Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 15/20

Freeing his own people from the tyranny of Pharaoh, he is guided by a cloud, divides the sea, submerges the tyranny beneath the waters, sweetens Marah, strikes the rock, is filled with the food of angels, hears the trumpets, dares the burning mountain, touches the summit, enters within the cloud, comes to be inside the thick darkness in which God was, receives the covenant, becomes a sun, flashing forth from his face a light unapproachable to those who drew near.

And how could anyone recount in words all his ascents and his manifold theophanies? Yet nevertheless, so great and such a man, who had come to be in such heights and had been so exalted toward God through so many stages, still insatiably has the desire for more; and he becomes a suppliant to see God face to face, even though the Word had already testified that he had been deemed worthy of conversing face to face.

Yet nevertheless, neither speaking with him as a friend with a friend, nor the converse with God that took place mouth to mouth, brings his desire for higher things to a standstill; but he says, 'If I have found grace before you, show yourself to me knowably.'

And he who had promised to give the grace that was asked, who had said, 'I have known you above all,' passes by him as he is sheltered by the divine hand upon the divine place in the rock, so that he barely sees, after his passing by, the back parts; teaching us through these things, I think, that the one who desires to see God sees the one he longs for in ever following him, and that the vision of his face is the unceasing journey toward him, accomplished by following behind the Word.

So then, even now, when the soul has risen through death, when it has been filled with myrrh, when it has brought its hands to the latch through its works and has hoped to lodge within itself the one it longs for, then he indeed passes by, but she goes out, no longer remaining in what she was, but following after the Word who leads on ahead toward what lies before.

The following text confirms for us all the more the meaning previously contemplated: that the greatness of the divine nature is not known in being comprehended, but in surpassing every comprehensive imagination and power.

For the soul that has already gone beyond nature, so that it may not be hindered by any of the accustomed things in coming to the knowledge of things invisible, neither comes to a standstill in seeking what cannot be found, nor ceases from calling upon what cannot be uttered; for she says, 'I sought him and did not find him.'

For how could he be found whom none of the things that are known indicates—not form, not color, not outline, not quantity, not place, not shape, not conjecture, not likeness, not analogy? But being ever found outside of every comprehensive approach, he wholly escapes the grasp of those who seek. Therefore she says, 'I sought him'—through the searching powers of the soul, in reasonings and thoughts—'and he was outside of all, eluding the approach of the understanding.'

But how could he who is ever found outside every distinguishing characteristic be encompassed by any signification of a name? For this reason the soul devises every kind of power of names to signify the ineffable Good; yet every expressive power of speech is defeated and is shown to fall short of the truth.

Therefore she says: 'For my part I called out as I was able, devising utterances that pointed to the ineffable blessedness; but he was greater than the indication of the things signified.'

'For you,' she says, 'are the God compassionate and merciful, longsuffering and full of mercy and true, and strength and firmament and refuge and power and helper and defender and horn of salvation,' and the like.

And again she confesses that his name in all the earth is not known but marveled at.

'For how wonderful,' she says, 'is your name in all the earth.'

So too the one who gave the oracle to Manoah concerning the child said, when he was asked about his name, that it is wonderful and too great to be contained by human hearing.

For this reason the soul too calls upon the Word as she is able, but she is able not as she wills.

For she wills more than she is able.

Nor indeed can she even will as much as he is, but only as much as the will's free choice is able to will.

Since, then, the one called upon is unattainable by the impulse of the one calling, she therefore says:

'I called him and he did not answer me.'

But whatever the bride adds to the things said—even if at first glance it has a rather gloomy import—it seems to me to look toward the same aim and to hold fast to the ascent to higher things.

For she says: 'The watchmen who go about in the city found me, they struck me, they wounded me; the watchmen of the walls took away my veil from me.'

For these words will perhaps seem to some to be the words of one lamenting rather than of one rejoicing—the 'they struck' and 'they wounded' and 'they took away the veil.'

But to the one who has carefully examined the meaning of what is said, these are the utterances of one glorying in the noblest things.

In this way what is said might become clear to us.

A little before these, in what precedes, the text bears witness that she is pure from every covering, in the passage where it says from the person of the bride, 'I have taken off my tunic, how shall I put it on?' But here again it says that her veil has been taken away from her.

Now the veil is a bridal wrap, covering along with the head also the face, as the narrative says concerning Rebecca.

How then does she who was stripped bare of every covering still have the veil which the watchmen now take away from her? Or is it clear through what has been said how far she has again risen from that state to a higher one through progress? For she who had stripped off the old tunic and been made pure of every wrapping becomes so much purer than her former self, that in comparison with the purity now attained by her she seems not to have put off the wrap, but rather to have found again, after that stripping, something about herself which she may lay aside.

Thus the ascent to the divine, in the one who is ever being found, reveals what is more coarse about her.

For this reason, in comparison with her present purity, the earlier stripping of that tunic is again removed as a covering by those who find her.

These are the watchmen who go about the city (and the city is the soul), who by striking and wounding took away the veil; whose task is to guard the walls of the city.

That the removal of the veil is indeed something good—so that the eye, free of the covering, may gaze unhindered upon the beauty it longs for—no one would doubt who looks to the Apostle, who ascribes the removal of the covering to the power of the Spirit, saying:

'But whenever one turns to the Lord, the covering is taken away;'

'and the Lord is the Spirit.'

And that what prepares the way for the good is itself also wholly good, no one who understands how to look to what is consequent would doubt.

If, then, the removal of the covering is good, then wholly good too would be both the blow and the wound through which the removal is accomplished.

But since, according to the obvious sense, a certain unpleasantness appears in these words (for the phrase 'They struck me' and 'They wounded me' indicates pain), it would be well first to consider holy Scripture's use of such words—whether anywhere it has made mention of them in a favorable sense—and only then in this way to contemplate the force of what is said here.

How does Wisdom deliver the soul of the young man from death? What does she counsel to do, so that the young man may not die? Let us listen to Wisdom herself:

'If you strike him,' she says, 'with a rod, he shall surely not die;

for you will strike him with a rod, but you will deliver his soul from death.'

It seems, then, that the expression 'They struck me' signifies immortality, just as the text says that 'If you strike with a rod, he shall surely not die,' and that there is no other way for the soul to be delivered from death unless it is struck with the rod.

Therefore, that being struck is good has been demonstrated to us through what has been said, since it is truly good for the soul to be delivered from death.

The prophet says that God too acts in this way, giving life through slaying and healing through striking:

'I will act, I will strike, and I myself will heal.'

Through these things comes about the preparation of the divine table for him, and all that the psalmody contains in what follows:

both the oil upon the head and the unmixed wine of the cup that works the sober intoxication, and the mercy that fittingly pursues him, and the length of days in the house of God.

If, then, that sweet blow provides these things, both according to the teaching of Proverbs and according to the voice of the prophet, then it is good to be struck with the rod, from which comes the abundance of so many good things.

But rather let us examine what was passed over before the things that have been said:

the Word passed by the bride, having become unattainable to the grasp of the one who longs for him;

yet he passed by not so as to leave behind her whom he ran past, but rather so as to draw her toward himself;

for she says: 'My soul went out at his word.'

The soul goes out, then, first from that in which it was, and thus is found by those who guard the city:

'For the watchmen who go about in the city found me,' she says.

If, then, she had said either that the 'perils of Hades' found her, or that she had been found by robbers, it would have been a grievous thing to become the find of such as these (for 'the thief does not come except to steal and kill and destroy'); but if the watchmen who go about in the city find her, she is altogether to be counted blessed for such a finding;

for the one who has been found by the watchman cannot be stolen by robbers.

Who then are the watchmen? Who else but surely the ministers of him who guards Israel, who through his guarding shelters the right hand, who has been entrusted to guard the soul from all evil, who becomes the guardian of both its going in and its coming out? He is the guardian of the city concerning whom it says, 'Unless the Lord guards the city, in vain has the watchman kept awake.'

Therefore the Word indicates, through the watchmen who go about the city, the ministering spirits, those sent out for service on account of those who are about to inherit salvation.

And the soul, as has been said, is the city, the dwelling-place of God.

By these, then, the soul was found, she says, as once the sheep was found by the good shepherd, over which all the choirs of the angels were stirred to gladness according to the voice of the Lord.

So too was the drachma once found by the lamp, over which all the friends and neighbors rejoice.

Since he has become the possession of the one who found him, let us hear of what things he is deemed worthy:

'My hand,' he says, 'will assist him and my arm will strengthen him;

an enemy shall gain no advantage over him, and a son of lawlessness shall not afflict him; and I will cut down his enemies from before his face, and I will put to flight those who hate him.'

and all the other things that the catalogue of blessing contains.

It is therefore a good thing to be found by the angels who circle about the city, that is, the soul.

So then, she who said that the watchmen struck her was boasting that a certain increase in her progress toward the heights had come to her.

And if she says that she was even wounded, she is setting before the discourse the mark that came to be deep within her by the divine rod;

for she does not receive the working of the spiritual rod upon herself merely superficially, so that the place where she received the rod would go unrecognized, but by means of the wound the blow becomes conspicuous, in which the bride glories.

And what is being said is of this sort:

That divine rod and that comforting staff, which works healing through striking, is the Spirit, whose fruit consists of the other good things which Paul enumerated, and, among the rest, self-control, the tutor of the virtuous life.

Exulting in these things, he said, 'I bear the marks of Christ in my body,' showing his weakness in every affliction, through which the power that is according to Christ is perfected in virtue.

The wound, therefore, has also been shown by what we have said to be a good thing, since through it the removal of her veil came about, so that the beauty of the soul might be uncovered, the covering no longer casting its shadow.

But let us take up the matter again, recapitulating the meaning of what has been said.

The soul that looks toward God and takes up that good longing for the incorruptible beauty always has its desire for what lies above renewed, never dulling its longing by satiety.

For this reason, always stretching forward to what lies ahead, she does not cease going out from that in which she is and entering into what is more inward, into which she has not yet come; and she makes what always seemed to her marvelous and great lower than what follows, because what is ever being found is altogether more beautiful than what was previously grasped—just as Paul too died daily, since he was always passing over to some new life, ever becoming dead to what had passed and forgetting the things already accomplished.

For this reason too the bride, running toward the Bridegroom, finds no halting-place in her progress toward what is greater;

she makes gardens of pomegranates that pour forth spices through her mouth, she prepares food for the Lord of creation, welcoming him with her own fruits; she gushes forth as gardens, she becomes a well of living water, she is shown to be wholly beautiful and without blemish according to the testimony of the Word.

Again, having come beyond these things, she perceives the Word approaching more magnificently, filled upon his head with the dew and with the drops of the night that form in his locks; she washes her feet, she takes off her tunic, she lets myrrh drip from her hands, she brings her hands to the bolt, she opens the entrance, she seeks the one who cannot be grasped, she calls to the one who cannot be reached, she is found by the watchmen, she receives upon herself the striking rod, she imitates the rock of which the prophet says, 'He struck the rock and waters flowed forth.'

Do you see to what a height the bride has ascended?

For this reason she is struck like the flinty rock by Moses, so that, in likeness to that rock, she too might gush forth to those who thirst the Word that rains down from the blow.

Then, after these things, she bares the beauty of her countenance, when her watchmen have removed the veil.

These are the things which, in this passage, we have been able to apprehend.

But let there be no grudging on anyone's part from him who reveals the hidden mysteries, if someone should find in what lies before us a more soul-profiting contemplation.

Perhaps someone will say that the vision of Isaiah too has a certain kinship with the passages before us;

I mean that vision when, after the leprous king had died, he says he saw the one who sat majestically enthroned upon the high and lofty throne, whose form and appearance and magnitude he was not able to see (for surely he would have described it, if he had been able, just as he did in the case of the other things he saw, numbering the wings and recounting their standing and their flight), but he says he heard only a voice, when the lintel was lifted up by the hymn-singing of the Seraphim and the house was filled with smoke, and through one of the Seraphim a burning coal was applied to the mouth of the prophet, and when this had happened, not only his lips but also his hearing was purified for the reception of the Word.

For just as here the bride is said to be struck and wounded by the watchmen and thus to be stripped of the covering of her veil, so also there, in place of the veil, the lintel is raised, so that the contemplation of the things in the inner sanctuaries might become unhindered for him; and in place of the watchmen the Seraphim are named, and in place of the rod, the coal;

and in place of the blow, the burning.

But the common outcome, both in the case of the bride and in the case of the prophet's soul, is purity.

With an increase in the removal of the veil, which the Word named a summer-garment.

But it is also possible to find yet another meaning in the passages before us, one that is in no way discordant with the things already contemplated.

For the soul that has gone out in his word, and seeks the one who is not found, and calls back the one who is unattainable by the significance of names, is taught by the watchmen that she loves the unattainable and yearns for the incomprehensible.

Through these things she is in a manner struck and wounded by the hopelessness of what she desires, having supposed that her longing for the good was incomplete and without enjoyment.

But the veil of grief is removed from her by her learning that to be always advancing in seeking, and never to cease from the ascent, this is the true enjoyment of what she desires—since her ever-fulfilled desire begets another desire for what lies beyond.

So, when she had removed the veil of hopelessness and had seen the boundless and uncircumscribed beauty of the Beloved, ever being found greater throughout all the eternity of the ages, she is stretched out in a more vehement longing, and she discloses to the Beloved, through the daughters of Jerusalem, the disposition of her heart: that, having received within herself the chosen arrow of God, she has been struck in the heart through the point that is according to faith, having received in the vital place the archery of love.

And God is love, according to the voice of John, to whom belong the glory and the might unto the ages of ages.

Homily 13. I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field: if you find my kinsman, tell him that I am wounded with love.

What is your kinsman more than another kinsman, O fairest among women? What is your kinsman more than a kinsman, that you have so adjured us? My kinsman is white and ruddy, chosen out from among ten thousands.

His head is gold of Kephaz, his locks are fir-branches, black as a raven, his eyes are as doves beside fullnesses of waters, bathed in milk, sitting beside fullnesses of waters.

He who through Moses gave the mysteries of the Law as legislation, but through himself fulfilled the whole Law and the prophets, as he says in the Gospel, 'I did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it'—he who, by the removal of anger, blotted out murder along with it, and by the doing-away of desire took away with it the pollution of adultery—this one casts out of life also the curse that comes from perjury, having fettered the sickle in inactivity by the prohibition of the oath;

for it is not possible for a transgression of an oath to occur when there is no oath.

For this reason he says, 'You have heard that it was said to the ancients:

You shall not swear falsely, but you shall render to the Lord your oaths.'

'But I say to you,' he says, 'do not swear at all;

neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King, nor shall you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.'

'But let your word be Yes, yes, and No, no;

for whatever is beyond these is from the devil.'

But the soul that has been attested to perfection through the Song of Songs, and that has removed the covering from its heart in the stripping off of the old tunic, and has cast away from its face the summer-veil—by which we understand every doubting and wavering mind, so that it may look toward the truth purely and without ambiguity—adjures the daughters of Jerusalem neither by the divine throne, which the Word calls heaven, nor by the royal palace of God, whose name is Jerusalem, nor indeed by the precious head, whose hairs can become neither white nor black, but she transfers the oath to the field, laying the adjuration upon the maidens by the powers within it, saying:

I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field.

She utters nothing of the superfluous things, which belong to the portion of the devil, but she makes her word out of God, from whom, according to Micah, comes whatever is good and whatever is beautiful and, apart from these, nothing—as is plain to everyone who has been taught, through the Master's testimony, the advantages that belong to the bride.

Is it not so? Having let go of all the forbidden forms of the oath, and having made neither the ruling city nor the throne of the great King an object of oath for the maidens (for through this we are instructed how far we ought to keep from presumption against God in our oaths, since we are permitted to take up in the oath neither the throne nor the city), and having in addition to these spared the precious head, which in what follows the Word describes as golden, whose hairs are neither white nor black (for how could gold be blackened, or be changed in color toward the appearance of white?)—it is altogether clear that she sets before the virgins such an adjuration as neither contends with the evangelical law and becomes for those who swear an occasion of praise, according to the voice of the prophet who says, 'Everyone who swears by him shall be praised,' so that the meaning of what is said may not be outside the Yes, No, by which the evangelical law wishes the truth to be confirmed, saying, 'But let your word be the Yes, [yes, and the No,] no.'

If, then, among the words of the oath the throne of the King is forbidden to be taken up, and the city in which the palace is is likewise forbidden, and the true head is in the same way forbidden with regard to being taken up in an oath, and only the Yes and the No are permitted—the truth being contemplated equally in both, in the Yes—it would be clear that even now the adjuration laid by the bride upon the maidens turns about the meaning of the Yes, where the assent of our soul ought to be firmly fixed.

I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field: if you find my kinsman, tell him that I am wounded with love.

These things have already been contemplated in what preceded, as the sequence of the thoughts suggested; but they shall be stated now too, briefly, as they are found.

The apostle says that the oath is a thing unchangeable, confirming the truth through itself, and he defines it to be the end of all contradiction for the confirmation of what is known.

The bride therefore lays the adjuration upon the virgins, so that what is said might be kept inviolable by them.

But since every oath is made by what is greater, as the apostle says (for no one would make an object of oath something more dishonorable than himself), it is fitting to consider what greater thing is set before the maidens in the oath by the bride.

I have adjured you, she says, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field.

What, then, in these things is beyond us? For we do not doubt that the field is to be understood, through the figurative significance, as the world, since the Lord too both named the world and interpreted it thus.

What, then, are the many powers and strengths of the world that are set before us in the oath, which must be reckoned greater than ourselves, so that the oath, being made by what is greater, may gain strength for the confirmation of the truth? It would therefore be necessary, for the clarity of the passages before us, to set alongside them another interpretative rendering of the sayings, which runs thus:

I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the harts of the field.

We are therefore taught through these names in what the strength of this world consists and in what its power, which are taken up through the oath for the confirmation of the truth.

There are two things that make a man akin to God:

one is the unerring quality of one's supposition concerning that which truly is, so as not to be carried off by deceived notions into pagan and heretical opinions concerning the Divine—which is truly the Yes; the other is the pure reasoning that banishes every passionate disposition of the soul—which itself also is not estranged from the Yes.

The mention of the roes and the harts makes known this power through symbols;

for of these, the one sees unerringly, while the other has a certain consuming and destroying power against wild beasts.

This, then, the bride sets before the virgins as the Yes:

namely, that one must look toward the Divine reverently, and pass through life purely in dispassion.

And when these are set right, the unchangeable thing, the Yes, is confirmed in us.

For this is the oath that confirms the truth, by which 'Everyone who swears is praised,' as the prophet says;

for truly he who has established in himself the security in these two things—both in the word of faith, when he looks unerringly toward the truth, and in the manner of life, when he is clean from every defilement of wickedness—this one swears to the Lord not to go up upon the couch of his bed, not to give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids, until he finds within himself a place for the Lord, becoming a tabernacle for the one who dwells in him.

If, then, we too are children of the Jerusalem above, let us listen to the teacher, how it is possible to see the one who is longed for.

What, then, does she say? If we make this an object of oath for ourselves—to be among the powers of the keen-sighted roes and among the strengths of the harts that destroy wickedness—it is possible through these to see the pure Bridegroom, the archer of love, and for each one's soul to say to him, 'I am wounded with love.'

And that the wounds of love are good, we have learned also from the Proverb which says, 'Choiceworthy are the wounds of a friend, but evil are even the kisses of an enemy.'

Who then is the friend whose wounds are more to be preferred than the kisses of the enemy, is plain to everyone who is not ignorant of the mysteries of salvation.

For the true and steadfast friend is he who did not cease to love us even when we had become his enemies; but the faithless and savage foe is he who delivered over to death those who had done him no wrong.

To the first-formed pair the prohibition of evil that came through the commandment seemed a wound (for the alienation from what is pleasant was reckoned a wound), while the enticement toward what is pleasant and attractive seemed a kiss.

But experience showed that what were thought to be the friend's wounds were more profitable and more to be chosen than the enemy's kisses.

Since, therefore, the good Lover of our souls established his love, through which, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, for this reason the bride, in return loving him who loved her, shows the arrow lying deep within her through the depth of her love, that is, the fellowship of his Godhead.

For God is love, as it has been said, that love which is engendered in the heart through the point of faith.

And if one must also name this arrow, we shall say what we learned from Paul: that this arrow is faith working through love.

But let these things stand as each may think fit; let us now consider also the question put by the maidens to their teacher.

'What is your beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved beyond another beloved, that you have so adjured us?' The saying seems to me to contain some such meaning as this, insofar as the sequence of what has already been examined allows one to conjecture.