Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 4/20

And when we say by way of diminutive 'hormiskos' (little chain) instead of 'hormos,' we indicate by such a word the small-scale resemblance of the shape.

Many things, then, contributing to the bride's commendation are indicated by the likeness of the neck to the little chains;

(leaping and overpassing), and then also the very original name of the harbors, whence, on account of the resemblance of shape, the ornament worn about the neck has been named 'hormiskos,' contains an excess of certain great commendations, when the neck is likened to the little chains.

And what are the commendations here disclosed to us by the Word through these things? Sweet and saving to those sailing in is the harbor, and after the hardship at sea to reach some calm haven, in which, having brought forgetfulness of the evils at sea, they become wholly given to rest, solacing their long toils through quietness.

No longer is there for them any fear of shipwreck, nor suspicion of hidden reefs, nor peril of pirates, nor disturbance of winds, nor does the sea swell up from the depths through the winds; but those who had been storm-tossed become free of all such perils, enjoying calm in the harbor.

If, then, one should so order one's own soul that it enjoys calm in an untroubled stillness, in no way disturbed by the winds of wickedness, neither swelling with pride, nor foaming up with the waves of anger, nor tossed by any other passion and carried about by every wind that stirs up the manifold billows of the affections; if, then, the soul is itself in such a state and also, within itself, quiets those who are storm-tossed on the open sea of life amid the many-sided breakers of evils, spreading out beneath them a smooth and waveless life through virtue, so that those who have taken refuge in it come to be beyond the harm of shipwreck—then it is fittingly likened by the text to little chains, since the plural signification indicates the perfection found in each several form of virtue.

For if she had been likened to but a single little chain, the praise would surely have been incomplete, as though she did not bear the same testimony in the remaining virtues as well.

But as it is, the likeness to a multitude of little chains gathers up in a single word the testimony of all the virtues.

And this is a certain counsel offered by the Word to the whole body of the Church: that we ought not, while looking to some single one of the good things, to be careless regarding the rest of our right achievements; but if temperance has become for you a necklace, adorning your neck with a pure life as with certain pearls, let there be for you also another necklace—zeal—which encloses within itself the precious stones of the commandments and of itself increases the beauty of the neck; let there be for you yet another neck-ornament, the godly and sound faith that encircles the neck of the soul all around.

This is the golden collar that shines about the neck, wrought from the pure gold of the knowledge of God, concerning which the Proverb says: 'You shall receive a crown of graces upon your head, and a golden collar about your neck.'

Such, then, is the counsel conveyed through the little chains; but it would be time also to add to our contemplation the passage that follows, which the friends of the Bridegroom have addressed to the maiden.

'We will make for you likenesses of gold with markings of silver, until the King is at his reclining.'

Of these words, to one who looks to the connection of the contemplation already set forth by us, the sense seems in some way to be knit together and to have coherence; but the wording, plunging deep into figurative significations, makes what is signified through the riddles hard to comprehend.

For since the beauty of the soul was likened to the mare that overthrew the chariots of the Egyptians (that is, to the angelic host), and since the noble Rider says of that mare that its bridle is purity—which he indicated by likening its cheeks to those of the turtledove—and that its neck-ornament is the varied necklaces that gleam through the virtues, the friends too wish to make some addition to the beauty of the mare, adorning its trappings out of likenesses of gold, upon which they stipple also the purity of silver, so that the beauty of the ornament may shine forth the more, the radiance of the silver being blended with the brilliance of the gold.

The soul purified through the virtues was likened to that mare;

but it had not yet become subject to the Word, nor had it borne upon itself the One who rides such horses for salvation;

for the horse must first be fully adorned in every respect, and then in this way receive the King as its rider.

And whether the One who, according to the prophet, mounts upon us as horses and rides upon us for our salvation, should from above fit the horse to himself, or whether he should come to be within us as one who indwells and walks about within and penetrates into the depths of our soul, makes no difference as regards the meaning;

for in whomever one of the two comes to be, the remaining one has likewise been accomplished together with it;

for he who has God upon himself has him also entirely within himself, and he who has received him within has come beneath the One who has come to be within him.

Therefore the King is about to take his rest upon this horse.

But it is the same thing, in the case of the divine power, as has been said—both a sitting and a reclining;

for whichever of the two comes to be within us, grace holds it as equal.

Since, then, the King's preparers make the horse well-fitted for receiving him through the fore-adornments, and since in the case of God to be within someone and to be upon someone are the same, the outfitters and attendants—leaving aside what would follow according to the figurative signification—made the horse into a couch;

for we must, he says, make likenesses of gold with markings of silver, beautifying the form of the horse, so that the King may come to be not upon a seat, he says, but at his reclining.

The sequence of the wording, then, as the discourse has shown, is of this sort; but it is worth not passing this by uncontemplated: why ever is it not gold itself that is taken up for adornment, but likenesses of gold, and not silver itself, but the markings wrought out of this material and stippled upon the likeness of gold?

What, then, we have surmised concerning these things is of this kind:

all teaching concerning the ineffable Nature, even if it seems in the highest degree to display some lofty conception befitting God, is likenesses of gold, not gold itself;

for it is not possible to set forth with exactness the Good that surpasses conception.

Even if one be a Paul, who was initiated in Paradise into things unspeakable, even if he give ear to the unutterable words, the conceptions concerning God remain inexpressible;

for he says that the words of these conceptions are unutterable.

Those, then, who instill in us certain good reasonings concerning the understanding of the mysteries are unable to say what it is according to its nature, but they speak of a radiance of glory, an impress of substance, a form of God, a Word in the beginning, a Word who is God;

all of which, to us who have not beheld that treasure, seem to be gold, but to those able to look up toward the truth, are likenesses of gold and not gold, showing through in the fine markings of silver.

And the silver is the signification through words, as the Scripture says: 'The tongue of the righteous is silver refined by fire.'

What is signified through these things, then, is of this kind: that the divine Nature transcends all comprehending thought;

and the conception concerning it that arises in us is a likeness of the Sought One;

for it does not show that Form of his, which neither anyone has seen nor is able to see, but through a mirror and through a riddle it sketches some faint image of the Sought One, arising in the souls from a certain conjecture.

And every word that is significative of such conceptions has the force of some indivisible point, being unable to display what the mind intends;

so that every thought is inferior to the divine understanding, and every interpretive word seems but a brief point, unable to be stretched out together with the breadth of the thought.

The soul, then, that is led by the hand through such conceptions toward the intuition of things incomprehensible—the text says that it must, through faith alone, settle within itself the Nature that surpasses all mind.

(they being unable to display with exactness the conception that lies within them); but you, having received these things, will become both a beast of burden and a dwelling, through faith, for the One who is about to recline within you by means of his indwelling in you;

for of the same One you will be both throne and become house.

And perhaps someone might say that it was the soul of Paul, or if any other soul became like that one, that was counted worthy of such words;

for he, having once become a vessel of election, had the Lord both upon himself and within himself—upon himself, in that he became a horse by bearing his name before nations and kings; within himself, in that he no longer lived, but showed that One living within himself and gave proof of Christ speaking in him, becoming a house that comprehended the incomprehensible Nature.

When the friends of the Bridegroom had bestowed these things upon the pure and virgin soul (and these would be the ministering spirits sent forth for service on account of those who are to inherit salvation), the bride becomes in some way more perfect through the addition of the gifts.

And having drawn nearer to the One she longs for, before his beauty appears to her eyes, through the sense of smell she lays hold of the Sought One, perceiving as it were the distinctive quality of some fragrance by her olfactory power; and she says that she has recognized his scent by the sweet odor of the ointment whose name is nard, using this utterance to the friends: 'My nard gave forth his scent.'

For 'just as you,' she says, 'bestow not the pure gold of the Godhead itself, but likenesses of gold through the conceptions that can be contained by us, not uncovering the things concerning it with clear speech, but through the minuteness of the markings of the rational silver furnishing certain glimpses of the Sought One, so also I, through the sweet exhalation of my ointment, have received into my sense the fragrance of that very One.'

The saying seems to me to have some such meaning as this:

since, out of many and various aromatics, each breathing sweetly according to its own distinctive quality, a certain artful and measured mixture produces such an ointment—one of the sweet-smelling herbs among those blended in, whose name is nard, imparting its name to the whole compound—and since the purified sense receives that which is gathered together out of all the aromatic properties into one fragrance as though it were the very sweet odor of the Bridegroom, we suppose that the Word instructs us through what has been said, that that One, whatever he is according to essence—the One who transcends all the constitution and governance of beings—is inaccessible and intangible and incomprehensible; but the fragrance perfumed within us through the purity of the virtues becomes for us in his stead, imitating by its own purity that which is by nature undefiled, by its good the Good, by its incorrupt the Incorrupt, by its unchangeable the Unchangeable, and by all the things rightly accomplished in us according to virtue, the true Virtue, concerning which the prophet Habakkuk says that it covered all the heavens.

Therefore she who declares these things to the friends of the Bridegroom—that her nard gives to her his scent—seems to me to be saying, as one who philosophizes, these and such like things: that if anyone, having gathered every blossom of fragrance or aromatic from the varied meadows of virtue and having made his whole life a perfumed thing through the sweet odor of each of his pursuits, should through all these become perfect, he does not have the nature to look intently upon the very God-Word as upon the disk of the sun, but within himself, as in a mirror, he beholds the sun;

for the rays of that true and divine Virtue, shining upon the purified life through the passionlessness that flows forth from them, make the invisible visible to us and the inaccessible apprehensible, painting the sun upon our mirror.

And it is the same thing, as regards the underlying conception, whether one speaks of the rays of the sun, or of the effluences of virtue, or of the aromatic fragrances;

to reckon up the archetypal beauty.

Thus also Paul, the bride, who through the virtues imitates the Bridegroom and paints within himself, through fragrance, the inaccessible beauty out of the fruits of the Spirit—love and joy and peace and such forms—perfuming this nard, said that he himself was the fragrance of Christ, smelling within himself that inaccessible and transcendent grace and offering himself to others as a kind of incense to be freely partaken of, to whom, according to the disposition present in each, the sweet exhalation became either life-giving or death-bearing;

on which account the one who breathed forth such ointments said: 'We are the fragrance of Christ among those being saved and among those perishing—to the one a scent of death unto death, to the other a scent of life unto life.'

And if the gospel nard has any kinship with the ointment of the bride, it is possible for whoever wishes to reckon, through the things that are written, what that nard was—the faithful nard, the very precious one, which was poured out upon the head of the Lord and filled the whole house with fragrance;

for perhaps the ointment is not alien to the ointment—that which gives to the bride the scent of the Bridegroom, and that which, poured out upon him in the gospel, fills the house in which the banquet was with the fragrance of the Lord.

For it seems to me that there too, by a certain prophetic spirit, the woman foretold through the ointment the mystery of the death, as the Lord bears witness concerning the things done by her, saying: 'She has anticipated the anointing of me for burial.'

And he suggests that we should understand the house filled with fragrance as standing for the whole world and the entire inhabited earth, saying: 'Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, the scent of the ointment will be diffused together with the preaching of the gospel, and what she has done,' he says, 'will be a memorial, this gospel.'

Therefore, since in the Song of Songs the nard gives the scent of the Bridegroom to the bride, and in the gospel the fragrance that then filled the house becomes an anointing of the whole body of the Church throughout all the inhabited earth and in the whole world, perhaps there is found through these things some communion between the two, so that the two seem to be one.

And let these things suffice to this extent.

But the utterance that follows seems, in a way suited to the premise of the wedding-drama, to be spoken as by one made ready in the bridal chamber; yet it displays a greater and more perfect philosophy, which it belongs only to those already made perfect to accomplish.

What, then, is that which is said? 'A bundle of stacte is my kinsman to me;

he shall lodge between my breasts.'

They say it is a care among women fond of adornment not to devise for themselves what is lovely to their companions by outward ornaments alone, but also to contrive, through some fragrance, that their bodies appear more agreeable to their own husbands, hiding within the wrapping of their clothing the aromatic suited to serve such a use;

and as this gives off its proper vapor, the body too is imbued together with the fragrance of the aromatic.

This being the custom among them, see what this high-minded maiden dares:

'For me,' she says, 'the bundle which I suspend from my neck upon my breast, through which I impart sweet odor to my body, is not any other of the sweet-smelling aromatics, but the Lord himself, having become stacte, lies within the bundle of my conscience, lodging in my very heart.'

For the local position of the heart is said, by those who have investigated such matters, to be in the midst of the breasts.

And there, says the bride, she has the bundle—in that place where the good is treasured up.

They say the heart is a certain fountain of the heat within us, from which, through the arteries, the warmth is distributed to the whole body, by which the members of the body become warm and living, being cherished by the fire of the heart; she, then, having received into her ruling faculty the fragrance of the Lord and having made her own heart the binding-place of such incense, prepares all the several pursuits of her life, as it were the members of a body, to seethe with the spirit that permeates from the heart, no iniquity in any member of the body cooling down her love toward God.

But let us pass on to the discourse that follows.

Let us hear what the flourishing vine says concerning its own fruits—the vine that, as the prophet says, is spread out in all the courts of the house of God and, through the tendrils of love, is wound about the divine and undefiled life.

'A cluster of henna is my kinsman to me,' she says, 'in the vineyard of Engedi.'

Who is so blessed—or rather, who is so far above all blessedness—that, beholding his own fruit, he sees in that very cluster of his own soul the Master of the vineyard? For behold, how greatly she was increased, having recognized in her own nard the sweet fragrance of the Bridegroom!

She who made him into a fragrant myrrh and gathered up the perfume within the enclosure of her heart, so that the good might remain with her forever unbreathed away, becomes the mother of the divine cluster of grapes, which before the Passion is in blossom (that is, in flower), but in the Passion pours forth the wine.

For the wine that gladdens our heart is the blood of the grape; after the dispensation of the Passion it both comes into being and receives its name.

Since, then, the enjoyment derived from the cluster is twofold—the one from the blossom, when it gladdens the senses with its fragrance, the other through the fruit already brought to perfection, when it is possible either to delight fully in the eating of it or, at banquets, to be made merry with the wine—here the Bride still bears the blossoming cluster as fruit, naming the henna-flower the vine-blossom.

For the child born in us, Jesus—who in those who receive him advances variously in wisdom and in stature and in grace—is not the same in all, but according to the measure of him in whom he comes to be: just as he who contains him has capacity, so does he appear, whether as an infant, or as advancing, or as being perfected, according to the nature of the grape-cluster, which is not always seen upon the vine in the same form, but changes its appearance with time—blossoming, flowering as the henna, being perfected, ripening, becoming wine.

The vine, therefore, makes promise by its own fruit, which is not yet ripe for wine but awaits the fullness of the seasons—yet not so as to be without enjoyment for delight.

For it gladdens the sense of smell instead of the taste, sweetening the soul's senses with the vapors of hope through the expectation of good things.

For the sure and unwavering enjoyment of the hoped-for grace comes to those who through patient endurance await what is expected.

This, then, is the cluster of henna—a cluster that promises wine but is not yet become wine, yet through the blossom (and hope is the blossom) gives assurance of the grace that is to be.

And the addition of 'in Engedi' signifies the rich land in which the vine, once rooted, produces well-nourished and sweet fruit.

For thus those who have written topographically say that the allotment of Gad is well suited for the good nourishing of grape-clusters.

Since, then, he who has his will in accord with the law of the Lord and who makes this his meditation through all the night and day becomes an evergreen tree, made rich by the streams of waters and yielding its fruit in due season—for this reason the Bridegroom's vine also, rooted in Gad, that rich place (that is, in a deep understanding watered by the divine teachings), and growing, brought forth this well-blossoming cluster of henna, in which she beholds her own vinedresser and cultivator.

How blessed is such a husbandry, whose fruit is made like to the form of the Bridegroom!

'Life and true righteousness,' as Wisdom says, and all such things—when by his works a man becomes those very things which He is, then, beholding the cluster of his own conscience, he beholds in it the Bridegroom himself, mirroring the light of truth in a luminous and spotless life.

For this reason the flourishing vine says: 'My cluster, that blossoms as henna through the flower, is that very One who is the true cluster—He who showed himself upon the wooden supports, whose blood becomes a saving and refreshing drink for those who are being saved and gladdened, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.'

Homily Four. Behold, you are fair, my near one, behold, you are fair;

Behold, you are fair, my kinsman, yea, comely.

I am the flower of the plain, the lily of the valleys.

As a lily among thorns, so is my sister among the daughters.

As an apple among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons;

under his shadow I longed and sat down, and his fruit was sweet in my throat.

Bring me into the house of wine, set love in order over me.

Strengthen me with perfumes, heap me about with apples, for I am wounded with love.

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.

I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and forces of the field, if you should stir up and awaken love, until it should please.

It is said that those who skillfully refine gold, if the beauty of its brightness has been dimmed by some baser material maliciously mixed in, remedy the discoloration by smelting it in the fire; and they do this many times, and at each smelting they examine how much more comely the gold has become in the successive stages than before, and they do not cease purging the material with fire until the very appearance of the gold bears witness of itself to its purity and unalloyed nature.

But for what reason, in taking up the present contemplation of what has been read, we have made mention of these things, will already become plain to you from the very sense of what is written.

In the beginning human nature was golden ore, shining with its likeness to the incorruptible Good; but afterward it became discolored and black through the admixture of evil, as we heard in the first parts of the Bride's Song, that the neglect of the guarding of the vineyard had made her black.

In healing her deformity, God, who fashions all things in wisdom, does not contrive upon her some new beauty that did not exist before, but leads her back to the first grace, by dissolution re-smelting toward incorruption that which had been blackened by evil.

Just as, then, the exact judges of gold, after the first smelting, examine how much the material has increased in beauty, having consumed its filth in the fire; and again, when a second smelting has taken place, if it was not sufficiently purified by the first, they reckon up the added beauty; and often doing the like, they ever recognize the additions of beauty through scientific testing—so also now the Healer of the blackened gold, having brightened the soul as in a crucible through the remedies applied to her, in the earlier stages testified to what appeared as the comeliness of a certain mare, but now at length receives, as of a virgin, the beauty that has been made manifest in her.

For he says: Behold, you are fair, my near one, behold, you are fair;

And through these words the Word teaches that this recovery of beauty comes by drawing near again to the true Beauty from which she had departed.

For he says: Behold, you are fair, my near one;

you had been altered toward what was ill-favored.

And what is meant is this:

Human nature has become receptive of what accords with its purpose, and toward whatever the inclination of its free choice leads it, in that direction it is also altered.

For if it admits the passion of anger, it becomes wrathful; and if desire prevails, it dissolves into pleasure; and when the inclination goes toward cowardice and fear and each of the several passions, it puts on the forms of each of the passions—just as, on the contrary, longsuffering, purity, peaceableness, freedom from anger, freedom from grief, good courage, fearlessness—receiving all these in herself, she stamps upon the condition of her soul the character of each of them, being serene in tranquility.

It follows, then, that since virtue stands immediately opposed to vice, the two cannot at the same time coexist in the one subject.

For he who has departed from self-control comes altogether to be in an unbridled life; and he who has abhorred the impure life has achieved undefiledness in his turning away from evil.

He who is humble-minded is separated from pride; and he who has puffed himself up through arrogance has thrust away humility.

And what need is there to spend time in speaking of each case, how, in things by nature opposed, the absence of the one becomes the establishment and existence of the other? Our free choice, then, being such that it has the power to be conformed to whatever it wills, the Word rightly says to her who has been made beautiful: 'In departing from fellowship with evil you have drawn near to me, and in coming close to the archetypal Beauty you too have become beautiful, having been formed as a kind of mirror to my character;'

For that which is human truly resembles a mirror, being transformed according to the images of its choices;

for if it looks toward gold, it appears as gold and shows the gleams of that material through the reflection; and if any of the ill-favored things appears, it takes upon itself the ugliness of that too by likeness, mimicking with its own form some frog or toad or centipede or any other of the loathsome sights, whichever of these it be found set over against.

Since, then, the soul that has been purified by the Word, having put vice behind her back, received into herself the sun's circle and shone forth together with the light that appeared in her, for this reason the Word says to her that you have now become fair, having drawn near to my light and by your approach drawn to yourself the fellowship of the Beauty.

Behold, you are fair, he says, my near one.

Then, pausing, and beholding her as it were become, by a kind of addition and heightening, more beautiful, he again takes up the same saying, declaring: Behold, you are fair.

But in the former instance he named her 'the near one,' whereas here he names her the one known by the form of her eyes;

For your eyes, he says, are doves;

for before, when she was likened to a mare, the praise was upon her cheek and neck, but now, when her own beauty has appeared, the grace of her eyes is extolled.

And the praise of the eyes is that the eyes are doves;

which seems to me to convey some such meaning as this:

since in the pure pupils of the eyes the faces of those who gaze intently are reflected (for those skilled in explaining such matters by nature say that the eye, receiving the impacts of the images which flow off from visible things, thus effects sight), for this reason the praise of the comeliness of the eyes is the form of the dove reflected in their pupils.

For whatever anyone gazes upon intently, of that he receives in himself the likeness.