Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 14/20

And you are surely not ignorant of the holy way along which the disciples are bidden to run, having learned it from Him who said, 'I am the way'—a way which cannot be touched by one who has not loosed off the covering of the dead man.

Since, then, the bride came to be on this way, on which the Lord washes with water the feet of those who walk by it and wipes them with the towel with which He girded Himself (and the Lord's girding is a power that cleanses sins;

for, it says, 'the Lord clothed Himself with power and girded Himself'), therefore, having been cleansed as to her feet, she keeps herself upon the royal way, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left, lest, straying from the way on either side, she defile her foot with the mire by carrying her step outside it.

And you surely understand what is signified by these words: that she who has once loosed off her sandals through baptism (for it is the proper work of the one who baptizes to loose the thongs of those who are shod, as John testified that this could be done in the case of the Lord alone;

for how could he loose the one who from the very beginning was not bound by the thong of sin?)—she washed her feet, casting off with her sandals every earthly filth.

And by the rock we understand the Lord, who is light and truth and incorruption and righteousness, through which the spiritual way is woven together.

The one who is not turned aside from these on either side preserves his step pure, defiled nowhere by the mire of pleasure.

These, according at least to my own reasoning, are the things through which the door is opened by the bride to the Word;

for the confession of no longer taking up the mire that has been cast off, nor of receiving the earthy defilement in the course of life, becomes an entrance of sanctification into the soul that has been thus prepared.

And this meaning has been brought to completion by what has been said.

But again, after this, the soul lays hold of the ascent that lies above, no longer with a voice knocking at the door of the heart, but with the divine hand itself slipping in through the opening to the parts within;

for, she says, 'My kinsman put forth his hand through the opening, and my belly was moved within me on account of him.'

And it is surely plain to anyone who listens with understanding how greatly the things now said surpass in loftiness the things said before;

'Open,' says the Word to the bride;

He gives her, through the divine names, the power to open;

the bride obeys the Word (for she becomes what she has heard:

sister and neighbor and dove and perfect one);

she puts off that garment of skin and washes away the filth of her feet, and neither puts on herself again that hateful and ragged garment, nor from henceforth presses her step upon the earth;

she heard, then, His voice and was persuaded by His command;

she opens the door, having stripped away the veil from the heart;

she drew apart the curtain of the flesh that hung before the door;

the whole gate of the soul was opened, that the King of glory might enter in.

to see the Bridegroom—she who gained only this much, namely to know that that hand belongs to the one she longs for.

And what teachings are pointed out to us through the philosophy contained in what has been said, we might learn if we should linger a little upon the passage;

the human soul, being on the border between two natures—of which the one is bodiless and intellectual and undefiled, while the other is bodily and material and irrational—as soon as, purified through virtue from its attachment to the coarse and earthy life, it looks up toward that which is kindred and more divine, does not cease from searching out and seeking the origin of things that are: what is the source of the beauty of beings, whence the power wells forth, what it is that pours out the wisdom manifested in the things that are.

But stirring up all its reasonings and every investigative power of the intellect, and busying itself to grasp the thing sought, it makes the limit of its apprehension of God to be His energy alone—that which comes down as far as ourselves, and which we perceive through our life.

And just as the breath that is given off from the earth together with water does not stay about the bottom of the pool, but, becoming a bubble, runs up to that which is akin to it, and, when it has passed through the uppermost surface of the water and mingled with the air, then ceases from its upward motion—the soul that searches out divine things experiences something of the same kind;

when it has stretched itself up from things below toward the knowledge of things that lie above, having grasped the wonders of His energy, it cannot for the present go further through its inquiry, but marvels at and reveres the One who is known only to exist, through the things He does.

It beholds the heavenly beauty, the rays of the luminaries, the swift revolution of the pole, the well-ordered and harmonious circuit of the stars within, the yearly cycle returning upon itself in its four seasons, the earth ordered together with its surroundings and, through the variation of the movement of the things above, varying its own activities in turn; and the manifold natures among living creatures—those that dwell in the water, those that have obtained the passage through the air, and those whose life is on dry land—and the all-various forms of plants, and the diverse herbs differing from one another in quality and power and shape, and the peculiar properties of fruits and juices;

these things, then, and the others through which the energy of God is displayed, the soul beholds, and through wonder at the things that appear it reckons in its mind, from the works, that the One who is understood through them exists.

But perhaps in the age to come, when all that is seen shall have passed away according to the Lord's word, who says, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away,' and we shall have passed over into that life which is beyond eye and ear and understanding, then we shall no longer know the nature of the Good in part through works, as also now, nor shall that which lies above be conceived through the energy of the things that appear; but the form of that unutterable blessedness shall be apprehended in some other way altogether, and there shall be another mode of enjoyment, which now it is not in human nature to let ascend into the heart.

But for the present now, the limit of the soul's knowledge of the Unutterable is the energy manifested in the things that are, which we have understood to be called, figuratively, a 'hand.'

This doctrine, then, has been set forth philosophically for us through these divine sayings, by which the pure soul—no longer treading upon the earthy and material life, lest it defile its own step by pressing it upon things below—looking to receive the Bridegroom Himself, come wholly within the house, loved for the present only the hand it had beheld, through which His active power is signified;

for, she says, 'My kinsman put forth his hand through the opening.'

For human poverty cannot contain within itself the reception of the boundless and incomprehensible nature.

'And my belly,' she says, 'was moved on account of him.'

The word 'moving' signifies a certain astonishment and bewilderment at the wonder that has appeared;

and it interprets, through itself, the uncontainable character of the nature of the One who works.

For the whole creation of the things that are is the work of that hand which was made manifest to us through the opening, as both John cries aloud, saying, and the prophet sounds forth in agreement with the Gospel;

for the one says that 'all things came to be through Him,' while the prophet names the power that makes the things that are a 'hand,' saying, 'My hand made all these things.'

If, then, both all other things and the heavenly beauties are works of that energy, but the inquiring mind of man has not yet grasped what heaven is in its essence, or the sun, or any other of the wonders that appear in the creation, for this reason the heart is 'moved' before the divine energy: because, if it cannot grasp these, how shall it grasp the nature that lies above them? And perhaps someone, taking the riddles of what has been said in yet another way, will not carry the contemplation beyond what is fitting;

for I think that by the 'house' of the bride is to be understood the whole of human life, and that into this the hand that makes all things that are came to dwell, contracting itself to the brief and paltry compass of human life by partaking of our nature in all things after our likeness, apart from sin, and, having come to be among us, wrought astonishment and bewilderment in the souls;

how is God made manifest in flesh? How does the Word become flesh? How is there a birth in virginity, and virginity in a mother? How is light mingled with darkness, and life blended with death? How does the narrow crevice of life contain within itself the hand that encompasses all things that are—by which the whole heaven is measured out and all the earth and all the water are contained? It is likely, then, that the grace of the Gospel is prophetically signified to us by the bride through the riddle of the 'hand';

for when the Lord appeared upon the earth and dwelt among men, we came to know the pure and immaterial beauty of the Bridegroom, and the Godhead of the Word, and the radiance of the true light, through the hand of His energies;

for by 'hand' we understand His power that works wonders, through which the dead were made alive, and the sight of the blind was restored, and the affliction of leprosy was put to flight, and every kind of incurable and grievous sickness departed from the bodies at His command.

Now that this twofold contemplation upon the 'hand' has been set before us—of which the one lays down that the divine nature, being altogether incomprehensible and beyond likeness, is known through its energy alone, while the other says that the evangelical grace is foretold through these words by the bride—we will leave it to the hearer to choose, before the other, the one that is more natural and more fitting to the matters at hand.

But whichever be judged the more profitable to the soul, there would be for us, through either of the things said, a sufficient guidance toward the Good;

for from knowing that 'what may be known of God,' according to Paul's word, 'is beheld, being understood through the creation of the world,' we shall spare ourselves the busy meddling concerning things incomprehensible, lest, through prying into the unattainable and unutterable nature, heresy should take material against the truth;

but if we should suppose the riddle of the 'hand' to look toward the Gospel, then also our faith in the mystical doctrines will become firmer, having received the indubitable through the foreannouncement of the doctrines, in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory unto the ages.

Homily 12. 'I rose up to open to my kinsman; my hands dropped myrrh, my fingers full of myrrh.'

'I opened to my kinsman; my kinsman had passed by, my soul went forth at his word.'

'I sought him and did not find him, I called him and he did not answer me.'

'The watchmen of the walls wounded me, they took away my veil from me.'

Those who set out on a voyage across the sea in hope of wealth, when they have already cast off the merchant ship from the harbor and the one seated at the tiller has, by means of the rudders, turned the prow toward the open sea, make it the prelude of their voyage to offer a prayer, asking that God become their guide unto a prosperous sailing.

And the chief point of their prayer is that a gentle and favorable wind may fall upon the sail toward the pilot's aim, standing astern;

and when this blows for them according to their heart's desire, the sea becomes pleasant, gently shuddering with its calm waves, and the expanses of the deep are painless as the ship flies easily along and glides over the waters, while before their eyes is the wealth hoped for through commerce, since the prosperous voyage already guarantees, even before the trial, abundance.

But to what end I am making this preamble is surely plain to the more discerning of the hearers, from what lies before us in the aim of the preamble;

great is the sea of the contemplation of the divine words that lies before the discourse, and much wealth of knowledge is hoped for through this voyage, and this living ship, the Church, in all her own fullness looks aloft toward the sailing of the exposition.

But the pilot-word does not lay hold of the tiller before the prayer to God arises from the common voice of the whole crew of the ship, that the power of the Holy Spirit may breathe upon us and stir up the waves of our thoughts, and through them, sailing well, may lead the discourse straight forward, so that thus, having come out onto the open sea through contemplation, we may trade for ourselves the wealth of knowledge—if indeed the Holy Spirit should come, through your prayers, upon the discourse with sails full-set.

But let the beginning of our discourse be the recollection of the God-inspired words, which run in their very wording thus:

'I rose up to open to my kinsman;'

'my hands dropped myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.'

That it is not otherwise possible for the living Word to come to be within us—I mean the pure and bodiless Bridegroom, who through incorruption and holiness makes the soul His dwelling-companion—unless a person, by mortifying the members that are upon the earth, strips away the veil of the flesh and thus opens the door to the Word, through which He takes up His abode within the soul: this is plain not only from the divine teachings of the Apostle, but also from what has now been spoken by the bride:

'For I rose up,' she says, 'to open to my kinsman,' by making my hands to be springs of myrrh which of themselves pour forth the fragrance, and by showing the fullness of my fingers to be the myrrh.

For the manner in which the door is opened to the Bridegroom, she declares through these words: namely, that through being buried together with Him by baptism into death, I rose up.

For the resurrection could not have taken effect unless the voluntary deadness had gone before it.

And the drop of myrrh flowing from her hands, and the fact that her fingers were filled with this fragrance, indicate the voluntary character of it.

For she does not say that the myrrh came upon her hand from elsewhere (for in that case it might have been supposed that what is signified by the myrrh befell her as something incidental and involuntary), but she says that the hands themselves—and by the hands she signifies the active movements of the soul—dropped the myrrh of themselves, thereby signifying the mortification of the bodily passions that arises from within, by deliberate choice; and she says this mortification was fulfilled in all her fingers, interpreting by the name of 'fingers' the several distinct kinds of things pursued severally through virtue.

So that the whole sense of what is said is this: that I received the power of resurrection through mortifying my members that are upon the earth, the mortification of such members having been wrought in me voluntarily, the myrrh not having been placed into my hands by another but flowing forth from my own deliberate choice, so that in all the pursuits according to virtue—which she named 'fingers'—such a disposition is seen to be complete and lacking in nothing.

For they are dead to some one passion and alive in others—just as we see certain people mortifying in themselves licentiousness, it may be, yet through carefulness feeding pride, or some other passion that ravages the soul, such as love of money, or irascibility, or love of glory, or something else of the kind; and while this passion lives wickedly in the soul, it is not possible to display the fingers full of myrrh.

For the mortification and estrangement from evil does not appear through all one's pursuits; but when all such fingers have been filled with the myrrh here understood, then the soul both rises up and opens to the Bridegroom the entrance.

For this reason, perhaps, the great Paul also, having rightly understood the Master's saying that an ear of grain cannot spring up unless the seed first be dissolved by death, proclaims this doctrine to the Church: that death must lead the way before life, since it is not possible otherwise for life to come to be in a man, unless it should gain its passage through death.

For since our nature is twofold—the one part being subtle and intellectual and light, the other coarse and material and heavy—it is altogether necessary that in each of these the impulse should be incompatible with the other and peculiar to itself.

For the intellectual and light part has its proper motion upward, while the heavy and material part ever inclines and is borne downward.

Since, then, their motion arises naturally in opposite directions, it is not possible for the one to prosper in its course unless the other has grown weak with respect to its natural movement.

But standing midway between the two, our self-determining power and free choice of itself imparts strength to the one that is failing and weakness to the one that is prevailing.

For to whichever part it inclines, to that it gives the victory over the other.

Thus in the Gospel the faithful and prudent steward is praised (for this, according at least to my own reckoning, is the free choice that rightly presides over the things within us;

for he is praised because he nourishes the household of the master through the mortification of the contrary things;

for the corruption of those things is the nourishment and good condition of the better)—but that wicked servant is accused who, through consorting with the drunken, maltreats with blows the household of God;

for truly the prosperity of vice is a scourge against the virtues.

It is well, therefore, for us to emulate the prophetic word and to make for ourselves a morning by slaying all the sinners of the land, so as to cut off from the city of the Lord (and the soul is the city) all the reasonings that work iniquity, whose destruction becomes the life of the better things.

Thus, then, we live through death, whenever, as the prophet says, of the things within us the Word—who said, 'I will kill and make alive'—slays the one and quickens the other; even as Paul, when he had died, lived, and when he was weak, was strong, and when bound, ran his course, and when poor, made many rich, and possessed all things while having nothing, always carrying about the dying of Jesus in his own body and always manifesting in himself His life.

But let us return to what was proposed;

namely, that through death the soul rises up out of death (for unless it dies, it remains dead perpetually and incapable of receiving life;

but out of dying it comes to be in life, having laid aside all deadness), and this doctrine is confirmed to us from the text before us, the bride speaking thus: 'I rose up to open to my kinsman;'

'my hands dropped myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.'

That myrrh is a symbol of death, no one who has conversed with the divine Scriptures could doubt.

How, then, death raises us up out of death—I think that some seek to have the discourse concerning this made more clearly distinct.

We shall speak, then, as best we may, imposing upon the discourse a certain order by way of sequence.

The account of the world's creation testifies that all things which God made were very good.

And one of the very good things was also man—or rather, man was adorned with beauty more than the rest.

For what other thing could be so beautiful as the likeness of the undefiled Beauty? But if all things were very good, and among all—or even before all—was man, then assuredly death was not in man at all.

For man would not have been anything beautiful, if indeed he had in himself the gloomy character of the dejection that belongs to death.

But being an image and likeness of the eternal life, he was beautiful, truly and very beautiful, adorned with the radiant character of life.

And for him there was also the divine paradise, teeming with life through the fruitfulness of its trees; and the commandment of God was a law of life, enjoining that he should not die.

But since in the midst of the planting of paradise there was the tree teeming with life, what then must we understand that tree to be whose fruit is life; and also the death-bearing tree, whose fruit the account declares to be at once good and evil, and which is likewise in the midst of paradise—when it is impossible that in the very middle there should be room for the two trees? For whichever of the two we grant to occupy the middle, by every necessity the other is altogether excluded from the place of the middle.

For the exact position of the middle is apprehended with reference to what surrounds it, when it stands at equal distances on every side from the boundary.

When, therefore, there is precisely one middle of the circle, there could be no contrivance, while the same circle remains, for two centres to find room at the middle.

For if another centre were set beside the former one, then, the circle being of necessity shifted along with it, the former centre comes to be outside the middle, the compass of the circle being now traced around the second centre.

But yet he says that in the midst of paradise are both this and that, although they are opposed to one another in their power—I mean the life-giving tree, and the one whose fruit was death, which Paul named sin, saying that 'the fruit of sin is death.'

It is fitting, then, to understand, through the philosophy of the things that have been said, this doctrine: that of God's planting, life is the very centre; but death is of itself unplanted and rootless, having nowhere any place of its own, and it is implanted only by the privation of life, whenever the participation in the better ceases to be active in the living.

Since, then, life is in the midst of the divine plants, and by the falling away from this the nature of death subsists, for this reason he who philosophized this doctrine by riddles says that the death-bearing tree also is in the midst of paradise, whose fruit he said had a power mingled from things contrary;

for he defined that the same thing was at once good and evil, hinting thereby, I think, at the nature of sin.

For since some pleasure altogether leads the way in all things that are wrought through vice, and it is not possible to find a sin divorced from pleasure—both such passions as come through anger and such as come through desire—for this reason the fruit is also named 'good,' according to the erroneous judgment of the good on the part of those who place the good in pleasure, to whom it seems such.

But afterward it is found to be wicked in the bitter aftertaste of the eating, according to the proverbial saying which declares that 'honey drops from the lips of vice, which for a season makes the throat smooth, but afterward is found more bitter than gall to those who have been ill sweetened by it.'

Since, then, man, having fallen away from the all-fruitfulness of good things, was filled through disobedience with the corrupting fruit (and the name of this fruit is death-producing sin), he was straightway put to death with respect to the better life, having exchanged the more divine life for the irrational and brutish one.

And once death had been mingled with the nature, the deadness passed on together with it through the successions of those who are born.

Whence a dead life succeeded to us, our life having in a certain manner died.

For our life, deprived of immortality, is downright dead.

For this reason He who is known 'in the midst of the two lives' mediates between these two lives, in order that, by the abolition of the worse, He may give the victory to the undefiled.

As, then, by dying to the true life man fell over into this dead life, so, when he dies to this dead and brutish life, he is transferred to the life that ever lives; so that it is beyond doubt that it is not possible to come to be in the blessed life for one who has not become dead to sin.

It has been shown by the account, in its philosophy concerning the trees, that the one is by nature existent, while the other supervenes upon what exists by way of privation;

for the transposition, both of life and of death, comes to be from the same thing upon the same thing, by way of participation and of privation, since he who has been mortified to the good lives to the evil, and he who has become dead in vice comes back to life toward virtue.

Well, then, does the bride show her own hands full of the myrrh, rising up through the deadness with respect to all vice, so as to open to the Word the entrance into herself;

and the Word whom she takes to dwell within is life.

But being lifted up to so great a magnitude through the things contemplated by us, the soul that looks toward God has 'not yet,' as Paul says, 'thus known as it ought to know,' nor does it reckon that it has laid hold, but still runs toward that which lies beyond, 'stretching herself forward to the things that are before.'

For the sequence of the words that follow suggests that we should understand these things concerning her:

'Upon the handles of the bolt I opened to my kinsman,' and she added that 'My kinsman had passed by, my soul went out at his word.'

For she teaches us through these things that, in the case of the Power which surpasses every mind, there is one mode of apprehension: not to stand still around what has been apprehended, but ever, in seeking that which is beyond what has been grasped, never to come to a halt.

For she who has become full of the myrrh in all the pursuits of life—which she figuratively names 'fingers'—signifying by them her deadness toward evil, and having displayed the voluntary character of virtue by the dropping of the myrrh from her hands out of her own store, says that her hands touched the bolt; that is, she says that her own works drew near to the narrow and afflicted entrance, whose bolt the Word puts into the hands of those who are after the manner of Peter.

She opens, then, for herself the door of the kingdom through both means: both through the hands, by which the works are signified, and through the bolt of faith;

for through both of these—I mean works and faith—the key of the kingdom is fashioned for us by the Word.

When, therefore, she hoped, like Moses, that the face of the one she longed for would be manifested to her in full knowledge, then the one she sought passed by her apprehension.

For she says that 'My kinsman had passed by,' not having left behind the soul that follows Him, but drawing it toward Himself;

'For my soul,' she says, 'went out at his word.'

O that blessed going-out, which the soul that follows the Word goes out!

'The Lord shall guard thy going-out and thy coming-in,' says the prophet.

This is truly the going-out that is guarded by God for the worthy, becoming at once both a going-out and a coming-in;

For the departure from that in which we are becomes an entrance into the good things that lie beyond.

In this way that longed-for face of the Lord once passed by Moses also; and so the soul of the lawgiver was ever passing outside of that in which it was, as it followed the Word going on before.

For who does not know those ascents which Moses ascended, he who was ever becoming great and never halting in his growth toward what is greater? He grew at the beginning, when he counted the reproach of Christ higher than the kingdom of the Egyptians, choosing rather to suffer affliction together with the people of God than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin.

He grew again, when the Egyptian was oppressing the Hebrew and he slew the foreigner, contending on behalf of the Israelite.

In these events you surely perceive the manner of his growth, once you transpose the narrative into figurative contemplation.

Again, he became greater than himself, guarding his life free from all clamor through his life of philosophy in the wilderness over a long span of time.

Then he is enlightened by the fire upon the bush.

After this his hearing too is illumined all around by the rays of the light through the Word.