Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Chapter Seven. Synopsis of the Chapter.
On page 3, the Bridegroom Christ praises the new Church of the Jews recently converted to Him, as the dances of camps. He praises her, I say, first, for her regal gait; second, for her thighs like jewels; third, for her round navel; fourth, for her belly like wheat; fifth, for her breasts like fawns; sixth, for her neck like an ivory tower; seventh, for her eyes like pools; eighth, for her towering nose; ninth, for her head like Carmel and her purple hair. Second, upon hearing these things the chorus of young maidens of the Synagogue, congratulating her, cries out at verse 5: "How beautiful you are," etc., and assigns to her new praises and tributes, namely a stature like a palm tree, breasts like grape clusters, the fragrance of her mouth like apples, and her throat like the best wine. Third, at verse 10, the new bride of the Jews responds to both, and resigns herself entirely to the Bridegroom's love, inviting Him to the villages and vineyards, offering Him all their fruits, both new and old.
This chapter is parallel and antistrophic to the fourth chapter: for the praises of the individual members which there He bestows on the Bride the Church of the Gentiles, here He bestows on the Bride the Synagogue of the Jews, partly already converted, partly yet to be converted to Christ, especially at the end of the world, as is clear to anyone comparing both chapters.
Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 7:1-13
1. What will you see in the Shulamite, but the dances of camps? How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O daughter of the prince! The joints of your thighs are like jewels, fashioned by the hand of a craftsman. 2. Your navel is a rounded goblet, never lacking mixed wine. Your belly is like a heap of wheat, surrounded by lilies. 3. Your two breasts are like two twin fawns of a gazelle. 4. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon, which are at the gate of the daughter of the multitude. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. 5. Your head is like Carmel, and the hair of your head is like royal purple bound in channels. 6. How beautiful you are, and how comely, O dearest, in delights! 7. Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like grape clusters. 8. I said: I will climb the palm tree, and I will take hold of its fruit; and your breasts shall be like clusters of the vine, and the fragrance of your mouth like apples. 9. Your throat is like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and teeth to savor.
10. I belong to my beloved, and his turning is toward me. 11. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages. 12. Let us rise early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine has blossomed, if the blossoms have brought forth fruit, if the pomegranates have flowered: there I will give you my breasts. 13. The mandrakes have given their fragrance. At our gates are all manner of fruits: new and old, my beloved, I have kept for you.
The Voice of the Bridegroom. Concerning the new bride, or concerning the Synagogue.
Verse 1. What will you see in the Shulamite, but the dances of camps? How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O daughter of the prince! The joints of your thighs are like jewels, fashioned by the hand of a craftsman.
"What will you see" (the Hebrew and the Septuagint read, "what will you see") "IN THE SHULAMITE" (many incorrectly read "in the Shunamite") "BUT THE DANCES OF CAMPS?" The Septuagint renders "dances" as chloron, that is, "herb," but it should be read as choron, that is, "dance," as the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Latin have it; for what is the "herb of camps"? Whence the Septuagint corrected at Rome reads: "What will you see in the Shunamite, who comes like the dances of camps?" St. Ambrose, in On the Death of Valentinian: "from whom comes as dances." Symmachus: "stripped in the wounds of camps." Finally Aquila: "What, as a spectacle, will you behold," he says, "in the peaceful one?" Pagninus: "What will you see in the Shulamite? The dance of camps." Dances are assemblies of those exulting and singing, and round-dances of those leaping for joy. Wherefore less correctly Aben-Ezra and Luis de Leon thus translate and interpret: "What will you see in the Shulamite, O young maidens, who are so arranged as two companies of camps?" These words belong to the end of the preceding chapter; whence in the Hebrew they are joined to it, for the Hebrews begin chapter VII with the following sentence: "How beautiful are your steps!" etc.
Moreover, the dances of camps are the round-dances, leapings, and war-dances of triumphant soldiers. The Shulamite therefore, attended by armed soldiers, appears to have danced with them a military dance of arms, such as was formerly the one called the pyrrhic dance. This "dance" is said in the singular as a collective, namely an assembly of those singing and dancing; and "dances" in the plural, distributively, because in it there are many ranks of singers and dancers.
This is clear from the word "Shulamite," that is, "Jerusalemite" or "Solomonian," by which word he accordingly designates the Synagogue of the Jews, as I said at the last verse of the preceding chapter. For it seems that Solomon, besides the daughter of Pharaoh, who represented the Church of the Gentiles, had another wife, the Shulamite, that is, a Jerusalemite, beloved above all others and closely joined in love to the daughter of Pharaoh, who represented the Church to be gathered from the Jews, as Alcazar says in his Allusions to the Apocalypse on these words of the Song. For Solomon, just as Christ, as is clear from Luke 19:41, had great care for his Jewish nation, that it might be joined to Christ and the Church, and so be saved. Just as therefore he described the origin, progress, and perfection of the Church among the Gentiles, so here he describes the same among the Jews, who will be converted last, and thus consequently he goes on describing the progress and perfection of the Church; for the Church will attain this when the Jews are converted, for then she will become throughout the whole world one fold and one shepherd.
Wherefore, just as St. John, describing in the Apocalypse the course and progress of the Church in chapter VI, after the various states of the Church symbolically depicted in the four horses, immediately at the sixth seal passes to the last times of Elijah and Antichrist, and then labors through 14 chapters to pursue these, and finally in chapters XXI and XXII concludes by describing the glory of the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem — for there will be the consummation, triumph, and glorification of the Church — so likewise does Solomon do here exactly, as will be evident from what follows.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Honorius, Anselm, Alcuin, Haymo, and others hold that it is the Bridegroom who speaks here. These are therefore the words of the Bridegroom Christ (or, as others say, of the Bride the Church — for she had just said to the Synagogue: "Return, return, O Shulamite"), exulting over the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews, to the Christian faith.
Therefore the Bridegroom Christ, just as in chapter VI He praised the beauty of the Church gathered from the Gentiles, so here He praises the comeliness of the Church to be gathered from the Jews, as if to say: What will you see, O Church of the Gentiles, in the Shulamite, that is, in the Synagogue of the Jews now converted to their Messiah and the true faith, but dances of those singing and leaping with joy at so great a conversion — but dances of camps, who so exult that they also fight bravely against the followers of Antichrist and the rest of the unbelievers and the impious: "For they are the camps of soldiers," says St. Gregory; "camps therefore will be seen in the Shunamite, because for the faith which she now attacks (the Synagogue) she will then valiantly fight against the unbelievers." Whence the Syriac renders: "What will you see in the Shunamite, who descends like a heap, or like the joy of camps triumphing over treachery as over a defeated enemy?" The Arabic: "as those coming in dances (others: round-dances) of camps." For the Jews at the end of the world, recognizing their Elijah and Christ preached by him, condemning their own treachery, will put on the zeal of Elijah and will fight most fiercely for Christ,
as St. Paul did when from a Jew he became a Christian. Thus Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, Honorius, William, Cosmas Damianus, Delrio, Alphonsus ab Orozco, and Alcazar (Book III of Allusions to the Apocalypse) explain these words of the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews, to Christ. Some however, such as Theodoret, Justus, and St. Ambrose in On the Death of Valentinian, take this of the Church in general, bravely battling with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and conquering them, and triumphing over them vanquished: she performs the dances and round-dances of camps, that is, she rejoices in spirit, and sings psalms and gives thanks to God as the author of victory.
"Because, as Theodoret says, from camps come dances, for when soldiers have conquered in their camps, singing the song of triumph for their valor they return, and leading dances they celebrate the proclamation of victory with praises," just as the Israelites performed dances and round-dances when Goliath was laid low by David; whence, as he returned from the slaughter, "women from all the cities of Israel came forth to meet him, singing and leading dances, and saying: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Kings 18:6). Far greater is the dance and exultation of the soul contending for virtue against vices, and warring against and overcoming them. Hear Theodoret himself: "The Bride becomes a dance, bearing divine praises on her lips; which indeed the blessed David shows, Psalm 117:15, saying: 'The voice of exultation and salvation is in the tents of the just'; and again, verse 27: 'Appoint a solemn day with thick boughs, even to the horns of the altar.' The camps indeed the blessed Paul declares, 2 Corinthians 10:4: 'The weapons,' he says, 'of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds, destroying counsels, and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding to the obedience of Christ.'"
Furthermore, Philo and Justus of Urgell take the dances as the various orders of saints in the Church, similar to the heavenly orders of angels, who, being continually engaged in battle and protected by God, are always unconquered.
Anagogically, St. Ambrose, in his oration On the Death of Valentinian, takes these words of the victorious soul, the world being conquered, triumphing in heaven. Hear him: "What will you see in the Shulamite, who comes like the dances of camps? That is, in her who has fought much and against very many in the body; for she has fought against foreign enemies, fought against the slippery changes of the world, fought against the frailties of the body, against manifold passions." For those dwelling therein, the camps will be turned into dances of those leaping and exulting in victory.
Symbolically, our Alcazar, in Book III of Allusions to the Apocalypse on this passage of the Song, takes the dances of camps as the religious orders and assemblies, especially those who labor strenuously in spreading the Church and defending it against heretics and other unbelievers. For these, like soldiers and invincible battle lines of Christ, together with Elijah and Enoch at the end of the world will convert the Jews and will fight most bravely against Antichrist. The Shulamite rightly represents these, that is,
Those who take the chariots of Aminadab as the Turks, take the dances of camps as the military orders opposed to the Turks, such as the Teutonic Knights, the Knights of Jerusalem, the Templars, the Knights of St. John, of St. James, etc., likewise Charles Martel, Charlemagne, St. Louis, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin, Charles V, and others who routed the Saracens. Whence Genebrard notes in his Chronology that in almost the same year in which Ottoman usurped the empire of the Turks, God raised up as Christian emperor Rudolph of Habsburg, from whom the Austrians descend, as if He had set them against the Ottomans; just as the Hebrews relate that on the very day that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, Cyrus was born, who destroyed his successors.
Those who take the chariots of Aminadab as the antipopes and their schisms, take the dances of camps as the true pontiffs, bishops, kings, and princes who dislodged them from the papal see which they had invaded. Those who take the chariots as emperors harassing the Church and other tyrants, or libertines profaning the Church's dogmas, laws, and decrees, take the dances of camps as the ecumenical and national councils, and moreover the universities established among Christians against them, such as Paris, Oxford, Cologne, Salamanca, Padua, Louvain, etc.; likewise the religious orders which God raised up in every age to reform the holiness of faith and morals; or having raised them up but finding them growing old, He renewed them and recalled them to their original splendor and fervor. Thus against the heresies of the carnal sect that occupied the world six hundred years ago, so that most people gave themselves to gluttony and luxury, He set St. Romuald and the Camaldolese, who by their austerity and example would chastise this excess; thus against Abelard He set St. Bernard; against the Albigensians, Saints Dominic and Francis; against Luther and Calvin, St. Ignatius and the Society of Jesus.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul, through the unconquered strength of a lofty spirit, bravely battling with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and conquering them, and triumphing over them vanquished, performs the dances and round-dances of camps, that is, she rejoices in spirit, and sings psalms and gives thanks to God as the author of victory.
"peaceful," because religious, with pacified movements of the soul, announce and establish the peace of Christ for all, according to Christ's words, Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." To these rightly belongs what the chorus of the heavenly host sang at Christ's birth, Luke 2:14: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will." For religious, as soldiers in Christ's pay, wage war on demons and vices so that men may enjoy divine peace. I observe, says Alcazar, that Honorius rightly noted that the whole universal Church is indeed one bride of Christ; but in this Song she is considered as four brides of Christ: the first being the firstfruits of the Synagogue; the second, the Church of the Gentiles; the third, the remnant of the Jews; the fourth, the Gentiles still remaining, and all surviving heretics, partisans of Antichrist. But for my part in this Song I find only three brides: mother, daughter, granddaughter. The mother is the firstborn Church, whom the shepherdess represented; the Egyptian represented the daughter, and this is the Roman Church; and finally the religious Church, whom the Shulamite represents, is the granddaughter.
Hear Honorius: "When anyone in the world marvels at the sudden conversion of this person (who, having left the world, enters religious life as one about to die), it is said to him by spiritual persons, Song 7:1: 'What will you see in the Shulamite, but the dances of camps?' — in a soul formerly captive to vices, but now converted to virtue, you will see nothing more than the praises of God and the fight against the snares of the devil: for the converted always praise God for their conversion, and continually fight against vices."
Tropologically, St. Jerome, in Book I Against Jovinian, takes the sons of Aminadab, that is, of the people freely offering, as virgins: for they freely dedicate their virginity to Christ, since this is a matter of counsel, not of precept. I will cite his words below. For virgins are like dances of camps, of those continually fighting against the flesh, and therefore they themselves are like the chariots of Aminadab.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, the angels sang these words as a triumphal victory song to the Blessed Virgin ascending into heaven; for then all the orders of angels attended her, like battle lines and dances of camps, according to the words of Jacob fleeing his brother Esau, concerning the angels meeting him for his protection, Genesis 32:2: "These are the camps of God." Second, "in her," says Hailgrinus, "are seen the dances of camps, namely the battle lines of saints adhering to her, who together with her fight for us against the enemy; whence she is called the vessel of camps in Ecclesiasticus 43:9, where under the light of the moon it is said of her: 'A vessel of camps on high, shining gloriously in the firmament of heaven.'" Third, Alanus: "In the Virgin," he says, "there were
dances of those singing, with respect to the harmony of virtues; and camps of those fighting, inasmuch as the Virgin, surrounded and instructed in holy disciplines, repelled the assaults of vices and demons." Hence as a type of the Blessed Virgin there preluded "Miriam the sister of Moses," who, after the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh in it, "took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances, and she led them, saying, Exodus 15:20: 'Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously magnified; the horse and its rider He has cast into the sea.'" And Judith, to whom after she had slain Holofernes and his camp was scattered, upon her return to Bethulia, Joachim with all the priests sang, Judith 15:10: "You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you are the honor of our people; because you have acted manfully, and your heart has been strengthened, because you have loved chastity, and after your husband have known no other; therefore the hand of the Lord has strengthened you, and therefore you shall be blessed forever."
How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O daughter of the prince!
In Hebrew, "daughter of Nadib" (Philo incorrectly reads "Arab"). Thus the Septuagint, as if Nadab were the proper name of the bride's father; whence St. Jerome, in Book I Against Jovinian, takes Nadib as a shortened form of Aminadab, just as Emmanuel is shortened by the French to Noel: "beautiful," he says, "are your steps in sandals, sons of Aminadab." The Arabic: "in the sandals of the daughters of Nadab." St. Ambrose, in On the Death of Valentinian: "in sandals, daughter of Aminadab, that is, daughter of the prince." This is quite fitting, that the daughter of Aminadab should be the bride of Solomon, who was called Aminadab, that is, prince of the people, as I said at chapter 6:11. For in Scripture the bridegroom and husband is called the father of his bride, because he nourishes and protects her as a daughter, according to Jeremiah 3:4: "Call me: My Father, you are the guide of my virginity."
Some, taking "daughter" in its proper sense, think that this bride was truly a daughter of Solomon; for Aminadab was Solomon's son, whose wedding song with his bride, as with his daughter, that is his daughter-in-law, Solomon the father of both celebrates in this whole Song. So they say, a novel idea. The rest take Nadab as an appellative and translate it "of the prince"; Aquila: "of one who gives freely, of the munificent"; Symmachus: "of the leader"; the Syriac: "of one prepared"; St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 17: "of goodwill or good pleasure"; the Vatican Scholiast: "of the generous," because, as St. Ambrose says, God, being willing, well-pleased, and generous, gathered His Church.
In chapter VI, the bride praising the bridegroom begins from the head and ends at the feet; here conversely the bridegroom praising the bride begins from the feet and ends at the head. The reason for the disparity is that the Bridegroom descended downward from heaven to earth to join the bride to Himself; but the bride, called forth from earth to heaven by the Bridegroom, ascends upward. Therefore the praise of the Bridegroom is in His descent, the praise of the bride in her ascent; the praise of the Bridegroom in His condescension in calling forth the bride, the praise of the bride in the favor of grace and glory to which she is called by the Bridegroom.
Theodoret gives another reason: The praise of the Bridegroom, he says, begins from the eyes, that is, from contemplation, and ends at the feet, that is, in action, because His action arises from and is directed by contemplation. But the praise of the bride begins from the feet, that is, from action, and ends at the head, that is, in contemplation: because she must begin from action, and from it proceed and advance all the way to contemplation.
By "steps" understand both the gait itself and the feet with which we walk. Whence Vatablus translates: "How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O daughter of the prince!" As if to say: How beautiful are your sandals and buskins! How magnificently you walk shod and booted with them! For in ancient times noble women adorned their sandals and buskins with pearls, gems, and gold, as Pliny attests (Book IX, chapter 35) and Clement of Alexandria (Book II of the Pedagogue, chapter 11). Thus the eyes of Holofernes are said to have been captivated by the sandals of Judith, chapter 9:13, and chapter 16:11: "Her sandals," it says, "ravished his eyes; her beauty made his soul captive; she cut off his head with a sword." And Isaiah 3:18: "The Lord will take away," he says, "the ornament (in Hebrew, the glory) of their sandals." Thus St. Catherine, Queen of Portugal, a great weight of Indian gold hung from her sandals or slippers, which St. Francis Xavier asked her to convert to the aid of the newly baptized, saying she would ascend to heaven far more easily with the slippers of the poor than with royal ones; and therefore he gladly obtained the same from her.
Three anonymous authors, Rabbi Solomon, Genebrard, and Sanchez hold that these are the words of the young maidens celebrating the beauty of the bride. St. Gregory holds that the Bridegroom Christ here praises the Bride the Church because she sent preachers to the Synagogue of the Jews and converted them. Others more correctly hold that Christ here praises the Synagogue of the Jews recently converted, for the preceding discourse was about her.
Furthermore, the Chaldean renders in Jewish fashion: "Solomon said in the spirit of prophecy from the face of the Lord: How beautiful are the feet of Israel when they ascend to appear before the Lord three times a year with sandals of badger-skin, and offer their vows and their voluntary oblations!"
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Christ says to the Synagogue of the Jews, now believing in Him through the preaching of Elijah and others: How beautiful are your steps, by which you have approached Me and the Church! With what swift readiness you have hastened to the faith — and not only to the faith, but also to the preaching of the faith! For as soon as you became a believer, you began to be a preacher of the gospel, and like Paul, running through cities and provinces with great eagerness and fervor, preaching and striving to bring your fellow Jews and other nations to Christ. The Jews converted by Elijah will do this at the end of the world. This is what Isaiah says, chapter 52:7, and from him Paul, Romans 10:15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach peace, who preach good things!" See the comments there; and Ephesians 6:15: "Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." So say St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Bede, Philo, St. Anselm, Honorius, and others, and St. Ambrose, sermon 17, who also adds that symbolically the sandals denote the common people: for these will be converted to Christ equally with princes, and are often more skilled than they.
This alludes to chapter 6:11: "My soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab," as if the Synagogue says: I, formerly living as a Jew, was troubled by the chariots of Aminadab, that is, by the so happy course of the gospel, by which the Gentiles throughout the whole world, like Aminadab, that is, a willing and generous people, freely submitted themselves to the faith and to Christ. For I saw this and envied it, thinking that just so much was being taken away from the Law and from Moses, whom I followed. But now, enlightened by Elijah outwardly and by God inwardly, I have believed in Christ and have joined myself to the Church of the Gentiles, and I myself have become Nadab, or Aminadab, that is, a willing and generous people, freely subjecting myself to Christ and to Christianity; and in this I rejoice and exult, and therefore, joined to the chariots of the gospel, like a horse I lead and draw it eagerly, so that I may spread the faith and renown of Christ everywhere.
Theodoret gives another reason why the Church is called the daughter of Nadab: There was, he says, Nadab, who in Leviticus 10:1, when he had brought strange fire into God's tabernacle, met the end of his life. We find therefore that the Lord's bride the Church also brought into the divine tabernacle not the legal fire, but that which she had received from the Bridegroom Himself: "I came to cast fire upon the earth," He says, "and what do I desire if it is already kindled?" (Luke 12:49). This new fire from the New Testament the bride brought into God's tabernacle, crying out and saying, Apocalypse 21:5: "The old things have passed away; behold, all things are made new." Rightly therefore He calls her the daughter of Nadab, who has offered the sacrifice of men with new fire; for although they changed the fire with different intent, yet the same thing was done by each. So says Theodoret.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
First, the soul that fixes her steps in the way of God's commandments and in the path of the examples of the Holy Fathers, walks beautifully and heads straight for heaven. For she tramples all earthly things and all the soul's affections and desires with the shoe of mortification. For the shoe, because it is made from the skins of dead animals, signifies mortification, which is the straight way to perfection and glory. So St. Gregory: "She is called the daughter of the prince," he says, "the holy Church (and any soul within her), because
she is regenerated to new life by the preaching of Christ, who by the power of His divinity rules over every creature that He has made. But what are the sandals of the Church, if not the examples of the preceding fathers, by which she is fortified on the way of this world, so that through all the tribulations that arise she may walk confidently, well shod? Whence elsewhere Paul says to preachers, Ephesians 6:15: 'Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.' For sandals are made from dead animals, and we spiritually shoe our feet when we take examples from the holy fathers who have died in the flesh, so that in their likeness we may overcome the temptations of this world."
Second, and more importantly, apply these words to apostolic men and preachers. Whence the same St. Gregory: "It can also be understood," he says, "that the Church is shod when in her preaching she is fortified by the death of Christ to endure the evils that arise. Beautiful therefore are the steps of the shod bride, who is the daughter of the prince, because in the divine eyes the office of any of the elect who preaches according to the examples of the fathers is pleasing." So also St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 17, verse 5, which see.
Third, and fittingly, understand this saying literally with the three anonymous authors, Theodoret, and St. Ambrose, as concerning the modesty, gravity, and piety of one's gait and outward actions, which proceed from the inward composure of the affections. For this strikes the eyes of beholders and wonderfully refreshes and edifies them, as if to say: How well shod you walk, O faithful soul! You who, just as inwardly you have all your affections composed, so outwardly you walk, speak, act, and work modestly, gravely, chastely, becomingly, and devoutly, so that you carry everyone away in love and admiration of you. He therefore commends outward modesty and piety, which should be of the highest concern to the holy soul, both because it is an index of inward composure and preserves it, and because it attracts others to virtue. For since men cannot behold inward virtues, they behold outward ones, and from these are kindled to imitate those. For this is telmor, that is, "unto comeliness," which all observe and desire. See the comments on Philippians 4:5: "Let your modesty be known to all men."
Whence St. Jerome, in Book I Against Jovinian, takes this walking in sandals as the beauty of chastity: "The Bridegroom," he says, "is praised by the bride; He in turn praises the virgin bride, and says to her: 'Beautiful are your steps in sandals, daughter of Aminadab,' which is interpreted 'of the people freely offering'; for virginity is voluntary, and therefore the steps of the Church are praised in the beauty of chastity." And St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 17: "A good sandal for the soul," he says, "is modesty; a good step is the footprint of chastity, etc. Let us therefore use the body as a sandal for the lower works of virtue: for ministry, not for ruin; for service, not for pleasure; for obedience, not for dissension; and let us place our footstep in the way of wisdom, lest some force of the torrent block our steps."
Furthermore, the phrase "in sandals" is added to signify a gait and progress in modesty, chastity, and every virtue that is continuous, constant, and strong, which, as if fortified by the shoes of constancy, tramples and overcomes all the thorns of temptations and the obstacles of adversaries. Thus shod and composed in all things was Blessed Asella, of whom St. Jerome says, letter 15 to Marcella: "Nothing," he says, "is more pleasant than her severity, nothing more severe than her pleasantness, nothing sadder than her sweetness, nothing sweeter than her sadness. The pallor of her face is such that while it indicates self-restraint, it does not smack of ostentation; her speech is silent and her silence speaks; her gait is neither quick nor slow, her dress always the same, her neatness unstudied, and in her simple clothing there is an elegance without elegance."
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin was most excellently shod, because she was supremely composed in all movements of both soul and body, and as queen of heaven she walked everywhere with angelic grace, so much so that she was the wonder and amazement of all the angels — especially when they saw her ascending into heaven with such glory and majesty in both body and soul, and they attended and accompanied her as honor guards, like legions and dances of camps. Hence by the "daughter of the prince" Theodoret and St. Ambrose understand the daughter of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said, Psalm 50:14: "And confirm me with a princely spirit." For who else is the daughter of the Holy Spirit, if not the Blessed Virgin, to whom the archangel Gabriel announced, Luke 1:35: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you." But Honorius says: The Blessed Virgin was the daughter of the prince, that is, of King David, to whom Christ was promised, that He would come forth from his line, and consequently also His mother, the Mother of God.
Hear St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 14: "In this sandal (of the body) Mary walked beautifully, who without any mixture, a virgin, brought forth the Author of salvation in bodily custom; whence John excellently says, chapter 1:27: 'I am not worthy to loose the strap of His sandal,' that is, I am not worthy to comprehend the mystery of the Incarnation within the narrow confines of the human mind, and to explain it with the poverty and lowliness of speech." Hence also Isaiah said, chapter 53:8: "Who shall declare His generation?"
Rupert adds that slaves walk barefoot, but the freeborn and noble are shod; whence he says: "Therefore the serpent bit the heel of the handmaid (Eve), but you, O daughter of the prince, well shod, have crushed the head of the serpent. You especially, O princess and uniquely beloved lady, and as I already said, Song 5:2: 'My one dove, the only one of her mother,' namely of the free generation, the generation not of flesh but of faith, you who conceived Me, your Husband, not from the flesh of a man, but from the Spirit of God, and brought forth the father or prince of the children, not of the flesh, but of faith or of promise."
More precisely Alanus: "Your steps," he says, "O glorious Virgin, are the nobility of your lineage, the integrity of flesh and mind, the fruitfulness of your offspring. Your sandals are affection in meditations, effect in works, progress in desires, ecstasy in joys. And you are the principal daughter of the prince, namely of God, who is the prince of princes and the Lord of lords, who begot you specially by grace and specially formed you: yet so much God's daughter that you are also His untouched mother."
"Or by feet and steps are understood the mental affections, which were entirely purified and adorned by the incarnation of Christ; by the sandals is figured the divine incarnation." And Hailgrinus: "Her (the Virgin's) thoughts and works shone with the beauty of spiritual devotion and intention, like feet in hyacinth sandals (according to the words): 'I shod you with hyacinth,'" Ezekiel 16:10: see the comments there.
Finally William: "Not by swiftness of feet," he says, "but by purity of affections she went from virtue to virtue, seeing the God of gods in Zion, Psalm 83:8. She embraced the innocence of Abel, the obedience of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the humility of David, the patience of Job, the continence of Daniel. Shod therefore most becomingly with these and similar examples of the fathers, she went from virtue to virtue with well-worn steps of the soul; and in emulating the virtues of the fathers, she even surpassed the very fathers whose imitator she rejoiced to be, by her outstanding purity of affections and the prerogative of her actions. 'The joints of your thighs are like jewels' (St. Ambrose: 'necklaces') 'fashioned by the hand of a craftsman.'"
Under the joints of the thighs, by metonymy understand also the thighs themselves, or the hips: which like jewels are beautiful, muscular, round, and strong. Again, understand the joints as both the lower ones, by which the thighs below are joined to the knees, and more especially the upper ones, by which they above are connected to the bones and ribs of the belly.
He alludes to the touch of the angel, who touching Jacob on the thigh and dislocating his joint and sinew, made him lame (Genesis 32:25 and 31); which lameness of Jacob prefigured that his descendants would limp in faith and religion, now worshipping God, now idols; now opposing Christ, now embracing Him.
But first at the end of the world, the Synagogue, converted to Christ, will with strong joints of the thighs firmly adhere to the body of the Church, that is, to the rest of the faithful from the Gentiles and to the head, Christ. Wherefore then she will no longer limp in faith, but will walk straight and firmly in it, following, preaching, and propagating it, and that nimbly and flexibly in all directions, wherever the Spirit of Christ impels. For this is what the joints, or vertebrae, of the thighs signify, which are nimble and flexible in every direction at a person's command.
Hence second, symbolically, the two joints of the thighs, says Cosmas Damianus, signify truth and charity, and their bond and union, as the Jews to be converted at the end of the world will join them together. Hence again, by the thighs are noted third the members of generation near the thighs, and generation itself, as if to say: The Synagogue will have strong thighs, and therefore will beget strong sons for Christ. So Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, St. Gregory, whom hear: "By the two thighs of the bride, the two peoples of the Church are designated; by the joint of the thighs, the harmony of preachers, by whom the peoples are united, as both the circumcision and the uncircumcision are instructed by them in the catholic faith. They stand as jewels, because while in the wisdom in which they shine they do holy works, they bear as it were gems in gold, of which it follows: 'Which were fashioned by the hand of a craftsman.' The jewels are fashioned by the hand of a craftsman, because by the work of Christ preachers are made beautiful and useful."
The Chaldean agrees: "And their children, who went forth from their thigh, are beautiful like precious stones set in the holy crown that Bezalel the craftsman made for Aaron the priest." St. Anselm adds that believing Jews and Gentiles are compared to jewels because they mutually admonish each other to adhere constantly to Christ and fortify one another against the snares of the devil.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
These words depend on the preceding sentence and on the dances of camps (whence the Bibles include all three of these statements under the same verse 1), and give their cause, as if Christ were to say: Therefore, O Synagogue, now converted to Me, you proceed like the dances of camps, that is, your steps are beautiful, straight, and strong, because the joints, or vertebrae, of your thighs are beautiful, straight, and strong. For upon these depends the beauty, as well as the straightness and strength of one's gait, so that one does not limp, does not stumble, but with straight and strong thighs walks straight and strong.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The joints of the thighs signify, first, prudence and modesty in one's approach and every outward action; whence for "joints" the Septuagint translates rhythmoi, that is, rhythms, measures, modulations, harmonies of songs, as if to say: As harmoniously and rhythmically as a song advances with its measures, feet, and modulations, so harmonious and composed should be your gait, speech, and every outward act. Hear St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 17, verse 4: "So great a progress of the Church (and of the holy soul) is signified, that with the most precious ornaments
it is compared, and with the necklaces of triumphant warriors; for these are the ornaments of warriors. Whether therefore the generation of Christ from the Virgin, or the propagation of the Church — in appearance indeed as if adorned with necklaces by the hand of a craftsman, but truly with spiritual insignia of virtue — has crowned the necks of her children." Second, the joints of the thighs signify the chastity of the holy soul: for in the act of generation the thighs are spread; but in continence they are joined and closed. Hence our Sanchez takes the joints of the thighs as the bands or clasps of breeches or tunics by which the thighs are covered and clothed: for the chaste clasp their breeches, the unchaste unfasten them. Hence Ezekiel 16:25: "You have opened your feet to every passerby, and multiplied your fornication." Chastity therefore adorns the thighs like the most beautiful and precious jewel, made by the hand of the supreme craftsman God. Religious embrace this, and the Jews will embrace it at the end of the world, in order to preach Christ more efficaciously by word and example. Whence St. John saw 144 thousand virgins who at the end of the world will follow the Lamb in virginity, Apocalypse 14:1. So Philo of Carpathia, who also adds that chastity is the work of the supreme craftsman God, similar to that which He fashioned in the womb of the Virgin.
Symbolically, the two thighs and their joint signify first the concord of all the faithful, the bond and union in the twofold charity of God and neighbor. Just as therefore the thighs cohere with the other members through the vertebrae, so every faithful person ought to be joined with other faithful by true charity. So St. Gregory, Bede, and others. Whence John the Carmelite explains thus, as if to say: The fellowship in charity of spiritual children, who are propagated as from your thigh and are bound by the mutual bond of love, is like jewels, or little chains, whose links are mutually interlocked.
Again, the joints of the thighs signify second the harmony of virtues. So Philo: "By the harmonies of the thighs," he says, "he sets forth the temperance of life and holiness of character as a kind of heavenly harmony of divine wisdom. For when here Holy Scripture says the harmonies of the thighs are like necklaces wrought by the hand, or work, of a craftsman, it demonstrates that the one conspiracy and will of peoples well agreeing in one faith and glory has been made smooth by the work of that supreme Craftsman who fashioned heaven and earth." So also St. Ambrose, On the Death of the Emperor Valentinian: "The measures of your thighs," he says, "are like necklaces, that is, the grace and moderation consonant with itself in all your deeds has equaled the insignia of great triumphs."
This therefore is the jewel, this the necklace of virtues, which St. Peter commends to the faithful, saying, 2 Peter 1:5: "And you, applying all diligence, supply in your faith virtue, and in virtue knowledge, and in knowledge self-control, and in self-control patience, and in patience piety, and in piety brotherly love,
and in brotherly love, charity." Moreover third, three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret take the joints of the two thighs as the composure of the movements of both appetites, namely the irascible and the concupiscible, or of anger and desire. For these, composed by the craftsman of reason or the mind, are beautiful, like jewels fashioned from gold by various art and bending. Fourth and finally, Honorius holds that here in the dances of camps of the Church the second battle line or order is noted, which is that of married couples, so that the joint of the thighs is the love and harmony of spouses, which is the work and gift of God the Craftsman.
Tropologically, the same Honorius: "The thighs of the soul," he says, "are fear and love, by which she begets the good work that is her spiritual offspring, which will be the heir of the kingdom. For through fear she turns from evil, through love she does good. The joint of these is faith, by which she believes in the punishment that she fears, and believes in the joy that she loves. This joint is like jewels; because just as a jewel adorns and protects the breast, so faith adorns and protects the soul. This was made by the hand of the Craftsman, because faith was given through Christ."
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The two joints of the thighs of the Blessed Virgin are her maternity and her virginity; for in the junction of these all her virtues, gifts, and prerogatives are clasped together, linked, and founded. Again, what was said of the holy soul applies above all to the Blessed Virgin, for her gait and every action were supremely modest, graceful, pious, and devout. Moreover, there was in her the supreme harmony and consonance of all virtues; and angelic chastity and virginity shone in her, on account of which she merited to be chosen as the Mother of God. So Philo, St. Ambrose (On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 15), and Rupert, who explains thus: "'The joints of your thighs are like jewels,' that is, the integrity of your virginity and the perpetual guardianship of your modesty have been fortified by heavenly protections. Whose work is this? Whose power? Surely that of God Most High; and this very thing, says a certain wise man, is wisdom: to know that continence is a gift of God. I say therefore not just any jewels, but 'fashioned by the hand of the Craftsman,' that is, which only God can or could make and give."
William adds that near the thighs is the seat and movement of concupiscence, but in the Virgin these were joined, covered, and adorned by the jewel of virginity, so that she felt no movement of the flesh in them; for the kindling of concupiscence in her was extinguished. Hear Alanus: "The thighs are usually signs of generation; but by the joint of the thighs is understood nothing other than the harmony of the two fruitfulnesses that were in the Virgin: one of the mind, the other of the womb. And this joint was like a jewel, that is, it had with it a twofold companion: virginity of the flesh and virginity of the mind.
By a jewel, chastity is usually signified: for a jewel is usually placed on the breast for adornment and as a sign of chastity; whence it is called monile, that is, 'admonishing' (monens) chastity. The meaning therefore is: 'The joints of your thighs are like jewels,' that is, just as you are endowed with a twofold fruitfulness, so with a twofold virginity." Briefly but pointedly, Honorius in the Sigillum: "Your thighs," he says, "are blessed, from which proceeded the precious pearl Christ, the ineffable jewel who is the ornament of all creation. The Craftsman is God the Father; His hand is the Son, through whom He made all things, through whom also the Incarnation was arranged." Finally, pressing the word monilia ('jewels'), Hailgrinus: "She was blessed," he says, "not for herself alone, but also for us; not for herself alone chaste or beautiful, but for us also an admonition to chastity; therefore she is compared to jewels (monilia), which are called monilia as if 'admonishing' (monentia) chastity: for she by her example admonishes and invites us to the purity of continence."
YOUR NAVEL IS A ROUNDED GOBLET, NEVER LACKING MIXED WINE — that is, drink. In Hebrew mazag, that is, mixed, namely wine mixed and tempered with water, as in Italy, Judea, and other hot regions wines are mixed and diluted with water. Whence the Syriac translates: "the mixture does not fail in it," that is, wine customarily mixed with water. The Arabic: "no blending fails." Less correctly the Zurich version renders: "never lacking fruitfulness." For "rounded" the Hebrew is sachar, which Pagninus and others translate as "of roundness," that is, round. Aben-Ezra and Vatablus: "moon" — for the navel is like a half-full moon, which is concave above like a goblet and round below like a lathe. Our Sanchez takes the navel metonymically as an ornament of the navel, namely a gem or pendant hanging from the neck to the navel, which Isaiah (3:18) calls himlah, because it had the appearance of the moon. For, as St. Jerome says: "Women have pendants hanging in the likeness of the moon."
Better, Luis de Leon and many others generally take it as the navel itself, for this is like a turned and rounded goblet. Now under the navel understand the whole belly and intestines, for their knot, chain, link, and bond is the navel. "In the navel is the knot and junction of the veins," says Pliny (Book XI, chapter 37). For just as the body is held together by sinews and bones, so the belly is bound by the navel as by a chain, whence the rupture of it is fatal.
For the navel is, as it were, the center of the body; if you take it away, all the lines drawn from it to the circumference vanish, and the whole circle. Wherefore a navel that is fully round, plump, and perfect is a sign of good health and vigorous youth. The navel therefore is the ligament of the intestines, which occupies nearly the middle plane of the belly, made for this purpose: that through it the fetus, while in the mother's womb, may be nourished. Hence by catachresis the navel is the name for whatever is in the middle of something: thus the city of Rieti is called the navel of Italy; and Cicero, in the sixth Verrine, calls the grove of Enna, from which Proserpina was carried off, the navel of Sicily; and Livy, in Book V of the Macedonian War, calls Aetolia the navel of Greece. In the same way, Jerusalem is the navel of Judea and of the whole world, as I shall presently say.
Hear Aristotle, Book I of the History of Animals, chapter 13: "The belly is below the chest on the front side, and its root is the navel. The part beneath this root on each side is called the flank; and that which lies directly below is the lower belly or abdomen, of which the last part is the paunch. But above the navel is the hypochondrium, named from the cartilage, as it were 'below the cartilage.'" The same author, Book II, chapter 8, teaches that apes are similar to man except in the navel, which they lack, but in its place they have something hard.
Now the navel, that is, the belly of the bride "does not lack mixed wine," that is, drink or drinkable liquid and a kind of milky moisture, because it is full like the full moon and like a goblet that is always filled with wine, to refresh the eyes of beholders and satisfy the taste of those who drink. For other goblets often lack wine and are empty, and the moon often wanes and is deprived of light, as is evident at the new moon.
Otherwise Sanchez and Delrio, as if to say: Your navel is like a rounded goblet not needing drink, that is, drinkable liquid, because it is not rough with any dirt or filth, nor impure and unclean with any defilement, but entirely neat and clean, as if it had been freshly washed and wiped with mixed wine. Moreover, as Alcazar rightly observes, the Hebrew for 'navel' is not tabbur (meaning navel) but sorer, which word signifies that intestine which is cut from a newborn infant and tied at the navel. Now this is the intestine that penetrates into all the internal vital organs, namely the stomach, liver, and heart. That all these vital organs, into which that intestine penetrates, are comprehended in Sacred Scripture by the word sor or sorer, which our translator renders as 'navel,' is clear. And this indeed is evident from Job 40:11: "His strength is in the navel of his belly"; and from Proverbs 3:8: "It shall be health to your navel, and moisture to your bones." The navel therefore embraces all the vital organs, as if to say: The vital organs of the bride are full of moisture and juice, by which they are abundantly irrigated, nourished, and kept vigorous, lively, and succulent.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
All these things pertain to the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews at the end of the world through Elijah. The navel, that is, the middle and center of the Synagogue and equally of Judea, indeed of the whole inhabited world, is Jerusalem, according to Ezekiel 5:4: "This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations, and the lands around her." And therefore Christ willed to teach and be crucified in her, and in her He founded His Church, so that from there, as from a center, she might easily expand in every direction to the periphery of the other provinces, according to Psalm 73:12: "But God our King before the ages has worked salvation in the midst of the earth."
Again, the city of Jerusalem, in the time of Christ, had the appearance of a navel and a rounded goblet, that is, circular, as is clear from its depiction which Adrichomius presents in his Description of the Holy Land. Moreover, she as a navel connected all of Judea and all the Jews, and restrained and checked their bellies, that is, their desires, through her rabbis, high priests, and princes. Finally, she was like a rounded goblet never lacking mixed wine, because like a goblet she abounded with the wine of wisdom and doctrine, and distributed it to all the rest, according to Isaiah 2:3: "From Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Whence Jeremiah, Lamentations 2:15: "Is this," he says, "the city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole earth?"
Solomon therefore signifies here that Jerusalem at the end of the world will be converted to Christ through Elijah, who will preach in it against Antichrist, and in it will be killed by Antichrist, but on the third day will rise again gloriously before all who watch, as is clear from Apocalypse 11:11. Seeing this, the people of Jerusalem will believe in Christ preached by Elijah, and then will bring the rest of the Jews to the faith of Christ, and will nourish, foster, and advance them in Christian piety, just as was done originally in the time of Solomon in the Old Law, when the scribes in Jerusalem taught the true faith, and in the new era of Christ. For when the metropolis of Judea, namely Jerusalem, is converted, all Judea will be converted, just as when Rome was converted through Constantine, the whole world was converted. Jerusalem therefore will then abound with holy priests, doctors, preachers, and prophets, who together with Elijah will resist Antichrist and will teach the Jews the orthodox faith of Christ, just as it abounded with them in the time of the apostles.
Just as therefore an infant in the mother's womb draws nourishment from the mother through the navel, by which it coheres with and is joined to the mother (for, as Aristotle says, Book II On the Generation of Animals, chapter 4: "Growth comes to the fetus through the navel in the same way as to plants through the roots"): so the Jews will be nourished by the mother Church in Christian faith and piety through Jerusalem and the teachers sent from her. So Honorius, Delrio, and others. Hence Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, and St. Ambrose (sermon 6 on Psalm 118) teach that by the navel, preachers are understood.
Hear St. Gregory: "The navel is the order of holy preachers, who are rightly called a goblet; because while through them the people are instructed, they are inebriated with spiritual wine through their ministry. It is rightly called 'rounded,' because according to the customs of all men it is necessary that the tongue of the preacher be turned about. It 'does not lack mixed wine,' because it is necessary that what it serves to others it drink more abundantly than the rest, and more fully contain what it gives."
The Chaldean version supports this: "And the prince of your school, by whose merit all ages are governed, just as the fetus is nourished through the navel in the mother's womb; he is splendid in the law like the circle of the moon, when he comes to purify and to contaminate, and to justify and to condemn; and the words of the law never fail from his mouth, just as the waters of the river will not fail when it goes forth from paradise."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The navel of the pious soul is the mind fostering holy inspirations, thoughts, and affections. For it binds and restrains the belly, that is, the sensitive appetite, and the flanks of the belly, that is, desires, with the knot of temperance and continence, like the navel. So the three anonymous authors cited by Theodoret. This mind again, like a rounded goblet, abounds with the heavenly wine of wisdom, prudence, doctrine, grace, consolation, and joy, which both satisfies herself and others, and at times inebriates them, to such a degree that she seems to contain within the belly of the mind the fountain of this heavenly water, according to Christ's words, John 7:38: "Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly"; and John 4:14: "The water that I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life." So St. Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian: "Good," he says, "is the navel of the soul, capable of all virtues, like a goblet adorned by the very Author of the faith. For Wisdom mixed her wine in her goblet, saying, Proverbs 9:5: 'Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine that I have mixed for you.'"
Hence Ezekiel 16:4 rebukes the Synagogue, that is, the ancient Jews, saying: "And when you were born, on the day of your birth, your navel cord was not cut" — as if to say: You clung to the former errors and idolatry of your mother. But this navel cord is cut by the holy soul, and will be cut by the Jews at the end of the world. See the comments there.
Tropologically, first, the cutting of the navel cord is the cutting off of cupidity, which heals, sanctifies, and blesses a person. Truly Seneca says: "He who has closed off desire, by Hercules, contends with Jupiter for happiness." Hence John the Carmelite explains thus: The navel and belly, that is, your intellect, O bride, containing as a fetus the wisdom of God, because it serves her drink to those who thirst, is a round goblet most suited for drinking.
Again, Philo of Carpathia takes the navel as priests, and the goblet as the chalice of the Eucharist, "which," he says, "never lacks the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, who is mixed with the peoples through faith and charity — which is most clearly taught by the water that the priest mixes with the wine in the chalice. And he rightly said the same priesthood is not unlike a navel, and is rounded, to teach openly that priests ought to be clean and pure, cleansed of every stain, and well turned in all virtues, nor in all of life and in every matter at hand to savor and meditate on and teach anything other than heavenly things. For you know the saying, Psalm 131:9: 'Let your priests be clothed with justice, and let your saints exult in the uprightness of life.'"
Hence again, others take the navel third as chastity, which the Eucharist produces, according to Zechariah 9:17: "For what is His goodness, and what His beauty, but the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins flourish?" So Rupert, William, and others.
But Honorius takes it as sobriety, which is the mother of chastity: "The navel of the soul," he says, "is temperance, because just as the navel is in the middle between the upper and lower members, so temperance is between virtues and vices. It is a rounded goblet, full of drinks, because it is round with circumspection and fruitful with wisdom. And just as drink tempers thirst and gladdens the heart, so temperance restrains the fire of vices and curbs the immoderate fervor of virtues.
Hear Aponius: "In the navel it seems to me that those are praised who have not only been cut off from earthly desires by being reborn from sin, but have already been wonderfully polished by the lathe of good habit or desire, and no longer need the cups of joy, but minister absolution of soul to others who are in need through the example of their way of life. For no one leads a soul thirsting for God from the dryness of sins to the richness of holiness, unless he supplies the cup by praiseworthy examples."
Finally, Honorius, referring these things to the dances of camps of the Synagogue converted to Christ, of which he spoke at the beginning of the chapter, here assigns their third battle line, namely, the tender and delicate, but merciful: "Because the navel," he says, "is a soft member and the middle part of the body, which has above it six parts: head, eyes, nose, mouth, neck, and chest. The seventh part is the navel. Below it also has six parts: feet, shins, legs, hips, thighs, and belly; and the seventh here again is the navel, signifying in the Church those who through the seven works of mercy will obtain the sevenfold rest that will be given through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are like a rounded goblet, never lacking (that is, always full of) drinks, because they are turned by charity, smoothed by the exercise of virtue, always full of the cups of doctrine, whence they can abundantly inebriate those who thirst for justice. This is said because if the imperfect in the Synagogue will then be such, what must we believe the perfect to be?"
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 14: "Truly," he says, "that womb of Mary is a rounded goblet, in which was Wisdom, who mixed in her goblet her wine, supplying from the fullness of her divinity the unfailing grace of knowledge of herself." Second, Honorius says: Your navel, understand 'blessed,' in which the Son of God hung (for as a shield hangs on a nail, so the infant hangs by the navel); this Son is a rounded goblet, never lacking mixed wine, that is, He gives Himself generously to all who thirst for Him. Third, Rupert: "In men," he says, "lust is in the loins, but in women in the navel, as the Lord testifies, who speaking of the devil says to blessed Job: 'His strength is in his loins, and his power in the navel of his belly,' Job 40:11. Therefore 'your navel is a rounded goblet' — what is this but as if He said: The virtue of chastity is perfect in you, and you are freed from every appetite of carnal pleasure?"
Fourth, Alanus: "The navel," he says, "is in the middle of the belly; by the navel of the Virgin therefore is understood the power of understanding by which she loved God, namely charity. This in the Virgin was like a goblet, because through her mediation the Virgin served the world the wine of joy, of whom it is said, Psalm 22:5: 'My overflowing chalice, how glorious it is!' and elsewhere: 'Wine that gladdens the heart of man,' Psalm 104:15. It is called 'rounded' because we work more easily with a lathe; and the Virgin herself without any difficulty, without any enticement, without any distress of the flesh conceived and gave birth. 'Never lacking mixed wine': she says less and signifies more, that is, full of cups, namely serving the world the wine of love, the wine of salvation, the wine of joy, the cup of life."
Finally, in her navel, says William, was the salvation of mankind by the very fact that therein was the victim of human reconciliation, and thence in its own time, that is, when "the Word was made flesh," salvation flowed to us. For that virginal navel through the warmth of the Holy Spirit supplied to the Son of God the substance of flesh in which He would die for men, and by that very fact, like a rounded goblet, served life to the world. And after some more: "'Never lacking mixed wine.' However much they draw from it, and however abundantly they draw, it cannot be exhausted; for even if all the sinners of the earth drink from it, it nonetheless abounds and overflows."
Your belly is like a heap (Symmachus: a mound) of wheat, surrounded by lilies.
The Zurich version: "surrounded by lilies." St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 14, reads: "like a heap of wheat mingled among lilies"; but this seems a printer's error, and instead of minuti one should read muniti ('fortified'), as the same St. Ambrose reads in On the Death of Valentinian, and so the Hebrew, Septuagint, and Latin have it. He says the same, or nearly the same, as what he said about the navel (for under it he included the belly, as I said), but through another metaphor and likeness: for there he compared the belly to a goblet full of wine; here however he compares it to a heap of wheat, but surrounded by lilies, to signify that it is filled with every kind of nourishment (for this consists of both drink and food, namely wheat), and that it both abundantly feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty.
A heap of wheat is a symbol of fertility and fruitfulness, while lilies are of chastity. It therefore signifies that the belly of the bride is so fruitful in nourishing the other members, that nevertheless it is pure and chaste.
By wheat, understand the grains of wheat threshed and clean, which are surrounded by lilies; or rather the crop of wheat joyfully sprouting in its ears and stalks, swelling and turgid. For in the fields of nobles, especially in gardens, this is bordered at the margins with lilies and other flowers beautifully growing alongside, both for pleasantness and delight, and for the sweetness and fragrance of their scent. These are the lilies of the field that Christ names, Matthew 6:28. To this heap the belly of the bride is compared, because like it she swells with the solid and succulent fullness of food and chyme, full and even on every side, and because of the proper digestion by the force of heat she exhales a sweet fragrance, as the belly of Alexander the Great exhaled, and of similar persons.
Furthermore, Sanchez and Alcazar take the belly here not as bare but as clothed in a long garment, namely the robe or tunic of the belly. For this seems more decent and fitting, as if to say: The garment covering your belly is of golden fabric, with raised embroidery imitating heaps of wheat, and a border of lilies beautifully embroidered with a needle. The Bridegroom therefore signifies that the long garment suits her beautifully, because He hopes that the fruitfulness of His bride (signified of course by the belly) will be similar to the fruitfulness of wheat, and that with abundant offspring she will thereafter be raised to the glory and exaltation that the lilies represent. For lilies are a symbol of elevation from a humble place to outstanding dignity and glory; while the wheat represents fruitfulness. For as Pliny says, Book 18, chapter 10: "Nothing is more fertile than wheat; nature bestowed this on it because it most of all nourishes man, inasmuch as from one measure, if the soil is suitable, one hundred and fifty measures are returned." Hence Luke 1:42: "Blessed is the fruit of your womb."
Finally, the Chaldean translates: "And the seventy wise men surround it like a round threshing-floor, and their storehouses are full of sanctified tithes and votive and voluntary offerings, which Ezra the priest and Zerubbabel, and Joshua and Nehemiah and Belsan, men of the great assembly, established for them, who are compared to roses, that they may have the strength to labor in the law day and night."
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Jerusalem, to be converted to Christ through Elijah at the end of the world, will be like a heap of wheat, because she will be full of priests and preachers who will feed the faithful with the Word of God and the Eucharist as with mystical wheat, not unto luxury but unto chastity; and therefore she is surrounded by lilies, because she breathes forth the brightness of purity as well as the fragrance of sweetness. For this is "the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins flourish" (Zechariah 9:17). For the Synagogue after the death of the apostles and the first faithful had remained as if barren, since the rest of the Jews refused to convert to Christ. But when the remnant is converted at the end of the world through Elijah, the Synagogue will become like a heap of wheat, because she will produce many grains, that is, many faithful to be stored in the Lord's granary, whose multitude, says Delrio citing St. Ambrose, is a heap gathered into one by the bond of charity, leveled by the cylinder of justice and modesty, and surrounded by examples of all the other virtues. With such a heap the belly of the Synagogue will then be full, so that she too may boast that she has been made a joyful mother of children. Certainly, just as in the Catholic Church that life-giving drink never fails, so neither does the wheat for doubly feeding all.
Furthermore, St. Gregory takes the navel as preachers and the belly as the people: "By the belly," he says, "the breadth of the people is designated, who are rightly surrounded by lilies like a heap of wheat, because while attending to holy works and being prepared for the heavenly granary, they are fortified on every side by the examples of the saints to persevere." The people chosen by God are compared to wheat, Matthew 13:30: "Gather the wheat (that is, the elect) into my granary" in heaven. The Synagogue therefore, containing holy and elect Jews, is like a heap of wheat. Hear Philo of Carpathia: A heap of wheat is the multitude or assembly of the Church; because just as from many grains one heap is gathered, so from many peoples one Church of all the faithful is joined together; one and the same people by faith in Christ, by the communion of one baptism and of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, are brought together, etc. But this must first be fenced and enclosed by lilies, that is, must be exercised in the most fragrant and fruitful actions of the virtues and the most chaste conversations, and soon must carry with them to that heavenly homeland some incorrupt fruit, so that each may be given from the fruits of their hands and bear a bosom filled with virtues.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The mystical belly of the holy soul is the mind containing within itself wheat, that is, holy doctrine, by which she nourishes both herself and others in every virtue; and therefore she is surrounded by lilies of purity and chastity, sweetly fragrant. So Theodoret and the three anonymous authors. Hear Honorius: "The belly of the soul is the memory, in which she stores the food of Sacred Scripture, which is like a heap of wheat: because just as in a heap grains are piled up, so also in the memory many maxims and images are accumulated, which are surrounded by lilies, because they are accompanied by pure thoughts." Finally, the belly, that is, the mind of the saints, is a heap of wheat,
that is, a workshop and storehouse of justice, beneficence, and every virtue.
Symbolically, Honorius holds that here in the dances of camps of the Synagogue, by the belly is designated the fourth battle line of married couples, who use the belly for the generation of offspring, but abound in the wheat of almsgiving. These are surrounded by the lilies of chastity; these therefore are married people who are fruitful as well as holy, of whom the Psalmist says, Psalm 127:3: "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house; your children like young olive plants around your table." For the Jews are fruitful, and will be fruitful at the end of the world, to beget children to be grafted into Christ and inserted into heaven. Hence we see such great swarms of Jews spread through so many kingdoms throughout the whole world; wherefore Gislerius fittingly holds that this meaning is literally the first and primary one.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The belly of the Blessed Virgin was a heap of wheat, that is, of Christ, who is the food and bread of Christians, surrounded by lilies, that is, attended by virgins, says Honorius. Hence first, of her it is said, Luke 1:42: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb"; and Luke 11:27: "Blessed is the womb that bore You." This therefore, says William, is "like a heap of wheat, because swollen and distended with offspring; yet surrounded by lilies, because swollen not with the emptiness of perpetual virginity, but with the fullness of truth."
Hear St. Ambrose, On the Formation of Virgins, chapter 14: "In the Virgin's womb there sprouted at once a heap of wheat and the grace of the lily flower, since she was bringing forth both a grain of wheat and a lily. A grain of wheat, according to what is written, John 12:24: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, it remains alone.' But because from one grain of wheat a heap was made, that prophetic word was fulfilled, Psalm 64:14: 'And the valleys shall abound with grain'; because that grain which died brought forth much fruit. This grain therefore has satisfied all men with the perpetual food of heavenly gifts. That utterance of the prophetic mouth is consummated, the same David saying, Psalm 80:17: 'He fed them with the fat of wheat, and satisfied them with honey from the rock.' That there was also a lily in this grain, the divine oracles testify, because it is written, Song 2:1: 'I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, as the lily among the thorns.' Christ was the lily among the thorns when He was in the midst of the Jews."
Second, Rupert: "'Your belly,' he says, 'is like a heap of wheat,' because you wisely gathered that wheat by meditating on the Scriptures, as is said in a certain passage, Luke 2:19: 'But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.' A heap of this kind is well surrounded by lilies, because certainly the beauty of chastity, just as the brightness
produces understanding of the Scriptures for the senses, so also it prepares authority for every person, that he may be worthy to speak outwardly those things which he has stored up or gathered within as the words of God, like the wheat of the Lord."
Hear Christ appearing to St. Bridget, and mystically describing to her the individual members of the Blessed Virgin, Book V of her Revelations, at the end of the tenth Interrogation: "Your belly, O blessed Virgin, was most pure like ivory, and like a place most splendid with virtuous stones: because the constancy of your conscience never grew lukewarm, nor could it be corrupted in tribulations. The walls of this belly, that is, of your faith, were like the most shining gold, in which are noted the strength of your virtues, and your prudence, and justice, and temperance with perfect perseverance, because all your virtues were perfected by divine charity."
Verse 3. Your two breasts are like two twin fawns of a gazelle.
YOUR TWO BREASTS ARE LIKE TWO TWIN FAWNS OF A GAZELLE. — What was said of the Church of the Gentiles is repeated for the Synagogue of the Jews, at chapter 4, verse 5 of Christ, where I explained these things. The Chaldean translates: "Your saviors, who are to redeem you, are like Moses and Aaron, the sons of Jochebed, who are compared to two twin fawns of a gazelle." Honorius holds that by the breasts, in the dances of camps of the Synagogue, the fifth battle line is designated, namely that of doctors. The same author tropologically: "The two breasts of the soul," he says, "are wisdom and knowledge, with which she nurses the foolish and ignorant. These are like fawns of the gazelle, which always seek the heights, as they strive to climb to the heights of the virtues. They are twin, because in the twofold love they seek heavenly things. He said 'fawn of the gazelle' to distinguish it from the fawn of deer, which runs swiftly but does not seek the heights as the gazelle does." Philo takes the two breasts as religious and laity, and analogically the twofold beatitude of the saints in heaven, namely the glory of the soul and of the body.
Verse 4. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon, which are at the gate of the daughter of the multitude. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus.
YOUR NECK IS LIKE AN IVORY TOWER. — Princes from time to time have small ivory towers skillfully crafted for magnificence, just as Solomon had his august throne made from ivory, as is said in 2 Chronicles 9:17; indeed Ahab built an entire house of ivory, as is found in 1 Kings 22:39. For the tusks of elephants are so great and massive that some exceed the measure of twelve palms, or even ten feet. Wherefore posts in houses and stables are made from them, says Pliny, who accordingly calls them horns rather than teeth. And this is the reason for the elephant's longevity: that with its vast and strong teeth it thoroughly grinds its food and reduces it to flour, and so digests it most excellently and converts what is digested into its own substance; and that it is carried in the mother's womb for a long time, namely two years, so that it is born strong and robust. See Aldrovandus on the Elephant, Part 42, sections 3 and following.
He repeats for the Synagogue of the Jews what he said for the Church of the Gentiles, chapter 4:4 (see the comments there): for to both he gives a towered neck, but here he adds that it is of ivory. The towered neck signifies the unconquered strength of the Synagogue, by which she will nobly raise herself like a tower against all the temptations and persecutions of Antichrist: likewise the pontiffs, doctors, and prelates who will heroically resist him.
The Chaldean version supports this: "Your judge also, who judges your judgment, is strong over the people, to bind them and to drag those who are condemned in judgment to prison; just as King Solomon, who made an ivory tower and subjected the people of the house of Israel and turned them to the Ruler of the age."
Ivory denotes the elephant-like chastity (for the elephant is the most chaste of beasts and animals), purity, and cleanness with which the Jews will be endowed at the end of the world, Apocalypse 14:1 and following, especially the doctors and prelates. For ivory is white, polished, shining, smooth, straight, even, and firm. Such likewise will be the virtue and fortitude of the Jews.
How chaste the elephant is may be gathered from the evidence given by Aristotle, Book V of the History of Animals, chapter 14, where he teaches that the elephant continually remains celibate for three years, and after the three years, once the female's birthing is finished, it mates with her only incidentally for the sole purpose of generating offspring: "The elephant," he says, "repeats intercourse after an interval of three years; it never allows itself to touch again the same female it has made pregnant. It carries the fetus for two years; it bears one at a time and produces young the size of a two- or three-month-old calf." He gives the reason in Book IX, chapter 49: "The elephant," he says, "is the gentlest and most peaceful of all beasts, since through many services it is both trained and understands; sometimes it even learns to worship the king. It is strong in sense and excels in the rest by its keen intelligence. The one it has mated with, it will not touch again. Some say male elephants live two hundred years, others a hundred and twenty; they say the female lives nearly as long, but flourishes in age around her sixtieth year."
The reason therefore why the elephant is chaste is its gentleness, sagacity, and love of long life; for chastity prolongs life, which lust shortens. The same author, Book II, chapter 1: "The elephant," he says, "has testicles not visible outside, but hidden within near the kidneys; therefore it completes mating more quickly." The same, Book V, chapter 2: "Elephants," he says, "when about to mate seek solitary places, but especially beside rivers" — so ashamed are they of the act of intercourse that they wash it away in the river. Hear Pliny, Book VIII, chapter 5: "Elephants," he says, "out of shame never mate except in seclusion, the male at five years old, the female at ten; they mate twice, and no more; on the sixth day they bathe in a river, not returning to the herd before doing so. They know no adulteries, and there are no fights among them on account of females, which are so destructive among other animals."
And from such great chastity comes such great strength in the elephant that it even carries towers and in them battle lines of soldiers on its back. Aldrovandus, citing Aelian, in his work on the Elephant, Part 44, section 2, adds that the elephant so hates adulterous men and women that it takes vengeance on them and kills them, and he recounts many examples of this retribution there.
Angelomus adds, on 1 Kings 10: "The elephant," he says, "mates temperately with its female and does not use a second." And Bede on Psalm 44:9, 'From ivory houses': An ivory house, he says, is a most innocent and most chaste heart. In ivory there is whiteness, and by whiteness innocence is designated. For the elephant, to which ivory belongs, is most chaste, because it knows only one mate, and that most temperately, and when she has died, it never knows another.
Hear St. Gregory: "The neck of the bride is called like an ivory tower, because the preachers of the Church are held to be both lofty through contemplation, and strong through the practice of holy works, and precious through divine wisdom." Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others say similar things. And Angelomus on 1 Kings 10, at the words 'Elephants' tusks were brought to Solomon': "'Your neck is like an ivory tower,' that is," he says, "your doctors are strong on account of the brightness of wisdom."
But Philo of Carpathia takes the neck as priests: "For just as the neck," he says, "is nearest to and joined with the head, so the men who are ministers of God adhere most closely and holily to the most sacred Body and Blood of Jesus Christ; and they are His most ivory neck whenever with a pure conscience and sincere charity of soul they celebrate and handle the divine mysteries immaculately; just as above they were called an ivory box, those who admit no filth of soul, but with the most honorable life and character minister most immaculately to the most divine sacraments." So he says. Aponius takes it as the martyrs, who subjected their necks to the sword for the faith, and after death shone like ivory.
Symbolically, Honorius: "The sixth order," he says, "(in the dances of camps of the Synagogue) is that of religious, who are expressed by the neck, of whom it is said: 'Your neck is like,' etc., that is, the spiritual ones who join the Shunamite to Christ by words and examples, as the neck joins the head and body, are like an ivory tower, that is, like the elephant, unconquerable in virtues. Elephants are accustomed to carry towers, from which fighting is done, as is read in the Book of Maccabees: so spiritual men carry Sacred Scripture like a firm tower, from which they fight against the enemies of the kingdom of God. But by ivory is also understood their chastity, just as that animal is said to be of a chaste nature."
Alcazar agrees, who attributes all these things to religious, especially those contending for Christ and the faith, and those who will contend at the end of the world against Antichrist: for these raise their necks
against treachery; and the neck is a symbol of Christian liberty: for although religious submit their necks to the yoke of Christ and obedience, this submission nonetheless produces in them great spirits and freedom, by which they despise all worldly things, fear no tyrants, but only the offense of God. Therefore for God they willingly submit their necks to the sword if need be. Again, William says: The head is the speculative reason, which is devoted to the contemplation of eternal things; the members subject to the head are the sensual appetites, which are governed by reason; the middle between head and members, joining both together, is the neck, that is, the practical reason which attends to and directs right action. This is like an ivory tower, constructed from the examples of the ancient fathers through imitation: for ivory is the bone of elephants, and all these men — Abraham, Moses, David, etc. — were certain great, chaste, and strong elephants.
Finally, Rupert, applying these things to the Blessed Virgin, takes the neck as her humility, which made her like an ivory tower, as strong as she was beautiful: "What," he says, "or of what sort is your neck? Certainly not outstretched, but rather lovingly bowed; and this is your humility, a great strength, a most beautiful strength. Truly like an ivory tower, which is both lovely in appearance and strong in stature. To whom strong? To whom lovely? Strong before God, lovely before God; but terrible and inaccessible to the devil. How strong before God Himself? Surely as is proved from these examples: because if you were strong against God (He says, Genesis 32:28, to His faithful father Jacob), how much more will you prevail against men."
William adds: "If by the ivory tower the examples of those saints — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the rest — are signified, then certainly the Mother of God is most truly so called, who far more sublimely than the rest built from that ancient ivory a tower of fortitude fearsome to all enemies: for she not only perfectly expressed the virtues of the ancients in her own character, but also in those same virtues by her surpassingly excellent grace far exceeded the measure of the ancients, and surpassed each one of them, not only in other virtues but even in their chief ones: Abraham in obedience, Moses in meekness, David in humility," etc.
More subtly Hailgrinus says: The Blessed Virgin is a tower, to which in every danger the wretched flee; ivory, on account of the brightness of chastity and the constancy of firmness, and because ivory is the tusk of the elephant, which has perpetual war with the dragon — just as the Blessed Virgin from the beginning of the world declared war on the ancient serpent by God's predestination, Genesis 3:15.
Hear Christ the Lord, mystically describing the neck of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, Book V of the Revelations, at the end of Interrogation 810: "Your neck is nobly erect and most beautifully elevated, because the justice of your soul is fully upright toward Me, and movable according to My will, because it was never inclined to any evil of pride. For just as the neck bends toward the head, so every intention and deed of yours was bent toward My will."
Your eyes are like pools (St. Ambrose: 'ponds,' namely from springing and living waters) in Heshbon, which are at the gate of the daughter of the multitude.
Pagninus: "of the daughters of nobles"; for rabbim in Hebrew means both "many" and "nobles" and "princes"; the Syriac: "at the gate of the many." Incorrectly Lyra and the rabbis take Heshbon as Jerusalem, saying it is called Heshbon, that is, "estimation," because the city was of the highest dignity and estimation. "Heshbon," says Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land, page 127, number 31, "was a glorious and notable city, very well fortified, situated in the mountains, surrounded by walls of baked brick, to which as to a mistress a very great number of villages was subject. Having formerly belonged to the Moabites, it was taken by the Amorites by right of war, and in it dwelt Sihon, king of the Amorites; when he and his people were slain by the Israelites, this city was rebuilt by the sons of Reuben and given to the Levites. Against it Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied in the vision of Moab; in the time of St. Jerome it was called Esbus, being twenty miles distant from the Jordan."
Adrichomius adds, number 32, that beside the gate of Heshbon there were notable pools, or ponds and springs of waters, to which the Hebrew word enaim alludes; for this word means both 'eyes' and 'springs,' since what eyes are in the head, springs are in the earth. Again, just as the praise of pools or ponds is, says Delrio, if they abound with clear liquid, if they are transparent, if like mirrors they reflect the image of the beholder — in the eyes the first praise corresponds to the copious watery humor, the second to the vitreous, the third to the crystalline — in these three one may find those three qualities: for the eyes are copiously moist, they transmit vision, and they represent an image. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Your eyes, O Synagogue, are like twin, most placid and most pure, most serene and most limpid springs.
Again, just as pools are encircled by trees and pleasantly shaded by them, so too the eyes are encircled by pupils and eyelashes, and between them a delightful light flashes and gleams, just as the branches of trees overhanging pools shine through the crystalline waters. Moreover, the crystalline humor of the eye is like a pool, because the source of each secretly springs up from below, while the outer surface remains quiet, stable, and serene, to such a degree that like a mirror it represents the objects placed before it. This is truer in the bride, whose eyes are modest, grave, composed, constant: for unsteady and wandering eyes indicate a soul that is either fearful, or frivolous, or cunning. The pools or ponds therefore, in which the waters do not flow but stand still, denote and praise the quietness and serenity of the eyes: for that stability increases light and splendor, and is an indication of inward gravity, simplicity, and constancy; just as frequent blinking of the eyelids, or the swift darting of the orbs here and there, is regarded as the mark either of a diseased organ or of a light, timid, or deceitful soul: so Delrio.
Now this gate of Heshbon is called 'of the daughter of the multitude,' that is, a gate looking toward a region in which there was a great multitude of people; for delightful and elegant regions are metaphorically called 'daughters' by the Hebrews. This region was either the marketplace — for in the marketplace there is a great multitude of people — or the suburbs and the abundance of the many villages subject to the city of Heshbon, as I just said from Adrichomius. This gate signifies the cavities of the head, in which the orbs of the eyes are set as in gates; and they are called 'daughters of the multitude' because within these cavities of the head there are many chambers of all the senses, both interior and exterior: likewise many vital and animal spirits that serve the individual senses; and finally many arteries, veins, muscles, nerves, etc. Again, the eyes themselves are here tacitly compared to gates, because like gates they were wide and becomingly open: thus Juno is called by Homer Boopis, that is, having large, ox-like eyes.
By the symbol of the pool, therefore, a threefold beauty of the eyes is signified, says Luis de Leon: first, their amplitude, that is, just and becoming size; then, serenity, from which arises light and splendor; finally, repose as stability, which, since in the eyes it is full of gravity and beauty, is certainly an indication of a constant as well as simple soul. For those whose eyelids and eyes are frequently moved with great speed are either timid, or altogether crafty and deceitful.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The eyes of the Synagogue converted to Christ are her wisdom and prudence, or her sincere faith and knowledge, and her pure and clear intellect, both speculative and practical; likewise her holy thoughts, say Theodoret and St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 16, and her pure intention of pleasing God alone. Hence Heshbon in Hebrew means the same as 'thought,' as Aquila translates, or, as Pagninus says, the same as 'haste of understanding,' from chush, that is, 'he hastened,' and ban, that is, 'he understood.' See the comments at chapter 4:1 and chapter 1:15: for just as there he compared the eyes of the Church to doves, so here he compares the eyes of the Synagogue to pools. Whence Rabbi Solomon asserts that the Hebrews and Talmudists use berechot, which our translator renders 'pools,' for 'eyes.'
Again, the eyes of the Synagogue at the end of the world will be the bishops, prophets, and rabbis or doctors, say Cassiodorus, Justus, and Anselm, who will teach the daughter of the multitude, that is, the congregation of the Jewish people, the faith and way of Christ, and will rule and direct them in the way of salvation. For wisdom shines in the teacher like a spring and an eye, for she is "the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness" (Wisdom 7:26). Hence Honorius takes the eyes in the dances of camps of the Synagogue as the seventh order,
or battle line, which, he says, is that of prelates. The Chaldean version supports this: "Your scribes (doctors) are full of wisdom like pools of water, and they know how to establish the calculations of intercalations, and they intercalate years, and mark the beginnings of years and months at the gate of the house of the Great Council."
Hence Cosmas Damianus takes the eyes as bishops, and their keen insight for contemplating divine things, and their providence for governing the sheep entrusted to them. For these twin eyes of the mind are like the twin pools which, situated beside the gate of Heshbon, a city once most populous, as if set in its face, containing a vast supply of most healthful waters perpetually flowing from the mountains of Gilead, were of great use to the countless multitude and provided admirable services.
Now in 'the daughter of the multitude,' for which the Hebrew is bath rabbim, that is, daughter, meaning a city of many inhabitants, there seems to lie hidden another mystery and oracle of the conversion of the Arabs. For Bath Rabbim, or Rabbah, was a great, powerful, and populous city, and therefore the metropolis of the Ammonites, which first Og king of Bashan conquered, then David through his general Joab (2 Samuel 11:12), and finally Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second king of Egypt after Alexander, from whom it was named Philadelphia. It was near the city of Heshbon; whence Jeremiah, in the calamity of the Chaldeans, joins both together, saying, chapter 49:3: "Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry out, O daughters of Rabbah, gird yourselves with sackcloth; lament and run to and fro among the hedges; for Milcom shall be led into captivity, his priests and his princes together."
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Your eyes, O Synagogue, are like the pools situated at the gate of Heshbon, which looks toward Philadelphia, or through which one goes to Philadelphia, so Delrio and Vatablus. Thus at Rome one gate is called the Tiburtine, through which one goes to Tibur; another the Tusculan, through which one goes to Tusculum; another the Praenestine, through which one goes to Praeneste, etc. Solomon therefore indicates that the eyes, that is, the bishops of Jerusalem and Judea at the end of the world, will look toward the neighboring Arabia Felix, whose principal city is Philadelphia, to convert it to Christ, just as they once formerly converted it. Whence the Church of Philadelphia was once subject to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The same will happen at the end of the world, when Elijah and the bishops of Judea will go, or will send preachers, into Arabia and the other neighboring regions, to bring them from Muhammad (for Muhammad was an Arab and the leader of the Arabs) and from Antichrist to Christ. This the Holy Spirit seems to suggest here through bath rabbim, or Rabbah, that is, Philadelphia, which like the pools of Heshbon was called a city of waters, 2 Samuel 11 and following, because the torrent of Jacob flows around it, says Adrichomius.
Solomon therefore mentions Arabia Felix above others here, both because it borders Judea, and because of the frankincense that is burned to God, and of the myrrh, aloe, cassia, amomum, cinnamon, nard, cardamom, pepper, and every kind of spice
Fourth, just as these pools were near the gate of the daughter of the multitude, so meditation and contemplation are near the gates of paradise, where there is an innumerable multitude of the children of God, namely the saints and the blessed. Fifth, just as in pools the water is standing, and therefore quiet and still, so meditation composes the motions of the soul and makes them stable and quiet. These are the waters of Siloam, which flow in silence, Isaiah chapter VIII, 5.
Sixth, just as pools pour forth abundant water, so meditation gives abundant conceptions and affections, which we pour out upon a multitude however great.
Seventh, these pools are in Heshbon; Heshbon in Hebrew means the same as thought, rumination, computation, reckoning, estimation, because the power and fruit of meditation consists in deep and serious rumination, estimation, and weighing of the mysteries of the faith: for this reason indeed many of the faithful, although they believe in the rewards of heaven and the torments of hell, are nevertheless not moved by them to abstain from sins and to observe the laws of God, because they do not weigh them according to their gravity, do not ruminate on them, do not ponder them. For who would dare to steal, fornicate, or murder, if he seriously and deeply considered and pondered the eternal fires of hell, which he most certainly brings upon himself? See Bernard in his book On Consideration; hence the Hebrews call the work machashebeth, which is radically the same as cheshbon or heshbon, that is, of thought, an artistic, arduous, and ingenious work, which requires much thought and meditation, such as embroidery work: thus good works which proceed from deep meditation are elaborate, precise, excellent, and heroic.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus is most fertile, so that no other kinds of wood are in use there except aromatic ones, says Pliny; it abounds also in gold, silver, diamonds, gems, and pearls; it nurtures lions, leopards, horses, mules, herds of camels and elephants; and finally it is said that Arabia Felix alone nourishes the phoenix, the queen of birds. Also because the three Magi and kings, the first from all provinces, came from this Arabia to Jerusalem to worship Christ, led by the star, according to that text, Psalm LXXI, 10: The kings of Arabia and Sheba shall bring gifts, namely gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which they offered to the child Jesus, Matthew II, 11. Finally, St. Paul, converted to Christ, immediately went to this Arabia and preached there for three years with such fruit that a single city of that region, Beccara, which was an archiepiscopal see, had 35 bishoprics under it, as testified by William of Tyre in his History of the Crusades, and from him Adrichomius in his work on Arabia.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The two eyes of the holy soul are meditation and contemplation: these are similar to pools, first, because just as fish are nourished in pools, so in meditation the pious affections and desires of the mind are nourished. Second, just as pools are clear and reflect the image of the one looking in, so the soul in meditation becomes a mirror receiving the likeness of God and representing His image within itself.
Third, just as pools emit abundant waters, so the eyes flow and pour down tears of devotion and compunction, as is evident in David saying, Psalm VI, 7: I have labored in my groaning, I will wash my bed every night: with my tears I will water my couch, in Hebrew amse, that is, I will make it melt and as it were swim, meaning: I shall shed tears so abundant that my bed will, as it were, melt and float in them. And Jeremiah, Lamentations I, 46: Therefore, he says, I weep, and my eye pours down waters: because the comforter who restores my soul has gone far from me. Hear St. Gregory: Heshbon is interpreted as the girdle of sorrow; therefore the eyes of the bride are said to be like pools in Heshbon, because while they grieve over their pilgrimage and, strengthened by sorrow, gird themselves against spiritual enemies, they wash themselves with tears, so that through them the people are fittingly cleansed before God. So also Rupert, Bede, and St. Thomas. Hear Aponius: In the eyes of Heshbon those seem to be shown who for their own or others' sins produce fountains of tears; and Hugh of St. Victor, in his Annotations on Joel: The pool of Heshbon, he says, represents the various kinds of compunction; the eyes of the bride, therefore, are pools in Heshbon, because from there they are more and more purified, whence they are washed in these frequent pools. So the Jews at the end of the world, having been compelled by such long perfidy, will pour out showers of tears like pools of Heshbon.
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, Rupert says: The eyes of the Blessed Virgin, he says, were like pools on account of the compunction and tears which she shed for the Church and the miseries of the faithful. Hence anagogically the same Rupert, by the two eyes similar to two pools, understands the upper and lower watering which Achsah asked of her father Caleb, Judges I, 15: For the soul receives the upper watering, he says, when it afflicts itself in tears with desire for the heavenly kingdom; and it receives the lower watering when it fears the punishments of hell by weeping. Therefore in these words, Your eyes, etc., the mystical sense is as if He were saying: Your eyes, out of love or desire for the Beloved, with which you languish and are pricked with compunction, flow with tears, and those tears are pools in Heshbon, that is, waters flowing from the girdle of sorrow: that compunction is a land watered with waters, a certain beginning of eternal sweetness and inheritance: just as that Heshbon and the land beyond the Jordan was the first possession of the promised land for that daughter of the multitude, namely the Israelite people, whose multitude was no fewer
than those who ascended or ascend, to receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
Second, Alan says: The eyes of the Virgin are called the contemplative life and the active life: in the active she sees what must be done, in the contemplative what must be loved; these are compared to pools because they satisfy the Virgin with spiritual refreshment and free her from the stain of sin. These are in Heshbon, that is, in the girdle of sorrow, on account of the long duration of labor and misery, and as regards the contemplative life, on account of the delay of the homeland; these pools are in the Church, that is, at the gate of the daughter of the multitude.
Third, William says: The Blessed Virgin, he says, was similar to the cherubim, who are full of eyes round about and within, Ezekiel I, 18: for she herself was full of the eyes of providence, unceasingly providing for good, not only before God, but before all people. Indeed no dust of even the slightest carnal allurement ever dimmed those eyes of hers; no movement of even the slightest envy or anger disturbed them, but like living water they were always pure and perfectly clear, because they had nothing turbulent or dusty in them, but expressed a certain likeness of living water, that is, of heavenly grace. Hear Christ depicting the eyes of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, Book V of the Revelations, at the end, Question 9: Your eyes were so bright in the sight of My Father that He beheld Himself reflected in them, because in your spiritual vision and the understanding of your soul, the Father saw your entire will, that you willed nothing except Him, and desired nothing except according to Him.
YOUR NOSE IS LIKE THE TOWER OF LEBANON, WHICH LOOKS TOWARD DAMASCUS.
In Hebrew tsopha, that is, watching the face of Damascus, so Pagninus; the Septuagint has, looking toward the face of Damascus.
The tower of Lebanon, says Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land, page 100, number 90, was a tower which Solomon built on Mount Lebanon (for that he built there is clear from III Kings IX, 19, and II Paralipomenon VIII, 6) near Damascus, of such height that the houses of Damascus could be counted from it; and of such beauty that the nose of the bride is compared to it. This tower served as a watchtower, so that from it one could observe the approach, ambushes, and attempts of the Syrians, who frequently raided Judea with incursions, and warn the Jews by a signal of fire or trumpet, so that they might prepare either flight or arms to meet them. For Damascus was the capital of Syria, as Isaiah says, chapter VII, verse 8.
For nose, the Hebrew is aph, which signifies both face and nose; hence some with Vatablus and Pagninus translate, your face is like the tower of Lebanon, because the face of the bride was round, tall, and elevated like a tower, so that she might look from afar; however our Vulgate translator, the Septuagint, Pagninus, and the Hebrews translate it as nose.
You may ask how the nose of the bride is compared to a tower? For at first sight this seems an enormous, inelegant, and unseemly hyperbole. Some understand by nose a pendant fashioned like the tower of Lebanon, which hung from the forehead to the nostrils in the manner of Orientals and adorned them: for St. Jerome teaches that the ancients decorated the nose with this ornament in Ezekiel XVI, 12, at the words: I put a ring upon your mouth. Again our Sanchez thinks the nose is compared to the tower of Lebanon because, he says, this tower seen from afar appeared small on account of the distance and had the appearance of a nose. So the rocks near Sorrento are called goats, as Pliny attests, Book III, chapter VI, because to those viewing them from afar they present the form of a goat: and what is called Scylla is a rock in Sicily; what is called Niobe is a rock on Mount Sipylus: because they present to onlookers the likeness of Scylla and Niobe. But here the nose is compared to a tower not only as regards appearance and seeming, but as regards the truth and the thing itself. I say therefore that Solomon in this bucolic Canticle compares the members of the bride to rural things in the Hebrew manner: thus in the preceding verse he compared the eyes of the bride to the pools of Heshbon, and in verse 5 he compares her head to Carmel: so here he compares the nose to the tower of Lebanon, not as regards size or height: for who, even if a giant and a Polyphemus, would have a nose as long as a tower is tall?
But first, as regards proportion, because as much as this tower of his rises above Mount Lebanon, so much proportionally does the nose of the bride rise above her breast and the other members subject to it. Again, just as a great tower rises from Lebanon, so a great nose proportionally rose from the face of the bride. It indicates therefore that the bride had a large nose, but a becoming one and proportioned to her face: for a large nose is a sign of great judgment, prudence, discernment, and discretion, as well as of a lofty and strong spirit, hence that saying of Martial:
Even boys have the nose of a rhinoceros, And: You may be as sharp-nosed as you please, even be nothing but nose. And Horace: You curl up your hooked nose in scorn.
Hence Pliny, Book XI, chapter XXXIII, teaches that modern customs have dedicated the nose to sly mockery, which the Greeks call mycterism: for mycter means nose, and thus the Septuagint translate here: hence the word nasuti, says Festus, denotes a shrewd person, because he immediately detects the scent of anything and perceives it before he has inspected it; hence St. Jerome, epistle 100, writing to Bonasus, who was too sharp-nosed, that is, too critical, wittily reproving his excessive criticism and sharp tongue: I will give you advice, he says, by hiding which you can appear more handsome: let the nose not be seen in the face, let speech not sound for speaking; and thus you can seem both handsome and eloquent.
Second, the nose of the bride is similar to the tower of Lebanon comparatively, as regards the highest and most elevated part of the tower: because just as it rose above all the neighboring trees of Lebanon, for it looked above them and gazed down upon the walls and houses of Damascus: so likewise the nose of the bride rises above the whole body and all its parts, and looks down and surveys things coming from afar above them. Add that in towers there often projects, extending outward, a small window or small covered structure like a nose, made for this purpose, that from them the watchmen may have a freer view in every direction, which clearly have the appearance of a nose: for they are at the summit as if at the head of the tower, and under its brow project with a sloping descent like a nose, so that the tower seems to have a nose. Indeed in Rome on the column of Trajan and the other column of the emperor Antoninus, we see above a gallery or balcony surrounded by railings, through which the whole column can be circled, so that one may look out most freely in every direction.
Third, in color, for just as the tower shone white among the green trees and branches of Lebanon; so the white nose of the bride displays its whiteness among her golden tresses.
Fourth, in the function of watching, for the nose, rising from the boundary of the eyebrows and extending, as it were, in an equal ridge, both distinguishes and protects the sight of both eyes at once; hence Cicero, Book II of On the Nature of the Gods: The nose, he says, is so placed that it seems to be, as it were, a wall thrown between the eyes: in the same way the tower of Lebanon fortified and protected the watchmen, who from it observed the approach of the Syrians, against their force and ambushes: for watchmen are, as it were, the eyes of the city and citizens, who observe those who come, whether they are friends or enemies.
Moreover the nose has two functions: first, that through it we breathe; second, that through it we smell, as Aristotle teaches, Book I of the History of Animals, chapter XI; the trunk of the elephant serves as its nose, and it is huge and very long, because it serves the same animal as a hand with which it brings food to its mouth, says Aristotle; furthermore an aquiline nose is a sign of a great and kingly spirit, as attested by Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, such as Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, had; but those who have a flat nose, as dolphins do, are lustful and wanton; hence Socrates, who had a flat nose, confessed that he was inclined by nature to luxury, but asserted that he had conquered nature by virtue, as Plato attests in the Symposium: Aristotle adds in his Physiognomics: Those who have a sharp nose are wrathful and are compared to dogs; those who have a thick nose are sluggish and are compared to oxen; those who have a round and blunt nose are magnanimous and are compared to lions; so also those who have an aquiline nose are compared to the eagle: the same Aristotle, Book V of On the Generation of Animals, chapter II: Nostrils, he says, that are extended further, such as those of Laconian hounds, are strong in scent.
Fifth, in straightness: for just as the tower of Lebanon was straight and erected perpendicularly, so that nothing in it was twisted or curved, so also was the nose of the bride. Again, in gravity and majesty: for just as this tower struck fear into the Syrian brigands, so the grave and aquiline nose of the bride struck and drove away adulterers and the impious far from her. Moreover the Chaldean interpreter, understanding the tower of Lebanon as the citadel of Zion, translates in the Jewish manner as follows: And the prince of the families of the house of Judah is like King David, who built the citadel of Zion, which is called the tower of Lebanon, because everyone who stood in it could count all the towers that are in Damascus.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
The nose of the Synagogue, which is to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, like the tower of Lebanon, will be a vast and exact providence, foresight, and discretion, by which it will smell from afar and foresee all the ambushes and attempts of Damascus, that is, of the devil and of Antichrist who thirsts for the blood of souls (for Damascus in Hebrew means the same as a sack or prey of blood), and will elude and overcome them with a vast spirit of fortitude and magnanimity: for a large nose draws in a great spirit, and therefore is an indicator of magnanimity; hence the Hebrew aph, that is, nose, also signifies wrath and indignation, for this is shown in the reddening and fuming nose, and is an indicator of magnanimity; hence Louis of Leon by aph, or nose, understands indignation and gravity of countenance, because it arises from a great and lofty spirit; and Rabbi Solomon by aph understands the gravity of the whole face, which shines most in the forehead of the bride. Just as therefore the Jews of old from the tower of Lebanon detected the machinations of the Syrians coming from Damascus and, anticipating their plans and ambushes, eluded them; so in exactly the same way the Jews converted to Christ at the end of the world, and especially their bishops and prelates, will most sagaciously and most certainly discern all the simulated and counterfeit manners of Antichrist, false prophets, heretics, and politicians, and their pretended faith from the true and genuine manners and orthodox faith of Christians; they will be of so keen and sharp a nose that they will immediately sniff out their secret schemes and the treacherous machinations they contrive against Christians, anticipate them, and render them fruitless: so Cosmas Damianus. For Antichrist will be the most cunning of all men, the most eloquent, the most learned, the most powerful, the most wicked, and so will be the mouth and instrument of the devil: wherefore he will contrive a thousand deceits, frauds, and stratagems by which to turn the Jews from Christ and entice them to himself, as I said on II Thessalonians II and Apocalypse XI and following. Therefore a great nose, that is, sagacity, fortitude, and spirit will then be needed by Elijah, by the prelates, and by the Jews converted by him, to detect, discern, avoid, refute, and dissipate these stratagems.
Hence again by the nose you may understand Elijah and the prelates, especially the Roman Pontiff and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who will most fiercely oppose Antichrist on behalf of his Jews, and will most skillfully detect his frauds, and reveal them to his Jews, and against them will animate and arm them with all zeal: thus the Roman Pontiffs as the noses of the Church have detected the heresies and stratagems of Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Pelagius, Priscillian, Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin, and have condemned and dispersed them.
Moreover Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, Anselm, and the other Fathers, following their custom, assign all these symbols, as I said above, to preachers. Hear St. Gregory: In the nose the discernment of odor is found; therefore by the nose the discernment of preachers is designated, because through them the fragrances of virtues and the stench of vices are shown to us. But the nose exists like the tower of Lebanon, because once preachers are washed in the water of baptism and are whitened by daily tears from the sins they committed against God, they become worthy to be raised higher and higher by fortitude. But the tower looks toward Damascus, because every holy preacher always contradicts sinners: for Damascus is interpreted as bloody, and to the sinful nation it is said, Isaiah chapter I, 15: Your hands are full of blood. Hence Philo of Carpathia by the nose of the Church understands St. Paul, the prince of preachers, who most deeply detected the divine mysteries and most sagaciously distinguished them from the stench of the world.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The nose of the holy soul, like the tower of Lebanon, is her providence, vigilance, skill, and discretion, by which she foresees from afar useful and harmful things and skillfully discerns virtue from vice, the inspiration of God from the suggestion of the devil, the spirit of charity from the spirit of the flesh, so Theodoret: The nose of the bride, he says, is lofty and sublime and receives the heavenly sweetness of fragrance, and perceiving the ointment of the bridegroom she cries out, Canticle I, 3: We will run after you in the fragrance of your ointments: therefore she is compared to a tower which is situated on Lebanon and looks toward the face of Damascus, for because the devil, as the blessed Paul asserts, II Corinthians XI, 13, transforms himself into an angel of light and assumes the appearance of spiritual ointment, necessarily the nose of the bride, erect and vigilant, looks toward the face of Damascus, lest, being deceived and omitting the true ointment, she follow the false and adulterated one. And below: Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward the face of Damascus: for you watch lest the devil under the appearance of divine things deceive you and thrust falsehood upon you in place of truth. So far Theodoret.
And St. Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 5, verse 37: Your nostrils, he says, are like the tower of Lebanon looking toward the face of Damascus, because the ointment of the true priest, which descends from the head into the beard, that is, that divine fragrance, the fragrance of spiritual grace, which was from the Father in Christ and descended to earth by the sacrament of the incarnation, so that all things might be filled with the poured-out ointment, rises with the power of the most lofty judgment and fills the nostrils of the soul, so that it may discern the sweet-smelling from the foul: the sweet things of the saints who can say, II Corinthians II, 15: For we are the good odor of Christ to God, from the foul things of sinners. Then comparing the nostrils to the tower of Lebanon he adds: These are nostrils like the tower of Lebanon, lofty above the world, but therefore it looks toward the face of Damascus, namely the gentile people, detecting the fragrance of their faith, by whose grace it wipes away the stench of their sins. The face of Damascus, therefore, is the faith of the nations, overshadowed by no covering, covered by no garment, naked and free, more intent on heaven than on earth. The nostrils of the Church observe and look toward this, gathering what is sweet in it and fragrant of aspiration and grace. So far St. Ambrose.
Wherefore St. Anthony in the way of perfection gave the first place to discretion: hear St. Bernard, sermon 3 on the Circumcision of the Lord: Lest he who runs should stumble, he says, it is necessary to be enlightened by the light of discretion, which is the mother of virtues and the consummation of perfection: this indeed teaches that nothing be done to excess: and this is the eighth day on which the child is circumcised: because discretion truly circumcises, so that neither too much nor too little is done: for he who is excessive cuts off the fruit of a good work rather than circumcises it: just as he who is lukewarm, if he does too little. The same, sermon 49 on the Canticle: Discretion, he says, gives order to every virtue, order gives measure, and also beauty and perpetuity. Finally he says: By your ordinance the day perseveres, the day, Psalm CXVIII, 91, calling it virtue. Therefore discretion is not so much a virtue as a certain moderator and charioteer of virtues and organizer of affections and teacher of morals: take this away, and virtue will become vice, and natural affection will be converted rather into disturbance and the destruction of nature. The same in the sermon 2 on the Resurrection of the Lord: But when both are present, namely the affection of compassion and the zeal for justice, it is necessary that the spirit of discretion be present, lest perchance when this one ought to be shown, that one proceed, and indiscretion itself confound everything. Let our mind therefore have a third thing, namely the spirit of discretion: so that, fitly mingling season with season, it may know how to emulate opportunely and yet to pardon. See Cassian throughout the whole of Conference II, where among other things he says, chapter X: True discretion is acquired only through true humility; and the first proof of that humility will be this: that all things, not only what must be done but also what are thought, be reserved for the examination of elders, so that no one, trusting his own judgment, may acquiesce in their decisions in all things and may learn from their tradition what he ought to judge good or evil, etc., for no one can in any way be deceived if he lives not by his own judgment but by the example of his elders.
Moreover the analogies of the nose and the tower, which I reviewed a little earlier, apply most aptly to discretion: for this, first, must be proportionally greater than all the actions of a person, because it must judge them and discern and separate them, so as to choose the good from the evil, and from the good what is better. Second, comparatively, because discretion must surpass not only the actions of a person but also the other virtues, so as to judge them, to prefer the necessary to the unnecessary, the more useful to the less useful, the better to the less good. This looks toward the face of Damascus, that is, of the devil who thirsts for the blood of souls, so as to detect, elude, and render futile his machinations, illusions, and attempts. Third, in whiteness, because it must be pure from every impure affection and entirely white: so Justus of Urgel: The nose of the Church, he says, consists of those who, perceiving the odor of justice (which is in Christ), transmit it to the interior of the heart. These who stand in great virtue are arranged like the tower of Lebanon: and we have already said above that Lebanon means whiteness; the whiteness of their stature looks toward Damascus, because their wisdom, which is from God, illuminates the world. Fourth, in the function of watching; for discretion sagaciously detects hidden vices or virtues: wherefore it continually looks toward the face of Damascus, that is, against the appetite of the flesh and blood, so that whatever smells of the flesh and carnal things, it immediately rejects: for almost every temptation of a person arises from the flesh and concupiscence, for Damascus in Hebrew means the same as a sack of blood, or drink, or kiss, or prey. The function of discretion, therefore, is to skillfully discern whether what comes to mind is suggested by the flesh or by the spirit, so as to reject the former and accept the latter. Fifth, in straightness, for discretion must be straight, as that which directs and makes straight all virtues: therefore its intention must be most upright, so that it looks upon nothing but God and the law, grace, and glory of God.
Symbolically Aponius says: The tower of Lebanon, that is, of frankincense, he says, is the humanity of Christ, which breathes the sweetest odors of virtues into the nostrils of our mind, by which we may repel the stench of vices. Damascus, says Aponius, means the same as a kiss of blood or a drink of blood. When the devil, having deceived men, offered the bloody kisses of your friendships as blood or cups, Almighty God made for Himself a tower of the sweetest fragrance, where no stench of sin is found, through the flesh taken from the Virgin Mary, whence by looking He might destroy the kingdom of the devil. Hence it seems to me that the nose of the Church should be understood as those in whom there is a greater zeal and a more ardent faith for the destruction of idolatry.
Such a nose, like the tower of Lebanon, St. Mary Magdalene had, that is, the towered one (for magdal or migdal in Hebrew means tower), who foreseeing the future repented, trampled on present things, and consecrated herself to Christ: and therefore on account of her diligence and ardor of faith, she received the name of the towered one, and before the apostles she first merited to see Christ risen, says St. Jerome, epistle 46 to Principia. The same, epistle 149 to the same, near the beginning: Mary Magdalene, he says, weeps at the cross, prepares ointments, seeks in the tomb, questions the gardener, recognizes the Lord, goes to the apostles, announces the One she has found; they doubt, she trusts. Truly a pyrgites, truly a tower of whiteness and of Lebanon, which looks toward the face of Damascus, namely the blood of the Savior (as if mesec, that is, of the procurer of our salvation calling to the penitence of sackcloth).
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Physically the Blessed Virgin had a larger nose: hear St. Epiphanius as recorded by Nicephorus, Book III of the History, chapter XXIII, depicting the form and figure of the Virgin: Her nose was rather long, her lips blooming and full of sweetness of words, her face not round and pointed but somewhat elongated: her hands and fingers were rather long.
Ethically the Blessed Virgin had a nose like a tower because she excelled in the highest foresight and discretion: again the Blessed Virgin foresaw the future joys of the saints in heaven and the torments of the impious in hell; and therefore she despised all the prosperity and adversity of this world in the hope of future goods, and taught others to despise them. Hear Hailgrin: This nose is the discretion of the Mother of God, by which she both foresenses the malice of the devil and foresees from afar as if from a mirror, so that like a tower she may strongly oppose for our sake, and is said to be situated on Lebanon, to show that by the whiteness of her virginity she has the power, as it were by her foot, to crush the head of the serpent. Strong, says Rupert, is this nose of discretion like the tower of Lebanon, when by rightly scorning visible things it strongly resists and is not broken by the disadvantages of visible things, according to that text, Psalm LX, 4: You have led me, because you have become my hope; a tower of strength against the face of the enemy. How does this tower look toward Damascus? Namely by having a sense contrary to its sense, according to that text, Romans VIII, 5: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh; but those who live according to the spirit, on things of the spirit. Rupert adds that Damascus represents a slave captured and mutilated in the nose, just as Judea was deprived of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, as if of its nose, by the Romans; and therefore that a person who lacks discretion is similar to it, for he is as deformed as a person whose nose has been cut off. The wise soul, looking at this reproach of Damascus, preserves the nose, that is, discretion in all things.
Symbolically St. Bernard, sermon 4 on the Salve Regina: You, he says, O Lady, are the beautiful nose, to whom the bridegroom says, Canticle VII, 4: Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon. The nose has two openings through which it emits breath from the head: so you, O Lady, by your virginity and humility drew down from heaven the Son of God, the breath of our mouth, as the Prophet says, Lamentations IV, 20: Christ the Lord, who indeed as the breath of our mouth warms us with charity, cools our desire, moves us to good will, and justifies by faith; you therefore, as the nose of the Church, are like a tower, lofty indeed in dignity, firm in gravity; you are a tower of Lebanon: Lebanon, the mountain which is called whitening, signifies your innocence, lofty above all others.
VERSE 5. YOUR HEAD IS LIKE CARMEL: AND THE HAIR OF YOUR HEAD IS LIKE ROYAL PURPLE BOUND IN CHANNELS.
YOUR HEAD (the Hebrew and the Septuagint add over you) is like Carmel -- the Arabic has, your head is fat or thick like Mount Carmel; Aben Ezra and Pagninus have, your head is red, from red hair like scarlet: for thus Carmel is translated by the Septuagint and our Vulgate as scarlet, II Paralipomenon II, 7. Better is Louis of Leon, as if saying: Just as Carmel towers above the other mountains of Judea, so your head, O bride, and you yourself tower above other women. Carmel is a mountain in Phoenicia, most noble for the fertility of its vineyards and all fruits: so Theodoret. Alcazar and Gislerius by Carmel understand a crown woven from the flowers of Carmel, with which the head of the bride was crowned; thus in chapter V, 11, he called the head of Christ the finest gold, that is, crowned with a crown of the finest gold. So the meaning is, as if saying: Your head is like Carmel, that is, a crown woven from the flowers of Carmel beautifully suits your head, to represent that this head is elegantly compared to Mount Carmel.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
By the head of the Synagogue many understand Christ, who like Carmel is most lofty through grace, most pleasant, and most fertile: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others. St. Gregory adds (whom others follow): In Carmel indeed Elijah praying obtained rain, and we praying in Carmel obtain rain, when believing in Christ, we desire Christ and receive from the Father the watering of grace which we ask. Justus of Urgel adds: in Christ as in a Carmel the just receive a dwelling and the nourishment of wisdom. Pagninus also adds that Carmel means the same as a circumcised and slain lamb, which is what Christ is.
But Christ is the general and common head of both the Church and the Synagogue; however the particular head of the Synagogue that is to be converted to Christ at the end of the world will be Elijah, who as once on Mount Carmel he shone with wonderful holiness, the efficacy of prayer, familiarity with God, and the glory of miracles, and there established a religious family of men serving God, who are called the sons of the prophets in the books of Kings; hence from this mountain the Carmelite religious, as if descendants of Elijah, received their name, so likewise the same Elijah at the end of the world will do the same and greater things there, and will lead religious of every kind into battle against Antichrist: so Alcazar.
Elijah, therefore, is compared to Carmel, first, because on it he devoted himself to prayer and dwelt with God. Second, because he inhabited that mountain and founded monasteries there, so that he seemed to have occupied and possessed Carmel; hence St. Jerome, in his epistle to Paulinus, speaking of monks: Our prince, he says, is Elijah, our leader is Elisha, our leaders are the sons of the prophets. Third, because Elijah was hairy and long-haired and walked as if crowned with his hair, as is clear from IV Kings I, 8, just as Mount Carmel is adorned and crowned with the foliage and branches of trees. Fourth, because Elijah towered above the other prophets, just as Carmel towers above the other mountains of Judea, hence the Jews, although still faithless, have this axiom: Elijah will come, he will resolve for us all the doubtful points of the law; he will show us the Messiah: therefore when he returns at the end of the world and shows that Christ was killed by the Jews and was the true Messiah, the Jews will repent and believe in Christ. Fifth, because just as Carmel is most pleasant and most fertile, whence it has become a proverb so that a very fertile field is called Carmel in Hebrew: so Elijah, full of grace and zeal, will be fruitful in virtues and good works and will convert all the Jews to Christ, so that to the Synagogue will apply that text, Isaiah XXXV, 2: The glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon: see what was said there.
Sixth, Mount Carmel was like a fortress and refuge against attacking enemies: so too Elijah was a refuge for the faithful against Ahab, Jezebel, and idolaters, and will be such against Antichrist and the anti-Christians at the end of the world; hence Elisha cried out to him as he was being taken up to heaven, IV Kings II, 12: My father, my father, (you are) the chariot of Israel and its driver. Seventh, Elijah on Mount Carmel, contending with the four hundred priests of Baal and conquering them by fire drawn from heaven which consumed his sacrifice, slew every one of them and restored the ancestral faith and worship of the one God, III Kings XVIII, 19 and following: he will do exactly the same at the end of the world, as is clear from Apocalypse XI, 5: And if anyone, it says, wishes to harm them (them, namely Elijah and Enoch), fire will go forth from their mouths and devour their enemies: and if anyone wishes to injure them, so must he be killed; hence Sirach XLVIII, 1, among many and great praises of Elijah, assigns this first: And Elijah the prophet arose like fire, and his word burned like a torch. And concluding, verse 9, he adds: You who were received in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. You who are written in the judgments of the times (at the end of the world) to appease the wrath of the Lord: to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. Blessed are those who saw you and were honored with your friendship. For these analogies and reasons, therefore, Elijah, who is to return at the end of the world and convert the Jews, is here called the head of the Synagogue and compared to Carmel; hence the Chaldean translates: The king who has been established over you as prince is just like Elijah the prophet, who was zealous with zeal for the Lord of heaven and slew the false prophets on Mount Carmel and converted the peoples of the house of Israel to the fear of the Lord.
Moreover Aponius by the head like Carmel understands the kings of the Romans subject to Christ. Again Honorius, dwelling on the ranks and orders to be distributed in the armies of the Synagogue, says: The ninth order is that of the supreme pontiffs, of whom it is said: Your head is like Carmel, because they have the knowledge of circumcision (for this is what Carmel signifies), namely so that they may discern and separate the spiritual and Christian circumcision, which consists in cutting away vices, from the carnal and Jewish circumcision, which consists in cutting off the flesh of the foreskin.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The head of the holy soul is a holy mind filled with all good things, says Theodoret, which is pleasant with virtues, lofty in prayer and manner of life, and fruitful in good works like Carmel. Hear St. Gregory: Because just as the members proceed from the head, so all our thoughts are arranged from the mind; and Carmel is interpreted as the knowledge of circumcision; therefore the head of the bride is said to be like Carmel, because every holy mind knows how to be worthily circumcised; it knows that whatever is done in the body amounts to nothing if the mind is unclean; which, if it is made a temple of Christ, is inhabited by Him.
The mind is aptly compared to the head and to Carmel, because just as the head pours sense and motion and animal spirits into the members subject to it; and just as Carmel communicates its pleasantness, foliage, flowers, and fruits to the region subject to it, so also the mind inspires its vigor, virtue, and grace into all the powers, senses, and faculties of the soul subject to it; and therefore in the Hebrew it reads, your head over you is like Carmel, meaning: Just as the head is above the members and Carmel above the earth, which it waters and enriches, so also your mind is above all the powers of the soul and governs them, indeed waters them, and blesses them with all good things.
Symbolically William refers this to the mystery of the circumcision of Christ: for Carmel means the same as the knowledge of circumcision, meaning: Your head is like Carmel, that is, your mind, O Blessed Virgin, had the knowledge of circumcision, so that you might circumcise Christ, even though you were not obligated to do so by law: You knew well, he says, O pious mother, why the remedy of circumcision had been given to the people of God, and yet you subjected Me, whom you conceived without concupiscence and therefore not in sins, in a singular manner, to carnal circumcision, as if I needed to be purified from original stain; nor did you do this foolishly, but taught by divine inspiration through the Spirit you served: for it was necessary that I, the giver of the law, made from a woman, should also be made under the law, and this dispensatorily, so that I might redeem those who were under the law.
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin through Christ and after Christ is the head of the faithful Church, watering, nourishing, refreshing, and protecting them like Carmel; hence the Carmelites, the first followers of Elijah after Christ, chose the Blessed Virgin as their patroness and built a church in her honor on Mount Carmel, and from there were named the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel, as Trithemius attests, in his book On the Praises of the Carmelite Order, chapter VII. Thomas Waldensis, a weighty theologian, adds in his book On the Sacraments, title I, chapter resser, and others, that the Carmelite order had already begun from the time of the apostles on Mount Carmel (and the very name is an argument for this) in the church which was the first of all in the world dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, but later, when the number of men and dwellings throughout all Palestine had multiplied, it was scattered and dispersed by the invading Saracens; but when they were driven out again, it reflourished around the year of human salvation one thousand one hundred. See Paul Maurigia, in his book On the Origin of Religious Orders, chapter XXX, who among other things says that Pope Honorius IV confirmed to them this name of Carmelites, given from Carmel, in the year of the Lord 1217. Furthermore, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Father Simon, the general of the order, a holy man, and to him as he prayed gave a white habit, and said: Receive this scapular from me, given to you and your order as a sign of my congregation.
Hear Christ the Lord mystically describing the head of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, Book V of the Revelations, at the end, Question 9: Your head was like shining gold and your hair like the rays of the sun: because your most pure virginity, which is in you as the head of all virtues and the continence of all illicit movements, pleased and shone in My sight, with all humility; therefore you are rightly called crowned queen over all things that have been created: queen, on account of your purity; crowned, on account of your excellent dignity. Your forehead was of incomparable whiteness, signifying the modesty of your conscience, in which there is the fullness of human knowledge, and the sweetness of divine wisdom shines in it above all others.
Moreover some think that Solomon here uses comparisons so disparate and enormous in appearance, by which he compares the eyes of the bride to pools, the nose to a tower, the head to Carmel, to signify the enormity of the Blessed Virgin's excess above all women, meaning: As much as pools surpass the eyes of an ordinary person, as much as a tower is greater than a nose and Carmel than a head, by so much the Blessed Virgin and her eyes, nose, and head surpass all women in dignity, grace, and glory, indeed all men and angels, and therefore all creatures whatsoever, and the eyes, nostrils, and head of all of them. Hence she is called by Isaiah, chapter II, verse 2, a mountain on the summit of mountains.
AND THE HAIR OF YOUR HEAD IS LIKE ROYAL PURPLE BOUND IN CHANNELS.
The Hebrew has, and the fineness of your head is like purple: fineness, that is, fine hairs and curls; the Zurich Bible has, and the fine exhalation (that is, the fine tresses which arise from the head and waft out) of your head is like royal purple, which is bound in the channels (of dyers); the Arabic has, bound in amphitheaters; the Septuagint has, the plaiting (St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 11, the ornament) of your head is like purple. The king is bound in the channels, that is, in the channels through which water flows; so also Pagninus; Isidore more clearly renders it, the king is bound by the tresses. The Hebrew rehatim signifies both channels and beams which run from one wall to another, just as channels run from one place to another; hence Cosmas Damianus translates, the king bound in the rafters, that is, he says, Christ bound to the beams of the cross; Vatablus has, the hair of your head is like purple, and is like a king surrounded by channels, that is, dwelling near channels where there are waters; which was most commendable in the Holy Land: for in that dry land, irrigated ground was held in the highest esteem: so Vatablus; but this seems far-fetched and remote, as also the rendering of others who translate, the king surrounded by running attendants, namely soldiers.
The hair of the bride is compared to purple which is bound or tied in channels, so that if any dirt from the dyeing adheres to it, it may be washed off by the water continually flowing through the channels, or rather so that, already dyed in the vessels of the dyer, it may be dyed again and more deeply in the channels through which the purple liquid flows into the vat or dyeing vessel; Pliny calls these vessels cortinae, Book IX, chapter XXXVIII: perhaps also these vessels are here called channels because they were hollow and long like channels.
The sense, therefore, is, meaning: The hair of the bride is ruddy, shining and gleaming like freshly dyed royal purple, indeed twice-dyed, that is, dyed twice, and therefore of vivid and blazing redness: so the interpreters generally. Hear Genebrard and Louis: He compares the hair of the bride to the most precious, most beautiful, and especially freshly dyed purple, which dyers are still drying for kings on the highest channels of buildings, or which they dye in the tubes of their workshops, and keep them bound in those same tubes and channels in which the purple color is contained, so that they may better absorb the color. Sanchez interprets differently, understanding by channels golden or silver ribbons or cords, which shine white like channels and water running through channels, gleaming with silver brightness. Hence also in the Talmud, chapter III on the Paschal Lamb, silver ribbons are called rehate hakkeseph, that is, channels of silver. Gislerius adds that ribbons are called channels because when they bind and press the flowing hair, they cause a kind of little stream and channel of flowing tresses to run through the head.
Moreover, what the Septuagint, Pagninus, Vatablus, Cosmas, and others translate as the king bound in the channels, Theodoret and from him Titelmann explain thus, meaning: The hair of the bride is like a king crowned with a royal crown and clothed in purple, which has folds and grooves like channels, and is aptly fitted and distinguished by these as by furrows. The hair of the bride is beautifully crowned with twisted curls, folded and grooved; it is therefore beautiful both in color, because it is purple, and in its binding and arrangement, because it is elegantly bound, bent, and braided with golden ribbons or bands. Finally, the color of purple is the color of blood; hence Pliny, Book IX, chapter XXXVIII: The highest praise of purple, he says, is the color of clotted blood, shining when viewed; hence Homer calls blood purple, and following him Virgil: He vomits forth his purple soul: for the soul, that is, life, is said in Scripture to be in the blood, indeed some philosophers thought that the soul was nothing other than blood, as attested by Aristotle, Book I of On the Soul.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church, or the Synagogue.
The head of the Synagogue to be converted to Christ will be Christ and after Christ Elijah, as I said; the hair of this head, therefore, will be religious and zealous men, disciples and followers of Elijah: for just as hairs grow from the head and adorn and protect it, so these, proceeding from the teaching and spirit of Elijah, will honor, defend, help, and fight for him against Antichrist and the anti-Christians; and therefore they will be killed by him and will be dyed and adorned with their own blood as with the purple of martyrdom. And this purple of blood will be similar to the blood with which Christ was purpled in His passion, indeed from it they will draw all their strength, color, and beauty, just as if they were bound to the five wounds of Christ as to channels, reddened and purpled by them. Therefore these excellent and most brave martyrs at the end of the world, joined to Christ the King like hair to the head through faith and charity, and bound to His sacred wounds as to channels through affection and meditation, will draw and imbibe from them purple, that is, the strength and beauty of martyrdom: so Alcazar, Cosmas Damianus, Honorius, Delrio, and the others cited at the beginning of the chapter.
So also by the purple hair St. Gregory understands the desire for martyrdom; so also Justus of Urgel and Aponius, who also adds that the channels signify the example of the virtue of martyrs, which they transmit to others. The Septuagint version fits here: the king bound in the channels; Cosmas has, in the rafters, meaning: Christ bound to the beams of the cross, from them as from channels He distills upon us the purple of His blood, and through it strengthens us for martyrdom, so that we may be purpled with our own blood even as He was with His; the Septuagint, therefore, here clearly signify the mystery of the cross of Christ, when they say the hair of the bride is the same color as purple, and subjoin the reason, that the king is bound, indeed nailed with nails, above the hair of the Shulamite, that is, the bride, and that from his wounds blood flows through five channels, and the Shulamite receives the entire flow upon her tresses. The king bound in channels, or with channels, namely the king with five channels of blood flowing from his wounds, is above the cross bound with the bonds of love and fastened with three nails, and from all his wounds there bursts forth purple, with which the hair of the Shulamite herself, representing the devotion of the religious Church, is thoroughly imbued. A certain pious sculpture serves this consideration wonderfully, which depicts St. Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, embracing it with uncovered head, and in such a way that the blood flowing from Christ stains her hair with the color of Tyrian purple: so Alcazar.
This also agrees with what the Septuagint translates as the king bound on the beams, because just as Christ was king on the cross, conquering and ruling over sin, hell, and the devil, so likewise the religious person crucified with Christ is a king ruling over himself, over vices, over affections, and over the whole world, as St. Chrysostom teaches in his treatise On the Comparison of the King and the Monk, and from him our Hieronymus Platus, Book II of On the Good of the Religious State, chapter XVI.
The Chaldean version fits here: And the poor of the people, who walked near the prince, here and there, because they are needy, it shall come to pass that they shall be clothed in purple, just as Daniel was clothed in the city of Babylon, and Mordecai in Susa, on account of the merit of Abraham, whom He made king from the beginning as ruler of the world; and on account of the justice of Isaac, whom his father bound in order to offer him; and on account of the dignity of Jacob, who peeled the rods in the channels.
Hence also Cassiodorus and Bede by the purple in the channels understand saints fixed in humility, in which the purple of the eternal king is dipped, and all saints striving to imitate the humility of their Redeemer and be conformed to His sufferings, insofar as they are turned into the dignity of purple and, laboring for Christ, merit to be crowned with Christ. And this purple is said to be bound because their hearts are fixed and established in the fear and love of their Redeemer, nor can they ever be separated from His charity. These things could also be applied to the cardinals of the Roman Church, for they like purple hair adorn the head of the Pontiff, and therefore wear purple, so that this may remind them to shed their blood for Christ if need be, and at the end of the world, fighting with the Pontiff against Antichrist, they will truly shed it, as of old St. Lawrence, St. Cyriacus, and other first cardinals shed theirs with St. Sixtus, Marcellus, Cornelius, Urban, and the other early popes.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The purple hair of the soul is the abundance of pious thoughts and affections, and especially the desire for mortification and martyrdom, which the soul draws from the drops of blood dripping from Christ on the cross, which she continually drinks and absorbs in meditation; she herself, therefore, like the hair of the purpled Christ, depending entirely from Him as from the head, bound by contemplation to the channels of His wounds, shines with the double-dye of love for God and neighbor and of martyrdom, nor is she permitted to wander and dissipate in thinking about other things.
Hence St. Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17: She herself, he says, as if well-deserving, is crowned with the blood of Christ the King, as it is written, Canticle VII, 5: And the ornament of your head is like purple. The blood of Christ is the purple which stains the souls of the saints, shining not only with color but also with power, because it makes kings, and better kings, to whom it gives an eternal kingdom. So also Theodoret, Honorius, Rupert. Hear also the three Anonymous authors recorded by Theodoret: The hair of your head is like purple, that is, the doctrine of Christ woven together by the connection of reasons and morals, like the garment of a king, is the covering of your soul, in which it rules over disturbances, and is the king bound in the channels, that is, subject to no disturbance, but bound by the cord of that divine doctrine we spoke of in the passages of the present life, lest it slip on the slippery surface of sensible and perishable things.
Moreover the pious mind binds itself to the passion of Christ with the cord of love, and thus in turn Christ is bound by the same cord; hence Sanchez, understanding cords by channels, teaches that the pious soul through holy thoughts and meditations on the passion of Christ so binds the same Christ, not unwilling but willing, to herself that she cannot think, will, or desire anything else, and in turn Christ does not allow Himself to be separated from her thought and love; for how should the desires which aspire to Him alone not capture and hold the most gentle spirit of Christ the bridegroom? How should those bonds not bind, by which the faithful bride has so restrained her thoughts that she has cut off all ability to think about anything except the bridegroom? O therefore the blessed bonds of religious, that is, of those who are re-bound, by which they have bound the movements and inclinations of their souls lest, slipping from God, they go off in different directions! For unless the bonds are broken, they bind Christ to themselves as their bridegroom and king entirely.
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Physically the hair of the Blessed Virgin's head was a golden tending to purple, as I said above from St. Epiphanius and Nicephorus. Ethically the hair, that is, the thoughts of the Virgin, were continually dyed with the memory and compassion of the purple of the King, that is, of the passion of Christ: for which reason she truly was a martyr. The meaning, therefore, is, says Hailgrin: Your mind was prudently circumcised, and your thoughts, dyed in the blood of the Lord's passion, were always so affected as if they saw fresh blood flowing from the wounds. A bundle of myrrh dwelt between her breasts, until she was assumed to the joy which absorbed all sorrow.
More fully William says: The purple of the King, he says, is the flesh of the Redeemer, red with His own blood; that flesh was the sacred garment of the Word, from whom the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, John I, 14; but at the time of the passion it was dyed in its own blood into a royal purple to be adored by men and angels; hence in Philippians II, 9, the Apostle says that on account of the passion of death, the Father gave Him the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. But while that sacred flesh, which the Truth had taken for Himself from the propitious Virgin, was being pierced with nails and lance to draw forth the price of human redemption, according to the prophecy of the truthful Simeon, a sword was passing through the soul of the pious mother, Luke II, 35. As many wounds as the Son received in His flesh, so many the pious mother received in her heart; what four or three nails and one lance did in the flesh of the Son, that one sword did in the soul of the mother. The flesh of the Son was red with the blood of the passion; those maternal thoughts were red, so to speak, with the blood of compassion; well therefore it is said to her, Canticle VII, 3: The hair of your head is like the purple of the king. And what is added, bound in channels, signifies that the dyeing of that royal garment, which was accomplished by the passion, was immediately followed by the abundance of His grace, which in sacred letters is signified by water. See what was said on chapter V, verse 9, on those words: You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, with one hair of your neck.
Finally Philo, bishop of Carpathia, translating from the Septuagint in a new way as the king awesome in his excursions, explains it of the excursion of Christ from heaven through the Blessed Virgin to earth and hell, and His return to heaven: From heaven, he says, He ran forth to earth as a bridegroom proceeding from the virginal chamber into the world; and descending even to hell, He destroyed death and carried off the spoils of the underworld. He alone was altogether awesome in His journeys and deeds, which He performed for our salvation, constrained by no bonds of necessity, but overcome by the ardor of immense charity and by the ineffable magnitude of His goodness He advanced to these mortal things and voluntarily approached painful things; and that He might gift us with His immortality, He was clothed with our mortality, nowhere deserting us, nowhere abandoning us, but everywhere cherishing and protecting us: for He says, Matthew XXVIII, 20: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. O the incomparable power of love! O the supreme goodness!
THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH To the Synagogue Now Believing in Christ.
VERSE 6. HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE AND HOW GRACEFUL, O DEAREST ONE, IN DELIGHTS!
HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE AND HOW GRACEFUL, O DEAREST ONE, IN DELIGHTS! -- From the Hebrew with Pagninus you may translate, O how beautiful you have become and how sweet you have become, O love in delights! that is, of the bridegroom, delighting him; or literally, how beautiful you have been made and how pleasant (or sweet, agreeable, and acceptable), O charity in delights! so the Septuagint. In Hebrew it is bath-taanugim, which by contraction means in delights: but by expansion bath taanugim means the same as daughter of delights, as Aquila and the Syriac translate, that is, most delicate and most delightful; hence Vatablus translates, holding the primacy in delights, by which you wonderfully delight yourself, the bridegroom, and us the young women of Zion and all others. The Arabic has, how beautiful is your grace, how delightful you are, O love in delights!
Many think these are the words of the bridegroom, continuing to praise the bride, the Synagogue.
Others better think these are the words of the chorus of young women of Zion, that is, of the virgins and maidens of the new Jerusalem and Christian Zion, who, having heard from the bridegroom such great praises of the bride member by member, marvel at her beauty and exclaim: How beautiful you are, etc., or rather that these are the words of the Church of the Gentiles, which rejoices with and congratulates the Synagogue of the Jews converted to Christ, and exulting applauds her as a sister now in the faith (for it was fitting that a sister do this for a sister), saying: How beautiful you are, etc. That this is so will be clear from verse 9, where it says: Your throat is like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink. Which words are evidently not the bridegroom's but the chorus of young women; for the bride would not say of herself worthy for my beloved, but worthy for me. And from verses 7 and 8: Your stature (O bride) is likened to a palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of wine. I said: I will climb the palm tree: for Christ does not ascend the palm tree of the bride, but rather descends, since He is far taller than she.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
The chorus of young women, that is, the maidens of Jerusalem, namely souls new and imperfect in the faith, will applaud the Synagogue of the Jews to be converted by Elijah, saying: How beautiful you are, O my Lady, and how graceful in delights! which you yourself enjoy, and with which you wonderfully delight Christ the bridegroom and us your young women, and you appear all the more beautiful because from such a long and dark deformity of unfaithfulness and ignorance of Christ and of your salvation, you have suddenly emerged to such fervent faith and zeal, so perfectly that you have given to Christ very many and most brave martyrs, who, as I already said, like the hair of your head, like the purple of the king bound in channels, wonderfully adorn and beautify it. This is what Isaiah foretold, exulting in the spirit, chapter XXXV, verse 1: The desert and the pathless place shall rejoice, and the wilderness shall exult and bloom like a lily. It shall bud forth and bud, and shall exult with joy and praise: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God.
Hear St. Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17, verse 5: How beautiful and sweet you have become, O charity, in your delights! Beautiful with the grace of virtue, sweet with the pleasantness of grace, with the remission of vices, which no bitterness of sin troubles, and that very charity which has received God and His name through love; because God is charity. Cassiodorus says: The new bride, he says, is the Synagogue of the Jews; she will be beautiful in faith, graceful in works. Honorius says: Beautiful on account of external works, graceful on account of internal virtues. The three Anonymous authors recorded by Theodoret say: You are surrounded by admirable beauty, that indeed which comes to you from the likeness and the exemplar; for joined to the bridegroom and enjoying Him, you are filled with incredible spiritual pleasantness.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul through grace and heroic works, especially of patience in adversity and of martyrdom, becomes so beautiful that she is a daughter of delights, that is, the attraction and delight of God, of the angels, and of all the saints. Wherefore St. James, chapter I, verse 2: Count it all joy, he says, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations: knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. And patience has a perfect work. And Paul, Romans V, 3: We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience. Hence the Chaldean translates: King Solomon said: How beautiful you are, O congregation of Israel, in the time when you bear the yoke of my kingdom, in the time when I correct you in infirmities on account of your sins, and you accept it in charity, and they seem to you delights.
The delights of the holy soul, therefore, are, first, tribulations and crosses; second, divine sweetnesses, inspirations, and spiritual consolations, which God breathes into those faithful and devoted to Him and especially those in tribulation, and above all the hope of heavenly glory: so Cassiodorus. Third, Theodoret says these delights are of love and charity: For you love, he says, the bridegroom who loves you, and placing all your delights in His love, you have despised all other things. Fourth, Rupert says: What is it, he says, to be beautiful and graceful in delights, except to have meekness and the greatest humility of heart in the abundance of grace? Fifth, these delights are the Holy Scriptures: hear St. Gregory: It should be noted, he says, that she is called dearest in delights, because no one arrives at the charity and familiarity of Christ who does not strive to abound in the delights of Holy Scripture. For thus it is said, Matthew chapter XIII, verse 12: To everyone who has, it will be given and he will abound; but from him who does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him: for he who abounds in these delights is refreshed; refreshed by them, he is continually prepared to receive greater things. Sixth, St. Augustine, treatise 65 on John, teaches that the death which charity inflicts is most sweet, and that these are the delights of charity, and charity in delights: for thus he says: O how well it is sung to you in your wedding song, Canticle VII, 6: Because charity is in your delights! It does not lose your soul with the impious, it distinguishes your cause, and it is as strong as death, and is in your delights. How wonderful a kind of death, for which it was not enough not to be in pains, unless it were moreover in delights.
For this reason the bride is here called ahaba, that is, love, affection, charity in delights, that is, most delightfully and supremely lovable, beloved, dear (our Vulgate translates, dearest), so much so that she seems to be love itself, beauty itself, sweetness and grace itself, the very delights themselves: because charity is in delights for her, that is, because she loves what is truly lovable; because she cherishes what is worthy of charity and love: so Sanchez.
Thus the third daughter of St. Sophia, a virgin and martyr, was called Charity, as if she was supremely lovable to God and men. So St. Lieba, or Lioba, in England, conceived by noble parents through a vow, consecrated to God from earliest age by her parents according to their vow, received this name because she was beloved of God and men: for Lieb in German means beloved; therefore, piously educated in a monastery, she attained remarkable holiness. Hear the author of her Life: She was angelic in appearance, pleasant in speech, brilliant in talent, great in counsel, catholic in faith, most patient in hope, overflowing in charity; and although she always presented a cheerful face, she was never dissolved into laughter by excessive merriment. Wherefore, elected as abbess, she governed the nuns subject to her with outstanding prudence and holiness: therefore, frequently summoned by the Emperor Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard, she was held in honor by them and received with great reverence, so much so that Hildegard at Aachen, kissing the eyes of her departing guest, said: Farewell forever, O lady and most beloved sister, farewell, precious portion of my soul. May Christ our creator and redeemer grant that we may see each other on the day of judgment without confusion. For in this life we shall never again enjoy each other's sight from this day. She was renowned for many miracles. Her Life, written by Rudolf, a serious man, is found in Surius under September 28.
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Nothing is more beautiful, nothing more lovely, nothing more pleasant, nothing more delightful in all creation than the Blessed Virgin: wherefore the Church in the Office sings to her this antiphon taken from here: You have been made beautiful and sweet in your delights, O holy Mother of God. How beautiful, says Hailgrin, you are in motherhood, how graceful in virginity, how admirable in both! For, as William rightly explains: In what delights of holy joy she lived, when she clasped God the Word in maternal embraces and pressed sacred kisses of her maternal mouth upon Him; when she nourished at her maternal breasts Him who in heaven fed the angels from Himself, and ministered the other offices of maternal piety as the time required! Finally, in all these things, not unaware of the divine mystery and her privilege, she knew very well that she was the mother of Majesty, and to know this was her singular and continual delight.
Moreover, as regards the present matter, the Blessed Virgin will be beautiful and graceful with the conversion of so many Jews to herself and her Son through Elijah, which she herself will procure, as charity in delights, so that she may offer her charity to them to taste, and in turn delight and take pleasure in their charity and holiness. Hence she is the delight, desire, and joy not only of men on earth but also of angels and the blessed in heaven, so that all sing to her: The dwelling of all who rejoice is in you, O holy Mother of God.
Finally Philo, reading (although against the testimony of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin codices), how beautiful and powerful you have become, refers it to Christ the bridegroom as man: Charity in your delights, that is, he says, what Wisdom, that is Christ, says, Proverbs VIII, 31: And My delights are to be with the children of men: for He embraces us with such charity that He desires nothing other than that we always be with Him, for this He craves from us, this He demands, this He urgently requests; hence He adds: This is your greatness, you are likened to a palm tree, meaning: The greatness of your immense charity is likened to a palm tree: for the palm tree shows the inner charity of the heart and the virtue and power of invincible faith, etc., which lifts the heart to things above and eternal, and is broken by no adversities, but amid all things, indeed above all things, endures unconquered and reigns.
VERSE 7. YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE, AND YOUR BREASTS TO CLUSTERS.
YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE. -- The Hebrew has, this your stature; the Septuagint, this your greatness, which the Complutensian editors refer to what preceded, in this manner: love in your delights, this is your greatness, meaning: Your delightful love is your greatness; Aquila has, this your raising up, or resurrection, by which, O Synagogue, you have risen from unfaithfulness to faith, from death to life, from Moses to Christ; Symmachus has, this your youth, or your age especially flourishing, vigorous, and fit for service, which began from the age of 17 according to Plutarch in his Life of Gracchus, denoting the vigorous and strong age of the Synagogue in the faith of Christ, with which she will fight against Antichrist even unto death. The Syriac has, this your stature, which I have described up to this point; the Arabic has, your fame, or nature and character, is magnified like a palm tree; for the palm tree grows straight upward, and at the top has a head and crown similar to a human's.
The sense is, meaning: O new bride, you are tall, and with a high neck and body like a palm tree: for this is a great dowry and praise which women seek after, and therefore they raise their necks, place towering caps on their heads, and put high buskins on their feet, so that they may seem taller. Hence Ovid says of Galatea, Book XIV of the Metamorphoses: Taller than the tall alder.
Anagogically Honorius says: The delights, he says, of the Church reigning with Christ are the joys of the paradise of exultation: in these delights she is beautiful and graceful, because she shines like the sun and moon, and is most dear to Christ and the angels.
First Adequate Sense: Of Christ and the Church.
YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE. -- The stature of the Synagogue converted to Christ and to be converted by Elijah, likened to a palm tree, denotes her great and lofty spirit, by which she will generously raise herself against the threats and blandishments of Antichrist, and by despising them will transcend and overcome them, to such a degree that she will desire to meet death for Christ, as I said a little before. Hence, just as a palm tree, the more it is pressed down by an imposed weight, the more it raises itself up, so likewise those then converted to Christ, the harsher things they suffer from Antichrist, the stronger they will become. Again, just as a palm tree, as Pliny attests, Book XIII, chapter IV, is not fruit-bearing except in burning, nitrous, or salty soil, and therefore seems by its height to despise the earth and seek heaven and ascend straight toward it, and scarcely to rest on its roots in the ground because it finds nothing there but what is tasteless: so also holy men have their minds fixed on heaven, and therefore all earthly things seem insipid to them, and they love the cross of Christ, and in it strike their roots, are nourished, and grow all the way to heaven, for which they long.
I reviewed more analogies of the palm tree and the Church, or the holy soul, in perpetual greenness, straightness, strength, height, fruit, crown, etc., at Sirach XXIV, 18, on those words: Like a palm tree I was exalted in Kadesh, among which that analogy especially fits the Synagogue which Nyssa attributes to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus in his oration about him, namely that the palm tree alone among trees rises from the earth and grows with the root at its perfect thickness from the point; and as it proceeds straight upward, receiving increase of height, nothing is added to it in thickness, but it remains equally thick, strong, and unbending: for in the same way the Synagogue, to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, will immediately from the beginning receive such thickness and strength of faith and virtue that it will at once become perfect and produce doctors and martyrs who, like Paul, will pour out their soul and life for Christ.
Hence again symbolically by the palm tree you may understand the cross of Christ, from which all grace and strength will come to them, as will be clear from the following sentence: I will climb the palm tree, etc. meaning: Your stature, O Synagogue, is like Christ exalted on the cross, because you give back to Him many martyrs and those crucified by Antichrist. This is what Christ foretold, John XII, 32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself.
AND YOUR BREASTS ARE LIKE CLUSTERS. -- By clusters understand the winged or spathe-like parts of palm trees in which a multitude of dates is contained: for these clearly have the shape of breasts, just like clusters of grapes: so Theodoret, the three Anonymous authors, Gislerius, and Sanchez, although Aben Ezra, whom Louis, Alcazar, and Genebrard follow, here understand clusters of vines and grapes, which in Judea they say are married to palm trees, just as in Apulia they are married to the tallest trees: for vines there grow so thick and tall that they can be matched and joined with the tallest trees, so that a single vine produces as many grapes as suffice to press a vessel of wine. Hence it also follows: I will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit: and your breasts shall be like clusters of the vine: for these are similar to breasts not only in shape but also in juice, for they give wine just as breasts give milk. Hence in chapter I, verse 1, and chapter IV, verse 10, he said: Your breasts are better than wine.
Moreover he joins breasts to stature because when a woman grows in stature and age, her breasts likewise grow and swell, so that as a bride she may be able to conceive, bear, and nourish offspring, according to that text, Ezekiel XVI, 7: And you grew up and matured, and arrived at the age of womanhood: your breasts swelled.
And your breasts are like clusters -- meaning: You supply the milk of your teaching suitably and abundantly to all your children. See the symbols of breasts which I reviewed in chapter IV, verse 5, and chapter I, verse 1. Moreover Alcazar, who understands the clusters not as those of the palm tree, namely dates, but of the vine, namely grapes, explains it thus, meaning: Just as in Judea vines are married to palm trees and produce clusters and wine: so likewise the Synagogue, converted to Christ, will join the cluster and wine with the palm and dates, that is, will join wisdom with holiness, and therefore her breasts will be like clusters of wine, not of milk: because she will nourish her disciples with the wine of perfect wisdom and virtue, namely contempt of the world, zeal, mortification, desire, martyrdom, etc., with which novices are nourished in well-ordered religious orders: for also the disciples of Elijah who will fight against Antichrist will be like religious themselves. These, therefore, like clusters which, having drawn nourishment from heaven, have grown tall, already refined and ripened by the heat of persecutions and tribulations, and pressed with heavy weight in the winepress of the cross, will offer sweet wine to Christ the bridegroom, which will gladden His heart. Breasts like clusters, therefore, signify the outstanding diligence and constancy of the Synagogue in teaching, charity in winning souls, and generosity in nursing little ones, say Philo and Honorius.
Symbolically Honorius says: The stature, he says, of the Church (and the holy soul) is the perseverance of the struggle, which began to grow in Abel and will persevere to the last of the elect, or which took its beginning of growth in the apostles and will be consummated in the final conversion of the Synagogue. The palm tree is rough below and beautiful above, and is called victory, and signifies the life of Christ, which here on earth was in the roughness of sufferings, and after the victory of the cross was in the beauty of heaven. The stature of the bride, therefore, will be likened to the endurance of Christ, because the Church here was rough in tribulations; but having obtained the victory over vices, she shines beautifully in heaven; the palm tree also preserves its leaves, and the Church, though the state of the world changes, holds the same mysteries of the faith. The breasts of the Church are
the two Testaments, from which preachers draw the milk of mystical understanding, which preachers are called breasts because they give the milk of doctrine to the simple; and they are likened to clusters because just as clusters are full of wine, so they are full of knowledge; and just as pressed clusters intoxicate, so they, pressed in the world, offer the milk of doctrine.
Second Partial Sense: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul is like a palm tree, according to that text, Psalm XCI, 13: The just man shall flourish like a palm tree. First, because like a palm tree she is straight through justice. Second, because she is lofty through heavenly life and contemplation, according to that text, Philippians III, 20: Our conversation is in heaven. Third, because she is always green through vigor of soul; hence St. Ambrose, Book III of the Hexaemeron, chapter XVII: Imitate the palm tree, he says, O man, so that it may be said to you also, Canticle VII, 5: Your stature is made like a palm tree. Preserve the greenness of your youth and that natural innocence which you received from the beginning, so that planted by the streams of water you may have your fruit prepared in your season, and your leaf shall not fall, etc. Psalm I, 3. Fourth, because she struggles against adversities and rises higher. Fifth, because she produces dates, that is, the sweetest fruits of almsgiving and other virtues. Sixth, because the palm tree, although it does not grow in the thickness of its trunk, as I said from Nyssa, yet grows in the spreading of its branches and crown; hence St. Gregory says: The palm tree, he says, as it grows, is constricted below and expanded above; so the holy soul begins from the lowest things at the smallest, and gradually growing to greater things arrives at the amplitude of perfect charity. For no one, as it is written, becomes perfect suddenly. And in the Psalm it is said of the just man: The just man shall flourish like a palm tree, Psalm XCI, 13. And the breasts of the bride are the two precepts of charity, which inebriate and nourish with heavenly wine the soul which they possess.
Yet the palm tree can also be understood as the cross of Christ: for the palm tree, growing very high, produces the sweetest fruits, and the cross of Christ has prepared heavenly food for us, to which the stature of the bride is likened, because whoever, greatly loving Christ, imitates Him does not hesitate to die for Christ. Seventh, the palm tree is a symbol of the victory which the saints obtain by fighting against the flesh, the devil, and the world, and of the reward which they will obtain, according to that text, Apocalypse VII, 9: And palms in their hands: so Cassiodorus: The palm, he says, adorns the victorious hand. Eighth, the palm tree is thorny and prickly; so the thorns and prickles in the just are rebukes against sinners, says Philo, by which they chastise their vices.
Again the palm tree is rough below in the trunk, but pleasant above in its branches and sweet in its dates; so also the Holy Church, says Cassiodorus, and the soul in lower things endures the roughness of labors and sufferings for Christ; but in higher things, that is, in heavenly things, she awaits the beauty and sweetness of rewards. Moreover the holy soul has breasts of doctrine and beneficence with which she nurses and nourishes others; hence Theodoret: Although, he says, you are lofty, so much so that you reach the heights of heaven, yet you lower yourself to your weak disciples, to whom, needing doctrine, you offer the breasts of your teaching: for the palm tree has its fruits hanging down.
Moreover Cassiodorus, Bede, and Justus by the breasts understand doctors; but Aponius understands martyrs: for these by the example of their blood, as by milk, nourish and strengthen the lesser faithful in the faith. The Chaldean version fits here: And at the time when the priests extend their hands in prayer and bless their brothers, the house of Israel, their extended fingers are like the branches of palm trees, and their stature is like a palm tree. And your Church stands face to face before the priests, and their faces are bowed to the earth like clusters of grapes. Finally Philo of Carpathia by the stature understands the magnitude of charity, as I said at the end of the preceding verse; hence read thus: Charity in delights, this is your greatness.
Symbolically, the stature of the palm tree represents the four dimensions of the cross, which I reviewed at Ephesians III, 18, by which the holy soul must measure and compare herself, as far as she can. Anagogically Honorius says: The stature of the glorified soul is equality with the angels, to which it is likened as a palm tree, because on earth it was constricted but in heavenly things expanded. Her breasts are compared to clusters because the apostles and other doctors of the Church are full of eternal sweetness.
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin was physically tall in stature, as St. Epiphanius attests, recorded by Nicephorus, Book II, chapter XXIII. Ethically her stature was the loftiness of her spirit, especially in adversity and in the passion of Christ; hence John says of her, chapter XIX, verse 25: There stood by the cross of Jesus His mother. She stood, says William, beside the cross of her Jesus, and by that very fact she was in some way herself raised upon a cross; standing beside the cross of her Son, she had herself in some way through maternal affection become a cross. So therefore when she stood beside that noble palm tree, her stature was likened to a palm tree; but once her Son was glorified, from His resurrection onward, her breasts were likened to clusters; hence there follows: I will climb, etc. The palm tree surpasses other trees not in length but in stature, that is, in its upright bearing and firmness. Mystically such is the Blessed Virgin; hence St. Epiphanius writes of her thus, volume III, heresy 78: When John set out on his journey to Asia, and nowhere does Scripture say that he took the holy Virgin with him, but simply was silent about it on account of the marvel
LIKE CLUSTERS OF THE VINE: AND THE FRAGRANCE OF YOUR MOUTH (the Septuagint, Pagninus and Vatablus read "nose"; the Syriac, "face"; for the Hebrew אן aph signifies nose, face and mouth) LIKE APPLES. — The Septuagint reads, "like apples." For "fruits," the Hebrew is סנסנים sansinnim, which the Septuagint translates as "summits"; the Arabic as "heights"; Aquila as "lofty ones"; Symmachus as "branches"; Vatablus as "vine-shoots." All these amount to the same thing: for they signify the lofty parts, that is, the fruits of the date palms hanging from the tops of the palm branches, as well as the fruits of the vine married to the palm, namely grapes and clusters, as Aben-Ezra, Alcazar, and likewise Delrio and others hold. The breasts are rightly compared to clusters, because they are swelling, succulent, and round; hence the larger clusters are called humasti, that is, the udders of an ox or cow: so great are the breasts of mothers and well-endowed nurses, such as the Synagogue is here depicted. The fragrance of the mouth or nose is the breath or exhalation that is breathed out through the nose and mouth. "A sweet fragrance," says Theodoret, for it smells sweet like apples, both pomegranates, says St. Gregory (for these are frequently mentioned in the Song), and citrons, and any other kind: for the scent of fruits is sweet and sharp, and has something of a wine-like quality.
Most fully, Alan says: "The Blessed Virgin (like a palm) had a rough bark, because in regard to worldly honor she was weak, in regard to temporal riches she was poor; but she had firmness of strength through constancy of mind. She was upright in trunk, because she was suspended toward heaven by the intention of her soul, beautiful at the summit in the loftiness of virginity and humility, delightful in flower, because without concupiscence she conceived the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. Sweet in bearing fruit, because without pain she brought forth the Redeemer of the world. She is set before us as a sign of victory and an example, so that just as she conquered the world, sin, and the devil, so we too may conquer according to our ability. The breasts of Mary are called virginity and humility, in which Christ was delighted, and which are set before us for our formation and instruction, so that we may follow in her footsteps. And they are compared to clusters, because a cluster in flower produces fragrance, in fruit produces sweetness, and also warms and refreshes: so the virginity and humility of the Virgin are fragrant with the scent of good repute, offer the fruit of sweetness, warm to love, and refresh to spiritual satisfaction."
Furthermore, all these things which have been said about the form and beauty of the Church, the holy soul, and the Mother of God, and her members — namely the feet, thighs, navel, belly, breasts, neck, eyes, nose, head, hair, and stature — from verse 1 up to this point, and which will be said hereafter, may, with a change of name, be applied to the humanity assumed by the Word in Christ. For this is the first and most intimate bride of the Word, who betroths the Church, holy souls, and the Mother of God to the same Word, as I said in the Proem, Chapter II.
The Voice of the Chorus of Young Women.
VERSE 8. I SAID: I WILL GO UP INTO THE PALM TREE, AND WILL TAKE HOLD OF ITS FRUIT: AND YOUR BREASTS SHALL BE LIKE CLUSTERS OF THE VINE: AND THE FRAGRANCE OF YOUR MOUTH LIKE APPLES. I SAID: I WILL GO UP INTO THE PALM TREE (the Syriac and Arabic read: "by the palm tree, to pluck its dates"), AND WILL TAKE HOLD OF ITS FRUIT: AND YOUR BREASTS SHALL BE LIKE—
His excellence, lest He should drive the human mind to stupor." So also St. Dionysius, in his epistle to St. John, says that he was so astonished at the appearance and majesty of the Virgin that, had not faith taught him that there is one God in heaven, he would surely have believed this Virgin to be a goddess; and Honorius in the Seal of Mary: "Christ," he says, "was the palm on the cross, because through it man obtains the palm of victory; to which the stature, that is, the loftiness of Mary's glory, was likened, because just as He Himself is King of heaven, so she is queen of the angels; and your breasts are like clusters, that is, your merits are likened to martyrs, who like clusters are pressed by sufferings." Again, the palm-like stature of the Blessed Virgin was the uprightness of good intention and the direction of holy action, by which, like the palm of Christ's cross, she triumphs over evil spirits, says Hailgrinus.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
He persists in the similitude of the palm, as if to say: Just as a palm tree with its frequent bark segments, like steps, entices onlookers to climb to the top, so that there they may pluck the clusters both of the palm — that is, dates — and of the vine married to it — that is, grapes — so you, O Synagogue, who have grown to the height and beauty of a palm, entice me, namely the chorus of young women, that is, of souls imperfect in faith and piety, to ascend to your loftiness and reach the breasts similar to your clusters, and from them to suck milk, indeed the wine of sublime doctrine, which may lead me to the perfection of the Christian life, and at the same time to draw from your mouth the sweet-smelling spirit of piety and holiness: so Hortolanus, Sanchez and Delrio. Hear the three Anonymous commentators cited by Theodoret: "Deliberating within myself, I said: I will ascend by the imitation of virtue to the perfection of your teaching, and by contemplation I will grasp its sublimity. And the breasts of your discipline, which naturally nourish me, will be altogether like clusters of the true vine, who is Christ, offering me the grace of divinity, which, in the manner of wine, moves the mind away from nature and transports it above nature. Whence also the fragrance of your nose is like apples, namely the grace of the Holy Spirit, filling the mind with sweetness, which you, having received from the bridegroom, pour into us. Just as apples are beautiful to look at, sweet to smell, and pleasant to taste, so she herself will be for us both fair in the ways of virtue, fragrant with the elegance of speech, and sweet with the delight of experience." First, then, by the palm understand the stat-
-ure, that is, the loftiness of the palms of the Synagogue: for the preceding discourse was about this; the loftiness, I say, not of body, but of spirit and virtue. Second, symbolically by the palm understand the cross of Christ; for the stature of the Synagogue was likened to a palm both naturally and symbolically, that is, to the cross of Christ, because she herself through the cross grew to the greatness of a palm in virtue and spirit. Hence by the palm, Cassiodorus, Justus, St. Gregory, Honorius, William here, and Tertullian, Book III Against Marcion, and St. Cyprian, sermon On the Passion, Peter Damian, sermon On the Finding of the Cross, understand the cross of Christ. On this account many hold that the cross of Christ was made from palm wood, and that this is signified here, about which more shortly.
Hence again Cassiodorus, Philo, Honorius, St. Gregory, Aponius, Bede, Anselm, Rupert and many others take these words as referring to Christ about to ascend the cross. Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Tragedy on Christ's Suffering, holds that Christ was nailed to the cross not on the ground, but to the cross already erected and fixed in the ground, by means of ladders: the same is held by St. Bernard, On the Passion of the Lord (or whoever the author may be), Chapter V, and St. Bonaventure in the Bundle of Myrrh, Chapter III. However, others commonly hold the opposite, namely that Christ was nailed to the cross while it lay on the ground: for this was easier and more convenient: so hold St. Anselm, Book On the Passion, Blessed Laurence Justinian, sermon On the Passion of the Lord, St. Antoninus in his Chronicles, Part I, Luysius, Book II On the Cross, Chapter VII, and others, and Francisco Suarez inclines to this view; yet the former opinion, that Christ was nailed to the cross while it was erect, is confirmed by the fact that this was a greater punishment and greater ignominy producing greater terror, and St. Bridget, Book VII of Revelations, Chapter XV, asserts that this was revealed to her by Christ while she was praying on Mount Calvary; hence St. Ambrose, Book X on Luke, teaches that Christ ascended the cross; and St. Cyprian, treatise On the Passion: "You ascended, O Lord," he says, "the palm, because that wood of Your cross foreshadowed triumph." The same is expressly taught by Nicephorus, Book I, Chapter XXX, Toledo on John Chapter XIX, Annotation 14, Rutilius, Benzonius, Paleottus and others, whom Daniel Mallonius cites, Annotation on Chapter VI of Alphonsus Paleottus's On the Marks of the Holy Shroud, and Consalvus Durantus, Annotation on Book VII of the Revelations of St. Bridget, Chapter XV — But this matter must be treated more fully at Matthew XXVII, 33.
Hear Honorius: "That the stature of your perseverance was likened to the palm of My victory, this is because I ascended the palm and drew you after Me to victory: namely because I was exalted on the cross, I drew all things to Myself, and among them you also. For I said, that is, I firmly decreed with the Father before all ages, that I would ascend the palm, that is, the cross, and conquer the tyrant, and then take hold of its fruit, namely all those to be saved, of whom the last are the Jews, and having conquered the tyrant, I would draw back the fugitives to Myself." And after some further words: "The true Shunamite
without labor is compared to its fruit, which is at the top. Hence for "fruit" the Septuagint here translates "summits": on this account Rupert, Honorius and William hold that Christ's ascending the palm and taking hold of its fruit is the same as being lifted up from the earth and drawing all things to Himself, John XII, 32; because this ascent onto the cross through nails, lance and thorns was difficult for Christ, so that He might obtain its fruit and summit, that is, dominion over the world.
Hear Rupert: "He ascended the palm by the hands of soldiers who unknowingly serve My divine condescension. As far as it was in their power, they crucified a man miserably about to die; as far as it concerned Me, I ascended the palm as a king about to triumph. Of this palm indeed the Jews, ignorant of the divine dispensation, urged Him to descend, saying, Matthew XXVII, 42: If He is the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross. I had ascended the palm, and therefore I would not come down, the fruits not yet having been formed (for the palm was still in flower when they said such things to Him); but when, having tasted the vinegar, I said, John Chapter XIX, 30: It is consummated, and bowing My head, I delivered up My spirit, then the fruits of the world's redemption were on the palm."
For this reason many hold that the cross of Christ was made at least in part from palm wood; hence the well-known verse, which the Gloss cites in Clement, On the Supreme Trinity: The woods of the cross: palm, cedar, cypress, olive. Indeed, many contend that the transverse beam of the cross, to which Christ's hands were nailed, was made of palm, and therefore it says: "I will take hold of (with my hands) its fruit"; hence the verse: The trunk is of cedar, the tall cypress holds the body: The palm holds the hands, the olive rejoices in the inscription. See Gretser, Book I On the Cross, Chapter V; Lipsius, Book III On the Cross, Chapter XII; Delrio, lecture 40 On the Passion of the Lord. To this purpose is that reading according to the Septuagint formerly found in Psalm XCV, 9: God reigned from the wood, whence also the crowd went out to meet Christ entering Jerusalem, as if the Messiah king about to be inaugurated on the cross, with palm branches singing, Matthew XXI, 15: "Hosanna to the son of David!" as if to say: Long live our Messiah king, the son and heir of David.
To this purpose is the version of the Chaldean, who, referring to the prophets of the Jews in his usual manner, translates thus: "The Lord said in His word: I will go up and test Daniel, and I will see if he can stand in this trial, as Abraham stood, who was likened to a branch of palms, whom I tested with ten trials, and I will also test Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; and if they can stand in their trials, I will redeem on account of their merits the people of the house of Israel, who are compared to clusters of grapes; and the name of Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael will be heard in all the earth, and their fragrance will be sweet, like the scent of the fruits of the garden of delight."
Furthermore, the palm is a symbol of victory and dominion, which Christ and the Church obtained through the cross: Philo gives the reason, Book II On the Life of Moses: because the vital force of the palm (which it has not buried in the root like other trees, but at the top, as it were the heart of the trunk amid the branches) is surrounded on all sides by the branches themselves, like a prince by his bodyguards; and because just as a kingdom is protected by military garrison and is neither acquired nor preserved without labor or struggle, so also the palm, whose leaves present the appearance of swords, as if by a military garrison
of patience and charity: there also she draws in the fragrance of Christ's mouth, that is, the sweet scent of the modesty, obedience, love and prayer of Christ praying for those who crucified Him, so that she may love and imitate these virtues of His. Hence St. Ambrose, Book On Isaac, Chapter VIII, by the palm understands charity, for this is the palm of all virtues, and therefore it shone forth most brightly on the palm of Christ's cross. "Charity itself," says St. Ambrose, "is the palm, for it is the fullness of victory: 'the fullness of the law is charity,' Romans Chapter XIII, verse 10"; the same, Book III of the Hexameron, Chapter XIII: "'I said,' he says, 'I will ascend the palm, I will hold its heights.' She who sees the eminence of the Word, and hopes that she can ascend to His height and to the summit of knowledge, said: I will ascend the palm, so that she may leave all lower things and strive for higher things toward the prize of Christ, so that she may pluck and taste His sweet fruits: for the fruit of virtue is sweet." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 22 to the People: "You also say," he says, "after that holy soul: I said: I will ascend the palm to hold its heights; loving uprightness, and having a pure heart, and running toward heavenly goods, not being distracted only by earthly things. See that your palm has thorns as rebukes against sin: for the words of the wise are like ox-goads; but let those who are pricked by them be pierced in heart and abstain from all sin; but diligently hold its heights, so that you may remain without ruin, continually bearing the assaults of winds." Philo gives the reason, namely that the fruits of the cross are very many and very great: "For Christ," he says, "loved us so greatly that He did not hesitate to undergo the most bitter death of the cross, and He not only conquered its heights of all pains and torments, ignominy and disgrace, but even made them lovable and glorious, and truly heavenly and saving." Hence Paul, that outstanding preacher and teacher, glories in the ignominy and suffering of the cross, when he says, Galatians VI, 14: "But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Hence the rest of the apostles and all the other faithful have obtained and will obtain the rewards of their labors. In this one thing all temptations, and the pangs of afflictions are calmed and overcome; through this the disturbances of the soul and even mortal wounds are most happily healed. Hence it comes about that we have what follows, for it says, Song Chapter VII, 8: And your breasts shall be like clusters of the vine: and the fragrance of your nose like the most fragrant apple. For just as clusters of the vine, trodden and pressed, pour out their most joyful juice into the bosom of the farmer and vine-dresser, so the righteous and holy men of God, afflicted and tortured like clusters by the dire torments and pressures of men, through their saving victory bring forth and produce heavenly joy for God their cultivator and for Jesus Christ, and for the bride, and by the fragrance of holiness and virtues they attract and draw the rest of Christ's imitators to the same." Philo adds: "Just as apples or fruits provide both food and drink from themselves, in that
they contain both in themselves at once, so also the good fragrance of the Church, from right faith and sincere charity, possesses and drinks the mystical drink and food of the body and blood of Christ, which is clear from what follows; for it says, Song VII, 9: And your throat like good wine, coming to my brother in uprightness, which satisfies my lips and teeth." So also Theodoret refers these words to the Eucharist, as if it were said to Christ: You are that true vine from which saving wine is made, pressed out in spiritual wine-presses: whence that inebriating cup is filled, truly glorious.
Tropologically, St. Gregory takes the pomegranates as martyrs and the mouth of the bride as the preaching of the Church: "She," he says, "while she proclaims the virtues of the martyrs, while she stirs the minds of hearers to their likeness, while in the preaching of one faith she manifests many virtues — what else does she carry in her mouth but the fragrance of apples? For she shows the redness of the rind in the martyrdom she proclaims, and demonstrates the multitude of seeds in virtues under the same faith, as under the same rind." Moreover, the palm is owed to martyrs: for, as St. Ambrose says, Sermon 38, which is on the Second Sunday of Lent: "The palm of martyrdom is a certain reward, which gives sweet fruit to the confessing tongue and bestows glorious adornment on the victorious right hand. The palm is indeed pleasant to the martyrs for food, shady for rest, honorable for triumph, ever green, ever ready for victory, and therefore the palm does not wither, because the victory of the martyrs 'does not wither.'"
Anagogically, Honorius says: "The triumphant Church," he says, "ascends the palm, because through the victory of the cross she reaches the tree of life, of which it is written: To the victor I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God, Revelation Chapter II, 7. She has already taken hold of its fruit, from which whoever eats will not die for ever. Her breasts are like clusters of the vine, because the joys with which she is inebriated in place of the world's pressures are like the joys of Christ pressed on the cross: for He Himself is the cluster of the vine, the drink of the Church, the fountain of life; by Him she will be inebriated, when it shall be said to her, Matthew XXI, 23: Enter into the joy of your Lord; then her fragrances will be like those of apples, that is, her delights will be like those of angels; and her throat, like the finest wine, that is, her praise will be like the praise of those feasting."
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul eager for perfection says with St. Paul, Philippians III, 12: "I do not consider myself to have apprehended, but I press on, if by any means I may apprehend, in which I also have been apprehended by Christ Jesus": therefore, with David, she arranges ascents in her heart, to go from virtue to virtue, says Theodoret, and specifically she ascends the palm of mortification and the cross of Christ: there she sucks the breasts, not of milk, but of strong wine, namely of invincible pa-
Again, after Christ ascended the palm of the cross, He immediately took hold of its fruits; for on the third day He rose gloriously from death, and on the fortieth day He ascended triumphantly into heaven, and on the fiftieth day He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin and the apostles; and then the breasts of the Blessed Virgin became like clusters of the vine, because then she began to reveal to the faithful, and especially to St. Luke, who recorded them in his Gospel, the mysteries of the conception, nativity, passion, and the other events of Christ's life, especially the secret ones known to her alone, as having been accomplished in her or by her; then likewise she openly began to serve the wine of penance, consolation, grace and holy exultation to sinners and the afflicted who took refuge with her.
"And the fragrance of your mouth like apples," because in her words there was not only holy delight, with sweet wholesomeness, but also vital refreshment, which indeed the primitive Church, receiving from her mouth full of wholesome sweetness, transmitted to posterity in both words and writings: this fragrance of hers, therefore, was spread throughout all the ends of the earth and through all ages of time. So says William.
Honorius adds: "The vine from which the cluster was brought was the flowering body of Mary; that cluster was pressed in the wine-press of the cross: and from it flowed the drink of the faithful."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Rupert, along with others holding that these are the words of the bridegroom, says that Christ signified to His mother that He was about to go to His passion: for thus he introduces Christ speaking: "For if I said to My friends themselves, Matthew XX, 18: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified, and many other things pertaining to this sense: indeed, if I also said to My enemies, John
Chapter XII, 32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself; how much more did I say, or ought I to have said, to My most dear mother, Song VII, 8 and 9: I will go up into the palm tree, and will take hold of its fruit, and your breasts shall be like clusters of the vine, and your fragrance like apples: your throat like the finest wine. This was to say: I shall be exalted on the victorious cross, and by dying a fruitful death I shall swiftly accomplish the salvation of all believers: and then your teaching, both legal and evangelical, will at the opportune time be openly preached, just as in autumn sweet clusters are eaten; and the good fragrance of your good works will be spread everywhere, and your speech will be most sweet and delightful to Me."
VERSE 9. YOUR THROAT IS LIKE THE FINEST WINE, WORTHY FOR MY BELOVED TO DRINK, AND FOR HIS LIPS AND TEETH TO RUMINATE.
YOUR THROAT IS LIKE THE FINEST WINE (the Zurich Bible: dripping with the most excellent wine), WORTHY FOR MY BELOVED TO DRINK, AND FOR HIS LIPS AND TEETH TO RUMINATE. — The Hebrew reads: your palate (O bride Synagogue, for the affixed pronoun in חכך chichech, meaning "your," is feminine) is like good wine (par excellence, that is, the finest) which goes to my beloved in uprightness (that is, it enters his mouth smoothly and pleasantly, as our translator renders it, Proverbs XXIII, 31. Pagninus translates, on account of the goodness of the wine; Symmachus, befitting my beloved in uprightness; the Arabic, by which my beloved goes toward uprightness; the Zurich Bible, which renders my loves fit for what is most upright) speaking or sounding on the lips of those sleeping; or as Pagninus renders it, causing the lips of those sleeping to speak or murmur. Agathius: causing to speak
the lips of old men to speak: for excellent wine, after drinking, returns to the mouth and lips, and makes them chew, murmur and speak, according to the saying: Whom have bountiful cups not made eloquent? So the Sicilians, says Nigidius the Sicilian here, call the finest wine "wine of the dead," because it seemingly raises the dead and makes them speak; hence our translator renders it, "for ruminating," according to that saying of drunkards: Good wine is not to be drunk, but chewed; the Septuagint: sufficient for the lips; Vatablus: and your palate is like wine which flows most sweetly for my beloved, speaking in the language of sleepers, that is, in stammering and imperfect speech, as if to say: Your speech is as sweet, O bride, as the finest wine is wont to be for my friend, after drinking which he does not usually speak very fluently. Thus Vatablus.
Our translator, the Septuagint and Aquila add "and teeth," because for ישנים iescenim or iescanim, meaning "of those sleeping" or "of old men," they read ושנים vescinnaim, meaning "and of teeth." Following this, the Syriac translates: your mouth is like good wine, so that I may go to my cousin in uprightness, who moves my lips and my teeth; for instead of שפתי siphte, meaning "lips," the Septuagint and Syriac with different pointing read שפתי sephatai, meaning "my lips."
WORTHY FOR MY BELOVED TO DRINK. — Alcazar, holding that all these are the words of the bridegroom, takes "beloved" to refer not to the bridegroom (for then he would have said "worthy of me"), but to any friend; but the Hebrew דודי dodi, meaning "my beloved," in the Song everywhere signifies the bridegroom: on this account Almonacirius more clearly responds with Rupert that "your throat like the finest wine" is said by the bridegroom, to which the bride then responds approvingly, and reflecting the praise back to the bridegroom, "worthy of my beloved." But it is more clear and fitting that we should say that everything from verse 6 to verse 18 is the words of the chorus of young women, who call the bridegroom their beloved, that is, the beloved of their mistress the Synagogue, or their own, because they aspire to his nuptials and will certainly attain them, when, as they resolve, they have ascended the palm of the cross and of perfection. The sense is, as if to say: The bride exhales from her mouth and throat not only the sweet fragrance of apples but also the taste of the finest wine — the finest, I say, which is worthy for the bridegroom to drink, indeed to chew and ruminate.
Furthermore, the Chaldean, referring these words to the prophets in his usual manner, translates thus: "Daniel and his companions said: We will surely accept upon ourselves the decree of the word of the Lord, just as Abraham our father, who was compared to aged wine, accepted it upon himself, and we will walk in the ways that are upright before him, just as Elijah and Elisha the prophets walked, through whose merits the dead were raised, who are
like unto sleeping wine; and like Ezekiel the son of Buzi the priest, because by the prophecy of his mouth the sleeping dead who were in the plain of Dura were raised."
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
The Synagogue, converted to Christ, will breathe forth the finest wine from her throat, when, kindled by Elijah with the wine of Christian doctrine and charity, she will, as if intoxicated, pour it forth; when, that is, by her sermons and ardent preaching she will set ablaze all her neighbors with the love of Christ — which wine will be worthy, pleasing and delightful to Christ for ruminating and frequently commemorating; hence Cosmas Damianus introduces the chorus of daughters, or young women of the Synagogue, speaking thus to their mistress: We pray that it may be permitted to kiss you at some time, and to drink from your throat the most hidden secrets of divinity, which generous and excellent wine gladdens the heart of the spiritual person, inebriates without vice, and makes Christian virgin souls rich and most sober, so that now no one may reproach you (as formerly they did) that, while you give a kiss, you serve wine. And this wine, first poured into you by your bridegroom, now most dear to me, when you pour it forth from your throat as from a kind of channel while teaching others, returns to Christ my loves (whence it first flowed) as to their first origin: which He drinks again with the greatest pleasure and rolls about in His mouth. Indeed, this is the very wine which renders old men who are otherwise unlearned and ignorant eloquent and articulate, being kindled and refreshed by heavenly warmth.
Hear St. Gregory: "In the throat indeed is the voice; by the throat, therefore, preaching itself is again designated, which is said to be like the finest wine, because it inebriates the minds of men so that, as has been said, they forget the past and are not wearied as they run forward." And after a few words: "Such is the wine of the bride that it is worthy for the beloved to drink, because while the holy Church preaches the true faith, while she rouses her hearers to holy works, while she demonstrates in words and deeds that it is good to love, imitate and embrace Christ alone, what else does she do but make her bosom worthy so that it may taste sweet in the mouth of the bridegroom? Which is fittingly said to be drunk by Christ, because it is lovingly drunk by His body, that is, by the faithful peoples." Then pressing the words more closely, he adds: "Of this it should be noted that all drink, but only the lips and only the teeth ruminate, because while the Church preaches through her saints, all indeed hear, but not all discern how great is the force of the sayings that are spoken. But the lips and teeth ruminate, because when the more perfect recall words to memory after hearing, when they ponder whatever they have heard with constant exercise — as if calling back to the mouth what they have taken in — they perceive how great is the power of the food they have eaten. For this reason it is written in the Law, Deuteronomy XIV, 8, that an animal which
does not ruminate is held to be unclean; because whoever does not ponder the good things he hears or reads, being idle from holy thoughts, necessarily gathers unclean things." Theodoret and Justus of Urgel agree, who by "throat" understand the teaching of the Gospel, and by "lips and teeth" the preachers; Aponius, however, says that the throat of the Church is St. Peter. Cassiodorus, Bede, Rupert and others add any and all preachers. Furthermore, Cassiodorus distinguishes the throat of the finest wine from the fragrance of the mouth like apples, so that by throat he understands preaching that is done by voice, but by the fragrance of the mouth he understands that which is done by writing or reputation: for the living voice is more efficacious and more ardent than the scent of the mouth: hence the former is compared to excellent wine, the latter to apples and fruits.
Symbolically, Philo of Carpathus by "throat" metonymically understands the body and blood of Christ presented to the throats of the faithful in the Eucharist, according to Psalm XXXIII, 9: "Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man who hopes in Him." These spiritual and saving foods, then, he says — namely of the body and blood of Jesus Christ — tasting them, the Church, and each faithful soul, has a throat like good wine: for this wine, reverently drunk, calms and settles all the sorrows of the soul, removes all intoxication with passing things, gladdens and strengthens the heart, and most easily heals and cures all diseases, and is the saving wave of eternal life, the fountain and source most benignly poured out and given for the remission of sins, washing away all the filth and weight of crimes, as the Lord says, Matthew XXVI, 28: Take and drink, this is My blood, which will be poured out for many for the remission of sins. And it is admirable that it says "coming to my brother in uprightness," to show that this most joyful heavenly food, the supersubstantial bread, and the saving drink, was given only to the upright of heart: which that drinker of heavenly secrets explains when he says, Psalm XCVI, 11: Light is risen to the just, and gladness to the right of heart. And Paul, the most holy apostle, warns that one should not approach this most divine banquet rashly, saying, I Corinthians XI, 28: But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that chalice, etc. O wonderful thing! O tremendous thing! These things, I beseech you, attend to carefully with me, O priests; these things, brethren, take note of; always fear these things and beware of the danger." These and more from Philo.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
Cato, as Plutarch attests, used to kiss his wife, daughters, and granddaughters, so that from their mouths and wine-laden breath he might smell whether they had been drinking wine, and might punish wine-drinkers, just as St. Monica in her youth was called a wine-bibber by the maidservants and chastised for her appetite for wine —
— she corrected this fault and cut it off, as St. Augustine attests, Book IX of the Confessions. But the devout hang upon the lips of the saints, who, intoxicated with the spiritual must of divine love, pour forth the mighty works of God, so that they may draw a similar spirit of doxology to God: as happened to the Jews hearing the apostles proclaiming Christ after receiving the Holy Spirit, Acts II, 15. For this must is most pleasing to Christ for drinking and ruminating; hence Bede and Honorius say: The throat of the soul is the voice of its praise and confession, which is like the finest wine, because it does not puff up by intoxicating, but gladdens the heart by refreshing; and William: "In the throat," he says, "is the office of the voice; and the interior man also has his own spiritual throat, by which he is often inwardly vocal in praise of God, with no bodily sound resounding outwardly; hence the Prophet, speaking of the saints praising God, Psalm CXLIX, 6, says: The praises of God are in their throat. Moreover, wine is both pleasant in taste and fair in color; when therefore we fulfill the form which the Prophet prescribes for us, Psalm CXLVI, 1, saying: Let praise to our God be pleasant and fair — then our throat is like wine. Truly the pleasantness of praise consists in the gladness of devotion. Therefore he who praises God gladly and devoutly, without doubt praises Him pleasantly, etc.; and he who with purity of life offers God the gladness of holy and devout piety, has in his throat a pleasant and fair praise, such as truly befits God."
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, the throat of the Blessed Virgin is like the finest wine, because she utters nothing but the praises of God, as when she sang, Luke I, 46: "My soul magnifies the Lord: and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior," etc.; hence William introduces her speaking thus: "Truly in the praises of my beloved, my throat is like the finest wine: for as much as I love, so much I praise, and the measure of love is the measure of praise"; and this both in adversity and in prosperity, and especially when she stood by the cross of Christ: for then, resigned into the hands of God, she admired and praised His immense love for mankind and Christ's obedience. Second, Honorius says: The throat is the teaching of the Virgin, by which she taught by word and example that God exalts the humble and humbles the proud, according to what she herself says, Luke I, 51: "He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He has put down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble." This teaching is surely the finest and most excellent. Third, Hailgrinus takes the throat as the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, which are like the finest wine, because she asks for nothing except what is pious, holy, and worthy of God; hence her Son not only drinks her prayers, that is, eagerly draws them in, but also ruminates them, that is, lingers over them —
and He delights in them. Hear Christ the Lord mystically describing the mouth and throat of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, Book IX of Revelations, at the end of question 9: "Your mouth was like a lamp burning within and shining outward, because the words and affections of your soul were burning inwardly with divine love, and shining outwardly from the praiseworthy disposition of your bodily movements, and the most beautiful harmony of your virtues. Truly, dearest mother, the word of your mouth drew My Divinity in a certain way into you, and the fervor of your divine sweetness will never separate Me from you, because your words are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," Psalm XVIII, 11.
THE VOICE OF THE NEW BRIDE: Namely of the Synagogue Converted to Christ.
VERSE 10. I AM MY BELOVED'S, AND HIS TURNING IS TOWARD ME.
Pagninus reads "his desire"; Vatablus, "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me," as if to say: I love my bridegroom, and he in turn loves me uniquely: I am entirely his, he in turn is entirely mine; I have devoted myself wholly to his service, he in turn turns his eyes, his care, love and offices toward me, and looks to see what I wish or desire, and immediately accomplishes it, so that he may comply with my wishes and desires: thus he seems to have surrendered himself entirely to my power and will. For this is what the Hebrew תשוקתו teschukatteh signifies, Genesis III, 16, which our translator renders as "power," saying, "you shall be under the power of your husband," for which Aben-Ezra translates, "and your obedience shall be toward your husband."
Furthermore, the Chaldean translates: "Jerusalem said: At every time when I walk in the way of the Lord of the world, He causes His majesty to dwell in my midst, and His desire is toward me; and at the time when I turn aside from His ways, He removes His majesty from me, and transfers me among the peoples, and they rule over me, as a husband who rules over his wife."
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
This is the voice of the Synagogue converted to Christ, which responds to the love of Christ the bridegroom, as well as to the praises of the young women, and repays love with love, and declares herself entirely the bridegroom's, as if to say: I am entirely my beloved's, just as he in turn is entirely mine; I turn my eyes, mind and all my acts toward him, I direct all my thoughts and intentions toward him, I strive to please and satisfy him alone; I look to him alone, to serve him in all things, just as he in turn looks to me alone, to comply with my needs and wishes; I hang upon his mouth and nod, just as he in turn observes my nods, my mouth and my prayers. Again, the "and" can more emphatically be taken causally, meaning "because," as if to say: I turn myself entirely to my beloved, and — that is, because he too is entirely turned toward me: therefore I have cast away all the delays and impediments of love. Aristotle gives a similar illustration, Ethics II: The bride, he says, looks to the bridegroom and desires him, as the dry earth looks to heaven and thirsts for its rain; and in turn heaven looks to the earth and desires to communicate its rain and influence to it, so as to make it pregnant and fruitful with shoots and fruits.
Hear Theodoret: "I have consecrated myself to my brother, and I have despised the foreign customs both of the Gentiles and of the Jews and of the heretics; for he too preferred me to all others, and turned toward me. For since formerly He had nowhere to lay His head, He has now found a place to rest it; and although He has many concubines, and queens, and young women, He places me before them all. Nor indeed will I allow myself alone to enjoy His sacred company; therefore I say: Come, etc.
Symbolically, Cassiodorus takes the "turning" as the incarnation: for in it the Word turned Himself toward human nature, and hastened toward it from the heights of heaven: for the Hebrew תשוקה tescuka signifies a running out; but this is foreign and remote from the literal sense: for at the beginning of the Song he treated of the incarnation, but here near the end of the Song he treats of the end and consummation of the Church.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The soul who devotes herself entirely to Christ, as is the case with religious, truly says: "I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me," as if to say — as St. Gregory says: "Because by faith and love I cling to Christ alone, I follow Him alone, I desire to see Him alone as one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and I joyfully proclaim that I experience the sweetness of His regard, the kindness of His visitation, and the delight of His company." The symbol of this is the herb or flower called the heliotrope, that is, "turning toward the sun"; for just as this flower turns itself with the sun (even on a cloudy day) and at every hour revolves with it, so the soul that loves Christ continually looks toward Him, so as always to abide with Him, and turning herself through the mysteries of His life and passion, which the Church in turn represents throughout the year, she perpetually fixes all her thought, will and love upon Him. Furthermore, just as the sun by its rays turns this flower around and converts it toward itself, so Christ is the first author of the soul's turning toward Him alone: for by His grace He attracts, caresses and entices the soul to Himself, so that she may rejoice to hang perpetually, as it were, at His mother's breasts.
St. Ambrose notes, Book On Isaac and the Soul, Chapter VIII, that this maxim is repeated three times in the Song, according to the three degrees and states of the soul: for the holy soul is first a beginner, second a proficient, third a per-
-fect soul. To the beginner it is said, Chapter II, verse 16: "My beloved is mine, and I am his, who feeds among the lilies, until the day breaks and the shadows decline." To the proficient it is said, Chapter VI, verse 2: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, who feeds among the lilies." Third, to the perfect soul it is said here: "I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me." "In the first," says St. Ambrose, "as if still in its training, the soul sees shadows, not yet moved by the revelation of the approaching Word, and therefore the day of the Gospel was still shining for it. In the second, without the confusion of shadows, it gathers pious fragrances. In the third, now perfect, it provides rest in itself for the Word, so that He may turn toward her and lay down His head and rest; and now deservedly holding Him whom formerly she could not find though she sought Him, she invites Him to her field, saying, Song Chapter VII, 11: Come, my brother, let us go out into the field, let us rest in the villages."
Justus adds: "His turning is toward me," namely to hear my prayers and to reward my good works and merits, and to give prizes in heaven, says Philo. So in the Life of St. Bridget we read that Christ, appearing to her, said: "Be my bride": to which she immediately consenting, turning away from the world and turning herself entirely to Christ, changed her habit and her life; and from that time for 28 years she enjoyed heavenly conversations and had many revelations of the deep secrets of God, which still exist and have been approved by many distinguished theologians with great praise for their wisdom and piety. So also of St. Teresa, our Franciscus Ribera, the noble interpreter of Sacred Scripture, writes, Book V of her Life, Chapter X, that the divine majesty often said to her with great tokens of love: "Now you are mine, and I am yours." And on another occasion: "From now on you will be my bride; henceforth you will regard my honor, not only as that of your creator, your king, and your God, but as that of your true bridegroom. Henceforth my honor will be yours, and your honor will be mine." And again: "Because you are betrothed to me, hence whatever I have is yours, and therefore I give you all the sorrows and labors I endured, and through them, as through something of your own, ask of the Father whatever you wish."
Anagogically, Philo interprets the turning of Christ as His return for judgment: "I," he says, "will serve the Son of God, and He Himself will abundantly reward me, when at that second coming He descends from heaven as the judge who will sit in judgment upon all and examine them, gathering all mortals from the four corners of the earth through the light and ministry of angels. But we must first turn to Him, and He to us, as it is written, Psalm CXIV, 7: Turn to me, daughter, etc. And elsewhere, Zechariah I, 3: Turn to me, and I will turn to you. But He Himself must first draw us, He Himself must first offer Himself to us: for then we will turn to Him and be healed, according to that saying, Jeremiah XVII, 14: Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved, etc.
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, Honorius fittingly assigns these words, in accordance with the genuine literal sense, to the Blessed Virgin praying to her Son for the conversion of the Jews: "I," she says, "poured out prayers for you to my beloved, and His turning is toward me," that is, through me He willed to turn you to mercy. Second, William applies this to the Blessed Virgin standing by Christ crucified: "Plainly," he says, "I was dying with my beloved through maternal affection, so that His martyrdom overflowed into me and made me, as it were, a co-martyr. I was then for my beloved, to declare the magnitude of my love for Him, and His turning toward me then was to declare His filial charity: for how much He loved me He showed brilliantly at the very moment of His passion, when, seeing me His devoted mother and the disciple standing, whom He loved, He turned to me from the cross and said to me, John XIX, 26: Woman, behold your son; and to the disciple: Behold your mother. Plainly, His turning toward me, so filial amid the sharpness of such real sorrows, remarkably declared what a filial heart He bore toward me." See what was said at Chapter II, verse 16, and Chapter VI, verse 2.
VERSE 11. COME, MY BELOVED, LET US GO FORTH INTO THE FIELD, LET US ABIDE IN THE VILLAGES.
The Hebrew and Syriac read: let us spend the night in the villages; the Arabic: you will go out and abide in the villages. The Shulamite, that is, the Synagogue as the new bride of Christ, calls back the bridegroom — whom she has now found and who is heading from the field toward the city — to the field, namely to some country estate of her own, so that there she may more privately, more familiarly and more fully converse and dwell with him. Furthermore, the Chaldean translates: "When the people of the house of Israel sinned, the Lord caused them to migrate to the land of Seir in the region of Idumea. The assembly of Israel said: I beseech You, O Lord of the whole world, receive my prayer: I am before You in the cities of my exile and in the provinces of the peoples."
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
The Synagogue, to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, will ask Him to go out with her into the fields and villages, both so that, removed from the noise and crowd of the city, she may more freely devote herself to prayer and conversation with Him, and so that she may convert to the faith of Christ, through His help and grace, the rural and country folk and others living outside Jerusalem in hamlets and villages: so Honorius, Delrio, Hortolanus and others. So Christ, while He lived, went about the towns and villages, preaching the kingdom of God: for country folk, as being of simple, rough and innocent life, are more apt for the Gospel; hence Christ says, Matthew XI, 5: "The poor have the Gospel preached to them." And Isaiah, Chapter XLIII, verse 20: "The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the desert, rivers in the wilderness, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall declare my praise."
The Holy Spirit therefore here teaches that rustics, common folk, and plebeians are not to be neglected, but that catechists and preachers ought to preach the word of God to them as much as to citizens and nobles; indeed, since they are more unlearned, it is necessary to linger longer in teaching them, until they grasp and absorb the doctrine and precepts of the Christian life: this is what "let us abide" signifies. So Theodoret and the three Anonymous commentators, and St. Ambrose, On Isaac, Chapter VIII, whom hear: "Above she invited to the garden, here to the field, which has not only the grace of flowers but also wheat and barley, that is, the grain of solid virtues, so that he may look at its fruit. And the reason why she wished to go out with him into the field is clear: so that as a good shepherd he might feed his flock, relieve the weary, and call back the straying. Therefore, as a perfect soul she intercedes not for herself but for others, so that He may go out from the bosom of the Father, so that He may come forth as a bridegroom going out from his bridal chamber to run his course, in order to win the weak." And in Book III On Virginity: "Hear," he says, "what the most sacred Church says, Song VII, 11: Come, my brother, let us go out into the field, let us rest in the villages."
Hear also Hugh of St. Victor, Monastic Institutes, On the Cloister of the Soul, VII: "The mind," he says, "goes out from contemplation to self-examination; it goes out from care of self to take up care of neighbor, to console the fainthearted, to correct the restless, so that what was formerly a field of briars and thorns may become a field of virtues. Let us abide in the villages, that is, among those who are villagers, that is, rough and slow to receive the instructions of Christ's court." Rupert has the same teaching.
Symbolically, St. Gregory takes Christ's going out into the villages as His going forth from heaven to earth through the incarnation: "The field," he says, "as Truth itself attests, Matthew XIII, 28, is this world; and the bridegroom goes out into the field with his bride when the Word of God, having taken flesh in the bridal chamber of the Virgin, is shown to the world. He abides in the villages when He visits the nations through faith, which He bestows on those who receive it." For this reason Christ chose to be born not in the city but in the country, namely in the outskirts of Bethlehem, as a country boy, so to speak: in imitation of whom St. Jerome, St. Paula, St. Eustochium, and a great part of the Roman nobility wished to live and end their lives in the same place. Hence St. Jerome says: "For me a town is a prison, but solitude is paradise."
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul loves the fields, that is, solitude, so that in it she may more freely devote herself to prayer and contemplation; so that from it she may conceive the ardor and zeal for preaching even to rustics, the unlearned and the poor, which Christ displayed: so Honorius, Delrio and others. Hence our Alcazar by fields and villages understands foreign regions, such as Japan, China, and Sinaloa, to which apostolic religious eagerly travel to convert the abandoned nations and barbarians to Christ, because they know that this is most pleasing to Christ.
Hear Cassiodorus: "Already," he says, "by the mystery of the Ascension, You raised the assumed man to the heavens; but come, visiting me more often with the presence of Your divine majesty, let us go out into the field of this world: let us preach the faith of Your incarnation to the world: let us abide in the villages and hamlets, announcing Your faith to the pagans themselves as well." Cassiodorus adds: "No one is unaware that pagans were named from the villa, because pagos in Greek means villa in Latin; hence pagans were so called because they are far from the city of God" — though others give a different etymology for "pagan"; hence also symbolically Philo says: Christ the Bridegroom spent the night in the villages, when among the rustic minds of the Jews, their hard and obstinate souls, and their most stubborn and savage hearts, He was a stranger, unseen and hated, even to the night of death. It is better to take these words as referring to the Jews already converted to Christ, and those to be converted at the end of the world.
Anagogically, St. Ambrose, oration On the Death of Valentinian, takes these words as referring to the departure of the soul from the body and its migration to heaven: "You have come," he says, "to the place where the fruits of various virtues are brought according to each one's merits, where the rewards of merits abound. Let us go out, then, into the field where labor is not in vain but the yield of graces is fruitful. What you sowed on earth, here reap; what you scattered there, here gather. Or certainly, come to that field which is the fragrance of Jacob, that is, come to the bosom of Jacob, so that just as Lazarus the poor man rested in Abraham's bosom, so you too may rest in the tranquility of Jacob the patriarch: for the bosom of the patriarchs is a kind of retreat of eternal rest. Let us rest in the fortified places, where rest is safer, which, fortified and walled with the enclosure of heavenly refuge, is not disturbed by the incursions of worldly beasts." So also Honorius.
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
What has already been said applies supremely to the Blessed Virgin, who, burning most intensely with zeal for souls, earnestly desires and procures the salvation of all, even of rustic and lowly people, and therefore stirs up apostolic men to preach to them and show them the way of salvation; William, however, takes these words as referring to the Blessed Virgin persuading the apostles, after Stephen had been killed by the Jews, to go out from them as from faithless men resisting the Gospel, into the villages of the Gentiles, and to proclaim Christ to them. Rupert has the same interpretation.
THE VOICE OF THE BRIDE, Old and New, That Is, of the Church and the Synagogue.
VERSE 12. IN THE MORNING LET US GO UP TO THE VINEYARDS, LET US SEE IF THE VINE HAS FLOURISHED, IF THE FLOWERS ARE BRINGING FORTH FRUIT, IF THE POMEGRANATES HAVE BLOOMED: THERE I WILL GIVE YOU MY BREASTS.
IN THE MORNING LET US RISE (to go) TO THE VINEYARDS, LET US SEE IF THE VINE HAS FLOURISHED, IF THE FLOWERS ARE BRINGING FORTH FRUIT, IF THE POMEGRANATES HAVE BLOOMED (Aquila: have opened themselves — for the flowers of the pomegranate spread open): THERE I WILL GIVE YOU MY BREASTS. — Vatablus: there I will pour forth my love toward you. For "if the flowers bring forth fruit," the Septuagint translates, "if the young shoot has flowered"; Philo, "if the henna has flowered": for he reads κύπρος, that is, henna, instead of κυπρισμός, that is, young shoot; Pagninus, "if the small grape has opened"; Vatablus, "the new or small grape": for in Hebrew it is סמדר semadar, about which I spoke at Chapter II, verses 13 and 15. For "pomegranates," the Arabic translates "mountains": he alludes to the custom of Solomon, who, to divert his mind from the cares of city and kingdom, would set out in the morning for the countryside and vineyards. "He delighted," says Josephus, Book VIII of Antiquities, Chapter VII, "to ride in a chariot in the morning to an estate called Ethan, pleasant with gardens and flowing fountains": for in the morning gardens and vineyards are most delightful.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
This is the voice of the old bride, namely the Church of the Gentiles, which congratulates the new bride, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, recently converted (that is, to be converted by Elijah), and approves her counsel: indeed, she exhorts and invites Christ the bridegroom to grant the wishes of His new bride, her sister. Or rather, the Church here joins her voice with the Synagogue's, and both now united together, and having become one bride, namely the Church, they beseech Christ the bridegroom to go with them into the villages and vineyards, so that they may lead the remnants of the Jews and Gentiles — either seduced or struck down by the Antichrist — to Christ by unanimous consent, especially now that the Antichrist has been killed and destroyed: for then his deceptions, falsehoods and vain hopes will be uncovered; then likewise his fear and persecution will cease: therefore it will then be easy to call back to Christ those seduced or terrified by him: and for this reason God, after the death of the Antichrist, will grant the fallen some time for repentance, and will defer the day of judgment, as I said at Daniel XII, 12. She says then: In the morning let us rise to the vineyards, that is, let us visit the particular Churches. Let us see if the vine has flourished, that is, if the Church of Jerusalem and of the Jews, which is most dear to the Synagogue's heart, flourishes in the faith of Christ. If the flowers bring forth fruit, that is, if the good seeds of Christ and salvation, which my preachers sowed among the Jews and Gentiles, and planted in their minds as se-
-eds, and which have burst forth into the flowers of good desires — if, I say, these seeds bring forth the fruit of good and effective action. If the pomegranates have bloomed, that is, the desires, fruits and works of charity and martyrdom, says Angelomus. There I will give you my breasts, that is, the breasts of holy doctrine I will give you, O my beloved, not to be sucked as by a son, but to be embraced as by a bridegroom, and to be given to your faithful, Jews and Gentiles alike, so that they may suck them and be nourished by them in Christian faith and piety: so St. Gregory, Philo, Justus and others take these words as referring to the Church inviting Christ to visit her particular Churches. Again, I will give you my breasts, that is, my heart and my loves, as Vatablus translates. See what I said about the breasts at Chapter I, verse 1.
And in particular, Honorius takes these words as referring to the Churches of the Jews to be visited at the end of the world: "The night," he says, "was the time of the Antichrist's persecution: the morning is the time of peace after his death; in the morning, then, the bridegroom and bride rise to the vineyards, those who had as it were slept during the night, when they rouse themselves after the killing of the Antichrist to establish Churches, or to renew those destroyed under him, or to gather those dispersed — which they saw being destroyed under him but, as if sleeping, did not resist. But now she says: Let us see if it has flourished, etc. Through preachers let us cause them to see whether the vineyard — namely the Synagogue — has flourished in faith, so that they may imitate her; whether those who are flourishing in faith are carrying out works of faith, so that they may imitate them; whether imitators of the martyrs are flourishing in patience, so that they may imitate them. In that field I will bring forth for your honor all the doctrine of both laws, which are my breasts; so that those unlearned in faith may suck from them the milk of doctrine.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The morning, says Philo, is when prevenient grace is present, through which the soul is called from the darkness of ignorance of God and blindness of mind, and from the night of sins, into the wondrous light of religion and piety; then the vines and trees, that is, the habits of virtues, produce their flowers and the fruits of holy deeds. Angelomus takes the flower of the vine as the faith of the heart, the fruits as the confession of the mouth, and the pomegranates as the shedding of blood for the faith.
Anagogically, Honorius: "In the morning," he says, "the Church rises to the vineyards, when she lifts herself up to the heavenly Churches. For the whole time of this age is like a night compared to the age to come. And the day of judgment is like the morning of the eternal day, which is better than a thousand years; or the life of each person is like a night, but the morning is the life to come: in which morning every faithful person rises to the vineyards, when after death he arrives at the heavenly Churches. There he sees the flowers of the vine, the fruits of the flowers, and the flowers of the pomegranates, that is, the rewards of the faithful and of gifts, which will be given to those who do good, and the recompense which will be given to
the martyrs. There the Church will give Christ her breasts, because she will present the teachers of both laws in eternal glory.
THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin visits the Churches and will visit them at the end of the world, so that they may bring forth the fruits of virtue: "The vine flourishes, that is, the Church," says William, "in beginners: its flowers bring forth fruit in those who are making progress. But it is for You to see both, that is, to approve them in Your good pleasure, but much more the flowers of the pomegranates, that is, the beauty and devotion of the martyrs reddened by their own blood for Your sake. There I will give You my breasts, that is, in the Church of the Gentiles I will give You what I once gave You in the Church of the Jews — my breasts. Truly among the Jews I gave You bodily breasts to nourish You: but in the Church of the Gentiles I will give You my spiritual breasts to nourish Your own: for I will spiritually feed Your little ones with the milk of maternal piety; formerly I fed You with bodily milk in the reality of the flesh. And so, in place of being Your bodily mother, I will be Your spiritual mother, bringing forth, as it were, my own children with maternal charity, until You are more fully formed in them, nourishing them there with maternal care until they grow to the measure of the perfect man in You. And I will do all this by constantly commending them to You, and by obtaining for them through my devout prayers increases of Your grace."
VERSE 13. THE MANDRAKES HAVE GIVEN THEIR FRAGRANCE. AT OUR GATES ARE ALL MANNER OF FRUITS: NEW AND OLD, MY BELOVED, I HAVE KEPT FOR YOU.
THE MANDRAKES HAVE GIVEN THEIR FRAGRANCE. AT OUR GATES ARE ALL MANNER OF FRUITS (the Septuagint: nuts; Philo: fruit-bearing shrubs; in Hebrew it is מגדים megadim, meaning delights, lovable things, delicacies, such as elegant fruits): NEW AND OLD, MY BELOVED, I HAVE KEPT FOR YOU. — The Hebrew reads: I have hidden for you: so Aquila and Symmachus. The phrase "at our gates" some refer to the mandrakes, but others better refer it to the fruits which follow; hence the Arabic: all the fruits of trees standing at our doors. For "mandrake," as our translator renders it, the Septuagint, Aquila, the Chaldean, Aben-Ezra, Vatablus, Pagninus and others — the Hebrew is דודאים dudaim, which word alludes to dodim and daddim, that is, breasts, because mandrakes have the appearance of breasts: hence Sixtus of Siena, Book V of the Library, Chapter CIX, incorrectly translates dudaim as lilies; Rabbi Solomon as jasmine; others as form; others as violet. Oleaster at Genesis XXX, 14 holds it to be a small flower called lily of the valley. There is an allusion here to Rachel, who, receiving from Leah the mandrakes that her son Reuben had found in the field, yielded to her the husband Jacob, Genesis XXX, 14: see what was said there. Hence the mandrake has the power of inducing love, and therefore it is called circæa [the plant of Circe]
as Theophrastus teaches, Book IX of the History of Plants, Chapter X; Pliny, Book V, XIII; Dioscorides, Book IV, Chapter LXXI. Hence Hortolanus thinks they are called dudaim in Hebrew from dodim, that is, loves; hence also it says: there I will give you my breasts; Pagninus: my loves. So also fruits are a symbol of love, whence it says of them: "All manner of fruits, new and old, my beloved, I have kept for you," as if to say: Whatever beautiful thing, whatever delicious thing I have, all this I offer to you.
Furthermore, for "my beloved," Rabbi David and the anonymous Rabbi cited by Genebrardus translate "my love"; thus they render it: all delicate fruits, new and old — my love I have kept for you; as if to say: For all, or together with all delicacies and fruits, both old and new, I have kept my love for you. If instead of dodi you read dodai, or rather daddai, you would translate "my breasts" instead of "my love," as if the breasts of the bride were the new and old fruits.
FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE: Of Christ and the Church.
Mandrakes with their fruits are beautiful and rare in appearance in spring, fragrant to the smell, but tasteless to eat, says St. Augustine, Book XXII Against Faustus, Chapter XXXVI; but in Judea, they say, they are flavorful, soporific to the head, having the power of cooling, and having in their root a certain likeness to the human body, without the head; hence Pythagoras called the mandrake anthropomorphon, that is, resembling a human: see Dioscorides, Book IV, Chapter LXXI, and Galen, Book VII of Simple Medicines. The mandrakes therefore signify the multitude of Jews and Gentiles whose head was the Antichrist, which, with him dead, will remain headless, that is, without a leader, but lulled to sleep in their faithlessness and sins; these will awaken at the voice of preachers and breathe forth the sweet fragrance of faith and piety. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Behold for You, O Christ the bridegroom, the fragrance of the mandrakes, whose cold was harmful until now, and whose scent was heavy, which lay barren themselves and as if devoid of life, put to sleep in the slumber of death, presenting the image of a human grave rather than of a living person, and besides this mutilated appearance, possessing nothing human. Let us gather them — they have ripened: I have resolved to gather them for You alone and to feast with You: meanwhile, feast on the fruits which I have set aside for You in my heart, and I have at hand every kind of fruit, both of this year and of past years, which I have preserved and stored for Your delight. These are at the gates, that is, at the very entrance and threshold of the house, ready at hand.
Thus Delrio by "new and old" signifies the good works of both peoples, namely the Gentiles and Jews; or, as Hortolanus says, the mysteries of both Testaments, New and Old, which are offered to Christ, that is, to Christ's faithful, when they enter through the gate of baptism into His city, namely the Church.
Symbolically, however, as Cassiodorus, Aponius and Bede say, that through Christ and in Christ all these things
have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled day by day. Theodoret adds: "The precepts of the Old Testament and the commandments of the New Testament, which I received from my mother by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have kept for You, and I have guarded the deposit intact." So Christ says, Matthew XIII, 52: "Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings forth from his treasure new things and old" — namely the mysteries, gifts and works of the evangelical and Mosaic law, as the Fathers explain: so Aponius, Anselm and Delrio take these words as referring to the Jews and Gentiles to be converted at the end of the world. Hear Honorius: "The Shunamite (like Reuben) going out from the camp found the Mandrake, a royal maiden lying in the field without a head: having great compassion for her and returning to the king, she earnestly entreats him to go with her and help the wretched woman. By the Mandrake is understood the multitude of unbelievers, whose head was the Antichrist, who is the head of all evils; but the head will be cut off when the Antichrist is killed; the Church, seeing her without a head, desires her to be united with herself in the faith of Christ and exalted with Christ as head: O beloved, she says, whom I love above all, who came to me by grace and visited me with the presence of Your gifts, come now also by grace to the multitude of unbelievers, and visit them with the presence of Your charisms, and through preachers let us go out into the field of the world, and scatter among the peoples the seed of the word of God, You by inspiring, I by preaching and working and teaching; let us abide long in the villages, in the assemblies of the hamlets; in the morning let us rise to the vineyards, that is, let us promptly establish Churches."
The Chaldean agrees, who takes these words as referring to the Jews who will recognize their Messiah, namely through Elijah at the end of the world: for these, laboring under a long sleep of ignorance and faithlessness, indeed a lethargy, for so many centuries, are fittingly represented by mandrakes, which induce sleep, and are therefore given to those who are to be cut or cauterized so that they may not feel pain, as Dioscorides attests, Book IV, Chapter LXXI. So the Chaldean translates: "And when it shall be the will of the Lord to redeem His people from captivity, it shall be said to the King Messiah: Now the end of the captivity is fulfilled, and the merit of the just is sweet before Me, like the fragrance of balsam, and the wise of the generations, stationed at the gates of the academy, devote themselves to the words of the scribes and the words of the law; now arise, take up the kingdom which I have stored for you."
St. Ambrose assigns another property of mandrakes in his commentary on Psalm CXVIII, Sermon 19, verse 4, namely that some are male and others female, and the females have a heavy scent; so the Jews and Gentiles also stink even physically, but they lay aside this stench when washed with the water of baptism, as experience attests. Hear St. Ambrose: "Most people distinguish a certain sex among mandrakes, so that they think some are male and some female, but the females have a heavy scent. This signifies, then, the Gentiles, who formerly stank, being weaker through a certain emasculated feebleness of faithlessness, but began to bear fruits of good fragrance after they
believed in the coming of the Lord." Finally, mandrakes, because they induce coldness, torpor, slowness and sleep, signify the slow, negligent and drowsy: for these are said in common speech to have drunk mandrake or hellebore; therefore when these shake off their sleep through the grace of God, the mandrakes are said to have given their fragrance, as if awakened in spring after the sleep of winter. Aptly, therefore, this is here attributed to the Jews and Gentiles who will be converted late and tardily, namely at the end of the world: for these will break off the long delays of their sluggishness and slumber, and will give the sweet and sharp fragrance of diligence and fervor; hence it adds: "All manner of fruits, new and old, I have kept for you": for the old are the old Christians, the new are the new ones, namely the old Jews to be renewed by Elijah and converted to Christ at the end of the world. Finally, some think that by "new" is here indicated the discovery of the New World, namely America, by Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus, and its conversion to Christ: for this new world, containing the Peruvians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Chileans, etc., is half of the whole globe, as is evident from a cosmographic globe; therefore it is "at the gates," that is, at the borders and boundaries of the formerly known world: for plainly it was unknown 140 years ago, and had heard nothing of Christ up to that point; but now through the religious of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and the Society of Jesus, it is almost entirely subject to the Church. So in the East Indies, in this and the preceding century, the faith is wonderfully propagated by the same religious among the Japanese, where very many contend for the faith even to the martyrdom of slow fires, among the Chinese, the Molucan peoples, and the Ceylonese. Indeed, Thomas Bozius, Volume I, Sign 20, dares to assert that Francis Xavier alone amassed more for the Church among the Indians than Luther and the whole North took away. Ethiopia, or that vast empire of Prester John with its emperor and nobles, submitted itself to the Roman Church through the Society of Jesus, and received a patriarch from it in the year of the Lord 1628.
SECOND PARTIAL SENSE: Of Christ and the Holy Soul.
The mandrake gives its fragrance when the soul, previously torpid, slow and drowsy, awakening through the grace of God, ardent and fervent, exhales the good reputation of virtues through her works; hence St. Augustine, Book XXII Against Faustus, Chapter LVI, says that the fragrance of the mandrake represents the good fame of the saints. The same plant induces sleep, when the soul, forgetting earthly things and as if falling asleep to them, thinks about, meditates upon and strives for heavenly things: so Theodoret. The same grants fruitfulness, say Cassiodorus and Rupert, when the soul devotes herself to acts of charity, patience, humility, obedience, and other virtues. The same purges melancholy and phlegm, removes nausea, soothes sadness and sorrows, with vari-
on that day the mandrakes will give their fragrance at the gates, which in death, which is the gate of life, will give to the living their testimony, while they shine with miracles on earth, whose souls live in heaven; they who were once mandrakes, when they lost the devil as the head of all evils and put on Christ as the head of all good things or of the just, and now like mandrakes are medicine for many diseases. There all fruits, new and old, she kept for her beloved bridegroom, because the heavenly Church will present to Christ as recompense all the works of the saints of the old law and all the works of the just of the new law.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The soporific mandrakes are a symbol of contemplation, which lulls the mind from earthly cares and things so that it may entirely enjoy God; and therefore it is called by the mystics rest, or sleep, of which I spoke in chapter 2, verses 5 and following. In this the Blessed Virgin excelled, and in it she offered all fruits new and old, that is, all past and present acts, to Christ her beloved. Likewise "new and old," that is, all acts done according to the precepts of the new and old law (for the Blessed Virgin observed the precepts of both exactly), she dedicated to Christ. Again, she herself offers to God all the saints of both the New and Old Testaments, and at the end of the world she will offer the Jews and Gentiles to be converted through Elijah and Enoch, together with all their gifts, graces, and virtues.
William adds that the mandrakes of Christ and the Virgin gave their fragrance when the divinity of Christ became known to the world through the preaching and miracles of the apostles: for then likewise through her the virginity, dignity, and majesty of the Mother of God became known to the world. Moreover, she kept all fruits new and old for Christ, since she kept in her heart the mysteries of Christ's divinity and humanity which she herself had seen, and in due time revealed them to Christians for their salvation and Christ's glory: "For that You were conceived and born without corruption, that You were proclaimed by angels, that You were designated by a star, that You were offered mystical gifts by the Magi -- these things were plainly new, and declared Your divinity. But that You were BORN A LITTLE CHILD, that You were wrapped in swaddling clothes, that You were nourished with milk, and such things -- these were old, because they pertained to the antiquity of the flesh, and these prove the truth of human substance in You. But I kept all these things, pondering them in my heart, comparing indeed the new with the old, and the old with the new, and having compared both equally, proving You to be both God and man, I kept all these words, and thus all fruits new and old, my beloved, I kept for You to be brought forth in due time and expended upon Your own."
Again, by new and old fruits is denoted the gift of perseverance, by which we make all our acts holy until the end of life and dedicate them to Christ: for this is a great, indeed the supreme, gift of Christ. Moreover, Blessed Lawrence Justinian, in book 2 of On the Destruction of the Spiritual Soul, near the end, says: "He calls the old fruits habits, and the new ones acts of virtues, by which one ascends to perfection. These were undoubtedly prefigured by that ladder which St. Jacob contemplated in his dreams."
Finally, Philo Carpathius understands by mandrakes the doctors, "because, he says, when they carefully search the Sacred Scriptures, and from them prepare and distribute good and sweetly fragrant fruit for the children of the Church, they spread the most sweet fragrance and fruit of the true faith. By the gates are signified the powers of the soul and the parts and members of the human body, such as the ears, mouth, and eyes, through whose entrances all the merits of life and death enter, according to the purpose and will of him who uses the service of the body and the command of the soul: through the eyes, signs of modesty and chastity are easily recognized; through the ears, those of honesty and moderation; through the mouth, those of gravity and temperance in observing the commandments. Therefore, if we truly fear and love God, we behold modest and honorable things with our eyes; with our ears we receive whatever is salutary and best. With our mouth we speak holy and necessary things; our eyes are closed to base things, our ears are shut to obscenities, and we remain silent about vain and harmful things."
Anagogically, Honorius says: "At the last judgment...