Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Chapter Eight. Synopsis of the Chapter.
This is the peroration and conclusion of the drama of the Canticle, in which the bride demonstrates her supreme love toward the bridegroom, and desires to be intimately joined to Him and to enjoy Him in heaven, from which she falls into a faint and ecstasy; the bridegroom forbids that she be awakened from this, verse 4. Then in verse 5, the people who meet her, seeing the bride ascending from the desert, abounding in delights and leaning upon her beloved, marvel. The bridegroom adds that He awakened her under the apple tree, that is, the wood of the cross, and adorned her with such great delights and gifts; therefore He asks that she seal the bridegroom's heart with such great love. Then in verse 8, the Church complains that her sister, the Synagogue, is small and does not have breasts; to which the companions of the bridegroom respond: If she is a wall, let us build upon her silver battlements; if she is a door, let us fortify it with cedar planks. Then the Synagogue herself responds in verse 10 that she is a wall and has breasts, and moreover a vineyard. Finally in verse 13, the bridegroom demands the bride's last song, the epithalamic chant. Whereupon she sings: Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle and a young stag upon the mountains of spices, so that with this swan-song the bride may be carried with her bridegroom from this life into heaven. Therefore, just as St. John in the Apocalypse, chapters 21 and 22, ends with the glory of the Church triumphant, so also Solomon closes the Canticle with the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem: for in it the Church will be perfected and made blessed, and will receive the rewards and eternal crowns of her labor and warfare.
Vulgate Text: Song of Songs 8:1-14
1. Who will grant you to me as my brother, nursing at the breasts of my mother, that I may find you outside and kiss you, and no one would despise me? 2. I will take hold of you and lead you into the house of my mother: there you will teach me, and I will give you a cup of spiced wine and the juice of my pomegranates. 3. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. 4. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken the beloved, until she herself wills. 5. Who is this that comes up from the desert, abounding in delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you: there your mother was corrupted, there your parent was violated. 6. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard as hell: its lamps are lamps of fire and flames. 7. Many waters could not extinguish charity, nor shall rivers overwhelm it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he would despise it as nothing. 8. Our sister is little, and has no breasts: what shall we do for our sister on the day when she is to be spoken to? 9. If she is a wall, let us build upon her silver battlements: if she is a door, let us fortify it with cedar planks. 10. I am a wall: and my breasts are like a tower, since I have become in his presence as one finding peace. 11. The peaceful one had a vineyard in that which has peoples: he handed it over to keepers; a man brings a thousand silver pieces for its fruit. 12. My vineyard is before me. A thousand are yours, O peaceful one, and two hundred for those who guard its fruits. 13. You who dwell in the gardens, friends listen: make me hear your voice. 14. Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle and a young stag upon the mountains of spices.
Voice of the Bride
VERSE 1. WHO WILL GRANT YOU TO ME AS MY BROTHER, NURSING AT THE BREASTS OF MY MOTHER, THAT I MAY FIND YOU OUTSIDE AND KISS YOU, AND NO ONE WOULD DESPISE ME? — WHO WILL GRANT YOU TO ME AS MY BROTHER, NURSING AT THE BREASTS OF MY MOTHER, THAT I MAY FIND YOU OUTSIDE (the Scholiast reads, is appo, that is, in the field; others, is appoa, that is, outside; the Hebrew says, who will give you to me as a brother? so Aquila; the Arabic, who will give you, son of my brother, that you may nurse the breasts of my mother? when I find you outside, I will kiss you; the Syriac, who will give you to me, as to a brother? I will nurse the breasts of my lamb: I will praise you.
These words depend on what immediately precedes, for the bride continues to speak and to display her ardent love for the bridegroom: for just as shortly before she wished to go with the bridegroom to the fields and farms, so that there she might give...
or be separated from You even for a moment, but may enjoy You most happily for all eternity; where no Jew, pagan, or impious person will any longer be able to despise, reproach, or vex me! Would that from these earthly fields and farms it were permitted to ascend to the heavenly ones and to the supernal mountains of divine spices! And shortly this will be granted, but I would wish it to happen at this moment, at this very instant of time: for to one who loves and burns with love, every delay is painful, tedious, and burdensome. Thus the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret attribute these words to the Church and the holy soul longing for Christ's second coming, and addressing Him thus: "Since Your first coming prepared me for the full enjoyment of You, who will grant me, at Your second coming with us in the heavenly Jerusalem, which is our mother, to drink a new cup, which from it flows into us through grace without mediation, like milk from a mother's breasts into the mouths of her children? For thus finding You outside I will kiss You; for knowing You, not as now through faith, but through sight, outside, in our substance bestowing upon us incorruption and immutability in the common resurrection, we shall fully enjoy You; and no one indeed will despise me, even though now I am scorned by the wise of the world, because for the love of You I despise all perishable things." So also Delrio and others. Here pertains the exposition of St. Ambrose, Aponius, Honorius, Rupert, Anselm, and Hortolanus, who understand these words of the conversion of the Jews at the end of the world: for after this the day of judgment and the glory of the saints will soon follow.
I shall shortly quote the words of St. Anselm. Indeed, even the ancient rabbis, according to Galatinus, book 3, chapter 28, judge that what is signified here is the desire for the coming of the Messiah -- not the first coming (for this has already taken place through the Incarnation, as was said in chapter 1 and following), but the second, for the judgment and glorification of the saints.
Symbolically, first, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Bede, Philo, St. Athanasius in the Synopsis, and others attribute these words to the Synagogue, that is, to the patriarchs desiring Christ's incarnation: for through this Christ came forth from the bosom of the Father outward into flesh, and became our brother, so that we might kiss Him, through whom the Church is no longer despised, but is honored even by the angels themselves. "For who," says William, "will be able to despise men, when God has been made man? Who will judge man worthless, when the price of Your blood has been given for man?" Whence St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 1: "He who was within," he says, "was made to appear outwardly. See Him within, when you read that He is in the bosom of the Father; recognize Him outside, when He seeks us to redeem us. He was made outward for you, so that He might be inward for me, and might become our physician. Let us therefore be where Christ the physician is rooted and fixed in our hearts."
But St. Chrysostom, in homily 12 on various passages of St. Matthew, refers these words to Herod, who persecuted Christ as an infant: for he reads it thus, who will give you my brother nursing at the breasts of my mother? meaning: No one will give you the infant Christ so that you may kill Him, for you will have no power against Him who is the prince of all powers. This is a novel exposition, and not sufficiently consonant with the literal sense.
Second, Philo refers these words to the Passion of Christ: "For then," he says, "the bridegroom was found outside and kissed by the bride, when, clothed in humanity and crucified outside Jerusalem, He redeemed her from eternal death through ineffable charity, and having paid all the debt, most lovingly reconciled her to Himself and to the Father." Moreover, Philo understands by the mother eternal wisdom; but Theodoret understands the Holy Spirit, whose breasts Christ is said to have nursed, since He taught and showed in the Gospel that the faithful should nurse from them through study and prayer, so as to draw from them the milk of doctrine and of every grace: so also Rupert. The cited authors present these senses as though they were literal; but in truth they seem symbolical: for Solomon treated literally of the incarnation and passion of Christ in Canticle chapter 1; and thence he progressed to the beginnings, growth, and perfection of the Church, which he here concludes with heavenly glory: for there will be the end, consummation, and crowning of the Church triumphant, which here on earth fights under the cross of Christ: for this is what the sequence and order of the drama requires.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
First, the pious soul desires to receive Christ in the venerable sacrament, in which Christ becomes as it were our brother, feeding us with His body, and there we kiss Him, when we receive Him with the mouth of the body, and much more with the mouth of the mind: so Aponius and Gislerius at length. For the Eucharist is a pledge of future glory, for through it we shall rise to eternal life, as Christ teaches, John 6:55. For this reason Christ, appearing in the form of a little child to St. Francis, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Edmund the Archbishop of Canterbury, and similar saints, offered Himself to them to be kissed and caressed. Rupert, Abbot of Tuits, asserts that he experienced this very thing in himself, writing on chapter 26 of Matthew, book 12, page 562: for he narrates that when he was ordered to undertake the priesthood, and judged himself unworthy of so great a rank, he saw Christ crucified on the altar looking at him and inviting him to an embrace. Wherefore "the altar," he says, "opened itself through the middle, and received me as I ran inside. When I had hastily entered, I seized Him whom my soul loves, I held Him, I embraced Him, I kissed Him at length. I felt how deeply He welcomed this gesture of love, since while I was kissing He Himself opened His mouth, so that I might kiss more deeply. This was plainly what was being enacted, this was what was being prepared by that sign, so that what the beloved says in the Canticle, longing, in chapter 8, verse 1, might be fulfilled: Who will grant You to me as my brother nursing at the breasts of my mother, that I may find You outside and kiss You, and no one would despise me?" From this vision Rupert perceived that the desire for the priesthood was being instilled in him, so that by sacrificing daily he might exchange kisses with Christ in the Eucharist, and by eating Him might embrace and kiss Him.
Second, the soul desires Christ to become her brother, and to kiss Him outside, when she desires to be stripped of the affections of the flesh and the world, so that going out, as it were, beyond herself, she may put on spiritual dispositions and loves, and thus begin to receive the kiss of peace from Christ, which will be perfected in heaven: for in this way she becomes as it were the sister of her brother Christ. So St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8: "The good soul," he says, "is outside, so that the Word may be within; she is outside the body, so that the Word may dwell in us." So also Rupert: "Moreover, to find Christ outside," he says, "is to go out to Him beyond the camp, who, just as He suffered outside the gate, so became a stranger to His brothers and to the sons of His mother. And to kiss Him is to venerate His reproach, and to know intimately the sacraments of His love: for to the extent that we know and love them, to that extent we kiss Him, the lovable One, as lovers," etc.
Honorius adds that properly speaking the brothers of Christ are said to be the apostles and apostolic men, who devote themselves to winning souls: for these are like Christ, and as it were His brothers, since this was Christ's own office. Whoever therefore strives to attract another to the state of religion and perfection should say: Who will grant you to me as my brother, that you may be most closely joined to me in religion and charity as a brother, that is, almost as another self, nursing the breasts of my mother (the discipline and institutes of my religious order), that I may find you outside (separated from the world in the cloister), and kiss you, that is, be most closely united to you in all the offices and exercises of religion, and no one would despise me, who have begotten such a brother, indeed a son, for religion? So Honorius.
Finally, St. Anselm, St. Ambrose, Rupert, Aponius, Honorius, and Hortolanus refer these words to the conversion of the Jews: hear St. Anselm: "Would that someone would announce to me Christ my brother, born of my flesh, educated in the doctrine of the Synagogue;" and, turning to Him, she would add: "That I may find You outside, that I may recognize You as a man, in which I shamefully erred; and that I may kiss You, that is, delight in having recognized Your humanity; and that no one would now consider me contemptible!" Here the Chaldean version is relevant: "At that time," it says, "the Messiah King will appear to the Synagogue of Israel, and the children of Israel will say to Him: Come, be with us as a father, and we will go up to Jerusalem, and we will nurse with You the teachings of the law, just as an infant nurses the breasts of his mother. For even during all that time when I was wandering and exiled from my homeland, while I remembered the name of the great God, and gave my soul for His divinity among a foreign people, they did not despise me."
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Rupert says that this is the voice of the Church, which applauds with exultation and admiration her mother, that is, the Blessed Virgin (for she is the mother of Christ, and consequently of the Church, that is, of all Christians), and her own happiness through her, because by giving birth to Christ she made Him our brother; and he says this voice is similar to that of St. Elizabeth to the Blessed Virgin when she visited her, Luke 1:43: "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
More fittingly in the literal sense, assign these words to the Blessed Virgin in this life, aspiring to her Son reigning in heaven, meaning: Who will grant me, O Son, that just as once, taking flesh from me, You deigned to become my brother and the brother of all men, and to nurse at my breasts as those of Your mother, and at the mystical breasts of the Synagogue, which is my mother as well as Yours, and there I most sweetly kissed You: so now You would likewise grant that I might behold You, my brother, indeed my Son, in the glorious humanity which You took from me, triumphing in heaven, and there kiss You, and with You perpetually revel and delight in the greatest and eternal joys.
Hailgrin adds: "She desires to find Him alone, namely in His divine nature, in which He is alone and has no human companionship. She desires to find Him, not only to know Him in the prison of the flesh, but to find the immensity of His deity, which is contained by no limit and contains and encompasses all things; and she desires to find Him thus, so that she may kiss Him, that is, so that seeing Him present as it were face to face, she may delight in His love."
VERSE 2. I WILL TAKE HOLD OF YOU AND LEAD YOU INTO THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER: THERE YOU WILL TEACH ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU A CUP OF SPICED WINE AND THE JUICE OF MY POMEGRANATES.
I WILL TAKE HOLD OF (the Septuagint reads, I will take up) YOU AND LEAD YOU INTO THE HOUSE OF MY MOTHER (the Septuagint reads, of her who conceived me): THERE YOU WILL TEACH ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU A CUP OF SPICED WINE AND THE JUICE (the Syriac reads, the sweetness) OF MY POMEGRANATES. -- For spiced, the Septuagint translates with perfumer's; the Hebrew reads, I will give you aromatic wine to drink, that is, such as pharmacists are accustomed to prepare in their shops and to flavor with sugar, honey, cinnamon, and other aromatics, which provide a sweet and pleasant taste even for children, such as the bridegroom is here desired to be; whence the Arabic translates, I will give you sweet wine to drink; St. Jerome in his commentary on Zechariah chapter 9, you will give me to drink of the wine of the perfumer, from the streams of your pomegranates; but in chapter 12 he reads, you will give me to drink of the wine of the perfumer (apothecary), of the wine of the apples, and considers these to be the words of the Church to Christ.
The bride is imagined as desiring to kiss the bridegroom, whom she had wished to be a little child, and to take Him up and carry Him into the house of her mother, that is, her own house, so that there she might be taught by the bridegroom and continually enjoy Him, and therefore feed Him with her delicacies, namely aromatic wine and pomegranate juice. For although wine is not given to infants and nursing babes, but milk, nevertheless wine flavored with honey or sugar is sometimes given; for this is like milk. Again, although in verse 1 the bride wished the bridegroom to be a little child, nevertheless she knew that He was not truly an infant, but a perfect man, and for such a one she here intends to offer spiced wine and pomegranate juice.
These words depend on the preceding verse, for it is a wish, meaning: Who will grant me, that is, would that I might be permitted to take hold of You and lead You into the house of my mother, so that there You might teach me, and I in turn might offer You wine and juice, that is, O bridegroom, would that You would take hold of me, Your bride, and lead me into Your house, so that there our wedding might be consummated! For to this end the bridegroom was accustomed to lead the bride into his house. It is a hypallage: beggars use a similar art and phrase to extract alms from the rich; and children use it to obtain from their mother the cakes or fruits they see. For the clever ones say: Look, O mother, what beautiful fruits! If only I had money to buy them and give them to you! By which they mean to say: O mother, buy such beautiful fruits and give them to me, because I desire them greatly, but I dare not express it, and so I cover my desire with the veil of charity; for I love you, just as you love me; show me therefore your maternal love, so that I may show you my filial love.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Love makes the bride bold and courageous, and so she attributes to herself what belonged to the bridegroom, namely leading the bride into the house of her mother, that is, her own house; but these are the bride's vows of love, not the effects of her power. These words depend on what precedes, meaning: Would that I could kiss You, O bridegroom, as my little child and brother, take hold of You and lead You into the house of my mother! By which through metalepsis, or rather hypallage, the bride signifies that she desires to be led by the bridegroom into his house, so that there the wedding may be completed and consummated, meaning: Would that You, O bridegroom, would take hold of me, now weary of this laborious and sorrowful life in earthly farms and gardens, and lead me into the house of Your mother, that is, Your own, namely the heavenly Jerusalem, so that there You might teach me, indeed show me Your divinity, and with it make me blessed, so that I might see and taste what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, and what God has prepared for those who love Him! There then we shall vie in mutual services: You will teach me these things, and I in turn will offer You spiced wine of praise, thanksgiving, and every kind of worship; and the juice of my pomegranates, namely the blood and doxology of my martyrs. So Cassiodorus, Bede, Honorius, Alcuinus, Angelomus here, and St. Ambrose, book 5, epistle 39 to Irenaeus.
Hear Cassiodorus: "Clinging to You through faith and charity, I will follow You returning to heaven after the accomplished mystery of Your incarnation and passion. For as the Lord ascended into heaven, the apostles followed Him with their eyes and accompanied Him with pious gaze, until a cloud received Him. When You have been received into heaven, and have also taken me up into heaven, there You will teach me and lead me into all truth, and will show Your divinity face to face, and I will show with what most fervent charity I love You, giving You to drink of the wine of charity spiced with the good works of other virtues; and I will give You the juice of my pomegranates, showing in the sufferings of the holy martyrs how great is the charity with which You are loved: for the love of the martyrs is the juice of the pomegranates."
Here pertains the exposition of those who refer these words to the conversion of the Jews at the end of the world, whom I shall shortly cite: for after this, with the number of the elect completed, the day of judgment will soon follow, and the glorification of the saints in heaven.
Symbolically, Theodoret, Bede, and others who had expounded the preceding verse of the incarnation or passion of Christ, also expound this verse of the same; but Philo expounds it of Christ's death, burial, and descent into hell: for he reads thus, I will take hold of You and lead You into the house of my mother, and into the storehouse of her who gathered me: for our house and storehouse, which formerly gathered the fathers as well as Christ, is death, the tomb, and hell, meaning: Christ descended into death and hell, so that He might liberate the fathers from it. Likewise, by spiced wine he understands the passion and blood of Christ, with which the Church professes herself washed, with thanksgiving.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul, first, through prayer and meditation leads Christ the bridegroom into the house of her mother, that is, into her own mind, which is as it were the mother of all thoughts and actions; there she is taught by Him how she can and ought to perfect herself in charity, religion, and every virtue; there in turn she offers Him wine and pomegranate juice of sharp compunction, mortification, and martyrdom: so the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret. Second, Rupert understands by spiced wine the sacrifice of the Eucharistic chalice; by pomegranate juice, the sacrifice of the holy martyrs. So also Philo, who, third, understands by the house of the mother the Sacred Scriptures, whose mysteries and secrets are as it were a storehouse and pantry, in which the faithful soul refreshes herself. Fourth, Honorius understands the house of the mother as religion or a monastery: There, he says, she takes hold of Christ as it were by the hand, and leads Him into the house of her mother, when she brings good works into the cloister, the house of the congregation as the mother of converts, and into the understanding of the rule of the cloister as her nurse, while she teaches her to understand it; there in the cloister she is taught what is promised to converts in heaven; there she will be given a cup of spiced wine, that is, "doctrine composed from the writings of the wise, and pomegranate juice, that is, the examples of the just."
Moreover, St. Gregory, Aponius, Anselm, and Hortolanus refer these words to the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews at the end of the world. Hear St. Gregory: "She leads Him, having been apprehended, into the house of her mother, because she will preach Christ, in whom she believes, to the Synagogue at the end of the world; and when He has been received through the preaching of the Church, there He will teach the Church: because she will rejoice at being taught, when she sees the Synagogue, now made one body with her, being instructed together with her. The Church will give a cup of spiced wine, because she will preach the New Testament together with the Old to the Synagogue, and will season the cup as it were with wine, because she will gird the sweetness of the Gospel with the testimony of the law, which is harsh, so that it may be held more firmly. And she will bestow the juice of her pomegranates, because she will set forth the examples of strong men who held fast to the unity of the Church even in martyrdom, so that the Synagogue may be inflamed to their likeness, and, strengthened by the examples of preceding martyrs, may not succumb to the persecutions of Antichrist. For when she has heard of the victories of strong warriors, she will not hesitate to enter battle in imitation of them." Here the Chaldean version is relevant: "I will lead You, O Messiah King, and bring You into the house of my sanctuary, and You will teach me to fear before the face of the Lord, and to walk in His ways, and there we will take our meal, and drink old wine which has been stored in its grapes from the day the world was created, and of the pomegranates which have been prepared for the just in the paradise of delight."
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin, giving birth to Christ as an infant, led Him into the house of her mother, that is, her own house, in Nazareth, which was translated by angels to Loreto, where today it is venerated with the concourse of the whole world. In it she was taught by Him about the mystery of the passion, the cross, the resurrection, etc., and the redemption of mankind, and about leading an angelic, perfect, and divine life, and this more by example than by word. Again, there she gave the now-growing Christ spiced wine and pomegranate juice to drink, both literal and mystical, namely the wine of burning charity, and the juice of compunction and tears.
Again, and more fittingly in the literal sense, the Blessed Virgin took hold of Christ, that is, she asked to be taken hold of by Christ (it is a hypallage), and to be led into the house of the mother, namely the heavenly Jerusalem, and there to be taught by Him through the beatific vision about the entire holy Deity and Trinity; and there in turn she offered Him the spiced wine of exultation and thanksgiving, and the juice of burning love and charity.
VERSE 3. HIS LEFT HAND IS UNDER MY HEAD, AND HIS RIGHT HAND WILL EMBRACE ME.
The bride, from the vehemence of her love and desire of enjoying Christ in heaven, which she expressed in verses 1 and 2, falls into a faint, a sleep, and an ecstasy of soul; and so, as it were collapsing and falling, she calls upon the help of the bridegroom, that with His left hand He may support her head, and with His right her body, and so she may rest in His bosom. By this is literally signified that the Church at the end of the world, partly from the heat of love for Christ, partly from the multitude of persecutions and tribulations, will sigh for heaven, so that there the bridegroom Christ may encompass her with His left and right hand, and most closely unite and bind her to Himself face to face; but meanwhile, while this union is deferred, she will ask that the bridegroom protect, strengthen, and guide her with His left and right hand, so that she may bravely endure His delays and the persecutions of her enemies, until the day of blessed eternity dawns and the shadows of wretched mortality decline.
Hear Honorius: "The left hand of the bridegroom will be under the head of the bride, because she will see all the glory of the world under the power of Christ, who is her head; and His right hand will embrace her, because the angelic fellowship and the unanimity of the saints, which will be at Christ's right hand at the judgment, will associate her with itself; in this right hand she will rest from every disturbance, and no one will awaken her from this repose, because no one will take her joy from her." Moreover, we heard this maxim in chapter 2, verse 6, where I explained it: therefore I will add nothing more here, except that there it was attributed to the bride as an infant, but here to the bride as an adult and perfected.
Finally, the Chaldean paraphrase, in a Jewish fashion, refers these words to the phylacteries of the Jews: "The congregation of Israel said: I am chosen above all peoples, because I bind phylacteries to my left hand and to my head, and a small scroll is affixed to the right side of my door, the third part of which faces my bedchamber, so that the demons may not have permission to harm me."
VERSE 4. I ADJURE YOU, DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM, DO NOT STIR UP OR AWAKEN THE BELOVED, UNTIL SHE HERSELF WILLS.
I ADJURE YOU, DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM, DO NOT STIR UP OR AWAKEN THE BELOVED (the Hebrew and Septuagint read, charity or love, that is, the most greatly beloved), UNTIL SHE HERSELF WILLS. -- These are the words of the bridegroom, who, seeing the bride fall into the sleep and ecstasy of love, forbids anyone to awaken her from it, since it is most sweet, most holy, and most pleasing to Him, but to let her sleep peacefully in it. We have now heard this maxim for the third time, for in chapter 2, verse 7, it is attributed to the bride as an infant, and in chapter 3, verse 5, to the bride as an adolescent; but here it is attributed to the bride as perfected and mature: see what was said there. The bridegroom repeats it a third time, to show how much the lot of Mary Magdalene pleases Him more than that of Martha, that is, the leisure of contemplation more than the business of action.
The Chaldean paraphrase, in a Judaizing fashion, refers these words to Gog and Magog, who represent the Antichrist and his followers: "The Messiah King said: I adjure you, my people of the house of Israel, why do you contend against the peoples of the earth, that you should go forth from captivity, and why do you wish to rebel against the army of Gog and Magog? Wait a little, until the peoples who have come up to wage war against Jerusalem are consumed, and then the Master of the world will remember for you the mercies of the just, and it will be His will to set you free."
Voice of the People Who Meet Her.
VERSE 5. WHO IS THIS THAT COMES UP FROM THE DESERT, ABOUNDING IN DELIGHTS, LEANING UPON HER BELOVED?
The Septuagint and the Arabic, reading mubar instead of midbar, that is, desert, translate whitened: for bar or barar means to cleanse, purify, whiten, although the Complutensian edition of the Septuagint reads from the wilderness. For abounding in delights, leaning upon, the Hebrew has a single word mithrappeket, which Vatablus, Pagninus, and others translate as leaning upon; Rabbi David as clinging; Rabbi Solomon and Aben Ezra as associated; the Septuagint as supported, leaning upon; Philo as confirmed in her brother, that is, who has Christ as the immovable foundation of her beauty and comeliness. Although Origen, in homily 1, translated by St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8, read it as reclining upon his breast: just as St. John reclined in the bosom of Jesus, says St. Ambrose. From which some wish to see the bride here sleeping in the bosom of the bridegroom, while he embraced her with left and right hand, as he said in verse 3; but the word ascends contradicts this: for one does not ascend in a bosom, but rather is carried in the hands of the bridegroom. Furthermore, that the bride was no longer sleeping but had awakened and was walking is clear from the fact that the bridegroom says to her in the following verse: "Under the apple tree I awakened you," etc.
Therefore the bride, who had previously been sleeping in the bosom of the bridegroom, now awakening and made bolder by the ecstasy of love, having banished all fear of modesty and mockery, clasped with her arms the neck or rather the shoulders of the bridegroom, and so, leaning upon them, appeared to passersby and those who met her to be ascending from the desert, that is, from the suburban field, toward Jerusalem. But the men who met her, seeing her, marveled at her beauty, as well as at her love and boldness, and exclaimed: "Who is this," etc., that is, "how blessed is she who ascends, says Honorius, from the world to heaven? And the angels will introduce her into their fellowship, where she will abound in the delights of paradise, because she will rejoice in the good things of the Lord; when she will see face to face God Himself, into whom the angels desire to look; where she will hear the harmony of angels and the instruments of the saints, and will perceive the very fragrance of sweetness; where she will be inebriated from the abundance of the house of the Lord, and will be satisfied when the glory of God appears. There she will be leaning upon her beloved, because she will always be established in the joy of the Lord." This is therefore the voice not of the companions of the bridegroom or the bride, but of the crowd who meets her.
Whence Theodoret notes that the bride is called whitened by the Septuagint, but the bridegroom is called white, because He is such by nature, whereas the bride was previously darkened and made swarthy, because the sun had looked upon her; but now she has been whitened by the bridegroom and made a partaker of His brightness, who, being Light, both made her luminous and called her so, and, being holy, both made her holy and named her so; and since He is the resurrection, He willed her to be worthy of resurrection; and so He communicated His whiteness to her: so St. Augustine. St. Ambrose, however, in sermon 14 on Psalm 118, instead of whitened reads bright, and in book 4 On the Sacraments, chapter 2, refers this to the brightness of baptism, which the angels admire: moreover, this brightness and purity of conscience present to the soul the delights of paradise. This alludes to the ascent of the Hebrews from the desert into the promised land under the leadership of Joshua, says Honorius.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The angels and the heavenly inhabitants, seeing the Church at the end of the world, with the Jews and Gentiles now converted, perfected with all her saints and elect, and therefore striving for heaven to obtain the reward and triumph of her warfare and victory, will exclaim as if marveling at her form, strength, and beauty: Who is this heroine, adorned with the noble lineages and trophies of so many virgins, martyrs, confessors, apostles, and other heroes, who from the desert, that is, from the uncultivated field of this world, indeed from the thornbush and briar-patch of crimes and of all evils, ascends so gloriously into heaven, leaning upon Christ her beloved from the tenderness and delights of love? So Honorius, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 14, verse 5.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others understand these words of the ascent, that is, the progress of the soul, as it goes from virtue to virtue: The faithful soul, says Honorius, ascends from the desert when she abandons an evil life; and she ascends to a spiritual way of life through the steps of the virtues. She abounds in delights while she deliciously feeds herself on the oracles of the Scriptures; she leans upon her beloved because she is fixed in love upon Christ alone. Three Fathers cited by Theodoret say: Who is this who, teaching so skillfully, progresses from hidden things to things still more hidden and recondite, purged from every stain of sin? Alan says elegantly: "She descended into the desert through birth, she ascends through the desert progressing from virtue to virtue; she ascends above the desert, despising all worldly grandeur; she ascends from the desert into eternal blessedness."
Here the Chaldean paraphrase adds: "Solomon the prophet said: When the dead revive, it will come to pass that the Mount of Olives will be split, and all the dead of Israel will come forth from it, and also the just who died in captivity will come by the way of thorns under the earth, and will emerge from the Mount of Olives. But it will come to pass that the wicked who died and were buried in the land of Israel will be cast down like a stone that a man throws upon the ground. Then all the inhabitants of the earth will say: What is the merit of this people, who ascend from the earth in thousands upon thousands, as on the day when they ascended from the desert into the land of Israel, and abound in delights because of the mercies of their Lord; as on the day when He was seen beneath Mount Sinai, to receive the law?"
The phrase leaning upon her beloved signifies that the Church ascends into heaven not by her own strength, but by the grace of Christ: "for no one ascends into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven," and whom He deigned to lead with Himself into heaven, John chapter 3, 13: see St. Augustine on Psalm 103, and the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 6.
Rupert urges the phrase leaning upon her beloved: "Namely," he says, "so that she may not fear the fear of men, so that she may not fail in the tribulations that have found her or will find her, and in the persecutions of visible and invisible enemies -- pagans, Jews, heretics, and evil spirits. For how would she stand amid all these things, unless she were leaning upon her beloved? Should she lean upon herself, or upon anyone else? Then surely she would fall, she could not stand. But now she says, Psalm 26:1: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? If armies encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. If battle should rise against me, in this I shall hope. To say and to do this is indeed to be leaning upon the beloved." Hence the symbol of hope and love is ivy, so called from clinging, because since it cannot stand by itself, attaching itself to a tree it clings so firmly that it cannot be torn away: so the holy soul, distrusting her own strength and trusting entirely in Christ, clings to Him so that she cannot be separated from Him. Whence this is the motto of this ivy: "I shall never be torn away." The example is St. Mary Magdalene.
Do you wish therefore to abound in delights? Lean upon your Jesus, who is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, jubilation in the heart, says St. Bernard, and follow His life: on these delights see Isaiah, chapter 66, verse 11 and following.
Hear St. Gregory: "The holy soul ascends from the desert, because placed in the exile of this pilgrimage, she stretches her mind and thoughts toward heavenly joys; whence Paul also said: Our citizenship is in heaven, Philippians 3:20. She abounds in delights, because, intent on meditation on Sacred Scripture, she continually feeds her mind on heavenly nourishment. She leans upon her beloved, because trusting in the help of Christ alone, by His generosity she is transferred from exile to her homeland." And St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 14, verse 5: "The soul, he says, ascends with gleaming merits, from this desert of the present life, as most hold, to that ever-flourishing place of eternal joy; those powers marvel that from this rough and rocky desert any soul can ascend without the stain of great vices, and therefore they rejoice to have found one who has not soiled the garments of natural innocence with the ink of worldly folly, but has rather cleansed them with the brightness of spiritual wisdom and grace." St. Bernard in his Sentences describes the threefold mystical desert from which the soul ascends.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
Honorius introduces the Church converted from the Jews at the end of the world, admiring the glory of the Blessed Virgin: "Who is this, that is, how worthy of praise, how virtuous, who ascends from the desert, the Lebanon of the world, abounding in the delights of heaven, leaning upon her beloved, exalted by Him above the choirs of the angels?" More fully, Hailgrin says: "The Blessed Virgin ascended through the progress of her merits; she ascended through the degrees of dignities, she who rises like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun; she ascended from the exile of the present life, taken up above the choirs of the angels. She ascended from the desert, namely from the world, which she so abandoned and considered as a desert, that she turned away from it all her affection. She is said to abound in the delights of graces and virtues, leaning upon her beloved: for lest she lose the abounding delights, she leaned not on her own merits but on His grace, who bestows grace and adds the reward of merit."
Moreover, St. Bernard, in sermon 4 On the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, attributes these words to the angels admiring the beauty and glory of the Blessed Virgin when she was being assumed into heaven by Christ, and therefore exclaiming: "Who is this that comes up from the desert, abounding in delights, leaning upon her beloved?"
Voice of the Bridegroom. UNDER THE APPLE TREE I AWAKENED YOU: THERE YOUR MOTHER WAS CORRUPTED, THERE YOUR PARENT WAS VIOLATED.
UNDER THE APPLE TREE I AWAKENED (the Arabic reads, I raised up) YOU: THERE YOUR MOTHER WAS CORRUPTED, THERE YOUR PARENT WAS VIOLATED. -- The Septuagint reads, under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother bore you in pain, there she who begot you bore you in pain; the Syriac, there your mother corrupted you, there your parent violated you; the Arabic, she suffered birth pangs for you: for the Hebrew chibbel, and the Greek odynase, as the Septuagint translates, signifies to bear and bring forth in pain; whence properly you would translate, there your mother bore you with great pain. Moreover, chibbel also signifies to corrupt, to tear apart, as our translator renders it.
Some think these are the words of the bride about the bridegroom, because the rabbis substituted the masculine vowel pointing for you and your, lest the mother of the bridegroom, that is, their Synagogue, be said to have been corrupted and violated, which seems to them a reproach. The rabbis are followed by heretics and some Catholics, such as Luis of Leon, Agathias, Nannius, and Genebrard; but they explain it in various ways.
and the rest that follows: for all the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, teach by unanimous consent that these are the words of the bridegroom -- St. Gregory, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Bede, Justus, Anselm, Rupert, Angelomus, Haymo, Alcuinus, St. Thomas, and all the rest. Here then the bride is imagined gathering fruits under the apple tree, bitten by the serpent and in danger of her life, healed by the bridegroom and as it were awakened to life: for thus Christ called back to life through the cross Eve and her children, who had been bitten by the serpent-devil in the forbidden fruit and lethally wounded.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
Some expound it thus, meaning: Under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Eve ate the forbidden fruit and destroyed herself and her descendants; but I, Christ, under the tree of the cross, which was situated in the same place of Calvary, called her back from death, or through the cross, which is the antitype of the apple tree, I awakened the dead bride: so St. Gregory and many others.
But I say these are the words of the bridegroom, not the bride, and therefore in the Hebrew the vowel points must be substituted to signify feminine pronouns instead of masculine, so that for orarticha you should read orartich, for immecha, immech; for chibbelatech, and so for the rest that follows: for all the Fathers teach by unanimous consent that these are the words of the bridegroom -- St. Gregory, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Bede, Justus, Anselm, Rupert, Angelomus, Haymo, Alcuinus, St. Thomas, and all the rest.
The sense, therefore, is as follows: O bride, O Church, in this your glory remember that I, dying on the wood of the cross, awakened you from death, because under the counterpart tree of the forbidden fruit, through eating and disobedience, your mother Eve was corrupted by the serpent, who in you, when she bore you, transmitted this original sin as it were by natural propagation: for Eve, by consenting to the serpent, that is, the devil, prostituted herself as it were to be violated and corrupted by him; there also your parent the Synagogue was violated (for she is the mother of the Church, because the Church came forth from her), when she crucified me, her own Messiah and King, Pontiff and Lawgiver, with monstrous parricide and sacrilege, indeed deicide: "for when she fixed her Savior on the wood, there by a wicked crime she corrupted herself," says St. Gregory. "He therefore marked the wood at that time, to undo the losses of the wood," as the Church sings in the hymn of the Holy Cross.
For God willed by a fitting decree of His justice and wisdom that Christ should be killed not by the sword, not by fire, not by any other torment, but by the wood of the cross, so that the sin committed on the wood by Adam and Eve might be expiated by the wood of the cross, so that the devil, "who conquered on the wood, might also be conquered on the wood," as the Church sings; "and whence death arose, thence life might rise again." For this reason the cross of Christ will appear in heaven when Christ comes for judgment, Matthew 24:30, and, as many hold, will endure in heaven forever, to make the blessed always mindful and grateful for so great a benefit. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Justus, Anselm, Rupert.
Hear William: "For you were dead in sins; I gave you life under the wood of the cross. From my body hanging on the wood, the blood of redemption flowed in five streams upon you, and thus under that tree I awakened you. What does under that tree mean? Looking up at that tree, looking up at the bronze serpent, that is, believing in Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Alluding to this, Ezekiel, chapter 16, verse 5 and following, sets before the Synagogue her former vileness and filth, from which she was raised by God, purified, and taken as a bride, for her to ponder: "No eye pitied you," he says, "to do any of these things for you out of compassion; but you were cast upon the face of the earth in the abjection of your soul on the day you were born. But passing by you, I saw you trodden in your blood, and I said to you when you were in your blood: Live; I said, I say, to you: In your blood, live."
Moreover, as for what the Septuagint, the Arabic, and others translate from the Hebrew as there your mother bore you with great pain or suffering, Titelmann aptly expounds it thus, meaning: In the cross of Christ, His maternal love and mercy, like a mother in labor, brought you forth with immense suffering; and he adds that the latter part can be translated as there your birth labored, or your nativity, that is, there it was made clear at what great price your regeneration cost, with what difficulty your redemption from death could be accomplished, since it could only be perfected through the death of the only-begotten Son of God.
St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8: "There," he says, "your mother bore you in travail, etc.; for those are born in whom the image of Christ is formed; whence, since Christ had been formed in the bride, He says, Canticle 8:6: Set me as a seal upon your arm."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
Under the apple tree, that is, under the cross through its frequent meditation and contemplation, the soul is stirred to love and fervor, so that she may love in return Him who so loved her, and repay love with love, blood with blood, death with death, because there in pain she who conceived you gave birth, as the Septuagint translates, that is, the flesh of Christ, says Philo, suffering in the torment of the cross, bore the bride for Himself, redeemed by blood and washed by the water of baptism which flowed from the side of Christ. "Behold," says St. Augustine, in the book On Virginity, "the wounds of Him who hangs, the blood of Him who dies, the price of Him who redeems, the scars of Him who rises: His head is bowed for kissing, His heart open for loving, His arms stretched out for embracing, His whole body exposed for redeeming. Consider how great these things are; weigh them in the scales of your heart, so that He who was entirely fixed on the cross for us may be entirely fixed in your heart."
The well-known saying of St. Gregory: "Nothing is burdensome to God that is not borne with equanimity, if the passion of Christ is recalled to memory: for we bear small things if we remember what harsh words, harsher blows, and harshest torments He suffered for us -- He who bore a crown on His head, a blindfold over His eyes, insults in His ears, gall and vinegar in His mouth, spittle and slaps on His face, pulling of the beard on His cheeks, the cross on His shoulders, sorrow in His heart, shaking in His bowels, scourges on His body, stretching of His limbs, piercing of His hands and feet; in short, from the top of His head to the soles of His feet, He endured innumerable wounds and pains."
Philo adds that the fruit, or apple, of this apple tree is the Eucharist, in which the flesh of Christ, roasted and scorched on the cross more by love for us than by pain, is offered for us to eat, so that He may breathe into us His love, life, and spirit.
Again, the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret say that the soul infected with concupiscence from the forbidden tree, whose fruit Eve ate, is healed by the tree of the cross, from which she learns to conquer pleasure through the cross and mortification: hear them: "Under these created things, which like a sweet fruit delight all the senses, I awakened you (O soul), sluggish in embracing the good through laziness, and drowsy from the pursuit of perishable things, urging you with the words and reasons of providence and judgment toward love and desire of Me: for there, in the attachment to transient things, your first mother Eve conceived you, begetting with pleasure and bearing with pain. With these attachments to fragile things you were laboring in desire, pursuing pleasure and fleeing pain, striving so toward the end of pleasure that you wished to be separated from pain, which indeed can by no means be done. Therefore, if you desire to be free from these disturbances," set me as a seal, etc., which follows.
Anagogically, Honorius says: "Christ will awaken the soul under the apple tree; because after this life He will bring to life through the victory of the cross every race that underwent death through the tree of transgression. Then the Church will be received into that glory where her mother was corrupted through pride, namely the angelic dignity, and where her parent was violated, namely the number of the elect was diminished, which the Church herself will restore, when she possesses incorruption and fills up the number of the elect; then she will set Christ as a seal upon her heart," etc.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, under the apple tree, that is, under the cross, Christ awakened Eve and Adam (whence Adam was also buried on Mount Calvary, on which Christ was crucified, so that with the blood dripping from Christ upon the buried Adam, he might be raised from death, as the Fathers commonly teach; just as the pelican is said to vivify its dead chicks with blood drawn from its own breast); and all their descendants, among whom is the Blessed Virgin. But because she had already been decreed by God to be the mother of Christ, she was therefore preserved by God from the fall and from original sin; she is nonetheless said here to have been awakened from the fall and sin, not because she actually incurred it, but because she would have had to incur it from the common descent of Adam and Eve, had she not been exempted by a special privilege of God.
St. Augustine explains this with beautiful analogies in his commentary on Psalm 135:13: You delivered my soul from the lower hell. The first is: "Just as," he says, "if a doctor sees an illness threatening you perhaps from some exertion, and says: Spare yourself, treat yourself thus, rest, use these foods, for if you do not, you will become sick; but if you do, you will be safe -- rightly you say to the doctor: You freed me from the illness, not from one I was already in, but from one I was going to be in. The second: A certain person with a troublesome case was about to be sent to prison; another came, defended him, and in giving thanks, what does he say? You delivered my soul from prison. The third: A debtor was about to be hanged; the debt was paid for him, and he is said to have been freed from hanging. In all these cases they were not yet there, but because their circumstances were such that unless help had come they would have been there, they rightly say they were freed from that to which their liberators did not allow them to be brought."
Second, Christ awakened the Blessed Virgin under the cross to an increase and fervor of charity, so that seeing Christ's love for her and for all mankind even unto death, and death on the cross, she might in turn be stirred by this example, and as it were set ablaze by the fiery conflagration of charity, to the point that she would desire to be crucified for Christ and with Christ, and to offer herself to God as a holocaust and sin-offering for the salvation of mankind, ready for every kind of torment.
Third, the Blessed Virgin, standing by the crucified Christ and offering Him as a holocaust to God for the reconciliation of the world, says to the Church and to the holy soul: Under the apple tree, that is, under the cross, through the death of my Son, whom I offered to God as a sacrifice for you, I awakened you from sin, death, and hell. She does the same daily, while she intercedes with God through the cross of her Son for sinners, and obtains for them pardon, grace, and salvation.
VERSE 6. SET ME AS A SEAL UPON YOUR HEART, AS A SEAL UPON YOUR ARM: FOR LOVE IS AS STRONG AS DEATH, JEALOUSY IS AS HARD AS HELL: ITS LAMPS ARE LAMPS OF FIRE AND FLAMES.
SET ME AS A SEAL UPON YOUR HEART, AS A SEAL UPON YOUR ARM. -- The Chaldean, Arabic, the rabbis, and those Catholics who consider the preceding verse to be the voice of the bride, assign this verse also to her, as though she were asking that the bridegroom seal his heart and arm with the perpetual memory and love of the bride, so wretched and corrupted by sin, as with a seal. And indeed these words can be attributed to the bride, because she imitates the disposition of the bridegroom and models herself and her soul upon him: for the disposition and love of the bridegroom and bride are correlative. Hence the Chaldean translates: The children of Israel will say on that day to their Lord: I beseech You, set us like the engraving of a ring upon Your arm, that we may no longer be exiles. Finally, the Hebrew text indicates these are the words of the bride, not the bridegroom: for it has the masculine simeni, that is, set me, O man, O bridegroom. If they were the words of the bridegroom, the feminine simini would have been used, that is, set me, O woman, O bride; unless you say that simeni is an infinitive used for the imperative: for the infinitive is both feminine and masculine, as some hold.
For that these are the words of the bridegroom to the bride seems to follow from what was said in the preceding verse. This maxim therefore depends on the preceding one as effect from cause, and thanksgiving from benefit, meaning: Because I, the bridegroom, awakened you, O bride, lethally wounded from the wound and death under the apple tree of the forbidden fruit eaten by your mother Eve, through the apple tree and wood of my cross, therefore you in turn, mindful of so great a benefit, "set me as a seal upon your heart." The former sense is plain; the latter more obscure and more moral, and therefore I shall pursue it: for the Fathers agree that these are the words of the bridegroom, not the bride.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The bridegroom, in order to further incite the bride to perpetual love, reverence, and thanksgiving toward Him, in the preceding verse introduced the mention of the cross and the death endured for the bride, the Church; whence here He rightly demands that she perpetually bear Him and His cross in her heart and mind, and in her arm and actions, and seal her heart and arm with Him as with a seal. For seal, the Hebrew is chotam, which properly signifies a signet and a signet ring, with which letters and other things are sealed and stamped: for the root chatam signifies to close, to seal, to confirm with a seal.
First, therefore, seal here signifies a signet, as if the bridegroom were saying: Seal, O bride, your heart and your arm with Me and with the memory and love of Me, so that you may preserve the perpetual form and image of Me, like an image expressed and impressed in your mind and action from Me: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Justus, and others. Whence William says: "Set me as a seal, that is, he says, impress me within, by continually thinking of me; impress me outwardly, by strenuously working for my sake, so that the pious inward thought of the heart may flow into the outward action of the arm." Again, meaning: So impress my ways and life upon your heart and arm, that you may express their likeness in yourself, that is, in your thoughts and actions, so that whoever sees you as a Christian may think they see Christ, just as whoever sees an image impressed in wax judges that they see the seal itself and the original -- and this both in doing and in suffering, according to that saying of Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:18: "Always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in our bodies." So St. Anselm and St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8, and Theodoret.
"The Savior wills," says Theodoret, "that we have Him as a seal in our contemplations and in our actions, and that we impress His mark both in our words and in our deeds: for thus they will be like royal coins, not counterfeit, but bearing the royal image." So also the three Anonymous authors. Hear St. Ambrose: "Christ is a seal on the forehead, a seal on the heart, a seal on the arm: on the forehead, that we may always confess; on the heart, that we may always love; on the arm, that we may always work. Let His image therefore shine in our confession, let it shine in our love, let it shine in our works and deeds; so that, if possible, His entire likeness may be expressed in us. Let Him be our head, for the head of man is Christ; let Him be our eye, so that through Him we may see the Father; let Him be our voice, through which we may speak to the Father; let Him be our right hand, through which we may offer our sacrifice to God the Father: He Himself is also our seal, which is the mark of perfection and charity, with which the loving Father sealed His Son, as we read, John 6:27: Whom the Father, God, has sealed."
Second, a seal is the same as a brand and mark such as a master impresses upon his servants, soldiers, sheep, oxen, and possessions, so that from them it may be evident that those things are his: thus, in Apocalypse 7:2, all the elect are signed with the sign of the cross. Christ therefore here impresses upon the bride His brand of the cross, so that from it she may be recognized as the servant of Christ crucified; just as the Antichrist will impress his mark and character upon his followers on their hand or forehead, Apocalypse 13:16: so Aponius.
On the other hand, God says of Jeconiah, Jeremiah 22:24: "As I live, says the Lord: even if Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a ring on my right hand, I would tear him off." And hence all the losses of the Church arise, namely that many set not Christ but the world, and the idol of the world, as the seal of their heart; that they seek worldly honors, riches, and pleasures, not the love and glory of Christ. Hear Cardinal Hugo, encompassing these and more: "Set me as a seal, etc., meaning: I will that you have the memory of Me crucified for you, so that through you nothing harmful may enter or go out (for what we wish to be hidden, we also protect with a seal), so that you may open the secret of your heart to Me alone; so that the likeness of My beauty may be reflected in you; so that the character of My love may distinguish you from every stranger; so that in your fortress My banner may always appear;" and after some further words: "The necklace of the breast is the seal of the heart, lest an unworthy affection creep in; the bracelet of the arm is the seal of fortitude in outward action, so that we may also carry in our body the stigmata of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Finally, St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 8: "The seal," he says, "is Christ on the forehead, that we may always confess Him; on the heart, that we may always love Him; on the arm, that we may always work, so that, if possible, His entire likeness may be expressed in us. He Himself is our seal, whom the Father, God, has sealed," John 6:27, etc. The same, on Psalm 118, sermon 15, on the words of verse 120: "Pierce my flesh with the nails of Your fear: Fix," he says, "upon your heart this seal of the Crucified; fix it also upon your arm, so that your works may be dead to sin. Perhaps the nails of not only fear but also charity affix this image, because love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard as hell, Canticle 8:6. With these nails of charity let our soul and our flesh be pierced, so that she herself may say: I am wounded with charity."
Moreover, William teaches that this image of Christ is impressed upon the heart by the seal of charity, when he says: "Impress yourself upon Me as upon a seal, by clinging strongly to Me through love, so that from Me as from a seal you may receive form, so that by My subtle imprint you may draw a likeness: the greater the impression of love, the greater also will be the expression of likeness; the more strongly you cling to Me through love, the more like Me you will be. The more forcefully you press yourself upon Me, the more expressly I, Christ, will be formed in you, and the more notably you will be reformed and transformed in Me." And further: "Charity transforms a person conformed to the world, because as a seal, so it also changes the form, so that one who was worldly may become godlike and divine."
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
Christ crucified commands the pious soul to bear His image continually on her heart and arm, that is, in her mind and action, so that she may see, think, love, and work nothing but Christ crucified; but exclude from her mind and affections all other persons and things, however precious, and He tacitly promises her that if she does this, He in turn will seal His own heart and arm with her memory and love, so that He may continually think of her and care for her, direct, defend, and prosper her: so the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret. Thus God says to Zerubbabel, who was a type of Christ: "I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant, says the Lord, and I will set you as a seal, for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts," Haggai 2:24, where I said much on this matter.
Thus St. Paul was sealed by Christ, when he said, Galatians 6:17: "From now on, let no one cause me trouble: for I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus in my body;" and St. Francis received the same impressed upon his body from Christ; and St. Clare of Montefalco in Italy displays on her heart the cross, nails, scourges, and crown of thorns of Christ impressed upon it, even now so many years after death, for those who behold it, and Bozius reports this, book 1 On the Signs of the Church, chapter 18.
Thus St. Agnes, bride of Christ, used to say of her bridegroom: "He has adorned my right hand and my neck with precious stones, He has given my ears priceless pearls: He has placed a mark upon my face, that I may admit no lover besides Him," as the Church sings of her from St. Ambrose. Moreover, let the faithful person be so much the seal and signet of Christ that he or she may strive to impress His image and ways upon others as with a seal, as Paul did, saying, 1 Corinthians 15:47: "The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly, so also are the earthly; and as is the heavenly, so also are the heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly;" and in the same epistle, chapter 6, verse 20: "For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body."
and to bear in action, so as to see, think, love, and work nothing but Christ crucified... had formed her, and said to her: "Just as I am the figure of the substance of the Father in the deity, so you will be the figure of My substance in the humanity, because your soul will receive as it were divine gifts sent to you from My divinity, in the same way that air receives the brightness of the sun, so that, penetrated intimately by this ray to the very marrow, you may become apt and fit to enter into a familiar union with Me." And in chapter 7 and following: "When," she says, "on the feast of the Purification I had received the sacred communion, with my mind intent on God and on myself, I perceived and felt my soul liquefied like wax by the divine fire, and made such by the sealing of the breast of Christ; for from it I received impressed the treasures of graces; in which the fullness of the Divinity dwells bodily; and from then on I was nobly signed with the character of the resplendent and ever tranquil Trinity, so that henceforth with all the eagerness of my mind I might pant after the supreme good in Itself, which is You, O Lord, in the truth of Your eternity, which is an abyss of charity, from which one may draw immense torrents of love, and of every grace and virtue."
And book 1, chapter 4: Christ showed to a certain person a necklace that was splendid and wonderfully adorned, which He wore placed upon His heart: this necklace was triangular like a trefoil; and He added: "As a sign of the love with which I pursue My bride Gertrude, I will continually wear this necklace." And book 5, chapter 3: as the death of St. Gertrude drew near, Christ consoled her with this honey-sweet promise: "Behold, now at last through My kiss, full of the most efficacious sweetness, I will acquire you for Myself, and through the most intimate embraces of My divine heart I will offer you to My heavenly Father," meaning: Until now I permitted you to be detained on earth for the sake of your greater merit; but now, since the fervor of tender love cannot bear further delays of your absence, I will release you from the bond of the flesh, and present you to your Creator, so that henceforth I may refresh in you the greatness of My most ardent love, according to the most sweet delights of My pleasures.
Moreover, the revelations of St. Gertrude, as well as those of St. Bridget, Martin Delrio treating of prophecy in his Mag., and many other learned and critical men who are cited at the beginning of St. Bridget's revelations, praise and venerate them as trustworthy and pious, even though they contain many symbolic elements; and therefore they are to be interpreted symbolically: for they were dictated by women of exceptional sanctity, and therefore to say they were fabricated would be a mark of great rashness and impudence. I would not, however, assert that everything written in them is properly called revelations and oracles of God, especially since even prophets themselves are sometimes mistaken, and think they are moved by the Spirit of God when they are moved by their own spirit, though a pious one, as happened to Nathan the prophet, 2 Kings chapter 7, verses 3 and 4. For this reason I occasionally cite these revelations, but sparingly and with a grain of salt, when the matter requires it.
Anagogically, Honorius understands these words of the Church triumphant in heaven: "Then," he says, "she will set Christ as a seal upon her heart, because she will see in herself Him who is the image of God, as an image expressed in wax: she will set Him as a seal upon her arm, because she will receive Him as the reward for the labor of her works. There love is as strong as death, because just as death drew all the reprobate to destruction, so the love of God will draw all the elect to joy. There jealousy is as hard as hell, because just as hell will receive all the followers of the devil, so heaven will receive all the imitators of God and Christ. There all the elect will be lamps of charity, when, with lamps lit, they will go to meet the bridegroom and bride, who will always burn like fire in the love of God: for in the kingdom of their Father they will shine like the sun." This sense seems not so much anagogical as literal: for what is treated here is the Church and the soul ascending into heaven, as I said above; for the blessed in heaven will bear Christ as a seal on their heart and arm, rejoicing with Him for all eternity.
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin set Christ as a seal upon her heart, not only ethically through a love more than maternal, but also physically, when she conceived Him, carried Him for nine months in her womb, nourished Him, and gave Him birth; and upon her arm, when she carried Him, now born, in her lap and arms. Therefore not the image or likeness of Christ, but the very Christ Himself was for her the seal of her heart and arm. Hear Alan: "The Virgin Mary set Christ upon her heart as a seal, because she was conformed to Him through imitation, and sealed by His grace. This, however, was unknown to the devil, and known to the angel. Upon your arm, that is, in all your works you will be mindful of Me. The beloved is placed as a seal upon the heart and upon the arm of the Virgin, because in her thoughts, which are denoted by the heart, and in her actions, which are denoted by the arm, the Virgin imitates her Son."
FOR LOVE IS AS STRONG AS DEATH, JEALOUSY IS AS HARD AS HELL.
For strong, Symmachus translates unconquerable; for jealousy, the Hebrew is kina; the Septuagint has zelos, that is, zeal, jealousy, by which the bridegroom so ardently loves the bride that He exposes Himself for her to dangers, combats, and even death itself; so that He may tolerate no rival, but may wish to possess the bride alone; and if anyone should wish to snatch her from Him, He fiercely rises up against him, wounds and kills him. Whence the Syriac and Arabic translate, cruel as hell is jealousy. These are the words of the bridegroom, as is clear from what precedes; less correctly, the Chaldean refers the jealousy to enemies and persecutors: "For," it says, "strong as death is the love of Your deity, and mighty as Gehenna is the zeal of the peoples who are jealous of us."
The comparison of love with death and hell seems at first glance jarring and dreadful; but in this place it is fitting and apt, because the love of the bridegroom through the cross freed the bride from death and hell, to which she was consigned because of sin. In a similar way the Apostle, Romans 10:15, teaches that the grace of Christ is more powerful than the sin of Adam, which brought death into the whole world, because the grace of Christ destroyed both. Love, therefore, and the strength of Christ's love is the conclusion and end of the Canticle; whence John Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, when he was sick after finishing his exposition of the Canticle, repeatedly repeating these words: "Love is as strong as death," died devoted to this love and these words, as I said at the beginning among the interpreters.
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
The word for gives the reason for what preceded, why the bridegroom awakened the bride under the apple tree of the cross, and therefore asks her to set Him as a seal upon her heart and arm: for the reason was true and pure love, meaning: Therefore I, Christ, exposed Myself to the cross and death in order to awaken you, O Church, from death, because I loved you as My bride with a pure and unmixed love and zeal. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard as hell; first, because just as death conquers all things and subjects them to itself, so that no living thing can escape its power and command; and just as hell before Christ swallowed up all the souls of the dying, and none could escape its grasp without descending into it: so likewise the love of Christ conquered all scourges, nails, thorns, the cross, pains, reproaches, hunger, thirst, nakedness, and all hard and adverse things, which He bravely endured in order to redeem the Church, His bride, from death. Just as nothing resists death and hell, so also everything yielded and succumbed to the strong and unyielding love of Christ.
Cassiodorus and Bede add: Just as hell does not know how to show mercy, and cannot be softened from its punishments, so Christ cannot cease loving men no matter how grave their wickedness. Second, the love of Christ was as strong as death and hell, because love compelled Him to die and descend into hell; but the love of Christ was stronger than death and hell, because He snatched the souls of the Fathers from death and hell and freed them, according to that passage, Hosea 13:14: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell." So St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8, Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, Bede, and Gregory. Love therefore is so strong that it conquered God Himself, and led Him into flesh and onto the cross as a victim of charity. Wherefore, just as Jacob, prevailing over the angel, God's representative, in wrestling, was called by him Israel, that is, one who dominates God, so much more can love be called Israel, because "love alone triumphs over God."
Third, because love causes the lover, if the beloved object is harmed or snatched away, to be supremely anguished and tortured, and to seem to undergo the very agony of death and hell, according to that passage, Psalm 17:5 and 114:3: "The sorrows of death surrounded me, the perils of hell found me."
Fourth, because Christ drives into death and hell all heretics and impious people who strive to violate or stain His bride the Church, just as a husband kills an adulterer, according to that passage, Proverbs 6:34: "The jealousy and fury of a husband will not spare on the day of vengeance, nor will he yield to anyone's prayers, nor will he accept many gifts for ransom." Moses had this zeal, when he killed 23,000 Israelites who were worshipping the golden calf, Exodus 32:34.
Moreover, Christ as bridegroom proposes to the bride, the Church, this extraordinary love of His for her, so that He may in turn demand a similar love from her, meaning: I have said: Set Me, O bride, as a seal upon your heart -- a seal, I say, of love, which may forcefully exclude all other things from your heart; because just as My love for you was as strong as death, and My jealousy as hard as hell, so I will that yours be the same: for love desires to be loved in return. Just as I love you with the most ardent charity, so I will that you love Me with the same, and admit no other lover: for My love is a jealousy than which nothing is more vehement, and nothing is more easily provoked even by slight offenses. When provoked, it begets the gravest pains and angers, so much so that compared to them death and hell are to be counted as nothing, says Luis. Therefore I will that your love be as strong and hard as death and hell, as Mine was -- namely, that like hell it yield to no thing or adversity, but conquer all things and subject them to itself, and even overcome death and hell itself, and lay them beneath it.
Second Partial Sense: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.
The soul wounded by the love of Christ says what she feels within herself, namely: "Love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard as hell." First, because love induces death: for it makes the soul die to all desires and temporal things, so that she may live for Christ alone. So Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and St. Gregory, whom hear: "What death does in the senses of the body, love does in the desires of the mind: for there are some who so love God that they neglect all visible things; and while they direct their minds toward eternal things, they become almost insensible to all temporal things. In these persons love is indeed as strong as death, because just as death kills the exterior senses of the body from every proper and natural appetite, so love in such people compels the mind, otherwise engaged, to despise all earthly desires. To such persons, dead and yet alive, the Apostle was speaking, Colossians 3:3: For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
And St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 15, verse 8: "Charity is as strong as death: for charity mortifies guilt and all sins; charity kills like the stroke of death. Indeed, we die to crimes and to sin when we love the Lord's commandments. Charity is God; charity is the Word of God, which is powerful and sharper than every sharpest sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and the joints and innermost marrow."
Love is therefore as strong as death, because just as death is never broken and never rests until it has subjected the lives of all mortals to itself, so also love does not cease until it has subjugated all passions and vices to itself: for, as St. Chrysostom says, homily 1 on Philippians: "So violent is love, and, if I may say so, tyrannical, that it yields to no occasion, but continually clings to the soul of the lover, and does not allow any affliction or any pain to overcome the soul," nor does it spare any expense or labor.
Second, because love makes the pious soul desire death for Christ, as the martyrs desired. So Bede, Philo, and St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 19, and Theodoret. Thus St. Agatha went most joyfully and gloriously to prison, and as though invited to a banquet commended her struggle to the Lord. Likewise Saints Mark and Marcellian, whose anniversary is celebrated on June 18, when they were bound to a stake with their feet pierced with nails, said: "Never have we feasted so pleasantly as we willingly endure these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whose love we have now begun to be fixed; would that He might allow us to suffer these things as long as we are clothed in this corruptible body," as their Life records, and the Acts of St. Sebastian.
St. Eulalia, virgin and martyr, when she was being torn with hooks, exulted: "These," she said, "are the characters by which Christ is inscribed and impressed upon my flesh and even more upon my heart." Whence Prudentius, in hymn 3, On the Virgin Martyrs, asserts that she said: "Behold, You are being written upon me, O Lord: How it delights me to read these letters, which mark Your trophies, O Christ!"
Wherefore, surrounded by fire, drinking in the flame with eager mouth, the martyr flew to heaven in the form of a dove; whence Prudentius sings of her: "The virgin, desiring a swift death, approaches and drinks the pyre with her mouth. Thence a dove suddenly flashes forth, seen leaving the martyr's mouth, whiter than snow, and following the stars: this was the spirit of Eulalia, milk-white, swift, innocent."
And of St. Lawrence, roasted on the gridiron, St. Leo says in sermon 1 on him: "The flame of Christ's charity could not be overcome by the flames of savage cruelty: the fire that burned on the outside was weaker than the fire that burned within." And St. Gregory, in homily 3 on the Gospels, speaking of St. Felicity, the mother of the seven martyrs: "She could not," he says, "watch her sons, whom she knew to be her own flesh, dying without pain; but the force of love within was stronger, which conquered the pain of the flesh."
Third, because just as nothing resists death and hell, so nothing resists charity; just as no one can prevent death from coming and killing, so neither can anyone prevent charity from saving, says Anselm. Again, just as hell, says Cassiodorus, never releases those it has once received, so also solid love and zeal do not abandon the soul they possess. Whence Paul, Romans 8:35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? (as it is written: For Your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter). But in all these things we overcome, because of Him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth (neither heaven, nor hell, neither those above nor those below), nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
St. Augustine gives these three reasons, in epistle 39 to St. Jerome: "Rightly," he says, "is charity said to be like death: either because no one conquers it, as no one conquers death; or because in this life the measure of charity extends to death, as the Lord says, John 15:13: Greater love than this no one has, than that one lay down his life for his friends; or rather, because just as death tears the soul from the senses of the flesh, so charity tears it from carnal desires."
Fourth, just as hell does not spare those it holds in its bosom, so neither does one who truly loves spare his possessions, his children, or himself: so St. Ambrose, sermon 15 on Psalm 118. Finally, charity compelled many saints to desire death and hell for themselves, so as to free souls from it. Thus St. Paul, Romans 9:1-2, wished to be anathema from Christ for the sake of the Jews; and Moses wished to be blotted out of the book of life, Exodus 32:32. St. Christina would undergo the marvelous pains of hell, that is, of purgatory, in order to snatch souls from it, and for this reason she would throw herself into icy waters, onto wheels, and into burning furnaces, and torture herself, as Cardinal Vitriaco reports in her Life, and Surius after him.
St. Agnes, through charity, raised the son of the prefect of Rome from death and hell; others did the same. Indeed, many hold that St. Gregory freed the soul of the Emperor Trajan from hell. St. Catherine of Siena wished to block the mouth of hell with her own body, so that no soul could ever again enter it. Our Alphonsus Rodriguez of Majorca, out of burning charity, offered himself to God as a victim, to suffer all the torments of hell for all eternity, for the salvation of the soul of any Ethiopian, Indian, or barbarian whatsoever. For this reason he merited to see in ecstasy all the men and women of the entire world, and to hear that by so ardent a desire of love he had merited as much as if he had converted that entire multitude.
Blessed Jacopone, in the time of Pope Boniface VIII, a great despiser of himself and the world and a lover of God, who from a noble lawyer became a Franciscan, and indeed a layman, desired to undergo all the punishments of all the damned, if it pleased God, so as to free them from those punishments and save them all, in such a way that he himself would be the least of all in heaven, and none of them would thank him for so great a benefit. So his Life, celebrated in Italy, records.
Moreover, Christ demands from the soul a charity that is as strong as death and hell, not only toward Himself, but also for the salvation of others, meaning: Just as I, dying out of love for you, O soul espoused to Me, conquered death and hell and freed you from them, so likewise you too must ensure that neither death nor hell may prevail against your love for Me and for My faithful, or snatch the prey from you; but rather that you may conquer both, and wrest souls as spoil from their jaws.
Hence St. Anselm says: Jealousy is as hard as hell, because just as hell is insatiable -- whence that saying: "Hell opens its hollow throat insatiably" -- and hence hell is called in Hebrew sheol, that is, "demanding," because it always demands souls and is never filled and says "Enough," Proverbs 30:16: so likewise charity is insatiable: for the more it loves Christ, the more and more ardently it desires to love, and when it wins many souls for Him, it strives to win ever more and more. Again, just as death and hell cause the body and soul to waste away, so also does the zeal of the saints, when they see God their beloved offended and violated by the impious.
David is a witness, Psalm 118:139: "My zeal has made me waste away, because my enemies have forgotten Your words," and again, verse 158: "I saw transgressors and wasted away." And Elijah, 3 Kings 19:10: "With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant." A witness in our own age is our Blessed Father Ignatius, who used to say that he did not so much dread the torments of Gehenna as the blasphemies which the damned hurled against God amid the barbs of their torments. So Sanchez reports.
Whence Rabbi Solomon, Agathius, and Sotomayor expound it thus, meaning: The jealous zeal for souls burns as much as fire and the flames of hell. Moreover, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, and the Chaldean understand by jealousy envy, and consider it here to be contrasted with love and charity, in that charity is as strong as death, but envy is as hard and cruel as hell: for envy is a vice as well as a universal and diabolical torment, which our Jerome Prado beautifully represents through many antitheses in his commentary on Ezekiel chapter 8, verse 2.
I subjoin them here: [Table of antitheses between LOVE and JEALOUSY/ENVY] Love is strong as death, because death kills. / Envy is hard as hell, because hell tortures. / Effective in killing, lest it torment. / Slow in tormenting, lest it kill. / If it kills, it kills once. / It laughs at the punishments of the innocent. / It kills nobly. / It tortures ignobly. / It is glorious to love. / It is shameful not to be loved in return. / It completes labors. / It doubles sorrows. / It snatches both from the lover. / It grants a wretched soul. / Death of the body, life of the soul. / It is torture of both body and mind. / It obtains the victory. / It strips the spoils. / It strikes the living. / It rages against the dead. / It kills justly. / It wounds unjustly. / It is a golden weapon. / It is a fiery torture. / It benefits the one it pierces. / It despoils the one it burns.
Less aptly, St. Gregory understands by jealousy the envy of the Jews against Christ: "Jealousy is hard as hell," he says; "it proved hard, because just as hell tortures without mercy those it holds, so the Jewish people, seizing Christ, dragged Him to death without regard for piety." And Aponius, who understands the jealousy of heretics: "This," he says, "is hard as hell, because by proudly emulating the Church and Catholics, it is in all things equal to the devil, who is designated by the term hell, because like hell it can be softened neither by prayers nor by tears, and is so hard that it cannot be mollified from its hardness."
Mystically, St. Anselm understands by death the devil, the author of death, meaning: Just as the devil invincibly confers damnation, so the love of God confers salvation.
ITS LAMPS (that is, of love, or rather of the jealous zeal) ARE LAMPS OF FIRE AND FLAMES. -- By lamps properly so called, which give light with infused oil, Cassiodorus, Anselm, and others understand here the hearts of the saints, in which love dwells as in vessels, and they are of fire, because they burn inwardly through love, and of flames, because they shine outwardly through action. Justus of Urgel, however, says that the chaste are lamps, that is, vessels of charity, and are called of fire and flames because they are always splendid and fervent with the fire of the Holy Spirit.
But lamp here and elsewhere often means the same as a torch, firebrand, coal, or burning brand, as is clear from Judges 7:16: for instead of lamps the Hebrew has rescaphim, a word that signifies everything that burns, sets on fire, and inflames while flying; for by metathesis it alludes to seraphim, that is, burning ones, those who set on fire. Hence it signifies fire and lightning bolts, which like birds run about most swiftly and burn, as is clear from Psalm 77:48; likewise torches and fiery arrows, which fly through the air and set houses and cities on fire, as is clear from Psalm 76:4.
From the Hebrew, therefore, Hortolanus translates literally at this place: its coals or torches are coals of fire, which are from the flame of God, meaning: The torches and coals of charity and zeal are like fiery brands and the most ardent and greatest flames: for the things that are of God are the greatest and highest. Thus we speak of mountains of God and cedars of God, that is, the highest and greatest. Hence the Septuagint here translates rescaphim as megimrega, that is, flying things, that is, flying darts, or wings round about, meaning: Charity is surrounded on all sides by fiery wings, or by winged and fiery arrows. Hence Christ crucified, appearing to St. Francis as a winged seraph, impressed upon him His five wounds, as it were the five stigmata of the fire of charity.
Symmachus translates, its assault is an assault of fire; the Syriac, its rays; the Arabic, the spread of its wings is like the wings of fire; Pagninus, its coals are coals of the most ardent fiery flame; the sixth edition, its sparks are sparks of fire; others, glowing coals, for sparks fly, and in flying they burn whatever they touch. Of these wings of charity St. Ambrose writes thus, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8: "Good charity, having wings of burning fire, which flits through the breasts and hearts of the saints, and burns up whatever is material and earthly; but whatever is genuine it tests, and whatever it touches it improves with its fire. This fire Jesus sent upon the earth, and faith shone forth, devotion was kindled, charity was illuminated, justice blazed. With this fire...
Third Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
All the things already said apply above all to the Blessed Virgin, especially that she, from the strong love of God, devoted herself and her Christ to the cross and death for the salvation of mankind, and offered Him as a propitiatory victim. Again, that she was dead to herself from the love of Christ, and lived for Christ alone; whence theologians also hold that she died not from illness but from love, namely exhausted and killed by the continuous and ardent desire to enjoy Christ and God: for so great was the conjunction and union of the Blessed Virgin with Christ that she herself revealed to St. Bridget, book 1 of the Revelations, chapter 35: "When He (Christ) was being born from me, I felt as though half my heart were being born and going out from me; and when He was suffering, I felt as though my heart were suffering. For just as when that which is half outside and half inside -- if that which is outside is pierced, that which is inside equally feels the pain -- so when my Son was being scourged and pierced, it was as though my heart were being scourged and pierced."
Its lamps are lamps of fire and flames... The charity and zeal of Christ and His followers is therefore like a fire of flames: first, because like them it never rests, but always burns, licks, scorches, and sets fire to all things. Whence He Himself says, Luke 12:49: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I desire but that it be kindled?" Second, because just as fire tortures the body, so zeal tortures the soul, especially if it sees the bride loved by another, or another loved instead of itself. Third, just as gunpowder placed beneath walls and houses, if ignited, by the force of fire shatters, indeed hurls into the air houses and walls with terrible force and noise: so also zeal shatters and dispels all obstacles, however great.
There is an emblem of Alciati, in which love sits upon a chariot drawn by four lions; and another, in which Cupid is depicted with wings, a bow, and arrows; fiery arrows rain down from heaven all around, but broken, by which is signified that love conquers God and sets fire to the whole world. Whence the motto: "The winged god broke the winged thunderbolt with fire, while he shows that, as it is, love is a fire more powerful."
Therefore, as many labors as Christ endured for us, as many adversities also, as many scourges, welts, and pains as He bore for us, with so many burning arrows of love He pierced our hearts: for so great was the fire of Christ's love, and with such flaming wings did our Seraph, stretched out on the cross and entirely ablaze, soar above, that He conquered everything. For He bravely endured death, to overcome it by dying, and He broke hell, however hard, to snatch those whom it held in harsh bonds harshly and powerfully away.
Hence concerning the cherubim who attended Christ, Ezekiel says, chapter 1, verse 13: "Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps;" and verse 12: "Where the impulse of the spirit was, there they went, and they did not turn back when they walked." Hence also Christ at Pentecost sent the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire, so that with them the apostles might set the whole world ablaze, Acts 2:3. Whence Aponius, understanding these lamps as the flames of the Holy Spirit, says: "The vivacity of the Word of the Deity, and the flames of the illumination of minds, shone forth from the lamp of the Holy Spirit." More clearly, St. Anselm says: The burning flames are of the love of the Holy Spirit, who is fire, and they are such that they also give light, because they make those who love to shine, so that they may illuminate by word and example; but more so that they may set others on fire. Such above all was the Blessed Virgin; whence St. Cyril, in his homily Against Nestorius, calls her an inextinguishable lamp.
Thus St. Paul was so filled with and surrounded by charity that he seemed to be charity itself; therefore on the fiery wings of charity he flew through the world like lightning and set it ablaze. In this same century, St. Francis Xavier, Gaspar Barzaeus, and other apostolic men have done the same in Europe and India, and still do. Hear St. Chrysostom, in homily 2 on Acts, comparing and indeed preferring Paul to the angels: "For as if winged, he flew through the whole world teaching, and as if incorporeal he despised all labors and dangers; and as if already possessing heaven, he utterly scorned all earthly things; and as if already dwelling with the incorporeal beings themselves, so with perpetual intentness of mind he kept watch. And indeed the care of various nations has often been committed to angels, but none of them governed the people entrusted to him as Paul governed the whole world."
And shortly after: "To Michael one nation was committed, the Jews; but to Paul the lands and seas and the habitation of the whole world." And in homily 3: "Although he stood on the lofty citadel of all virtues, yet he conquered every flame with the surpassing ardor of charity: for just as iron cast into fire becomes entirely fire, so Paul, set ablaze with charity, was entirely made charity itself. As if he were the common father of the whole world, so in the love of all he imitated their own parents; indeed he surpassed all fathers, not only those of the flesh but also those of the spirit, in solicitude and devotion, spending his money, his words, his body, and his soul for those whom he loved."
And in homily 16 on the Epistle to the Romans, explaining that passage of chapter 9, I wished to be anathema: "For indeed," he says, "this love was wider than every sea, more vehement than every flame, and no speech will express it worthily: but he alone will know it who has been exactly endowed with the same."
Hear Lawrence Justinian, in the book On the Chaste Marriage of the Word and the Soul, at the end: "Fiery love always meditates new things and composes the unusual: for since it is impatient, it does not cease to think how it may love more ardently, be loved more sweetly, hold more firmly, and converse more familiarly. It wishes nothing to be loved alongside it; it alone desires to possess the supremacy of the heart. Hence jealousy, hence complaints, hence the murmur of love, the doubling of words, and the intolerance of absence. Neither does the voice rest from crying out, nor the groan from the heart, nor solicitude from searching, nor the ardor of desire from the inmost depths, except through the presence of the beloved: for one who loves more fervently is wearied more vehemently, although the immensity of love itself does not permit him to consider the labor.
Then he enumerates the wonderful joys and fruits of this love: "From the law therefore of the love of the holy marriage, how great its joys are, and how great the burning of charity, can be proved. From the same also the excellence of the bride and the sublimity of her gifts, the opulence of delights, the breadth of heart, the magnanimity of mind, the sweetness of spirit, the confidence of love, the delight of devotion, the knowledge of truth, the purity of conscience, the perfection of virtues, the bond of charity, the dance of exultation, the joy of jubilation, the ardor of desire, the abundance of peace, the taste of contemplation, the constancy of rectitude, the forbear-
ance of delay, the fruitfulness of wisdom, the delight of light, the exercise of humility, the compassion of fraternal love, the whiteness of innocence, the beauty of purity, the pleasantness of holiness, the praise of divine greatness, and in a word the salutary clinging to Him is sufficiently recognized."
Moreover, the Chaldean, St. Gregory, and others who take jealousy in a bad sense as envy and hatred, assign to it these same lamps, that is, coals and torches. Whence the Chaldean translates: And the enmity which they store up against us is like the coals of Gehenna, which God created so that in it the worshippers of idolatry may be burned. St. Gregory, on the envy of the Jews against Christ, explains thus: "Its lamps are lamps of fire and flames: for just as fire consumes what it sets ablaze, so their envy destroyed the Jews from every virtue of faith, of whom it is well said elsewhere: And now fire consumes the adversaries, as if to say: Before they come to the eternal fire, they are consumed in the present, because they carry within themselves the fire of envy, which is not carried without the burning of the carrier. This fire of envy put forth flames, when through the examples in which it was kindled, it spread even among the Gentiles to the point of the martyrdom of Christians, throughout the entire world. But because on the one side the fire of envy, on the other the fire of charity rose up, therefore it is added: Many waters could not extinguish charity, nor shall rivers overwhelm it."
Anagogically, the blessed in heaven will be like lamps of fire and flames, because they will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, as Christ says, and will burn equally. There will be there a full conflagration of charity, by which Christ as bridegroom and the bride Church, that is, all the elect, will love one another most ardently for all eternity. Whence the Arabic forcefully adds to this verse, nor is there a measure of the fire of love. This sense is not so much anagogical as literal, for what is treated here is the bride longing for heaven, where there will be the consummation of the spiritual marriage, as well as of charity: therefore this reciprocal ardor of love, which is here described, will never properly and fully be found anywhere other than in heaven.
Whence St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac, chapter 8, reading from the Septuagint wings of fire instead of lamps of fire: "With these wings," he says, "Enoch flew, caught up to heaven; with these wings Elijah flew, translated to the heights above by a course of fire and fiery horses; with these wings the Lord God led the people of the fathers by a pillar of fire; these wings the Seraphim had when he took coals of fire from the altar, and touched the mouth of the prophet, and took away his iniquities, and purged his sins."
VERSE 7. MANY WATERS COULD NOT EXTINGUISH CHARITY, NOR SHALL RIVERS OVERWHELM IT: IF A MAN SHOULD GIVE ALL THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE FOR LOVE, HE WOULD DESPISE IT AS NOTHING.
MANY WATERS COULD NOT (so the Roman edition; some read could not in the future tense, for so the Hebrew has; but the Syriac and Arabic read can, because the Hebrews through one tense, namely the future, signify the other two, namely the past and present; whence our translator soon translates in the future tense overwhelm: for what is signified here is the constancy and strength of the charity of Christ and the Church, which no adversities could, can, or shall be able to extinguish) EXTINGUISH CHARITY, NOR SHALL RIVERS OVERWHELM IT: IF A MAN SHOULD GIVE ALL THE SUBSTANCE (the Septuagint reads, all his life, that is, all his sustenance, by which life is sustained) OF HIS HOUSE FOR LOVE (the Septuagint reads, in love), HE WOULD DESPISE IT AS NOTHING -- not charity, but the substance, as is clear from the Hebrew.
The Septuagint reads, with contempt they will despise him, namely his bios, that is, his sustenance, although the rabbis refer it to the man; whence Vatablus translates, if anyone should give all the wealth of his house for love, all would utterly despise him -- as an unjust and ridiculous buyer, inasmuch as he would wish to buy charity, the most precious thing, with the most worthless riches, meaning: Charity surpasses every price, every gold, every wealth and precious thing. So Theodoret and the rest. Symmachus: For charity the despised will be despised.
For overwhelm it, the Hebrew is mayim yishtephuha, that is, they will flood, and with a great abundance and force of waters will submerge and overwhelm it; Pagninus translates, they will engulf it; the Arabic, and rivers cannot wash away its traces: if a man should exchange his whole life for love, they will not despise him, namely the love, or the man.
The Chaldean, in his usual fashion referring these words to the Jews, translates thus: "The Master of the world said to His people, the house of Israel: Even if all the peoples, who are compared to the many waters of the sea, should gather together, they could not extinguish My mercies from you; and if all the kings of the earth, who are compared to the waters of a river that flows with force, should be gathered together, they could not tear you from the world; and if a man should give all the money of his house to possess wisdom in captivity, I will repay him double in the world to come, and all the plunder that he will plunder from the camps of Gog will be his."
First Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.
So strong was the love and zeal of Christ for His bride the Church, whom He awakened under the apple tree, that is, under the cross, that no waters, torrents, or rivers of persecutions, torments, pains, afflictions, contradictions, ingratitudes, contempts, blasphemies, of perfidious Jews or Gentiles, could extinguish or quench it, but for those very persons He endured the greatest labors in preaching, and underwent pains, and finally poured out His life on the most cruel cross -- even though on the cross He was mocked and blasphemed by them, and afflicted with every infamy and disgrace like a thief; indeed, rather by these waters...
a love so steadfast that it can be overcome by no torments, no gifts or riches; therefore by His example let the Church and every pious soul learn to seal their heart and arm with the love of Christ so that they allow the seal branded upon the heart to be burned out, erased, or destroyed by no punishments, no rewards -- especially in the persecution of Antichrist, which as it will be the last, so it will be the fiercest; and to overcome it, Christ here arms His own with burning charity. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, and St. Jerome, book XIV on Ezekiel, chapter XLVII, where he reads thus: "Many waters cannot quench charity, and rivers cannot drown it." Hear St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter viii: "Rightly did the Hebrew youths in the burning furnace not feel the fires of the flame, because the flame of charity refreshed them. Much water cannot quench charity. Charity is stronger than adamant, and an indissoluble bond. No floods of sufferings can shut out charity, no rivers of bitterness overwhelm it: for just as the ark in that flood of the world was carried unharmed through the spaces of the whole earth, so you too stand immovable against the waves of all temptations." Therefore the sense offered by Philo, Justus, and Aponius is less fitting and suitable, namely: If a man gives all the substance of his house to the poor for love -- that is, in order that he might love -- if he has preferred external almsgiving to interior charity, preferring to lack the latter and to have the former, then as though he had given nothing, Christ the Judge and His angels will despise him: for as the Apostle teaches, 1 Cor. 13:3, without charity nothing profits for salvation -- not almsgiving, not knowledge, not martyrdom.
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
Christ for the salvation of the soul allowed Himself to be overcome by no labors or sorrows, but willed to die and be crucified for it; therefore let the soul make a return to Christ, so that it allows itself to be drawn away from His love by no temptations, no terrors, no promises, no torments, no pleasures -- not even a hair's breadth -- but rather let it emerge strong, indeed stronger and more steadfast in all things, like asphalt, which is not consumed by fire but nourished by it, according to the saying: "The wave feeds the flames, and the more it is hindered, The more the fire burns." Let the flesh therefore tickle, the world flatter, the devil lay snares -- let the true lover of Christ stand unbroken, allowing himself to be deceived by no blandishments nor cast down by any threats, but with Paul, Philippians 3:8, let him "count all things as dung" and despise them, indeed abhor them. Peter fell when tempted by the maidservant and the Jews out of fear, and denied Christ, because he did not yet possess perfect charity; but when he received it from the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, afterward he feared no threats or punishments, but boldly preached Christ
Moreover, Christ as the bridegroom demands from the bride a similar love, indeed the return of a strong love by which He may be loved in return: for brides are accustomed to be solicited to adultery by suitors either through fear of punishments or hope of gifts; the bridegroom here includes both, and accordingly demands a strong love from the bride and
and this -- with the very coldest frost of human hearts and every opposition overcome -- as if by antiperistasis the love of Christ blazed forth more vehemently, thundered, flashed lightning, and burst forth in the likeness of flashing lightning, Ezekiel 1:14. Hence, about to go to His passion, He instituted the Eucharist as a pledge of His immovable and eternal love, according to John 13:1: "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end" (both of life and of love, that is, with the utmost and supreme love). Indeed, even on the cross itself He prayed with tears and the most ardent charity for those who crucified Him; whence many of them at Pentecost, having heard St. Peter's preaching, repented, and embracing the faith of Christ, were baptized, Acts 2:41. Christ's life, therefore, was extinguished in death, but not His charity: for this could not die, but remained alive in death. He adds the reason: "If a man gives all the substance (the Septuagint reads 'life') of his house for love, he will despise it as nothing," that is to say: Christ poured out all that was His for the love of God and men, because charity is a most precious, transcendent, and divine thing, which surpasses every price, both of gold and of labors and sorrows, for which all wealth, all strength, all toil, and life itself must be expended: for as St. John says, 1 John 4:16: "God is charity: and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him." Alciatus in his Emblems depicts love breaking the oak of Jupiter and setting the whole world on fire: again he depicts love naked-shouldered, winged, holding a fish in the right hand and a bouquet of flowers in the left, and he explains these symbols in these verses: "See how naked Love smiles and gazes gently, He bears no torches, no bow to bend. But one hand carries flowers, the other a fish, That he may give laws to earth and sea. Naked Love therefore smiles with charming little eyes, He bears no bow, no fiery darts now. Nor idly does he handle flower and dolphin: By the one he rules the land, by the other the sea." "Charity (says Marsilio Ficino) is a divine power of love: if it seizes anyone, it will, as if from a mirror, shoot forth flaming rays: it illuminates the mind, kindles the will, and reflects the light." A similar thing is seen subsequently in worldly and carnal love, so that it is not quenched by any adversities, by any injuries even from the beloved, but rather is more inflamed by them; whence the common saying "Injury dissolves loves" is lamented as false by the lover in the Epigram, who says: "It is a fable that they toss about, that injury dissolves loves; For this madness burns all the more fiercely thereby."
openly and boldly preached, saying, Acts 5:29: "We ought to obey God rather than men." Hear St. Gregory: "Indeed the holy martyrs burned with living charity, because they blazed wondrously in the love of God and neighbor: many waters could not quench this charity, because however great the tribulations that befell them, they could not change them to hatred. This indeed would have been to quench charity -- if in the tribulations that were heaped upon them, they could have humbled them to hatred of God or neighbor; but since they are called waters, what again is understood by rivers, if not the increase and vivacity of the waters themselves? For we know that rivers are customarily called living waters. By rivers, therefore, we understand the greatest tribulations, which, as they boiled over against the martyrs throughout the whole world, rushed together with great force to extinguish the fire of charity. But because among those rivers the vigor of charity so lived that it rather consumed the rivers than allowed itself to be extinguished by them, therefore many even of the persecutors turned to the same charity, so that they gave up whatever they possessed in the world and gave themselves over to the death that they had previously been cruelly inflicting on the suffering." And after some intervening remarks: "But a man gives all the substance of his house for love when he distributes for Christ whatever he possesses in the world, so that, casting aside what hinders him, he may love God, and having wiped away the dust of anxieties, may open his eyes to see God. And when he has given all his substance, he despises it as nothing, because after he has wiped his eye and beheld God, in the vision of Him he counts as nothing whatever he had possessed. This the apostles did, who gave up not only what they possessed, but even what they desired, in order to follow Christ."
Theodoret gives examples from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses: "Abraham's charity toward God," he says, "neither the spending of his life in a foreign land, nor the hardship of want and famine, nor the seizure of his wife, nor the taking away of his son, nor the contention over wells could extinguish; nor could the afflictions that troubled Isaac extinguish his charity; nor the continual labors and sorrows of life extinguish Jacob's charity. What was more bitter than Joseph's temptations? He was sold by his brothers, deprived of his parents who loved him, of the house of his ancestors, of liberty and fortune; he served unworthily, and received slander as the reward of his chastity; he was cast into prison and endured innumerable hardships, through all of which nevertheless his charity toward God shone more brightly. And to pass over in silence the great Moses and Joshua the commander, and the distinguished prophets Samuel and David and Elijah and Elisha, what was ever more savage or cruel than the Babylonians? What more terrifying than the furnace of fire kindled by them? And yet not even that could extinguish the charity of the three youths, but rather kindled and aroused it all the more. What about those lions to whom-
Finally, since charity is threefold -- beginning, progressing, and perfect -- the signs of each of these degrees, as well as their acts and duties, are touched upon here, which, from St. Augustine, Richard of St. Victor, St. Gregory, and others, are thus enumerated by the Most Reverend Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Archbishop of Braga, in his golden Compendium of Spiritual Doctrine, chapter 24, page 255. The signs of beginners are: contrition, delight in hearing the word of the Lord and His precepts, readiness in good works, sorrow conceived at the spiritual deficiency of one's neighbor, and joy arising from the spiritual progress of a brother. The signs of the charity of those who are progressing are these: first, a just and frequent examination of conscience concerning venial sins, for they resist the fervor of charity, and progressing charity is that which strives to burn up all these chaff by its own heat; the second sign, the diminishment of desire for temporal things; third, diligence in interior spiritual exercises, just as the exercises of the exterior senses are signs of bodily life; fourth, studious observance of the commandments of God; fifth, if
the blessed Daniel was thrown, more savage or more terrible? But charity toward God made him too stronger." Moreover, these things will be most true in heaven: for there the soul, seeing the divinity of its bridegroom, will be so absorbed in that abyss of all goods, as it were, that it will count all other things as nothing, nor can it be turned away, even for a moment, from beholding Him and loving Him with the whole heart; and so no waters or rivers of temptations and adversities can rush upon it. Here is described, therefore, the supreme power and excellence of charity, which it will obtain in heaven, where it will be not only ethically but also physically invincible and inextinguishable; indeed, it will shine and burn like the stars and the sun "unto perpetual eternities," Daniel 12:3; whence from the Hebrew kavah, that is, 'to extinguish,' by doubling the first letter kaph, is derived kokhav, that is, 'star,' because it is never extinguished, but shines perpetually night and day, just as the charity of the blessed shines and burns perpetually.
Moreover, as to what the Septuagint renders, 'if a man gives all his life for love, they will utterly despise him': Theodoret explains it in the opposite sense, namely: He who has poured out his livelihood, fortunes, and life for charity will be despised and mocked as imprudent by those who are void of charity and do not recognize its dignity and value. And St. Ambrose, sermon 21 on Psalm 118, sermon 5: "How often," he says, "good deeds are counted as crimes, how often virtue is led to reproach, how often grace itself is thankless. The just man sold his possessions, distributed to the poor, kept nothing for himself -- he is generally despised even in the Church itself, because he ceased to be rich, as it is written, Song of Songs 8:7: 'If a man gives all his possessions in charity, he will be utterly despised.'" But the genuine sense of the Septuagint version is that the word 'it' refers to the livelihood, not to the man; therefore the sense of the Septuagint and of our Vulgate is the same, namely the one I assigned a little earlier.
"besides those things that are without, my daily pressing concern, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?" But all these things could not quench even a hair's breadth of her charity; rather they increased it, and like bellows set it ablaze, and this continuously for 23 years, during which she survived Christ: for in the seventy-second year of her age she brought to an end both her preaching and her life, as the opinion of the more learned theologians and chronologists holds. She likewise gave all her substance for the charity of Christ: first, because like Christ she dedicated herself and all that was hers to God out of love; second, because she offered her Christ, who was all her substance, to God the Father on the cross as a holocaust; third, because she gave all her possessions to the Church and distributed them to the poor: for having professed poverty, she lived in common with the first believers and virgins, and led a religious life, as I said at Acts 4:32. Finally, all that has been said applies above all to the humanity of Christ assumed by the Word, as I have already often noted: for that humanity is the first and proper bride of the Word, through whom the souls of the faithful are betrothed to Him; and accordingly it supremely loves the Word, and is supremely loved by the Word; nor could the rivers of torments, which it underwent in the passion and on the cross, overcome this love.
Voice of the Bride, the elder concerning the younger, that is, of the Church concerning the Synagogue.
Verse 8. Our sister is little, and has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?
OUR SISTER IS LITTLE, AND HAS NO BREASTS (the fifth edition reads: 'our sister, you are little, and you have no breasts'). WHAT SHALL WE DO FOR OUR SISTER IN THE DAY WHEN SHE IS TO BE SPOKEN TO? -- The Hebrew and Septuagint read: 'when she shall be spoken of'; the Syriac: 'when there must be speech about her, that she may be given in marriage to the bridegroom'; the Arabic: 'when she is spoken to'; Pagninus: 'when speech is made with her'; on the contrary, Sanchez reads: 'in her, or against her,' that is, he says, against her, namely when adulterous suitors will form plans against her to deceive her and subject her to themselves; so also Rabbi Solomon: 'On the day,' he says, 'when the nations will deliberate about destroying her'; and an anonymous rabbi: 'I fear,' he says, 'lest men despise her, so that when she has grown, they may speak to her heart and affection, and despise her.' Rupert inclines to this interpretation, understanding by 'when she is to be spoken to' the harsh counsels by which Nero and other tyrants persecuted the Church while it was still tender. SHE HAS NO BREASTS -- that is, they are not yet swelling but depressed, for there is no woman who does not have breasts, but at puberty they begin to protrude, swell, and become full of milk, as Aristotle teaches in the History of Animals; whence St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 22: "This," he says, "is customarily the sign for all virgins about to be married, that when the breasts have begun to be prominent, then they are deemed fit for union." The sense is, as if to say: Let us pad the breasts of our little sister
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The Blessed Virgin suffered more than the martyrs and other mortals, indeed in some way more than Christ: for after the death of Christ, in which Christ's passion ended, she until His resurrection was in continual and most bitter sorrows; revolving these sorrows of Christ throughout her whole life, she was wondrously tormented. In addition, she endured many things from the Jews out of hatred for Christ; indeed, all the afflictions, persecutions, and falls of Christians she, as a mother, felt intimately through compassion, saying with Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:28: "Besides those things
of our little sister, who is now bride-to-be, with wool or some other padding, so that they may appear prominent, and thus she may be deemed mature for a husband and worthy of a bridegroom; so St. Ambrose and Honorius: thus elder sisters already married are accustomed to be concerned about their younger sisters, that they too may be honestly and timely given in marriage. Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, and others consider these to be the words of the bridegroom: but better, the Hebrews and Greeks -- such as Theodoret, the three Anonymi, Philo, and others -- consider them to be the words of the elder bride, namely the Church, concerning the new bride, namely the Synagogue of the Jews to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, as Aponius, Honorius, the Chaldean paraphrase, Hortolanus, Delrio, and others expressly teach. Hear the Chaldean: "At that time the angels of heaven will say to one another: There is a nation of ours on earth, and its merits are slight, and it has no kings or rulers to go out to fight against the army of Gog: What shall we do for our sister on the day when the nations shall have spoken, to go up against her to war?" For Gog will be the army of Antichrist, as I said on Ezekiel 37:3 and 39:11.
By 'the day when she is to be spoken to,' Honorius understands the time of the preaching of Enoch and Elijah; Aponius, however, takes it as the day when the Christian people will be addressed by Antichrist or his ministers: whether they choose, having denied Christ, to bow their necks to him, or to succumb to a most cruel death. It is better to take it as the day of judgment, when Christ the Judge will examine and address her concerning faith, merit, and reward, and will pronounce the sentence of blessed eternity, that she may be united to Him in heaven and inserted into the company of angels. The sense therefore is, as if the Church of the Gentiles says to Christ: What will become of my little sister -- and yours according to the flesh which you assumed -- namely the Synagogue, that is, the Jews recently converted to you through Elijah, who are few in number and still unlearned in the Christian faith and weak in virtue, on the day when she is given to her husband, that is, on the last day of judgment, when everything will be demanded according to the measure of charity that each one possessed? That is to say: It is fitting that we now take care to instruct her with a suitable equipment of the doctrine of faith and works of charity, lest the husband then reject her as unripe for the heavenly marriage and spurn the rejected one. This is your task, who can and will look upon her and timely make her such as you then wished her to be. If you want her adorned, adorn her; if you want her combed, comb her; if you want her enriched, enrich her: from your providence and beneficence, therefore, I ask that you grant her that very thing, for the day of judgment now looms, and the time of the wedding in heaven approaches: so Honorius, Anselm, Aponius, and from them Delrio.
Therefore the Church, having heard such great praises and teachings of its charity from the bridegroom, and that He demanded a similar charity from the bride, being itself rightly conscious of this (as it will show in what follows), and therefore keeping silent about itself, immediately began to speak about its little sister, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, because many of those recently converted were weak and infirm in charity as well as in faith. She therefore asks the bridegroom to strengthen them in charity, to make them grow and mature, that they may be rendered fit and worthy for the bridegroom's wedding in heaven soon to come. However, the order of the dramatic action seems rather to require that these things be said by the bride about her sister not to the bridegroom (for she would not have accused her sister before the bridegroom of being small and having no breasts, and therefore being unfit for marriage), but to the companions
may be compared with those of the Church of the Gentiles: for although Elijah and Enoch by their fervor and zeal will kindle the same zeal in some of the Jews, and will make preachers and others like so many Pauls, as I said on chapter 7, verse 6; yet these, compared with the remaining more unlearned and weaker Jews, who still need the milk of the Christian faith, will be few. She speaks here, therefore, in the person of the imperfect Jews, being more numerous, and calls them a little sister who has no breasts, as William rightly observes: a sister, both because she descends from the same seed from which Christ descends according to the flesh, and the Church according to faith; and because in the last days she is to come to this glory of brother-
of the bridegroom, namely to Elijah and Enoch, or rather their disciples and followers (for with the day of judgment now imminent, Elijah and Enoch are assumed to have died and been killed by Antichrist, as I said at the beginning of the chapter), so that they themselves may perfect the Jews in faith and charity, and thus render them worthy of the bridal chamber of Christ in heaven.
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
Let the holy soul say concerning a tender and imperfect soul: "Our sister is little, and has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?" That is to say: How shall we make her grow in virtue and charity, so that on the day of judgment she may be worthy of the address of Christ, that by Him she may be led, as a sister and bride, into the fellowship of the heavenly inheritance and bridal chamber, so that Christ may, as a brother, regard her as a sister, according to Romans 8:29: "Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren"; and that He Himself, as bridegroom, may celebrate the wedding with her in heaven, according to Revelation 19:6: "I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying: Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give Him glory: for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." Hence St. Ambrose, sermon 22 on Psalm 118:8, considers that the holy soul is asking for a delay of the nuptials and a longer span of life, so that in that time it may advance in virtues, and thus be made worthy of the marriage of Christ: so also Philo of Carpathia, who, reading from the Septuagint 'what shall we do for our sister on the day when she shall have spoken in herself,' explains this as the examination of conscience by which the soul, speaking within itself, recollects all the acts of its life. He adds, however, that this voice may be taken as that of the patriarchs and apostles congratulating the soul on such great felicity -- that it has been deemed worthy of the most sweet nuptial conversation with Christ in the heavens: for rightly the address of Christ may be understood as that which He will say to the holy soul at the hour of death and on the day of judgment: "Come, bride, receive the crown which I have prepared for you eternally. Come, my beautiful one, my dove, my spotless one, my perfect one; enter with me into the joy of the Lord your God."
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, Alan considers these things to be said by the angels about the Blessed Virgin before the incarnation of the Word, as if to say: What shall we do for the Blessed Virgin, when, soon to be addressed by Gabriel the ambassador of Christ the Son of God, she will hear from him: "Behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus"? For she is small through humility; she also lacks breasts to become a mother, because she has taken a vow of virginity; therefore she will not dare to consent, nor will she wish to violate her vow of purity. Second, more aptly according to the letter, Honorius refers these words to the solicitude of the Blessed Virgin for the recently converted Synagogue of the Jews, and by 'address' he understands the preaching of Elijah, who will be Christ's legate to the Jews, according to the sense I assigned at the beginning.
Voice of the Companions of the Bridegroom, namely the disciples and followers of Elijah.
Verse 9. If she is a wall, let us build upon her bulwarks of silver: if she is a door, let us enclose her with boards of cedar.
IF SHE IS A WALL, LET US BUILD (Vatablus: 'we shall build') UPON HER BULWARKS OF SILVER: IF SHE IS A DOOR, LET US ENCLOSE HER WITH BOARDS OF CEDAR. -- The Septuagint reads: 'let us inscribe or carve upon her a board of cedar'; Symmachus: 'let us bind fast, let us tighten,' and this is properly what the Hebrew natsur signifies. For 'wall' the Arabic renders 'ramparts'; for 'bulwarks of silver' it renders 'boards or paneling of silver'; the Hebrew reads 'a bulwark of silver and a board of cedar,' in the singular: the passage is very obscure, whence there are nearly as many explanations here as there are interpreters.
First, some consider these to be the words of suitors lying in wait against the chastity of the younger bride, as if to say: If the bride is constant in chastity like a wall, let us build against her bulwarks of silver, that is, let us storm her with gold and silver money; but if she is like a door, which is easily turned and opened, let us promise her boards of cedar, that is, light ornaments of garments or bracelets, by which we may open access to her: for women are lovers of adornment, and many prostitute their chastity in order to adorn their bodies with elegant garments. Second, Theodoret considers these words to belong to the chorus of young women, teaching what the duties of a virtuous wife are in governing a household, namely that like a wall and a closed door she should guard, protect, and shut up those things that are in the house, and therefore she should be given the ornaments of walls, that is, silver bulwarks, and the decorations of a door, namely boards of cedar. Third, Luis de Leon considers these to be the words of the bridegroom, as if to say: It is my decree that at the time when this little sister is to be addressed, her natural defects should be corrected by art, and what nature gave her less of should be supplemented by clothing, and
with some exquisite kind of ornaments: just as if someone repairing the old walls of a city were to add towers and pinnacles overlaid with gold, or adorned with some outstanding painting, or if someone were to cover the doors of an entrance with cedar boards.
Fourth, our Pineda on Job chapter 24, verse 16, explains it thus, as if to say: Although the bride is surrounded and fortified by walls and ramparts, nevertheless the house must also be fortified with the most beautiful and strongest bulwarks, from which, as from a watchtower, the enemies of chastity may be observed and driven away, and the eyes of those who lie in ambush and lurk. And if there is also a door, it must be framed and constructed from nothing but the hardest and strongest material. To which the most chaste bride herself adds and responds: "I am a wall," etc., that is: My chastity cannot be sufficiently guarded by these external walls, nor by bulwarks, nor by guards, unless I myself were the strongest wall, and my beauty were adamantine and impregnable.
Fifth, our Sanchez considers that here the teaching is that the bride must be kept in faith and duty by gifts and threats: above, he says, the bridegroom had intimated that by two things a bride is accustomed to be drawn away from a faithful marriage and from her duty, namely by threats and by gifts; now he teaches that by the same means she must be kept in faith and duty, namely by gifts and by threats. If the wife is a wall, that is, fortified against all schemes and arts, and one who gives no one access to the city, that is, to the possession of the bridegroom -- which, if you strike it, does not ring, nor respond, nor open, nor admit anyone unless it is broken through -- then let so strong a wall be adorned, if possible, with silver bulwarks. But if she is a door, which is open to everyone, which easily turns and responds when knocked, and opens -- that is, one who easily allows herself to be tempted and conquered -- let her be shut up with cedar boards, and so shut up that she can never come into the sight of men, nor draw free air. To this end serves the common saying: "For a woman, either a wall or a husband"; and that of Theopompus in Plutarch's Apophthegms, who, when a wall was shown to him and he was asked "whether it was fine and lofty," responded: "Not at all, if it belongs to women" -- if, that is, it is defended by men who are not men, but effeminate and womanish.
Now, to disclose what seems best to me, reserving better judgment, I say that the younger bride is here, as also often above, compared to a building, namely a wall in which there is a door for entering the house. The wall, because it supports the paneling, the roof, and the towers, is a symbol of firmness, strength, constancy, and perseverance; whence that saying of Horace: "Let this be your wall of bronze"; and Isaiah 26:1: "Sion, the city of our strength, the Savior will set in it a wall and a rampart." Moreover, just as in the metaphor of a building the whole house represents the whole person, the roof the head, and the foundations the legs and feet: so the wall represents the breast, for this, being broad and square, encrusted and made solid with bony ribs like bricks and stones, has a certain appearance of a wall, in which the breasts protrude and stand out like towers and bulwarks. That this is so is clear from the fact that the younger bride soon adds, who is the subject here: "I am a wall, and my breasts are like a tower," as if to say: I have a breast that is firm, strong, and immovable like a wall, in which my breasts stand out like towers. The same is clear from the preceding complaint: "Our sister is little, and has no breasts," to which the answer is given here by this counsel and remedy: "If she is a wall, let us build upon her silver bulwarks," as if to say: If the younger bride has a breast that is firm and solid like a wall, it will be easy to build upon it silver and precious bulwarks, such as she deserves, which may supply and represent the deficiency of breasts. The wall therefore signifies here the bride's breast, that is, her mind firm and constant in conjugal fidelity, so as to cling to one bridegroom and exclude all others. The door, therefore, which is here opposed to the wall, signifies a narrow, thin, mobile, and versatile breast, that is, a mind easily moved and flexible: for such is a door, which easily opens and gives anyone entrance into the house, while the strong and hard wall is closed to all and bars and excludes everyone from entering. That this is so is clear, first, from the fact that the bride says in verse 10 that she is a wall, and by this very fact denies that she is a door, as if to say: I am strong and constant in faith like a wall, not mobile and wavering like a door; second, from the fact that it says here: "If she is a door, let us enclose (Hebrew: tighten) her with boards of cedar," as if to say: If the bride is open like a door and admits all comers, let us bar and close her up with cedar boards, lest anyone have access to her -- as is customarily done with women in Italy and elsewhere, inasmuch as they are of a weaker sex and lighter nature and disposition; whence the saying cited above: "For a woman, either a wall or a husband"; for harlots do not want to be shut up, but display themselves in the streets and doorways to be seen, in order to entice lovers to themselves. So the Hebrews, with whom substantially agree Honorius, Titelmann, Genebrard, Delrio, Gislerius, and others, although they disagree and vary in the explanation of the door.
First Adequate Sense: On Christ and the Church.
All these things pertain to the strength of charity, about which I spoke at verse 6: "Love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell": for charity is what opens heaven to the bride and her followers, and in heaven the bridegroom will assign to each one a place and reward according to the degree and intensity of the charity that each possesses. When, therefore, the elder bride, namely the Church of the Gentiles, had raised the concern with the companions of the bridegroom about the younger sister, namely the Synagogue of the Jews to be converted at the end of the world: "Our sister is little, and has no breasts" -- that is, the people of the Jews recently converted is still small in faith and charity, and does not have the breasts of doctrine and teachers by which to nurse others, and therefore is not yet fit for the nuptials with Christ the bridegroom to be celebrated in heaven -- the companions of the bridegroom respond, that is, the disciples of Elijah
and preachers of Christ: "If she is a wall" -- that is, even though she is small and lacking breasts, if nevertheless she has a breast and mind that is firm and resolved, like a wall, to believe in Christ and cling to Him -- "let us build (in Hebrew, 'we shall build') upon her silver bulwarks," that is, let us instruct her with the eloquent sayings of Sacred Scripture and of Christian doctrine and piety (for "the words of the Lord are pure words: silver tested by fire, proven by the earth, purified seven times," Psalm 11:7): and with these let us arm her as with bulwarks against all the assaults of Antichrist and of the Jews persisting in Judaism, and with these same, as with breasts, let us adorn her, so that she may be able to nurse, teach, and instruct others in Christianity, and thus cause herself and her companions to grow in faith and charity, so that, now mature, they may be ready for the nuptials of Christ in heaven soon to be entered and consummated. Now among these silver bulwarks of the words of Sacred Scripture, the chief ones are those that speak of the future greatness of glory in the heavens: for, as Sanchez rightly says, the bulwarks are the crown of the walls. It signifies therefore that the bride's faith and constancy will be crowned in heaven with a silver crown, that is, bright and splendid, such as the blessed now wear in heaven: for the hope and contemplation of this crown spurs the bride on to growth in virtues, and to heroic acts of charity and martyrdom.
But if the younger bride, that is, the Jewish people converted to Christ, is a door, not a wall -- that is, if she has a breast and mind that is narrow, mobile, and versatile, like a door, so as to open her ears and give access to those who Judaize -- "let us enclose her with boards of cedar," that is, let us hedge and fortify her with the examples and company of pious Christians, who may guard her from those who Judaize and shut off their access, and by pious counsels and good conduct confirm her in Christian faith and charity, so that even if she does not rise to the perfection and dignity of the bride, she may nevertheless deserve to be numbered among the young maidens who together with the bride will enter into the heavenly nuptials to be celebrated with Christ.
This notes the fickle disposition of neophytes, especially of Jews, who, having been converted to Christ, easily slip back into Judaism, to which they have been accustomed from childhood: therefore, like a door, they must be fastened and strengthened with the examples of the saints as with cedar boards -- that is, incorruptible ones -- according to Psalm 91:13: "The just shall flourish like a palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon." So Philo, Honorius, and others. Hear St. Gregory: "The Church is said to be enclosed like a door with cedar boards, because, preaching the faith, it is adorned with multitudes of peoples, and while the peoples are sprinkled with various virtues, as a painting with many colors, so the Church is graced with many distinctions." The same St. Gregory understands by the silver bulwarks the miracles by which preachers establish and defend their faith. And St. Ambrose, sermon 22 on Psalm 118, verse 8: "Let us build upon her boards of cedar,"
Moreover, that this passage treats of the Jews to be converted at the end of the world is clear from the sequence of the drama, of which this is the last act, indeed the last scene; and Honorius and others cited at the beginning of the chapter teach this expressly. The Chaldean version supports this: "Michael (for he is the prince of the Church and the Synagogue) the prince of Israel will say: If she has stood like a foundation among the peoples, and has given silver to possess the truth of the name of the Lord of the world, I and you with their scribes will be surrounding her like rows of silver, and the peoples will have no power to lord over her, just as a worm has no power to lord over silver; and although she is needy in precepts, we will seek mercy for her before the Lord, and He will remember her for the merit of the law, in which the children labor, which is written on the tablets of the heart, and stands against the nations like a cedar."
Solomon therefore here divides the Synagogue in two, that is, he has divided the Jews to be converted at the end of the world into two classes: one, of those who will excel in greater natural and gracious endowments, and especially in strength and constancy, and will therefore be fit to become teachers, preachers, and catechists, since they will have been more thoroughly instructed in Sacred Scripture: these he signifies by the name of the wall, upon which silver bulwarks are built. The other, of those who will have lesser gifts and strength, but who, strengthened by others through word and example, will open the way to heaven for their companions: these he signifies by the name of the door clothed and adorned with cedar.
That this is the sense is clear from the antithesis of wall and door: for since nearly all the Fathers and interpreters consider the wall to signify the firmness, perseverance, and constancy of the bride, it is necessary that by the door, set in contrast and opposition to the wall, we understand her infirmity, instability, and inconstancy.
Now to this literal sense there aptly and equally corresponds the tropological sense, which Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, Rupert, and others assign, who by the wall and silver bulwarks understand preachers, who defend and propagate the faith and piety by preaching; and by the door and cedar boards, the priests and simple faithful, who by pious counsels and good conduct open to others the way of virtue and the gate of heaven. Hortolanus understands by the wall the priests, by the door the deacons and doorkeepers. Angelomus understands by the boards the breadth of charity, by the cedars the virtues of the saints.
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
What has been said about the Synagogue, adapt to the soul with the name changed. Hear Honorius: "If that soul is sound, if she wishes to be stable in the congregation, let us build upon her silver bulwarks, let us instruct her with the sayings of Sacred Scripture, bright with eloquence, by which she may fortify herself against temptations, and teach others to abstain from vices; if she is a door to others by word and example unto conversion, let us enclose her with cedar boards, that is, let us adorn her with many examples of the Fathers, so that through her many may have access to life." Furthermore, Theodoret explains it thus of the holy soul, as if to say: "Since she is to be joined to a great King, and is to be like a wall of His future house, to care for and guard the things that are within, and like a door to preserve the things that are stored away, let us upon her as upon a wall build silver bulwarks, that is, words shining with reason. Psalm 11:7: 'For the words of the Lord are pure words: silver tested by fire, proven by the earth,' so that standing firm in them she may assail the enemy with arrows and pursue those who lay snares. And upon her as upon a door let us place boards, and cedar ones at that, which cannot receive the corruption of sin: for cedar is free from decay."
An intensification is brought by the fact that the Septuagint, instead of 'let us enclose,' renders 'let us inscribe or carve upon it' -- that is, upon the door -- 'a board of cedar': for the door of the heart must be inscribed and engraved by the faithful person with the image of Christ, so that His deeds and sufferings may be cut into it as upon cedar boards -- that is, incorruptibly and indelibly -- so that in thoughts, words, and actions one may everywhere relate and represent them, according to verse 6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm." By a similar phrase, images and writings that are to be committed to eternity are called 'worthy of cedar'; whence the saying: "And he spoke things worthy of cedar."
that is, the sweet fragrance of sublime faith: for the smell of this material is sweet, which neither worm nor moth corrupts. Therefore this material is chosen for raising the peaks of roofs and for forming the letters of the alphabet, by which childhood is imbued with the study of liberal learning. This material, therefore, is lofty in grace, light in weight, sweet in fragrance, useful as an instrument of knowledge, and fit for the ministry of eternal understanding.
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
All that has been said above belongs preeminently to the one Blessed Virgin: whence it will be easy for anyone to apply those things to her. For she had a manly and strong breast like a wall, upon which she daily built up silver bulwarks of the words of Sacred Scripture and inspirations of the Holy Spirit, so that she abounded with the breasts and milk of doctrine, and nursed the apostles and the other faithful. She is also the door through which we enter to Christ in heaven, framed from cedar boards, that is, from the various endowments of incorruptible grace and glory; hence she in the Litanies is called
and invoked as the Gate of Heaven; and by the Church in the hymn composed by St. Ambrose: "That the tearful may enter like the stars, You have been made the window of heaven. You are the gate of the great King, And the radiant door of light." And by Ezekiel, chapter 44, verse 2, the Lord says of her: "This gate shall be shut: it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord God of Israel has entered through it." Hear Hailgrin: "The Blessed Virgin is a door in the Church which resists evil spirits, lest they enter and approach her devoted ones as they wish, and this door is framed with as many boards by the Most Holy Trinity as there are virtues and privileges of rank in her; and these boards are called cedar because they are incorruptible and fragrant, and rooted by humility in the deep, they grew to immensity. Certainly, the eastern gate, bright and ever shut, signifies Mary in Ezekiel, alluding to which, St. Augustine introduces her speaking thus: 'I have been made the gate of heaven, I have been made the door of the Son of God. I have been made the closed door for Him who after His resurrection entered through closed doors.'"
Voice of the Younger Bride, namely the Synagogue.
Verse 10. I am a wall: and my breasts are like a tower, since I became in his eyes as one finding peace.
I AM A WALL: AND MY BREASTS ARE LIKE A TOWER (in Hebrew, 'towers,' in the plural), SINCE I BECAME IN HIS EYES AS ONE FINDING PEACE. -- For 'since' the Hebrew reads az, that is, 'then'; whence Aquila renders: 'then I was in his eyes as one finding peace'; so also the Septuagint, except that the Vatican codex reads 'in their eyes,' in the plural; but the Complutensian Royal edition and others read,
'in his sight,' in the singular, as the Hebrew, Vulgate, Pagninus, Vatablus, and the Syriac have it: 'Then,' he says, 'I was in his eyes as one finding salvation'; the Arabic: 'the only one of peace, the only one of salvation.' Our translator understood the preposition 'from' so that 'then' is taken as 'from then,' that is 'since,' which is familiar to the Hebrews. Moreover, Vatablus renders it in a new way: 'by which promise indeed I appeared to satisfy him'; and Sotomayor explains it thus: By which response I wonderfully pacified the mind of my beloved, fully satisfying him, and binding him to myself. Others say: I am a wall, I have breasts like towers; and I have this from the time when I was fully and perfectly united to you, O Christ my bridegroom. Luis de Leon, however, says: I have no need of a wall or breasts, for in place of them I have my beauty, by which I so please the bridegroom that I seem to him to be a wall, and to have towered breasts and all other ornaments.
These are the words of the younger bride, namely the Synagogue of the Jews to be converted at the end of the world, who, hearing the fear of the elder sister -- namely the Church of the Gentiles -- about her, that she was small and without breasts, and the counsel of the companions of the bridegroom that if she is a wall, silver bulwarks should be built upon her (which are on a wall what breasts are on a breast), and if she is a door, she should be enclosed with cedar boards, immediately responds to both with spirit and removes all fear, saying that from the time when she was reconciled to the bridegroom and joined to him as a bride, she suddenly grew like a wall, and received from him enormous breasts -- not only like bulwarks, but even like towers -- and therefore she is now fit for the nuptials of the bridegroom.
First Adequate Sense: On Christ and the Church.
The Synagogue of the Jews at the end of the world, hearing Elijah and Enoch preaching about Christ with such power and spirit, and confirming their preaching by the holiness of their life and by stupendous miracles, will immediately believe in Christ and will be united to Him with such faith and love as to surpass many Gentiles, and will produce many preachers who will preach Christ powerfully and ardently like St. Paul. She will therefore say then to the elder sister, namely the bishops and prelates of the Church of the Gentiles: There is no reason for you to be anxious about me, nor to doubt my faith in Christ: for recognizing my long error, condemning it, and knowing for certain that this is the Messiah, that is, the Christ, who was unworthily crucified by my fathers, I believe in Him and give myself entirely to Him, and in this faith I am firm like a wall, so that it would be easier to tear down a wall than to break the faith and constancy of my heart; indeed, in my faith I have breasts standing out like towers, breasts of doctrine and teachers, who can defend the faith like towers and nurse the younger and weaker like breasts: therefore they will shortly so grow in Christian doctrine and life as to be worthy of the heavenly nuptials of Christ. For at the end of the world the Jews, through the preaching of Elijah and Enoch and through the efficacious grace of Christ, will change their hatred of Christ into zeal, so that they will preach and defend Christ as ardently as they had previously attacked Him stubbornly, as St. Paul did: therefore the greater and more learned among them will so instruct and perfect the lesser and more unlearned that they too will preach Christ; and then "all Israel will be saved," as the Apostle says, Romans 11:26.
Moreover, these things I have -- that is, I shall have, says the Synagogue -- not from myself, but from the grace of Christ, "since" namely "I became in His eyes as one finding peace": for since I was reconciled to Christ my dearest bridegroom and obtained peace from Him, I have Him with me as an omnipotent and all-knowing teacher perpetually, and from Him I obtain the greatest powers, by which I can repel princes and powers, and the rulers of darkness, and finally all enemies both visible and invisible, and keep safe those enclosed within my walls, as a most fortified city,
my citizens: for if God made one prophet Jeremiah, chapter 1:18, into a pillar of iron and a wall of bronze, how much more has He made me, who am now the Church and bride of Christ, to whom He promised such eloquence and wisdom that no adversaries can resist them, Matthew 10:19: "For the name of the Lord is a most strong tower: the just man runs to it and is exalted," Proverbs 18:10; and this is what God promised me, Zechariah 2:5: "And I, says the Lord, will be to her a wall of fire round about: and in glory will I be in the midst of her" -- see what is said there. So Honorius, the three Anonymi in Theodoret, Cosmas Damianus, Delrio, and others. The Chaldean supports this: "The assembly of Israel," he says, "will answer and say: I am strong in the words of the law like a wall, and my sons are mighty like towers. And at that time the assembly of Israel will find mercy in the eyes of their Lord, and all the inhabitants of the earth will greet Him." To this may also be referred Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Justus, Anselm, Rupert, and others, who take these words as spoken of the Church, which is called a wall on account of its firmness: for it is founded on rock, that is, on Christ, and is built of living and chosen stones; for the Synagogue to be converted at the end of the world will become the Church of Christ.
Moreover, for 'peace' the Hebrew reads shalom, from which word the bridegroom is called Solomon, that is, 'the peaceful,' and the bride, the Synagogue, is called the Shulamite, that is, 'the peaceful one,' as if to say: From the time that the true Solomon, that is, Christ, who brought peace from heaven between God and men, deigned to call me, the Synagogue -- who, clinging tenaciously to Moses and the old law, was His sworn enemy -- to Himself by grace and to reconcile me to Himself, indeed to make me the Shulamite, that is, His Church and bride, I immediately grew to such strength and loftiness of faith and charity that I seem, as a bride to a bridegroom, if not equal, certainly nearly equal. Hence the Arabic renders: 'the only one of peace, the only one of salvation.' Therefore 'as it were' here, as elsewhere, denotes not a comparison but the truth, as if to say: I became 'as it were,' that is, truly one finding peace, or I became like her who will find peace. So Theodoret: "Since He foreknew and predestined me," he says, "that I would seek peace and pursue it, and pursuing it would attain it, He both called me 'the peaceful one' and 'the Shunamite,' and made me an impregnable wall, fearsome to enemies, and raised my breasts -- that is, my moral and theological doctrine -- to a height, and established them as a tower, so that fighting from it I might drive away the enemies of the bridegroom."
Anagogically, Honorius says: "The Church, seeing itself being built as a wall from living stones into the dwelling of the true God, and the angelic tower of the heavenly Jerusalem being repaired through her, sings with exultation, Song of Songs 8:10: 'I am a wall, and my breasts are like a tower,' as if to say: I have been built by the craftsman Christ, from chosen men, as a wall of stones for the circuit of the heavenly Jerusalem, as a wall around the city; and my breasts, that is, the teachers who provided me with the milk of doctrine, have been raised up as towers in place of the angels who fell from there, and so she began to be built as a city through learned craftsmen, the apostles and their successors, from that time when I became in His eyes as one finding peace" -- from the time, that is, when I believed in Christ, who is true peace.
Symbolically, Aponius understands by the wall the humanity of Christ; by the breasts and towers, the apostles: "Because," he says, "just as through them He nourishes, so through them He defends the Church-city; and just as a tower adorns a wall, so they are shown to adorn the doctrine of Christ; therefore he stands securely in these towers, surrounded by the arms of divine knowledge, who remains immovable in their faith: for just as a tower is supported by the walls and
within the towers weapons are placed, so through faith the apostles are sustained by Christ, and through the apostles the company of the faithful, in whom the weapons of life and right faith are placed, which whoever holds unceasingly, conquers; whoever lets them go, is conquered."
until, the bite of the hostile siege being loosed, she may acquire the protection of peace and of strong youthful virtue through the maternal support; whence the Prophet also says, Psalm 121:7: "Let peace be in your strength, and abundance in your towers." Moreover, at the end of the world there will be 144,000 virgins who will oppose the impiety and lust of Antichrist even unto death, as is clear from Revelation 14:1 and following.
Finally, Honorius applies these words to religious: "The soul," he says, "built up by the teachings of prelates as by the stones of craftsmen, and adorned with the examples of the Fathers, cries out to those in the world: You who labor in worldly business, by this example enter as through a door into the repose of the spiritual life, because I, formerly like you, given to sins, have become like a wall, stable in spiritual things, and my breasts -- that is, the teaching of my life -- like an impregnable tower, since I became in His eyes as one finding peace, that is, since I betook myself from the tumult of the world to the quiet of the cloister: for he who labors amid the adversities of the world and the allurements of the flesh sweats as in the roar of battle, but finds, as it were, peace before God while resting in the spiritual life; which peace he will have in fullness when, feeling no fight between flesh and spirit, he will enjoy eternal peace."
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
The holy soul is a wall through the firmness of virtue, and a tower through the loftiness of prayer, in which it obtains mystical breasts, and draws from God the milk of doctrine and spirit, which it may pour out upon others; and there finally it obtains the full peace and joy of conscience. So Philo, Bishop of Carpathia: "I," he says, "am now fortified with faith and filled with charity, and my breasts -- mine, I say (for they were given to me and to all who practice them) -- that is, the two Testaments and the two commandments of charity, and also the twofold kind of life (namely the active, and that which belongs to contemplation), proved by the duties of justice; which indeed, with divine grace as guide, have raised me to the highest degree of integrity, like a tower; and there I have already begun to be entirely a stranger to all anxiety, perturbation, and care for human affairs, and have found rest. Whence it follows: 'I was sitting in his eyes as one who found peace.' Rightly she rejoices that she is now seated and at rest in the eyes of the bridegroom, after she received from the hand of divine grace peace, the bridegroom saying, John 14:27: 'My peace I give to you. My peace I leave to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.'" It should be noted that the imperfect tense is used when it says 'I was sitting,' to show that we can never rest perfectly here. For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one to come, as Paul says, Hebrews 13:14.
Moreover, St. Jerome applies these words to virgins, epistle 7 to Laeta: A virgin, he says, when someone knocks at the door, let her say: "I am a wall and my breasts are a tower"; and St. Ambrose, book 1 On Virgins: "Away," he says, "with fear for sacred virgins, to whom the Church first gave such great battles; she, concerned for the success of her tender offspring, herself like a wall grew with breasts abounding like towers,
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
What I said about the Blessed Virgin at the preceding verse, repeat here: for she herself like a wall will strengthen the Jews converted to Christ at the end of the world, and with the breasts of her grace and the doctrine of the preachers whom she will send them, she will nurse them, and like a tower she will defend them -- as her own nation, beloved of God in the patriarchs of old, from whom both she herself and Christ assumed flesh -- and she does this because she will have obtained for them peace, that is, pardon and grace, from her Son, and will have reconciled them to Him, as the true Shunammite, and mediatrix and peacemaker between God and the Synagogue: for the same whom she will bear to God, she will be zealous to nourish, cherish, advance, and perfect -- for this is what maternal love for her children demands. How the Blessed Virgin is a tower I explained at chapter 4, verse 4; about the breasts of her piety I spoke at chapter 1, verse 1, and chapter 4, verse 5.
Moreover, William thus sweetly and piously introduces the Blessed Virgin speaking: "Finally, as soon as the Word was made flesh from my flesh, I found and perceived that I had in my womb from the Holy Spirit, and I found in my womb, as it were, peace -- not yet peace indeed, but already, as it were, peace, that is, the victim of peace, whose sacrifice is complete peace, etc. Moreover, from the time I perceived that I had in my womb from the Holy Spirit, without doubt I was made of such excellence, such power, and such clemency, that to all who take refuge with me I am not only a wall for protection, but also a mother for nourishing."
and so great a mother, whose breasts are like a tower, that is, whose maternal piety not only nourishes the little ones, but also, while they are still in the nursery and less fit for battle, makes them inaccessible to enemies, knowing that when they have grown they will boldly go forth into the field, provoking to battle not only flesh and blood, but also the spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places."
Voice of the Bride, the elder, namely the Church.
Verses 11 and 12. The peaceful one had a vineyard in that which has peoples: he gave it to keepers; a man brings a thousand pieces of silver for the fruit thereof. My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for you, O peaceful one, and two hundred for those who keep its fruit.
THE PEACEFUL ONE HAD A VINEYARD IN THAT WHICH HAS PEOPLES: HE GAVE IT TO KEEPERS; A MAN BRINGS A THOUSAND PIECES OF SILVER FOR THE FRUIT THEREOF. -- The Hebrew reads: 'Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon.' 'Hamon' is the proper name of a city in the tribe of Naphtali situated between the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Phoenicia, which was given to the Levites, 1 Chronicles 6:75, so called from the density of its people and citizens: for 'Baal Hamon' in Hebrew means 'having' or 'possessing a people'; whence our translator renders it: 'in that which has peoples'; Symmachus: 'in the holding of the crowd'; Aquila: 'in the one having a multitude'; the Septuagint, however, retains it as a proper name: 'A vineyard,' they say, 'was made for Solomon in Beelamon'; the Syriac, however, refers it to a multitude not of people but of fruits: 'Solomon had a vineyard,' he says, 'and its fruit was abundant,' for Baalamon was a fertile place. It is surprising that the Arabic renders: 'Solomon became a vineyard in Baalamon,' unless you explain it thus, as if to say: Solomon had such abundant vineyards and was so constantly and frequently engaged in cultivating them, that he himself could be said to have been, as it were, transformed into them. It seems, therefore, that Solomon truly had an abundant vineyard in Baal Hamon.
Moreover, many names of places and cities have the name Baal prefixed as an ornament, such as Baal Perazim, Baal Meon, Baal Shalisha, Baal Hazor, Baal Zephon, etc., either because formerly Baal, that is, Bel or Belus, was worshiped in them as the household and tutelary god; or because Baal means the same as 'having' or 'possessing'; or for other reasons. Our Sanchez asserts that Baal Hamon is Engedi, abounding in palms and balsams, but he proves this on the authority of no one.
The Chaldean paraphrase, in its customary manner, refers these things to the Jews: whence by 'vineyard' it understands Jerusalem and Judea, whose king was Solomon, and after him the king of Judah was Rehoboam, while the king of the ten tribes was Jeroboam: "One nation," it says, "attended to the lot of the Lord of the world, with whom there is peace, which nation was compared to a vineyard. He placed it in Jerusalem and gave it into the hand of the kings of the house of David, that they might keep it, as a farmer keeps his vineyard. But after Solomon king of Israel died, it remained in the hand of Rehoboam his son, and Jeroboam son of Nebat came and divided the kingdom with him, and took from his hand ten tribes, according to the word of Ahijah the Shilonite, who was a great man. When Solomon king of Israel heard the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, he sought to kill him, and Ahijah fled from the face of Solomon and went into Egypt: and at that time it was said in the prophecy to Solomon the king, that he would rule over the ten tribes all the days of his life, and after his death Jeroboam son of Nebat would rule over them: and over two tribes, namely Judah and Benjamin, Rehoboam son of Solomon would rule."
Vineyards are frequently mentioned in the Song of Songs because the Song is written in the pastoral style; hence Solomon is introduced here as a vinedresser, shepherd, and farmer: therefore he begins with vineyards, and likewise ends with vineyards; for in chapter 1 the bride, still young, inexperienced, and weak, says at once: "They made me keeper of the vineyards: my own vineyard I have not kept"; but here, now mature, wise, and strong, she says: "The peaceful one had a vineyard in that which has peoples."
This is the voice of the elder bride, namely the Church of the Gentiles, who, having heard the voice of her younger sister, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, asserting that she is a wall and has breasts like towers, concludes through the parable of a most fertile and excellent vineyard, both about herself and about her sister, that the number of the faithful and elect, both Gentiles and Jews, is now full and complete, and therefore it is time for the nuptials with Christ in heaven to be consummated -- which both of them uniquely desire and tacitly request. That the vineyard is the Church both of the Gentiles and of the Jews is clear from the parable of Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 1: "My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill"; and of Christ, Matthew 21:33: "There was a householder who planted a vineyard," etc. Therefore, 'vineyard' in this passage refers to both the Synagogue of the Jews to be converted at the end of the world, and the Church of the Gentiles long since converted but at the end of the world wondrously flourishing in peoples and virtues, and in every respect complete and perfect -- and therefore the name 'vineyard' is repeated twice: whence some very fittingly understand by the first vineyard, verse 11, the Synagogue, and by the second, verse 12, the Church. For each vineyard will be of equal or similar fertility, and will bring forth very many saints for Christ, but the Church, being much larger, will give a more abundant and more numerous multitude of saints. Therefore by 'vineyard' here St. Gregory, Aponius, and the Chaldean understand the Synagogue; while Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, Bede, Anselm, and St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 22, verse 8, understand the Church. By the 'keepers' they understand pastors and teachers, or even guardian angels, as Cassiodorus and Bede hold; and they are called 'keepers,' not 'tenants,' because the tenant properly is Christ.
Let the individual points be applied first to the Synagogue, then to the Church. The sense is, as if to say: Just as King Solomon once had a notable vineyard in Baal Hamon -- both literally, yielding him indeed a thousand pieces of silver, and mystically, namely the Synagogue of the old law, bringing forth an ample fruit of piety and worship of God of great value -- so Christ, who is the true Solomon, that is, the peaceful one who makes peace between God and men, will at the end of the world have a vineyard in Baal Hamon, that is, in Judea, which will then abound in faithful peoples and virtues, and will be made perfect with a great number of saints and elect; whence St. John saw from each tribe of Israel twelve thousand sealed, Revelation 7:4. Then therefore the Shulamite, that is, the Synagogue, will be worthy to be joined to the bridegroom Solomon in heaven, and to be inebriated with the wine of glory that she herself, like a vineyard, produced. This vineyard Solomon, that is, Christ, has given, that is, will give, to keepers -- that is, to prelates, teachers, and preachers -- who will cultivate and guard it in faith and piety. Each man, that is, each of the keepers, who guards it annually, namely the pontiff, for its fruit brings by annual payment a thousand pieces of silver, that is, a most great and full (for the number one thousand is a symbol of the greatest magnitude and perfection) number and value of virtues and saints to Christ -- namely, many great and heroic works of the holy martyrs, virgins, religious, clerics, prelates, and married persons.
In a similar way, the vineyard of Christ is the Church of the Gentiles in Baal Hamon, that is, in the multitude of peoples; for it embraces all the nations that are under heaven, and at the end of the world it will abound with very many holy and elect martyrs, virgins, and confessors, and will be perfected both in the number of the faithful and saints, and in the abundance and perfection of charity and all virtues, good works, and merits, so that they will now be altogether worthy to be brought, like ripe grapes and wine pressed from them, into the heavenly banquet of the nuptials of Christ. This is what John says, Revelation 7:9: "After this I saw a great multitude, which no one could number, from every nation, and tribe, and people, and tongue, standing before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palms in their hands: and they cried with a loud voice, saying: Salvation to our God, who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb." So William, who also gives the reason: because, he says, the Church of the Gentiles has many peoples, while the Synagogue has only one, namely the Jewish people; and because Christ descended from heaven and underwent death and the cross more for the Church, being so numerous, than for the Synagogue; and because the Church has brought forth and brings forth a far greater harvest and number of saints, martyrs, virgins, and confessors for Christ than the Synagogue, which for so many centuries, having been repudiated by Christ on account of perfidy, will only at the end of the world be associated with Him again: so St. Ambrose at the passage already cited.
The same and others add that the Church was made the vineyard of Christ in Baal Hamon, that is, in the multitude of peoples at Pentecost, when the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., heard the apostles speaking in their own languages the great things of God. But the Church began then, and having since been propagated through all peoples, will be fully perfected at the end of the world. Hence Lyranus understands by 'the man' the Emperor Constantine, who, he says, incurred innumerable expenses for the propagation of the Church and the gathering of its abundant fruit -- a thousand pieces of silver, that is: for other emperors, like children who despise a thousand gold pieces for one rattle, poured out immense riches in purchasing their pleasures; but Constantine, like a man who pays a great price only for great merchandise, generously supplied the vast treasures of his empire for the acquisition of the treasure of the heavenly kingdom: so Lyranus.
Fittingly he adds that this vineyard is in Baal Hamon, because Hamon was a priestly city: for it was given to the Aaronic priests to dwell in, who at intervals visited the other cities to teach the people of God everywhere the law and worship. As if to say: In a similar way, the Synagogue at the end of the world will give many holy and learned priests to Christ, who will instruct and perfect the people in the Christian faith and piety; these, namely, will be the breasts, about which she said in verse 10: "My breasts are like a tower." Then the Church adds about herself:
My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for you, O peaceful one, and two hundred for those who keep its fruit.
MY VINEYARD IS BEFORE ME -- that is, as Vatablus says, my vineyard, the one that pertains to me, is my concern, as if to say: You, O Synagogue my sister, have your vineyard Judea, but I have as my vineyard the whole rest of the world, namely all the nations, which I continually cultivate in Christian faith and virtue through my prelates, pastors, and preachers: therefore it is necessary
that I always have so ample a vineyard before my eyes, and with great diligence and labor dig, prune, and harvest it, etc., as I have done and continue to do. Therefore, having been so cultivated by me for so many years and centuries, each year from its fruits it renders to Solomon the master (that is, to Christ) a thousand pieces of silver, that is, the highest price; and to the keepers who cultivate it, it further renders two hundred pieces of silver for their labor: a silver piece is understood as a shekel, which contains four silver drachmas, that is, four Italian giulii, or four Spanish reales, that is, one Brabantine or Belgian florin.
Moreover, Philo, Cassiodorus, Rupert, St. Gregory, and St. Ambrose consider these words -- 'My vineyard is before me,' etc. -- to be the words of Christ the bridegroom, responding to the bride, as if Cassiodorus says: "You say that I handed over the Church, my vineyard, to keepers; but I always have care of it. Do not be doubtful about the eternal reward, since the fruit of eternal retribution is prepared for you: for a thousand are yours, that is, all those things which you left for my sake are 'of the peaceful one' (in the nominative), that is, profitable for you. Moreover, for those who keep the fruits of my vineyard, two hundred are prepared, likewise 'of the peaceful one,' that is, a doubled fruit has been rendered profitable, inasmuch as according to the Apostle's saying, 1 Timothy 5:15, elders who rule well are worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word." This opinion and exposition is probable, but the former is more probable, namely that these are the words of the bride, according to the sense reviewed a little earlier; for there follows: "A thousand are for you, O peaceful one"; in Hebrew it reads: 'O Solomon,' that is, 'O Christ,' which no one doubts are the bride's words to the bridegroom.
A thousand are for you, O peaceful one, and two hundred for those who keep its fruit.
For 'peaceful' the Hebrew reads 'O Solomon'; whence the Complutensian editors read 'O peaceful one,' in the vocative; therefore 'your, O peaceful one' is the same as 'yours, O peaceful one, O Solomon,' whence the Arabic renders 'many thousands of Solomon'; the Septuagint: 'a thousand for Solomon.' From this it is clear that 'peaceful' is not a nominative plural, as Honorius, Cassiodorus, William, Rupert, and others think, but a genitive singular, denoting Solomon and his antitype Christ. The sense is, as if to say: Just as your vineyard of the Jews, O Synagogue, offers Solomon -- that is, Christ the bridegroom -- a thousand pieces of silver, that is, the greatest fruit of charity, virtues, and good works of the highest value, so my vineyard of the Gentiles does the very same thing. For although the Gentiles, being much more numerous than the Jews, bring forth far more fruits of heroic virtues and a greater number of holy martyrs, virgins, and confessors; yet, to avoid the rivalry and jealousy of her sister the Synagogue, it is said to bring just as much as she -- namely, a thousand pieces of silver, that is, fruits of the highest value -- but proportionally according to the number of each: for the Church of the Gentiles, being more numerous, assuredly gives and will give at the end of the world a more numerous harvest of saints than the Synagogue of the Jews.
She says therefore 'a thousand for you, O peaceful one,' that is, a thousand pieces of silver for you, O peaceful one, O Solomon -- that is, O Christ -- which I have collected from the fruit of the vineyard, I offer and render, because all the charity, virtue, perfection, blessedness, and glory of the Church, that is, of the faithful and saints, belongs to Christ: for all these things flow from the grace of Christ, as a stream from a spring, a ray from the sun, heat from fire. To Christ, therefore, are owed the thousand, that is, the far greater and chief dignity, merit, and reward of good works; but to the Church and the saints are owed, and given, the two hundred, that is, the sanctity of soul and body, or the charity of God and neighbor, to which as a reward in heaven corresponds the glory of soul and body -- through the observance of the ten commandments of the decalogue in heart and deed, a hundredfold doubled, that is, multiplied and perfected in every way, for a hundred doubled makes two hundred. So Honorius, and from him Delrio, Philo, and others.
Again, 'a thousand for you, O peaceful one,' as if to say: Behold, O Christ our bridegroom, both the Synagogue and the Church, each your bride, brings you the thousandfold, that is, the totality and fullness of all the saints, as it were fruits, which through your grace she has gathered from the Gentiles as well as from the Jews: therefore the number of the saints and elect is now complete. Come then, put an end to this our labor and warfare, lead us with you from earth to heaven, from warfare to triumph, from the contest to the prize, that we may be joined to you as to a bridegroom in the heavenly bridal chamber with the most blessed nuptials. Therefore, transplant both of these your vineyards from the ground to heaven, join holy men to angels, and make your bride, who has so long and nobly struggled in this arena, triumphant.
Note that a thousand is the cube and the square of ten, for ten multiplied by itself -- that is, ten times ten makes a hundred, ten times a hundred makes a thousand -- and therefore a thousand signifies the totality and fullness of a thing, namely here of the saints, says St. Augustine, book 2 of the City of God, chapter 7, and others passim. Again, a thousand is a symbol of virginity, for the symbol and cause of virginity is unity, whether simple or composite, as it is composed in 10, 100, and 1000, which is the thousandfold; but the symbol of marriage is duality, according to Ephesians 5:31: "They shall be two in one flesh," whether simple or composite, as it is composed in 20 and 200. Because, therefore, the Church, the bride of Christ, is both virgin and spouse, her silver pieces are a thousand because she is a virgin, and two hundred because she is a spouse, says Peter Bongus in On the Mystery of Numbers, under 200, which he borrowed from Rupert at this passage, who also adds another reason: "Unity," he says, "is called a virgin, because multiplied by itself it creates nothing, for once one is only one: which happens to no other number, for twice two is four, three times three is nine, and so on. Marriage is designated by the binary hundred (two hundred), because by this she is most happily joined to the beloved by an indissoluble bond."
Moreover, the thousandfold properly belongs to Christ, says Bongus under 100, according to that verse: "A thousand for you, O peaceful one" -- for Christ, I say, who is peace in Himself, and, as St. Paul testifies, Colossians 1, has made peace in all things in heaven and on earth, and whose office it is to lead to that end in which there is the most full and most blessed peace -- to Him is assigned the most perfect thousandfold: for this by the best right, in that it is the goal and the last of the last consummated number, truly belongs to Christ alone, who is first according to His divinity, before whom there was none, and last according to His humanity, according to 1 Corinthians 15:45: "The first man Adam was made into a living soul; the last Adam into a quickening spirit." For a thousand is the period of all numbers, that is, their beginning and end: for we begin counting from one and end at a thousand. So Christ, God and man, is the font, origin, and first beginning, as well as the ultimate end of all goods, according to what He says of Himself, Revelation 21:6: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last." So Theodoret.
Finally, a thousand is a symbol of the consummation of the world, according to the saying: "Six thousand years for the world," and of the resurrection and eternal glory of the blessed in the heavens, Revelation 20:5: for there the saints of the Church will drink the wine of eternal happiness, and will enjoy peace, that is, the abundance of all goods. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Justus, and others passim.
In the primitive Church, these silver pieces were brought by those about whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, verse 34: "As many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds and laid them at the feet of the apostles, the price of those things which they sold." The reward of these is two hundred pieces of silver, because such persons will receive a hundredfold in this life, and much more than a hundredfold in the future life, according to Christ's promise, Matthew 19:29: "Everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess eternal life." St. Anselm adds that two hundred are given to the keepers, because the guardians of the Church and of souls offer a double price to God, inasmuch as they keep themselves spotless and gain others, and therefore they also obtain a double reward. To this end serves Proverbs 10:20: "The tongue of the just is choice silver."
Theodoret offers another interpretation, understanding by the vineyard the faithful soul, by its keepers the priests, by the thousand silver pieces Christ, and by the two hundred the guarding of the five senses. Hear him: "For the number one thousand in Christ signifies perfection, since it is absolute unity, and contains the principle of unity not only in power but also in reality within itself: for it begins from unity, and through unity it is shown, and it is the maker of unity: for by the sign of unity a thousand and a myriad are indicated. But the number two hundred signifies the constitution of our nature brought back to itself through the observance of the commandments: for when ten is repeated through the ten commandments, it contains twenty, composed of four times five, and therefore our nature,
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
"The soul," says Philo of Carpathia, "that has found the peace of the Lord and rest from sins, becomes like a fruitful vineyard for the heavenly Solomon, who blesses all things in heaven and on earth, and provides and preserves all things in quiet, blessedness, and peace, provided they are subject to Him and obey Him: for the impious have no peace, nor the wicked rest, nor the proud tranquillity, but only the meek and upright in heart. If these strive to please the bridegroom, not the world, not men, they are appointed guardians of their own soul as of a vineyard; this the Prophet proves when he says, Psalm 118:5: 'My portion, O Lord, I said, is to keep your law.' Such a one receives as his reward a thousand silver pieces, that is, he carries with him into his homeland the salvific fullness of the whole law and the commandments; and there, living without end, he eats of the fruit of his own hands. Nothing is more pleasing to God than to do good and to teach others well by the example of the bridegroom Himself, who said of such persons, John 17:25: 'Where I am, there let my servant also be.'" The soul, therefore, that strives for perfection continually says: "My vineyard is before me," so as continually to inspect, examine, correct, and perfect itself, as a vinedresser does a vineyard.
Moreover, Honorius, Cassiodorus, and St. Gregory apply these words to religious, who despise all earthly goods in order to unite and betroth themselves to Christ. Hear St. Gregory: "For the fruit of the vineyard a man brings a thousand pieces of silver, because whoever conducts himself manfully in the faith he has received, with a willing mind and
perfectly relinquishes all earthly things, so as truly to have Christ: for a thousand is a perfect number, and therefore through it the perfection of any thing is demonstrated. In the primitive Church, these silver pieces were brought by those about whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, verse 34: 'As many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds and laid them at the feet of the apostles.'" The reward of these is two hundred pieces of silver, because such persons will receive a hundredfold in this life, and much more than a hundredfold in the future life, according to Christ's promise, Matthew 19:29: "Everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess eternal life."
Symbolically, William understands by the thousand and two hundred the holy angels, who are the peaceful ones and intimates of the heavenly bridegroom, and who cooperate with Him in the care of the Church: namely, they are the peaceful ones who seek and continually pray for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem. For a thousand and two hundred make twelve times one hundred: "And it should be noted," he says, "that twelve consists of four threes, and in a way is squared by them; and the property of square things is to stand firmly no matter which way they are inclined. And so the twelve of the angels intimates their stable firmness in the love of the creating Trinity. The hundredfold in Sacred Scripture by a solemn convention signifies perfection. When, therefore, the holy angels are said to be twelve times one hundred, they are shown to be not only firm but also perfect in the love of their Creator, namely because
they so firmly cling that they cannot waver in His love at any time or in any circumstance, and so perfectly and completely that they cannot love alongside Him anything that is not He Himself or for His sake." So he says, though not very aptly according to the letter, both because the thousand are given here to Christ, not to the angels, and the two hundred to the keepers of the vineyard; and because 'peaceful' here is not a nominative plural but a genitive singular, denoting Solomon himself, that is, Christ, as is clear from the Hebrew, Septuagint, Syriac, Arabic, and others.
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
The vineyard, says Honorius in the Sigillum, is the Virgin Mother of God, whom God planted in Baal Hamon, that is, in Jerusalem and Judea, abounding with peoples, which was the homeland of the apostles, and He committed her to keepers, that is, to the apostles, and especially to St. John when dying on the cross, when He said to him, John 19:27: "Behold your mother." Again, and more aptly according to the letter, whatever I said at the beginning about the Synagogue and the Church, attribute to the Blessed Virgin: for she, after Christ, has a tender care and singular providence over both of them as their mother.
Voice of the Bridegroom.
Verse 13. You who dwell in the gardens, friends are listening: make me hear your voice.
YOU WHO DWELL IN THE GARDENS (Honorius incorrectly reads 'in the gates,' namely of life and death, he himself says) FRIENDS ARE LISTENING: MAKE ME HEAR YOUR VOICE. -- The Septuagint reads: 'you who have sat (Symmachus: who sit) in the gardens, friends are attending to my voice: make me hear your voice'; the Syriac: 'the keepers (about whom there was discussion above) who dwell in the gardens (are present) and listen to your voice'; the Arabic: 'to him who sits (masculine) in the garden, others listen.' The Septuagint, and the Syriac and Arabic who follow them, seem to have read for the Hebrew yoshevet (feminine), that is, 'who sits' or 'who dwells,' the form yashavta (masculine), that is, 'who have sat,' that is, 'who sits.' This is the voice of the bridegroom to the bride, whom the pastoral phrase 'you who dwell in the gardens' denotes as a rustic maiden and nymph who inhabits forests and mountains, such as the poets call Dryads and Oreads, about whom Virgil writes, Aeneid 1: "Diana leads the dances, whom a thousand follow, And from this side and that the Oreads gather." Whence Servius says: "Dryads are nymphs who dwell among the trees; Hamadryads, however, are nymphs who are born with the trees and perish with them." So this bride, as a nymph of chastity and wisdom, loves the countryside, fields, vineyards, and gardens. This alludes to what the bride said about herself in the preceding verse: "My vineyard is before me": for a vineyard is at the same time a garden, because among the vines are planted herbs, trees, and plants, as is done in gardens.
Now first, Aben Ezra, understanding by 'friends' lovers, that is, suitors and rivals of the bride, competitors of the bridegroom, explains it thus, as if the bridegroom says: Take care, O bride, that you do not sing publicly, because suitors are present who seek your voice; therefore sing so modestly and secretly that I alone may hear: let it suffice for you if your voice sounds in my ears, according to Isaiah 4:16: "My secret is mine, my secret is mine"; or, as Vatablus says: Sing openly before my rivals, so that they may hear that you desire me as bridegroom, not them, so that they may grieve and despair of your nuptials.
Second, our Sanchez understands by 'friends' the witnesses of the marriage contract, as if to say: With a clear voice, O bride, declare and profess that you wish to enter into marriage with me, and that you desire no other than me as bridegroom, so that the witnesses may hear it, and thus before them we may celebrate a ratified and solemn marriage according to custom. Third and best, by 'friends' you should understand the companions and groomsmen of the bridegroom, who wish the bride to be united to the bridegroom, and to hear her wish and desire on this matter expressed in voice. The bridegroom therefore asks the bride to at last openly declare before the groomsmen the wishes that she has hitherto only tacitly insinuated concerning the consummation of the nuptials with the bridegroom.
First Adequate Sense: On Christ and the Church.
Christ has thus far listened to the dialogue and conversation of the Synagogue and the Church, and it has pleased Him: therefore, since both are now united in the Christian faith and religion and made one Church, He asks her to express her final wishes and requests -- for He desires to grant them and satisfy them. As if Hortolanus says: O my most sweet Catholic Church, who are yourself a garden most pleasing to me, and who tend all my Churches and each of my elect as my gardens -- behold, called by you so long and so very often, I come: with me are all the angels, my companions and our common friends. Speak now, come, what do you want of me? What is it that I hear you and your spirit continually crying: 'Come, come, come, Lord Jesus'? Behold, I have now come, as I once promised, and my reward is with me, to render to each one according to his works. I am here before you, the one whom you call: ask whatever you wish. Only speak: for you know that I am wonderfully delighted by your prayer; all these our friends are delighted by it too, and therefore they eagerly desire to hear you speaking. They have hitherto listened to your prayers and wishes with the greatest pleasure, and have faithfully reported them to me, being accustomed always to commend you to me and to my Father on the most favorable terms, and in this (as I have sometimes pointed out) perpetually attending to the face of my heavenly Father. Now the Church firmly dwells in gardens, that is, she constantly abides in the delight of the Scriptures,
in cultivating the paradises of ever-green, beautifully blooming, and sweetly fragrant virtues. So Rupert, Honorius, and others. The friends are angels: so Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, Haymo, Rupert, and others. The Chaldean version supports this: "Solomon said at the end of his prophecy: The Lord of the world will say to the assembly of Israel in the last days: You, congregation of Israel, who are compared to the smallest garden among the nations, and who dwell in the house of learning with the companions of the Council, and the rest of the peoples who listen to the voice of the head of the school, and learn from his mouth his words -- make the law to be heard, the voice of your discourses, in the time when you sit to justify and to condemn, and I assent to all."
Symbolically, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, and Bede consider that Christ here desires to hear the voice of the Church's preaching (Rupert adds: and of prayer and petitions), so that the garden of the faithful, in which the doctrine of Sacred Scripture dwells, may be cultivated: for by this voice both He and the friends, that is, the angels and the blessed, are delighted. Less correctly, Justus of Urgel reads: 'You who dwell in the gardens: friend, listen; make me hear your voice,' as if 'you who dwell in the gardens' were the voice of the bridegroom; and the following 'friend, listen,' etc., were the voice of the bride to the bridegroom, as if to say: Make me, O bridegroom, hear your most joyful voice, with which you will say to him who has lived holily on the day of judgment, Matthew 25:21: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because you have been faithful in a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your lord." So also Theodoret, who, reading with the Septuagint in the masculine 'you who dwell in the gardens,' considers all these to be the words of the bride to the bridegroom, who, he says, diligently desiring and awaiting the second coming of Christ, humbly prays to Him and says: "Make me hear (that) voice of yours" most longed for, Matthew 25:34: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
The three Anonymi in Theodoret, reading with the Septuagint 'you who dwell in the gardens,' etc., consider these words to be those of the bride to the bridegroom, whom she says is seated in the gardens: "The gardens," they say, "are the divine temples, the memorials of the martyrs, the communities of those who have embraced the solitary life. In these, where people offer a thousand silver pieces for the fruit of the vineyard, the bride asserts the bridegroom dwells, and she begs Him not only to converse with angelic powers, but also to make her worthy of His voice, and not to despise her, who burns with desire and thirst to enjoy His words." To this St. Ambrose adds, on Psalm 118, sermon 12, verse 8: "Hence we too," he says, "if we wish Him to sit in us, let us be enclosed gardens and
fortified: let us bear the flowers of virtues, the sweetness of grace, so that we may be able to hear the Lord disputing with the angels." But according to the Hebrew text, the Vulgate version, the Arabic, and others, it is clear that these are the words of the bridegroom to the bride, namely to the pious soul, who has diligently served Him in every virtue throughout her whole life, to whom therefore at the end of life, as she yearns for heaven, He says: Come, O beloved one, you who dwell in gardens -- that is, you who have been zealous to cultivate continually the garden of your soul and of your neighbors' souls with every kind of virtue -- ask what you wish, I will give it to you: I know that you desire to be dissolved and to be with your Christ. Come, express that same desire ardently, and I will grant your wish: your friends are listening,
as well as my own, namely the angels -- indeed, they stand with ears pricked up and attend to your voice (for this is what makshivim means), thirsting for it most intensely, that they may receive and drink it in. Hence Rupert: "Make me," he says, "hear your voice, so that the law of the Lord may always be in your mouth, now by preaching, now by working, now by singing psalms: for by these means I gladly hear your voice, and so that you may do this more wisely and diligently, behold, I tell you: friends also listen -- those whom you do not see with bodily eyes, namely the holy angels, according to Psalm 137:1: 'In the sight of the angels I will sing psalms to you.'" Moreover, from this, says St. Ambrose, book On the Good of Death, chapter 5: "Plato composed that garden for himself which he elsewhere called the garden of Jupiter, and elsewhere the garden of the mind: for he called Jupiter both god and the mind of the whole world. He said that the soul, which he calls Poverty, entered into this garden to fill itself with the abundance and riches of the garden, in which, filled with drink, there lay one who poured out pure nectar. This therefore he composed from the book of the Song of Songs, because the soul, clinging to God, had entered the garden of the mind, in which there was an abundance of diverse virtues and flowers of discourses."
Third Principal Sense: On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, William explains this as Christ, through Gabriel, seeking the consent of the Blessed Virgin for the incarnation of the Word, as if to say: O Virgin, who are fed in the gardens of the soul with the lilies of purity, make me hear your voice, as if you were to say: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word," Luke 1:38. Again, the same William explains this as Christ after the resurrection asking from His mother permission to depart from the earth and ascend into heaven, as if to say: Make me hear your voice, by which you may say: "Flee, my beloved: be like a gazelle and a young stag upon the mountains of spices," that you may flee into heaven, and from there send the Holy Spirit to me and the apostles grieving at your departure.
Second, Alan, as if Christ says: "O my mother, who dwell in gardens -- in the garden of the Church bodily, and in the garden of virtues sprouting into eternal life spiritually; in the garden that is Christ, through love; in the garden of eternal life through hope, and subsequently to dwell through direct vision -- make me hear your voice, that is, direct your prayers to me from whatever tribulation, that I may fulfill them, because you cannot pray inordinately." Third, and most aptly according to the letter, Cardinal Hailgrin, as if to say: "At the end of this work, Christ here concludes His words; He assigns to His mother the office she is to hold in heaven, saying: O my beloved, you who dwell in the gardens of graces and virtues, make me hear your voice in prayers, let your voice sound in my ears, because friends, namely the angels, are listening, so that whatever you ask of me, they may immediately carry out in their dutiful ministry. And the Blessed Virgin, willingly complying with her Son, and as if rejoicing in such an office imposed upon her, immediately rises to prayer, saying: 'Flee,' etc., as follows."
Voice of the Bride.
Verse 14. Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle, and a young stag upon the mountains of spices.
FLEE, MY BELOVED, AND BE LIKE A GAZELLE, AND A YOUNG STAG UPON THE MOUNTAINS OF SPICES. -- Symmachus reads: 'of delights'; the Syriac instead of 'flee' etc. renders: 'when I shall come, my beloved'; the Chaldean: 'At that time the elders of the assembly of Israel will say: Flee, our beloved Lord of the world, from this unclean land, and let your majesty dwell in the highest heavens: and in the time of tribulation, when we pray before you, you will be like a gazelle which, when it sleeps, has one eye closed and the other open; or like a young stag, which when it flees, looks behind itself: so you will look upon us, and regard our tribulation from the highest heavens, until the time when it shall please you to be gracious to us, and you will redeem us and bring us into the mountain of Jerusalem, and there the priests will burn incense of spices before you.'
This is the last and swan-song voice of the bride, by which, in response to the bridegroom's desire to hear her final voice, she utters it and through it intimates to the bridegroom her last and ultimate wishes: namely, that the bridegroom should flee, that is, swiftly rush forth like a gazelle upon the mountains of spices, and carry the bride away with himself there, so that there she may enjoy him alone: for the love that has settled in the bride's innermost being does not tolerate any delays of the bridegroom. Flee therefore, O bridegroom, with me from the valleys of gardens to the mountains of rocks, from the crowd into solitude, from the mire of stench to the hills of spices.
Again, 'flee,' that is, hasten, go quickly, and fly to the mountains: so also the Hebrew barach, that is, 'to flee,' is sometimes the same as 'to run hastily,' says Rabbi Joseph Kimchi, of which meaning Pagninus lists several examples in the Thesaurus of the Holy Language: for since flight happens with haste and speed, by metalepsis 'to flee' is taken for 'to hasten,' 'fugitive' for 'swift,' and 'flight' for 'running.' So Virgil, Georgics 3, verse 66, says: "The best days of life for wretched mortals Flee first."
that is, it passes by most swiftly and flies away; and Silius: "He fled faster than the East winds"; and Plautus: "With oar and sail, hasten and flee as fast as you can." Whence Seneca, epistle 118, near the end: "Never," he says, "does Virgil say that days 'go,' but rather that they 'flee,' which is the most impetuous kind of running": for flight is the swiftest of all, especially that of gazelles and young stags when hunting dogs pursue them most swiftly. There is therefore an emphasis in the word 'flee,' as if to say: Just as gazelles and young stags, driven by dogs, flee at full speed, so you, O bridegroom, I beg, for the sake of my salvation, flee with me, that is, carry me away with you most swiftly to the mountains of spices, that is, to heaven, where I may live beyond all danger, and be blessed, and most joyfully enjoy you: "You do not flee to escape: you flee so as to be caught." Sanchez adds: 'To flee' sometimes means 'to attack': thus of Aeneas pursuing Turnus, Virgil sings, Aeneid 12: "As often as he cast his eyes upon the foe, And attempted in his course the flight of his swift steeds, So often Juturna turned back the chariot." By this meaning, therefore, it is intimated that the saints, led by Christ, through heroic works of mortification, martyrdom, charity, and other virtues, attack and seize the mountains of spices, that is, the mountains of eternity in the heavens, according to Christ's saying, Matthew 11:12: "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." This flight, therefore, denotes the swift assault in the contest of virtue, by which the saints invade and occupy heaven. The mountains of spices are the mountains of Bether or Bethel, as I said at chapter 2, verse 7, where Jacob saw a ladder set up from the earth to heaven, and angels descending and ascending upon it toward God who leaned upon the top of the ladder, and therefore he called the place Bethel, that is, the house of God, Genesis 28:12. The mountains of spices, therefore, or as Symmachus says, 'of delights,' symbolically denote heaven, as the Chaldean, Vatablus, and others everywhere explain, where the saints, most sweetly singing, continually offer God spices, that is, the incense and perfumes of praise, prayer, thanksgiving, and jubilation, as is clear from Revelation 5:8 and following.
Hear Adrichomius in the Description of the Holy Land, page 16, no. 43: "Bethel or Bether are fertile mountains, wooded and planted with trees, full of grass and aromatic herbs, and therefore deer, gazelles, and young stags frequent their summits, about which the Song of Songs speaks." Thus on the mountains of the heavens, as in Bethel -- that is, in the house of God -- among the angels and the blessed, there are fragrant the most sweet rosemary of continence, the balsams of immortality, the cinnamon of exultation, the cloves of charity, and the sharp pepper of praise and jubilation.
First Adequate Sense: On Christ and the Church.
The Church at the end of the world, with the saints and elect converted and their number completed -- who will restore and fill the seats of the fallen angels -- throughout this whole work launches her sighs toward heaven from a heart burning with love for the bridegroom, so that there, after so many labors and contests, as a veteran and victor she may consummate the blessed nuptials with Christ, and gloriously enjoy Him forever, and sing with the holy angels an unceasing Alleluia. Hence she here repeats the same sigh and with this song brings the canticle to a close, as the second coming of Christ for judgment now draws near. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Flee, that is, hasten and rush forth, O bridegroom, immediately after the judgment has been completed, from this valley of tears, fetid and putrid with so many crimes and miseries, to the mountains of spices, that is, to the hills of blessed eternity, to the seats of the angels where all things are fragrant with the incense and perfume of praises and jubilations, and likewise carry me there with you -- just as gazelles and young stags are accustomed to carry their young with them (indeed, they refuse to save themselves alone without them) away from hunters, and transfer them to mountains fragrant with spices. Why Christ is compared to a gazelle and a young stag, I reviewed many reasons and analogies at chapter 2.
Hence Cosmas Damianus paraphrastically and with deep feeling explains it thus: O best of all, and more dear to me than my life, my bridegroom, Lord Jesus Christ, you have come at last, so long and so often called and awaited by me: may your coming be happy and fortunate for us. Behold, the longed-for day of our regeneration now breathes: now that you have risen as our supreme Sun and King, the shadows of all princes and powers, like melting mountains, are contracting. Now every creature will be freed from the slavery of corruption; now our life, which until now lay hidden in you, will be revealed together with your life and glory to the whole world; now this corruptible body will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality; now finally, about to triumph with you over sin and death, we will taunt our enemies by singing this song of Hosea: "Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" We have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith, we have conquered. We earnestly beg you, therefore, to command all of us who are your elect and beloved to come to you from the four corners of the earth, and to catch us up into that most luminous cloud of yours, and to transfer both yourself and us, as swiftly as possible, from the sight of impious men into heaven -- far from the fetid mountains of this world, reeking with the bestial venom of lions and leopards -- to the heavenly mountains breathing the fragrance of all your graces and virtues and of our vows. May your Church at last hear, I beg you, that most joyful promised voice of yours: "You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you. Come from Lebanon, my bride... you shall be crowned," etc.; and also that other voice: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
Moreover, the Fathers generally refer these words to Christ's ascension into heaven, which occurred on the fortieth day after His resurrection, as if the Church -- that is, the apostles and the faithful -- were begging Christ to ascend into heaven, but in such a way that from there He might look upon His saints with the eye of mercy, and frequently visit them with His grace and consolation: saints, I say, who deserve to be called mountains of spices because of their contempt for earthly things and their desire for heavenly goods and joys, says Bede. So also Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, Aponius, and St. Bernard, sermon 9 on Psalm 'He who dwells,' where by the mountains of spices he understands all the orders of angels, above whom Christ, as man, ascended triumphantly into heaven. But since the ascension of Christ into heaven was already treated at chapter 2, in the adolescence of the Church, it is better here, where the Church is now mature, indeed perfect, and therefore about to be immediately blessed and glorified in heaven, to understand this flight of the bridegroom to the mountains of spices as the second coming of Christ, that is, when He Himself on the day of judgment, after it has been completed in the valley of Josaphat, will gloriously ascend from it into heaven with the saints, and will carry them away with Him, so as to offer them to God the Father as the fruit of His cross. So Theodoret, Honorius, Aponius, St. Ambrose in On the Good of Death, chapter 5, and St. Bernard, sermon 9 on Psalm 'He who dwells,' and among the more recent writers Luis de Leon, Nannius, Osorius, Delrio, Hortolanus, and others.
Second Partial Sense: On Christ and the Holy Soul.
First, St. Gregory: "Christ," he says, "fleeing the reprobate, seeks the mountains of spices, because, leaving the perverse behind, He does not cease to visit holy souls, who both become lofty through contemplation and carry with them fragrant ointments through the compounding of virtues; upon these mountains the beloved is likened to a gazelle and a young stag, because in the hearts of holy men it is manifest with what tender charity He assumed humanity for our sake." Hence St. Ambrose, book 3 On Virgins, applying these words to them: "There," he says, "let the daughters seek Christ, where the Church seeks Him -- on the mountains of good fragrance, which by the loftiness of their exalted deeds breathe forth the sweet odor of life from the summits of their merits. For He flees the streets, He flees the gatherings and the noise of the marketplace, according to what is written, Song of Songs 8:14: 'Flee, my brother, and be like a deer or a young stag upon the mountains of spices.' For hostile to the snaky serpents, fleeing dogs, and hating the serpents that crawl upon the ground, He knows not how to dwell except in the loftiness of virtues, He knows not how to abide except in such daughters of the Church who can say, 2 Corinthians 2:15: 'We are the good fragrance of Christ.'"
Second, more aptly according to the letter, St. Ambrose, book On the Good of Death, chapter 5, takes these words as expressing the desire of the soul to fly away from this life and world into heaven: "'Flee, my brother.' She encourages the bridegroom to flee, because now she herself too can follow Him who flees earthly things. She says let Him be like a young doe that escapes from the nets: for she too wishes to flee and
that by fleeing we may avoid persecution: "For the sake of the weak," says St. Ambrose, "He flees, who cannot bear heavier temptations, etc.; let Him pass to the mountains of spices, so that instead of martyrdom He may bring the fragrance of blessed resurrection. The mountains of spices are the saints: to them Christ flees, because His foundations are in the holy mountains. To them therefore He flees, who are His stable foundations; in us He flees, in them He takes up a faithful station. A mountain of spices therefore is Paul, who can say, 2 Corinthians 2:15: 'We are the good fragrance of Christ before God.' A mountain of spices is David, whose prayer's fragrance ascended to the Lord, and therefore he said, Psalm 140:2: 'Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight.'"
The mystics, or contemplatives, refer these words to the mystical approaches and withdrawals of Christ to the soul: for these are likened to flights. Hence our Alvarez de Paz, On the Nature of Contemplation, book 5, part 2, chapter 12, explains it thus, as if to say: "Flee, my beloved," etc. -- since, O bridegroom, you are about to flee and leave me without your love, I pray that you flee like a gazelle and a young stag, who flee their pursuers in such a way that they frequently turn back toward them and look at them with their eyes. Go, but return, so that just as by your departure I become more humble and acknowledge my weakness, so by your return I may be exalted by an increase of virtues, and breathe again with the warmth of love. You have made yourself like an eagle.
Symbolically, Rupert and St. Gregory consider that here the pious soul is asking that God hide Himself, and withdraw into the darkness and incomprehensibility of His divinity, lest the soul, contemplating Him too loftily, suppose that it has comprehended Him. Hear St. Gregory, Moralia, book 17, chapter 15: "Flee, my beloved, flee -- as if she were saying: You who through the flesh have been made comprehensible, by your divinity surpass the understanding of our sense, and remain incomprehensible to us in yourself." Again Philo: When you are tempted, O beloved soul, flee to the mountains of spices, that is, to the examples of the saints, so that, emboldened by them, you may resist temptation. Are you tempted by lust? Flee to the steep mountain of chastity, the patriarch Joseph, who left his cloak in the hand of the mistress who was tempting him and fled. Are you tempted by anger? Flee to the most gentle hill of mercy, David, who forgave Saul the crime of persecution, and imitate him. "Let us therefore be," he says, "mountains of spices," that is, fragrances of virtues. Furthermore, in temptation -- especially of pleasure, gluttony, and lust -- the singular remedy is flight: that you flee all the allurements of the flesh, the beauty of women, and every occasion of sin.
Finally, St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 22, verse 8, refers these words to flight in persecution: for Christ flees not in Himself, but in us, and He counsels us to avoid persecution by fleeing.
And Honorius: "The beloved," he says, "flees from evils, when He leads His bride from the miseries of the world to the joys of heaven. He will be like a gazelle when He will separate the elect from the reprobate, like grain from chaff. He will be like a young stag when He will rest in the saints as a young stag rests in the shade. Then truly He will be upon the mountains of spices, when He will reign over the heights of angels and men, in whom the fragrance of virtues is sweet. Or the gazelle itself with the young stag will be upon the mountains of spices, when the Church with the people of the faithful will possess the gates of their enemies -- namely, when it will inherit the places of the apostate angels. Behold where that song has led, which led the fallen human race before the sight of God." Moreover, just as gazelles and young stags that graze on the mountains of spices have, says Sanchez, a most sweet fragrance -- either from their mouths, because they have been imbued by fragrant plants, or from their fur, which by constant rubbing against dripping shrubs with storax and myrrh drops, by which they are anointed, have also contracted a most rich fragrance -- so also the bridegroom, constantly on the mountains of spices and Himself wholly fragrant, breathes His purest breath into the bride's innermost being, which makes her breathe forth from every part the most sweet soul which she has tasted from the bridegroom. Let St. Paul be an example, who says, Galatians 2:20: "I live, yet not I: but Christ lives in me": for he constantly moved among the heavens with Christ and the angels, and therefore breathed nothing but heaven and heavenly things. "Our citizenship is in heaven," he himself says, Philippians 3:20; and Ephesians 2:19: "You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God."
Third Principal Sense: Of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.
First, William understands these words of the Blessed Virgin asking Christ to ascend into heaven, and from there to send the Holy Spirit upon herself and the apostles; to ascend, I say, "above the mountains of spices," that is, above all the excellence of the angels, who became mountains of spices when they merited to be established in the love of God: "On account of the ineffable," he says, "delights of interior sweetness, which they will perpetually enjoy, from the contemplation of the supreme Trinity."
Second, Rupert teaches that in any necessity the faithful must flee to the mountains of spices, that is, they must invoke any saints whatsoever, but especially the Blessed Virgin, who is the Virgin of virgins, the mountain of mountains, and the holy of holies: "I have lifted up, says Psalm 120:1, my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me; but to you especially we turn, to you above all we lift our eyes, for your help above all others we sigh. Through the holy sacrament of your womb, and that sword which pierced your soul, to the end that we may see the very illumination of the eternal mountains, namely the Beloved, and from the Beloved the Beloved and at the same time the love of both, that is, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, living and true, whose kingdom and dominion endures forever and ever. Amen."
Symbolically, Rupert and St. Gregory consider that here the pious soul asks God to hide Himself, and to withdraw into the darkness and incomprehensibility of His divinity, lest, contemplating loftier things about Him, she might think she has comprehended Him: hear St. Gregory, Moralia XVII, chapter 15: "Flee, my beloved, flee, as if she were saying: You who through the flesh became comprehensible, through Your divinity exceed the understanding of our sense, and in Yourself remain incomprehensible to us."
Again Philo says: When you are tempted, O beloved soul, flee to the mountains of spices, that is, to the examples of the saints, so that, animated by them, you may resist temptation: if you are tempted by lust, flee to the steep mountain of chastity, the patriarch Joseph, who left his cloak in the hand of his mistress who was tempting him, and fled; if you are tempted by anger, flee to the most gentle hill of mercy, David, who forgave Saul the crime of persecution, and imitate him: "Let us therefore be," he says, "mountains of spices," that is, fragrances of virtues.
Moreover, in temptation, especially of pleasure, gluttony, and lust, the singular remedy is flight, that you may flee all allurements of the flesh, and the beauty of women and all occasions of sin. Finally, St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, sermon 22, verse 8, refers these words to flight in persecution: for Christ flees not in Himself, but in us, and He urges
to fly above the world." And Honorius says: "The beloved," he says, "flees from evils, when He leads His bride from the miseries of the world to the joys of heaven. He will be like a gazelle, when He separates the elect from the reprobate, as grains from chaff. He will be like a young deer, when He rests in the saints as a fawn rests in the shade. Then truly He will be upon the mountains of spices, when He reigns over the height of angels and men, in whom the fragrance of virtues is sweet. Or the gazelle herself with the fawn will be upon the mountains of spices, when the Church with the people of the faithful will possess the gates of her enemies, that is, when she will inherit the places of the apostate angels. Behold whither that song has led, which led the fallen human race before the sight of God."
Moreover, just as gazelles and young deer, which feed on the mountains of spices, says Sanchez, have a most sweet fragrance, either from their mouth, because fragrant plants have imbued it; or from their hair, which by constant rubbing against dripping shrubs with storax and gum, with which they are anointed, have also contracted a most pleasing odor: so too the bridegroom, constantly upon the mountains of spices, and Himself entirely fragrant, breathes most pure exhalations into the inmost parts of the bride, which cause her, in whatever direction she turns, to breathe forth the most sweet soul, which she has tasted from the bridegroom. Let St. Paul serve as an example, who says, Galatians 2:20: "And I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me:" for he was constantly in the heavens with Christ and the angels, and therefore breathed nothing but heaven and heavenly things: "Our conversation is in heaven," he himself says, Philippians 3:20; and Ephesians 2:1: "Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints, and of the household of God."