Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 12/20

Now the pomegranate is hard for the thief to lay hold of, putting forth thorny shoots and encasing and nurturing its fruit within a rind that is harsh and bitter to the taste; which fruit, in its own season, after ripening, when the husk has burst around it, shines forth from within—pleasant to the sight and comely, honey-sweet to the taste and free of harm, sweetening the organs of taste with its wine-like juice.

For this reason it seems to me that the word sent forth from the mouth of the bride works paradises of pomegranates in the souls of those who hear, that we might be taught through the things said not to grow soft through any slackening and luxury according to the present life, but to choose the life hardened by self-control.

For thus the fruit of virtue would become inaccessible to thieves, hedged about by the austere covering of self-control, and, through its dignified and unsmiling demeanor, pricking as it were with sharp thorn-points those who approach with evil intent.

But when the season grants the signal for the enjoyment of the fruits, the pomegranate becomes an abundance of every kind of orchard-fruit for delight—the enjoyment of the fruits occurring not in wild plums or acorns or any such things, but a varied and manifold nature of aromatic spices is found within the orchard-fruits.

For henna with nard is the fair pairing—the one warm, the other fragrant.

For heat in itself is not praiseworthy, when the warmth is a foul-smelling combustion; rather, purity must bear witness together with the heat by means of its fragrance, so that he who has been cleansed of the offensive kind of heat may become fervent in the Holy Spirit.

Among these orchard-fruits one may find still other aromatic spices as well.

But the fragrance of nard we have learned about in the discourses above; it would remain, then, to set forth for the discourse the riddle of the saffron.

Now those who have examined the property of this flower say that it holds a middle place between coldness and heat, and, by avoiding excess in either direction, possesses a power that soothes pains; so that perhaps through this the discourse philosophizes for us about virtue in a riddle, because every virtue is a mean between two vices—both the deficiency of the good and its excess.

For instance, they say courage or liberality: the one is beheld as a mean between cowardice and rashness, the other between stinginess and prodigality.

They call excess and superabundance a fault, and name the mean between immoderation in either direction 'virtue.'

The account concerning the saffron might therefore have something consequent with respect to virtue, interpreting, by the mean of its power, the freedom from deficiency and from superfluity that marks the virtuous state. But I say that, even if what is said be somewhat unlearned, perhaps the riddle of the saffron is more fittingly taken with reference to the word of faith.

For the flower is threefold in its nurture within the calyx, and the calyx itself is a flower in its air-colored hue; and when the covering of the calyxes is stripped off, there are found in all three the fragrant flowers, useful for healings, hidden beneath the calyxes—which stand in the same relation to one another in magnitude and beauty and fragrance and in the property of their power, and, being three, are shown to be one throughout all: in good color, as has been said, in fragrance, and in the quality of their power.

Alongside these there grow together three others, yellow to look upon but without any quality useful for health.

Concerning these, error befalls the inexperienced, who, on account of the good color, pluck the spurious instead of the better.

This is exactly what those also do now who sin concerning the faith, choosing sophistical deceits before sound doctrines.

But let the judgment of the hearer choose from either of the two whatever it wishes—whether the one of them or both.

For in a certain way both are one: both the acquisition of perfect virtue and that of the divine nature.

For virtue is not outside the divine nature.

But let us pass on to the contemplation of the rest of the aromatic spices, which were mentioned in due sequence by the discourse.

'Calamus,' it says, 'and cinnamon' are the orchard-fruits borne from the pomegranates of the bride's paradise.

But they say that calamus excels the others in fragrance, so much so that it is taken up by the Law even for the priestly incense; while cinnamon, they say, promises a manifold and varied activity through a certain natural power, of which many things seem even beyond belief.

For they say that, when the water in the cauldron is boiling, if only this spice should touch it, it at once cools the water; and when brought into a fiery bath, it transforms the blaze in the air into coldness; and that it has a nature that annihilates the creatures generated from some corruption.

And they recount other such things about it, which seem to be beyond the belief of the hearers.

For they say that, if it be placed in the mouth of one who is asleep, the sleeper is in no way hindered from answering those who question him, but even remains in his sleep and makes sober and articulate answers to what is asked.

But to affirm confidently that these things are so, for one who has not learned by experience the truth of the things recorded about it, would be rash and inconsiderate.

Nevertheless, since by a certain mystical reasoning this fragrance too has been reckoned in the catalogue of orchard-fruits—though it does not truly sprout from pomegranates (for the mouth of the bride does not actually put forth perceptible paradises, but does so in order to become a symbol of some notion that contributes to the bride's praise)—I do not think it right to reject the tales told about cinnamon, both those things which the discourse has just now recounted concerning it and whatever else besides these seems worth relating to those who set forth the accounts about it.

For from what is said there might arise some contribution toward the praise of virtue, since each of the things related is aptly taken up as an indication of the perfection of a life lived according to virtue.

For among the educated and the reasoning it is possible to find this cinnamon within the soul.

The cinnamon of the mouth, through which both the burning of desire and the seething of anger about the heart are quenched, and by reason one is cleansed of every dreamlike fancy and confusion belonging to this life.

And let no one, looking to the implausibility of what is said about cinnamon, slander the discourse as offering praise to the bride not from things that are true.

For Holy Scripture often knows how to take up even certain fables from outside sources into cooperation with its own aim, and without shame to make mention of certain names from mythical narrative for a clearer indication of the meaning at hand—as in the case of Job's daughters, whose beauty the discourse admired exceedingly and, through their very names, displayed the surpassing measure of the wonder concerning them, saying that one was called Day, another Cassia, and the third the Horn of Amaltheia.

But this is clear to everyone: that a Greek fable fashioned the story about Amaltheia, whom they tell in myth to have been a goat that became nurse to that Cretan child, and from whose one broken-off horn the fable made an abundance of all fruits gush forth out of the hollow.

Did Holy Scripture then believe the things fabled about Amaltheia? By no means.

Rather, bearing witness to the all-bearing fruitfulness of the good things according to virtue in Job's daughter, it sets this forth through this name, so that one who listens to Scripture with reason may grasp the aim of the praise from the name alone, and bid the mythical monstrosities farewell.

So too, when we heard the names Cassia and Day, we learned through these names neither of the aromatic substance nor of the sun's course above the earth, but we say that the names contain an indication of their manner of life according to virtue.

Of these, Cassia indicates the purity and sweet fragrance of one's pursuits, while Day indicates their comeliness, just as the Apostle says that those who live in purity are named children of light and sons of day.

Thus then here too, the things said about cinnamon are not without contribution toward the praises of the bride, when they are taken up through the figurative interpretation as a basis for encomia.

And the one who has already become so great, and has attained to this height of the encomia, shows in himself through his whole life the characteristics of the divine image in every respect.

For this is what he indicates who said, 'from all the trees of frankincense.'

For those who have observed such matters say that the tree of frankincense, from which the incense flows, is not of a single kind, but there is a certain difference among the trees, which varies the form of the fragrance together with the species of the tree.

The one, therefore, who in all the pursuits of his life marks in himself what is Godlike, shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of frankincense, through which the divine form is characterized.

But no one becomes a partaker of God's glory unless he has first become conformed to the likeness of His death.

Therefore the praise says this also in the catalogue of aromatic spices: that in addition to pomegranates, orchard-fruits, and the rest of the aromatics which the discourse has recounted, there are together with them also myrrh and aloes and the choicest ointments.

For through those, I mean myrrh and aloes, it indicates the fellowship of the burial (just as the sublime Gospel says that through these came about the entombment of the One who tasted death on our behalf); while through the choicest ointments the discourse indicates what is pure and unmixed with any hucksterish adulteration—just as Amos also reproaches with such things those who luxuriate in these, saying, 'You who drink filtered wine and anoint yourselves with the choicest ointments,' and before this, 'You who eat,' he says, 'kids from the flock and suckling calves from the midst of the herds, and who clap in time to the sound of instruments'—since neither does the wine's lees stir up murkiness, nor does any admixture in the ointment corrupt the pure purity of the fragrance.

They gained nothing from such luxury, since their evil choice both changed the clarity of the wine into a murky overturning and defiled the purity of the choicest ointments through the admixture of wicked thoughts; here, however, the discourse bears witness through the fruit-bearing of the choicest ointments to the unadulterated and pure quality of the doctrines in the bride.

And not even in these did she stand still—neither the bride, stretching herself out toward higher things, nor the Word, cooperating with her toward the ascent.

For she whose emissions from the mouth are paradises of pomegranates and aromatic spices now becomes a fountain, watering the paradises that have sprung up from her.

Not as we have learned in the case of Paul and Apollos, that one plants and the other waters, but she herself works both, at once producing the paradises and watering them.

Or perhaps the praise contains some even loftier meaning.

For it says that she is a fountain not of some flowing stream but of gardens, not of certain outflows of waters but one that makes gardens themselves gush forth and spring up.

Thus did the divine Apostle make living gardens spring forth, among whomsoever he came, causing the paradise of the Church to sprout up through his teaching.

Then the Word leads the bride to the very summit through the praises, naming her a well of living water that rushes down from Lebanon.

For the things we have learned about the life-giving nature from Holy Scripture—now with prophecy saying in the person of God, 'They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water,' and again with the Lord saying to the Samaritan woman, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you,

give Me to drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.'

And, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.'

For 'the one who believes in Me,' as the Scripture said, 'out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'

But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were about to receive—since everywhere the divine nature is understood through the living water, here the unerring testimony of the Word establishes that the bride is a well of living water, whose current is from Lebanon.

But this is the most paradoxical thing of all.

For whereas all wells hold their water in a standing collection, the bride alone has within herself water that flows through, so that she has at once the depth of a well and the ever-moving character of a river.

Who could worthily attain to the wonders that are displayed, through the likeness that has now come about in her? Perhaps she no longer has anywhere to exalt herself beyond, having been made like in all respects to the archetypal beauty.

For she has accurately imitated the fountain by the fountain, life by life, and the water by the water.

For the Word of God is living, and the soul that has received the Word also lives.

That water flows from God, just as the fountain says, 'I came forth from God and am here'; but she contains what flows into the well of her soul, and for this reason she becomes a storehouse of that living water which flows—or rather rushes—from Lebanon, as the Word named it.

May we too become partakers of it, having acquired that well, so that, according to the precept of Wisdom, we may drink our own water and not another's, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

Homily 10. 'Awake, O north wind, and come, O south; blow through my garden, and let my aromatic spices flow.'

'Let my kinsman come down into his garden and eat the fruit of his orchard-trees.'

'I have come down into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatic spices; I have eaten my bread with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk.'

'Eat, O my neighbors, and drink and be drunk, O my brothers.'

'I sleep, and my heart keeps watch.'

Since obscurity envelops the meanings in things unutterable, we have need of greater attentiveness, or rather of more of the cooperation that comes through prayers and of the guidance from the Holy Spirit, lest we suffer the same thing in the astonishment at these lofty wonders that we are accustomed to suffer in the case of the stars.

For, admiring their beauty from afar, we can devise no means for their acquisition, but the sole enjoyment of their beauty for us is to stand in wonder before what appears.

For the glitterings and radiances of these divine oracles are quite simply certain stars, outshining the eyes of the soul and set high above 'as the height of heaven from the earth,' as the prophet says.

But if there should come about even concerning our soul what we hear concerning Elijah, and our understanding, taken up by the fiery chariot, should be transported aloft to the heavenly beauties (and we shall understand the fire to be the Holy Spirit, which the Lord came to cast upon the earth, the same that was divided among the disciples in the form of tongues), then it will not be beyond hope for us to draw near to these stars—I mean the divine meanings, which flash around our souls through the heavenly and spiritual oracles.

For look up with the eye of your soul—I say to you, the hearer—to the voice that came from the Lord to the patriarch: 'Look up to this heaven and see these stars, if you are able to measure out the height of the meanings.' Behold the authority of the queen, having understood her power from her commands, how a certain sovereign, self-governing authority is manifest in what she says.

She accomplishes what she wills not through supplication but according to the unerring voice of Him who promised, who says that the faithful and prudent steward becomes lord of all that belongs to the Master.

Having laid hold of this authority, she governs for herself in kingly fashion the objects of her desire among the two winds, banishing the north by her own command, while graciously calling the south and urging it to come to her.

'Awake, O north wind, and come, O south.'

Perhaps one may find something akin to what is said in the words of the centurion, which God the Word Himself admired, as the evangelist recounted, saying that 'when Jesus heard it He marveled,' and set the centurion's utterance above the faith of Israel.

For it seems to me that He does not make the comparison of the centurion with the Israelite people in respect of faith, but with that very Israel who, in his wrestling against the adversary, with God's alliance barely escaped the fall, not having come off strictly outside the harm of his opponent.

For he received the injury in his thigh.

But this centurion, of whom the discourse now speaks, dismissing what is alien by an authoritative, kingly sort of power, makes his own the object of his desire.

For on this account it seems to me that the man especially attained to the wonder: that he says that, among the soldiers under his hand, with authentic authority he dismisses whom he wills and summons the one he desires, and enjoins upon his servant the fitting service.

For there too there is a certain philosophy in the centurion's saying, that the one once dismissed he does not bring back to himself, but when that one has departed he installs another in his place instead (for having said to this one, 'Go,' and he goes, he says he summons another, not the one he dismissed)—the discourse, I think, teaching by such an example the doctrine that things opposed to one another do not have the nature of dwelling together with one another in the same subject.

For whenever the soldier who is ally of vice has been driven away, and the hoplite of virtue enters in his place, clad in the breastplate of righteousness and bearing in his hand the sword of the Spirit, and holding forth the shelters of the armor—

the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith, and bearing in himself the whole spiritual panoply—then the servant, the body, fears its own lord, the mind, and eagerly receives the commands of the one who rules, through which virtue is accomplished by the ministry of the body.

For this is what the centurion's saying indicates when he says, 'And to my servant I say...'

But let us listen to the queen, how she dislodges the north wind from herself, turning its breath back in the opposite direction.

For she does not command it to be still—as when the Lord, in the case of the surging of the sea, brings the tempest to quiet, commanding the waves to be silent—but she bids it withdraw and flee, so that the south may flow unhindered, with no counter-blast impeding its course, saying to the north, 'Awake.'

But what is the cause of this wind's removal? 'The north is a harsh wind,' says [where is this?] the word of Proverbs, 'yet by name it is called favorable.'

But the north is favorable to no one, except perhaps to someone who, keeping the east at his back, makes his course toward the setting places.

And you altogether understand the riddle of what is said: that he who has departed from the east (for thus is Christ named by prophecy) and drives himself toward the settings of the light, where the authority of darkness is, has the north favorable on his side, welcoming him with wicked provisions, through which the course toward darkness is made.

Thus the licentious man finds the north favorable to himself, breathing along with the passion of dishonor; thus this spirit of wickedness becomes favorable to the greedy man, when it heaps up for him the materials of covetousness like so much sand or dust; thus, by bestowing from itself its cooperation toward each of the transgressions, it becomes favorable to whomever it comes, being harsh indeed by its nature, yet concealing its resistance beneath pleasures.

For this reason, she who has taken up the dominion over the passions banishes the north from her own realm, saying, 'Awake, O north.'

But why the adversary power is signified by this name would be clear to everyone who has considered the nature of existing things.

For who does not know the sun's motion, that making its course from the east through the south it inclines toward the settings? And the shape of the earth, being spherical, as those who have considered such matters say, in whatever part it is illuminated by the sun, by all necessity becomes darkened in the opposite part, being shadowed by the obstruction of the solid mass.

Since, then, that place remains forever without light and frozen, neither illumined by the rays of the sun nor warmed by them, for this reason the Word names 'the ruler of the authority of darkness'—who turns the tender nature of souls to stone, as it were, by freezing it and renders it hard—as the harsh north wind, the artificer of the gloom of winter; I mean that winter in which the Gospel declares that escape from dangers is impossible.

For in it the springtime of those flourishing in virtue withers away.

Rightly, therefore, does the voice of the queen drive this wind away by her authority, and instead she summons the south wind, warm and ever-shining, which she names the south, through which the torrent of delight flows, saying, 'Come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let my spices flow forth'—so that by its mighty blast, just as we hear happened to the disciples in the upper room, it might fall upon the living plants and stir up God's planting to bring forth the fragrance of spices, and cause the sweet-smelling prophecy to flow through the mouth, and the saving doctrines of the faith, pouring out unhindered the fragrance of its teachings in every kind of tongue.

By the south wind they brought forth in bloom the teaching that comes through tongues.

For this reason he wills that her garden—the Church, teeming with living trees—be blown through, so that from them the spices might flow.

For the prophet says, 'His wind shall blow, and the waters shall flow'; but the bride, adorned with royal wealth, transforms the streams into something more magnificent, making the spices into rivers that flow out from the trees of the garden through the force of the wind—so that through this we might learn the difference between the old covenant and the new: that the prophetic river was filled with waters, but the evangelical one with spices.

Such a river of spices, flowing out from the garden of the Church through the Spirit, was the great Paul, whose stream was the fragrance of Christ; such another was John, Luke, Matthew, Mark, and all the rest—the noble plants of the bride's garden, who, blown through by that bright southern wind, became fountains of spices, teeming with the fragrance of the Gospels.

'Let my beloved come down,' she says, 'into his garden, and let him eat the fruit of his orchard.'

O soul both generous and lavish in its gifts, surpassing every excess of magnanimity!

Whom does she welcome to a banquet with her own fruits? For whom does she prepare a feast out of her own goods? Whom does she invite to partake of what she has made ready? Him from whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and in whom are all things; him who gives food to all in due season; who opens his hand and fills every living thing with his good pleasure; the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world; him who pours out life upon all that exists from his own fountain.

For him the bride sets out a table.

And the table is a garden, planted with living trees; and we are the trees—if indeed we too are among those who set before him as food the salvation of our own souls; as he who feasts upon our life himself said, 'My food is to do the will of my Father.'

And the aim of the divine will is clear: he 'wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.'

This, then, is the food prepared for him: that we be saved.

And our fruit becomes our free choice, which through itself—as through some bough—hands over the soul to God who plucks us.

But through these words we must observe that the bride is first made sweet by the fruit of the apple, when she says:

'And his fruit is sweet in my throat';

and then she too becomes a fruit, beautiful and sweet, set before the husbandman for his delight.

And the expression 'Let him come down' carries the force of a prayer, being uttered in a manner like 'Hallowed be thy name' and 'Thy will be done';

for just as there the form of those sayings contains the sense of prayer, so also here 'Let him come down' is the prayer of the bride, who displays to God the abundance of the orchard-fruits of virtue.

And the coming down signifies the work of his love for mankind;

for since it is not otherwise possible for us to be taken up to the Most High, unless the Lord who 'takes up the meek' should bend down to what is lowly, therefore the soul that ascends to what is above, calling for the guidance of the One who is exalted above, prays that he come down from his own greatness, that he might become accessible to those below.

And he who said through the prophet, 'While you are still speaking he will say:

Behold, I am here'—before the bride carried her prayer to its end, both heard what she requested and gave heed to the preparation of her heart, and came into the garden that had been blown through by the south wind, and plucked the fruits of the spices and was filled with the orchard-fruits of virtue, and made the feast into a narrative, saying thus to the bride:

'...my [myrrh with my spices]; I have drunk my wine with my milk.'

'Eat, O my neighbors, and drink, and be drunken, O my brethren.'

Do you see how he surpasses the request by the greatness of his gift?

The bride prayed that her plants in the garden, blown through by the south wind that breathes from the noonday, might become fountains of spices, and that she might welcome the husbandman with the fruit of the orchard-trees (and this is clear to all, that every sweet fragrance becomes a pleasure to the sense of smell, but the orchard-fruits are, in respect of nourishment, weaker than the power of bread for the well-being of those who are fed by it); but he who came down to his own garden, and changed the nature of the fruits into something greater and more precious, plucks myrrh from the garden, having found it 'with his spices' (for the prophetic word hymned that whatever is good, wherever it may be found, comes from him), and instead of the orchard-fruits he causes the trees to be laden with bread mingled 'with his honey' (and let the prophetic word be sounded together with this too, that the honey is his, as also are the rest of good things), and he draws off from them the wine mingled 'with his milk.'

For 'from him and through him and unto him are all things.'

O those blessed gardens, whose plants are attested to teem with such fruits that they are fittingly transformed to every kind of delight according to the desire of enjoyment!