雅歌講道 第 1 章 第 17/20 段

But the meaning contemplated in these texts is altogether plain through what has been said: that it belongs to the pure eyes of the Church to prepare for the body such nourishment by the grinding power of the cheeks, so that nothing deep and festering may be seen in the things spoken, but all may be clear and free and separated from every deceitful concealment and depth, so as to be evident even to babes, as the prophet says: 'The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the babes.'

'The commandment of the Lord is far-shining, enlightening the eyes.'

Such would be the bowls of the Word: plainly they will not be composed of earthly matter, but their very nature will consist of that fragrance—I mean that fragrance which the Bride declares, in the opening words of the Song, to be above all other perfumes.

Such a bowl was Paul, who did not handle the Word deceitfully in craftiness, but commended himself by the manifestation of the truth.

The material of which him laid aside its being from the earth from the moment when, through baptism, he cast off together with his flesh the scales from his eyes; and he was refashioned out of the sweet-smelling fragrance, having become a child of the Holy Spirit.

And when, through such a refining of choice metal, he was fashioned into a vessel and became a bowl for the wine-pouring of the Word, he no longer had need of any man to pour into him the knowledge of the mysteries (for he did not confer with flesh and blood); rather, he himself brought forth within himself and caused to gush up the divine draught, distilling like a perfumer, through the sweet savour of Christ, the manifold flowers of the virtues for his hearers—so that, according to the differences and peculiarities of those who received the Word, the fragrance was found suited to the need of each inquirer: to Jews, to Greeks, to women, to men, to masters, to slaves, to parents, to children, to the lawless, to those under the law.

Thus manifold was the grace of his teaching, blended with every virtue, since the bowl, through its varied instructions, distilled its perfume for those who received the Word in a manner suited to the need of each.

Such then are the cheeks which she praises who portrays in words the beauty of the Bridegroom's body.

And that the praise of the cheeks looks to this, the following text bears witness by its sequence;

for after the cheeks the lips are praised, through which the fragrant Word comes forth.

'His lips are lilies, dropping choice myrrh.'

By this double image she bears witness to two virtues at once in the Word: one of these is truth, bright and full of light, beheld in the things spoken (for such is the aspect of the lily, whose brightness is an enigma of the purity and truth of the things said); the other is that only the intelligible and immaterial life is set forth by the teaching, since through the contemplation of intelligible things the lower life—that which is carried on through flesh and blood—is put to death.

For the myrrh that flows from the mouth, filling the soul of the recipient with itself, becomes a token of the mortification of the body;

for it has often been observed in the customary usage of the God-inspired words that the name of myrrh is significant of death.

The perfect and pure eye, then—the one that makes the cheek a bowl which brings forth and causes to well up the perfumes from itself—this eye makes the lilies of words to blossom through the mouth of those who are adorned with the divine brightness;

for thus does the Word name those who are pure and fragrant through virtue, from whom comes the drop of myrrh that unfailingly fills the understanding of those who receive it—which is the disdain of the material life, when all the things eagerly pursued here become inactive and dead through desire for the goods that lie above.

Such myrrh did Paul once put forth from his mouth, mingled with the pure lily of chastity, in the ears of the holy virgin (and the virgin was Thecla), who, nobly receiving into herself the drops that flowed from the lily, put to death by them the outer man, quenching in herself every fleshly thought and desire.

After that good teaching, her youth was dead, dead too the beauty that appeared upon her, dead all the bodily senses, the Word alone living in her; through whom the whole world was dead to her, and the virgin too was dead to the world.

So too once, at the house of Cornelius, the great Peter, uttering the bright lilies of the Word, made the souls of his hearers full of myrrh; and they, straightway receiving the Word, were buried with Christ through baptism, having become dead to the life of this world.

Having become the mouth of the common body of the Church, they made their hearers full of the death-dealing myrrh of the passions, blossoming with the lilies of the Word; through these the great champions of the faith, by their good confession, were anointed with myrrh in the season of martyrdom, in the contests waged for the sake of true religion.

And why should we prolong the discourse on these matters with further words, since through what has been said the meaning has become plain to us—how the mouth of the Church becomes a lily, and how the myrrh drops from the lily, and how the soul of those who receive it is filled with such a drop?

But let us now pass on to the text that follows.

'His hands are turned as on a lathe, golden, full of Tharsis.'

Now that the grace of the eye is imperfect in the body of the Church when it is severed from the ministry of the hands, we have clearly learned from the great Paul, who says that 'the eye cannot say to the hand [I have no need of you].'

For then is the activity of the eyes most clearly shown, when the works bear witness to the keen-sightedness of the eye, indicating good guidance through zeal for what is noble.

But since, having set forth the praise of the hands of the divine body, we must be guided by what has been said as to how those who serve as hands in the Church ought to be equipped, let us, setting before us the divine oracle itself, endeavour, so far as may be possible, to contemplate the meaning laid up within it, God granting it.

'His hands,' she says, 'are turned as on a lathe, golden.'

For the present, then, this much is plain from what has been said, that by the very same things by which the form of the head is extolled, the praise is fulfilled also in the hands.

And by the head we have understood Christ according to the flesh, in whom God was reconciling the world to himself, according to Paul's word—the one who, in the flesh, manifested himself through his mighty works and wonders.

If, then, this head which we have understood was named by the Word 'pure gold' because of its being wholly without sin (for it says, 'He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth'), and the Word says that the hands too are golden, it is plain what is signified by these: that the Word ordains for the hand a purity that is universal, sinless, unmixed with any evil and admitting none of it.

And by 'hand' we understand precisely that which administers the common goods of the Church for the needs of the commandments; and its praise consists in being made like the nature of the head in respect of purity and sinlessness.

And the hand becomes pure then, when through the lathe-work it scrapes away everything that hinders its beauty;

for just as those who model marble into the shape of some animal carve those parts out of the stone by their lathe-work and chisel them away, and when these have been removed the copy is fashioned after the form of the archetype, so also in the case of the beauty of the hands of the Church's body, many things must be scraped off through the lathe-work of the reasonings, that the hand may become gold in truth, and pure.

And it is surely plain to all what things, if not removed, mar the beauty of the hand: such as the desire to please men, love of gain, love of glory, looking only to appearances, procuring for oneself some distinction through the affairs in one's hands, misusing the provision made for the commandments for one's own luxury and enjoyment;

all these things and the like one must scrape away with the tools of the reasonings, and leave behind only that pure and unadulterated gold of the will, which is made like unto the pure head.

And what is being said would become clearer to us through the voice of the Apostle, who, having named God faithful, deems it right to seek nothing else in stewards than that they be found faithful, writing thus in these words:

'Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.'

Therefore the faithful and prudent steward, who serves as a hand to the Church, shows the hand of the body to be golden after the likeness of the head, imitating in his life his wise Master.

But rather the loathsome and abominable one, who, having been entrusted with the stewardship of the poor, did not scrape away the stone of avarice, but, being keeper of the money-box, on account of the thieves became himself his own thief, pilfering with his own hands what he held in his own hands, and looking not to the commandment but to the money—

and what was the enjoyment of these things? A self-chosen noose, estrangement from life, utter destruction of the soul, an evil memorial stretching out together with all the time that comes after him.

Therefore the hands must be turned as on a lathe and chiselled, so that, when the evils that have grown up with them are removed, what remains may be gold, corresponding in form to the beauty of the head.

Now the word 'Tharsis' is of many meanings in scriptural usage, not always found bearing the same sense;

but often its signification is taken with reference to what is condemned, and often with reference to what is divine and blessed.

For instance, when the prophet Jonah flees from the presence of God, he seeks a ship going to Tharsis;

these, then, are instances in which the worse things are signified by this name; but the great Ezekiel, in setting forth in writing the vision of the theophany that once came to him, indicates by this word the aspect of one of the divine sights, saying:

'And their appearance was as the appearance of Tharsis.'

And those who have accurately investigated the connotations of the Hebrew words say that by this word, in the prophecy, is signified that which is colourless, intelligible, and incorporeal.

Since, then, the signification in this word is twofold, and since it is plain that here the meaning of this expression has been taken in the better sense (for what is blameworthy would not have been taken as praise), it would be consistent to understand this concerning the hands that are being extolled: that, having accurately turned away from themselves on the lathe everything superfluous and corporeal, they pass over to what is divine and intelligible, having shaken off every material and heavy attachment to affairs.

Just so, they say, do the lapidaries work upon the mass of emerald;

for having consumed and worn away, by means of the whetstone, whatever is lightless and earthy, they leave undiminished only that in which is beheld a certain radiance, green and at the same time oily-glistening.

And this, it seems to me, the divine Apostle counsels, interpreting it more plainly in one of his discourses, when he says that we must put away the attachment to things seen, and press with our desires toward the invisible;

'For while we look not,' he says, 'at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen;'

'for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.'

These things, then, we have understood in the praise of the hands: how, being turned on the lathe away from material attachment, they become pure, being transformed toward the immaterial and intelligible through the will;

'For his hands,' she says, 'are turned as on a lathe, golden, full of Tharsis.'

It would be consistent to examine also the text that follows, which she has composed concerning the belly.

'His belly is an ivory tablet upon a sapphire stone.'

When the Lawgiver of nature gives to Moses the law engraved upon tablets of stone, he called the tablets 'stone tablets' (pyxia), on which the divine inscriptions were impressed, since the one who gave the oracle to Moses concerning them spoke thus: 'Come up to me into the mountain, and be there, and I will give thee the stone tablets, the law and the commandments.'

But afterward, since the law scraped away everything corporeal and earthy through the clarity of the Gospel, the tablet that receives the writing is no longer of stone, but of bright and newly-scraped ivory;

and that which is receptive of the commandments and the laws, which he named the 'belly,' he says is an ivory tablet upon a sapphire stone.

But first, I think, we must make the corporeal illustration plain to the discourse, and then thus proceed to the contemplation of what has been said.

The box-tree (pyxos) is a dense and whitish wood, from which those who are concerned with letters skilfully fashion for themselves writing-tablets.

Such a little tablet, then, prepared for the use of letters, even if it happens to be made of another material, is called a pyxion by extension of usage.

Therefore, on hearing 'tablet,' we have understood a certain smooth implement suitable for the reception of letters.

Since, then, 'tablet' is a generic name for such writing-boards, here the Word adds to the illustration the kind of material as well, saying that the tablet is made not of wood but of ivory.

And they say that, on account of its great density and firmness, such bone remains incorruptible for the longest time, receiving no injury from the passage of time.

And the sapphire, by the dark-blue of its colour, is conceived of as a solace for the fatigue of the eyes, since for those who diligently apply themselves to the written tablet such a radiance naturally rests the sight by itself.

Such, then, is the illustration by comparison with which the extolled belly of the Church is likened; but I, having heard the prophecy that enjoins this from the person of God—'Write the vision, and clearly, upon a tablet'—take up the notion of what it is fitting to understand, in the praised body of the Lord, by the name of the belly;

for if the Word enjoins that the divine vision be clearly inscribed upon the tablet, perhaps he indicates by the name of the belly the purity of the heart, upon which, through memory, we inscribe the divine visions.

Just as also he who opened the mouth of the great Ezekiel and put into it the roll of the book, full of writing on both sides, both without and within, says to him: 'Thy mouth shall eat, and thy belly shall be filled'—calling the intellectual and reasoning part of the soul, in which the divine lessons were laid up, the 'belly.'

And in like manner we know that the great Jeremiah too names as 'belly' the heart that is pained by those sorrowful thoughts, when he says: 'I am pained in my belly, and the senses of my heart are in turmoil.'

But if it is fitting to set before you, from the divine voice, the most authoritative of the things that lead us to this understanding, we say this: what the Lord said to those who had believed, when he spoke of rivers of living water flowing forth from the belly of those who believe in him.

'He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'

Through all these things, then, we are led to understand by the term 'belly' the pure heart, which becomes a tablet of the divine law—the heart of those who, as the Apostle says, 'show the work of the law written in their hearts,' such letters being inscribed upon the soul 'not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God,' 'not on tablets of stone,' as the Apostle says, but on the tablet of the heart, which is pure and smooth and gleaming.

For such must the governing part of the soul be, so that upon it the memory of the divine oracles may be imprinted clearly and without confusion, articulated as it were in well-marked letters.

And well has the sapphire been joined together with such a tablet in praise of the belly;

for the gleam of the sapphire is like the color of heaven.

Such a riddle becomes a symbol of this: that our heart minds and looks upon the things above, where it lays up its treasure, and there rests its gaze, so that in attending to the divine commandments it does not grow weary, since the heavenly hope gives rest to the seeing power of the soul's eyes.

Then the praise of the belly is succeeded by the encomium of the legs;

for she says, 'His legs are pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold.'

Many too were the pillars that supported the tabernacle of testimony, adorned with various materials, whose capitals and bases were of gold, while the middle part was beautified with a covering of silver.

But the bride says that the pillars of the Church—and the Church is a house, as the Apostle says: 'how one ought to behave in the house of God'—are of marble, standing upon golden bases. That the bride agrees with the wisdom of Bezalel, in the description of the beauty adorning the head and the bases with gold just as he did, is plain to everyone who has attentively studied what was said about the tabernacle;

for as he fitted a golden capital to each of the pillars and set it upon a golden base, so here also she who looks purely upon the beauty of the Bridegroom says that his head is pure and undefiled gold (for this is what the word kephaz signifies), and that his legs are grounded upon golden bases.

But as to what the riddles concerning the pillars are to be transferred, if we take St. Paul as our teacher we shall not fall away from the true meaning; for he named those who were pre-eminent among the apostles—Peter and James and John—the pillars of the Church.

And since it is fitting also to learn this—how one may become a pillar, so that we too may be worthy of such a calling—again we hear this from the wisdom of Paul, who says that the pillar is the ground of the truth.

Gold, therefore, is the truth, which becomes the base of the legs and beautifies through itself both the hands and the head; and one will not err in taking the 'ground' as transferred to the nature of the marble.

So that the meaning of what is said is this: that the legs of the body, the marble pillars (that is, those who by a brilliant life and by sound teaching bear up and support the common body of the Church, through whom the foundation of the faith holds firm and the course according to virtue is accomplished, and in the leaps of divine hopes the whole body is lifted on high), are set aright through these two things, truth and steadfastness—the gold being transferred to signify truth, which according to Paul's word becomes and is called the foundation of the divine building (for thus he says: 'other foundation can no one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ';

and Jesus Christ is the truth, upon which the legs, the pillars of the Church, are grounded), while by the marble we understand both the brilliance of the life and its weightiness and unshakeableness with respect to the disposition toward the good.

But since the pillars of the tabernacle of testimony were many, and many too were those bearing up the house of wisdom, yet now two suffice to hold up upon themselves the whole body, perhaps we should transfer the aim of the riddle to some other meaning;

for I think that by these things this is being established: that the guidings from the law toward virtue become manifold, and many too are the precepts of wisdom that look to the same end, whereas the abbreviated word of the Gospel brings all the perfection of the virtuous life into something few in number and compressed—the Lord thus saying that 'on these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets.'

And it is altogether the same, as regards power, whether one holds up a weight hanging from below or one lying upon it;

for in both cases one and the same strength of power is seen in the one who bears the burden in either manner;

for he carries it in like manner by himself, whether he has the weight suspended from him or supports upon his palm what is being borne.

[He said that] to love God is the first commandment, and that to love one's neighbor as oneself is equal in force to the first.

But Paul also, constructing as it were a house fit to receive God—namely the great Timothy—sets up in him these two pillars, giving to the one the name of faith and to the other conscience; by faith signifying love toward God from the whole heart and soul and strength, and by the good conscience the loving disposition toward one's neighbor.

And perhaps the meaning now discovered does not contradict the former sense;

for it is through both of these that Peter and James and John became pillars, and whoever else, like them, has become or shall become worthy of such a name;

for he who has been perfected in these two commandments is constituted a pillar and ground of the truth, according to the Apostle's word, so that by these two right achievements the whole body of the truth is propped up as upon certain legs, since the golden foundation of the base according to faith implants in the thoughts what is unbending and immovable and firm in every good.

And after these praises, as though recapitulating the whole beauty of the Bridegroom, she says:

'His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars;'

'his throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire. This is my beloved, and this is my dear one, O daughters of Jerusalem.'

For in this, I think, she indicates more clearly that the praise concerns the visible beauty of the Bridegroom (I mean that visible thing which the Apostle forms into a body through the several members that make up the Church);

for she says that his one appearance is the myriads of cedars, by which Lebanon is filled on every side, showing through what is said that nothing lowly and earthbound contributes to the shapeliness of the body, unless it be, like the cedar, lofty and pressing upward with its crown.

But rather let us first consider what has been set forth in what was said;

'His appearance,' she says, 'is like choice Lebanon.'

But the choosing of anything comes about through the setting of its opposite alongside it.

Since, then, the term 'good' is used in common both of what is truly such and of what is not, but through deceit puts on a false face and seems to be what it is not, he who has not failed in the judgment of the beautiful chose the selected good in preference to the deceptive one.

Since, then, she here likens the appearance of the Bridegroom to choice Lebanon, the text consequently suggests that we understand two Lebanons;

the one wicked and to be cast away, that which according to the prophecy is broken to pieces like the calf together with the cedars upon it; the other choice and precious, whose beauty is befitting God and like unto God.

Now what we understand through what has been said is this:

There is one king, properly and truly and primarily so—the King of all creation;

yet nevertheless the world-ruler of the darkness also dignifies himself with the name of kingship.

There are legions of angels with the true King, and legions of demons with the ruler of the authority of darkness.

There are principalities and authorities and powers under the King of those who reign and the Lord of those who rule.

And that other one too has, according to the Apostle's word, principalities and authorities and powers that are being abolished, when evil is destined to vanish into non-being (for 'when he shall have abolished,' he says, 'all rule and all authority and power').

Upon a throne high and lifted up the prophet beholds the King of glory seated;

and that other one too promises to set his own throne above the stars, so as to be like the Most High.

The Master of all has vessels of choice in his great house;

and that other one too has vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.

Again, the Lord of the angels bestows life and peace upon the worthy through his angels;

and that other one too sends forth wrath and anger and affliction through the evil angels.

Being densely shaded and thickly covered, for this reason the mountain is divided by Scripture toward opposite meanings, being fittingly taken in either sense according to what appears outwardly.

And thus it is possible, in the same prophets, to see the same name both praised and censured according to the difference of the things signified;

for at one time the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon and grinds fine all Lebanon together with the cedars in it, after the likeness of the calf made into an idol in the wilderness (by which the prophecy sets forth this: that evil itself and every height exalting itself against the knowledge of God shall be reduced to non-being), while at another time he transfers its signification to the better meaning, saying:

for the truly righteous one (and the Lord is the righteous one, who for our sake sprang up from the earth), that lofty-crowned palm who arose in the matter of our nature, becomes a mountain to the cedars, being multiplied by those who are rooted in him through faith; and these, when they are planted in the house of God, 'shall flourish in the courts of God.'

And by 'house' we understood the Church, according to the Apostle's instruction, in which comes about the planting of the cedars of God; and by 'courts' the eternal dwellings, in which the flourishing and manifestation of good hopes shall come to pass at the fitting times.

Since, then, the body of Christ is filled up through the several members (for the many members become one body, as the Apostle says), for this reason she named the whole beauty of the Bridegroom the choice Lebanon, marking off the difference from the rejected Lebanon by the word 'choice';

for that other is the Lebanon which, according to Isaiah, shall fall together with the lofty ones, when out of the root of Jesse the flower shall spring up and the rod of authority shall grow, through which the nature of the lion and the leopard and the asps is changed to what is tame and gentle, so that the lion dwells together with the calf, and the leopard rests together with the kid, and there presides over these that little child, the infant that was born to us, whose hand is put into the hole of the asps, laying hold of the offspring of the adder and blunting their venom; and when these things come to pass, the prophet says that 'Lebanon also shall fall together with the lofty ones.'

But as for all that the prophecy declares through these riddles, since they are manifest to all, it would be superfluous to set them forth with precision.

For who does not know the child born to us, the one who lays hold with his hand of the asps, whose presiding makes the deadly beasts share the tent with the tame, causing them to forget their natural bitterness? Since, then, through these Lebanon falls—that is, evil—and together with the first beginning of evils there fall down also the heights raised against the truth, for this reason the bride likens the beauty of the Lord to choice Lebanon, speaking thus in these words:

'His appearance is like choice Lebanon, like the cedars.'