Commentary on the Song of Songs 1 part 4/9

'Behold, here he comes, striding over the mountains, leaping over the hills.' To these words the bride again adds:

and she sets about her, as around a city, a wall, that she may not be besieged by her enemies; and, as around a vineyard and garden and paradise, a fence, that all who pass along the way may not gather her, nor a boar from the thicket ravage her, and a solitary wild beast feed upon her, as upon that former one which was transplanted out of Egypt.

She signifies, then, that having destroyed the sacred precincts of the demons, and the groves and shrines of the so-called gods (for this He hinted at by 'upon the mountains of Bethel';

for 'Bethel' is interpreted as 'house of God';

and by a name shared with the God who is over all, those who are not gods were also named gods by the impious ones).

And into her chamber He has not yet entered;

but standing outside the wall He peers in through the windows;

and by 'windows' she means the senses.

For just as through the windows of the senses there flow into the soul both good things and their opposites, and again from there flow out,

and he who admits a vain report receives death through the windows.

But the bride now enjoys the beauty of the Bridegroom through the windows.

And it must be inquired how the Bridegroom peers in through the windows, that is, through our senses.

When, meditating in the law of the Lord day and night, we delight ourselves in the divine words, and with compunction and knowledge attend to the things that are written, we open our windows, and receive the face of the Bridegroom.

And when, while others read the divine oracles or discourse concerning God, we listen earnestly, again through the other windows the Bridegroom peers in, and shows us His own beauty.

But not only through the windows does He peer in, but also from the nets He looks out;

for He does not abandon His bride when she is hunted by the scheming demons and encompassed with nets, but delivers her from the snare of the hunters, and from the troubling word. And even in the midst of these very temptations He looks out through the nets, and comforts her when she is besieged, and raises up her spirit.

For He permitted Sarah to be seized by Pharaoh;

He looked forth through the nets, and both consoled the patriarch Abraham, and tearing the nets asunder, restored to him his prey safe and unharmed.

Again he was ensnared by Abimelech, and again he looks forth through the nets, and not only rescued the prey, but even bestowed a benefit upon the hunter.

This same thing he did also in the case of Isaac;

for such things did he suffer concerning Rebecca as the father had suffered concerning Sarah.

This same thing he wrought also in the case of Jacob;

for when his kinsman-by-marriage was hastening to overtake him and was eager to slay him, he appears again through the nets, and encourages Jacob, while he strikes fear into Laban.

And again, when he feared his brother's coming, he appears and drives away the dread, and instils courage.

And with Joseph too, when he had been sold into slavery and become a bondman, he was present in his master's house, and was at hand in the prison, and everywhere, looking forth through the nets, he continually consoled him.

Thus he came together with those blessed young men into that fearful furnace;

thus, when the holy apostles were cast into prison by the Jews, he exhorted them to take courage, and to preach with boldness the word of true religion;

thus afterward, when the blessed Paul was imprisoned in Jerusalem and was expecting death, he instilled courage, saying: 'Be of good cheer, Paul;'

'for as you have testified concerning the things about me in Jerusalem, so must you bear witness also at Rome.' This too is what the bride hints at, saying:

'My beloved answers, and says to me:'

'Rise up, come, my companion, my fair one, my dove.'

The bridegroom bears witness to the beauty of the bride;

and he calls her not simply fair, but 'my fair one;'

teaching that her beauty is exceedingly pleasing to him.

And he addresses her also as a dove, hinting through this name at the spiritual grace;

for in the form of a dove the Holy Spirit alighted upon him.

And the blessed Paul knows how to call the perfect ones spiritual:

'And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.' But to the perfect he writes:

'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you.'

Fittingly, therefore, the bridegroom names the soul that has been perfected in virtue a dove;

that is, spiritual and filled with the Holy Spirit.

For indeed the prophet Isaiah, foreseeing these things from afar, and beholding the holy apostles flying, as it were winged, over all the inhabited world, and their disciples and hearers following them like young nestlings, cries aloud and says:

'Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young?' Thus here too the bridegroom, consoling and comforting his Church as she labours amid temptations, and looking forth from the windows and peering out from the nets, exhorts her to arise and to fly up to him.

'and his back parts in the greenness of gold' — the resplendence of the hidden mysteries;

should you draw profit from them, you will find there the manifold gifts of the Spirit.

The bride, therefore, having received the spiritual exhortation and having lain down between the lots, found the silvered wings by which she is bidden to fly up to the bridegroom.

'For behold,' he says, 'the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.'

'The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.'

'The fig tree has put forth her green figs, the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance.'

Let us set beside these, if it seems good, also the evangelical utterances of the Lord.

For beholding a great multitude flowing together to him from every quarter, he says to the sacred apostles:

'The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.' And elsewhere too:

'Already,' he says, 'he that reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit unto life eternal.' And again:

'One is he that sows,' he says, 'and another that reaps;'

'I have sent you to reap.' From this, then, let us understand the saying, 'Behold, the winter is past.' For he calls the time before his coming winter, and spring that which is after the coming;

and the height of summer, the age that is awaited.

'And it is gone its way.' For the shadow gives place to the body, the pedagogue to the wise teacher.

'For the flowers have appeared in the land.' Attention must be given to the exactness of the words.

For he did not say the fruits, but flowers. For the perfection of good things is bestowed upon the worthy in the age to come.

But here those who follow the blessed Paul say:

'I am the true vine, you are the branches;'

'my Father is the husbandman;'

'every branch in me that bears not fruit, he takes it away;'

'And the time of the pruning has arrived.' But also, 'The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.' Again he calls the teaching of the all-holy Spirit the voice of the turtledove.

For having said, 'How amiable are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord;'

'my heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God' — he teaches also the cause of the rejoicing, and says:

'For the sparrow has found herself a house, and the turtledove a nest for herself, where she may lay her young;' and showing this, he adds, saying:

'Your altars, O Lord of hosts.' And he teaches us that the nestlings are those who have obtained the regeneration through the laver;

and their nest and brooding-place are the divine altars, in which they are fed and nourished and grow their feathers, and little by little enjoy perfection.

And such as a mother that bears them is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is figuratively named a turtledove, because of the chastity of the creature, and its love of solitude, and its building of nests in leafy trees.

The bridegroom therefore says that 'The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land, and the fig tree has put forth her green figs' — that is, the early fruit of faith, through which the other fruit also, I mean that of works, becomes lasting and does not fall off, but ripens and is rendered most sweet.

'And the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance.' 'They have blossomed,' he says, those that are figuratively called vines, and give off their sweet fragrance.

'Rise up, therefore, come, my companion.'

'In the shelter of the rock, close by the outwork.'

And he calls her into the shelter of the rock, so that she may not again become black.

And by 'rock' he means the true faith, the true confession.

For when the Lord had said to the disciples, 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?' the blessed Peter said:

'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' To whom he answered, saying:

'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church;'

'and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.' And he wishes her also to come outside of the present life.

'Let us therefore go forth unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.' He wishes her to look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen;

'Mortify your members which are upon the earth; practise fleshlessness while in the body;'

'display passionlessness amid the passions;'

'get outside of the present city, and its walls.'

'For unless you come to the very outwork, you will not enjoy fellowship with me;'

'unless you cry out with Paul, "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; for no man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has enrolled him as a soldier;"'

'unless you come to be in the borderland between things present and things to come (for this, I think, is what is signified by the outwork), our marriage will not come to pass.'

When you have come there, I beseech you, show me your face;

for then you have a pure mind,

since none of life's cares is added upon it;

there it is that I wish to hear your voice;

for there it too will become pure, freed from all licentiousness;

then your voice will be sweet to me, and your face comely;

for in you I behold my own beauty as in a mirror, and I listen to the voice of one adorned with my own words.

Having said these things to the bride, the Bridegroom gives command to his own attendants, saying:

Catch us the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.

Now some of the interpreters have joined the word 'little' to the vineyards.

But it makes no difference whether this or that be the meaning.

By foxes he calls those who have acquired a crafty disposition and who ravage the Churches of the Lord that have just begun to blossom.

'And our vineyards are in blossom.' By the foxes he hints at the heretics who war against the souls of the Church, and who insidiously and craftily attempt to steal away those who are not yet firmly established in the faith.

For these men, by the plausibility of their words and by the snares and traps of their syllogisms, deceive those who are more simply disposed, and so ravage the vines.

Hearing these words, the bride at once says:

'My kinsman is mine, and I am his.'

For just as he himself preferred me above all, so do I set him before all, and I cannot endure to be joined to another.

I abhor those who bear at once the name and the wickedness of foxes.

For it would be absurd that she who has been loved and deemed worthy of such great things should not, so far as she is able, requite in like manner the one who has loved her.

Like to these is what was written by the blessed Paul to the Corinthians:

'The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.' Of the same kind again is what was said by him:

'But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.'

'Yea doubtless, and I count all things but dung, that I may win Christ.' Of this kind also is this:

'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' Of this kind is this:

'...of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?' and what follows.

'But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Like to these is what is said by the bride:

'My kinsman is mine, and I am his.' She also indicates who this one is, and what he continually does, and where, and when, and until when.

'He that feedeth,' she says, 'among the lilies.'

(17.) 'Until the day breathe, and the shadows be moved.'

'For as a lily among thorns,' she says, 'so is my beloved among the daughters.' Here she has named even the very herbage 'lilies';

'For he feedeth,' she says, 'among the lilies.' For the food offered to the sheep, she says, is also full of fragrance.

And this indeed is to be understood according to the Seventy;

so that clearly the shepherds themselves are the flowers which he called lilies.

'Until the day breathe, and the shadows be moved.' By 'shadows' he calls human affairs.

'As a shadow when it declineth, I am cut off.' And again:

'My days pass away as a shadow.' And the noble Job:

'For the life of man upon the earth is a shadow.' For nothing among the seeming delights of the present life is abiding, nor secure, nor stable, nor lasting, nor, as it were, of any real substance;

not wealth, not glory, not power, not bodily health, not comeliness of form, nor anything else of the kind;

but they prove to be shadowy, dissolving in a manner like the shadows.

The Bridegroom therefore shepherds us until the fiery heat of the day passes and the dew of salvation breathes forth, and the shadows are moved, and the things to come appear, having their existence lasting and abiding.

And since the perfected souls that have been wedded to the Bridegroom are as it were one, answering him in the singular they say:

'My kinsman is mine, and I am his'; that is, My beloved is seen by me according to the image, and I live to him, and not to myself, according to the great Apostle:

'He that feedeth among the lilies';

that is, He who governs, through his holy commandments, the reasoning sheep—which are those taught by them—in the souls of teachers that are not choked by the cares of this life.

'Until the day breathe, and the shadows be moved'; that is, until there come the day of the age to come, wholly radiant and without shadow, and all present things—which are the shadows of things to come—pass away;

on which day the good Shepherd will bring his own flock to rest in the eternal mansions.

'Turn, my kinsman, be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of the valleys.' Here she urges the Bridegroom, who is like the aforesaid animals, to mount upon the mountains that are amid the valleys, wishing that all may enjoy his fellowship.

By 'mountains of the valleys' she here designates those who, in the midst of certain hollow and lowly persons, have raised their minds on high and employed a lofty way of thinking;

and she entreats that these too may enjoy the presence of the Bridegroom;

which he has indeed done, having heard the bride's supplications.

The bride, therefore, being left alone, is vexed and grieved, and she recounts her suffering to the maidens, and says:

'By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.'

'I sought him, but I found him not.'

'I called him, but he answered me not.'

(2.) 'I will rise now, and go about the city in the marketplaces and in the broad ways, and I will seek him whom my soul loveth;'

'I sought him, but I found him not;'

'I called him, but he answered me not.'

The God of all things, often training the souls of the godly, permits them to fall into various trials, and at one time grants deliverance to those who ask it, but at another defers the gift, contriving benefit for his devotees from every side;

'How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me for ever? how long wilt thou turn thy face from me?'

'how long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart day and night? how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?' For often, as is likely, having supplicated and asked deliverance from his griefs, he did not obtain his request;

wherefore, being distraught as one who has failed, and being in anguish, he uses such words.

And the blessed Paul also says:

'Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure;'

'and for this I besought the Lord thrice, and he said to me:'

'My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' And Paul entreats, yet does not obtain;

for not to receive his request was the more profitable.

'Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.' And Elijah too, having been much terrified at the threats of Jezebel, flees into the wilderness and seeks a helper;

and the wise trainer and steward of contests for the godly, having left him for a little while to be exercised in fear, appears to him, and as though ignorant inquires the cause of his flight—not mocking him, but teaching the dispensation of the flight, and instructing him to be forgiving, since he is clothed in human nature and warred upon by its passions.

But it is time to return to the matter before us.

For here the bride, the Bridegroom having withdrawn for a little, seeks him upon the bed, and this not by day, but by night;

yet she does not find him at rest.

And this she does not merely by seeking him, but also by calling out.

She rises up, and goes about the city, the marketplaces, the broad streets;

for longing compelled her, and the flame of love did not permit her to remain at home;

and she comes upon the guards of the city as well, and inquires of them, saying:

'The watchmen who go about the city found me:

Have you seen him whom my soul loves? Scarcely had I passed from them, until I found him whom my soul loves.'

In his working he is beneficent, and in his essence he is unchangeable.

'But what this One is who in his essence is beneficent and unchangeable, I was not able to find; for even though I called him from these things 'good' and 'truth,' he did not answer me, since he is even beyond these;

for his name is above every name.'

And she indeed, as she has said, was not yet able to find my Beloved;

but the holy angels found me, they who keep watch, who go about the city;

and they found me while they were purifying me through practice and enlightening me through contemplation—me who through wickedness and ignorance had been lost, and who had once become a disciple of the spirits of evil, and for this reason was not being found by these good angels ready for discipleship;

these are they who keep watch, unto praise or reproof in that fearful day of judgment, over both my open and my hidden motions, and over every thought and every deed;

and thereupon, in leaving none of these unwatched, they encircle me, making their conduct within me as though within some city.

And so, when these had come upon me, I say to them:

'Spirits, have you beheld what his nature is like, that you might teach this also to me?' But since even to the holy angels the Bridegroom is incomprehensible in his essence, and for this reason they gave me no answer to my question, silently teaching me that not even to these is he comprehensible—the uncreated to creatures that they are—I passed on from them too, seeking the One I longed for.

'And scarcely had I passed from them, until I found him whom my soul loves;

I held him fast.' That is: as though for a brief moment, on account of the created nature alone, I passed by in my mind even the angelic nature itself, that I might find the uncreated, my Beloved; and having laid hold of him as my benefactor, by faith alone I held him fast;

having passed through all things that exist, and being assured from experience itself that the Cause of all is beyond all things that exist, and is seen according to his essence in no nature whatsoever, whether sensible or intelligible, being above all essence.

Thus, then, I passed through all things that exist, seeking to make my dwelling with the Bridegroom most longed-for by me.

'And I did not let him go, until I brought him into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.' That is: I did not cease seeking my Lover, until I had lodged him within my mind, which is the house of the Wisdom of God—the Cause of all, who is like a mother—since by reason of its being made after his likeness it is capable of containing her;

and again her chamber, in that, by reason of its being made after her image, it holds her hidden treasures stored up within itself;

which Wisdom conceived me, inasmuch as before the foundation of the world she held her surpassingly good purpose concerning me;

wherefore also, for my sake—that is, for the sake of human nature altogether—she brought the whole universe into being.

'Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves;

I sought him, and did not find him.' And having run through these things briefly, she says that she has found him, and has not let him go, until she brought him into the house of her mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived her.

By 'city' he calls the house of God, which we name the Church;

and by 'marketplaces' and 'broad streets,' the divine Scriptures;

and by 'guards of the city,' the holy prophets and the sacred apostles, of whom the devout soul inquires, longing after the divine word.

After whom she finds the Bridegroom attended by certain guardsmen or mace-bearers as his escort, and laying hold of him she holds him fast, and does not endure to leave him, until she brings him into the house of her mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived her.

And we know the mother of the devout to be the Jerusalem above, concerning which the blessed Paul says:

'But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.' The bride therefore promises, having laid hold of the Bridegroom, that she will not forsake him, until they enter together into the bridal chamber and the well-prepared nuptial abode.

Having recounted these things to the maidens, she again urges them on toward a like longing, and says:

'I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you stir not up nor awaken love, until it please.'

for twice she lays this oath upon them, purposing to instil in them warm love for the Bridegroom.

When the bride had said these things, and had received unspeakable beauty from the embrace of the Bridegroom, the divine powers, being astonished, say:

'Who is this coming up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, as though perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the perfumer?' For just as, seeing the Bridegroom ascend into the heavens after the conquest of the devil and the abolition of death, they marvel and say:

'Who is this King of glory?' and they learn that it is 'the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle'; and wishing to learn yet more exactly, they ask again;

so here too, marveling at the beauty of the bride, they say:

'Who is this that comes up from the wilderness?' And they call human nature 'wilderness,' on account of its former impiety.

'Rejoice, O thirsty wilderness;

let the wilderness be glad, and blossom as the lily.' And just as here they are astonished that so great a beauty has sprung forth from the wilderness;

so also in the prophecy of Isaiah they marvel, seeing the Bridegroom, and say, 'Who is this that comes from Edom? The redness of his garments from Bosor?' And 'Edom' signifies the earth, and 'Bosor' the flesh.

And astonished at his beauty they cry out: 'This one is comely in his robe, mighty in strength.'

'Why are your garments red, as from a full winepress that has been trodden down?' And they say:

'Being in a body, he shines forth.' They have named his body his robe;

and he has a compelling beauty, constraining all who behold him.

So here they are astonished, not only that the bride is beautiful, but that she is also coming up from the wilderness—that is, ascending from the depths to the heights, and journeying from lowly things to the lofty.

'And she is like,' he says, 'a pillar of smoke, perfumed.' The construction is indeed obscure;

for the Seventy, being subservient to the Hebrew tongue, did not make the meaning clear;

but Aquila and Symmachus disclosed the sense to us, saying, 'Like the likeness of smoke from incense.' And often the smoke of incense in the air imitates a pillar, being as it were shaped into form.

And fittingly they say that she resembles the smoke of incense—she who, according to the blessed Paul, has presented her members as a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, and who offers continually the sacrifice of praise, and has put to death her members that are upon the earth, and has been buried together with Christ, and has brought herself as a whole burnt offering to God.

'for they say myrrh and frankincense, from all the fragrant powders of the perfumer';

and myrrh is an unguent for dead bodies.

By these names, then, those who marvel at the beauty of the bride signify that she is fragrant, and likened to the vapor of incense, for this reason: because she worships both the humanity and the divinity, and, believing in his death, also confesses his existence before the ages.

From all the fragrant powders of the perfumer, then, they marvel at her myrrh and her frankincense.

For she has the other virtues as well, gathering these as though from some perfumer, namely the divine Scripture;

but her choicest are the myrrh and the frankincense, that is, theology and the economy.

Thus, having marveled at the beauty of the bride, they recount to her the riches of the Bridegroom, and say:

'Behold, the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel.

All of them holding swords, trained for war;

each man his sword upon his thigh, because of terror in the nights.'

But before all things it must be inquired: why in the world do they address the Bridegroom as 'Solomon'?

The word 'Solomon' is interpreted 'peaceable';

and this one may find in the Books of Chronicles:

'This one shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about, for Solomon is his name;

and I will give peace and quietness upon Israel in his days.

This one shall build a house for my name, and this one shall be to me for a son, and I will be to him for a father, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom in Israel forever.' But it is quite evident that Solomon died, not having lived even a long time, and that his throne came to an end.

Therefore he addresses as 'Solomon' our peaceable Lord, concerning whom the blessed Paul says:

For, it says, 'He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the needy, and shall bring low the false accuser';

'and he shall continue as long as the sun, and before the moon throughout all generations.' But Solomon neither continued as long as the sun, nor before the moon throughout all generations.

Rather, these things fit Jesus Christ, who according to His humanity sprang from Solomon;

who, existing before the ages, 'came down like rain upon a fleece, and like a raindrop falling upon the earth.' And by 'fleece' here he designated the Virgin.

For just as rain descends upon a fleece without any sound, so that saving birth came to pass while all men were unaware of it.

'In his days righteousness shall arise, and abundance of peace,'

'until the moon be taken away.'

'And he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the world,' and all that follows, which holds to the same meaning;

for now is not the time to expound this psalm.