Letters (CSEL) 1 part 29/85

This indeed can be understood also in this present life, when we put off the old man and put on the new, who is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of his Creator, and, beholding the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image, as from glory to glory. Nor is there any time in which the holy man is not being changed, forgetting the things that are past and stretching himself forth to those that are to come, while our inner man is renewed from day to day — and God is unchangeable, who speaks through the prophet:

'I am God, and I change not' — He has changed His face for our sake, has taken the form of a servant, and, passing over from Judaea to the Philistines (who are interpreted 'falling by a cup' — for they had been made drunk by the golden cup of Babylon), was first mocked on account of the foolishness of the cross, and then received on account of the glory of His triumphs. But that most beloved one is He of whom Isaiah too sings: 'I will sing a song of the beloved to my beloved concerning his vineyard'; and the Gospel: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.' To Him not one prophet, but the whole choir of the sons of Korah now sings praises. But who the sons of Korah — that is, of Calvary — are, is more suitably discussed in the forty-first Psalm.

And that we may know that the text of the song agrees with its title, the daughter to whom it is commanded also learns the change from one thing to another — that she, forgetting her ancient parent, should prepare herself for the royal embraces. And she truly knows Him to be the victor who says: 'Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,' and to whom this speech of the young woman is directed: 'From you is victory and wisdom and glory, and I am your servant' — she knows Him who has prevailed with the Lord conquering, and is a partaker of His triumphs; and who has woven for the Savior an unfading crown of glory out of the whiteness of good works and the variety of the virtues. 'My heart has uttered forth a good word.' For which Symmachus has interpreted:

'My heart was moved by a good word' — judging that the heart of the speaker was moved to another's utterance, and that, the Holy Spirit revealing the future mysteries of Christ, he too burst forth into speech, so that, just as the others spoke of His coming, this one also might speak. Now 'belching' (ructus) is properly said of the digestion of food and the breathing forth into the wind of the meats that have been concocted. Therefore, just as, according to the quality of the food, a belch bursts out from the stomach and the breath is an indication of a good or a bad odor, so the thoughts of the inner man produce words, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The just man eating fills his soul, and when he has been satisfied with sacred teachings, out of the good treasure of his heart he brings forth the things that are good, and with the Apostle he says:

'Do you seek a proof of Him who speaks in me, Christ?' Some wish it to be understood as spoken from the person of the Father, that out of His inmost vitals and the secrets of His heart He brought forth His Word, which was always in Himself, according to the prophecy of another psalm: 'From the womb before the daystar I begot you'; and just as 'womb' does not signify a womb — for God is not divided into members — but demonstrates the same substance of the Father and the Son, so 'heart' and the 'word' which is brought forth from the heart show the Father and the Son. And what follows: 'I speak my works to the king,' they fit to this understanding: 'He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created,' because at the Father speaking the Son wrought;

whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does the same, and the Father, abiding in Him, works all things through the Son. 'I speak my works to the king.' The prophetic choir, being about to declare the mysteries of the Church of Christ, lest it should seem unworthy of the song and, on account of the consciousness of sins, it should be said to it, 'Why do you declare my justices and take up my testament by your mouth?' — confesses its own works to the King whom it is about to praise, so that either, if they are good, He may accept them, or, if they are bad, He may cleanse them; and it does what it was commanded: 'Tell your iniquities, that you may be justified,' and 'The just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.' Now it is an idiom (ἰδίωμα) not only of the Hebrew but also of the Latin language to call 'little works' (opuscula) instead of compositions and writings.

Therefore this one too, who is about to sing praises to the Lord, consecrates his song and little work to Him, and instead of the Muses of the Gentiles invokes at the beginning the very One whom he is about to praise. 'My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly.' For which we have interpreted: 'My tongue is the stylus of a swift scribe.' This is the last part of the prologue; and join with the preceding what follows: 'My heart has uttered forth into the praises of God a good word, and my little works, by which I am about to proclaim Him, I have consecrated above all to Him.' Therefore I ought also to prepare my tongue as it were a stylus and pen, so that through it the Holy Spirit may write in the heart, in the ears of the hearers; for it is mine to furnish my tongue as it were an instrument, and His to sound through the instrument the things that are His own.

The stylus writes on wax, the pen either on paper or on parchments or on whatever material is fit for writing. But my tongue is in the likeness of a swift scribe, whom we can understand to be a shorthand-writer (notarius), who by a certain abbreviation of signs will engrave the shortened and compressed discourse of the Gospel on the fleshly tables of the heart. For if the Law was written by the hand of the Mediator, by the finger of God, and what was destroyed was glorified, how much more shall the Gospel, which is to abide, be written through my tongue by the Holy Spirit, so that the swift word may inscribe the praises of Him to whom it is said in Isaiah, 'Swiftly take away the spoils, quickly plunder,' swift in the heart of believers! 'Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men.' In the Hebrew:

'In beauty you are fairer than the sons of men.' The preface being finished, from here is the beginning of the narrative, and there is made an apostrophe to that same most beloved and beloved and king, to whom the works of the speaker are consecrated. But it is asked how He is fairer than all the sons of men, of whom we read in Isaiah: 'We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness, but His form was dishonored and failing beyond the sons of men; a man set in the plague and knowing how to bear infirmity, because He turned away His face.' Nor let Scripture at once seem to be discordant, because there the ignobility of the body is commemorated on account of the scourges and the spittings and the blows and the nails and the injuries of the gibbet, here the beauty of the virtues in the sacred and venerable body.

Not that the divinity of Christ is more beautiful when compared to men — for it has no comparison — but that, apart from the sufferings of the cross, He is fairer than all: a Virgin of a Virgin, who was born not of the will of man but of God. For unless He had had something starlike also in His countenance and eyes, the apostles would never have followed Him at once, nor would those who had come to seize Him have fallen down. And finally, in the present testimony too, in which it says, 'a man set in the plague and knowing how to bear infirmity,' it gives the reasons why He suffered these things: 'because He turned away His face' — that is, His divinity being withdrawn a little, He abandoned the body to injury.

Some join this little verse to the preceding ones, so that 'beautiful in form beyond the sons of men' should be referred not to Christ but to the pen. 'Grace is poured out upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.' In the common edition (the Vulgate) we read 'anointed' instead of 'blessed'; but it should be known that the error of the copyists ought not to be imputed to the Seventy translators, who in this place agree with the Hebrew truth. Reading that: 'Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men,' and in another place: 'They marveled at the words of grace that proceeded from His mouth,' and that He had His speech in authority, we can understand in what sense it is said: 'Grace is poured out upon your lips.'

Noah found grace before God in his days, and Moses and the rest of the prophets, but the whole multitude of grace was poured out upon the lips of the Savior, which in a short time filled the whole world: 'As a bridegroom He came forth from His chamber; His going forth is from the highest heaven, and His return unto the highest thereof.' For holy Mary too, because she had conceived Him in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, is greeted as full of grace; and the Apostle, knowing that his preaching had surpassed all the doctrines of the world, not in worldly eloquence but in the power of God, says:

'And my speech and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.' And rebuking himself, because he had said, 'I have labored more abundantly than all,' he at once added, 'yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me'; and again: 'because His grace, which is in me, was not void.' Now properly in the Savior the word of pouring-out is added, to signify the largess of grace, according to that: 'I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,' and: 'The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts.'

And note, so that you may refer the understanding of all that is said to the person of Him who was assumed from Mary, that He is said to be blessed forever on account of the grace of His lips — something such as the Apostle also proclaims: 'He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name.' For just as there the form of a servant is the injury of the passion, and the exaltation and giving of a name is a return to the Father, so here the pouring-out of grace and the blessing unto eternity are to be referred to Him who can be humbled and can increase. 'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty, in your beauty and your comeliness.' In the Hebrew:

'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most valiant, in your glory and your grace.' I judge that you understand this passage very well, and that, girded with the sword of Christ, you do battle. But that you may know that virginity always has the sword of chastity, by which it cuts through the works of the flesh and overcomes the pleasures, even the error of the Gentiles fashioned virgin goddesses as armed. Peter too girded his loins and had a burning lamp in his hands. But that the 'thigh' signifies the works of marriage, you will be taught briefly by these examples. Abraham, sending to seek a wife for his son Isaac, says to the elder of his household: 'Put your hand under my thigh, and I will adjure you by the Lord God of heaven' — no doubt, by Him who was to be born of his seed.

Jacob, after he had wrestled with the man who had appeared to him at the torrent Jabbok, having left Mesopotamia and entering the land of promise, did not obtain the name of Israel before the sinew of his thigh withered. And he speaks to his son: 'The prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs.' And again, Joseph himself, about to die, adjures upon his thigh that he not bury him in Egypt. In the book of Judges too we read: 'Gideon had seventy sons who came forth from his thighs.' In the Song of Songs it is said: 'Behold, the bed of Solomon; sixty valiant ones round about it, of the valiant of Israel, all holding swords, taught for war, a man and his sword upon his thigh.'

Therefore in the glory and comeliness, or the beauty and fairness, of His divinity, mortifying the works of the flesh and being born of a Virgin, He was to future virgins the prince of virginity. 'And bend your bow, prosperously proceed and reign, on account of truth and meekness and justice; and your right hand shall lead you wonderfully.' In the Hebrew: 'In your comeliness prosperously ascend on account of truth and the meekness of justice, and your right hand shall teach you terrible things.' In the second place it is written among the Hebrews 'in your comeliness,' lest anyone think it repeated through the fault of a copyist; and it is a figure which among the rhetoricians is called repetition.

Therefore after the manner of a panegyric, by which the eulogists speak to those whom they extol with praises, He exhorts the armed one to battle, that he may not desert the wars once undertaken, and that, advancing as victor over the slaughter of enemies, he may prepare for himself a kingdom in those whom, snatching them from the power of the devil, He has joined to His own dominion; and that he may say: 'But I am appointed king by Him over Zion, His holy mountain.' And it is doubtful to no one that Christ is called truth and modesty and justice, who says: 'I am the way and the life and the truth,' and: 'Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart,' and: 'who has been made for us by God justice and redemption and sanctification.' But all these things are said in the Head, that they may be exacted in the members.

The victory of the Lord is the triumph of His servants; the instruction of the master is the advancement of the disciples. And what follows, 'Your right hand shall lead you wonderfully,' is to be understood either of the signs which He wrought in the Gospel, or figuratively (τροπικῶς) of the slaughter which He exercised upon His enemies. 'The heart of the wise is in his right hand, and the heart of the fool in his left.' Christ is on the right, Antichrist on the left. The Hebrew interpretation differs in words, it does not differ in sense. 'Your arrows are sharp, O most mighty; the peoples shall fall under you, in the heart of the king's enemies.' In the Hebrew, apart from 'O most mighty,' the rest is similar. And this little verse is most fittingly suited to you, who, wounded by the dart of the Lord, sing with the Bride in the Canticle: 'I am wounded with love.'

Nor is it a wonder if your Bridegroom has many arrows, of which it is said in the one hundred and nineteenth psalm: 'The sharp arrows of the mighty one, with desolating coals'; since He Himself is the dart of the Father and speaks in Isaiah: 'He set me as a chosen arrow, in His quiver He hid me.' By these arrows Cleopas too, wounded on the road together with the other, said: 'Was not our heart burning within us, while He spoke on the way and opened to us the Scriptures?' And in another place we read: 'As arrows in the hand of a mighty one, so are the sons of those that are shaken off.' By these arrows the whole world has been wounded and taken captive.

Paul was an arrow of the Lord, who, after he had been sent from Jerusalem even to Illyricum, flying hither and thither by the Lord's bow, hastens to go to the Spains, that, a swift arrow, he might lay low beneath the feet of his Lord both the East and the West. And because many are the enemies of the most mighty King, who had been wounded by the fiery arrows of the devil and, like a stag struck in the liver by a dart, the arrows of the Lord are sent forth fiery, with desolating coals, so that whatever of vice had been in the heart of the King's enemies they might burn out, and by the saving fire cast out the destroying fire. 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the rod of your direction is the rod of your kingdom.'

'You have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.' In the Hebrew: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and unto eternity; the scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of exultation above your partakers.' Understand two persons: of Him who is anointed, God; and of Him who anointed. Whence also Aquila interprets the Hebrew word 'eloim' not in the nominative case but in the vocative, saying θεέ; and we, for the sake of understanding, have put what the Latin language does not admit, lest anyone perversely think that the God of the beloved and most loved one and of the King is twice named as Father.

Although the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and each is to the other both indweller and throne, nevertheless in this place the speech is directed to the King, who is God, and it is said to Him that His empire — for this I understand by 'throne,' according to what is written: 'Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne' — has no end. This too the angel announced to Mary: 'The Lord God shall give Him the throne of David His father, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.' Nor let us think that to be contrary to Him which the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says: that the Son will deliver up the kingdom and be made subject to Him who subjected all things to Himself, that God may be all in all.

For he did not say 'He will deliver to the Father,' as if He seemed to separate the Son, but 'He will deliver to God' — that is, to God dwelling in the assumption of the body — that God may be all in all, and Christ, who before was in individuals through a few virtues, may dwell in all through all virtues. But that the scepter and the rod are the ensign of the reigning one, the prophet himself signifies, saying: 'The scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom.' Some, bringing forward a testimony from Isaiah:

'A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend from the root,' understand the man who is assumed, to whom empire is conferred, and who is said to reign on account of loved justice and hated iniquity, and to be anointed with the oil of exultation above his partakers, as though to receive in his anointing the reward of love and of hatred. But we are taught that in either direction, of love and of hatred, there are seeds in us, since He Himself, who raised the first-fruits of the mass of our bodies to the heavens, both loved justice and hated iniquity. Whence David: 'Have I not hated those that hate you, O Lord, and pined away over your enemies? With a perfect hatred I hated them.' What follows:

'God, your God, has anointed you': the first name of God is to be understood in the vocative case, the following in the nominative. At which I wonder greatly why Aquila did not, as he had begun in the first verse, interpret in the vocative case, but in the nominative, twice naming God — He who anointed the aforesaid God. In this place Photinus is overwhelmed, but Arius raises his head, bringing forward a testimony from the Gospel: 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' But when he hears 'beloved,' 'girded with a sword upon the thigh,' and 'to reign on account of truth and meekness,' and 'to be anointed on account of loved justice and hated iniquity,' and 'to be anointed above his fellows,' of whom it is written:

'We are made partakers of Christ, if only we hold firm the beginning of His substance unto the end' — I wonder why he calls only 'God of God' to calumny, as though all that is said pertains to the divinity of the Word and not to the lowliness of the man. Let him hear the Acts of the Apostles: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit'; let him hear the Gospel: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; therefore that which shall be born in you, holy, shall be called the Son of God'; let him perceive the Lord Himself thundering: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore He has anointed me.' Now 'partakers' signifies the apostles and believers, to whom He grants the name of His anointing, so that from the Anointed they are called anointed, that is, Christians.

'Myrrh and stacte and cassia from your garments, from the ivory houses, out of which the daughters of kings have delighted you in your honor.' In the Hebrew: 'Smyrna and stacte and cassia are in all your garments from the ivory houses, wherewith the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honor.' The preface itself has taught you that I wished to explain this psalm precisely because, writing to a virgin, I found the title 'for the lilies and flowers.' And so, consequently, I will also refer these little verses to you, for whom this volume is being written. You have mortified your members upon the earth, and daily offering myrrh to Christ, you are the good odor of Christ, and therefore you present to the Lord stacte, that is, a drop or gutta.

Those too who have known the virtues of spices relate that stacte is the flower of myrrh. But what follows, 'cassia,' is that which by others is called 'pipe' (fistula), vocal in the praises of God and by its own heat concocting out all the phlegm and rheums of pleasures. Where in our codices it is written 'gutta' or 'stacte,' in the Hebrew 'aloth' is read. Whence Nicodemus prepared a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to bury the Lord, and the Bridegroom speaks to the Bride: 'Myrrh and aloe with all the chief ointments,' and she answered: 'My hands dropped with myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.'

Do you too cast away the works of death, buried together with Christ in baptism and dead to this world, and thinking of nothing but heavenly things, speak to your Bridegroom: 'My hands dropped with myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.' We read also of the priestly ointment, of which David makes mention: 'As the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, which ran down to the edge of his garment,' in which, with the other spices, stacte too is mingled. The Magi also offer myrrh, and in the present passage the beginning of the garments of Christ is to receive His death and to display it in one's own flesh. Prepare these garments for your Bridegroom; adorned with these vestments let Him go forth.

And when you have woven garments of this kind for him, you yourself will become a temple of the Lord, and you will gladden him out of ivory houses, or, as it is better written in the Hebrew, out of a temple of teeth; and you will sing praises to the Lord, and, wholly dead to the world, you will imitate the choirs of the angels. For that ivory and teeth are a mark of death and of the voice, the very nature of the names bears witness. And accordingly there is added: 'By these the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honor.' The King of kings and Lord of lords is your Bridegroom. Those kings, who under so great a King are but petty kings, are your fathers, who begot you also by evangelical teaching. Their daughter, you honor in all garments and good odors and in an ivory temple the one to whom it was said above:

'Grace is poured out upon your lips,' and: 'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty,' and: 'Your arrows are sharp,' and: 'Your throne, O God, is for ever.' In place of what we translated as 'ivory houses,' because in the Greek is written apo bareon, certain of the Latins, on account of the ambiguity of the word, interpreted it 'from grievous things (a gravibus)'; whereas baris is a word native to Palestine, and to this very day houses closed off on every side and built after the manner of towers and public ramparts are called baris. 'The queen stood at your right hand in gilded raiment'; what follows, 'clothed about with variety,' none of the interpreters translated except the common edition (the Vulgate). In the Hebrew: 'the consort stood at your right in a golden diadem.'

Where we rendered 'consort,' there in the Hebrew is read 'segal,' for which Aquila put synkoiton, Symmachus and the fifth edition pallaken, that is, 'concubine,' while the Septuagint and Theodotion and the sixth interpreted it 'queen.' Then, where I put 'in a golden diadem,' Symmachus translated 'in the finest gold,' Aquila, the fifth and the sixth: 'in dye' or 'in the gold of Ophir.' These are the daughters of kings, and are made ready for the Bridegroom's embraces, and by myrrh and stacte and cassia and ivory houses they delight him whose throne is for ever and ever.

But she who is now founded with firm root upon the rock which is Christ, the catholic Church, the one dove, perfect and nearest, stands at the right and has in herself nothing left-handed; she stands in gilded raiment, passing from the words of the Scriptures to their meaning and full of all virtues, or, as we translated, 'in a golden diadem.' For she is queen and reigns with the King, whose daughters we can understand both collectively as the souls of believers and, in a special sense, as the choirs of virgins. Ophir is a kind of gold, named either from a place in India or from a color; for among the Hebrews there are seven words for gold. Let us understand also the wife and the concubine from the Song of Solomon, who cannot sleep without her bridegroom or husband.

'Hearken, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father; and the King will desire your beauty, for he himself is your Lord, and they shall adore him.' In the Hebrew: 'Hearken, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father; and the King will desire your beauty, for he himself is your Lord, and adore him.' Thus far, in the tongue of the prophet, which he compares to the swiftly writing pen, the Holy Spirit speaks, addressing that same King and warrior and God and Bridegroom.

Thereafter the person of the Father is introduced, speaking to the bride of his Son and exhorting her that, despising the error of ancient heathenism and idolatry, she first attend to the things that are said, and therefore be named the daughter of a foreign people; then that she look either upon the very things that are said, or, understanding the whole creation, perceive the invisible things from the visible and sense the Creator from the creatures, and diligently incline her ear, so that she may hold in memory the things that are said. And when she has heard, seen, and inclined her ear, and given herself wholly to the teaching and to the understanding of the things that are said, let her first forget her own people, and, going forth with Abraham from Chaldea, leave behind the land of her birth and kindred.

No one doubts that our father, before we were adopted by God, was the devil, of whom the Savior says: 'You are born of the devil your father.' 'When therefore,' he says, 'you have forgotten your ancient father and have shown yourself such, having laid aside your former filth, that, made white, you may ascend to your cousin and be such as my Son can love, then the King will desire your beauty.' And lest you think that he by whom you are to be loved is but one of the crowd, he himself is your King and your Lord. But because sometimes those who are kings and lords are indeed kings and lords in power, yet of the same nature as those over whom they rule and reign, I declare to you that he is also your God and that you ought to adore him.

The seventy interpreters did not say 'you shall adore him,' but 'they shall adore him,' so that the sense is: this one who is to love you, who is to love your beauty, is God and is to be adored by men. What we have expounded concerning the Church gathered from the Gentiles, let each one apply to himself and to the soul of the believer: that, the former vices being abandoned, he be adopted as a daughter, incline his ear, forget his old manner of life, and with the Apostle dismiss his dead father, and show himself such as may be loved by the King. For he himself is her Lord, before whom she ought to bend the knee, and, laying aside pride, take up the yoke of humility. Let us ask the Jews who this daughter is to whom God speaks. I do not doubt that they will answer: the synagogue.