Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Chapter Six. Synopsis of the Chapter.
When the young maidens ask where the bridegroom has gone, the bride responds that she suspects he has gone, as is his custom, into the garden, and there feeds among the lilies; for he delights in these things, and therefore is frequently in the garden. Then the bridegroom, understanding with what great desire the bride sought him, how much she suffered in seeking — namely scourging, wounds, and despoilment — and what great praises she gave him, repays her in turn and assigns her greater praises and gifts than before. Hearing this, the young maidens (verse 10) admire the bride's beauty. Then (verse 11) the bridegroom says he descended into the garden to inspect the fruits. The bride adds that she did not know this. Finally, the young maidens ask the bride, who has been so praised, to return and show herself to them for their contemplation, so that they may be more inflamed with love, admiration, and veneration for her.
Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 6:1-12
1. My beloved went down into his garden, to the bed of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies. 2. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he feeds among the lilies. 3. You are beautiful, my beloved, sweet, and comely as Jerusalem; terrible as an army set in array. 4. Turn away your eyes from me, for they have made me flee. Your hair is like a flock of goats that appeared from Gilead. 5. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none among them is barren. 6. Like the rind of a pomegranate, so are your cheeks, besides what is hidden within you. 7. There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and of young maidens there is no number. 8. One is my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her most blessed; the queens and concubines praised her. 9. Who is she that comes forth like the rising dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? 10. I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys, and to observe whether the vine had flourished and the pomegranates had budded. 11. I did not know: my soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab. 12. Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may gaze upon you.
Voice of the Bride.
Verse 1. My beloved went down into his garden, to the bed of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies.
MY BELOVED WENT DOWN INTO HIS GARDEN, TO THE BED OF SPICES, TO FEED IN THE GARDENS AND TO GATHER LILIES. — The Arabic reads, "to gather lilies together." For "bed" (areolam), the Hebrew is ערוגות arugoth, which Aquila and Symmachus render πρασιάς, that is, furrows, garden beds; Pagninus, "lines of furrows"; but the Septuagint translates "bowls," by which Nyssenus, homily 15, understands holy souls, who bring forth the spices of virtues. For these are such that, made into bowls of wisdom, they receive in themselves the divine and incorruptible wine, through which they obtain every joy. Hence St. Jerome, on Psalm 41:1, instead of what the Septuagint translates as "As the deer desires the springs of waters, so my soul desires You, O God," renders it, "As a garden bed prepared for the irrigations of waters, so my soul is prepared for You, O God." See what was said at chapter 5, verse 13. The bride, when the young maidens ask where the bridegroom has gone, replies that he has gone into his garden: so St. Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret, and others. She names first a garden, then gardens in the plural, because just as in a great and vast garden there are many smaller ones, so in one general Church there are many particular ones: so Gregory, Bede, and others.
Moreover, the bride, having indicated to the young maidens the bridegroom's location — namely that he was in his garden — immediately set out there with them, and finding the bridegroom there, was received and praised by him when he said: "You are entirely beautiful," as we shall hear in verse 3; for in a verbal drama, actions are passed over in silence, and are left to be understood by readers from what follows.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Christ transferred His faith and devotion, which had been driven out by the Arians and other impious people in the East, to the West — from Greece to Italy, from Africa to Spain, from Asia to India. But especially at the end of the world He will transfer it from all provinces to Judea, when He converts it through Elijah and Enoch, as I said at the end of the preceding chapter. For Judea is properly Christ's garden, inasmuch as He Himself, born and raised there from Abraham, David, and the other faithful kings, first founded the Christian faith and religion there. Hence in it the apostles and first believers flourished with wonderful holiness, though the greater part of the Jews remained obstinate in Judaism and hostile to Christ. Therefore at the end of the world, Christ, driven out by wicked and impious nations, will migrate to the Jews and convert them through Elijah, and then "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). Hence also the Antichrist will fix the seat of his kingdom at Jerusalem, so that he might be considered the true Messiah and Christ, the Son of David and Solomon, but he will be convicted of falsehood and heresy by Elijah. Therefore the Jews will transfer from the Antichrist to Christ. The Church therefore says here that the young maidens, that is, devout souls, should seek Christ the bridegroom, and His faith and worship exiled from the East and other provinces, in the West, as in His garden — namely at Rome in Italy, Spain, Germany — and at the end of the world in Judea, and from there summon reformers of faith and religion to other provinces disfigured by infidelity and wickedness, to restore them to their former beauty and splendor.
The beds of spices, therefore, are the Church and the faithful devoted to prayer, mortification, and the other virtues, by which, as by spices, Christ is delighted and fed, and there He gathers the lilies of the chaste and of virgins. See what was said at chapter 5, verses 1 and 13, where note that the proper and peculiar gift and flower of the Christian faith and religion is the lily, that is, chastity and virginity. Therefore where faith declines, there chastity soon declines and lust reigns; conversely, where faith flourishes, there chastity also flourishes, as I have shown more fully elsewhere.
Moreover, the Chaldean in his customary Jewish way understands these things of the return of the Jews from Babylon; for this reformation of the Jews and the Synagogue was a type of the reformation of the Church: "The Ruler of the age," he says, "willingly received their prayer, and went down to Babylon to the council of the wise, and gave His people rest, and led them out of their captivity by the hand of Cyrus, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and the elders of the Jews, and they built the house of the sanctuary, and appointed priests over the offerings, and Levites over the keeping of the word of holiness; and He sent fire from heaven, and willingly received the offering and the incense of spices, and as a man who nourishes his beloved son in delights, so He tenderly nourished them; and as a man who gathers roses from the valleys, so He gathered them from Babylon."
Mystically, St. Jerome, near the end of his Commentary on Zechariah, understands by the garden the Sacred Scripture: "The garden," he says, "and the paradise into which the bridegroom descends to the bride, is the reading of the Sacred Scriptures, from which He plucks lilies, and violets, and roses, and various spices, to fill the bowls of the souls of believers, and pour out lilies from them to the Lord."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The garden and paradise of Christ is the holy soul, which frequently occupies herself in meditating on the bed of spices, that is, on the passion of Christ, which is most richly filled with all virtues. But especially the paradise of Christ is the assembly of holy souls, such as exists in monasteries and religious families: for there are the beds of spices, that is, the ordered ranks of all virtues, and the lilies of chastity, while in the world and secular life everything is full of the thorns of vices and the nettles of lusts. Hence Christ transfers Himself from these to religious, and is delighted and fed by their chastity and virtues. Therefore the religious who consecrates and dedicates himself entirely to God can say: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Hence Christ is accustomed to reform the old age of a declining Church through the flourishing spiritual youth of religious, as I said above, and then is fulfilled that saying, Psalm 102:5: "Your youth (indeed your old age) shall be renewed like the eagle's." For this reason, when God wishes to reform the Church, He institutes a new religious order, fervent in the apostolic spirit, or reforms one already instituted and reduces it to its pristine observance and fervor. He also institutes communities of lilies, that is, of virgins, or renews and polishes those already instituted. For the reformation of the Church consists chiefly in the reformation of the clergy, religious, and virgins — for these then reform the laity and the Christian populace. Examples are found in Saints Basil, Augustine, Benedict, Romuald, Bruno, Bernard, Dominic, Francis, and Ignatius.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin is the garden of delights and the paradise of Christ, whence He dwelt in her body corporally for nine months, and in her soul and mind spiritually as in His temple continually. For this reason, Nyssenus, Theodoret, and Justus of Urgell say that Christ descended into His garden when He descended from heaven into the womb of the Virgin and assumed flesh from her. Christ therefore, while He lived on earth, fed among the lilies of virgins, because He delighted in the virginity of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and St. John the Apostle, and in turn fed them with the most chaste loves and delights of virginity and of the heavenly life. Let whoever desires to imitate their chastity, and thus to attract Christ to his soul as to a virginal bridal chamber, cultivate and invoke them.
A memorable example is found in St. Edward, king of England, who by their inspiration and gift maintained and preserved perpetual virginity with his wife Edith, even until death. He was therefore wonderfully devoted to St. John, to such a degree that he refused alms to no one who asked in the name of St. John. St. John himself tested the king's spirit, and appearing to him alone in the guise of a poor man, asked him for a gift in the name of St. John. Since the king had nothing else at hand, he drew a ring from his finger and gave it to him, and therefore received an immense reward for his generosity. For St. John, appearing to two Englishmen making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, sent the ring back to the king through them, and said: "I, out of love for your king, will fix my eyes upon you in every way. For I am John, the apostle of Christ, who embrace your king with the greatest love on account of the merit of his chastity. Therefore bring back this ring, which he gave me when I appeared in the garb of a pilgrim, and announce to him that the day of his death is at hand, and within six months I will visit him, that he may follow the Lamb with me wherever He goes." And so it happened, for the king, called from this life by St. John, ascended into heaven in the year of the Lord 1066, on the 5th of January: so Aelred, abbot, in his Life, as recorded by Surius, who also recounts many great miracles performed by him after death.
Moreover, Philo of Carpathia and Abbot Luke understand by the descent of Christ into the garden the descent of Christ to the underworld; for of this Christ said to the thief, Luke 23:43: "Today you will be with Me in paradise." The beds of spices were the ancient patriarchs and saints, such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, David, etc. Philo adds: "From this it happened that in the most fragrant gardens of human minds, burning with Christian faith and charity, God Himself fed, and from them He chose the most brilliant fragrances of lilies, and the garlands of apostles, martyrs, and all the blessed, to adorn the heavenly bridal chamber."
Anagogically, Christ gathers lilies when He plucks virgins and pure and perfect souls from this life, as from an earthly garden, and transfers them to the heavenly paradise, where, joined to the angels, they shine forth with wondrous splendor in eternal glory.
Verse 2. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine; he who feeds among the lilies.
I explained this verse at chapter 2, verse 16. The Chaldean translates: "and on that day I served the Lord of the age, my beloved, and my beloved made his majesty dwell in my midst, and nourished me with delights." For the bride, because she was full of love for the bridegroom, repeats and emphasizes him again and again, especially here, where she was proceeding with the young maidens to the garden to seek the bridegroom. Hence, perhaps upon seeing him and pointing him out to the young maidens, she burst forth into these words of love for him. Nyssenus, in his last homily (for here he ends his own Commentary on the Song of Songs) teaches that the bride so conforms herself to the bridegroom in all things that she plainly expresses his likeness in herself and puts on his form, to such a degree that whoever sees her considers himself to be seeing the bridegroom — just as one who beholds an image considers himself to be seeing the original from which the image was made; and one who looks at a reflection in a mirror not only thinks he is looking at the thing reflected, but actually does look at it. For there the thing itself presents itself through its own appearance and a ray not direct but reflected from the mirror. Therefore whoever desires to receive this image of Christ in his mind must erase all images of other things from it, so that like a polished and pure mirror, he may receive the colors and rays of Christ illuminating it. Such was Paul, saying in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image" — that is, after the manner of mirrors we receive and reflect the image of Christ in ourselves. And Galatians 2:20: "I live, yet not I: but Christ lives in me" — that is, having scraped away as if by polishing everything that does not belong to the nature of Christ, I have nothing in me that is not in Him, and for this reason Christ is my life, who is sanctification, and purity, and immortality, and light, and truth, and the like. Whatever else feeds my soul, not on grass or shrubs, but in the splendors of the saints; for this is what the lilies signify, since they are adorned with a certain brilliant color." So far Nyssenus.
The mystics or contemplatives understand these things of the ecstasy and rapture in which the soul, as if struck by lightning by the irradiation of God's light, perceives through it the immense beauty, goodness, wisdom, etc. of God, as through a shadow, and is astonished at it, and is so wholly carried away and absorbed into it that she can attend to no other thing. Hence she does not see what is present, does not hear, and uses no sense: so St. Thomas, II-II, Question 175, article 2.
Moreover, Richard of St. Victor, book 5 of On Contemplation, chapter 5 and following, teaches that the soul is drawn into this ecstasy, or alienation, by three causes: first, on account of the greatness of devotion, for vehement love produces ecstasy, says St. Dionysius; second, on account of the greatness of admiration; third, on account of the greatness of exultation. Ecstasy therefore arises from great devotion, when the soul is so kindled by the fire of heavenly desire and divine love that she melts like wax, and as if moved from her proper state and thinned like smoke, ascends to the heights. To this devotion and love, sometimes the greatness of light is added, sometimes the affection of devotion alone produces the alienation. It then arises from immense admiration, when the soul, irradiated by divine light and suspended by the knowledge of the supreme beauty and perfection of God, is shaken with such vehement wonder that, like flashing lightning, passing beyond the senses, she is raised to the summit. And indeed this admiration and perfect knowledge sometimes comes upon the soul unawares; sometimes it rushes upon her while she is engaged in the affections of love or in profound meditation; sometimes, beginning from light, it ends in the most ardent fervor. It arises, finally, from ineffable exultation, when the soul, satiated — indeed fully inebriated — with the abundance of interior sweetness, completely forgets what she is and what she has been, and by the excess of joy is transported into the ecstasy of alienation
— such was the rapture of St. Francis, of whom St. Bonaventure thus writes in his Life, chapter 10: "He was seen at night with his hands extended in the form of a cross, his whole body lifted up from the earth and surrounded by a certain shining cloud, so that the wonderful illumination around his body bore witness to the marvelous illumination within his mind." Something similar happened to St. Dominic, who, when at Mass he elevated the Body of Christ with his most pure hands, while all who were present watched and wondered, he himself was likewise raised from the earth to the height of a cubit, the devotion of his soul and the spirit of grace lifting up his earthly and heavy body. Such too was the ecstasy of St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, of whom Maffei thus writes in his Life, book 1, chapter 7: "It happened once that, alienated from his senses from the Compline of one Saturday to the Compline of the following Saturday, he remained in a certain most exalted rapture, in which he was so instructed about the Most Holy Trinity through an intellectual vision that, although still unlearned, he dared to write a book about it." Such also was Blessed Teresa, of whom we read thus in her
Life, chapter 74: "Her prayer was not only constant, but so fervent that as soon as she set herself to prayer, she was immediately carried outside herself, often even without any preparation, struck by the power of the Spirit, she was drawn away from the use of her senses. Sometimes she would return from these raptures with the greatest exclamations and tears, on which she would spend a great part of the night." She was accustomed to say that the soul of one who perfectly loves and contemplates becomes one spirit with God, in the manner and likeness of rain falling from heaven into a river, which mingles with its water and becomes one thing with it; or of two lamps pouring forth two lights, which, meeting in the same room, produce one light. Here note that these comparisons are not alike in all respects, for the union of these is quasi-essential; but the union of the soul with Christ is accidental, through contemplation and love. For it was the error of Amalric and of unskilled contemplatives in the time of Ruysbroeck that in ecstasy the soul is annihilated and passes into the essence of God, as Gerson recounts and refutes in his treatise On Contemplation.
Fifth Part of the Drama, the Last Part of the Book, in Which the Reformation, Renewal, Perfection, and Finally the Happiness and Glorification of the Aging Church, or Rather Its Yearning for Eternal Happiness and Glory, Is Described.
See what was said in the Proem, chapter 3.
Voice of the Bridegroom. Verse 3. You are beautiful, my beloved, sweet, and comely as Jerusalem; terrible as an army set in array.
For the sequence and propriety of the drama, note that the bride, as soon as she found the bridegroom in the garden, or meeting her on the way to the garden, greeted him reverently and lovingly, and told him with what great sorrow and effort she had sought him; what great insults, beatings, and despoilment she had suffered from the watchmen; with what marks and praises she had distinguished him to the young maidens who would seek him — all of which, since they have already been recounted, are here passed over in silence. Having heard these things, the bridegroom consoles her and in turn confirms the praises and endowments he assigned to her in chapter 4, and adds still others besides. He says therefore:
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, MY BELOVED, SWEET AND COMELY. — For "sweet," the Hebrew is נאוה כתרצה ketirtsa, which, first, you may render plainly and fittingly, with the Hebrews, Pagninus, Vatablus, Marinus, and others, as "like Tirzah," as if the bridegroom says: You are beautiful like Tirzah, and comely like Jerusalem. For Tirzah, or Thersa as our translator renders it in 3 Kings 15:33, was a very beautiful city in the tribe of Manasseh, situated on a high mountain; hence Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, that is, of the ten tribes, placed his throne in it and made it the capital of the kingdom. Jeroboam was followed by his descendants and successors up to Omri, the father of Ahab, who, having built a city on the mountain of Shemer, and thence called Samaria — which was later called Sebaste, that is, Augusta, by Herod in honor of Caesar Augustus — transferred to it the capital and seat of the kingdom, as is clear from 3 Kings 14:17; and 16:6, 8, 9, 15, 23, and 24. For although Tirzah, in the time of Solomon, was not yet the capital of the kingdom of Israel, it was nonetheless very beautiful and pleasant; hence shortly after, under Rehoboam, it was made by Jeroboam
the capital, and the Holy Spirit, who dictated these things to Solomon, foresaw that this would soon happen. Second, the Seventy translate תרצה tirtsa as εὐδοκία, that is, good pleasure, complacence, benevolence: for רצה ratsa means to will, to be pleased, to be a good pleasure. Hence it is translated: "You are beautiful, my beloved, like good pleasure"; Symmachus, "well accepted"; the fifth edition, "as far as I well approve"; the Syriac, "you are beautiful according to my will." Hence our translator renders it "sweet," because what pleases someone is grateful, sweet, and delightful to him; others translate it "sweetness" in the abstract, as if to say: You are so sweet that you seem to be sweetness itself, that is, you are most sweet and most delightful. Moreover, our interpreter, as well as the Seventy, often renders proper names by their significations when these fit the subject under discussion, or when some mystery lies hidden in them; thus for Simon the Canaanite he translates Simon the Zealot; for Thomas he translates Didymus; for Cephas he translates Peter; for Boanerges he translates sons of thunder; so in 1 Chronicles 4:22, for the proper names Jokim, Chozeba, Joash, and Saraph, he translates: "and, He who made the sun stand still, and men of Falsehood, and Secure and Burning, who were princes in Moab."
LIKE JERUSALEM — For Jerusalem was most beautiful, whether you consider the temple, or the royal palace, or the walls, or the streets, or the buildings, marketplaces, lanes, or the people, and especially the women and brides. The Hebrews are accustomed to compare men to trees, gardens, and cities, and conversely cities to men and assemblies of men. Hence the heavenly Jerusalem is compared to a bride, Apocalypse 21:2: "I saw," he says, "the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, prepared by God, like a bride adorned for her husband." Moreover, the Chaldean understands these things of the twofold temple of the Jews: "You are beautiful," he says, "today in the time of the second temple, as you were accepted formerly in the time of the first." But in the time of Solomon there was not yet a second temple.
TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN ARRAY. — The Syriac renders it "as chosen," as if to say: the bride is sweet and lovable to me, the bridegroom, but fierce and terrible to enemies, according to that passage, chapter 1, verse 9: "I have likened you, my beloved, to my horses in the chariots of Pharaoh." The Hebrew is כנדגלות cannidgaloth, that is, "like bannered ones," namely, battle-lines and cohorts, that is, as an army set in array, as our translator renders it. For under banners, cohorts and battle-lines are arranged, and in their proper disposition and order consists the strength and might of armies: for a few soldiers rightly disposed and ordered will rout many who are poorly disposed, scattered, and disordered. The Seventy, for אימה aiumma, that is, "terrible," reading with different vowel points אימה ema, translate θάμβος, that is, fear, stupor, admiration. Hence the Vatican translators render it: "fear like ordered battle-lines" — fear, that is, to be feared and striking fear into enemies. The interpreter of Nyssenus, as well as of St. Athanasius in his Synopsis, translates "fear" as "stupor": for fear begets stupor and silent amazement. St. Ambrose, in his book On Virgins,
translates it "ordered admiration," "because," he says, "she possesses all the mysteries of the eternal city, and is an object of admiration to all who behold her, because she is as full as equity, and is perfect, and has borrowed her radiance from the light of the Word, since she always strives toward it; she is also terrible, advanced by a certain order to the summit of the virtues."
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The Church was made beautiful, as well as strong and terrible like an army set in array, when she rooted out the errors and vices introduced among her faithful by the Arians and other impious people, through zealous emperors and princes, pontiffs and bishops, at the Council of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, the Lateran, Florence, Trent, and other councils both ecumenical and provincial; and restored the universal or provincial Church to its former brightness of faith and virtues. For here the Holy Spirit begins to describe the renewal of the aging Church, which has been accomplished repeatedly and in various ways at different times and places through outstanding bishops and kings whom God raised up as reformers of the Church. Thus St. Athanasius reformed the Alexandrian Church, so that it might flourish in all holiness and seem to be a paradise of God. Thus Lucifer of Cagliari reformed Sardinia, Eusebius of Vercelli reformed Italy, St. Hilary reformed Gaul, Dionysius and then St. Ambrose reformed Milan, which had been disfigured shortly before by Auxentius, the Arian bishop, and St. Paulinus reformed Trier. So in other centuries they restored the fallen morals of particular Churches.
But especially at the end of the world Elijah and Enoch with their followers will do this, as I said shortly before. Hence then the Church will be beautiful like Tirzah among the Gentiles, and comely like Jerusalem among the Jews. For Tirzah was the capital of the Samaritans, who were despised by the Jews as Gentiles and idolaters; Jerusalem, on the other hand, was the capital of the Jews. For the Church is like the cities of Tirzah and Jerusalem, because just as in these there was a congregation and multitude of citizens, so in the Church there is a congregation of the faithful. Again, Tirzah means the same as good pleasure, sweetness, beauty, comeliness — such as exists in the reformed Church of the Gentiles. Jerusalem means the same as "vision of peace," such as will exist among the Jews, when they, converted to Christ, will peacefully unite with the Gentiles in one Church, and therefore will be transferred into the one heavenly Jerusalem. Hence the Church is called Jerusalem by St. Paul (Galatians 4:26) and by St. John (Apocalypse 21:1), for the reasons I have recounted in those places. Hear St. Gregory: "The Synagogue is said to be beautiful and beloved, sweet and comely like Jerusalem, because, once converted, she will follow the holy four Gospels as the Church does. For Jerusalem is interpreted as 'vision of peace'; by which the holy Church is well figured, because while she always suffers tribulation in the world, scorning the way that
is the peace of the heavenly fatherland, she contemplates it by running, trusting in Him who said to His disciples, John 16:33: 'In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.' And fittingly the converted Synagogue is said to be beautiful and beloved and sweet and comely like Jerusalem, because in imitating the holy Church, she practices the precepts of the four Gospels, from which she receives beauty of morals, that she may please; she gathers the practice of holy works, that she may remain in friendship; she learns the sweetness of gentleness, that she may persevere; she displays the appearance of a beautiful way of life, that she may draw others by example."
Moreover, the beauty of the Church, as well as the strength that makes her terrible to demons, heretics, and the impious, consists in the hierarchical order, by which bishops are subject to and serve the pontiff, presbyters serve bishops, deacons serve presbyters, and the remaining clergy and laity serve deacons, each in his own order and rank. For the pontiff rules and directs all these through the bishops, just as the angel of the first heaven, which is called the primum mobile, moving it from east to west, consequently also moves the lower heavens subject to the first; hence no force can resist it or check this motion. Such is the power of obedience and order; for because of it the Church is said to be terrible as an army in array. This is what Isaiah foretold, chapter 26, verse 1: "Zion is the city of our strength; the Savior will set therein a wall and rampart." He gives the reason, chapter 54, verse 11, saying: "Behold, I will lay your stones in order, and will found you on sapphires, and I will make your battlements of jasper, and your gates of carved stones, and all your borders of desirable stones." Who these stones are, he explains by adding: "All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children."
Again, for "as an army set in array," the Hebrew has "like bannered ones," namely phalanxes and battle-lines, because in the universal Church there are many particular Churches, and in the particular ones there are many ranks of clergy and laity, many religious orders, which, although all distinguished by their particular banners, all nevertheless fight under the banner of the cross of Christ. Hence from Him, that is, from Christ crucified, flows all their beauty as well as their strength. Hence St. Anselm: "You are terrible," he says, "because I fight in you and you fight in my service, as in military camps, and you are ordered by institution." For in the Church there are mighty wedges of martyrs, strong battalions of virgins, unconquered battalions of doctors, etc.
Cassiodorus adds that the Church is said to be beautiful and sweet in virtues, terrible in her authority, which she extends to the ends of the earth. Moreover, this order unites all the faithful among themselves, as well as with their head, Christ; and this is the reason why the Church is most strong and terrible to enemies, like an army set in array — because, namely, she is supremely united through charity, and the union of so many faithful is unconquered and conquers all things. Hear St. Gregory: "It is known to those with experience that when soldiers go forth in battle array against the enemy, if they march closely and in concord, they are feared by the opposing enemy, because since they see no gap through which to enter, they hesitate and cannot find a way to penetrate them; and this becomes an impenetrable defense for them, that, ordered in concord, they protect themselves by means of one another. For by making themselves a rampart for themselves, they leave the enemy no opening to enter; and when attacked with intent to kill them, they more easily slay the enemy. So it happens among the multitude of the faithful, who, since they do not cease to fight against malignant spirits, must be held together by the peace of charity, by which they are kept safe. For if they maintain peace, they appear terrible to enemies; if they are torn apart by discord, they are easily penetrated by enemies on every side. Therefore let her fortify herself with peace, bind herself with unity, unite herself with charity, so that while she suffers no damage in herself through division, she may follow her leader always rejoicing and without confusion."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul is beautiful through grace, sweet through courtesy, charity, and benevolence, terrible through zeal, because she conforms herself in all things to the will of God and strives to promote His glory. Such a soul is terrible, says Bede, because she has the whole army of virtues drawn up within herself: if therefore gluttony assails her, temperance resists; if lust, chastity resists; if anger, patience resists; if pride, humility resists; if avarice, generosity resists; if sloth, zeal resists. Hear Hugh of St. Victor, in Theological Instruction from Miscellanies II, book 1: "She is successful among men," he says, "beautiful to divine beings, terrible to demons: why? Because she walks as an army set in array, not scattered by envy, but pressed together by charity. She is an army by assembly, of camps by readiness, ordered by consent. Penance creates assembly, watchfulness establishes readiness, concord provides consent."
Hence the Chaldean translates: "How beautiful you are, my beloved, in the time when you wish to do my will! Beautiful is the house of the sanctuary, which you built for me, like the former house of the sanctuary, which Solomon, king of Jerusalem, built for me; and your terror was upon all peoples in the day when your banners marched through the desert."
Note that the strength of the Church and of the devout soul arises from her beauty, for she is terrible to enemies because she is comely as Jerusalem, that is, as a vision of peace. Peace therefore makes her terrible, for peace composes and orders all her movements and affections according to the law and will of God, so that they are like an army set in array, that is, dense, harmonious, and composed, which no force can break through. Hence the composed and peaceful soul is unconquered and unconquerable.
Moreover, Nyssenus reads: "You are beautiful, O near one, as
good pleasure or benevolence, comely as Jerusalem, a stupor like a drawn-up battle line," and explains it thus: The devout soul, he says, is first similar to the benevolence of Christ, because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and gave Himself as the price for the life of the world; so too the devout soul expends herself for the salvation of her neighbors, as Paul did, and in this consists her beauty. Second, she is beautiful like Jerusalem, namely the heavenly one, because since she has God dwelling within her — He who bestows all beauty on the heavenly Jerusalem — she too is said to be similar to it in beauty. Third, she is a stupor like drawn-up battle lines, because since she does all things, he says, in order and with propriety, she excites such admiration for herself as does the army of angels, who are most perfectly ordered in all their ministries. So also Theodoret, who however translates εὐδοκίαν, that is, good pleasure, as "approval"; so that just as the bride called the bridegroom "desire" in chapter 5, verse 16, that is, supremely desirable, so the bridegroom here in turn calls the bride "approval," that is, supremely approved, pure, and perfect. Three Anonymous commentators judge that the devout soul is called a stupor because, in contemplating the immense beauty of God, she is struck with wonder and amazement, as the angels do.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin is beautiful in good pleasure, because she uniquely above all creatures pleases the entire Most Holy Trinity, the angels, and the saints, according to that word of Gabriel, Luke 1:30: "You have found grace with God." "O Blessed Virgin," says Rupert, "you are sweet and comely as Jerusalem, in that your soul always beholds the peace above, and from your visitation very many souls learn to lead a heavenly way of life; hence they are called, or are, daughters of Jerusalem, because they choose the better part, according to Psalm 45:11: 'Be still, and see that I am the Lord,' etc. You too are terrible to demons, heretics, and the impious, like an army set in array, in which there is the greatest concord of all; and therefore no entry is given to the enemy through discord." Wherefore all heretics who attack Christ and also the Blessed Virgin are trampled down by her; hence the Church sings of her: "You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world." Sophronius adds, in his sermon On the Assumption: "The Blessed Virgin," he says, "is like an army set in array, because she is surrounded by innumerable battalions of angels and saints." Hence Damascene, oration 1 On the Nativity: "O most holy daughter," he says, "who are nourished with the milk of your mother's breast and surrounded on every side by angels!" Hence also St. Bonaventure, in the Mirror of the Blessed Virgin, chapter 3: "Mary," he says, "is interpreted as 'lady': this also most fittingly applies to the empress who is truly the lady of heavenly, earthly, and infernal beings — the lady, I say, of angels, men, and demons," etc. Hence St. Augustine says: "Michael, the leader and prince of the heavenly host, with all the ministering spirits, obeys your commands, O Virgin, in defending the faithful who are still in the body and in receiving from the body the souls of those who especially serve you, O Lady, and commend themselves to you day and night." The same author in a Canticle: "We praise you as the Mother of God; to you, he says, all angels and archangels, to you thrones and principalities faithfully render service; to you all powers and all the virtues of the heavens of heavens and all dominions render obedience." Blessed Gertrude, book 4 of the Revelations, chapter 30,
speaking of the angels whom she saw before the Mother of God, who had prepared themselves for the feast of the Assumption, and who were bringing souls and defending them from the snares of malignant spirits, adds: "Because at the command," she says, "of the Mother of God, a multitude of angels, defending on every side, protects all who invoke the glorious Virgin." Finally, St. Germanus, in his oration On the Girdle of the Mother of God: "You," he says, "repelling the attacks of the most wicked enemy against your servants by the most holy invocation of your name alone, keep them safe and unharmed." See what was said at chapter 1, verse 9, on those words: "I have likened you to my horses in the chariots of Pharaoh."
Verse 4. Turn away your eyes from me, for they have made me flee. Your hair is like a flock of goats that appeared from Gilead.
TURN AWAY YOUR EYES FROM ME (in Hebrew, from before me, or from opposite me), FOR THEY HAVE MADE ME FLEE. The Hebrew הרהיבוני hirihibuni means "they have prevailed over me"; Pagninus, "they were stronger than me"; Vatablus, "for they conquer me"; the Zurich Bible, "turn away your eyes, lest they gaze directly at me, because they make me prouder"; Rabbi Solomon and the Anonymous commentator, "they have exalted and made me proud"; Aben-Ezra, "they are more powerful than me, they take away my strength and dominion"; Rabbi David, "they have strengthened me in love"; St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 8, "they elevate me," and he explains it as if Christ were asking the perfect soul not to detain herself in elevated contemplation, but to let herself descend to the instruction and salvation of simpler souls: "Even if you," he says, "are perfect, other souls still need to be redeemed, others need to be supported. Therefore turn away your eyes from Me; for you elevate Me by gazing. But I descended for this reason: that I might elevate all. For the more one strives toward the Lord, the more one elevates the Lord, and one is oneself elevated."
Learn from all these translations how powerful are the sincere, chaste, and lovely eyes of the bride, inasmuch as they prevail over the bridegroom, dominate him, and as it were capture and enslave him. For the sense is, as if to say: So great is the beauty of your eyes, O bride, so great and so fiery is the power in them, that they carry me away into love for themselves, that they dominate me, that I succumb to love, that they as it were snatch away my mind, that from the excess of love my fleeing heart as it were flies away and flies across to you, according to that passage, chapter 4, verse 9: "You have wounded my heart with one of your eyes
" — in Hebrew, "you have taken my heart away." See what I said about the power and allurement of feminine eyes at chapter 4, verses 1 and 9. Well known is that law from Euripides' Hecuba, received from ancient customs: "Let no woman look upon men face to face." He demonstrates what he said — "you are beautiful and comely" — from the beauty of her eyes, which is so great that they carry away the heart of the bridegroom into love for themselves, to the point that the bridegroom, unable to control his own heart, sees it fly away to the bride, as if to say: Your eyes are so beautiful that I cannot bear their light and power; turn them away a little, therefore, and avert them to the side, so that, returned to myself, I may gaze at them more freely and slowly, as if from the side. Hence the exposition of the Chaldean is cold, which reads thus: "Make your wise teachers recline, a great assembly round about, in my sight; for they counseled me in the captivity and established a school of the doctrine of my law."
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Many judge that here the boldness and curiosity of the Church, or of the devout soul, is noted and checked — she who wishes to fix the eyes of her mind too deeply in contemplating the essence and majesty of God, as if to penetrate and comprehend the incomprehensible, when
she should rather attend to the business of the household with Martha and the salvation of her neighbors. In this matter she does not advance, but rather the edge of her vision is blunted and dulled, just as one who stares at the sun with fixed eyes is blinded, according to Proverbs 25:27: "He who searches into majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory." So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Philo, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, and St. Ambrose, whose words I have already quoted. Justus of Urgell also agrees, who understands these things of the contemplation of Christ's humanity, as if to say: "Do not always seek Me to be seen in the body, when you perceive Me better in spirit through faith. For I ascended into heaven for this reason: that I might not always appear to you locally, since I so fill all things with the presence of My divinity that I am everywhere present, and contain all things, and am contained by no place."
But this sense does not well fit the context, nor the Hebrew phrasing. For the bride is not here reproved for curiosity, but praised for the beauty and allurement of her eyes, by which the pure intention and love of the Church toward Christ is signified, as I said at chapter 4, verse 1. For this intention of pleasing and cleaving to Christ alone wonderfully pleases Christ and carries away His heart, so that He may love in return the one who loves Him, and give His whole attention to the one who gives attention to Him. Christ therefore signifies that He is conquered by the charity of the Church, so that He may wonderfully love in return one who loves Him so greatly, and so that out of love for her He may determine to bring the course and time of the world to completion, so that the remnant of Israel may be saved. For He deals with these things in what follows, so that, this accomplished, the Church may be eternally united to Christ her bridegroom and enjoy Him most blessedly in heavenly glory, where the consummation of the nuptials of both will take place.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
What I said of the Church, say also of the soul, changing the name. Moreover, new and paradoxical here is the explanation of Nyssenus, homily 15 and the last (for here Nyssenus ends), and of the one who follows him, indeed is his abridger, Michael Psellus. For they judge that these are the words not of the bridegroom but of the bride to the bridegroom; and what the Seventy translate as ἀπόστρεψον τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς σου ἀπεναντίον ἐμοῦ, they render thus: "turn away my eyes from what is contrary to me" (the interpreter of Nyssenus translates "from me," as if τὸ ἀπεναντίον means the same as "from opposite me," that is, "from me," but that this is not Nyssenus's meaning is clear from what he adds). For those words ἀνεπτέρωσαν με mean "they made me fly away"; but Nyssenus, pressing the force of the prefix ἀνα, translates: "they have again given me wings," as if to say: Turn, O Christ, Your eyes away from what is contrary to me, and direct them toward me, because the light of Your eyes has again restored to me the wings of grace, which I had lost through sin, so that, winged and freed from earthly desires, I may fly away to heaven.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Some explain this of the Blessed Virgin conceiving and bearing Christ, as if to say: O Virgin, who dwell in the highest and purest contemplation of the divinity, turn the eyes of your mind away from it and direct them to contemplating the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, which is being accomplished in you. For these eyes of your mental purity have as it were stolen Me from Myself, and made Me fly from the bosom of the Father into your lap.
But since this passage literally treats of the reformation of the Church and the conversion of the Synagogue, it is better to explain it thus, as if to say: Your pure and ardent intention, O Virgin, by which you most ardently aim at, desire, pray for, and work toward the renewal of the Church and the conversion of the Jews, so pleases Me that I can bear it no longer, but rather I comply with it and as it were surrender Myself to it, so that I may accomplish and complete in deed what you so greatly desire and demand.
These hidden eyes of the mind of the Blessed Virgin were revealed by the eyes of her august body, blazing with the love of God. Hence a poet wrote of them: O most dear lights, Most brilliant suns, Most blessed torches, Most august stars! Lights of the soul, suns of the mind, torches of the heart, stars of the spirit. O what a countenance! O heaven, adorned with so many and such divine
lights and torches adorned! "O face like that of a great divinity to me!" Indeed, I have seen at Rome an image of the Mother of God, painted by St. Luke, in which the eyes and countenance represent an august majesty, more than human.
Your hair is like a flock of goats that appeared from Gilead. Verses 5 and 6. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none among them is barren. Like the rind of a pomegranate, so are your cheeks, besides what is hidden within you.
All these things have been explained at chapter 4, verse 1. For the bridegroom repeats these praises of the bride, to confirm them and impress them upon the young maidens. Only note that the Seventy, the Arabic, Symmachus, and Aquila here add: "Like a scarlet thread are your lips, and your speech is sweet" — which verse they transcribed from chapter 4, verse 3, and brought in here. Again, for "like the rind of a pomegranate," the Syriac translates "like a crown of a pomegranate": for this fruit bears an open crown on the top of its rind. Furthermore, for "besides what is hidden within you," or as chapter 4, verse 3, translates, "besides that which lies hidden within," the Arabic renders: "besides the beauty of your silence."
Verses 7 and 8. There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and of young maidens there is no number. One is my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her most blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.
THERE ARE SIXTY QUEENS, AND EIGHTY CONCUBINES, AND OF YOUNG MAIDENS THERE IS NO NUMBER. ONE IS MY DOVE, MY PERFECT ONE OF HER MOTHER (Septuagint: to her mother), THE CHOSEN OF HER WHO BORE HER. — "The only one of her mother," that is, the only-begotten, or uniquely loved above her other daughters by her mother; the Arabic: "my perfect one is one, and she is one to her mother." Concubines are called not harlots and prostitutes, but legitimate wives, though secondary: because, namely, they were not mothers of the family, nor did their sons succeed to the father's inheritance and kingdom, but they were dismissed with gifts, just as Abraham gave gifts to Hagar his concubine and to her son Ishmael; but Sarah he held as his primary wife and mother of the family, and therefore her son Isaac was Abraham's sole heir. See what was said at Genesis 25:6. Understand the young maidens as honorary virgins who accompanied the queens and concubines as an honor guard and formed their gynæceum; or who were kept as if in the gynæceum, so that when queens or concubines died, they might succeed to their places and become wives, either primary or secondary.
You may ask whether these queens, concubines, and young maidens belonged to Solomon or to another. For polygamy was formerly permitted, not only among the Gentiles, but also among the Hebrews; hence the kings of the Parthians, Persians, Medes, Assyrians, and Syrians had many wives, just as the kings of the Moors, Turks, Indians, Tartars, etc. still do today. First, our Delrio judges that these were not Solomon's but another's, from whom the comparison is drawn: "Now our shepherd," he says, "prefers his lot to the riches and fortunes of all kings." It is not satisfactory to take this of King Solomon, whose harems of women were far larger than these, and contrary to what we read here: "He had more queens than concubines" (see 3 Kings 11:3); rather I take it indefinitely of any most powerful monarch. "Suppose there is someone," he says, "who in his gynæceum keeps enclosed very many primary wives of free-born condition, and many concubines (so are called secondary wives joined without the ceremonies and rites of marriage, of servile or freed condition), and very many young virgins, who are kept under a thousand locks in the inner chambers of the house for the other lot of the bridal chamber — whatever is found dispersed in so many, is found united in my one wife. Therefore I prefer you, O beloved, to all those, and I call myself more blessed than such a king." For in former times the bridegroom and bride were honored with the title of king and queen; hence Plautus in the Stichus: "Each king pleases his queen, each bride pleases her bridegroom." Therefore with the title of king and queen, the bridegroom and bride, though commoners, addressed and greeted each other by way of mutual honor and joy.
Second, others more aptly judge that these belonged to Solomon, for the very connection of the passage seems to require this: so St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, Genebrardus, Sotomayor, Gislerius, and others here, Abulensis on 1 Kings 11, Questions 9 and following, Pineda, book 6 On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 5. For Solomon at the beginning of his reign, when he was more chaste and was writing these things, had only sixty queens and eighty concubines, not for the sake of lust but of royal magnificence, lest he seem inferior in dignity to neighboring kings who displayed an ample gynæceum. For in that age of polygamy, the splendor of kings consisted in the number and splendor of their queens; but when he became older and more intemperate, he took for himself seven hundred queens and three hundred concubines (3 Kings 11:3). He says therefore: "I, Solomon, have sixty queens and eighty concubines, who are attended by many virgin maidens; but above all these I prefer the daughter of Pharaoh: for she is my first and chief wife, she is the queen of queens; she alone is more beloved by me than all the rest. Hence of her I say: One is my dove, my perfect one; just as she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her who bore her; because on account of her beauty, both of body and even more of soul, and her chaste, modest, and composed manners, she is uniquely dear and beloved both to me and to her mother above her other daughters." But if this number of wives in Solomon, while still holy and the writer of the sacred canticles, seems more than reasonable, say with Sanchez that these queens and concubines were those of neighboring kings, who accompanied as an honor the nuptial procession of Solomon's marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh, and afterwards
they often visited him out of friendship, and perhaps out of homage. For these kings seem to have been friends or subjects of Solomon. He names sixty queens and eighty concubines, because after the beginning of his reign he seems to have had precisely that many, or because he uses a definite number for an indefinite one. For sixty is a perfect number, namely composed from six and ten multiplied together: it is therefore fittingly assigned to queens. Eighty, on the other hand, is composed from ten, which is perfect, and eight, which is imperfect; it is therefore fittingly assigned to concubines, as imperfect wives. "Six," says Justus, "is a perfect number, because it consists of all its parts: for its sixth part is one; its third, two; and its half is proven to be three." Finally, Abulensis, on 3 Kings 11, Question 12, and Pineda, book 6 On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 5, judge that Solomon had more queens and concubines, namely up to a thousand, but that only the principal ones, those more familiar to Solomon, are numbered here, and these were sixty from among the queens and eighty from among the concubines. But it is hard to believe that he, when he was writing such spiritual canticles, was so carnal and given to women that he had a thousand wives.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The queens, that is, the patriarchal, primatial, and metropolitan Churches, are sixty, that is, many; the concubines, that is, the episcopal Churches, are eighty, that is, more numerous; of the young maidens, that is, of the parochial and other Churches, there is no number, for they are very many and virtually innumerable. But above all these stands the Chair of St. Peter, namely the Roman Church, says Cosmas Damianus, which is the queen of queens and the head and prince of the whole Church, which governs and rules all the rest, lest they stray from the true faith and piety; and when they do stray, she corrects and reforms them. Therefore she is the one dove, that is, the one bride of Christ, uniquely beloved by Him, perfect in faith and religion, the only one of her mother and the chosen of her who bore her — that is, she is equally and uniquely beloved by the primitive Church of Jerusalem, says St. Anselm; for that Church, as a mother, gave birth to the Roman Church, when she sent Saints Peter and Paul and the other first believers to Rome, to convert it and establish it as the head of the Church. Therefore the Roman Pontiff, who presides in it, sends reformers throughout the whole world, to restore the true faith and religion in particular Churches where it has collapsed or been corrupted, just as St. Sylvester sent Hosius of Cordoba to preside over the Council of Nicaea, where Arius was condemned; Julius, Liberius, and others sent St. Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cagliari, and others, to bring the Eastern bishops who had fallen into the Arian heresy back to the true faith; indeed, the Roman Pontiffs send religious and apostolic men to the Indians, Tartars, and other gentiles, to preach and spread the faith among them; and at the end of the world they will send outstanding men to Judea and Jerusalem, to resist the Antichrist and convert the Jews. Therefore then Rome will be united to her mother, that is, to Jerusalem — that is, the Church to the Synagogue — when the daughter leads back her erring mother, that is, when Rome leads Jerusalem from Moses as well as from the Antichrist to Christ. Then will be fulfilled that oracle, Isaiah 19:24: "In that day Israel shall be a third with Egypt and Assyria; a blessing in the midst of the earth, which the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed be My people Egypt, and the work of My hands Assyria; but My heritage is Israel" — see what was said there. And that passage, Isaiah 49:23: "Kings shall be your foster-fathers, and queens your nurses: with their faces bowed to the ground, they shall worship you, and shall lick the dust of your feet."
Most of the Fathers agree with this, understanding by the one dove the one Catholic Church, spread throughout the whole world: for the head and prince of this Church is the Roman Church. So St. Gregory of Nyssa, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm here, and St. Augustine, tractate 5 on John, and St. Cyprian, treatise On the Unity of the Church. The property and mark of the Church, therefore, is that she is one, though catholic and spread throughout the whole world: one, I say, through one faith, hope, and charity, and through one head, namely Christ and His vicar the Roman Pontiff; whoever separates himself from this unity is a schismatic or a heretic — see St. Cyprian, book On the Unity of the Church. Cassiodorus adds that she is called a dove because the Holy Spirit descended upon her in the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ (Matthew 3:16); and that her mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, toward which she, called by God, tends and journeys — for Paul calls this the mother of the faithful (Galatians 4:26). Nyssenus, however, understands by the mother the Holy Spirit, who as a dove begot the Church herself, as a young dove and a small dove. But St. Gregory understands by the mother the grace of the Holy Spirit, which amounts to the same thing: "Our mother," he says, "is the regenerating grace, by which one dove is chosen; because it gathers only those who remain in simplicity and are not torn from unity. For when many faithful strive toward the same thing, when they nourish one another with one desire for Christ, when having one heart and one soul they unite themselves in charity, from many members they form one body, and all living in the simplicity and unity of oneness, they are one dove. She alone is said to be perfect and chosen by her mother, because outside this Church of which we speak, no one is nourished to perfection, no one to life, except by this grace alone." John the Carmelite, however, understands by the mother Christ, who as a mother, with maternal affection, uniquely and most tenderly loves the Church and the perfect soul, according to what He Himself says, Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? And even if she should forget, yet I will not forget you.
I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on My hands: your walls are before My eyes always." Finally, William notes that the queens, that is, perfect souls, are numbered sixty, because these add to the law of the Decalogue, which the number ten signifies, the number six, which is a symbol of perfection, which is acquired through the evangelical counsels: for perfect are those who observe not only the precepts but also the evangelical counsels. The concubines denote those who keep only the precepts of the Decalogue; hence to these is added the number eight of circumcision, that is, of the purging of sins committed against the Decalogue.
Moreover, the Chaldean, in his customary Judaizing manner, takes these things of the kings and peoples attacking Jerusalem: "Then," he says, "the Greeks arose, and gathered sixty kings from the sons of Esau, clad in breastplates, mounted on horses and horsemen, and eighty leaders from the sons of Ishmael mounted on elephants, besides the rest of the peoples and tongues, whose number was without count, and they set up Alexander as king over them as prince, and they came to fight against Jerusalem. And at that time the assembly of Israel was like a perfect dove, and served their Lord unanimously, and took hold of the law, and labored in the words of the law with a perfect heart, and their acts of justice were pure as on the day when they went out of Egypt."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The queens, that is, perfect souls, are sixty, that is, few; the concubines, that is, those making progress, are eighty, that is, more numerous; the young maidens, that is, beginners, are very many, and virtually innumerable. But the one dove — that is, the most perfect souls are exceedingly few, and out of a thousand scarcely one is a most perfect soul, who is the singular bride of Christ, attending to Him alone, and passing over entirely as it were into Him. Such was St. Paul, whose heart was a sea of charity, which absorbed the whole world and strove to save all nations, even the Jews who were most hostile to him; whom alone God therefore valued more than a thousand saints, even perfect, religious, and apostolic ones. See the eight homilies of St. Chrysostom which he wrote in praise of St. Paul. So Origen, homily 2, Theodoret, three Anonymous commentators cited by him, Philo, Justus, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 8: "She is praised," he says, "because, being one dove, she has the unity of the Spirit, in which there is peace, which has made both one, and which is not composed of diverse elements of a divided and conflicting nature. Every blessed soul is simple, imitating Him who said, John 17:21: 'That all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us' — for this is consummation and perfection." Hence He added: "That they may be one, just as We also are one. I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one. This, therefore, is the soul that is a dove
and perfect, which is simple and spiritual, and is not disturbed by the passions of this body, in which there are fights without and fears within." Nyssenus, St. Gregory, Rupert, and others agree, who understand by queens the souls that aspire to the heavenly kingdom; by concubines, those who keep the law of God out of fear of hell or of some other harm, or out of hope of reward; by young maidens, those who are unformed in faith and lax in practice. Abbot Luke adds: "The upright and perfect souls, who have reformed in themselves the true nobility in which they were created, are called queens, because they reign over sin, or because the people who believe in Christ is entrusted to them for governance; by adhering to the word of God they both conceive and bear kings." St. Augustine, in book 83 of his Questions, Question 55: "Queens," he says, "are souls reigning in intelligible and spiritual things; concubines are those who receive the reward of earthly things, of whom it was said, Matthew 6:2: 'They have received their reward'; the young maidens are those whose knowledge is not determined and who can wander among various teachings."
Symbolically, the one dove is the soul that gives herself entirely to the one supreme good. She is therefore supremely perfect if, being one, she devotes herself to the one God, as St. Giles, the companion of St. Francis, used to say — indeed, as Christ Himself said (Luke 10:41): "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary: Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her." For charity, joining the mind to the one God, makes it as it were one thing with God, says St. Gregory. Hence that man is truly wise who, "he says, aspires to perfection, aspires to union; whatever he desires, he strives toward unity." "Rare," says Blessed Lawrence Justinian in On the Chaste Marriage of the Word and the Soul, near the end, "I say, is the soul that by the merit of her life, by the privilege of her office, and by the immensity of her love, deserves to be called the bride of the Word — of whom the bridegroom says in her praise, Song of Songs 6:8: 'One is my dove, my perfect one, the chosen of her who bore her.' When He finds such a one, He loves her with singular charity, frequently visits her, speaks with her familiarly, sweetly embraces her, and scarcely allows Himself to be absent from her. He departs from her at times, not as one angered, but as one inflamed with love: for the more slowly He returns, the more vehemently she is inflamed by the very delay; she knocks more frequently, beckons more ardently, and says, Song of Songs 2:13: 'Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come: my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the wall, show me your face; let your voice sound in my ears: for your voice is sweet, and your face is comely.' For headlong love does not tolerate delay; it knows no waiting in its desire to enjoy the one it loves. The art of loving — one who has not loved does not grasp it; only one who has experienced it knows it."
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
This passage uniquely and most properly applies to the Blessed Virgin, who is the unique dove of Christ, His bride, perfect, the only one of her mother — that is, of the Church — the chosen of her who bore her — that is, of St. Anne. For the Blessed Virgin is perfect above all saints and angels in grace, virtues, merits, and glory; therefore she is uniquely loved, praised, and proclaimed blessed by Christ, by His Church, by St. Anne, and by all saints and angels. For nothing less than God is worthy of the Mother of God, says St. Bonaventure. Again, three Anonymous commentators take the queens as virgins, among whom however the Blessed Virgin is the one and only; the concubines as widows; and the young maidens as married women. Hence in the litanies these are invoked last: virgins, widows, and married women.
to the Blessed Virgin, for she herself is the one dove, that is, the one spouse of the Most Holy Trinity, chosen and beloved above all men and angels, "to her mother, that is, to the Church of the patriarchs," says Rupert, "and of the righteous kings, from whom she was descended, according to whose faith of blessing, which had been promised to them, she is the gate or the matter. And to that mother and to this parent she is the one and chosen, because neither among angels nor among men does she have a like or a predecessor, nor will she have a successor; truly a dove, because full of grace; truly chosen, who would not only be saved herself, but would even bear Salvation itself."
Wherefore the Most Holy Trinity seems to have poured all Its love into the Blessed Virgin, so much so that It loves her alone more than the whole world and all the angels and men taken together, as Francisco Suarez and other theologians teach: see Suarez, III Part., Quest. XXXVII, disp. 18, sect. IV, where he confirms this very thing with four arguments and very many testimonies of the Fathers. Hear William: "She is the one dove, my perfect one; she is the one queen of queens, mistress of concubines, nurse of the young maidens: she is the dove through her fecundity, and mine through the novelty of her singular birth; my dove, of whom I am the singular offspring; my perfect one, who lacks nothing in grace and in glory, whose fecundity did not deflower her virginity, nor did her virginity ignore fecundity." And after some remarks: "She is also uniquely chosen by her mother, singularly chosen for the ministry of redemption and the regeneration of grace. For she rendered an illustrious and singular ministry to redeeming grace in this, that she bore the Redeemer Himself for herself and for us, nourished Him for herself and for us with her holy milk, and brought Him to the years of maturity with the devoted assiduity of maternal solicitude." Hear also Honorius: "You alone surpass the merits of all, and therefore you alone are chosen above all, my dove, into whom I have poured the charisms of the Spirit; my perfect one, whom I have perfected with the gifts of virtues. She alone is the imitable one to her mother, namely the present Church; chosen by her parent, the company of angels. The daughters of Zion, that is, of the Church, saw her with the eyes of the heart, and proclaimed her most blessed, as she herself said, Luke I, 48: All generations shall call me blessed. And the queens and concubines, the active and contemplative, thus praised her, saying: Who is this one, as follows in the next verse."
Furthermore, Abbot Luke, the continuator of Aponius, takes the one dove to mean the humanity of Christ: for the eternal Word betrothed this to Himself above all things, when, having become man, He assumed it from the Blessed Virgin, to whom therefore it was most dear as to His mother. The same humanity is said to have been chosen by its parent, because it was itself chosen as the mediatrix between the strength of divinity and the frailty of the flesh: thus Luke, for the humanity of Christ was the first and nearest spouse of the Word, as I have already said many times.
THE DAUGHTERS (young maidens) SAW HER, AND PROCLAIMED HER MOST BLESSED; THE QUEENS AND CONCUBINES (saw her), AND PRAISED HER.
The Arabic version has: after her, the queens, concubines, and they shall praise her; which is wonderful, since they themselves are beautiful and deserve praise; yet admiring the far greater beauty of the bride, not envying her but rejoicing with her, they celebrate and proclaim her with one voice. This alludes to Leah, wife of Jacob, who when she had borne a son from her handmaid Zilpah, named him Asher, saying, Genesis 30:13: "This is for my blessedness: for all women shall call me blessed." The sense is clear, for all the daughters, that is, the parish churches, praise the Roman Church as their mother; and the concubines, that is, the episcopal churches; and the queens, that is, the patriarchal and metropolitan churches. Likewise, the other faithful souls admire and celebrate a soul eminent in charity and holiness, such as was the soul of Moses and Paul.
Finally, all angels and men glorify the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God, according to that passage, Luke 11:27: "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You." Foreseeing this, she herself sang beforehand, Luke 1:48: "All generations shall call me blessed." "They therefore proclaimed her blessed," says William, "in virginity, more blessed in fecundity, most blessed in fecundity and virginity together." In fecundity, I say, both the physical fecundity of Christ and the spiritual fecundity of the faithful and Christians, especially in heavenly glory, where they exclaim what follows: "Who is this that comes forth like the dawn," etc.: so Rupert.
Furthermore, Abbot Luke, taking the bride as the humanity of Christ espoused to the Word: "All the virtues," he says, "the citizens of heavenly Jerusalem, saw her united to the Father's love, being born on earth, wrapped in swaddling clothes, shining with the glory of majesty, and they proclaimed her most blessed, saying, Luke 2:14: Glory to God in the highest. She alone on earth, among all, is shown to have possessed all the beatitudes in their fullness."
Finally, the Chaldean, taking these words about the victories and triumphs of the Maccabees, translates thus: "Then the sons of the Hasmoneans went forth, and Mattathias, and all the people of Israel, and they fought against them, and the Lord delivered them into their hands. And when the inhabitants of the provinces had seen this, they called them blessed, and the kingdoms of the earth and the powerful praised them."
VOICE OF THE YOUNG MAIDENS, VERSE 9. WHO IS THIS THAT COMES FORTH LIKE THE RISING DAWN, BEAUTIFUL AS THE MOON, CHOSEN AS THE SUN, TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN BATTLE ARRAY?
WHO IS THIS THAT COMES FORTH (in Hebrew it is niskapha, that is, she looks forth; St. Ambrose and Jerome translate it as she looks out; Vatablus, she gazes forth; Pagninus, she is seen) LIKE THE RISING DAWN, BEAUTIFUL AS THE MOON, CHOSEN (the Syriac has pure) AS THE SUN, TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN BATTLE ARRAY? — The Syriac has, as myriads, namely, of cohorts and soldiers; the Arabic, an army drawn up in a garden of nut trees; the Septuagint, dread or amazement (both active and passive: for the Hebrew word ema signifies both, which our translator and the Hebrews read with different vowel points as viumma, that is, terrible) as ordered, namely a battle line: for the best soldiers about to fight in battle line are at first afraid and tremble; but then by fighting they overcome fear, and strike it into the enemy, and become terrible to them like lions: so the just man who fears and reveres God becomes terrible to his enemies. Symmachus has: terrible and striking dread according to battle lines; the sixth edition: terrifying among the exalted; the fifth edition: illustrious as one exalted. This is the voice of the young maidens, the concubines and queens praising the bride, by which they confess that all their beauty is surpassed by the loveliness of the bride by as great an interval as the dawn surpasses the night, and the sun and moon surpass the other stars. Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Theodoret, Bede, and others consider this to be the voice of the Synagogue admiring the beauty of the Church, about which more shortly.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.
Because the dawn is the beginning of light, the moon the increase of light, and the sun the fullness of light, by these symbols are signified the beginning, progress, and perfection of the Church; whence Honorius says: The Church, before the Mosaic law, in the state of the law of nature, was the dawn, when it had only a certain beginning of law and divine knowledge; it was the moon under the law, because that knowledge was then growing, still lacking the rays of the sun; it was the sun under the Gospel, because then the Church was to exert its strength and invincible powers in a final effort, with the true Sun shining and utterly dispelling all the darkness of night: for St. Gregory also taught that the times were already inclining toward the age of the Antichrist; nor does Cassiodorus disagree, who holds this to be the voice of the Synagogue at the end of the age, converted to Christ through the preaching of Elijah and Enoch.
Others more aptly refer all these things to the progress of the Christian Church: for under Christ and the apostles it arose faintly, secretly, and hidden, like the dawn in Judea; then it grew like the waxing moon toward the full moon, but with a pale light, namely through the terrors, persecutions, and martyrdoms of countless martyrs under the ten emperors who persecuted it until Constantine the Great; when, having become like the sun, it spread the rays of its faith and empire throughout the whole world; soon it began to be like an army set in battle array, when it vanquished idolatry and paganism, and routed the heresies of Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, and others as they arose, and reformed the moral abuses springing up among the faithful. But most especially will it be such at the end of the world, when, fighting most fiercely with the Antichrist, it will overcome him through Elijah and Enoch, and will convert the Jews, and will shine everywhere with wondrous glory of holiness; whence St. Gregory, Theodoret, Bede, Cassiodorus, Cosmas Damianus, Delrio here, and Francisco Ribera on Apocalypse 11:2 refer all these things to the end of the world, and rightly so: for the following words point in that direction. For then the Church, oppressed by the Antichrist and the wicked, and nearly extinguished, will be raised up by Elijah and Enoch and will rise like the dawn, and will gradually increase like the moon, and at last will shine like the most brilliant sun, and will be like an army set in battle array, which will either rout or subjugate all the followers of the Antichrist and the wicked. Whence St. John, Apocalypse 12:1 and following, alluding to this, describes the Church at the end of the world under the figure of a woman crowned with 12 stars, who tramples the moon underfoot and is clothed with the sun, and brings forth a male child, whom the dragon seeking to devour is routed by Michael. See the commentary there. And then likewise Christ will come to judgment, by which He will make the Church Militant triumphant, and more splendid than the sun, and formidable to all demons and the reprobate.
Hear St. Gregory: "The holy Church, rising like the dawn, comes forth at the last judgment, because, having left behind the darkness of corruption, it is renewed in brightness. It is rightly called chosen as the sun, because it is brought to the same glory as its head Christ, who is declared to be the Sun of justice; whence it is that the same Sun says, John 17:24: I will, Father, that where I am, there also My servant may be."
Hear also Cassiodorus and Bede, who consider these to be the words of the Synagogue at the end of the world, admiring the beauty of the Church: "Who is this who, like the dawn, when the darkness of unbelief has passed, shows herself to possess the light of truth, advancing from virtue to virtue, and filling the whole world with heavenly preaching; beautiful as the moon, because she is illuminated by the grace of Christ, the true Sun, and because in the present life she sometimes grows when peace is granted, and sometimes seems to decrease through adversities; chosen as the sun in the other life, where she will shine perpetually with the joy of the vision of her Creator, and also in the present life, because she imitates Christ, the true Sun; and united by the bond of charity, she is terrible to demons like an army set in battle array."
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul rises like the dawn when it rises from the darkness of sin to the light of grace; it grows like the moon when it is more and more expanded into this light and makes progress in every virtue; finally, it becomes chosen like the sun when it shines with full charity and holiness: and then it is terrible to demons and the wicked, like an army set in battle array. Hear St. Gregory: "For the moon, while it illuminates the night, shows the way to those whose eyes are dim, that a man may walk: so indeed every soul that leaves behind the darkness and extends itself into holy works, while it gives an example of good works to its neighbors, scatters light, as it were, upon darkened eyes: for when sinners see a good work and turn to do the same, they return to the way, as those wandering in the night by the light of the moon. This soul, then, while it offers good examples to sinners, shines like the moon at night; but when it grows more and more, and day by day receives the light of justice so perfectly through the practice of good works that it even offers examples of imitation to the good — it who previously appeared worthy of imitation only to sinners — then indeed the moon becomes the sun, because she who before gave light to those wandering in the night, now manifests the light of truth to those walking in the day." The same, in Book XVI, Moralia, ch. 25: "The mind of the just man," he says, "is the dawn which, leaving behind the darkness of its sin, now bursts forth into the light of eternity."
Haymo notes that the sun and the moon never rest, but are perpetually in motion, and in the morning continually increase until noon; the faithful and just person must do the same, according to that passage, Proverbs 4:18: "But the path of the just, like a shining light, proceeds and increases unto the perfect day." Those who are beginning, therefore, begin to shine like the dawn, and thus still have the mingled darkness of desires and vices; those who are advancing shine more like the moon, because just as the moon illumines the night, so they illuminate sinners; the perfect shine like the sun, which radiates upon all during the day: for so too all the perfect, by their splendor, illumine even the just: so St. Gregory.
The Chaldean version is relevant here: "The nations said," he says, "how splendid are the works of this people, like the Morning! Beautiful are its young men like the moon; and pure are its merits like the sun; and its terror was upon all the inhabitants of the earth, when its standards marched through the desert."
Furthermore, Justus of Urgell accommodates these to three degrees of chastity: "For married people living chastely," he says, "shine like the dawn; widows and the continent become beautiful like the moon; virgins radiate like the sun." St. Bernard, however, in Sermon 60 among the shorter sermons, applies these to three virtues of religious, namely, by the dawn he understands humility, by the moon chastity, by the sun charity.
In the anagogical sense, the holy mind, which in this carnal and corruptible life shines like the dawn and like the moon, which is subject to various changes, and now waxes, now wanes; in heaven it will sparkle with full, clear, and constant light like the sun, according to Christ's words, Matthew 13:43: "The just shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." So St. Gregory, Theodoret, and St. Ambrose in his work On the Death of Valentinian, whom hear: "Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, etc.? She looks forth," he says, "the holy soul, from a higher place, as one looking down upon things below; she has come forth from the darkness of this world, resplendent as the moon, shining as the sun."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Rupert teaches that the Blessed Virgin was the dawn in her birth, the moon in the conception of Christ, the sun in her assumption into heaven: "When you were born," he says, "O Blessed Virgin, then the true dawn rose for us, the dawn heralding the everlasting day; because just as the daily dawn is the end of the past night and the beginning of the following day, so your birth, a birth from the seed of Abraham, illustrious from the line of David, to whom the promise of blessing was made with the oath of God, was the end of sorrows and the beginning of consolation, the end of sadness and the beginning of joy for us." He then proceeds from the dawn to the moon: "But when the Holy Spirit came upon you, and as a virgin you conceived a Son, as a virgin you brought Him forth, now and from that time you are beautiful, not in any ordinary way, but as the moon: for just as the moon shines and gives light not by its own light but by light received from the sun, so you, O most blessed one, do not have from yourself the very fact that you are so radiant, but from divine grace, O full of grace!"
Finally he passes from the moon to the sun: "But when you were taken up from this world and translated to the heavenly bridal chamber, then and from then on you are chosen as the sun; chosen, I say, for us, because just as we adore and worship the Son of God born of you as the true Sun, the eternal Sun, as true God, so also we honor and venerate you as the Mother of the true God, knowing that all the honor given to the mother without doubt redounds to the glory of the Son." Again St. Bernard, Sermon 1 On the Assumption: "The glorious Virgin," he says, "a most burning lamp, was a miracle of light even to the angels themselves, so that they said, Song of Songs 6:8: Who is this that comes forth like the rising dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun? For she shone more brilliantly than all the rest."
So also St. Jerome, Epistle 32 to Eustochium: "Then," he says, "the angels shall wonder at the soul (ascending to heaven), and shall say: Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun?"
Hear the analogies between the dawn and the Mother of God, which our Spinellus collected from the Fathers, chapter 24 On the Mother of God, no. 18. The dawn is the end of the night and the beginning of the day, and testifies that the sun is at hand; it puts the nocturnal birds to flight, but invites the daytime birds to sing; it also continually advances into greater splendor, and at that time the white dew falls, by which the crops are refreshed from the heat and the earth is made fruitful. So the Virgin Mother of God, to a world enveloped in the darkness of ignorance and sins, shone forth as the destruction of eternal gloom: not only the herald and bearer but also the Mother of the Sun of justice, she drives far away the demons like unclean birds of darkness; she rouses and invites the servants of God and the angels themselves, like birds of the day flying on high, to the praises of God, far better than once those three youths, freed from the fire of the Babylonian furnace, invited all creatures to bless God: since far greater blessings of God upon the human race have become known and have come about through the Mother of God. She is also like the dawn continually rising, since in all her actions while she lived, she always increased with ever greater increases of merit, and now her fame among men and devotion to her are perpetually propagated more and more day by day, and by her prayers divine grace descends into the souls of men like white dew, by which they are refreshed from the heat of temptations and concupiscence, and are made fruitful for producing good works. Therefore the Mother of God herself is called by St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his oration On the Offering of the Virgin, the divine dew of the ardor that is in us, and the divinely raining sprinkling upon our dried-out heart; or rather, the Blessed Virgin, like the dawn, brought forth the dew Christ, who, like dew, refreshes the heat of concupiscence, and makes fruitful the garden of the soul, and renders it productive of good works; whence Isaiah, chapter 45, verse 8: "Drop dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One," namely Christ. Wherefore Durandus in the Rationale of Divine Offices, treating of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, asserts that the Blessed Virgin was born on September 8, on a Saturday, and at the breaking of dawn, according to a revelation made to a certain religious man, to signify that she herself would be the dawn who would precede and bring forth the Sun of justice.
Moreover, the Blessed Virgin is invincible against demons, like an army set in battle array. Hear St. Bernard, quoted in St. Bonaventure's Speculum, chapter 3: "Visible enemies do not fear a great army in battle array as much as the powers of the air fear the name, patronage, and example of Mary: they melt and perish like wax before fire, wherever they find frequent remembrance of this name, devout invocation, and earnest imitation."
Symbolically, Philo of Carpathia says: The humanity of Christ (for this is the first bride in the Song, that is, the spouse of the Word), he says, shines like the moon; but His divinity radiates like the sun, according to Psalm 88:38: "His throne is like the sun in My sight, and like the perfect moon." Abbot Luke, however, applies all these things to the humanity of Christ; for this humanity first "comes forth," he says, "like the dawn after the darkness of ignorance, rising as with the morning light to the sacred baptism. Secondly, through each individual virtue it is beautiful as the moon, for it advances in wisdom and bodily age over as many years (namely thirty) as the moon takes days to complete and diminish its orbit; and like the moon at the rising of its manifestation, it gives joy to saddened travelers — at the wedding when the wine ran out, among the beginnings of those just coming to believe, it is shown shining forth; and at its setting, a tempest shook the whole world and covered the lights of love with darkness. Thirdly, chosen as the sun, after the most complete glory of the resurrection, standing firm in the brightness of the Father; for indeed these three degrees, full of praise, can be understood of the future judgment. He will appear to the just in the beauty of the moon, shining to the powers of heaven in majesty; but to the wicked destined for eternal fire, He will be terrible as an army set in battle array." These are the words of Luke, or rather of Aponius, for Luke is his abbreviator.
VOICE OF THE BRIDEGROOM. VERSE 10. I WENT DOWN INTO THE GARDEN OF NUT TREES, TO SEE THE FRUITS OF THE VALLEYS, AND TO INSPECT WHETHER THE VINEYARD HAD FLOWERED, AND THE POMEGRANATES HAD BUDDED.
I WENT DOWN INTO THE GARDEN OF NUT TREES, TO SEE THE FRUITS OF THE VALLEYS (the Septuagint has: the produce of the torrent; Symmachus: to consider the fruits of the valley; the Arabic: the crops of the torrent), AND TO INSPECT WHETHER THE VINEYARD HAD FLOWERED, AND THE POMEGRANATES HAD BUDDED (the Hebrew and Septuagint have: had flowered) — namely, the pomegranate trees. The Septuagint and the Arabic add: there I will give you my breasts. Theodoret, Cassiodorus, three Anonymous authors, Genebrardus, and Cosmas Damianus consider these to be the words of the bride telling the bridegroom why she came to the garden; but since in verses 1 and 2 the bride indicates that she went down into the garden in order to seek the bridegroom there, it seems inappropriate for her to allege here another reason for her descent. Therefore more fittingly St. Jerome, commenting on Zechariah chapter 12, St. Gregory, Philo, Anselm, Rupert, Abbot Luke, Delrio, Sanchez, and others consider these to be the words of the bridegroom, who, reconciled to the bride who sought Him so anxiously, conceals His displeasure and offers another reason for His sudden departure, mentioned in verse 6, namely, that He went to inspect the fruits of the garden, whether they were sprouting, or even whether the fruits were ripening: for some fruits, such as cherries and plums, and even certain fruits properly so called, ripen at the beginning of summer, when vineyards are in flower and pomegranates are budding.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.
Christ, seeing the prelates of the Church of the Gentiles negligent in reforming the errors and morals of the faithful, turns aside to the garden of nut trees, that is, to the Synagogue of the Jews, from which He was born and gathered His apostles, and thus laid the foundations of His Church in it, in order to convert the Jews and to examine and gather their fruits in due time, namely, the nuts of penance and patience, and the fruits of the valleys (for in the valleys, where there are waters and torrents, fruits and other produce grow more abundantly), namely, the fruits of humility, and the grapes and wine of devotion, and the pomegranates of charity. He did this at various times and places, but He will do it especially at the end of the world, when through Elijah and Enoch He will make most of the Jews Christians, indeed outstanding saints. By this descent of His, Christ invites the prelates and faithful of the Church to go down themselves and take care of the salvation of the Jews (whom we see commonly neglected), and not to despair of it, but to await it with patience; I say the same about any obstinate persons. So Philo of Carpathia, Rupert, Abbot Luke, Cosmas Damianus, Gislerius, Delrio, and others take the garden of nut trees to mean the Synagogue of the Jews, those already converted and those yet to be converted to Christ, especially at the end of the world, for Christ here shows that He bears great care for them, as does also Paul, Romans chapter 9, verse 1.
For first, the nut tree bears no fruit unless it is struck with poles and stones; so the Jews of old did nothing good unless driven by God through plagues and chastisements. Second, just as the nut is covered with a bitter rind and then a hard shell, so the Jews have a bitter and hard heart against Christ, and are obstinate in their Judaism: so Rupert. Third, the nut tree is said to emit a spirit that induces drowsiness and lethargy, says Clement of Alexandria, Book II, Paedagogus, chapter 8; whence the nut is called in Greek karya from karos, that is, from the torpor and heaviness it induces, just as in Latin nux is derived from nocere, to harm: so we see that the lethargy of unbelief afflicts most Jews, and Paul affirms this from David, Romans chapter 11:9. Fourth, just as the nut easily becomes corrupt and rotten, and when rotten is foul and harmful, so formerly the scribes and Pharisees, and now the rabbis, have corrupted the kernel of the law with their perverse interpretations and made it putrid: for which Christ rebuked them, Matthew 5:20 and 23:14. Fifth, just as the walnut tree, according to Pliny, Book 17, chapter 12, harms nearby crops and plants with its heavy shade, so that nation injures the other nations among whom it dwells by the wicked example of its life and its impious doctrine, and does not allow any evangelical fruits to grow. Sixth, the law of Moses is compared to a nut: "For just as the nut tree," says Philo of Carpathia, "produces bitter leaves, and those divided into three parts, and the fruit itself, namely the nuts, covered with a most bitter rind which they call the husk, and a harder shell, and dry coverings, which contain within them a not unpleasant kernel divided into four parts, with a woody cartilage running between them and a thin membrane while it is green: so that law written by the finger of God, with its carnal sacrifices and ceremonies, seemed like a nut bitter in its foliage, although mystically signifying the triune and one God, and covered with a very hard meaning, though mystical, as with a rind; yet it held hidden within it a most sweet fruit, most saving, Christ Jesus who was to descend from heaven; and this fruit, to be proclaimed in the fourfold evangelical sense through the four quarters of the world, and to be extracted and eaten most holily only by those who crack it open rightly and holily."
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The garden of nut trees is any soul, whose kernel, namely good will and holiness, Christ desires and seeks, but He must break its hard shell, namely its desires, in order to reach the kernel: for this, great and long patience is needed. "Nuts," says Pliny, Book 15, chapter 28, "are enclosed by a shell, chestnuts by a skin, acorns by a crust, grapes by a covering, pomegranates by a skin and membrane, mulberries consist of flesh and juice, cherries of skin and juice." The same, chapter 22, says: "The walnut is protected by a double covering: first the cushioned cup, then the wooden shell, which is the reason they were considered sacred at weddings, because the offspring is protected in so many ways — which is more likely than that it is because they make a clattering or sound when they fall." And after some remarks: "This is the only fruit that nature enclosed in a compact covering: for the keels of the shells are split in two, and the kernels have a fourfold division within them, with a wooden membrane running between."
Just as great patience is needed by one who wants to prepare a nut for eating, so the same patience is needed by bridegrooms to accommodate brides to their ways, and especially spiritual brides, namely, to train hard and obstinate men, such as the Jews, in Christian laws. Hence the proverb, which Plautus mentions in the Curculio: "He who wants to eat the kernel from the nut, let him crack the nut," that is: He who desires a benefit, let him not flee from labor; he who seeks pleasure, let him first experience toil, without which true pleasure is not obtained. "The nut," says St. Jerome, "is both hard and bitter on the outside, but within it hides a most sweet food." "Just as the herb Moly," says Homer, Odyssey 10, "has a black root but a white flower."
Wherefore the nut, or rather the cracking of the nut, is a symbol of the perfect patience of those who strive to win and betroth souls to Christ, especially those souls which have developed a callus in unbelief, or in some vice through long habit of sinning, so that this callus may be gradually and gently removed: for, as the three Anonymous authors say in Theodoret, the sweetness and beauty of virtue are preserved in the midst of bitterness, labors, temptations, and hardships, just as the kernel of the nut is preserved in the midst of the hard shell. The nut, therefore, by its hardness generally represents any kind of hardness, which if it is directed toward a good object, is good, as in patience, constancy, and fortitude; if toward evil, it is bad, as in obstinacy and stubbornness, but indeed it is often changed from evil to good, as the Jews, converted from their hardness in unbelief by Elijah, will change it into an admirable constancy of faith.
Hence Philo, Book 5 On the Life of Moses: The nut, he says, signifies perfect virtue, for just as in the nut the end and the beginning are the same — insofar as it is a seed, it is a beginning; insofar as it is a fruit, it is an end — so also in the virtues, each one is both an end and a beginning; the outer shell is bitter, the inner wooden rind is hard: so the labor of virtue is hard and difficult, yet through it one arrives at happiness both one's own and another's. Again, the wise and perfect, while they constantly retain divine wisdom and virtue within their bodies, carry it like a kernel in a fragile shell; whence the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 4:7: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels."
The Chaldean version is relevant here, which takes these words in a Jewish sense about the temple and Judea: "The Ruler of the world said: In the second house of the sanctuary, which was rebuilt by the hand of Cyrus, I caused My majesty to dwell, that I might see the works of My people, and that I might see whether the wise, who are compared to the vine, would grow and multiply, and whether their offspring would be full of good works, like pomegranates."
Symbolically, St. Augustine in a Sermon for the Season, a sermon on the Sunday nearest the feast of the Nativity of Christ, teaches that the nut consists of three substances, just as the Church consists of Christ, the Jews, and the Gentiles: "The nut," he says, "has in its body a threefold union of substance: the rind, the shell, and the kernel. In the rind, the flesh is compared; in the shell, the bones; in the kernel, the inner soul. In the rind of the nut is signified the flesh of the Savior, which had within itself roughness,
not the fruits of the mountain, but the fruits of the valley that He comes down to see? — unless it be that He grants the regard of His mercy to those whom He knows to persevere in humility." Finally, he explains the flower of the vineyard and the pomegranates thus: "The vineyard flowers when in the Church children are newly begotten in the faith and are prepared for holy living, as if for the firmness of fruits. The pomegranates bud when all who are perfect edify their neighbors by their examples and invite them to the newness of holy living through preaching and the display of good works. That pomegranate, namely the Apostle Paul, had indeed budded, who said, Galatians 4:19: My little children, whom I bring forth again in travail, until Christ be formed in you."
Symbolically, Cassiodorus, Bede, and Theodoret take the garden of nut trees to mean the conscience of each person, covered with as many layers and coverings as a nut has; among which is hidden the kernel of good will: the bridegroom descends into this garden to see and gather the fruits of the valleys, that is, the fruits of humility. The nut, says St. Augustine in the sermon On the Season, signifies the cross of Christ, whose rind signifies the outer flesh that was crucified, and through it the rough penance and the cross which Christ commands to be taken up; the shell signifies the bones, that is, the difficulty and hardness; the kernel signifies the food, namely the divine and sweet food which those who take up the cross find after overcoming the difficulty. Again, Aponius, Cassiodorus, and the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, considering these to be the words of the bride, that is, of the holy soul, to her disciples, explain them thus, as if to say: "Therefore He made me the chariot of Aminadab, that is, Christ, who is the true Aminadab, that is, the prince of the people, appointed me as His chariot, so that I might bear Him in myself through instructions suited to each of you."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin went down into the garden of nut trees when she contemplated the Passion of Christ, in which the wood of the cross was the nut tree, which first represented by its hard shell the hardness of the cross and its punishment; second, the sweet kernel, namely, the redemption of the human race, and the glory which Christ merited for Himself and for us through the cross. St. Gregory, Aponius, Bede, and Theodoret take the garden of nut trees to mean the faithful conscience of each person, covered with as many layers and coverings as a nut: Christ descended in order to see the fruits of the valleys, that is, the fruits of humility: "For why," says Gregory,
VERSE 11. I DID NOT KNOW; MY SOUL TROUBLED ME ON ACCOUNT OF THE CHARIOTS OF AMINADAB.
In the tropological sense, the nut, or rather the cracking and eating of the nut, signifies the patience with which the Church and preachers constantly labor to overcome the stubbornness of the Jews: for a nut, in order to be eaten, must first be knocked down from the tree to which it clings with great force; second, stripped of its husk; third, cracked; fourth, the kernel must be extracted from the shell, or rather violently wrenched out; fifth, stripped of its membrane or skin. So, to convert a Jew or any obstinate person, great and long patience is needed.
I DID NOT KNOW (the Septuagint has: my soul did not know; the Syriac: I did not know my soul, that is, I did not know myself. For troubled, the Hebrew has samatni, for which our translator reads it with shin, deriving it from scamam, that is, he astonished, troubled, desolated, and translates it as troubled me; and Symmachus: my soul, he says, wavered at the chariots of the people leading; but the Septuagint, deriving scammatni from scham, that is, he placed, translate it as: he placed me as the chariots of Aminadab; so also the Arabic; Ambrose, Book On Abraham, chapter 8: You have placed me as the chariots of Aminadab.
ON ACCOUNT OF THE CHARIOTS OF AMINADAB. — "Aminadab" can be taken here, first, as a proper name of a man, not the brother of David, mentioned in 1 Samuel 13:17; nor of the other, in whose house the Ark of the Lord rested, 2 Samuel 6:3 (for he was called Abinadab, not Aminadab); but of the one who in the time of Moses was the leader of the tribe of Judah, who gave his daughter as wife to Aaron, and after him left his son Nahshon as his successor as leader of the tribe of Judah: so Lyranus and the Hebrews. Second, "Aminadab," or as the Hebrew has it Amminadib, can be taken as a common noun, meaning a willing people, a liberal prince; hence the fifth edition translates: you placed me in the chariot of the prince of the people; Aquila: of the people willingly ruling; Symmachus: of the people leading; others: of the noble people; the Syriac: in the chariot of the prepared people. Philo of Carpathia translates Aminadab as the Father's good pleasure, as if to say: The soul of the just person, by the good pleasure of God, is a chariot bearing itself and others into heaven. Hence some take the chariots of Aminadab as the chariots of Solomon, who was the prince and leader of the people of Israel; whence Rupert and others take Aminadab to mean Christ, as the antitype of Solomon, who is the leader of the faithful and holy people.
Now the Chaldean translates: "But when it was revealed before the Lord that they were just, and that they labored in the law, the Lord said in His word: I will no longer humble them, nor will I make a consumption among them; but I will take counsel in My soul, to do good to them, and to set them high in the chariots of kings, on account of the merits of the just of that generation who are like Abraham their father in their works."
Now the interpreters vary wonderfully in the meaning here. First, Aben-Ezra, Rabbi Solomon, and Lyranus translate: my soul made me the chariot of the ruling people, and thus explain it concerning the Synagogue and Israel, as if to say: While I did not know where the bridegroom was, that is, while I was worshipping idols, not the true God, I was delivered into captivity to the Assyrians and Babylonians, and I became to them like a beast of burden and a chariot carrying and bearing their loads. Second, Luis of Leon, Genebrardus, Vatablus, and Almonacirius explain it as if the bride says: I was carried into the garden with such speed out of desire for the bridegroom that I seemed to have been swept away by the swiftest chariots of Aminadab. Third, Sanchez, as if to say: I feared that the bridegroom Aminadab, that is Solomon, would not receive me as bride into his wedding chariot, because in chapter 5, verse 3, I had been slow to open to him when he knocked. Fourth, Sotomayor, as if to say: I feared that the bridegroom, as if rebuffed by me, wandering through the streets at night, would run into the chariots of Aminadab, that is, of the prefect of the city who goes around the city at night and apprehends vagrants. Fifth, John the Carmelite, as if to say: "While I was seeking you in your absence amid the waves of flooding evils, I seemed like Aminadab of old, who drove his chariots through the channel of the Red Sea, where he was troubled by the greatness of the prodigy, though his courage prevailed." Others interpret differently.
But I say, sixth, that grammatically the chariots of Aminadab (that is, of the prince of the people or the willing people) denote the neighboring peoples of Judea, who, attracted by the fame of Solomon's wisdom and power, willingly submitted to him and paid tribute, 3 Kings 4:24; and therefore they sent ambassadors to him with horses and chariots, to such an extent that their abundance filled the court of Solomon; which the Jews, who wanted to hold the first place at court, bore with difficulty and were troubled, just as the Macedonians were indignant when they saw their king Alexander the Great, having subdued the Persians (in order to reconcile them more to himself), had assumed their garments and customs, as Quintus Curtius attests. But in the parabolic sense it is signified that Christ joined the Gentiles to the Jews in the Church, indeed preferred them, and therefore the Jews were troubled; hence both Solomon and, even more, Christ is called Aminadab, that is, prince of the people, namely, of the Gentile people and very many. Therefore the sense is, as if to say: Just as a queen, seeing foreign chariots and horsemen next to the king, wonders and is troubled, and fears that he has migrated to a foreign nation and taken another wife from there: so here the Synagogue, seeing the Messiah not riding in the ceremonial chariot of Solomon, David, and the other kings of Judah, but of Aminadab, that is, of the willing people, namely the Gentile people, and surrounded by Gentiles while the Jews are abandoned, wonders and is troubled. Wherefore the yod, that is, ammi, is not a pronominal suffix meaning my, as if the Synagogue were designating its own Jewish people; but it is a paragogic yod, which is added merely for ornament. However, the yod can be taken as a pronoun, as if to say: The Gentile people, whom God now calls ammi, that is, my people: for it alludes to Hosea chapter 1:11. So much for the shell of the letter; now to the kernel.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.
Some consider this to be the voice of the bridegroom Christ, others of the bride the Church; but more truly it is the voice of the Synagogue of the Jews, partly already converted and partly — and more especially — yet to be converted to Christ toward the end of the world. For since in the preceding verse Christ had descended into the garden of nut trees, that is, into the Synagogue of the Jews, to convert it through His preachers; hence the Synagogue, aroused by this voice and preaching of Christ, recognizes Christ, and grieving and repenting over its former deafness and blindness, assigns the cause of it, and excuses its slowness in believing in Christ, as if to say: I did not know that Christ was the Messiah, and therefore I did not worship Him, because the chariots of Aminadab troubled me.
You may ask: what are these chariots? The answer is, first, they can be taken as Israel and its victories, and the benefits bestowed on Israel by God: for Aminadab was the prince of the tribe of Judah, in the time of Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea, who, as the Hebrews relate, while the rest hesitated to enter the sea, was the first to enter it boldly with his tribe and its chariots, and gave the rest courage to follow, and thus all crossed the sea, with Pharaoh pursuing and being drowned. Wherefore the tribe of Judah merited the principality and kingdom of Israel, that is, of the twelve tribes, and through it God subsequently delivered and vindicated Israel from its enemies through victories, even miraculous ones. Again, Aminadab gave his daughter Elizabeth as wife to Aaron, the first high priest of the Jews, Exodus 6:23: wherefore in Aminadab is noted both the priesthood and the kingdom granted to Israel. The sense therefore is, as if the Synagogue says: I did not know until now that Christ was the Messiah; I did not know that the Christian faith and the Church were the true and orthodox ones, because the bearing and triumphal chariots of Aminadab held me in Judaism, that is, the kingdom, the priesthood, the victories, the benefits, and the miracles granted by God to Moses and Israel, by which God testified that He was the author of the law of the Synagogue and of the religion instituted by Moses: so Titelmannus.
Second, more profoundly and aptly, the chariots of Aminadab, or as the Hebrew has it, Amminadib, that is, of the willing, liberal, and princely people, are taken in the appellative sense for the chariots of the Christian people gathered from the Gentiles, who, while the Jews resisted the faith, willingly believed in the Gospel; and these chariots signify the course and chariot of the Gospel, indeed of the four Gospels, which like a swift four-horse chariot flew through the whole world by the preaching of the apostles and apostolic men; and because the Jews saw that their law received from Moses was being abrogated by these, they refused to believe in them and in Christ; but at last, taught by Elijah and Enoch, they will see that Christ is not contrary to Moses, nor the Gospel to the law, nor the Church to the Synagogue, but rather that Moses and the law through all their functions and rites foreshadowed and represented Christ and the Gospel. They will see likewise the glory of the Gospel, its miracles, graces, zeal, and spirit breathed by God upon Elijah and upon Christians: wherefore they will then believe, and will be placed upon the same chariot of Christ and the Church; whence the Septuagint and others translate from the Hebrew: he placed me as the chariot of my willing, liberal, and princely people; and St. Athanasius in his Synopsis, reading: he placed me as the chariots of Aminadab, explains this concerning the Synagogue, as if it says of itself: "I saw that I must be joined, as it were in a chariot, to the calling of the Gentiles." So Paul, says Rupert, says that he persecuted the Church, but obtained mercy, because he did it in ignorance, because indeed his soul was troubled on account of the chariots of Aminadab, seeing namely the course and progress of the Gospel opposing Judaism.
This is the common sense of the Fathers, for so explain St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Justus, Philo, Rupert, Anselm, and others. Rupert adds that Aminadab, who by giving his daughter as wife to Aaron, united the principality with the priesthood, represented Christ, who is at once the high priest and the prince of the Church. Solomon alludes in the name Aminadab to that passage, Psalm 109:3: "With You is the principality in the day of Your strength in the splendors of the saints," where the Hebrew has ammecha nedaboth, which is the same as Aminadab; whence St. Jerome there translates: Your people shall be willing in the day of Your strength, O Christ. It is relevant here that God, Hosea 1:9, calls the Jews who rebel against Christ lo ammi, that is, not my people; but calls the Gentiles who submit to Christ ammi, that is, my people; Solomon adds here nadib, that is, willing, liberal, meaning voluntarily, spontaneously, and with a liberal spirit subjecting oneself to Christ: and this was the cause of the blindness of the Jews, namely that Christ, since they were unbelieving, substituted in the Church the Gentiles who willingly believed in Him, when the Jews objected that Christ had been promised to Abraham and his seed, that is, to the Jews, not to the Gentiles, to which the Apostle responds, Romans 9:7, that the children of Abraham are reckoned not according to the flesh, as the Jews were, but according to the spirit, namely those who follow the faith of Abraham, as are the Christian Gentiles: these then are the chariots of the Gospel, which at first troubled the unbelieving Synagogue, but afterward wonderfully refreshed it when it believed.
Symbolically, Cosmas Damianus takes the chariots of Aminadab as the strength and forces of the Antichrist, for these will at first keep the Jews in Judaism, until he is convicted of error and routed by Elijah and Enoch. Theodoret agrees, who expounds it thus, as if to say: They placed, that is, they imposed upon me and deceived me — the chariots of Aminadab, that is, the princes of this world; and Abbot Luke, or Aponius, who takes the chariots of Aminadab as the demons, as well as Pilate and the Jews, who cried out against Christ, Luke 23:21: "Crucify Him, crucify Him."
Finally, some think that grammatically this refers to the wars that Solomon waged against Hamath-Zobah, that is, Syria of Sobal; likewise against the remnants of the Hittites, Amorites, and Jebusites, whom he subjected to himself, as is clear from 2 Chronicles 8:3 and 7, as though the bride was troubled, fearing that something harmful might happen to the bridegroom setting out for war. Hence by the chariots of Aminadab they understand Mohammed, the Saracens, and the Turks, who greatly troubled and still trouble the Church, for they abound in armies, horses, and chariots. These are called Aminadab, that is, of my willing people, because Mohammed arose from Christians: for he was born among the Homerites (whence his grandson, who succeeded him in the second place in the kingdom of the Arabs, was called Omar), that is, in Arabia Felix, where shortly before, around the year of Christ 600, under King Elesbaan in the time of the Emperor Justinian, the Christian religion had flourished wonderfully.
Mohammed was born shortly before the year of Christ 600, under Pope Gregory the Great and the Emperor Phocas, who was succeeded by the Emperor Heraclius, under whom Mohammed earned his pay as a leader of the Arabs; but when the wages were not paid to the Arabs by a prefect of Heraclius, they rebelled and seized Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, as Genebrardus teaches from Paul the Deacon and Simoneta in his Chronicle, and gradually expanding their arms around the year of Christ 1300, they grew wonderfully. Then Ottoman invaded the kingdom and made himself the first emperor of the Turks, and propagated it to his descendants through 14 generations, with a constant great increase of empire and damage to the Church, down to our own time. Others take the chariots of Aminadab, that is, of my people, as antipopes, who tore the Church apart through schism; and there were twenty such: for the Church endured that many schisms. Others take them as schismatic emperors, or those who attacked the popes and the Church, such as Frederick I and II, Otto IV, Henry IV and V. For this reason Christ a little before in verse 10 says: "I went down into the garden of nut trees," that is, into the Church divided by schism, just as a nut is split and divided into two fragments.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul is the chariot of Aminadab, that is, of Christ: for Christ, say Rupert and St. Ambrose, is called Aminadab, that is, the prince of the people, namely of the faithful Christian, holy and elect; Christ therefore, sitting upon the holy soul as a charioteer upon his chariot, directs it toward heaven, just as Elijah was carried to the sky in a chariot, and not only himself, but also bears others entrusted to his faith or charity as chariots of Christ into heaven, says Philo. Whence the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, considering these to be the words of the bride, that is, of the holy soul, to her disciples, explain them thus, as if to say: "Therefore He made me the chariots of Aminadab, that is, Christ appointed me as His chariots," Christ who is the true Aminadab, that is, the prince of the people, "so that I might carry Him in myself through instruction suited to each of you." Hear St. Ambrose, Book On Naboth, chapter 15: "If the soul," he says, "is a chariot, see that the horse is not the flesh; the driver, however, is the vigor of the mind, who governs the flesh and its movements, and restrains them with the reins of prudence as if they were horses." The same, in the Book On Virginity: "Christ," he says, "the true Aminadab, drives the soul of the just as a chariot, ascending He governs it with the reins of the Word, lest it be swept away into precipices by the fury of violent horses. For there are, as it were, four horses — four passions: anger, desire, pleasure, and fear — and when these are raging, once the soul begins to be driven, it no longer knows itself. For the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and like the course of irrational animals, carries it unwillingly; while the impulses of the body roll it forward as with a kind of rush, until the passions of the body, restrained by delay, are softened by the power of the Word."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin is the chariot of Aminadab, that is, of the willing people, namely of the faithful, whom she carries into heaven by obtaining for them the obedience and generosity by which they willingly and freely submit to the precepts and counsels of Christ. Wherefore what Elisha cried out to Elijah when he was caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot applies to her: "My father, my father, (you are) the chariot of Israel, and its driver," 4 Kings 2:12. See the comments on chapter 1, verse 9, on the words: "I have compared you to my cavalry in the chariots of Pharaoh."
VOICE OF THE BRIDE, The New about the Old, that is, of the Church about the Synagogue to be Converted at the End of the World. VERSE 12. RETURN, RETURN, O SHULAMITE: RETURN, RETURN, THAT WE MAY LOOK UPON YOU.
RETURN (others translate it as convert), RETURN (the Arabic adds a third return), O Shulamite: RETURN, RETURN, THAT WE MAY LOOK UPON YOU. — The scholiast says: we will look at you as at a spectacle, that is, as at something wonderful and worth seeing. Instead of Sulamitis, many manuscripts read Sunamitis, and so read the Vatican Septuagint. Moreover, Rupert and others translate Sunamitis as captive, despised: properly, Sunamitis in Hebrew is the same as changeable, variable. Again, Sunamitis can be translated, with Honorius and Hailgrinus here, and St. Jerome, Epistle to Nepotian, as scarlet: for scani in Hebrew is the scarlet berry; whence some suspect that the bride, who in the drama of the Song is introduced as the Sunamite, is introduced as a Tyrian: for there from the blood of the purple shellfish was made purple cloth, and from the scarlet grain, scarlet cloth, whence the verse: To be clothed in Tyrian purple.
For Tyre was near Lebanon, in which Solomon, walking about and hunting, is imagined to have found this pastoral maiden and to have chosen her as his bride on account of the gifts of both body and mind; whence that passage in chapter 4:8: "Come from Lebanon, my bride," etc. For a scarlet or purple garment is a garment of kings and queens, such as Solomon and his bride wore. Literally, Sunamitis means the same as a native of Shunem, a town situated near the mountains of Hermon and Tabor. For this Sunamite alludes to that Shunammite woman who was the hostess of Elisha in the town of Shunem, whose son he therefore raised from death, just as Christ raises the children of the Church from present and eternal death, 4 Kings 4:35. More still, however, according to Justus of Urgell here and Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land, it alludes to that most beautiful Shunammite who was given to the aged David to warm him, as a wife and yet a virgin, 3 Kings 1:2. For in a similar manner, to Solomon the son of David was given this Sunamite as wife and virgin, to represent the Church as a virgin to be betrothed to the virgin Christ, according to 2 Corinthians 11:2: "I have espoused you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Because therefore that Sunamite of David was most distinguished in beauty, faith, and conduct, the same name Sunamite is given to the bride of Solomon in this drama, because she was most beautiful in body and soul; yet more beautiful than either Sunamite is the Bride, that is, the Church, the spouse of Christ.
But the correct reading is Sulamitis, for so read the Hebrew and the Greek of the Complutensian, the Royal, and the corrected Latin edition of Rome. Now Sulamitis is the same as Jerusalemite, say Pagninus, Luis, and Vatablus: for Jerusalem was formerly called Salem; whence Sulamitis is the same as a citizen of Salem, or Jerusalem, that is, mystically, one dwelling in peace. Better, Delrio, Genebrardus, and others say: Sulamitis, they say, is the same as Solomonia, that is, the wife of Solomon; for just as from Paulus comes Paula, from Caius Caia, from Cornelius Cornelia, so from the masculine Solomon comes Sulamitis, that is, Salomo (by which name the mother of the seven Maccabean martyrs is called, according to Josephus), or Salomonia. Moreover, just as Solomon in Hebrew means the same as peaceful, perfect, so Sulamitis means the same as perfect and peaceful, as Aquila, Theodoret, St. Ambrose, and others translate it here. The Hebrew has the article; for it has hassculamith, that is, that Sulamite, that peaceful one, who far surpasses all the rest. Again, and more probably, the he here is the article of the vocative case, as if to say: O Sulamite. It is remarkable that Symmachus translates it contrarily as eskulomene, that is, despoiled.
Finally, Sulamitis is the same as Sunamitis, through the interchange by which the letter N is often changed and melts into L: thus the Italians for Panermo say Palermo, for veneno say veleno, for Bononia say Bologna. So the Syrians for nux say lux. The Attics for virgos say litrin; for pneumon, pleumon, as the Latins say pulmo. The Dorians conversely change L to N, so that for elthon they say enthon, for beltistos, bentistos, for filtatos, fintatos; for plane, pinle. All Greeks for din and asyn say syllego, likewise syllogismos. The Latins for nymphe say lympha, for bonus, bonulus, then bellus; for grylizo, grunnio; for megalos, magnus: so Angelus Caninius in his Hellenisms. In the same way, she who is here called in Hebrew Sulamitis is called by the Septuagint and most Latin translations Sunamitis. Philo of Carpathia erroneously reads Odollamitis instead of Sulamitis, meaning, he says, the testimony of water, as if here an unfaithful soul is summoned to baptism, to profess therein the faith of the Most Holy Trinity.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.
Some consider these to be the words of the young maidens, who, having heard the praises of the bride from the bridegroom in chapter 5, desire to detain her as she is about to depart and to contemplate the beauty of her face, as we heard was done by them in verse 9. The Fathers more generally and rightly consider these to be the words of the Church, ardently and constantly inviting the Synagogue of the Jews, which now, having heard the preaching of Christ, was beginning to love Him, as we heard in the preceding verse, to convert to Him immediately and to show her face — serene, joyful, and united in faith — both to Him and to the Church. And therefore return is forcefully repeated four times, because the Jews, dispersed through the four quarters of the world, are to be converted from there to Christ, having heard the preaching of the four Gospels, which were signified a little before by the chariots of Aminadab, says Rupert. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Aponius, Philo, Anselm, and others.
Again, as if to say: O Shulamite, that is, O Synagogue formerly hostile, now converted to Christ, return to the fellowship and companionship of the Church gathered from the Gentiles, so that the Gentiles, beholding the beauty you have received through baptism, may rejoice and congratulate you, and give thanks to God. This sense is indicated by what follows: "That we may look upon you," that is, upon your appearance and beauty; and: "What shall you see in the Shulamite, except the dances of the camps?"
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The sinful soul, or the holy but sluggish soul that has fallen into venial faults, is invited by Christ four times, that is, insistently and continuously, to penance, change of life, and fervor. So St. Ambrose, Book On Isaac, chapter 8: "Rightly," he says, "like a charioteer to his chariot He says: Convert, O Shulamite, that is, peaceful one; for the soul that is peaceful quickly converts and corrects itself, even if it has sinned before, and Christ the more ascends it and deigns to govern it, to whom it is said, Habakkuk 3:8: Mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation." And St. Bernard, Sermon 3 On the Annunciation: "Perhaps for this reason," he says, "He calls the soul back four times — the soul upon which He looks — so that it may not persist either in the habit of sinning, or in the consciousness of sins, nor in the tepidity of ingratitude, nor in the stubbornness of self-exaltation." The same, Sermon 13 among the shorter sermons: "Return," he says, "first from foolish joy, second from useless sadness, third from vain glory, fourth from hidden pride. Vain glory is what comes from the mouth of others, from the outside. Hidden pride arises from within."
The Chaldean version is also relevant here: "Return to Me, O congregation of Israel, return to Jerusalem, return to the house of the teaching of My law, return to receive the prophecy from the prophets, who prophesy in the name of the Word of the Lord."
Elegantly and acutely, Hugh of St. Victor, Miscellanea II, Book 2, title 24: "Four times," he says, "the Lord says to her return, as if to say: Return to My things, because they are wonderful; from yours, because they are perverse; from yourself, because all flesh is grass; to Me, because I am the supreme good. You cannot see Me unless first We look upon you. I see some stain on your face; you are disfigured, you bear an alien image; cleanse it therefore, so that We may revere you."
Furthermore, Theodoret takes the Shulamite as the soul of the evangelical preacher, which, though peaceful in itself, suffers many temptations, hunger, and persecutions. He says that she is here invited to return to the work of preaching and the salvation of souls, for God will be present to her, so that she may struggle through and overcome all things.
In the anagogical sense, St. Ambrose, in his oration On the Death of Valentinian, takes these words about the holy soul, which is called forth from this life into heaven by Christ and the angels.
Symbolically, the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret take the Shulamite as a soul devoted to contemplation, as though here she is summoned by her disciples and companions, so that she may teach the way of bridling and governing the four passions or disturbances of the soul, and therefore return is repeated four times.
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin at the end of her life was called into heaven by Christ, the angels, and the blessed, who desired to enjoy her most sweet presence and to behold the gifts of her grace and glory, from which place she had drawn her soul, spirit, and all grace. Again, she herself is invoked four times, that is, ardently and continually by penitents and the faithful, that she may obtain grace and bring help in every need.
In the tropological sense, learn here how beautiful and lovely is the soul of any saint, and especially of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as all the angels and the blessed desire to gaze upon it with such burning and oft-repeated prayers, so that from this gazing they may obtain the highest consolation, joy, and jubilation. Wherefore theologians hold that the secondary happiness of the blessed consists in contemplating and enjoying the glorious humanity of Christ, just as their primary beatitude consists in the vision and enjoyment of the divinity.