Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 5/20

Since, then, he who no longer looks toward flesh and blood looks toward the spiritual life, as the Apostle says—living by the Spirit and walking by the Spirit and putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, and becoming wholly through and through spiritual, neither soulish nor fleshly—for this reason it is testified of the soul freed from bodily attachment that it has the form of the dove in its eyes, that is, that the character of the spiritual life is illumined in the soul's power of discernment.

For now for the first time the virgin gazes intently upon the form of the Bridegroom, when she had the dove in her eyes (for no one can say 'the Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit), and she says: Behold, you are fair, my kinsman, yea, comely;

for since nothing else seems to me to be fair, but I have turned away from all things that were formerly reckoned among the fair, the judgment of the fair no longer errs in me, so as to think anything fair besides you;

not any human praise, nor glory, nor conspicuousness, nor worldly dominion;

for these things, to those who look toward the senses, are indeed tinged with the fancy of the fair, yet are not what they are supposed to be.

For how could anything be fair which has no existence at all in subsistence? For that which is honored in this world has its being only in the opinion of those who suppose it to be.

But you truly are fair—not fair only, but the very essence of the fair, being ever such, always being what you are, neither blossoming at a season nor again in season casting off the blossom, but extending your bloom together with the eternity of your life;

whose name has come to be Love-of-mankind.

For since you have arisen for us out of Judah, and the people of the Jews is a brother to him who comes to you from among the nations, you have fittingly been named kinsman of her who longs for you, on account of the manifestation of your Godhead that came to be in the flesh.

Then she added: By our bed you are overshadowed;

that is, human nature has known, or shall know, you as having become overshadowed by the dispensation;

for you came, she says, you the fair kinsman, the comely one, becoming overshadowed by our bed.

For if you had not yourself overshadowed yourself, veiling the unmixed ray of your Godhead with the form of the servant, who could have endured your manifestation? For no one shall see the face of the Lord and live.

You came, then, the comely one, but becoming such as we had capacity to receive;

you came, overshadowing the rays of your Godhead with the wrapping of the body.

For how could a mortal and perishable nature have had capacity to be joined together in union with the incorruptible and unapproachable, unless the shadow of the body had mediated between the light and us who live in darkness? And the Bride names as 'bed,' by a figurative signification, the commingling of human nature with the divine, even as the great Apostle also joins the virgin—us—to Christ and adorns the soul as a bride and calls the cleaving of the two into the fellowship of one body the great mystery of the union of Christ with the Church;

for having said that 'the two shall be one flesh,' he added that 'This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and concerning the Church.'

For this reason, therefore, the virgin soul named as 'bed' the fellowship with the divine.

But this could in no other way come to pass, save that the Lord should be made manifest to us, overshadowed through the body — He who is not the Bridegroom only but the Builder as well, Himself both fashioning the house within us as a craftsman and becoming the very material of the craft.

For He sets a roof upon the house, adorning the work with imperishable material.

Such are the cedar and the cypress, whose inherent firmness within the wood is superior to every cause of decay: not yielding to time, not breeding worms, not being ruined by rot.

Of these, the cedars, because they are of great length, span the breadths of the house with the roof, while the cypresses, through what is called panelling, beautify the interior construction.

But surely the riddles signified through the woods are plain to those who follow the sequence of the thought.

By 'rain' the Lord in the Gospel names the manifold assaults of temptations, saying concerning him who built his house well upon the rock, that 'The rain came down, and the winds blew, and the rivers came, and amid these the building remained unharmed.'

For the sake, then, of this evil downpour we have need of such beams.

And these would be the virtues, which do not admit within themselves the inflows of temptations, being firm and unyielding, and preserving amid trials that toughness against vice which cannot be softened.

having compared with the passage before us a saying from Ecclesiastes;

for there it says, 'Through sloth the roof-beam shall be brought low, and through idleness of hands the house shall drip.'

For just as, if the timbers that span the roof were weak and feeble by reason of their slenderness, and the master of the house were slothful toward the care of the dwelling, he would gain no benefit from the roof when the rain flowed in drop by drop (for of necessity the roof grows hollow, yielding to the weight of the water, and the feebleness of the timbers does not hold out against the assault of the weight, but sags beneath it),

on account of this the water pent up in the hollow is transmitted to the interior, and these drops, according to the word of Proverbs, 'cast the man out of the house in the day of rain' — so by the riddle of the parable it is enjoined upon us, through the vigor of the virtues, to be unyielding against the inflows of temptations, lest ever, being softened by the incursion of the passions, we become hollow and receive within our storerooms the inflow of such waters streaming from outside upon the heart, through which what we have stored up is corrupted for us.

But these cedars of Lebanon, which the Lord planted, in which the sparrows nest, and over which the heron's dwelling holds sway — these cedars, then, which are the virtues, make secure the house of the bridal chamber, in which the souls nest, becoming sparrows and flying over the snares, and over which the heron's dwelling holds sway, which the Word calls a house.

They say that this bird is averse to matings, and that only by some necessity of nature does it couple with its mate, screeching and being distressed and signifying its distaste.

Whence it seems to me that the Word signifies purity in a riddle through this name.

These beams, therefore, upon the roof of the pure bridal chamber does the bride behold; and she sees also the ornament fashioned from the cypress, which through a certain well-polished and harmonious composition makes resplendent the beauty that is beheld.

For she said that the panelling of the roof was of cypress.

And 'panelling' is the name for a certain rhythmic and carved fitting-together of boards, which diversifies the beauty of the ceiling.

What, then, do we learn through these things? The cypress by nature gives off a good fragrance;

and this same wood is impervious to decay, and is well-suited to every craft of carpentry, becoming smooth and harmonious and apt for the adornments wrought by the graver's tools.

This, then, I think, is what we are taught through these words: that we should not only perfect the virtues in the soul as a settled habit in what is unseen, but neither be careless of the seemly appearance in what is visible;

for we ought to provide for things honorable before God and men, and to be made manifest to God, while persuading men and having a good testimony from those outside, and to shine with luminous works before men, and to walk becomingly toward those outside.

These are the panels, wrought through the sweet savor of Christ — of which the cypress is a riddle — fashioned with craft in the seemliness of life, even as the wise master-builder Paul knew how to compose such things well and harmoniously, he who says, 'Let all things be done among you in order and becomingly.'

And when these things have been thus rightly accomplished, there comes an increase of the beauty within us, as our broadened nature puts forth its fragrant and pure blossom.

And the name of the blossom is the lily, in which the brightness beheld by nature hints at the sparkle of chastity.

For these things the bride recounts concerning herself, saying:

'I, after the Bridegroom overshadowed by the body had come to our couch — He who built the house for Himself, namely me, roofing the covering with the cedars of the virtues and adorning the roof with the good fragrance of the cypresses — became out of the plain of nature a blossom, surpassing the rest of the flowers in fair color and in fragrance;'

'for I sprang up as a lily from the valleys.'

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

(and that it is receptive of thoughts and deeds and lessons beyond number) — this soul, then, tilled in the manner described by Him who cultivates our nature, springs up as a fragrant and bright and pure blossom out of the plain of our nature.

And this plain, even if in comparison with the heavenly manner of life it be called a valley, is nonetheless a plain; nor is what has been well cultivated in it hindered from becoming a blossom;

for from the hollow to the height the sprout rises up, as one may see happening in the case of the lily;

for having run up upward from the root, reed-like, to a great height, the plant of the lily then puts forth its blossom from the summit, having set it at no small interval away from the earth, so that, I think, the beauty may remain pure aloft, undefiled by any mingling with the earth.

For these reasons the righteous eye of the Bridegroom, having beheld her who had become this, or who had longed to become it (for from what has been said we surmised both alternatives — either that she boasts as having already become what she longed for, or that she needs the husbandman in order to become a blossom, having run up through His wisdom from the valleys of human life to the beauty of the lily) — whether, then, she wishes to become this, or has already become what she willed, the righteous eye of the Bridegroom, looking well upon the good desire of her who gazes toward Him, consented that she should become a lily not choked among the thorns of life, which He named 'daughters,' indicating, I think, in what is left unspoken, the hostile powers of human life, whose father is named the inventor of vice.

'As a lily, then,' He says, 'in the midst of the thorns, so is my sister among the daughters.'

how great an advance in the ascent to the height we behold taking place in the soul!

The first ascent was to be likened to the horse that overthrows the power of the Egyptian; the second ascent was to become near and to make her eyes doves; the third ascent now is to be called no longer 'near,' but 'sister' of the Master;

for 'Whosoever shall do,' He says, 'the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.'

Since, then, she has become a blossom, in no way harmed by the thorn-bearing temptations from becoming a lily, but having forgotten her people and her father's house and looked toward the true Father (wherefore also she is named 'sister' of the Son, being adopted into this kinship by the Spirit of adoption and delivered from fellowship with the daughters of the falsely-named father) — again she becomes higher than herself and beholds a certain mystery through the eyes of the dove (I mean, through the Spirit of prophecy).

And what she beholds is this:

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

What, then, is it that she has beheld? Divine Scripture is accustomed to name 'wood' the material life of men, which has run wild with the manifold kinds of the passions, in which the destructive beasts lurk and hide themselves, whose nature, remaining inactive in light and sun, has its strength through darkness;

for after the sun has set, the prophet says, when night has come on, the beasts of the wood emerge from their dens.

Since, then, the wild boar that is nourished in the woodland ravaged the fair vine of human nature, even as the prophet says that 'a boar out of the wood laid it waste, and a solitary wild beast devoured it,' for this reason the apple tree is planted in the woodland, which, by being wood, is of one substance with the material of human nature (for He was tempted in all points according to likeness, without sin), but by bearing such fruit, through which the senses of the soul are sweetened, has a greater difference from the wood than the lily has from the thorns;

Well, then, did the bride behold her own difference from the Master: that He becomes for us even a grace to the eyes, becoming light, and myrrh in the smelling, and life to those who eat (for he who has eaten Him shall live, as the Gospel somewhere says), while human nature, perfected through virtue, becomes only a blossom, not nourishing the husbandman but adorning itself;

for He is not in need of our good things, but we have need of His, even as the prophet says, 'For Thou hast no need of my good things.'

Just as, then, we understood the 'daughters,' by reason of their being likened to the thorns, to be the children of the falsely-named father — who, growing up together with the blossom in time, they themselves also pass over into the grace of the lily — so also here, hearing of those likened to the trees of the wood, we surmised that not the friends of the Bridegroom are signified, but the adversaries, whom, being sons of darkness and children of wrath, He transforms, by fellowship in the fruit, into sons of light and sons of peace.

For this reason she who has her senses exercised says, 'His fruit is sweet in my throat.'

And the fruit is surely the teaching;

for 'How sweet,' the prophet says, 'are Thy words to my throat, beyond honey to my mouth.'

'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.'

For then in truth are the senses of the soul sweetened by the Word, when the shadow of the apple tree walls us off from the burning heat that comes from temptations, so that we are not scorched by such a sun blazing over our bare head.

And it is not otherwise possible to be refreshed under the shadow of the tree of life, unless desire leads the soul up toward this.

Do you see for what purpose the faculty of desire is set within you? That it may implant in you a longing for the apple, the enjoyment of which becomes manifold for those who draw near to it;

for the eye rests upon the loveliness of its beauty, and the nostril breathes in the fragrance, and the body is nourished, and the mouth is sweetened, and the scorching heat is turned away, and the shadow becomes a throne, on which is seated the soul that has renounced the seat of the pestilent.

Then she says, 'Bring me into the house of wine, set love in order upon me, sustain me with perfumes, heap me about with apples, for I am wounded with love.'

O how the soul, rightly likened to the horse, runs the divine course, as with frequent and strenuous leaps she stretches forward toward the things that are before, and does not turn back toward the things behind!

How great the things she attained in the things that had gone before!

And so great is the intensity of her thirst, that she is not content with the mixing-bowl of wisdom;

nor does she think it sufficient for the healing of her thirst that the whole bowl be poured into her mouth, but she seeks to be brought into the very house of the wine, and to hold out her mouth to the very winepresses which overflow with the sweet wine, and to see the cluster pressed in the winepresses, and that vine which rears up such a cluster, and the husbandman of the true vine who works the cluster so well-nourished and sweet;

of which it would be superfluous to examine each one in detail, since the figurative meaning contemplated in each of these is manifest.

Then, having come within, she again leaps up toward something greater;

for she seeks to be made subject to love.

'Since, then, I have come,' she says, 'into the house of wine, subject me to love,' or 'set love in order upon me.'

you will use the inversion of the phrase — the thing signified is the same through either, both from being set under love, and from love being set in order upon her.

Perhaps, indeed, through this utterance we are taught some doctrine of a more elegant sort — namely, what manner of love it is fitting to dedicate to God, and how to bear ourselves toward men;

for if all things ought to be done in order and becomingly, much more in such matters is order fitting.

For neither would Cain have been condemned for dividing badly, if, along with offering rightly, he had also kept what was fitting in the ordering of the things left for his own need and the things consecrated to God;

for whereas he ought to have offered as firstfruits of the sacrifice to God from the first-produced, he himself, having glutted himself on the more valuable things, greeted God with the leavings.

One must therefore know the ordering of love which the Law prescribes: how God ought to be loved, and how the neighbor, the wife, and the enemy, lest the fulfillment of love become disordered and confused.

For one must love God with all one's heart and soul and strength and perception, and the neighbor as oneself; and one's wife—if a man be of a purer soul, as Christ loved the Church; but if he be more given to passion, as his own body (for thus commands Paul, who ordains such things); and the enemy, in not returning evil for evil, but requiting injustice with kindness.

But now one may see love among most people confused and disordered, wrongly exercised through an incongruous discord: they love money and honors and women—if they happen to be more ardently disposed toward them—with all their soul and strength, so that they would even be willing to lay down their life for their sake, yet they love God only so far as to seem to do so.

And to the neighbor they would scarcely show even that love which is set apart for enemies.

But their disposition toward the one who hates them is to requite those who have first grieved them with a greater evil.

'Order love, then,' she says, 'upon me, so that to God may be rendered what is due, and toward each of the rest the fitting measure may not be missed.'

Or perhaps it is also possible to surmise this through the text: that since at the first, being loved, I was through disobedience reckoned among the enemies, but now again I have returned to the same grace, being joined to the Master through love—confirm for me the fixed and unshakable state of this grace, O you friends of the Bridegroom, preserving for me by care and attention my firm inclination toward the better. And having said these things, she again advances to a higher measure.

For she seeks to be established in the steadfastness of good things by means of the perfumes.

'Establish me,' she says, 'in perfumes.'

O paradoxical pillars and novel supports!

How do perfumes become pillars of the house? How is the firmness of the roof's construction propped up by fragrance? Is it not altogether plain that the substance of the virtues, being achieved in us in manifold ways, is also named according to the differences of its operations? For virtue is not only to behold the good and to come to be in participation of the better, but also to be preserved unfailing in the good.

He, therefore, who wishes to be established in the perfumes seeks that steadfastness in the virtues may accrue to him.

For the perfume is virtue, because it is set apart from every foul stench of sins.

And one might also marvel at what follows upon these words: with what things she desires her own house to be strewn.

Not with brambles and thorns and rubbish and stubble (or rather, as the Apostle says, not with wood and stubble and hay), of which material houses are constructed, but apples become the strewing of this house's roof.

For she says, 'Strew me with apples,' so that in her this fruit may become all in all.

The beauty, the perfume, the sweetness, the nourishment, the refreshment through shade, the resting throne, the confirming pillar, the sheltering roof—

—it becomes all these to the one dwelling within: as a pillar it provides unfaltering steadfastness, and as a bright apple it adorns the roof.

For what more lovely sight could one conceive than the arrangement of apples, when the well-disposed fruit, joined continuously to itself upon some level surface, is variegated in its ripening as the redness of the fruit is blended with the whitish hue?

If, then, it were possible to behold the arrangement of the apples from a level surface as though suspended aloft, what could be more exquisite than such a sight? And in the desire for intelligible goods this is not impossible.

For the form of that fruit is not heavy, nor sinking to the earth and dragged downward, but by nature it has its inclination toward the height.

For virtue grows upward and looks toward what is above.

Wherefore the bride desires the roof of her own house to be adorned with the beauty of such apples.

For it does not seem to me that this is the primary concern of the text: that some bright spectacle should be seen upon the roof by means of the composition of apples.

For what guidance toward virtue could come through these things, unless some thought of what benefits us were contemplated in the words spoken? What, then, is it that we conjecture? He who in the thicket of our nature sprang up out of love for mankind, by partaking of flesh and blood, became an apple.

For with respect to each of these two one may see in this fruit, through its color, the likeness.

For by the whitish tint it imitates the property of the flesh, while the reddish hue overlaid upon it is attested by its form to be akin to the nature of blood.

When, therefore, the soul that delights in divine things desires to behold these upon the roof, we are instructed by the riddle in this.

For by looking upward and attending to the apples we may, through the gospel teachings, be guided toward the heavenly citizenship.

These things He who comes from above and is above all showed us through His manifestation in the flesh, displaying in Himself the patterns of all good ways of life, even as He says, 'Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.'

This very same thing the Apostle also says, when he instructs us in humility (for it is possible through a single contemplation to confirm the whole truth of the discourse):

For to those who look on things above he says, 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant'—He who sojourned in this life through flesh and blood, and, in place of the joy set before Him, willingly came to be in participation of our lowliness and descended even to the experience of death.

For these reasons the bride says, 'Strew me with apples,' that, ever looking on high, I may steadfastly behold the patterns of good things displayed in the Bridegroom.

There is meekness, there is freedom from wrath, there the not remembering of wrongs toward enemies and lovingkindness toward those who grieve us, and the requiting of evil with kindness; there is self-control, purity, longsuffering, and freedom from all vainglory and worldly deceit.

Having said these things, she praises the archer for his good aim, as having rightly directed the arrow upon her.

For she says, 'I am wounded with love.'

And by her words she shows the arrow lying deep within her heart.

And the archer of the arrow is Love.

And that Love is God we have learned from Holy Scripture—He who sends forth His chosen arrow, the Only-begotten God, upon those who are being saved, having tinged the threefold edge of the point with the Spirit of life (and the point is faith), so that in whomever it comes to be, it may bring in together with the arrow the archer also, even as the Lord says, 'I and the Father will come and make Our abode with him.'

The soul, therefore, that has been raised on high through the divine ascents beholds within herself the sweet arrow of love with which she was wounded, and makes such a wound her boast, saying, 'I am wounded with love.'

O fair wound and sweet stroke, through which life makes its way into the inward parts, having opened to itself, as a kind of door and entrance, the incision made by the arrow!

She received it, and straightway the archery was transformed into nuptial gladness.

For it is manifest how the hands ply the bow, being divided in their operations according to their function.

For the left hand grasps the bow, while the right draws the string toward itself, drawing along by the notches the arrow, which is directed toward the target by the thrust of the left hand.

She, therefore, who a little before had become the target of the arrow, now beholds herself in place of the arrow in the hands of the archer, the right hand taking hold of the arrow in one way and the left in another.

But since through the nuptial figure the significations of the contemplations are brought forward consistently, he did not make the point of the arrow held up by the left hand, nor the right hand taking hold of the other part—as would be the case if the soul were an arrow in the hand of the mighty one, directed toward the target above—but he made the left hand be placed beneath the head in place of the point, and the remaining part be held by the right hand; so that, I think, in the twofold riddles the discourse might philosophize on one and the same subject concerning the divine ascent, showing that the same One is both our Bridegroom and our Archer, using the purified soul as both bride and arrow: as an arrow directing her toward the good target, as a bride taking her up into participation of incorruptible eternity, bestowing by His right hand length of life and years of living, and by His left hand the wealth of eternal goods and the glory of God—of which those who seek the glory of this world become partakers not at all.

For this reason she says, 'His left hand is under my head'—by which the arrow is directed toward the target—'and His right hand, taking hold of me toward itself and drawing me, makes me light for the upward flight,' being sent thither yet not separated from the archer, so that at once she is both carried by the shot and rests in the hands of the archer.

The properties of these hands the book of Proverbs describes, saying, 'Length of life and years of living are in the right hand of Wisdom, and in her left hand are wealth and glory.'

Then she turns her discourse toward the daughters of the Jerusalem above.

And the discourse is an exhortation, brought forward under oath, that love should ever abound and increase, until He who wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth should render His own will effective.

And this is the discourse which she made: 'I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, if you should rouse and awaken love until it should will.'

An oath is a word that confirms the truth through itself.

And the operation according to the oath is twofold.

In one case, the trustworthiness of a promise is made secure by the oath.