Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 11/20

For that alone is truly what is contemplated in one nature, since no separation or estrangement of the difference according to the hypostases is introduced.

For there are some who, with divergent eyes, wrongly look with sharp sight upon that which has no existence, dividing the One into many natures by the fantasies of their squinting eyes.

These are the so-called many-seers, who through seeing many things see nothing.

And all who now look toward God, but again go astray after material fantasies, are unworthy of the praise of the angels, dallying in vain with the fantasies of things that have no existence; whereas he who looks with sharp sight toward the divine alone is blind in all other things, toward which the eyes of the many look.

For this reason the bride works wonder in the friends by the one eye.

Therefore he is blind who is many-eyed, who looks toward vain things with many eyes; but keen-sighted and clear-seeing is that one who, through the single eye of the soul, looks toward the good alone.

But who is that 'one,' or what is the jewel of the bride's neck, would not be difficult to reckon out from the things already examined, even if the wording seems somehow obscure according to its construction;

for the Word says thus: 'You have ravished our heart with one glance of your eyes, with one, a jewel of your neck,' so that the phrase 'with one' agrees with 'with one glance of your eyes,' we supplying by ellipsis 'with one soul.'

For many souls come to be in each of the uninstructed, in whom the passions, through their prevailing, are transferred into the place of the soul, the character of the soul being changed toward grief and pleasure, or anger and fear, and cowardice and rashness.

But she who looks toward the Word bears witness that she lives together with one soul, by the single-formed character of the life according to virtue.

Therefore the phrase must be divided thus: 'with one' is to be joined in sense with what precedes, we understanding either 'with one soul' or 'in one condition,' while what follows has another meaning: 'a jewel of your neck.'

So that one might render the whole into plainer speech and say: You have but one eye, in that you look toward the One; and one soul, in that you are not divided among differing dispositions; and the set of your neck is perfect, having taken up the divine yoke upon itself.

Since, therefore, we behold on the one hand the yoke of Christ set upon your neck as an ornament, and on the other, in your disposition toward that which is truly good, one eye and one soul, we for this reason confess that you have won our hearts by your wonders, showing forth one eye and one soul in the ornament of your neck.

This, then, is the praise of the angels which they have offered upon the beauty of the bride (for we have understood these to be the friends of the bridegroom); and lest their commendation should seem to be ill-judged and mistaken by any, the Word confirms the friends' verdict upon the bride's beauty, ratifying it by His vote, and Himself adds still greater wonders to the testimony of her beauty, describing in words the loveliness that appears in her very members—things which, God granting it, we shall set forth in what follows, if only there come to us from the help above some power for the comprehension of the mystery, unto the knowledge of the beauty of the Church and unto the praise of the glory of His grace in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom befits the glory unto the ages of ages.

Homily 9. How fair are your breasts, my sister, my bride! How fair are your breasts more than wine! And the fragrance of your ointments is above all spices.

Your lips, O bride, distil the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue; and the smell of your garments is like the smell of frankincense.

A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.

Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruit of henna with spikenard, and choice fruits—spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes with all the chief perfumes: a fountain of gardens, a well of living water that rushes down from Lebanon.

If then you have been raised together with Christ, set your minds on the things above, not on the things upon the earth.

These things He who speaks in Paul says to us.

"For you died," he says, "and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

"When Christ, who is your life, shall be made manifest, then shall you also be made manifest with Him in glory."

If, therefore, we have become dead to the lower nature, having transferred the hope of our life from earth to heaven, and if the life through the flesh has been hidden from us according to the proverbial saying which says that "the wise will conceal perception," and if we await the true life to be manifested in us, which is Christ, so that we too may be manifested in glory, being transformed toward that which is more divine—then let us hearken to the present words as those who have died to the body, being dragged down by what is said to no fleshly meaning.

For he who is dead to the passions and to the desires will transfer the significations of the words to that which is pure and undefiled, setting his mind on the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father, in whom there is no passion, making forgetfulness of the lowly and earthbound thoughts.

Let us therefore hearken to the divine words, through which the Word portrays the beauty of the undefiled bride; and let us hearken as those who have already come to be outside flesh and blood, and have been transmuted into the spiritual nature.

"How fair are your breasts, my sister, my bride! How fair are your breasts more than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments above all spices!" Now that everyone who does the will of the Lord is His brother and sister and mother, and that the pure virgin who has been joined to the Lord unto participation in the undefiled bridal chamber is properly named "bride"—this would be plain to everyone who is not ignorant of the God-inspired utterances.

But as I search out the meaning of these divine sayings, I see that the Word does not bring forward to the bride mere praise from such a title, but rather I say that the bridegroom is recounting the reasons for the increase toward her beauty: that she could not have been made beautiful in the fountains of good teachings—which He names "breasts" through the figurative signification—had she not first made herself the Lord's sister through good works, and, renewed unto virginity through the birth from above, become the betrothed and bride of Him who espoused her.

...of the change—breasts which no longer gush milk, the food of infants, but pour forth the pure wine unto the gladness of the more perfect, whose grace the water of the hucksters has not corrupted.

And somehow in what is said, as in nuptial delight, the loving affection is preserved through reciprocity, both parties requiting to one another the amorous disposition.

For with like utterances the bridegroom greets the Church in return—the very kind with which she, taking the lead in the prologue, had hymned His beauty.

For straightway in the first utterances, when she longed for the word from the divine mouth to come to be upon her own mouth—signifying this through the riddle of the kiss—she stated the cause of such a desire: that His breasts were good, surpassing by their own supply the nature of wine, and exceeding all the fragrance of ointments and spices; thus saying in the text, "For your breasts are good beyond wine, and the fragrance of your ointments above all spices."

In those words in which she hymned the beauty of the Master, in words like hers the Lord requites the praise.

For He too accepts the change of her breasts unto the better, brought about through their working, in that, having ceased to bear milk, they pour forth wine and not milk, through which gladness comes to the more perfect hearts—to those who are no longer tossed about by infancy, but are able to be filled at the mouth with good things from the mixing-bowl of wisdom, and to draw them in.

Having therefore praised her breasts for their yield of wine, He adds also the praise of their sweet fragrance, saying, "And the fragrance of your ointments is above all spices."

But it is needful to understand such praise once we have been taught from Holy Scripture the nature of the spices there named.

Every sweet-breathing spice becomes a pleasure to the sense of smell.

Therefore we shall understand the Word to call those things "spices" which we have been taught by Scripture to breathe sweetly.

For example, Noah offers his sacrifice to God, "And the Lord smelled a fragrance of sweet savour."

Therefore the sacrifice becomes spices to God.

Many sacrifices too are afterward offered to God through the Law—propitiatory, and thanksgiving, and peace-offerings, and purificatory, and for sin.

Set all these among the spices—both the whole burnt-offerings and the holocausts and the partial consecrations of the portions set apart: the breast of the victim, the lobe of the liver, the fat about the kidneys; and besides these, the frankincense, the fine flour drenched with oil, the incense of the compound mixture, and all the rest that had their sanctification through fire—let it be reckoned in the catalogue of the spices.

When therefore we hear that the ointment of the bride is deemed worthy of greater acceptance above all the spices, we learn by this word that the mystery of the truth, accomplished through the evangelical teaching, is alone fragrant to God, being preferred before all the spices of the Law, inasmuch as it is no longer veiled by some type and shadow, but has become sweet-breathing through the manifestation of the truth.

For if the Lord smelled anything of the former spices unto a fragrance of sweet savour, each of them was deemed worthy of acceptance according to the meaning revealed in the things that were done, and not according to the outward and bodily form of the things performed.

"...bullocks out of your house, nor he-goats out of your folds;"

"For I will not eat the flesh of bulls, nor drink the blood of goats."

And yet of old the animal-sacrifices took place many times.

But even if these things take place, that which is laid down for you through them in a riddle is something else—namely, that the passions within you must be slaughtered.

"For the sacrifice to God," he says, "is a broken spirit; a broken and humbled heart God will not despise."

Whence there comes to be the sacrifice of our praise, which glorifies Him who smells such a fragrance.

Since therefore the soul that breathes sweetly in a spiritual manner, according to Paul—who was a sweet savour of Christ—has surpassed all the typical spices of the Law, this soul came to be, through her manner of life, both the ointment of the priesthood and the incense of the compound mixture, breathing well through the varied contribution and blending of the virtues, whose life appeared to the sense of smell of the bridegroom as a fragrance of sweet savour; for this reason the divine perception, as Solomon names it, prefers before the bodily spices of the Law that immaterial and pure fragrance, compounded as ointment through the virtues, saying, "And the fragrance of your ointments is above all spices."

But the discourse that follows advances the praise to something yet higher, attesting in its word the abundance of spiritual gifts that came to be hers through study and attentiveness.

For since the proverbial word wishes the disciple of wisdom to resort to the bee (and you surely perceive from her lessons who the teacher is), saying to the lovers of wisdom, "Go to the bee, and learn how she is a worker, and how she carries on her labour as a thing to be revered, whose toils both kings and private persons take up unto health" (and it says she is desirable to all and held in honour, weak indeed in bodily strength, yet having honoured wisdom, and for this reason advanced to be an example of life to the virtuous—

for it says, "For having honoured wisdom, she was advanced")—it counsels then through what has been said to abstain from none of the good lessons, but, flitting over the meadow of the God-inspired words and gathering from each something for the acquisition of wisdom, to fashion for oneself the honeycomb as with wax; laying up this diligent labour in one's own heart as in some hive, and, as it were, contriving in the honeycomb certain cells for the manifold lessons, unconfounded in the storehouses of memory; and thus, in imitation of that wise bee, whose honeycomb is sweet but whose sting does not strike, to carry on continually this revered work of the virtues.

For truly he trades who exchanges the toils of this present life for the eternal good things, and distributes his own labours unto the health of soul for both kings and private persons, so that such a soul becomes desirable to the bridegroom and held in honour by the angels, perfecting its power in weakness through the honour paid to wisdom.

Since therefore the accounts concerning that wise bee are examples of instruction and love of toil, and since the varied distributions of the spiritual gifts come to those who have laboured according to the proportion of their diligence, He for this reason says to the bride that your heart has become full of the honeycombs from every kind of instruction, whence you bring forth from the good treasure of the heart the honeyed drops of words, so that the word is to you honey mingled together with milk.

"For your lips," He says, "distil the honeycomb, O bride; honey and milk are under your tongue."

For the word has been prepared by you not to display its benefit to the hearers in a single form, but to be fitted correspondingly to the capacity of those who receive it, so as to be suitable both to the more perfect and to those who are as infants—becoming honey to the perfect, and milk to the infants.

Such as Paul was—with the softer of his words nursing the newly born, but speaking wisdom among the perfect, in a mystery, the wisdom hidden from the ages, which this age does not contain, nor the rulers of this age.

showing forth through such an utterance the seasonable use of words.

For he who knows how he ought to answer each single person, having under his tongue this varied power of the word, fittingly puts forth to each of the hearers, at the right moment, what is suited to the need.

Having brought forward such praise for the mouth and tongue of the bride, He again passes over to the greater of the encomia, saying that "The smell of your garments is like the smell of frankincense."

But this word is a certain philosophy, pointing out to men toward what the life according to virtue looks.

For the goal of the virtuous life is likeness to the Divine.

And for the sake of this, both purity of soul and freedom from all passionate disposition are accomplished by the virtuous through diligence, so that a certain stamp of the transcendent nature may come to be even in them through the more refined life.

Since therefore the conduct according to virtue is not of a single form nor of a single mode, but just as in the fashioning of woven fabrics the weaver's art makes the garment through many threads—some stretched out lengthwise, others carried across obliquely—so also in the virtuous life many things must run together, through which the refined life is woven; even as the divine Apostle enumerates such threads, through which the weaving of pure works is composed, naming love and joy and peace, longsuffering and kindness and all such things, with which he is adorned who exchanges the heavenly incorruption for the corruptible and earthly life; for this reason He accepts the ornament of the bride in her raiment as being likened, in respect of its smell, to frankincense.

And yet before this He had said that the fragrance of the bride's ointment excels all the spices, so that there seems in this to be a lowering of the encomia, if indeed she who was set above every spice is now likened by comparison to one of the spices, the Word thus saying that the fragrance of your garments is according to the smell of frankincense.

But since the incense of frankincense was, according to a certain reasoning, set apart peculiarly unto the honour of the Divine, for this reason she who was judged to be above all the spices is deemed worthy of the likeness to that one spice which is dedicated to God, so that the sense of the riddle is this:

To you, O bride, the raiment of the virtues imitates the divine blessedness, being likened to the unapproachable nature through purity and freedom from passion.

For such, He says, is the smell of your garments, that it resembles the frankincense which is dedicated unto the honour of the Divine.

Again we learn through the praises that follow how one might become the sister and yoke-fellow of the Lord, through the words in which He says, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride."

Therefore if anyone is transformed so as to become a bride by being joined to the Lord, and a sister by working out His will, as the Gospel says, let him become a flourishing garden, having within himself the loveliness of all plants—both the sweet fig and the fruitful olive and the high-crested palm and the thriving vine; not any thorny thicket nor fleabane, but a cypress and a myrtle in their stead.

And, "But I am like a fruitful olive tree."

And, "Your wife shall be like a thriving vine."

And Isaiah says that instead of a thicket the cypress, and instead of fleabane the myrtle, shall come up.

And in another prophet he is called blessed who rests beneath his own fig tree.

...transforming, through suitable ripening and cultivation, into the nature of oil—which becomes the fuel of light and a reliever of weariness and a respite from toils and a brightening of the head and a helper to those who lawfully contend in their struggles; and how the palm makes its own fruit hard for thieves to lay hold of, treasuring it up on high and not bringing it forth near the ground;

and the grace of the vine, and the fragrant cypress, and the sweetness of the myrtle—

all these, through figurative contemplation, when transferred to the sense according to virtue, are plain to all who intelligently give heed to what it looks toward.

Therefore he who has become a garden of such trees, flourishing and thickly planted, and fortified on every side by the hedge of the commandments, so as to afford the thief and the wild beasts no passage against himself (for he who is fenced round about by the enclosure of the commandments is inaccessible to the wild solitary boar, and the swine out of the thicket does not ravage him)—if therefore anyone is both a garden and fortified, this one becomes a sister and a bride of Him who said to such a soul, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride."

But this garden has need also of a fountain, so that the grove may remain flourishing, being continually enriched by the water.

For this reason He joined the fountain to the garden in the praises, saying, "A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed."

The teaching concerning the spring is set forth for us by Proverbs through a riddle, where it says: 'Let the spring of your water be your own.'

And: 'Let it be yours alone, and let no stranger share it with you.'

For just as in that passage Scripture forbids that the water of the spring be squandered upon strangers, so here it testifies that the spring is in no wise to be poured out toward strangers, by saying 'Sealed'—which is the same as saying 'guarded.'

And the meaning is of this sort:

A spring, properly speaking—according at least to my own account—names the intellectual faculty of our soul, which wells up and pours forth within us thoughts of every kind.

But the movement of our understanding becomes truly our own then, when it is moved toward the things that profit us, affording us every cooperation toward the acquisition of what is good.

But whenever anyone turns the activity of his thoughts toward the devising of evil, then the stream is squandered upon strangers, so that the thorny life is well-nourished, watered by the alliance of such thoughts, while the better nature is dried up and withers away, since no moisture from good thoughts nourishes its root.

Since, then, the seal bestows inviolability upon what is guarded by it, frightening off the thief by its impress, while everything that is not stolen remains intact for its master, the praise here seems to testify to the bride's supreme virtue: that her understanding remains untouched by her enemies, being kept in purity and freedom from passion for its own master.

For purity seals this spring, in no way muddying with any silt of base thoughts the translucent and airy clarity of the heart.

And, that one might bring the sense forth into greater clarity, it is of this kind:

Since, of the things that are in us, some are truly our own—namely all that belongs properly to the soul—while others we merely appropriate as our own, I mean the things pertaining to the body and to what is external, through some mistaken supposition reckoning as our own what is another's (for what has the immaterial nature of the soul in common with the coarse density of matter?), for this reason the proverbial word counsels us not to expend the spring of the understanding upon what is foreign to us—I mean the things about the body and external things—but to keep it turned about our own garden, enriching the planting of God.

And we have learned that the planting of God is the virtues, about which the intellectual faculty of our soul, being occupied and flowing away toward none of the external things, is sealed with the stamp of truth, being formed after the disposition toward the good.

But let us also consider the force of the praises that follow:

'of living water, and rushing down from Lebanon.'

That some vast and extraordinary sense underlies these words—through which the beauty of her who has been exalted according to God becomes an object of wonder, celebrated by the manifold hyperboles of praise—is plain even from the surface wording of what is said.

But what is the true meaning that these words signify would be clearly known only by one who, after the manner of holy Paul, understands how to speak the divine mysteries in the Spirit.

For how is that which is sent forth by the bride a paradise of pomegranates? And how from the pomegranates is the fruit of the orchard-trees brought forth? And how do the orchard-fruits become a catalogue of myrrh-oils and aromatic spices? For among the fruits of the orchard-trees there is henna and nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon and every wood of Lebanon (frankincense), as though no variety of the fragrance of frankincense were lacking among those enumerated.

To these are added myrrh and aloes and all the chief perfumes.

And she who earlier was named a garden by the one who praised her (in the passage above) is now called a spring of gardens and a well of living water, rushing down from Lebanon.

But the true account concerning these matters would be known, as I said before, by those able to search out the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God; yet we, that we might not be left wholly untasting and unenjoying of the good things set forth in this place, will approach it by means of a few words, making God the Word Himself the leader of our endeavor.

The whole catalogue of praises—both that which was spoken before these and all that our discourse has now set forth concerning her—seems not to aim primarily at some bare eulogy, but rather to instill through the things said a power directed toward the heart's ascent to what is greater and more sublime.

For instance, she is named both sister and bride of the Word, but each of these two names joins the soul to the Bridegroom: the signification of 'bride' making her one body with the incorruptible Bridegroom, as Paul names it; while the signification of 'sister,' by her zeal concerning His will, brings her into a sisterly kinship, according to the voice of the Gospel.

Then the nature of her breasts is praised, which pours forth wine instead of milk; and it is plain that the praise becomes a fact (for what does not exist is not extolled).

In addition to these, her perfume is judged superior to all the aromatic spices—which would not have been so judged had she not in truth run up to that height of hers by her advance in what is better.

After this there is admired the honeycombs of the word that drip from her mouth, and the well-blended preparation of wisdom lying beneath her tongue, of milk mingled with honey.

And these things are power, not mere words.

For being led by the hand of the Word up the ascent to loftier things, she was so increased as to make her mouth a spring of honey and her tongue a treasury of the commingled wisdom, in which is beheld the land of promise flowing with milk and honey.

But the Word, having thus exalted her through these ascents, still leads her toward what is yet more sublime, saying that her garment is fragrant according to the scent of frankincense—by which the Word testifies that she has put on Christ.

For the goal of every virtuous life is participation in God (for by frankincense the divine is indicated).

And not even in these did the soul come to a stand, being ever led by the hand of the Word toward what is loftier; but after being made like frankincense in fragrance, she becomes a garden after the likeness of paradise—a garden not, as it was among the first men, unfenced and unguarded, but walled about on every side by the remembrance of the commandment.

Do you see how great a power she has acquired toward the upward path?

Again, behold for me the ascent beyond this:

For she has not only become a garden enclosed, bearing her own fruit as nourishment, but she also becomes fit for drinking to those who thirst, being transformed into the nature of a spring—and that a sealed one.

By the force of a Hebrew idiom, instead of saying:

'Your emissions are from your mouth,' it says:

'A paradise of pomegranates'—which means this: that your word, sent forth through your mouth, is a paradise of pomegranates.

And the pomegranates put forth a certain abundance of every kind of orchard-fruit, and the orchard-fruits are henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon and every kind of frankincense, and myrrh and aloes and all the chief perfumes.

Since, then, according to the beatitude in the Psalter—as the help from God came to her—she disposed these noble ascents in her heart, ever going from strength to strength, it is well that, in her more perfect state, the emissions of her mouth are named a paradise of pomegranates.

And the word 'emission' has been aptly fitted to the underlying sense.

For that which is sent passes over from the one who sends it into the one who receives it.

And this may be learned from the customary usage of the term, as the Gospel also says, that the Word named 'apostles' the disciples who were sent forth for the proclamation of the truth.

What, then, is it that the mouth of the bride sends forth? Plainly the word of faith, which, coming to be in those who receive it, becomes a paradise, being implanted in the hearts through hearing.

For custom is wont to call 'paradise' a grove densely planted and thickly shaded with trees.

In order, then, that we might learn also the kind of plants which are cultivated by the word in the souls of those who have believed, it names the trees 'pomegranates,' which the word sent forth from the mouth of the bride tends as a gardener.