Homilies on the Song of Songs 1 part 7/20

Since, then, human nature—like the fig tree here mentioned—has gathered much evil sap through the winter we have understood, he who works in us the springtime of the soul and tends the human plant with fitting husbandry first casts out of the nature all that is earthy and useless, discarding the superfluities in place of branches by means of confession, and then in this way, casting upon life some character of the hoped-for blessedness through a more refined manner of living, proclaims as good news, as it were in the early figs, the coming sweetness of the figs.

And this is what is meant by the saying, 'The fig tree has put forth its early figs.'

In the same way understand for me also the vine that is in blossom, whose wine, which gladdens the heart, will one day fill the mixing bowl of wisdom and be set before the fellow-drinkers to draw from freely out of the exalted proclamation, unto a good and sober inebriation.

I mean that inebriation through which men come, from things material, into ecstasy toward what is more divine.

being blended with the encompassing Spirit.

And you surely know the Spirit that works this fragrance in those who are being saved, having learned it from Paul.

These marks of the fair springtime of souls the Word shows forth beforehand to the bride, and urges her on to the enjoyment of the things set before her, rousing her by the word, saying: 'Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove.'

How many doctrines the Word points out to us in a few words in these sayings!

For it is not likely that the God-inspired teaching should linger over the same words out of some superfluous and idle verbosity, but rather that some great and God-befitting thought is being pointed out to us through the repetition.

And what is said is of this sort.

The blessed and eternal nature, which surpasses all understanding, encompassing all existing things in itself, is contained by no boundary.

For there is nothing contemplated concerning it—not time, not place, not color, not shape, not form, not bulk, not magnitude, not interval, nor any other circumscribing name or thing or thought; but all the good that is thought concerning it proceeds into what is infinite and undefined.

For where evil has no place, there is no limit to the good.

For in the case of mutable nature, since the power lies equally poised with free choice for the inclination toward either of the contraries, both the good in us and the evil come to an end by their successions of one another, and the evil that supervenes becomes the limit of the good; and all the pursuits of our souls, all that stand set over against one another as contraries, terminate in one another and are bounded by one another.

But the nature that is simple and pure and uniform and unchangeable and unalterable, being ever in the same state and never departing from itself, because it is incapable of any communion with evil, abides without limit in the good, seeing no boundary of itself, because it beholds none of the contraries about itself.

Whenever, then, it draws the human soul toward participation in itself, it always rises above the partaking soul by the same measure, in the degree of its superiority toward the better.

For the soul is ever becoming greater than itself through the participation of that which surpasses it, and, increasing, it does not stand still; but the good that is partaken of remains equal, being always found in equal superiority by the soul that ever partakes of more.

We see, then, the bride being led up by the Word, as though on an ascent of steps, to the heights through the upward paths of virtue; upon whom the Word first sends the ray through the prophetic windows and the netted commandments of the Law, and calls her to draw near to the light and to become fair, being formed unto the appearance of the dove in the light.

Then, when she has partaken of the good things as far as she was able, once more from the beginning, as though still without share in the good things, he draws her toward participation in the beauty that lies above; so that, in proportion to her advance, her desire too increases along with what is ever appearing before her, and because of the surpassing measure of the good things that are ever being found in that which lies above, she seems to be laying hold of the ascent for the first time.

For this reason he says again to her who has been raised, 'Arise,' and to her who has come, 'Come.'

For neither will the one who thus rises ever lack the power to rise perpetually, nor will the open expanse for running the divine course ever be exhausted for the one who runs toward the Lord.

For one must ever be rising up, and never, as one draws near through this running, come to a halt.

So that as often as He says 'Arise' and 'Come,' just so often does He grant the power for ascent toward what is higher.

In this way also understand what follows next, appended to the text:

For He who bids her become beautiful out of a beautiful one plainly sets forth the apostolic teaching, ordaining that the same image be transformed from glory to glory, so that what is received is always glory, and what is ever being found, however great and lofty it may be, is believed to be less than what is hoped for.

What then is the ascent toward perfection which is disclosed in what has now been said? It is no longer to look to the eagerness of those things that draw one on, but to have one's own desire as guide toward what is higher.

For virtue is without a master, voluntary, and free from every compulsion.

Such is each of the saints, presenting himself to God, not being led by necessity; and so you too, show the perfect condition by receiving in yourself the desire for the ascent toward what is higher.

And having become such, He says, 'you shall come to the shelter of the rock, close beside the outer wall.'

And what is meant is this (for one must translate the discourse from riddles into something clearer):

One shelter of the human soul is the lofty Gospel, in which the one who has come to be there no longer has need of the shadowy teaching through figurative and symbolic notions, since the truth makes manifest the veiled riddles of the commandments.

That the grace of the Gospel is named 'rock,' none of those who share in the faith in any way would gainsay.

For from many places in Scripture it is possible to learn this, that the Gospel is a rock.

What is meant, then, is this:

If you have been trained, O soul, in the Law; if with your mind you have beheld the rays that come through the prophetic windows, then no longer remain under the shadow of the legal wall (for the wall makes a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the realities), but pass over from the wall to the rock close by.

For the rock is close beside the outer wall, since the Law has become an outer wall to the faith of the Gospel, and the teachings, being neighbors according to their meaning, hold to one another.

For what is nearer to 'You shall not commit adultery' than 'You shall not covet,' and to being pure from murder than not to defile the heart even with anger? Since, then, the shelter of the rock holds close to the outer wall, the passage for you from the wall to the rock is without any gap.

There is circumcision in the wall and circumcision in the rock, a lamb and a lamb, blood and blood, a Passover and a Passover, and nearly all things the same and holding to one another through the same, except only that the rock is spiritual, while the wall is earthy, in which the bodily and earthly are molded together.

But the Gospel rock does not have the fleshly mire of concepts (rather, the man receives circumcision yet remains wholly sound, no mutilation maiming the creature of nature; and he keeps the Sabbath in refraining from evils, yet does not accept idleness with respect to the good, having learned that 'It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath'; and he treats the partaking of food indiscriminately and does not touch the unclean;

for he is taught by the rock that nothing which enters through the mouth is common), but through all things, having thrust away the bodily observances of the Law, she takes up the spiritual and intelligible meaning of the words, even as Paul said that 'the Law is spiritual.'

For the one who thus takes up the Law comes to be under the shelter of the Gospel rock which holds close to the bodily outer wall.

When the Word has cried out these things to her through the windows, the dove answers well—the dove that has been illumined round about through the radiance of the concepts and has understood the rock, which is Christ.

And what is meant is this:

'My hearing has room; so grant that Your voice come to be in my ears.'

For if the voice that comes through the windows is so sweet, much more will Your appearing face to face possess what is lovely.

These things the bride says, having understood the mystery pertaining to the Gospel rock, into which the Word—who came to be in the windows 'in many parts and in many ways'—led her by the hand; and she comes to be in desire of the theophany that is through the flesh, so that the Word should become flesh and God be made manifest in flesh and set before our hearing the divine utterances that promise eternal blessedness to the worthy.

How do the words of Symeon accord with the prayer of the bride—he who says, 'Now You let Your servant depart, Master, according to Your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation'? For that man saw, even as she longed to see.

And His sweet voice those recognize who have received the grace of the Gospel—those who said, 'You have words of eternal life.'

For the vines will bloom, if the things that ravage them are no longer present.

'Catch us the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, and our vines are in blossom.'

Is it then possible to attain worthily to the sublimity of these concepts? How great a marvel of the divine majesty this word encompasses; how great an excess of the power of God the meaning of what has been said makes manifest!

How is it that he of whom such great things are said—the murderer of man, the mighty one in wickedness, whose tongue is like a sharpened razor, of whom the prophet says, 'The arrows of the mighty one are sharpened, together with coals of the desert,' and 'He lies in wait like a lion in his lair'; the great dragon, the apostate, Hades opening wide his mouth, the world-ruler of the authority of darkness, the one who holds the power of death; and all that the prophecy recounts in his person—he who removes the boundaries of nations 'which the Most High established according to the number of His angels,' who seizes the inhabited world as a nest and lifts it up as abandoned eggs, who says he will set his throne above the clouds and become like the Most High; and all the fearful and dreadful things that the word rehearses about him in Job, whose ribs are of bronze and whose spine is of cast iron, and whose entrails are of emery stone, and all such things by which the word sketches that fearful nature—how is it that this one, so great and of such a kind, the general of the legions among the demons, is named by the true and only Power? A little fox.

And all those around him, the host subject to him, all are named as being brought to the same worthlessness by the One who urges the hunters on to the chase against them.

These hunters might perhaps be the angelic powers that go before the Master's coming upon the earth and lead the King of glory into the midst of life, who point out to those who do not know, 'Who is this King of glory, the strong and mighty one in war'; or one might say they are also the ministering spirits sent forth for service on behalf of those who are about to inherit salvation; and perhaps one might say that the hunters are also the holy apostles who are sent out for the catching of these beasts, to whom He said, 'I will make you fishers of men.'

For they would not have accomplished the fishing of men, ensnaring the souls of the saved with the casting-net of their words, had they not first cast out these beasts from their dens—those little foxes, I mean, out of the hearts in which they had lodged—so as to make a place for the Son of God, where He might rest His own head, the race of foxes no longer denning in the hearts.

And we are taught the ineffable nature of the divine power through what has been enjoined upon them.

For He did not say, Hunt the boar out of the thicket that ravages the vine of God, or the wild solitary beast, or the roaring lion, or the great sea-monster, or the dragon beneath the waters (for through such things the word would have indicated to the hunters some power among the adversaries), but, He says, all those earthly dominions against which is the wrestling for men—principalities and authorities and world-rulers of darkness and spirits of wickedness—are little foxes, crafty and wretched, when judged against your power.

If you gain mastery over those, then our vineyard, human nature, will recover its own grace and, through the blossom of a virtuous manner of life, will give a foretaste of the bearing of its clusters.

'Catch us, therefore, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, and our vines are in blossom.'

For she is no longer walled off by the wall of the Law from union with the one desired, but says, 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine, who feeds among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows are stirred.'

'I have seen face to face,' she says, 'Him who ever is what He is, but who for my sake, from my sister the synagogue, has risen up in human fashion; and in Him I rest, and I become a dwelling-place for Him.'

For this is the good shepherd, who does not make grass the pasture of his flocks, but feeds his sheep with pure lilies.

For truly He is the one who no longer feeds with grass the grass.

For grass is the proper food of the irrational nature, but man, being rational, is fed by the true Word; and if he be filled with such grass, he too becomes grass.

'For all flesh,' He says, 'is grass,' so long as it is flesh.

But if one should become spirit, having been born of the Spirit, he will no longer graze upon the grassy life, but the Spirit will be his food—which the purity and fragrance of the lily signifies.

He too, therefore, will be a pure and fragrant lily, being changed toward the nature of his food.

This is the day diffused with rays, or rather breathing forth, even as the divine voice named the diffusion that comes about through the spirit of the rays, calling it a breathing forth; from which the shadows of this life are moved away—shadows toward which those gaze in their eagerness who have not yet illumined the eye of the soul with the light of truth, who look upon the shadow and the vain as though it had subsistence, and overlook what truly is as though it were not.

But those who are fed through the lilies (that is, those who fatten the soul with the pure and fragrant food), having removed from themselves every deceitful and shadowy fantasy of the things eagerly pursued in this life, will look toward the true subsistence of realities, becoming sons of light and sons of day.

These things the bride beholds, and she urges the Word speedily to bring the hope of good things to accomplishment, saying, 'Turn away the onrush of evils, O my beloved; be like a gazelle or a young stag of the deer upon the mountains of the hollows.' Behold, like a gazelle, You who see the thoughts of men, You who read the reasonings of hearts, do away with the offspring of wickedness, like a young stag of the deer utterly consuming the brood of the serpent.

You see the hollow mountains of human life, whose swellings are not peaks but chasms.

The Word therefore runs at speed upon the hollow mountains.

For everything that exalts itself against the truth is a pit and not a mountain, a hollow and not a height.

If, then, You run upon these, He says, every such chasm shall be filled and every such mountain shall be brought low.

Of which good things may it be granted that we too be filled, being shepherded by the Word, to whom be glory and might unto the ages of ages.

Homily 6. 'Upon my bed by night I sought Him whom my soul loved; I sought Him and did not find Him, I called Him and He did not answer me.'

'I will arise now and go about in the city, in the marketplaces and in the broad ways, and will seek Him whom my soul loved.'

'I sought Him and did not find Him.'

'The watchmen who go about in the city found me.'

'Have you seen Him whom my soul loved?' Scarcely had I passed on from them, until I found Him whom my soul loved.

'I held Him and would not let Him go, until I brought Him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me.'

'I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the might of the field, if you rouse or awaken love until it please.'

'Who is this that comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the perfumer? Behold, the couch of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, from the mighty men of Israel, all holding a sword, trained in war, each man his sword upon his thigh because of dread in the night.'

Again we are instructed in the great and lofty teachings by the Song of Songs through the present reading.

For the narration of the bride is philosophy, in that through the things she recounts about herself she teaches, as doctrine, how those who love the transcendent Beauty ought to be disposed toward the Divine.

And what we learn through the words set before us is this (for one must, I think, first set forth the meaning contained in the text, and then thus fit the God-inspired words to what has been previously contemplated): there is, then, to state it briefly and concisely, some such teaching that shines forth through what has been said:

The nature of beings is divided in two according to the highest division.

For the one is perceptible and material, the other intelligible and immaterial.

We call perceptible, then, all that is apprehended by sense, and intelligible that which surpasses perception by the senses.

Of these, the intelligible is infinite and unbounded, while the other is in every case delimited by certain limits.

For since all matter is delimited by quantity and quality, in mass and form and surface and shape, the things that are contemplated about it become the boundary of the understanding concerning it, so that one who investigates matter can grasp nothing in his imagination beyond these things.

But that which is intelligible and immaterial, being pure of any such enclosure, escapes all limitation, being bounded by nothing.

Again, the intelligible nature is itself divided in two. One part is uncreated and is the Maker of all that exists, ever being what it is and always remaining the same, superior to every addition and incapable of any diminution of its goods. The other part, brought into being through creation, ever looks toward the first Cause of all that exists, and by participation in the One who transcends it is kept perpetually in the good, and in a certain manner is ever being created, being changed for the better through its increase in good things. Thus in this nature too no limit is discerned, nor is its growth toward the better circumscribed by any boundary; rather, the good that is ever present, however great and perfect it may seem, is always the beginning of something higher and greater. So that in this the apostolic word is verified: through the straining forward to the things that lie ahead, the things already accomplished are forgotten.

For the good, which is ever being found greater and surpassingly good, and which holds around itself the disposition of those who partake of it, does not allow them to look back at what is past, since the enjoyment of the more excellent things drives out the memory of the lesser.

First to recall the very text of the divinely inspired oracles, and then in this way to fit to the things previously contemplated the meaning that lies within the sayings.

'Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved,' she says; 'I sought him and found him not; I called him and he did not answer me.'

'I will arise now and go about the city, in the marketplaces and in the broad streets, and will seek him whom my soul loved.'

'I sought him and found him not.'

'The watchmen who go about the city found me.'

'Have you seen him whom my soul loved? It was but a little that I passed on from them, until I found him whom my soul loved.'

'I held him and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.'

How then in the words just cited do we find the notions we set forth beforehand in doctrinal fashion? In her earlier ascents the soul had become, in proportion to the increase that occurred at each stage, ever changed for the better and never standing still at the good already attained: now being likened to a horse that overthrew the Egyptian tyrant, again being compared to strings of beads and turtledoves in the adornment about the neck.

Then, as though not content with these, she still advances toward what is higher.

For through her own nard she recognizes the divine fragrance, and she does not even remain in this, but again she fastens upon herself the very One she longs for, as a sweet-scented perfume, between the rational breasts from which the divine teachings gush forth, binding him within the capacity of her heart. After this she makes the Husbandman her own fruit, naming him a cluster that breathes forth through its blossom something sweet and gentle. And having thus grown through such ways, she is called beautiful, and comes near, and the beauty in her eyes is likened to doves.

Then again she advances toward what is greater.

For having become more clear-sighted, she too discerns the beauty of the Word and marvels how, overshadowed, he descends upon the couch of the lower life, being shadowed by the material nature of the human body.

In addition to these things she describes with the Word the house of virtue, whose roofing material is cedar and cypress, impervious to decay and corruption; by which she interprets through the Word the abiding and unchangeable character of one's relation to the good.

Upon these things her transformation toward the better is displayed by way of comparison, and she seems a lily among thorns.

And again from her side the Bridegroom's difference from all others is perceived.

For he is named an apple tree amid a barren woodland, made lovely by the fair hue of its fruit; going in beneath its shade, she comes to be in the house of wine.

And she is sustained with perfumes and heaped about with the fruits of the apple; and having received the choice arrow in her heart, through the sweet wound she herself in turn becomes an arrow in the hands of the archer, whose left hand directs her head toward the target above, while his right hand draws the arrow toward himself.

After these things, as one who has now attained to perfection, she guides the rest by the Word toward the same eagerness, rousing their zeal concerning love by means of a certain adjuration.

Who then would not say that a soul lifted up to such a height has come to be at the very summit of perfection? And yet the end of what has already been accomplished becomes the beginning of the leading-up to the things that lie beyond.

For all those former things were reckoned but the sound of a voice, since the soul was being turned through hearing toward the contemplation of the mystical things.

And she begins to behold the One she longs for, appearing to her eyes under another form.

For he is made like a gazelle and compared to a fawn; and the one who appears does not stand still upon a single aspect nor in the same place, but leaps upon the mountains, bounding from the peaks to the heights of the hills.

And the season, ripe and fit for the harvest, and whatever other things it grants to those who take their delight, amid the voices of songbirds.

By these things the Bride, becoming still more perfect, deems herself worthy to see plainly the face of the One who speaks and to receive the Word from him directly, no longer speaking through others.

Again it is fitting that upon these things the soul be called blessed for its lofty ascent, having attained the very summit of the things it longed for.

For what greater thing could one conceive as a blessing than to see God? Yet this too is the end of what has already been accomplished and becomes the beginning of hope for the things that lie beyond.

For again she hears the voice that commands the hunters, for the sake of the salvation of the rational vineyards, to catch the beasts that harm the fruits, those little foxes.

And when this has come to pass, the two pass over into one another.

For God comes to be in the soul, and again the soul is transferred into God.

For she says, 'My kinsman is mine, and I am his'—his who feeds among the lilies and who transposes human life from shadowy phantasms to the truth of the things that truly are.

You see to what a height she has ascended, going, according to the prophetic word, from strength to strength, so that she seems to have attained the very summit of the hope of good things.

For what is higher than to come to be in the very One she longs for, and to receive within herself the One she longs for? And yet, having come to be in this, again, as though still lacking the good, she laments; and as though not yet possessing what her desire has set before her, she is at a loss and vexed, and she makes public this perplexity of the soul in her narrative, and describes in words how she found what she sought.

All these things we learn through the contemplation of the sayings that lie before us, by which we are plainly taught that the majesty of the divine nature is bounded by no limit, nor does any measure of knowledge become the boundary of the understanding of the things sought, after which he who reaches for lofty things must stand still in his forward course; but rather, the mind that runs upward through the understanding of the things that lie beyond must be so disposed that every perfection of knowledge attainable to human nature becomes the beginning of the desire for still higher things.

And consider carefully for me the word set before our contemplation, having first understood this: that the bodily depiction of the discourse is a bridal chamber and a kind of nuptial arrangement, which supplies to contemplation the materials from which philosophy, transferring the representations of the notions to what is pure and immaterial, brings forth the doctrines through the things accomplished in them, employing the riddles of things that happen for the clarity of the things signified.

Since, then, the discourse has posited the soul as bride, and the One loved by her with all her heart and soul and strength is designated the bridegroom, it follows that she, having come to what she supposed to be the very summit of the things hoped for, and now thinking herself to be commingled with the One she longs for, names the more perfect participation in the good a 'bed,' and calls the season of the bed 'night.'

And by the name 'night' she indicates the contemplation of things invisible, after the likeness of Moses, who came to be in the thick darkness in which God was, who, as the prophet says, 'made darkness his hiding place round about him.'

Having come to be in this, she is then taught that she is as far from having set foot upon perfection as are those who have not even made the beginning of the attempt.