus, Philo Carpathius, Bede, Rupert, and others. Note that Hesychius, Galen, and the ancient Greeks write thalai with the accent on the penultimate: for this signifies palms, or palm shoots, or fir trees; but thatal with the accent on the last syllable properly signifies "ductile," though the branches of palms are also ductile, and therefore thatai.
Thirdly, and properly, the "elata" is the sheath or small pod of the flowering palm's fruit, from which, when it is split open, numerous flowers emerge, attached to long and moderately dense filaments that present the appearance of hair and locks; the flowers then develop into fruits, namely into dates: so Dioscorides, book 4, chapter 126, where Matthiolus displays the image of the palm's flower-sheath in an illustration. Likewise Aetius, Oribasius, and Rembertus Dodonaeus, On Plants, Pemptade 6, book 3, chapter 27. Hear Prosper Alpinus, in his book On the Plants of Egypt, on the palm: "In the month of March the sheaths fastened to their wings open, from which a cluster of infinite filaments springs forth, and flowers are seen attached to these filaments or threads, from which small green dates resembling clusters of grapes are produced."
In this passage, by the "clusters" you may understand both the branches of the palm and the sheaths of filaments, flowers, and dates just described: for the branches present the appearance of hair, while the sheaths that hang down beyond the branches give the appearance of curly knots, gems, and jewelry that hang from the extremity of the hair and adorn it. These are called in Hebrew taltallim, that is, mounds, because the long hair at its extremity, namely around the neck or shoulders, is gathered into mounds and heaps.
Therefore the locks and hair of the bridegroom are compared to clusters, that is, branches and fruits of palms: first, because like them they are long and flowing; second, because they flow down from the head onto the shoulders, and there they are abundant; third, because they are round in a circle, and thus combed and arranged; fourth, because they are gathered as it were into mounds and heaps; fifth, because there they are curled. The curls therefore have the appearance of the flowers of the palm, for these resemble twisted ringlets. Thus the head of the bridegroom was adorned first by the elegant hair and locks; and the locks were decorated by the golden crown placed upon them, of which I spoke a little before.
BLACK AS A RAVEN. -- The Arabic: "his ringlets are black like the blackness of the raven," because in hot regions black hair and beard are most esteemed, says Vatablus, and especially in Syria and Judea, as the Maronites dwelling on Mount Lebanon assured me in Rome. Again, blackness, as well as the fullness and curliness of the hair, indicates a good state of health, vigor of heat, youth, and manliness (for the black hair of the young is far from the white hair of the old), as Galen and physicians teach. Hence Martial, book 5, Elegy 90:
"You pretend to be young with dyed hair, Lentinus: So suddenly a raven, who were just now a swan."
And Horace, book 1, Ode 32:
"And Lycus, beautiful with black eyes and black hair."
The same, in the Art of Poetry:
"To be gazed upon with black eyes"
Grammatically and literally, Christ wore His hair long, abundant, round, flowing from His head onto His shoulders and there curling, in the manner of a Nazirite, as I said on Numbers 6:9. Hear Nicephorus, book 1 of the History, last chapter, depicting the form of Christ: "He had an excellent and vivid countenance, His bodily stature was about seven palms; He had somewhat fair hair (such as is the color of dates) and not very thick, inclining gently in a way toward curls." And soon after: "His beard hair was fair and not very long; but the hair of His head He wore rather long, for no razor came upon His head, nor any human hand except His mother's in His tender age alone."
Furthermore, long hair or locks are an ornament to a man. Hear St. Ambrose, book 5 of the Hexaemeron: "Hair is venerable in the elderly, venerable in priests, terrible in warriors, becoming in young men, elegant in women, sweet in children."
Parabolically, these hairs of Christ signify His holy and divine counsels, thoughts, and affections: because just as hairs grow from the head, so thoughts arise from the mind; and the head of Christ is God. Therefore His mind was divine, and from God He drew divine thoughts, affections, loves, and ardors, which like hairs were long, abundant, properly arranged, connected to one another, and by curling as it were turned back upon themselves, and produced flowers and fruits not of dates but of holy and divine works, so that every word, thought, and action of Christ was heavenly and divine. These same hairs were black as a raven, both because they were strong and virile, because they burned with the heat of charity, and were as it were scorched and blackened: for just as hairs flow from the head, so from God and Christ the most extensive, densest, most abundant, and greatest benefits flow down upon men. For God and Christ are uncreated, burning, and immense charity and beneficence itself.
Mystically, Theodoret says: The hairs are graces of every kind that flow from Christ into the faithful. And the three anonymous authors cited by him say: The hairs of God are His various attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, justice, etc., which adorn the divinity as hairs adorn the head, and make men who imitate them divine and quasi-gods. Abbot Luke says: The hairs of God are the innumerable angels who attend God as hairs attend the head, and like palms are always green and strive for the heights. Finally Rupert says: The hairs of Christ are all the truths of Sacred Scripture, which declare and adorn Him: all these are black because they are obscure and sometimes inscrutable. So Theodoret, Rupert, and others. Finally Bede says: "St. Magdalene, pouring the alabaster of spikenard ointment upon the head of Christ, made His hairs, in a mystery of great devotion, like the clusters of palm trees, that is, like aromatic trees."
thought, and action of Christ was heavenly and divine. These same hairs were black as a raven, both because they were strong and virile, because they burned with the heat of charity and were as it were scorched and blackened: for just as hairs flow from the head, so from God and Christ the most extensive, densest, most abundant, and greatest benefits flow down upon men. For God and Christ are uncreated, burning, and immense charity and beneficence itself.
striving upward, not a little increase the beauty of the Bridegroom, stirred by the breath of the Holy Spirit. Paulinus adds, Epistle 4 to Severus: "Because in the Church, that is, on the mountain of God, they tower above others by the peaks of their merits, like fir trees on their mountains; and just as fir trees are suited for building ships, so these leaders of the people from the mountain of the law, as if hewn from Lebanon, wove the threshing floor of the Lord or the ship, that is, the Church that would sail through the floods of this world, from nations hewn by the word of God, and taught it, joined into a framework of charity bound by faith, to cut through the waves of this world without rotting." He then continues: "But now too, souls trained in the apostolic faith are black and good fir trees; black indeed no longer from sin, I think, but rather still from the habitation of the body, or blackened by the dust as it were of the battlefield of internal exercise, or by dusty sweat; yet good, on account of their spiritual conduct even in the nights of the body. So also the ships that float above the waves of the world, armed on the right (as it is written) and on the left, as with oars, by true faith and righteous works, who are steered by the word of God as by a rudder, and spread the sails of their senses to the breeze of the Holy Spirit, and bind the sail of their heart to the yardarm of the cross with the bonds of charity as with ropes."
More on these hairs I said in chapter 4, verse 2.
The hairs of Christ are holy men, especially religious and apostolic men: these are like clusters of the palm tree, because like the palm they do not succumb to the burden of temptation but overcome all things, and raise themselves higher into heaven by prayer and meditation; they are black like the raven because they regard themselves as lowly and sinful, and therefore are more exalted by God. So Justus of Urgel, Bede, Nyssenus, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, and Richard of St. Victor, whom hear: "The clusters of palm trees are the fronds, that is, the more beautiful branches always reaching toward the heights. The palm below is rough and wrapped in tight bark, but above is beautiful both in appearance and in fruit: so the just below do hard things and suffer adversities, and above they are beautiful and fruitful in God's eyes; for by the hardships of the body they purify themselves and advance in beauty. In the lower parts, their life is wrapped as it were in many layers of bark, being pressed by innumerable tribulations; but in the heights it is expanded as if by the leaves of beautiful greenness, in the amplitude of reward, and they taste the sweetness of heavenly delight (which the dates of the palm represent)," says Cassiodorus. Hence Psellus says the hair of Christ is SS. Peter and Paul, with their followers understood.
To this Nyssenus adds, who, reading "his locks are like fir trees," understands by them the apostles, because, he says, having been made lofty like fir trees and reaching toward heaven,
Concerning the literal and mystical hair of the Blessed Virgin I spoke in chapter 4, verse 2. The hair of the Mother of God, therefore, according to Albert and the physician Constantine, was moderately black: because the most perfect disposition of the human body, with which the Mother of God was endowed, requires a warm and dry brain; for from warmth arises quickness of apprehension, and from dryness firmness of retention. From such a disposition of the brain the black color in the hair and eyes arises. Moreover, black eyes are clearer for seeing, and therefore nobler on account of the utility of the senses. See St. Antoninus, part 4, title 15, chapter 11, where he treats at length of the beauty of the hair, skin, and eyes of the Blessed Virgin.
Verse 12. his Eyes are like Doves Beside Streams of Water, Washed in Milk, Sitting Beside Abundant Streams.
HIS EYES ARE LIKE DOVES BESIDE STREAMS OF WATER. -- The word "columba" (dove) is not a genitive singular but a nominative plural, as is clear from the Hebrew
ionim, and from the Greek; hence what follows is "which have been washed" in the plural, not "which has been washed": therefore the two eyes of the bridegroom are compared to two doves that sit beside streams of water and abundant flowing streams -- both because doves delight in waters, in order to see themselves in them as in a mirror and to wash themselves in them, for they are most fond of cleanliness; and in order to see in the waters the shadow of the hawk, and so by flying away escape its talons; and because the eye, sitting and floating in its moist orbit and cavity, is like a dove sitting and floating in water: for from this orb of the eyes tears drip, as water from a spring. Hence the Hebrew ayin signifies both eye and spring, for what the spring is in the earth, the eye is in man: the one drips water, the other tears; the one is circular, the other round. He says therefore that the eyes of the bridegroom fulfill the meaning of their name ayin, because they are like a spring; for they float in their orbit or cavity, as waters in a spring, and from it the waters of tears flow forth. Hence Ovid, Fasti 6:
"...Both mind and eyes were swimming."
And Virgil, Aeneid 5:
"He released his swimming eyes."
Moist eyes denote men who are easy, flexible, kind, and merciful, who readily condescend to the requests of others, sympathize, and help.
Again, the phrase "beside streams of water" indicates that the bridegroom's eyes were gray-blue, that is, of a watery and sea-like color, and therefore glassy, crystalline, and heavenly. Hence cæsius (gray-blue) is said as if cælius (heavenly), and cæruleus (azure) as if cæluleus: for the gray-blue color has the appearance of the sky, whence some think the Caesars were so named. Gray-blue eyes are a symbol of prudent and wise perception; hence Minerva or Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, is called by Homer and Cicero in book 1 On the Nature of the Gods glaukopis, that is, having gray or gray-blue eyes, such as cats have. This is relevant because Christ was white and fair, as I said on verse 10; and fair men for the most part have gray-blue eyes, says Aristotle in the Problems, section 10, number 13, and he adds the reason: "Since eyes," he says, "are distinguished by three kinds of color -- black, goat-like, and gray-blue -- the color of the eyes follows the color of the whole body, and so it is not undeservedly gray-blue."
AND SITTING BESIDE ABUNDANT STREAMS. -- The Hebrew has, "sitting beside fullness." R. Solomon, Aben-Ezra, and other rabbis take "fullness" to mean the cavity, bezel, and setting in which gems are set, for example, diamonds in the bezel of a ring; this is called "fullness" in Hebrew because it is filled by the gem, as is clear from Exodus 28:11, where for "set in gold," the Hebrew has, "the stones shall be in their fullnesses," that is, in their settings. They therefore give this sense, as if to say: The eyes of the bridegroom sparkled and shone in their sockets, just as diamonds in their settings. Thus there is a double comparison here: the first, in which the eyes of the bridegroom are compared to doves beside streams of water; the second, in which they are compared to gems shining in gold. But the Septuagint, our translator, and others assign only the first comparison here, for in the Hebrew there is no word for gems or diamonds. Hence the Syriac translates "beside rest" instead of "beside streams," as if to say: Which sit most quietly and peacefully in their place, for example beside waters. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The eyes of the bridegroom are like doves that sit beside streams of water, or beside abundant flowing streams, that is, that sit beside full and pure springs -- that is, they are gray-blue, clear, limpid, sparkling, and bright; also quiet and steady, not wandering, roving, or wild, as were those of Julian the Apostate, according to Nazianzen, but calm, gentle, and kind, which represent gentleness and uprightness of soul.
Furthermore, our Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 5, paragraph 8, says: The bridegroom Solomon, and his antitype Christ, had eyes according to their fullness, that is, of a fitting and suitable size filling their orbit, so that they neither protruded much in a swollen way, nor receded inward in a hollow and concave way -- the former being characteristic of the stupid and shameless, the latter of the sad, fearful, and wicked, such as Caligula's were; not very large, which is characteristic of the lazy and those abounding in phlegm and moisture, such as Domitian's; not very small, which is characteristic of the fox-like and faint-hearted: therefore moderate, according to their fullness, corresponding with perfect proportion to the size of the whole body; which is the mark of the best constitution. The same eyes resembled a pair of equal doves, since they were by no means unequal -- which is the mark of either the stupid or the wicked -- but equal, which is the mark of those who love equality, equity, and justice.
not very dark, which is the mark of the timid and deceitful; not reddish and fiery, which is the mark of the wrathful, when "their eyes blaze with ruddy flames" -- for one who does not bear injuries but avenges them fiercely, we call a man of bloodshot eyes; not fiery, which is the mark of the shameless and impudent, such as those of a dog; but moderately tawny, which is the mark of the magnanimous, such as Caesar's according to Suetonius, such also as the eyes of doves, and such as Constantine's, whose eyes were lion-like according to Cedrenus.
Finally, Nicephorus, book 1, chapter 40: "From the somewhat tawny eyes (of Christ)," he says, "a wonderful grace shone forth; they were keen, and His nose was rather long."
WHICH ARE WASHED IN MILK -- that is, which are most pure and most white, as if having been washed in milk they had absorbed the milky color and whiteness. Milk denotes whiteness not so much of colors as of morals, for in the eyes, although one part is white, the other and more important part, in which the pupil and the power of seeing resides, is black. Therefore just as he praises the white part of the eye for its milky whiteness, so he leaves the other part to be grounded on blackness, says Genebrardus. Pineda adds, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 4, paragraph 8: The eyes of Solomon and Christ resembled doves washed in milk, because they were not bloodshot, which is the mark of drunkards and the impudent;
on account of perpetual attention to learning divine things, although through this the method is also introduced by which we may attain the beauty of the eyes, namely by always sitting beside copious waters, not beside the streams of Babylon, and by seeking the things of God, not the things of the world."
The Chaldean version is relevant here, although Jewish, which by the eyes understands the providence of God toward the just inhabitants of Jerusalem who keep His law: "His eyes," it says, "contemplate Jerusalem always, to do good to it and to bless it from the beginning of the year to its end, like doves that stand and gaze at the outflow of waters, on account of the merit of those who dwell in the council, who labor in the law, and who illuminate judgment so that it may be gentle as milk, and who dwell in the house of learning, and who debate in judgment until they complete it, so as to justify and to condemn."
The limpid, gray-blue, and heavenly eyes signify the extraordinary, heavenly, and divine vigilance and providence of Christ, by which, through His bishops, pastors, prophets, doctors, etc. (such as, after Constantine, SS. Basil, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, etc.), He most prudently governs the Church and each individual faithful, who are washed and made white with milk, that is, with simplicity. These sit beside the springs of Sacred Scripture, so that from there they may draw the purity and whiteness of doctrine and of the Christian life, which they may pour out and transmit to their subjects. Hence by the eyes the doctors are understood, according to St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Nyssenus, Bede, Justin, Philo, St. Ambrose, and others. Therefore to these Christ says, Matthew 10:16: "Be wise as serpents and simple as doves."
Christ therefore sees through His doctors what needs to be corrected or perfected in doctrine or morals in the Church; let them therefore see how clean and sincere they ought to be in both, whom Christ bears in His face as eyes, lest they disfigure and cloud it. Therefore let them sit beside the purest streams of the waters of Sacred Scripture, not in the muddy marshes, nor in the stagnant turbid waters of philosophers, heretics, politicians, etc., so that they may rather study the Sacred Bible than Plato, Plutarch, or Machiavelli. Let the doctors therefore see through and foresee the shadow and ambushes of these as of hawks in the limpid waters of Sacred Scripture, so that by teaching and admonishing they may remove them from themselves and from the other faithful. They are washed in milk because they strive with all zeal to preserve the whiteness received in baptism; hence St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, octonary 16, verse 3: "The Lord baptizes in milk," he says, "that is, in sincerity: and these are they who are truly baptized in milk, who believe without guile and bear pure faith, put on immaculate grace; therefore the white bride ascends to Christ, because she was baptized in milk -- 'who is this that ascends, made white?'" Song 8:5, according to the Septuagint. Hear Nyssenus: "These must wash away all the bleary-eyedness of vice with water; and the water is not one but there are many streams of water: for as many as the virtues are, so many are the cleansing waters: temperance cleanses intemperance, humility cleanses pride, etc. But if the eyes have been washed at copious waters and are compared to doves on account of simplicity and purity, they are said to be washed in milk, because in milk no image is seen, no shadow appears, and in these eyes nothing erroneous is represented, but the very truth of the thing without any shadowy semblance. They are sitting beside copious waters,
The holy soul, who attends to God alone by praying and meditating, is the eye of Christ, who looks only upward to heavenly and divine things with the straight eye of holy intention. See what I said about these eyes in chapter 1, verse 15, and chapter 3, verse 1.
The Blessed Virgin, says Nicephorus, book 2, chapter 23, had keen eyes, with somewhat tawny and olive-colored pupils.
Symbolically, the dove on account of its purity signifies the Holy Spirit and His seven gifts: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, Theodoret, Rupert, Richard, and others. Hence in the form of a dove the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ when He was baptized by John in the streams of the Jordan. As many therefore as the graces of the Holy Spirit are in the holy one, so many heavenly and divine doves as it were rest in him; these with their waters cleanse from the mind all filth and stains, and nourish and sustain them with their heavenly milk. In these waters, therefore, in pure and chaste minds, the Holy Spirit broods and makes them fruitful in good works, and especially so that by the same waters they may wash others from sins and as it were feed them with milk.
Furthermore, these gifts rested most abundantly upon Christ, and from Him into the faithful, but with even greater abundance they were poured into His mother. This is what Isaiah says, chapter 11, verse 1: "And a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill Him." Hence these seven
the cheeks of the bridegroom are rosy, that is, fair and ruddy, and thus variegated, just as flower beds are variegated with various white and purple flowers.
Verse 13. his Cheeks are as Beds of Spices Set by the Perfumers. his Lips are Lilies Dropping Choice Myrrh.
HIS CHEEKS ARE AS BEDS OF SPICES SET BY THE PERFUMERS. — For "beds," the Hebrew has aruga, which the Septuagint renders as "vials"; Aquila as "furrows," by which the beds of herbs and flowers in gardens are divided and irrigated; Pagninus as "lines of furrows"; the Arabic as "lake or pool"; the Syriac as "layers of spices"; our translator, Tigurina, Marinus, and Vatablus as "beds," which are arranged and ordered in a beautiful order: for arach means to arrange, to dispose; moreover, the letter caph, which is in arach, and ghimel, which is in aruga, are related and of nearly the same sound.
For "set by the perfumers," the Hebrew has migdelot merkachim, which the Septuagint renders as "sprouting perfumeries"; R. David and Pagninus as "flowers of spices"; the Tigurina as "his cheeks are like towers (that is, tower-shaped boxes, which appear to be small towers) of a perfumer's shop"; Marinus as "like towers of pigments, or of spices"; Vatablus and Hortulanus as "his cheeks are like boxes or compartments, such as are found in perfume shops or stores." The Syriac and Arabic translate as the Vulgate does. Forsterus renders it as "his cheeks are like towers of distances," and adds that it is a kind of spice which takes its name from towers, because it is fragrant from afar, as if by metathesis merkachim, that is, of spices or perfumers, were placed for merchakim, that is, of distant things. Others render it as "your cheeks are like confections of spices." Our translator for merkachim, that is, of perfumers, with a different vowel pointing reads merokechim, that is, by perfumers. Again, for migdelot, that is, towers, he reads with the Septuagint meguddalot, that is, planted, growing, sprouting.
The cheeks of the bridegroom are compared to beds of spices: first, in form, because just as flower beds are raised and stand above the rest of the ground, so too the cheeks of the young bridegroom are plump and fleshy, and protrude and stand out beyond the eyes, temples, and chin. Second, in value, because these beds are not of vegetables or herbs, but of spices: so the cheeks of the bridegroom are most precious. Third, in arrangement, because these beds, skillfully composed into a round shape, present the appearance of cheeks; hence they are also enclosed and surrounded on all sides by the bones of the jaws beautifully arranged, taken from slain sheep, oxen, or other animals, such as I have often seen in Belgium. Fourth, in fragrance, because they breathe forth an aromatic, that is, a most potent and most sweet odor. Fifth, in color, because the cheeks
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are called the eyes of Christ, Zechariah 3:9; and Revelation 5:6: "I saw," he says, "a Lamb having seven eyes; which are the seven Spirits of God, sent into all the earth." See what was said in both places.
It is easy to apply these five analogies of beds and cheeks literally to Christ: for His cheeks, since He was most perfectly formed by the Holy Spirit and established in youthful and flourishing age, were plump, precious, round, fragrant, and rosy. Alexander the Great, as Plutarch testifies in his Life, emitted a wonderful fragrance from his cheeks, skin, and whole body, on account of the humors in his body being well concocted by heat: much more fragrant was the body of Christ, since in Him there was the highest harmony of humors, and heat most perfectly concocting them.
Therefore rosy cheeks in the bride signify the modesty and virginal bashfulness; but in Christ the bridegroom they are, first, a sign of youth and flourishing age; second, of honorableness; third, of cheerfulness; fourth, of noble birth; fifth, of gravity and majesty joined with gentleness, modesty, and exterior piety flowing from the interior, which made Him supremely lovable as well as venerable to the faithful: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Rupert, Abbot Lucas, and others. Therefore what Claudius attributed to the emperor Maximian in his Panegyric applies much more to Christ, saying: "In your very countenance I saw all the marks of virtue: in your brow, gravity; in your eyes, gentleness; in your blush, modesty; in your speech, justice." St. Jerome agrees, at the end of his Commentary on Zechariah, who by the cheeks understands the speech of Christ, full of piety and majesty, which like the most excellent spice heals all diseases of the soul, and is as it were distinguished by its own flower beds, that is, arranged in order by its own subjects, and pronounced in its own places and times without confusion and disturbance: "The bride praises her bridegroom in the Song of Songs: his cheeks are vials of spices. In the cheeks, speech is understood, which when uttered by the Lord brings forth various ointments, and so great will be the fragrance of good odor, that the Lord makes Himself a whip from the testimonies of the texts of Scripture, and casts out of the temple those buying and selling, and says to them: It is written: My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations; but you have made it a house of commerce," Matthew 21:12.
Parabolically, the two cheeks of Christ are mercy and justice, according to Psalm 24:10: "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth"; and Psalm 100, verse 1: "Mercy and judgment I will sing to You, O Lord"; and Psalm 88:15: "Mercy and truth shall go before Your face": for each in Christ is remarkable, beautiful, well-proportioned, fragrant, and efficacious like spices. Furthermore,
three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret understand by the cheeks and beds the plans of divine providence, by which God looks upon men and makes Himself both lovable and venerable, so that all may fear and worship Him.
First, the cheeks of Christ are virgins, and the modesty and prudence of virgins, as I said in chapter 1:10. Second, the cheeks of Christ are martyrs, who were not ashamed to confess the name of Christ before tyrants; but for Him they steadfastly exposed their cheeks to blows, their hands to the cross, their bodies to scourges, their heads to the sword, and with their blood they adorned and made purple the face and cheeks of Christ: so St. Gregory. Third, the cheeks denote teachers, say Nyssenus and Anselm, who like jaws chew and ruminate spiritual foods, that is, the senses of Sacred Scripture, so as to set them before the faithful and offer them. These are like beds of spices, that is, like cultivated garden soil bringing forth prayer, contemplation, and other heavenly virtues; planted by perfumers, that is, instructed by apostles and prophets, who like perfumers grind everything with the pestle of humility and reduce it to contempt of self and the world, as St. Anselm notes; hence Hortulanus, translating "planted" as "boxes" and understanding by them the prophets, says: The prophets, in whom as in the cheeks and face of Christ He anticipated showing future things, are inwardly full of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, like perfume boxes full of the best ointments and most sweetly scented, while outwardly they are modest, since being suffused with noble modesty, they blush like boxes painted with red lead or rouge. The Chaldean version supports this, which by the two cheeks understands the two tablets of the Decalogue: "The two stone tablets," he says, "which He gave to His people, were written with ten lines, similar to the lines of a garden
of spices, which produce the most acute and sweet senses, just as a garden produces spices." Theodoret adds that teachers are called vials by the Septuagint, on account of the clarity and sweetness of their doctrine, which is open and set forth for all. Finally, Philo of Carpathia by the two cheeks understands the Sacred Scripture of both Testaments, because in them the nature of the divine Bridegroom is especially known. Fourthly, Philo and Justus by the cheeks and beds understand all the saints, fragrant with spices, that is, with virtues, planted by perfumers, that is, instructed by good preachers.
Christ poured the beauty and fragrance of His cheeks, that is, of His honorable conduct, modesty, gravity, and piety, into His mother, since He lived with her most familiarly from childhood up to the thirtieth year of His age. See more of what I have said about His cheeks in chapter 3, verse 3, and chapter 1, verse 10.
His Lips are Lilies Dropping Choice Myrrh.
For "choice" the Septuagint renders "full"; Aquila, "select"; the Hebrew over, that is, "passing," which passes through the hands and mouths of all, because as the first and most approved it is praised, sought, and purchased by all; the Arabic, "dew full of myrrh"; the Syriac, "myrrh and nard"; Almonacius by lilies understands the flowers that are commonly called irises, because of their resemblance to the iris, that is, the rainbow, with respect to the variety of colors: for the ancients regarded Iris as the goddess of eloquence; but some flowers are lilies, others are irises.
He compares the lips of the bridegroom to lilies: first, for their beauty, because they are elegant like lilies; hence the lily is the emblem of the kings of France, and was formerly dedicated to Juno and called the flower of Juno, as well as of nymphs; hence Propertius:
"Often she brought silver lilies to the charming Nymphs."
Second, for their form, because they are slightly curved like lilies. Third, for their color, for outwardly they are white, inwardly red and brilliant like lilies, because in Syria purple lilies surpass the rest, as Pliny testifies in book 21, chapter 5, and Dioscorides in book 3, chapter 99. Fourth, for their fragrance, because they are fragrant like lilies and breathe forth the sweetest breath from the mouth. Fifth, for their delicacy, because they are thin and soft like lilies, which is a sign of magnanimity and eloquence, since thick lips of thick-lipped people signify dullness and slowness of judgment and speech; hence Moses, in Exodus 6:12, calls himself uncircumcised of lips, that is, heavy of speech and slow of tongue; hence also Sidonius attributes to his Theodoric "thin lips, not widened by the stretching of the corners of the mouth."
Sixth, the lily by its beauty attracts all to love it, and so too do beautiful lips, which have the appearance of
lilies, have a wonderful power of persuading; hence Homer says that the most eloquent ambassadors of the Trojans ate lilies; and of an eloquent and smooth-spoken person it is commonly said: He speaks roses and lilies. Add that lilies give a sweet breath to the lips and mouth, and drive away poisons; the same do the lips of an eloquent and pious orator.
Christ possessed the five qualities of lips just described, and from these He likewise had a lily-like brightness and purity in speaking, teaching, and persuading, and a wonderful grace and efficacy. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The words of Christ are chaste, and inflaming to every kind of purity of body and mind, and preaching the mortification of the cross. The lips of Christ therefore distill choice myrrh, because they teach penance, continence, mortification, and austerity of life, which is diametrically opposed to concupiscence and the pleasures of the flesh: for the first utterance of His preaching was this, Matthew 4:17: "Do penance"; likewise, Matthew 5:3-10, 40: "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the clean of heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who suffer persecution. Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you." Furthermore: "I came not to send peace, but a sword. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me," Matthew 10:34 and 37: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Rupert, and others. Conversely, the world and the flesh distill from their lips the honey of pleasure, according to Proverbs 5:3: "The lips of a harlot are as a dropping honeycomb, and her throat is smoother than oil: but her latter end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword."
Symbolically, the lips of God the Father, resembling lilies, are the incarnate Son, and the Holy Spirit: for They announced to us the will, purity, and holiness of God the Father, and instilled them through the myrrh of mortification and penance.
Again, lilies are a symbol of hope, both because dried lilies live and grow in hope of heavenly sun and rain, for from these they continually draw their sap, fragrance, beauty, and growth: and because lilies in splendid bloom are harbingers of future happiness, says Themistius; hence Virgil, Aeneid VI:
"You shall be Marcellus; give lilies with full hands."
See Pierius, Hieroglyphics LV, 9: so preachers have lily-like lips, because they preach future happiness and glory, and thus by the prospect and hope of it they incite men to embrace myrrh, that is, all the bitterness of this life, which is the road to glory.
Holy souls, pure as lilies, are as it were the lips of Christ, because through them Christ speaks and works those things which pertain to salvation, namely heavenly and divine things, since He dwells in their minds; hence the Chaldean translates: "and the lips of the wise who labor in the law flow with sayings from every side, and the speech of their mouth is like choice myrrh." But most especially the lips of Christ are preachers, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, Bede, Rupert, and others: these are called lilies, both for the brightness of their life and because they preach the purity, innocence, and holiness of Christ, and likewise distill His myrrh, that is, mortification, which preserves minds from the putrefaction of lusts and sins like myrrh: "Because they speak of Christ's passion, says St. Ambrose in his book On the Education of Virgins, chapter 14, and carry about His mortification in their body," 2 Corinthians 4:10: for the choice myrrh is the passion of Christ, says Richard; hence Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:23: "But we preach Christ crucified: to the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness: but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Again, the choice myrrh is patience in torments, says Philo, and martyrdom, for this is the first in dignity: "because no one is so mortified as he who for Christ's sake is ended by martyrdom," says St. Gregory. Abbot Lucas adds that the lips of Christ are confessors, because through them Christ speaks to the heart of penitents, and instills in them the myrrh of penance and austere life, so that they may amend their vices and preserve them once amended.
Note: the word "distilling" from the Septuagint signifies the preciousness of these lips and their myrrh, namely, that lips preaching and instilling penance, mortification, tribulation, and martyrdom communicate to us the passion of Christ: for these are so precious that they are not poured out like water, but drop by drop they distill like myrrh, and are gathered by Christ, lest even a single drop of them be lost. This is what St. Peter says: "Rejoicing in sharing the sufferings of Christ, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed," 1 Peter 4:13; and Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:5: "As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also through Christ does our consolation abound."
Concerning the lips of the Blessed Virgin I have spoken in chapter 3, verse 3, and concerning myrrh in chapter 1:13. Briefly, Nicephorus thus paints the lips of the Mother of God in book 2, chapter 23: "Her lips," he says, "were blooming and full of the sweetness of her words."
Verse 14. his Hands are Turned Gold, Full of Hyacinths. his Belly is Ivory, Set with Sapphires.
His hands are turned gold. — that is, as the Septuagint has it, torned, that is skillfully wrought, and therefore round, polished, shapely, elegant: the Hebrew has galile zahab, that is, rollings, roundnesses, or circles of gold; the Tigurina renders "his hands are orbs (Vatablus, rings) of gold, having an enclosed hyacinth"; Marinus, "his hands are, or rather have, golden rings, on the fingers in which hyacinths were set": for conjugal couples and kings wear golden rings as a sign of honor, wisdom, and majesty, as this bridegroom is. But since he does not say fingers but hands, it seems that not only the fingers of the bridegroom, but also the hands themselves are called turned gold, because they were so skillfully wrought, polished, and perfect that they seemed to resemble gold worked on a lathe: for turned work is precisely rounded
and perfect, in which there is nothing you would file off or wear away: so by Horace verses are called "turned," that is, fully wrought and perfect, to which you would add or take away nothing. Similarly, fingers are called "teres" (rounded), that is, turned and round, in which there is nothing protruding, knotty, rough, or scabrous. Turned hands, therefore, are fleshy, succulent, soft, full, polished, and perfect, in which there is no roughness, scabrousness, leanness, knottiness, hardness, etc.
FULL OF HYACINTHS. — For "hyacinths," as Symmachus also translates, the Hebrew has tharsis, which signifies the sea and a gem of marine color. Our translator elsewhere regularly renders it as chrysolite, which is partly golden, partly marine in color: so he translates in Exodus 28:20, and chapter 39:13; Ezekiel 10, verse 9, and chapter 28:13: so too Aquila and the sixth edition; but the Septuagint translates tharsis in Exodus as chrysolite, but in Ezekiel as carbuncle: for among the Hebrews the names of gems, trees, and animals are common to many, and signify several of their species. Nevertheless, here chrysolites could be understood by hyacinths: for although the hyacinths of the ancients were sapphires, which are of heavenly color — hence shortly the belly of the bridegroom is said here to be set with sapphires — yet modern hyacinths (those which are now commonly called hyacinths), since they are of golden and honey color, are truly chrysolites, as I showed in Revelation chapter 21, verse 20, on the hyacinth; the chrysolite moreover is of golden and vitreous, that is, marine color: for since the golden color in it is not opaque but translucent, it is therefore as it were vitreous and marine.
Moreover, the Septuagint here retains the Hebrew word tharsis and translates "full of tharsis"; the Arabic, "full of gold of tharsis"; the Syriac, "with stones of gold." Now the Chaldean by tharsis understands the twelve gems, indicators of the twelve tribes of Israel: for he translates thus: "And the twelve tribes of Jacob his servants were arranged in a circle on the plate of the holy golden crown, engraved on twelve pearls with the three fathers of the world, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Reuben was engraved on a sardius stone, Simeon on a topaz stone, Levi on a sapphire, Judah on a carbuncle, Issachar on an emerald, Zebulun on a jasper, Dan on a beryl, Naphtali on an agate, Gad on an amethyst, Asher on a chrysolite, Joseph on an onyx, Benjamin on a ligure, who were like the twelve heavenly signs, shining like lamps, and polished in their works like ivory, and gleaming like gems."
Literally, it is signified that the hands of Solomon, and even more of Christ, were shining, elegant, and as if polished on a lathe, that is, delicate and soft, such as men of talent and generosity have, with somewhat longer fingers and joints of the fingers that are well-spaced and noble; moreover, with arms somewhat more extended, such as Alexander the Great, Artaxerxes, and Darius had — they were called "Long-handed" — as Strabo and other historians report: so Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 4, number 10.
Symbolically, the hand is Christ, and His operation and divine beneficence: for "hand" is said from "flowing" (manando), because it flows from the arm, and from it the fingers flow: so Christ as God flows from the Father, and from Him flows the Holy Spirit, the author of all good things; hence the hands of Christ are turned, that is, the works of Christ are polished and perfect on every side and in every respect, so that you can neither take from nor add to them, according to Psalm 110:3: "Praise and magnificence is His work"; and Mark 7:37: "He has done all things well, and He has made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak"; for although the Pharisees continually, day and night, thought of nothing but calumniating the works of Christ and finding some flaw in them, yet they could find none:
hence the Interlinear Gloss says: "The hands of Christ are turned, that is," he says, "in nothing reprehensible."
But most especially the hands of Christ are called turned, that is, versatile (for galal means to roll, to turn, to revolve) and nimble for every good work and every beneficence, says Justus of Urgel, because they continually turned and revolved themselves toward every kind of work of mercy: for now they raised the dead, now they gave sight to the blind, now they multiplied loaves, now they changed water into wine, now they gave the Eucharist, etc. Such should be the hands of Christians, such as were those of Blessed Teresa, who made a vow to do in every work that which would be better and more perfect. Therefore the turned hands of Christ for every good work indicated the omnipotence and beneficence of the Divinity hidden in them. Cassiodorus, Bede, and Rupert add that they are called turned because of the speed of working and doing good, because what is done on a lathe is done very quickly: for "he gives twice who gives promptly."
They are golden, because full of charity, and because they flow from the Divinity, which excels all things, as gold excels other metals; hence St. Gregory says: "The hands of Christ are golden," he says, "because whatever He worked outwardly was inwardly disposed in the beauty of His divinity." They are full of hyacinths, that is, the nails of His fingers in the flesh of Christ were rosy and as it were translucent, like hyacinths in a ring; therefore to the most beautiful hands of Christ, says Pineda, the nails add beauty like gems or purplish flowers, which are not livid or dark, not pale, black, or curved, as those of rapacious, envious, and malicious people; but delicate, more refined, translucent, somewhat broader, and representing with their purple brilliance the blood and the nobler spirit hidden beneath.
Hence Polemon says: Broad, white, and somewhat reddish nails are indicators of good character; likewise of a generous and beneficent spirit, so much so that it impoverishes itself to enrich others, as Christ did, born in the greatest poverty in
a manger, and living in the world, so that by His poverty He might enrich us, as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 8:9. This is indicated by the Hebrew tharsis, which is derived from paschach, that is, "he impoverished"; hence Pineda translates, "his hands (so generous, bestowing everything) are full of tharsis, that is, of poverty."
Symbolically, the hands of Christ are full of hyacinths, because the works of Christ were heavenly, says Angelomus, and aroused men to hope and love of heavenly things: for the hyacinth is of heavenly color. Again, the hyacinths signify that the works of Christ — why they were done in such a place, time, manner, etc. — were full of heavenly and divine reasons, counsels, and intentions, because indeed He did all things for the glory of the Father, and to arouse men to seek heavenly goods, promising them eternal life if they followed His teaching and life. The Psalmist sings in Psalm 110:1: "I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart, in the counsel of the just and in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all His purposes"; and Psalm 138:14: "I will praise You, for You are fearfully magnified: wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it well": so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Bede, Justus, Rupert, and others. Theodoret adds: "He calls 'hands' those virtues which consist in action, which He cultivated so diligently in all duties one by one, that from them a kind of harmony resulted: hence to John He says: Permit it now, for thus it becomes us to fulfill all justice, Matthew 3:15. He calls them golden, as precious and excellent, for also Tharsis he used because of the excellence of gold, for Scripture says that pure, sincere, and tested gold was brought from there."
Allegorically, Philo of Carpathia applies this to the hands of Christ crucified: "Then," he says, "the hands of Christ were made turned, when He stretched them out on the cross, when they were pierced by nails, which are called golden on account of Christ's divinity, purity, and power; and they are said to be full of tharsis on account of the multitude of Gentiles converted: for Tharsis, says Philo, is interpreted as 'conversion of joy'; and when Christ stretched out His hands on the cross, the Church of the Gentiles was converted with great joy." Cassiodorus adds that the hands of Christ, stained purple with blood, were like the hyacinth flower, which is of purple color; but here hyacinth signifies a gem, not a flower. Moreover, among gems there are reddish hyacinths, as Dioscorides testifies, which represent the blood of Christ. Add that the Hebrew tharsis is rendered as carbuncle by the Septuagint in Ezekiel. If you translate it so in this place, you would say that the hands of Christ were full of as many carbuncles as they were marked with wounds and welts from ropes and scourges.
The turned hands of Christ are the hands of the faithful,
hence Christ says in Luke 11:20: "If by the finger of God I cast out devils, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" — by the finger of God, that is, "by the spirit of God," as St. Matthew explains in chapter 12, verse 28, namely by the power and virtue of the Holy Spirit. Finally, the hands of the Blessed Virgin are turned, that is, versatile, nimble, and ready to bestow all manner of benefits, especially upon those who devoutly honor and invoke her, as innumerable examples testify.
His Belly is Ivory, Set with Sapphires.
The Hebrew has "his inward parts," eschet, that is, brilliance, whiteness, the polish of ivory (Marinus renders it as "highly polished ivory"; R. Abraham as "a vessel of ivory"; St. Jerome in his commentary on Ezekiel chapter 2 as "an ivory tablet"), covered with sapphires. "Inward parts," that is, the entrails, namely the belly, which contains the heart, liver, etc.; the Septuagint renders "his belly is a box, or tablet (for the Greek pyxion means both) of ivory upon a sapphire stone, or in a sapphire stone"; the Arabic, "his belly is like an ivory tablet (the Syriac, an ivory work) in a gem of amber and pearls"; Pagninus, "his belly is like shining ivory, overlaid with sapphires"; Vatablus, "his inward parts are like ivory alabaster, covered with sapphires." By the belly, therefore, understand the entire chest with its organs. The sapphire is a gem of cerulean or heavenly color, gleaming with golden specks as if with stars, says Pliny in book 37, chapter 9. See more of what I said about the sapphire in Revelation chapter 21:19.
Literally, these things concerning Solomon, who was a type and indeed the parent of Christ, our Pineda explains thus in book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 4, number 7: The chest and thorax, in which all the vital organs reside, was fair like a small ivory box, most aptly shaped for preserving the organs, heart, and all vital parts; for if there were any defect in the chest, back, ribs, and other parts around the heart, it would notably dishonor the beauty of the body and character. Therefore, just as a small box is neither very wide nor too narrow, neither too thick nor too slender, so indeed the chest of the bridegroom, with its somewhat wider belly, represents the body of the box, while the narrower chest represents the somewhat narrower upper part of the box. Aristotle to Alexander: "A moderate belly and narrow chest signify depth of intellect and good counsel": and so he had neither a very fleshy chest, nor was he pot-bellied, which are marks of the dull, lazy, and not at all shrewd: not too slender, but a fitting dwelling for wisdom and the heart; and also a belly disciplined at the belt line, so that he could be tightly girded, which is the mark of the bold and shrewd, and such as Sidonius describes in his Theodoric: "In his taut flanks vigor reigns," etc. And again in his Panegyric on Majorian: "The belt holds up the narrow belly." But what of the sapphires on the chest? Surely if we refer to the ornaments of nature, there would be some marks on the fair chest: even a most perfect man is not without some mark, though marks on the bridegroom seemed
sapphires, and those marks were lights: so that of him it could also be said:
"There was no blemish on that splendid body."
Again, the chest containing the belly in Christ was gleaming like ivory and alabaster, yet it was also beautifully sprinkled with small veins and the livid and as it were luminous shadows of muscles and ribs, so that it appeared punctuated and marked with sapphires. Others, following Lyra and Aben-Ezra, understand the belly not as naked — for to show or depict it naked before young maidens, to whom this speech is addressed, would seem immodest — but as covered and clothed, either with an ivory belt set with sapphires, as Aben-Ezra holds, or with a similar ornament: just as the kings of Persia interwove the middle of their purple garment with white and as it were ivory fabric, as Curtius testifies, as our Sanchez holds; hence Gislerius says: The breastplate with which the bridegroom was clothed was white like ivory, but was adorned with silk strips of cerulean color, so that it appeared set with sapphires; or, as if to say: The breastplate was white and gleaming like ivory, but was girded with a belt full of sapphires. I would prefer to combine both, namely, that Solomon is praised both for his fair chest, sprinkled with small veins like sapphires, and for the breastplate clothing his chest, likewise fair but set with sapphires: for the maidens could see the latter, as if to say: As is the garment or breastplate of the bridegroom, so likewise is his chest. Hence Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 5, teaches that the garments of Solomon were golden, but whitened and adorned with lilies by their lily interweavings. This is more than enough about the literal husk regarding the appearance of the belly, lest carnal men prone to lust think and conceive fleshly things here. Let us therefore pass to the spirit and spiritual things.
The belly, that is, the chest and inward parts of Christ, denote that all the passions and internal affections of Christ were pure and bright, chaste and virginal, as well as firm and strong like ivory, indeed divine and heavenly like sapphire, so that in them there was no disorder, disturbance, conflict, or struggle, nor any weakness or infirmity, but all were sincere, composed, constant, and solid. For in the inward parts is the liver, in which the blood resides, and thence the concupiscible appetite with its affections and desires; and the gall, in which choler resides, and therefore the irascible appetite with its angers and indignations; and the spleen, in which the melancholic humor resides, and thence sadness; and the heart, in which the vital spirit resides, and thence wisdom. This is as if to say: In the body of Christ all the organs, and thence all the affections, both of the concupiscible and irascible faculties, were pure and bright, and therefore mutually composed, peaceful, constant, and firm, because all were governed by the wisdom of the heart, which He Himself in His chest
amid the sufferings of His assumed humanity He displayed signs of His perpetual divinity"; hence some by the belly of Christ understand the common Christian people, who are tender, thick, and unrefined like the belly; yet through the grace of Christ they become bright and strong like ivory, and spiritual and heavenly like sapphire: for just as by the head of Christ are understood prelates, by the hair religious, by the lips preachers, by the cheeks virgins, so by the belly He understands the common faithful, especially married couples, who in marriage preserve the brightness of chastity and the fruitfulness of wedlock, so as to beget and raise children for Christ: for the belly is the seat of generation and of the generative power. Married couples, therefore, are set with sapphires, because they think heavenly thoughts; they are "divided," however, because they serve partly the flesh, partly God: so St. Anselm, Richard of St. Victor, and Cosmas Damianus.
Anagogically, St. Gregory by the belly of Christ understands His mortality, by ivory the immortality which He merited for Himself and for us: "For ivory," he says, "is held to be a very durable bone, and is used for the ornaments of kings; therefore the belly of Christ is said to be ivory, because the mortality of Christ is brought to immortality, when through the resurrection He is placed in eternal life in the glory of His Father, that is, of the eternal King"; and after some remarks: "Who is truly taken up into the ornament of kings; because whoever proves himself king and lord of his own flesh is adorned by the mortality and resurrection of Christ Himself, by the love of knowledge, and by the hope of immortality; hence it is said elsewhere, 1 Corinthians 1:31: Let him who glories, glory in the Lord; but the belly is said to be set with sapphires, because into our corruption, which He bore, He inserted heavenly works through the miracles He performed amid our sufferings."
Mystically, three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret by the belly understand the wisdom of God, which, though in itself heavenly and divine like sapphire, has nevertheless been impressed by God and as it were inscribed in this universe created by Him, as on an ivory tablet most pure and most brilliant.
The holy soul has an ivory chest and belly, since she orders, composes, and strengthens all the appetites of the soul according to reason and the law of God, indeed cultivates and polishes them: for the Hebrew eschet signifies brilliance and polished work, such as ivory is, for this is the most brilliant and most polished material. Therefore holy souls strive not only to compose all their affections in their mind honestly and holily, but also elegantly and gracefully, and to arrange all their works therein, so that although they do the same common things as others, yet in their actions there shines forth a certain singular elegance and grace beyond all others, so that the common work in them appears polished, singular, and excellent, according to Sirach 33, verse 23: "In all your works be preeminent
Thus we see in religious life certain meticulous and outstanding persons who excel in the common life and in the observance of rules: for they carry out each duty with wonderful eagerness, skill, elegance, and perfection, so that even though they do the same things as others, they nevertheless surpass them, and seem to be doing something new and singular, because they do the common thing in a certain new and singular manner and grace.
Consider how politely, precisely, and gracefully clerks serve a bishop in all their actions, courtiers serve the emperor, servants serve a prince and king; what then should you do, who serve the divine Majesty, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords? Apelles, when asked why he painted so meticulously and precisely, replied: I paint for eternity. So too you act and live for eternity; see therefore that your work be bright as ivory, resplendent as sapphire, for it must shine forever before God and the angels: consider with what beauty, with what grace the archangels, cherubim, and seraphim minister to God, and with the same beauty do you minister to the same God, for what the angels do in heaven, you do on earth.
Hence Nyssenus, reading from the Septuagint "his belly is an ivory tablet on a sapphire stone," teaches that the heart of a holy person is a tablet on which the law of God is written as on ivory and sapphire, that is, in a mind most pure and heavenly. Theodoret agrees, who translating "tablet" as "box" (for the Greek pyxion signifies both), by it understands Sacred Scripture, which is deep like a box because of the hidden mysteries it contains; and Philo of Carpathia, who by the ivory box understands the old law, and by the sapphire the new law, which surpasses the old as much as sapphire surpasses ivory. Philo adds that the belly is the mind of the just, in which, as in a most brilliant ivory box, the sayings of Sacred Scripture and divine wisdom are hidden.
Symbolically, Justus and Abbot Lucas by the ivory belly understand preachers, because they and many others by all these emblems of head, hair, cheeks, lips, etc., understand preachers, who by preaching propagate the Church. But this seems too general and broad, and therefore it is better to distribute these and appropriately accommodate each to its proper station: for what does the belly have in common with preachers? Unless you say that in the belly are the lungs, which by supplying breath like bellows serve the formation of the voice and consequently preaching; or that preachers ruminate the food of God's word in their mind, so as to distribute it to the faithful by preaching, just as food is digested in the belly and once digested is distributed through the members; hence by this parable of the belly Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people, who had seceded from the senate, at Rome on the Aventine Hill.
The belly of Christ is ivory set with sapphires, bearing something royal and divine. Hence it was set with sapphires, that is, with heavenly thoughts, desires, and intentions, so that whatever He thought, said, or did, appeared to look toward heaven and God, and the glory of God and the love of men: for the sapphire is a gem of heavenly color, with golden drops shining through it. Therefore Christ was not sad, as Isaiah says in chapter 64:4, nor given to laughter, but moderately joyful, not irascible nor phlegmatic, but moderately grave, etc., and so wholly composed and heavenly that He seemed not so much a man as an angel: so Nyssenus in homily 14, Cassiodorus, Bede, and others.
Hence many by the belly of Christ, or as it is in Hebrew, the "inward parts," understand the mercy of Christ: for the seat and symbol of mercy are the inward parts, whence in compassion the bowels are moved. As if to say: The belly and inward parts of Christ are like an ivory box of mercy, in which are contained most efficacious remedies and medicines against all miseries, which He pours out upon all wretched people who invoke Him, and indeed often upon those who do not invoke Him, but are careless and heedless, so as to restore them to soundness and holiness of mind.
The belly of Christ is therefore like a medicine chest containing medicines, spices, and ointments of every kind, for healing all ailments of body and soul. This is what Zechariah, in the nativity of John the Baptist, who was the precursor and herald of Christ, sings of Christ already incarnate in the Virgin: "Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high has visited us," Luke 1:78.
Symbolically, first, the Son as God received the deity from the Father, and is like a divine box in which God placed all His divine attributes, according to Psalm 109:3: "From the womb before the daystar I begot You": for the womb or belly of God the Father is the mind and wisdom by which He conceived the Word, that is, eternally begot the Son: so John the Carmelite says: "The eternal Word," he says, "having the ideas of all things received as it were in the mouth of a womb, is like a belly that is bright, smooth, and pregnant, and in it, like many sapphires, the distinct ideas of things shine." So also Almonacirius. Secondly, the humanity of Christ, although by its own nature fleshly, earthly, dark, and weak, was nevertheless in Christ, through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling divinity, made bright as ivory through innocence and virginity, bony and strong through constancy and divine strength, according to Hebrews 4:15 and 7:26: "We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One tempted in all things in like manner, without sin: for it was fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens": so Cassiodorus, Bede, and Rupert, who explain it thus, as if to say: "The frailty of mortal substance was indeed real in Him, but being utterly free from the licentiousness of mortality, it shone resplendent rather with the marks of divine works; and rightly is this belly said to be set with sapphires, because
therefore such also was the belly of the Blessed Virgin, from which the whole Christ, in all His entirety, came forth: hence all her thoughts and affections, and the actions proceeding from them, were most bright and most pure like ivory, and most resplendent like sapphire. Rupert adds that the belly and flesh of Christ (and consequently of the Blessed Virgin) were purer than the flesh of other men, because He is the beauty of the human race: "Truly beautiful," he says, "and fair is the ivory belly, because just as ivory is the entire beauty and entire value of a great body, namely the elephant, so this belly, that is, the humanity or flesh which He assumed from the human race, is the glory and honor of the whole world, and especially of the race of Abraham, from whose seed He chose to be born. For ivory is indeed more beautiful and more precious than the rest of the flesh or body from which it is taken; and nevertheless the flesh of this Beloved is more beautiful, purer, and incomparably holier than the entire mass from whose seed it was taken." He then adds that consequently the Blessed Virgin was a mother untouched in conception, unharmed and intact in birth and after birth. By the sapphires he understands the virtues and miracles of Christ, by which, although suffering in the flesh and crucified, He nevertheless showed His divinity to the world: for "while this belly was pierced," he says, "by the nails and the soldier's lance, the sky was darkened, and darkness fell, and the veil of the temple was torn, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened."
Verse 15. his Legs are Pillars of Marble, Set Upon Bases of Gold. his Form is as Lebanon, Excellent as the Cedars.
HIS LEGS ARE PILLARS OF MARBLE, SET UPON BASES OF GOLD. — The Hebrew has paz, that is, of gold paz, or ophaz, which was the most excellent, as I said above. For "marble" Aquila and
Theodotion translates "of Parian marble"; for Paros is an island, one of the Cyclades, from which the most brilliant and finest Parian marble stone is quarried; hence Virgil, Aeneid I:
"And Parian marble is surrounded with gold."
He commends the legs of the bridegroom for their fairness, straightness, proper thickness, and strength, since they were fair, straight, thick, and robust like a column of marble and Parian stone; and the maidens could easily see them, because the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans used to walk with bare shins and knees without breeches or leg coverings, and covered only the soles of their feet with shoes or sandals, which they called caligæ, as I showed at Acts 12:8, at the words: "Put on your sandals." Therefore the bridegroom had shins that were fair and strong, so that they appeared to be two Parian columns set upon golden bases, that is, upon the feet, which are as it were the supports and bases of the shins; feet, I say, clad and adorned with golden shoes, or set with gold and gems: for Pliny teaches that the ancients decorated their shoes with gold and gems in book 9, chapter 35, and book 37,
chapter 2: thus Plutarch testifies in his Life that Demetrius walked in gilded shoes, Lampridius testifies that Heliogabalus added gems to them, Eutropius says the same of Diocletian, and Vopiscus of Carinus.
Moreover, the legs are instruments of walking: therefore marble legs set upon bases, that is, feet and golden shoes, signify a grave, elegant, and regal gait, such as was Solomon's, in which there is the appearance of authority and the mark of gravity, as St. Ambrose says in book 1 of On Duties, for as Sirach 19:27 says: "A man's gait reveals something about him," and signifies the internal gravity or levity, prudence or foolishness, virtue or vice of the soul.
The legs are a symbol of entrance and progress; they signify therefore that the journeys, goings, and travels of Christ, by which He Himself traversed Judea, and through the apostles and apostolic men went about evangelizing all nations, were pure, straight, strong, and powerful, so that no one could stop, delay, or impede them: for Christ by His power and might scattered all the enemies, obstacles, and hindrances of the Gospel, and even converted to Himself the very tyrants and princes who resisted Him and made them Christians: for the bases of these feet of Christ were golden, because they were grounded on His own divinity (for gold represents honor) and on His divine counsels, decrees, and eternal and immovable predestinations. Hence many by these columns understand the apostles and apostolic men, who like feet carried Christ throughout the whole world, so strong and robust that they seemed to be marble columns, set upon golden bases, both of Christ, Ephesians 2:20, and of charity: for charity is like the most solid gold, which supports these feet and made them robust and invincible like marble: so St. Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, and St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 5; hence the apostles are called the column and foundation of the Church, Galatians 2:9; Ephesians 2:20; and specifically to St. Peter (to whom Theodoret applies this) Christ promised in Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and upon this rock (that is, upon you) I will build My Church."
Symbolically, the two legs of Christ are mercy and justice: for mercy converted and blessed believers who obeyed Him; justice condemned and damned unbelievers who disobeyed Him. Again, justice chastised the failings of the aging Church, to restore it to its former brilliance and holiness (for the discussion here concerns the Church in its old age, as I said above); it chastised, I say, through religious and apostolic men whom He raised up as reformers of the Church, such as St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Romuald, St. Francis, and St. Dominic. Hear Rupert: "His legs are His ways, namely mercy and judgment, or mercy and truth, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 24:10: All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth: for truth itself is true judgment. These legs, these ways, are marble columns, that is, they are most straight and most firm, and there is no one who could weaken them or justly reprove them: for the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves, Psalm 18:10. For example: At the aforesaid place and time, when this Beloved hung crucified between two thieves, He mercifully received the one who repented and took him with Him to paradise, but by just judgment rejected the one who blasphemed." And after some further remarks: "The golden bases are the counsels of divine wisdom." He then gives an example of these: "He was able to weep over the city of Jerusalem, foreseeing the destruction and damnation of His people, and yet He could not bring Himself to turn away the impending wrath from them: for His legs stood unbending like marble columns upon golden bases, that is, He attended not to what His human will desired, but to the reasons of divine justice."
The legs of Christ and the Church, which sustain His faith, religion, and virtue by teaching, preaching, hearing confessions, etc., and propagate and promote them by going forth to convert heretics, the Japanese, and the people of the Indies, etc., are religious and apostolic men: these by constancy stand erect like columns, so that by no hope or fear do they turn aside from the right path; by fortitude they are strong as marble; by charity they shine like gold, and at the same time by it they are made solid, so as to strengthen others in faith and piety: so Richard of St. Victor.
Abbot Lucas agrees, who by the legs of the Church understands the humble: for these, he says, by humbling themselves will be made so strong that they support all the members beneath the head, as He signified through the Prophet, saying in Isaiah 66:2: "To whom shall I look, but to the poor and contrite of spirit, who trembles at My words?" And they contain in themselves a likeness to that rock of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 10:4: "And the rock was Christ." The golden bases of the humble, he asserts, are the humility of the prophets and the ancient saints: for upon these bases the humility of their successors and followers rests and is supported.
Finally, Justus and St. Anselm by the legs understand all holy persons who support the Church by their holiness and charity; in whom therefore Christ dwells and walks; hence St. Ambrose, book 3, On the Faith, chapter 5: "His legs," he says, "are marble columns, etc.; for Christ alone walks
in the souls of the saints and walks in the mind of the holy, in whom, as upon golden bases and precious foundations, the firm footsteps of the heavenly Word have taken hold."
Hence symbolically Nyssenus, in homily 14, and three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, by the two legs understand the two precepts of charity, namely: "You shall love God with your whole heart, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself"; for through these Christ walks in the soul and advances it to the summit of holiness.
Cassiodorus and Bede by the legs of Christ understand His journeys by which He deigned to descend into the womb of the Virgin and to become man for us; these were of marble, because straight and strong; set upon golden bases, because all things that were to be done by Christ, or in Christ, were preordained by the counsel of the divinity from eternity: for gold, as the most excellent metal, signifies the counsel of God. Bede adds that, to signify this, the legs of Christ on the cross were not broken, as were those of the thieves.
Again, the legs of the Blessed Virgin advanced bravely toward every good and repelled every evil: hence Damascene, in his oration On the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, thus paints her character: "Her dress was modest, shunning all softness and luxury; her gait was grave and steady, remote from all effeminacy; her manners were serious yet tempered with cheerfulness. So you were fashioned that no access of a man was open to you, etc. Her spirit was humble in the loftiest contemplations, her speech pleasant, proceeding from a gentle soul. In short, what else was she but a dwelling of God? Rightly do all generations call you Blessed, as the outstanding ornament of the human race. You are the glory of priests, the hope of Christians, the most fruitful plant of virginity: for through you the beauty of virginity has spread most widely."
Again, if the humble, if the saints, if the apostles have marble feet through fortitude, set upon the golden base of charity, much more does the Blessed Virgin have the same; hence her type was the pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day, leading and protecting the Hebrews through the desert to the Promised Land: for in a similar manner the Blessed Virgin leads the faithful or her devout ones through the desert of this life into heaven: so the Fathers, among whom hear St. Epiphanius, in his sermon On the Praises of the Virgin: "Hail," he says, "full of grace, like the pillar of cloud, you who have God, who led His people through the desert." St. Jerome on Psalm 77, at the words: "And He led them in a cloud by day," by the cloud, that is, the pillar of cloud, understands the Blessed Virgin. Andrew, Bishop of Crete, in his second Oration on the Mother of God: "O life-giving pillar," he says, "leading not the carnal Israel through the light, but the spiritual Israel, who is led to the uncreated light of knowledge, illuminating with divine
torches," St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 6, near the beginning, says: "That pillar of cloud," he says, "in appearance indeed went before the children of Israel; but in mystery it signified the Lord Jesus coming in a light cloud, as Isaiah said in chapter 19, verse 1, that is, in the Virgin Mary." The Venerable Bede on Exodus chapter 13 says: "The pillar of fire by night is the divinity in the flesh of the Virgin Mary." St. Bonaventure in his Mirror, chapter 3: "Mary," he says, "is a pillar of cloud for us, because like a cloud she protects even from the heat of divine indignation, and protects also from the heat of diabolical temptation. Mary is also a pillar of fire illuminating us, indeed illuminating the world with the many benefits of her mercy." St. Bernard, volume 3, sermon 11, article 1, chapter 3: "The pillar of cloud," he says, "sometimes went before, sometimes followed, sometimes was borne above, so that
mystically the many patronages of the Blessed Virgin toward the people of the elect and all Christians may be indicated." Famous is the column at Zaragoza, on which the Blessed Virgin, still living, appeared to St. James the apostle, indicating that she wished to be venerated in that place and would be the protectress of Spain.
His Form is as Lebanon, Excellent as the Cedars.
His form is as Lebanon. — The Hebrew has "his appearance is as Lebanon"; the Septuagint, "his form, that is, his shape, is as Lebanon." Having described some of the bridegroom's elegant members, he then briefly touches on the elegance of the rest, lest he be too lengthy, saying: "His form," that is, his beauty and comeliness, is like Lebanon: for in Judea there was a proverb that when they wished to express something most beautiful, they would say: "Beautiful, or it is beautiful as Lebanon," because Judea has nothing more beautiful than Lebanon: for it is the highest, most pleasant, and most fertile of all the mountains of Syria; hence it is called the mountain of mountains. "Nothing in the land of promise is loftier than Lebanon, nor more wooded and dense," says St. Jerome on Hosea chapter 14; hence Isaiah sings of the Church in chapter 35, verse 2: "It shall exult with joy and praise: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon." Lebanon is named from laban, that is, white, because it gleams white with snows on its summit the whole year; or from lebona, that is, frankincense, because it abounds in frankincense, pines, firs, cedars, cypresses, and other resinous trees, whose gum is called choice olibanum by physicians. Therefore Lebanon is fertile in frankincense, resin, sugar, oil, etc.; every kind of wild beast and songbird is very plentiful in it. The valleys of Lebanon abound in the finest wheat, vineyards, orchards, gardens, and most rich pastures: hence in them were pastured the animals to be offered to God in the temple. Finally, from Lebanon burst forth many great rivers, namely the Jordan, Chrysorrhoas, Eleutherus, Leon, Lycus, Adonis, and the Fountain of Gardens. For Lebanon rises behind Sidon and extends eastward beyond Damascus for 1,500 stadia, says Pliny in book 5, chapter 20, that is, 187,000 paces, or 46.5 Italian miles. See Hosea chapter 14, and Adrichomius on Lebanon.
Moreover, since in Lebanon there stand out the knotless, imperishable, and fragrant cedars, he adds "excellent, that is, outstanding and surpassing, as the cedars." The Chaldean, looking to the etymology of Lebanon, translates: "And He Himself is filled with compassion upon them like an old man, and whitens the sins of the house of Israel like snow, and is prepared to win victories in war against the peoples who transgress His word, like a strong youth who is mighty like the cedars."
Literally, therefore, Solomon the bridegroom is compared here to Lebanon and the cedar: first, for his tall stature, for this is worthy of command; hence Capitolinus in his Life of Pertinax calls it an imperial stature. Thus Saul "from his shoulders and upward was taller than all the people," 1 Samuel 9:2. Similarly tall were the ancient heroes and kings: Romulus, as Plutarch testifies, Priam, Hector, Ajax, as Homer testifies, Julius Caesar, Tiberius, and Domitian, as Suetonius testifies. Theodoric, says Sidonius, was shorter than the tallest, but taller and more eminent than the shorter: for excessive height, such as Caligula had, tends to be mentally deficient, dull, and sluggish; but moderate and proper height is shrewd and spirited, as being abundant in vital spirits. Hence Aristotle, Ethics IV, 3: "Beauty," he says, "consists in a large body." And Virgil, Aeneid VIII:
"But taller than all of them walked Anchises."
Second, Solomon is compared to Lebanon in pleasantness, because like it his face, eyes, and whole body were handsome, pleasant, and delightful. Third, in fragrance, because like Alexander the Great he breathed forth the sweetest breath from his mouth, and exhaled a pleasant odor from the rest of his body. Fourth, in fruitfulness, for since he had a thousand wives, he begot very many sons from them. Fifth, in building, because Solomon built the temple, the wonder of the world, from the timbers of Lebanon, and hence the temple itself is called Lebanon, as by Zechariah 11:1: "Open your gates, O Lebanon."
Christ equally, indeed more than Solomon, had a handsome and tall body, namely seven cubits in height, says Nicephorus in book 1, last chapter; likewise He was pleasant, delightful, fragrant, and fruitful in sons not carnal but spiritual. Again, the temple made from the timbers of Lebanon and all its vessels were a type of Christ; hence He Himself said to the Jews in John 2: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But He was speaking of the temple of His body": because just as the temple was the head, the glory, and the Holy of Holies of the earthly Jerusalem,
so Christ is the head, the glory, and the Holy of Holies of the heavenly Jerusalem, says Rupert. Finally, Richard of St. Victor by Lebanon understands Christ, by the cedar the Blessed Virgin: "Indeed," he says, "she is the cedar which grew on Lebanon, that is, on Christ, and when she gave birth to Christ, as it were the cedar brought forth Lebanon, and the mountain proceeded from the tree, since God came forth from a human being: this is the new and unheard-of thing which God has done upon the earth, that a cedar should bring forth Lebanon, a tree a mountain, a woman should encompass a man, that is, God, and that Him whom the world could not contain, a virgin enclosed in her womb.
The beauties of Christ are therefore virgins, but the Blessed Virgin is His special beauty, who never stained her beauty by any mortal or venial sin; hence the heavenly King desired her beauty, and by taking flesh in her He further adorned this beauty, because He filled her with more abundant grace."
And after some further remarks: "She therefore is singularly the beauty of Christ, the most beautiful of all, and most like Christ, not only having the beauty of Christ Himself, but also restoring it in others." Finally, he teaches that the Blessed Virgin, who humbled herself supremely with Christ, by the merit of her humility was supremely exalted with Him: "This blessed one was exalted," he says, "like a cedar, raised up like Christ; and if as much as Christ — Christ was the least in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in the present Church — Mary was the humblest of all who were on earth, and therefore she was raised up to this, that she might conceive the Greatest of all, and by conceiving might become the Mother of all. Again, the beauty of Christ, or of Lebanon, consists in the continual sprouting of flowers, herbs, frankincense, cedars, pines, and other most pleasant, most fragrant, and most healthful trees: so the beauty of the Blessed Virgin consists in the continual production of virgins, martyrs, doctors, religious, and saints of every kind excelling in humility, patience, fragrance, mortification, and every other virtue.
Verse 16. his Throat is Most Sweet, and He is Altogether Desirable: Such is my Beloved, and He is my Friend, O Daughters of Jerusalem.
HIS THROAT IS MOST SWEET, AND HE IS ALTOGETHER DESIRABLE. — The Hebrew has "his palate or throat is sweetnesses, and he himself is altogether desires," as if to say: The bridegroom is so handsome and gracious that he is supremely lovable and desirable; indeed, that he alone seems to be not only desire in himself, but the desires of all things: for he contains eminently within himself everything that is desirable and sought after in any thing, and again there is nothing in him that is not supremely desirable and to be longed for; hence Christ is called by the patriarch Jacob, in Genesis 49:27, "the desire of the everlasting hills," and by Haggai 2:8, "the desired of all nations," in Hebrew "the desire of all nations"; the Septuagint agrees with the Hebrew, except that for "desires" it renders "desire." St. Jerome in book 1 Against Jovinian reads, "his taste is sweetnesses, and he is altogether desire"; Vatablus, "and however great he is, his qualities are desirable"; the Arabic, "his breath is sweetness, and he is altogether desire"; the Syriac, "his throat is the sweetest bean, and his garments are most desired"; the Chaldean, "the words of his throat are sweet as honey, and all his precepts are more desirable to his wise ones than gold and silver." By the throat understand both the breath, which comes through the throat from the lungs and stomach, and the voice and speech. The breath therefore indicates that the stomach of the bridegroom is full of fragrant foods, most excellently concocted by strong heat: for these breathe forth a sweet and fragrant breath; hence in verse 13 he said: "His cheeks are beds of spices set by perfumers"; and verse 14: "His belly is ivory, set with sapphires."
The sense therefore is: The breath, as well as the voice and the sound of the voice of Solomon, and much more of Christ, is most sweet and most pleasant, so that it seems to pour forth honey. "So the speech of Nestor was sweeter than honey," says Homer. "His voice, therefore," says Pineda, book 6, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 4, number 14, "was not hoarse, as is that of the lustful; not harsh and dissonant, as that of rustics; not sharp and excited, as that of the fearful; not heavy and loud, as that of revilers; but moderate and temperate, and perhaps even somewhat more slender, but with sweetness and pleasantness," such as Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch write that Aristotle and Plato had, since they say it is a sign of a peaceful spirit and of sweet and composed character. This sweetness the bridegroom breathed into the bride; hence in chapter 4, verse 11, he says to her: "Your lips are a dropping honeycomb"; and therefore, so that the bride might drink in this sweetness of the bridegroom's soul and spirit, she sought his kiss, saying in chapter 1, verse 1: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth."
The throat, that is, the breath of Christ, denotes that His interior affections, loves, and divine ardors were most sweet, indeed sweetness itself, which burst forth into the sweetest words; hence His evangelical precepts and counsels are also most sweet, not to the flesh, but to reason, mind, and spirit: so Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Philo, Theodoret, Bede, and others; hence St. Gregory and Philo add that the New Testament is the most sweet throat of Christ.
Again, Christ is altogether desirable and lovable, both because He is most beautiful, and because He Himself first loves all men most tenderly and most ardently; hence St. Augustine on Psalm 44: "Beautiful," he says, "is God the Word with God, beautiful in the womb of the Virgin, where He did not lose His divinity and took on humanity; beautiful in heaven, beautiful on earth, beautiful in the womb, beautiful in the hands of His parents, beautiful in miracles, beautiful in scourges, beautiful inviting to life, beautiful not caring about death, beautiful laying down all things, beautiful taking them up again, beautiful on the wood, beautiful in the tomb. There you will not see Him beautiful, where you would find Him unjust: if everywhere just, everywhere beautiful."
"And therefore," says Nyssenus, "the great John, when asked who he was, called himself a voice; and the blessed Paul gave proof that Christ was speaking in him, who had placed his voice at Christ's disposal, so that Christ might form words from it." Psellus's explanation supports Nyssenus, for he says that John the Baptist is the throat of Christ, because he was His forerunner and herald, and as it were His voice. Therefore let a preacher and a holy man be constant in prayer and meditation, so that he may draw in the spirit of God and breathe it upon others, so that he himself, as the mouth and throat of Christ, may speak nothing light or vain, nothing that is not holy, heavenly, and divine, approved by Christ and suggested by Him; and let the one who hears him consider that he hears Christ resounding in him.
Anagogically, to the blessed the voice of God is most sweet, and God, seen by them, is altogether desirable, so that beyond Him they can think of, love, or desire nothing. God, says Rupert, is altogether desirable, because when He is possessed, then He is desired the more, and His vision is in desire, and desire is in His vision: for by the vision of God the blessed are satisfied, but in such a way that they always desire to see Him further. For the vision, though it lasts for thousands of years, does not produce weariness in them, but the greatest desire together with full satisfaction. Hear Richard of St. Victor here: "Desirable is the vision of His humanity on earth, but much more desirable is His glorified humanity in heaven; desirable is the countenance which the whole company of the citizens above desires; but most desirable of all is the contemplation of His divinity, to which nothing that is desired can be compared." And Blessed Peter Damian, Work 5, chapter 4: "He is altogether desirable," he says, "because the mystery of His humanity kindles every desire in the minds of the elect, so that not only does the glory of the resurrection urge them on, but the very ignominy of His passion also invites them to the example of imitation."
Christ, in Psalm 44:2, "was beautiful in form beyond the sons of men," beautiful in body, more beautiful in mind, most beautiful in divinity. Again, Lebanon means the same as "white" and "whitening": what is whiter than Christ, who whitens all sinners in baptism and makes them fragrant with grace, flourishing in virtues, and fruitful in good works? So St. Gregory, Philo, and Richard of St. Victor.
Moreover, Theodoret by Lebanon understands frankincense, so that the twofold nature of Christ is signified here, namely the divine by frankincense — for frankincense is burned to God — and the human by the cedar, which does not suffer decay or corruption; hence Pliny says: "The cedar is commended by its eternity." Abbot Lucas says: "The beauty of Christ was like frankincense, because every act of His is a sacrifice acceptable to the eternal Father: for frankincense was seen to be placed by the priest upon the victim for sin, and upon the holocaust, which was the special sacrifice, and He Himself contracted nothing of the contagion of sin by living among the impious." So Wisdom, that is, Christ, is compared to a cedar in Sirach 24:17: "Like a cedar," it says, "I was exalted in Lebanon, and like a cypress on Mount Zion."
EXCELLENT AS THE CEDARS. — First, because "just as the cedar is more beautiful and taller than other trees, so also Christ by the grace of His divinity (add also His infused grace, as it was the grace of the Head to be derived into the other members, that is, into all the faithful) surpasses all the saints," says Cassiodorus. Second, because the cedar is fragrant and imperishable, so also is Christ; hence the bride says in chapter 1:3: "We will run after the fragrance of Your ointments": so St. Gregory and Philo. Third, Abbot Lucas holds that the cedar denotes the humility and patience of Christ, which exalted Him like a cedar, according to Philippians 2:8: "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. For which cause God also exalted Him, and gave Him a name which is above every name," etc.
The holy soul is beautiful as Lebanon, and lofty, fragrant, and imperishable as a cedar: because if we cling to Christ, through Him we are made sublime, says St. Gregory, heavenly and immortal; hence Rupert says: Christ was excellent as the cedars, because He resembled all the patriarchs, adorned with the virtues of them all, and because from Him all the saints, like cedars from Lebanon, come forth. See more analogies of the cedar and the just, which I reviewed in Sirach 24:17.
If Christ spoke most sweetly and most divinely to any mortal, it was certainly to His mother, both outwardly by voice and still more inwardly in her mind: therefore she, living with Him for thirty years, drank in His divine thoughts and heavenly sweetnesses more than all men and angels, so that to her more than to all others her Christ was altogether desirable.
Holy men, especially preachers full of divine wisdom and sweetness, when they pour forth and breathe upon others, seem to instill divine honey into them, so much so that God and Christ seem to speak through their throats and pour forth His sweetness.
If, speaking of a honeyed or sugary cake, or of some most savory food or fruit, for example a fig, which has no seeds but is entirely edible and delicate, we say: This cake, this fig is appetizing, it wholly excites the appetite; if, speaking of the sweetest wine, for example Falernian, Cretan, Lacryma, or Moscato, which penetrates and delights the inmost soul, we say: This wine is supremely desirable, this wine with its sweetness fills the mouth, the stomach, and the entire appetite of man; what shall we say of Christ, who not only satisfies every desire but far surpasses it, who is the nectar and ambrosia of all the angels and saints? If you object with Isaiah saying in chapter 53, verse 2: "We saw Him despised and the last of men, so that we did not esteem Him"; Isaiah easily answers this objection, saying in verse 5: "But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our crimes, and by His bruises we are healed." When therefore you behold Christ crucified, and His most sacred head crowned with thorns piercing most sharply, His eyes exhausted by vigils and suffused with tears mixed with blood, His cheeks beaten by blows and disfigured with foul spittle, that sweetest mouth filled with the bitterest gall, His hands — workers of so many miracles — pierced with nails, His shoulders crushed by the weight of the cross, His back torn by scourges, His feet also transfixed with nails, and His whole body livid and bloody from wounds, you would rightly say that Christ, even hanging on the cross, is altogether desirable; because all those members afflicted by so many torments were most efficacious medicines for our salvation, and the means and instruments of our happiness. Christ is therefore altogether desirable: so Almonacirius; hence St. Peter says to Christ in John 6:69: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
This sweetness God and Christ breathe into the soul, when speaking to it interiorly He inspires heavenly thoughts, divine impulses, consolations, and loves most sweet, and therefore inexpressible and known only to one who has experienced them; hence David says in Psalm 30:20: "How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for those who fear You!" and Psalm 118:103: "How sweet are Your words to my palate, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Hence Samuel, eager for this, says in 1 Samuel 3:10: "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." So St. Anselm, Richard, Rupert, and others.
Again, in the apostles and other saints many things are desirable, but not all; for they struggled with concupiscence and venial sins; but the Blessed Virgin is altogether desirable, because free from all concupiscence and sin, and full of grace and every virtue; hence Damascene, in his sermon On the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, exclaims: "O desirable, and thrice blessed woman! O divine image, after which God was found to have fashioned, having a mind divinely governed and devoted solely to God,
but having all desire directed toward that which alone is to be sought and loved, and anger only against sin and its experience." Then he demonstrates this in detail by an induction through each of the members of the body and of her virtue: "Your eyes," he says, "are always toward the Lord, beholding the perennial and inaccessible light; your ears hear the divine word and are delighted by the harp of the spirit, through which the Word about to assume flesh entered; your nostrils are charmed by the fragrance of the bridegroom's ointments, which is indeed a divine ointment willingly poured out, anointing His own humanity: for 'Your name is an ointment poured out,' says Sacred Scripture (Song of Songs 1:2). Moreover, your lips are praising the Lord and clinging to His lips. Your tongue and palate discern the words of God and enjoy divine sweetness to the full. Your heart is pure and free from stain, beholding God who is free from all defilement, and burning with desire for Him. Your womb in which He dwelt who can be contained in no place; your milk-giving breasts, which nourished the child Jesus as God. And after a few intervening words: "Your hands bearing God, and your knees (a throne more sublime than the cherubim) by whose help and assistance languid hands and weakened knees gained strength. Your feet are led by the law of God as by a lamp, and hastening after it with unswerving course, until they drew the Beloved to the one who loves Him. You are wholly the bridal chamber of the Spirit, the ocean of graces: wholly beautiful, wholly near to God: for she, surpassing the cherubim and raised above the seraphim, stood near to God. O miracle, the newest of all miracles!"
Such is my Beloved, and He is my Friend, O Daughters of Jerusalem.
The Chaldean reads: "This is the praise of my beloved, and this is the strength of the power of the Lord my beloved, from the prophet who prophesies in Jerusalem." The bride concludes her praises of the bridegroom with this as it were exclamation, as if to say: You, O daughters of Jerusalem, adjured by me in chapter 5, verse 8, to seek the bridegroom who withdrew himself from me, you asked for the qualities and marks of the bridegroom, by which you might recognize him when sought, saying: "What is your beloved among the beloved, etc., that you have so adjured us?" I have answered: I have described his qualities to you thus far; know therefore that such, and so beautiful and excellent is my beloved, whom I seek through wounds and blows, at whose absence I grieve, and for whose love I languish.
Cassiodorus notes that Christ is called "beloved" inasmuch as He inspires in the Church and the holy soul the charity by which she loves Him and is in turn loved by Him; but He is called "friend" inasmuch as He communicates His secrets to her, according to that word of Christ, John 15:15: "But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from My Father, I have made known to you."
Voice of the Daughters of Jerusalem. Verse 17. Where Has Your Beloved Gone, O Most Beautiful Among Women? Where Has Your Beloved Turned? and We Will Seek Him with You.
WHERE HAS YOUR BELOVED GONE, O MOST BEAUTIFUL AMONG WOMEN? WHERE HAS YOUR BELOVED TURNED (the Hebrew has pana, that is, "he looked toward," so the Septuagint; the Arabic, "he departed") ? AND WE WILL SEEK HIM WITH YOU. — The maidens, or daughters of Jerusalem, having heard from the bride the signs and marks of the bridegroom by which they might recognize him, press further and ask by what way she thinks the bridegroom went when he withdrew, so that they may accompany her and seek him in that direction.
Christ, as I said at verse 2, withdrew Himself as it were from the Church, when through the negligence or wickedness of prelates He permitted heresies and scandals to spread, and the faith and piety to be trampled and destroyed in some provinces, as happened in the East after Constantine when the Arian heresy raged; so much so that most of the eastern bishops became Arians: for then Christ departed to the West, and transferred the orthodox faith of His Homoousios and its worship to Italy, Gaul, and Germany; hence the western, or Latin, orthodox bishops steadfastly opposed the eastern, or Greek, Arians.
So Christ departed from Africa to Spain when Africa was devastated and infected with heresy by the Goths, Alans, and Vandals; so in succeeding centuries He successively withdrew from various provinces, and in our own age departed from Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, Saxony, etc., because of heresy, and went to the Indies, and there founded the Christian faith and piety. Then therefore the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, holy souls, especially of teachers and preachers, grieving with the Church over this withdrawal of Christ from Christian provinces, ask of her, that is, of her prelates, where Christ has gone, that is, where He has transferred His faith, worship, and grace, so that they may partly establish it there, and partly from there recall and bring it back to their own people.
Hence St. Gregory, Cosmas Damianus, and others apply this to the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews (for these are properly the sons and daughters of Jerusalem) at the end of the world; for then will come the last old age of the Church, from which it will soon be reformed by Elijah, Enoch, and their followers, and will be renewed through the faith, fervor, and zeal of the Jews and all the nations; hence then Christ will be found and will feed among the lilies of virgins, for then there will be 144,000 virgins who will resist the lust and impiety of Antichrist even unto death, Revelation 14:1 ff., see what was said there. St. Gregory and Cosmas therefore hold that these are the words of the Synagogue, having heard the preaching of the Gospel, wishing to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, and therefore asking the Church where the Messiah, or Christ the Bridegroom of the Church, might be: to which the Church responds, that is, the doctors of the Church (
"My beloved has gone down into his garden," etc.
The Jews began to do this immediately after the death of Christ, when with the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, at the preaching of St. Peter, Jews were immediately pricked in heart and converted to Christ, first three thousand, then five thousand, Acts 2:41, and 4:4.
Almonacirius agrees, who believes that by this portrait of Christ is described the fourfold age and state of the Church of Christ, just as in the statue of Nebuchadnezzar is described the successive age and succession of the four monarchies of the world, Daniel 2:31: for Christ and the Church relate to each other as head and members, as bridegroom and bride; therefore what is said of Christ also applies to the Church according to the rule of Ticonius. Therefore by the golden head of Christ he understands the first age of the Church, which flowed from Christ to Constantine, for this was the most blessed and golden age under the apostles and their disciples, Saints Dionysius, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Quadratus, Irenaeus, etc.; these had the eyes of doves, that is, limpid, resting beside the streams of Sacred Scripture, and tawny hair, because living religiously they led a heavenly life on earth. This was succeeded by the second, ivory age of the Church, from Constantine to St. Gregory, who flourished in the year of the Lord 600, during which the Church was wonderfully propagated among all nations, even barbarian ones; this is represented by the chest, arms, belly, and thighs; the belly, I say, not golden like the head, but ivory: for that glow of most ardent charity began to be somewhat dimmed, although the purity of doctrine and wisdom was most vigorous, which is best expressed by ivory. Moreover, that century retained much of the original apostolic integrity of morals; hence the chest, arms, hands, belly, and thighs were adorned with gold, gems, hyacinths, and sapphires: for in that age, which was blessed enough with ivory itself, there were Saints Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Cyril, and many other most splendid ornaments of the Church. The third age succeeded this second, no longer golden nor ivory, but stone-like in the manner of marble, signified by the legs, firm in faith but colder because of declining charity: this extends from St. Gregory to the times of Antichrist, which degenerated greatly from the fervor of the two preceding ages. The fourth and last age will be in the time of Antichrist, near the end of the world, when Elijah and Enoch will convert the Jews and the nations, and instill in them their fervor and zeal: hence this is marked by the golden feet. Therefore, just as the Church had a golden head under the apostles, so it will end in golden feet under Elijah and Enoch, who will restore the original fervor and spirit of the primitive Church to both Jews and Gentiles: so Almonacirius.
The Chaldean version also supports this: "The prophets answered, when they heard the praises of the Lord from the mouth of the assembly of Israel, and spoke thus: Because of what sin has the majesty of the Lord been taken from your midst,
O you who are beautiful in your works above all nations! And to what place has your beloved turned, when he was taken up from your sanctuary? The assembly of Israel said: Because of the sins and rebellions and betrayal which were found in me; and the prophets said: Now turn to repentance, and let us rise, you and we, and let us pray before him, and let us seek mercy with you." Bede notes the word "with you," when they say: "We will seek him with you"; for he who seeks Christ without the Church, he says, may err and grow weary, but cannot find Him.
The penitent, or pious soul, recognizing how great is the beauty and grace of Christ, seeks Him in every way, so as to unite Him to herself more and more each day, and finally intimately, living with Him continually, meditating on Him constantly, etc.; hence she invokes the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, the angels and saints, both the blessed in the heavenly Jerusalem and those still fighting in the earthly one. These, when invoked, ask where the bridegroom has gone, not because they do not know, but to indicate to the seeking soul that she should consider where the place of the bridegroom is, where He is to be found, and that if she seeks Him there, they will help her with all their power: for if she were to seek Him where He is not, namely in pleasures, honors, riches, etc., the angels and saints would by no means assist her; but if she seeks Him in chastity, humility, poverty, mortification, and contempt of the world — where He is and is found — then indeed all will come running readily to help her in seeking and finding. So did Mary Magdalene, both when as a penitent she sought Christ in the house of Simon and there, washing and bathing His feet, received full remission of all her sins; and when already converted, after the resurrection of Christ she sought Him at the tomb, and therefore was the first to find Him appearing to her in the guise of a gardener, speaking with her and consoling her.
Cassiodorus notes, first, that Christ sometimes withdraws Himself from the soul, or rather hides Himself in her mind, to test, sharpen, and perfect her virtue; second, that the good soul seeks the company of saints, in whose soul Christ rests, so that she may find Christ in them and become a sharer of Him: for the saints, by conversing, breathe and inspire into their hearers the Christ whom they carry in their mind and on their lips.
How the Blessed Virgin sought Christ when He was lost and found Him in the temple, and many other things on this subject, I have discussed in chapter 3, verses 1 ff., and chapter 5, verses 6 ff.