Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 18/20

And she adds to the throat also its fitting praise, naming it both sweetness and desire.

'His throat is sweetness and altogether desire.'

But what we understand concerning this is as follows:

The part beneath the chin is called by common usage the throat, in which they say the sound is generated, whirled about by the impact of the breath from the windpipe.

Since, then, good words are honeycombs of honey, and the voice is the instrument of the word, whose origin is from the throat, perhaps one will not err in understanding by this name the ministers and interpreters of the Word, in whom Christ speaks;

[it does not sate] the desire with satiety, but rather nourishes the longing through partaking of the things desired.

For this reason she also names him altogether desire, as it were by a definition delineating through this word the beauty of the one sought;

'For he is altogether,' she says, 'desire.'

How blessed are those members, through which the whole becomes desire, working out through the perfection in every good a lovely beauty blended together out of all, so that the whole—not in the eye only and the horns [or the locks], but also in feet and in hands and in legs and in the throat—is likewise desirable, none of the members falling short in respect of the surpassing greatness of the beauty.

'This,' she says, 'is my beloved, and this is my dear one, O daughters of Jerusalem.'

For after she had set before their eyes, through the written word, all the marks by which the manifestation of the one sought could come about, she then employed demonstrative language, saying: 'This is he whom we seek, who, by becoming our brother sprung from Judah, drew near to the one who had fallen among robbers, healing his wounds with oil and wine and bandages, lifting him upon his own beast of burden, giving him rest in the inn, providing the two denarii for his life, and promising, at his return, to repay whatever was added to the work of the commandment.'

It is altogether plain to what each of these details refers.

For to the lawyer who tempted the Lord, desiring to display himself above the others and in his pride spurning any equality of honour with the rest, when he said:

'And who is my neighbour?'—then, in the form of a narrative, the Word sets forth the whole loving-kindness of the divine economy, recounting the descent of man from above, the ambush of the robbers, the stripping off of the incorruptible garment, the wounds of sin, and how death advanced upon half of our nature while the soul remained immortal, and the useless passing-by of the Law, since neither priest nor Levite tended the wounds of the one who had fallen among the robbers.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins; rather it was he who, clothing himself with the whole of human nature through the firstfruits of the lump—in which was the portion of every nation, Jew and Samaritan and Greek and of all men without exception—it was this one who, together with the body (which is the beast of burden), came to stand at the place of man's affliction, healed the wounds, gave him rest upon his own beast, and made his own loving-kindness a lodging for him, in which all who labour and are heavy laden find their rest.

And he who has come to be in him assuredly receives within himself the one in whom he has come to be, as the Word has said: 'He who abides in me, and I in him.'

Having therefore received him, he becomes an innkeeper within himself, giving lodging by his own capacity to the One who cannot be contained; and from him he receives the two coins, of which the one is love toward God from the whole soul, and the other is love toward the neighbour as oneself, even as the lawyer also answered.

But since 'it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified,' one must not only receive these two coins (I mean faith toward the Divine and a good conscience toward one's kinsmen), but must also himself contribute something through works toward the fulfilment of these commandments.

For this reason the Lord says to the innkeeper that all that is done by him concerning the care of the afflicted one will, at his second coming, be repaid according to the worth of his diligence.

This one, therefore, who has become our neighbour through such loving-kindness, who by rising for us out of Judah has become our kinsman—this is he whom the bride's word points out to the maidens, this is he who is declared by the undefiled bride to the daughters of Jerusalem, when she says: 'This is my kinsman and this is my neighbour, O daughters of Jerusalem.'

—[the one who becomes so for us] through the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

Homily 15. 'Where has your kinsman gone, O fair one among women? Where has your kinsman turned his gaze? And we will seek him with you.'

'My kinsman has gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies.'

'I am my kinsman's, and my kinsman is mine, who feeds among the lilies.'

'You are fair, my neighbour, as good pleasure, comely as Jerusalem, awe-inspiring as an army set in array.'

'Turn your eyes away from before me, for they have given me wings.'

'Your hair is as flocks of goats which have appeared from Gilead. Your teeth are as flocks of shorn ewes which have come up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and there is none barren among them. Your lips are as a scarlet thread, and your speech is comely; your cheek is as the rind of a pomegranate, beyond your silence.'

'There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number.'

'My dove, my perfect one, is one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the chosen one of her who bore her.'

Philip the apostle, who is testified to be from the city of Andrew and Peter (for it seems to me a commendation of Philip that he was a fellow-citizen of those brothers who were held in wonder beforehand in the Gospel through the account concerning them);

for Andrew, when the Baptist had pointed out who was the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world, both understood the mystery himself, following after the one indicated, and having learned where he abides, he brought the good news to his own brother that the one foretold by the prophecy was present; and the latter, having heard, with almost his whole soul joined faith to the hearing and attached himself to the Lamb, and through the change of name was transformed by the Lord toward the more divine, being named and becoming Peter instead of Simon.

And yet to Abraham and to Sarah the Lord imparted the blessing that comes from names only after many years and after many theophanies, appointing the one to be a father and the other a ruler through the transformation of their names.

In like manner Jacob also, after the night-long wrestling, is deemed worthy of the surname and the power of Israel.

But the great Peter did not advance to this grace little by little through gradual growth; rather, at one and the same moment he heard his brother, believed in the Lamb, was perfected through faith, and, being grafted onto the rock, became Peter. This Philip, then, worthy citizen of such great and such notable men, since he became a find of the Lord—as the Gospel says, 'Jesus finds Philip'—was appointed a follower of the Word who said, 'Follow me,' and drawing near to the true light like a lamp, he drew to himself from that source the fellowship of the light, and he shines round about Nathanael, kindling for him the mystery of piety through the words in which he says:

'We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee.'

Nathanael leaves behind the fig tree of the Law, whose shadow hindered participation in the light—that fig tree which withers its leaves because of its barrenness of good things.

Wherefore he is testified to by the Word to be a genuine and not a spurious Israelite, showing in himself, in the guilelessness of his purpose, the pure character of the patriarch.

'For behold,' he says, 'a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile.'

To what the narrative in the prooemium refers is altogether plain to the more attentive hearers, from the reading set before us in due order from the Song of Songs.

For just as Andrew was guided to the Lamb by the voice of John, and Nathanael, being enlightened by Philip and having come out from the shadow of the Law that surrounded him, comes to be in the true light, so also the maidens, in order to find the good that had been announced to them, make use as their leader of the soul that had been perfected through beauty, saying to her:

'Where has your kinsman gone, O fair one among women? Where has your kinsman turned his gaze? And we will seek him with you.'

And the virgin souls put their inquiry to the teacher in due sequence;

for first they had made the account concerning what he is, in the question preceding this saying, when they said:

'What is your kinsman, O fair one among women?'—and having been taught, through the signs that were spoken (that he is white and ruddy and the rest, by which the form of the one sought was described), they now inquire concerning the 'where.'

'Where has your kinsman gone?' or 'Where has he turned his gaze?'—so that, having learned where he is, they may worship at the place where his feet stood, and having been taught where he looks, they may so station themselves that his glory may appear to them also, whose manifestation becomes salvation to those who behold it, as the prophet says: 'Show forth your face, and we shall be saved.'

And the teacher, in likeness to Philip who said:

'Come and see,' guides the virgins toward the apprehension of the one sought; and instead of saying 'Behold,' she points out the place in which the one sought is, and where he looks;

for she says that 'My kinsman has gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices.'

Up to this point, where he is, is signified by the word; and from this point, what he sees and where he looks, the teacher shows by the word, saying that 'He feeds in the gardens and gathers lilies.'

This, then, is the bodily guidance of the word toward the maidens, through which they learn both where he is and where he looks.

But it is altogether necessary also to recognize the profit of this God-inspired Scripture through spiritual contemplation.

Therefore, when we hear that 'My kinsman has gone down into his garden,' we learn the evangelical mystery through the things that have been said, each of these names making clear to us its mystical meaning;

God, who was manifested in the flesh, is well and fittingly named by the name of 'kinsman' by her who was betrothed to him for an everlasting union—she being sister of the people sprung from Judah—because he rose out of Judah, yet shone upon the nations who sat in darkness and the shadow of death. And the word 'has gone down' shows that, on account of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, he himself also descends together with the descent of the one who had fallen among his enemies—by which he signifies the condescension that came, out of unspeakable majesty, to the lowliness of our nature.

And through the riddle of the garden we learn this, that the true husbandman replants his own tillage, we men (for we are his tillage, according to the voice of Paul).

Now the beds of spices, in the description of beauty, were taken up for the commendation of the cheeks, through which the spiritual food is ground fine for those who are nourished; but here a place of the bridegroom and a dwelling is indicated by the word, and we learn this, that neither does the bridegroom lodge in a soul that is a wilderness of the virtues; and if anyone, according to the account given before, should become a bed of spice bringing forth the perfumers' materials, such a one, having become a mixing-bowl of wisdom, receives within himself the divine and undefiled wine, through which gladness comes to the one who has received it.

The following word teaches us with what kind of pastures the flocks of the good shepherd are fattened;

for he does not drive the sheep out into any desert and thorn-bearing places, so that they might crop grassy fodder, but there is set before them as nourishment the spices from the gardens, and instead of grass the lily becomes their food—which he says is gathered by the shepherd for the sustenance of the sheep. Through these things the Word philosophizes to us that the nature and power that encompasses all things, embracing within itself every place, makes itself a place and a container for those who receive purity, in whom the garden, cultivated in manifold ways through the virtues, luxuriates with the blossoms of lilies and teems with the fruit-bearing of spices;

for the lilies become a riddle of the bright and pure quality of the understanding, and the fragrance of the spices, of being estranged from all the foul odour of sins.

He says, then, that the master of the rational flocks dwells among these, pasturing in the gardens, and shearing and gathering the lilies for the sustenance of the sheep—the very things which, through the great Paul, he sets before the sheep, bringing forth for us from the divine storehouse the nourishment that comes from the lilies.

And these are: 'Whatever things are true, whatever things are honourable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise.'

These, at least according to my account, are the lilies with which the flocks are nourished by the good shepherd and teacher.

And the following word, which the pure and unstained bride has uttered, saying:

'I am my kinsman's and my kinsman is mine,' is a rule and boundary of the perfection that is according to virtue;

for we learn through these words that the purified soul ought to have nothing in itself except God, nor to look toward anything else, but so to cleanse itself of every material thing and thought that, wholly and entirely transposed toward the intelligible and immaterial, it may render itself the clearest image of the archetypal beauty.

And just as one who looks upon the painting on a panel, formed with accuracy toward one of the archetypes, declares the form of both to be one, saying that the beauty upon the image is that of the prototype, and that the archetype is clearly seen in the copy—in the same way she who said, 'I am my kinsman's and my kinsman is mine,' says that she has been conformed to Christ, having recovered her own beauty, the first blessedness of our nature, being beautified according to the image and likeness of the first and only and true beauty.

And it is like what happens in the case of a mirror, when, being fashioned skilfully and suitably for its use, it shows within itself with accuracy, upon a pure surface, the character of the face that appears in it: so the soul, having fashioned itself fittingly for its use and having cast off every material stain, has stamped upon itself the pure form of the incorruptible beauty.

The mirror, then, endowed with choice and life, utters this voice, that:

'Since I behold the face of my kinsman with the whole circle, for this reason the whole beauty of his form is seen in me.'

These very voices Paul plainly imitates when he says that he, having become dead to the world, lives to God, and that Christ alone lives in him;

no disposition of love of money, no love of glory, no love of honour, nor any other of the things that stain the soul through some attachment, but 'that One alone is mine, who is none of these things';

for having scraped away everything that is contemplated as outside his nature, I have nothing in myself of such a kind as is not in him.

For which cause: 'To me to live is Christ,' or, as the bride says, 'I am my kinsman's and my kinsman is mine'—who is sanctification and purity and incorruption and light and truth and all such things as these.

He shepherds my soul, not in any grass or brushwood, but in the splendours of the saints;

for the nature of the lilies, in the brightness of its fair colour, hints to us at this thought.

For this reason, then, he who shepherds among the lilies leads his own flock to the meadows of lilies, that 'the splendour of the Lord our God may be upon us';

for that which is nourished is altogether disposed according to the kind of its nourishment.

What do I mean by this? Let there be, by way of supposition, some hollow vessel made of glass, in which everything that is put in shows through, of whatever kind it may be, whether the thing contained be soot or something of the purer and brighter sort.

Therefore, by placing the splendour of the lilies within the souls, he makes the souls bright through them, the form contained within showing through to the outside.

And in order that the meaning may be brought forward to us more clearly, we say this: that the soul is nourished through the virtues, and by a riddle he names the virtues 'lilies,' with which the one who has been filled through a good manner of life makes the form of each virtue evident through his life, displaying it through his character.

Let temperance and righteousness and courage and prudence be a pure lily, and 'whatever things,' the apostle says, 'are true and whatever things are honourable and whatever things are lovely, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise.'

For all these things, when they come to be within the soul, are made manifest through the pure life, adorning the one who contains them and being themselves adorned through the one who has received them.

Let us then hear, through the sequence that follows upon what has been said, of what things she is deemed worthy by Him who glorifies those who glorify Him—she who has dedicated herself to her Beloved and has received in her own form the beauty of the One she loves.

For the Word says to the bride:

You are beautiful, my companion, as good pleasure, comely as Jerusalem, an object of wonder as those set in array.

Now that glory is sent up by the heavenly host to God in the highest, on account of the good pleasure among men, into the ears of the shepherds—when they saw peace born upon the earth—and that Jerusalem is named by the Master of all creation as the city of the great King, would be plain to everyone who has conversed with the words of the Gospel; so that through these he would not fail to recognize what beauty the Word attests to the bride by the comparison with Jerusalem and with good pleasure.

For it is plain that the Word indicates this concerning her: that through the ascent she has rightly accomplished, the soul is exalted even to that height, so as to stretch herself out toward the wondrous works of the Master.

For if the God who is in the highest, who is in the bosom of the Father, on account of the good pleasure among men is commingled with blood and flesh, that peace might be born upon the earth, it is plain that she who has conformed her own beauty to this good pleasure imitates Christ in her achievements, becoming to others that which Christ became to the nature of men.

Just as also Paul, the imitator of Christ, was doing, cutting himself off from life, that by his own suffering he might purchase salvation for Israel in exchange, saying:

I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

To such a one it is fitting to apply what has been said to the bride, namely that:

The likeness of Jerusalem's comeliness is shown forth—that is, the Jerusalem which is above, the free one, the mother of the free, which we have learned from the voice of the Master to be the city of the great King.

For she who has contained within herself the Uncontainable, so that God dwells in her and walks about in her, being adorned by the comeliness of Him who dwells in her, becomes a heavenly Jerusalem, having received His beauty upon herself.

And the beauty and comeliness of the King's city is altogether the beauty of the King Himself;

for according to the word of the psalmody, the comeliness and the beauty belong to Him, to whom the prophecy says: In Your comeliness and Your beauty, both bend Your bow, and prosper, and reign, for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness.

For by these things the divine beauty is characterized—I mean by truth and righteousness and meekness.

The soul, then, that has been shaped in beauties of this kind becomes comely as Jerusalem, adorned with the comeliness of the King.

But these things have their praise of the bride's beauty made evident and fulfilled by the comparison with good pleasure and with Jerusalem; the words that follow, however, we do not doubt to be a eulogy of the bride, yet the meaning according to which she who has been deemed worthy of this commendation is dignified by such praise is not easy to learn offhand.

Perhaps someone following what has been previously contemplated might say that, through the comparison with the supra-cosmic nature, the bride is magnified by the Word by means of these praises;

for there are the [powers] set in array, where the Authorities are perpetually in ruling, the Dominions prevail throughout, the Thrones stand firmly fixed, the Principalities remain unenslaved, the Powers ceaselessly bless God, the flight of the Seraphim does not cease and their standing does not shift, the Cherubim upholding the lofty and exalted throne do not leave off, and the ministering spirits performing their work and hearing the words do not cease.

Since, then, these Authorities have been set in array by God, and the ordered array of the intelligible and supra-cosmic powers remains unconfused into perpetuity, with no evil overturning their good order, for this reason the [soul] too that is set toward the imitation of them, doing all things in order and with decorum, stirs up in herself such wonder as exists among those powers that are set in array;

for the notion of "astonishment" interprets amazement, and by amazement, in conceiving the wonder, we do not miss the truth.

But the utterance that is subjoined to these in due sequence renders the persons ambiguous—both the one by whom it is spoken and the one to whom it says: Turn your eyes away from before me, for they have set me aflutter.

For to some it seems that these things are spoken by the Master to the pure soul, but I rather suppose that the saying is more fittingly applied to the bride.

For to her I find the sense of what is signified by the Word to be suited.

And what has occurred to me I will set forth in a few words:

And that which was said by the Lord to Jerusalem, namely, How often have I willed to gather together your children, in the manner in which a hen gathers her chicks under her wings—one might say, looking to the connection, that this is not outside the meaning here set before us.

If, then, according to some ineffable reasoning, the God-inspired Word determines that there are wings about the divine nature, and if the first fashioning of man testifies that our nature came to be according to the image and likeness of God, it is altogether defined that he who came to be according to the image possessed in all respects the likeness to the archetype.

But truly, according to the Holy Scripture, the prototype is winged.

He would likewise have wings in relation to the Divine.

And it is plain that the name of "wings" will, through some figurative contemplation, be transferred to a meaning befitting God, since power and blessedness and incorruptibility and such things are signified through the name of the wings.

Since, then, these things also belonged to man, so long as he was like to God in all respects, but afterward the inclination toward evil stripped us of such wings (for having come to be outside the shelter of God's wings, we were also denuded of our own wings), for this reason the grace of God appeared, giving us light, that, having laid aside impiety and worldly desires, we might again grow wings through holiness and righteousness.

Therefore, if these things are not far removed from the truth, it is fitting that the bride should confess the grace that has come to be upon her from the divine eyes;

for at one and the same moment God looked upon us with the eyes of His love for mankind, and we, according to the ancient grace, were made to soar aloft.

For You have tested my heart, it says, You have visited me by night, You have tried me with fire, and no unrighteousness was found in me.

It is therefore the same to say, Let Your eyes behold uprightness, and, Let Your eyes not look upon the contrary;

for he who has seen the straight has not seen the crooked, and he who has not seen the crooked has altogether beheld the straight.

Therefore, by the removal of the contrary, she points out the good to the divine eyes, through which the soul is again made to soar—the soul that had shed her feathers through the disobedience of the first-formed.

This, then, is what we have understood through the things that have been said, namely that:

Your eyes, when they look upon me, are turned away from the contrary;

for they will see nothing in me of the things that are opposed to me.

For this reason it comes to me from Your eyes that I am winged again and take up, through the virtues, the wings as it were of a dove, by which the power of flight comes to me, so that I may fly and come to rest—that rest, namely, wherewith God rested from His works.

Again, after these utterances, the description of the bride's beauty follows in turn, the Word dignifying each of the features that contribute to her comeliness by means of some suitable likeness;

for there are praised the beauty of her hair, the setting of her teeth, the bloom upon her lip, the sweetness of her voice, and the ruddiness of her cheek.

And the praise concerning each of the things mentioned is fulfilled for the bride by means of some corresponding comparison and juxtaposition.

For the hairs were likened to flocks of goats that have appeared coming from Gilead; the flocks of the shorn ones, exulting in twin births, fulfill the eulogy of the teeth through the likeness; the lip is likened to a scarlet-dyed cord, and the cheek is adorned by the rind of the pomegranate.

Your hair is as flocks of goats that have appeared from Gilead; your teeth are as flocks of the shorn that have come up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and there is no barren one among them; your lips are as a scarlet cord, and your speech is comely; your cheek is as the rind of a pomegranate, apart from your silence.

Since all these things have been sufficiently examined in what has gone before, it would be superfluous to bring a throng into the discourse through repetition of the same reflections.

But if anyone should now also seek that a discourse concerning the same matters be made, for the sake of those who have not heard the things previously contemplated upon these sayings, we will run over the meaning of the riddles in a few words:

The hairs of the body have a nature peculiar in comparison with the rest of the body;

for while the whole body is governed by the power of sense-perception, without which its nature cannot be in the state of living (for sense-perception is the life of the body), the hairs alone we see both to be a part of the body and yet to have no share in sensation.

Since, then, according to the word of Paul, the hair which beautifies the head by means of its tresses is the glory of the woman, by this, through the praise of the bride's hair, we are taught that those who are contemplated about the head of the bride—through whom the Church is glorified—must be superior to the senses, hiding sensation through wisdom, even as the Proverb says that The wise will hide sensation;