雅歌講道 第 1 章 第 3/20 段

('For He made all things in wisdom.') And He gave to the rational nature the grace of free will, and added a power inventive of the things it desires, so that what is in our power might have room, and the good might not be constrained and involuntary, but might become an achievement of free choice.

But since this movement of free will leads us with sovereign power toward what seems good to us, there was found in the nature of existing things one who used his authority ill and, according to the apostle's word, became an inventor of evils.

He, insofar as he too is from God, is our brother; but insofar as he willingly flowed away from participation in the good, and innovated the entrance of evils and became the father of falsehood, he set himself in the rank of an enemy to all whose aim of purpose looks toward the better.

Through him, therefore, the occasion for falling away from the good things having arisen for the rest also (which indeed happened to the nature of men), rightly does she who was once black but now beautiful assign the cause of her gloomy appearance to such sons of her mother, teaching us through what is said that there is one cause, as it were a kind of mother, common to all existing things—the cause of the things that are.

And on this account all the things conceived among existing things are brethren of one another.

But the difference of moral choice has cleft nature asunder into what is friendly and what is hostile.

(for there is no other substantial existence of evil than the separation from the better) — they make every effort and contrivance to enlist others also into fellowship with evils.

'These are the sons of my mother' (for by the plural signification the manifold divisiveness of vice is indicated); they set up war within me, not warring from without by an incursion, but making the very soul the battleground of the war within it.

For in each person there is this war, just as the divine Apostle explains, saying: 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.'

When, therefore, this civil strife had arisen within me at the hands of those who were brethren indeed, yet enemies of my salvation, I became black, being defeated by my foes, and I did not keep my own vineyard.

One must understand the vineyard as the same thing as paradise.

For there too the man was appointed to guard paradise.

But the neglect of that guarding casts the man out of paradise, and makes him a dweller in the west, having removed him from the east.

For this reason the east appears to those in the west;

'For sing,' he says, 'to the Lord who has ascended over the west,' that when the light has shone in the darkness, the darkness may be transformed toward the ray, and she who is black may become beautiful again.

The apparent incoherence of the wording with respect to the meaning that has been discovered can be reconciled in the following manner:

'They set me,' she says, 'as a keeper in the vineyards,' which is equivalent to 'They set Jerusalem as a garden-watchtower.'

For it was not they who appointed her guardian of the divine vineyard, as one might suppose at first glance, but it is God who appointed her, while they only made war within her and set her 'as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.'

For being deprived of the fruit that was to be guarded because of the disobedience, she was left as a useless spectacle, since that which was to be guarded within her no longer existed.

And since God set the man to till and to keep paradise, the bride said this: that when God had set my soul unto life (for the delight of paradise was life, in which God set the man to till it and to keep it), the enemies removed her from the guardianship of paradise to a busy concern for their own vineyard, whose cluster cultivates bitterness and whose grape cultivates gall.

Such a vineyard was Sodom, such a vine-branch was Gomorrah, condemned together with Sodom, through which the incurable wrath of the dragons was poured out over the wicked winepresses of the Sodomites.

And even to this day one may see many of the men who are the caretakers and guardians of such vineyards, who diligently keep the passions within themselves, as though fearing lest they should lose the evil.

You see the wicked guardians of idolatry — both that which is worked out through impiety and that which is worked out through covetousness — how they keep vigilant watch over the guarding of evils, reckoning it a loss to be deprived of lawlessness.

And in the case of the rest likewise one may see those who have received pleasure, or arrogance, or vanity, or some other such thing into their passion, how they cling with all vigilance to such evils, making it their gain never to cleanse the soul of its evils.

These things, then, the bride laments, saying: for this reason I became black, because while guarding and tending the tares of the enemy and their wicked vine-branches, I did not keep my own vineyard.

Oh, how much mourning is stirred in those who hear with perception: 'My own vineyard I did not keep!'

The utterance is plainly a lamentation — a lamentation that moves the groanings of the prophets to sympathy.

'My own vineyard I did not keep.'

The vineyard is immortality; the vineyard is dispassion, and likeness to the Divine, and estrangement from every evil.

The fruit of this vineyard is purity — this bright and ripe cluster that gleams in the sun by its appearance and sweetens the soul's senses with chastity; while the tendril of the vineyard is the entwining and growing-together with eternal life; and the branches are the elevations of the virtues, which climb up toward the height of the angels; and the leaves, flourishing and gracefully swaying on the boughs in the gentle breeze, are the manifold ornament of the divine virtues that flourish together in the Spirit.

'Possessing all these things,' she says, 'and being made radiant in the enjoyment of them, because I did not keep the vineyard I was blackened with mourning;'

'for having fallen away from purity I put on the gloomy form (for such in appearance is the garment of skin); but now, having become beautiful and full of light again through the uprightness that loved me, I regard my good fortune with anxiety, lest I again lose the beauty, having missed the mark concerning the guarding through ignorance of the manner of safety.'

For what does she say? 'Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed your flock, where you make it lie down at noon, lest I become as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions.'

'Where do you feed your flock,' O good Shepherd who takes up upon his shoulders the whole flock? For the whole of human nature is one sheep, which you took up upon your shoulders.

Show me the place of green pasture, make known to me the water of rest, lead me out to the nourishing grass, call me by name, that I may hear your voice — I, your sheep — and through your voice give me eternal life.

'Tell me, you whom my soul loves.'

For thus I name you, since your name is above every name, and to every rational nature both unutterable and incomprehensible.

Therefore the name that makes known your goodness to me is the disposition of my soul toward you.

For how should I not love you, who so loved me, and that when I was black, so as to lay down your soul for the sheep which you shepherd? A greater love than this it is not possible to conceive — that you should exchange the salvation of my soul for your own.

'Teach me, then,' she says, 'where you feed your flock,' that having found the saving pasture I may be filled with the heavenly food, of which whoever does not eat cannot enter into life; and that, running to you the fountain, I may draw of the divine drink which you pour forth as a spring to those who thirst, sending out the water from the side which the iron opened up as this vein — whoever tastes of it becomes a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life.

For if you feed me among these things, you will assuredly make me lie down at noon, when in peace I have fallen asleep together in the shadowless light and take my rest;

for noon is shadowless on every side, when the sun shines from directly overhead, in which you make those shepherded by you lie down, when you receive your children with yourself into the resting-place.

But no one is counted worthy of the noonday rest who has not become a son of light and a son of day.

But he who has equally separated himself from both the evening and the morning darkness (that is, from where evil begins and unto what it ends) — this one is made to lie down at noon by the sun of righteousness.

'Make known to me, then,' she says, 'where I ought to be shepherded, and what is the way of the noonday rest, lest, having strayed from the good guidance, the ignorance of the truth herd me together with the flocks alien to your sheepfolds.'

These things she said, being in agony concerning the beauty that had come to her from God, and deeming it worthy to learn how her comeliness might remain with her continually.

But she is not yet counted worthy of the voice of the Bridegroom, since God foresees something better concerning her, so that the delay of the enjoyment might kindle her longing into a greater desire, that her joy might increase together with her longing.

The friends of the Bridegroom converse with her, guiding her by counsel in the manner of the safekeeping of the good things that are present.

But the word from those ones too is veiled by obscurity;

for the wording runs thus: 'If you do not know yourself, O fair one among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and shepherd the kids by the tents of the shepherds.'

The meaning of these sayings is evident from the sequence of what has been examined, but the syntax seems in some way to have obscurity.

What, then, is the meaning? The safest safeguard for us is not to be ignorant of oneself, nor, when looking at some other of the things around oneself, to think that one is looking at oneself.

Which indeed is what those suffer who are unobservant of themselves;

seeing in themselves strength, or beauty, or glory, or dominion, or some abundance of wealth, or pomp, or bulk, or greatness of body, or a fair endowment of form, or some other such thing, they think that this is what they themselves are.

For this reason they are treacherous guardians of themselves, since through their attachment to what is alien they leave their own unguarded.

For how could anyone guard something which he does not know? Therefore the safest watch over the good things within us is not to be ignorant of ourselves, and for each to know himself, what he truly is, and accurately to distinguish himself from the things around himself, so that he may not unwittingly be guarding what is alien instead of himself;

for he who looks to the life in this world and judges the things here worthy of guarding does not know how to distinguish his own from what is alien;

for none of the things that pass away is ours.

For how could anyone lay hold of that which is transient and flowing? Since, then, one thing alone remains ever the same, the intelligible and immaterial nature, while matter passes by through a certain flux and motion, being always altered, of necessity he who separates himself from that which stands fixed is altogether swept along together with that which is unstable; and he who pursues the passing and abandons the stationary fails of both — letting go the one, and being unable to hold fast the other.

For this reason the counsel of the friends of the Bridegroom says what has been stated: that 'If you do not know yourself, O fair one among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and shepherd the kids by the tents of the shepherds.'

But what is this? That he who is ignorant of himself falls out of the flock of the sheep and becomes a fellow-grazer with the kids, whose station has been thrust off to the left, since the good Shepherd sets the sheep on the right, but separates off from the better portion, to the left, the kids.

This, then, we are taught from the counsel of the friends of the Bridegroom: that one must look to the very nature of things, and not aim wide of the truth by following misleading tracks.

But it is necessary to set forth the account concerning these things more clearly.

Many of mankind do not themselves judge how things stand by nature, but, looking to the custom of those who have lived before them, they fail of the sound judgment of realities, putting forward as the criterion of the good not some prudent reasoning but an irrational custom;

whence they thrust themselves into offices and dominions, and make much of the splendors in this world and the material pomps, though it is unclear into what each of these will end up after the life here.

For custom is no sure guarantor of the things to come, whose end is often found to be a herd of kids and not of sheep.

But you surely understand the saying from the voice of the Gospel.

But he who looks to what is proper to human nature (and this is reason) will despise the irrational custom, and will choose nothing as good which does not bring some gain to the soul.

Therefore one must not look to the tracks of the grazing beasts, which those who have journeyed through life before us stamp upon the earthly life by their heels;

for the judgment of what is more to be preferred is unseen from what appears, until we come outside of this life and there know whom we have followed.

Therefore, when the friends say these things, one may hear that: 'You, O soul, who from black have become beautiful, if it is your care that the grace of your comeliness should endure with you forever, do not wander in the tracks of those who have journeyed through life before you;

for it is unclear whether what appears is not a path of kids, which you, following behind — because those who wore the trail through the tracks are not visible to you — when you have passed through life and have been shut up in the fold of death, may perchance be joined to the herd of the kids, whom, in ignorance, you followed behind through the tracks of life.'

'For if you do not know yourself,' he says, 'O fair one among women, go forth in the footsteps of the flocks and shepherd the kids by the tents of the shepherds.'

This it is possible to grasp more clearly through another copy, so that not even the syntax of the sayings should seem to be incoherent.

For it says: 'If you do not know yourself, O fair one among women, you went forth from the footsteps of the flock and you shepherd kids instead of the tents of the flocks.'

so that the meaning made manifest in these words corresponds precisely to the contemplation of the text set forth beforehand.

Therefore, that you may not suffer these things, 'give heed to yourself,' says the Word;

for this is the sure safeguard of good things:

know how greatly you have been honored by your Maker above the rest of creation.

The heaven did not become the image of God, nor the moon, nor the sun, nor the beauty of the stars, nor anything else that appears among created things—none of them.

You alone have been made the likeness of the Nature that surpasses all understanding, a copy of the incorruptible beauty, an imprint of the true Godhead, a vessel of the blessed life, an impress of the true Light; and looking to that Light, you become what that Light is, imitating Him who shines within you through the radiance that shines back from your own purity.

Nothing among existing things is so great as to be measured against your greatness.

The whole heaven is comprehended by the span of God's hand, and earth and sea are enclosed in the hollow of His palm;

yet He who is so great and such as He is, who encompasses all creation in His palm, becomes wholly containable by you and dwells in you, and is not straitened as He passes through your nature—He who said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them.'

If you behold these things, you will occupy your eye with none of the things of earth.

Why do I say this? Nay, not even the heaven will be reckoned by you as an object of wonder.

For how will you wonder at the heavens, O man, when you see yourself more abiding than the heavens? For they pass away, but you endure together with the ever-existing One unto eternity.

You will not wonder at the breadths of the earth, nor at the seas stretching out to infinity, over which you have been appointed to preside—as a charioteer of some pair of colts—having these elements obedient and subject to your will.

For the earth serves you for the needs of life, and the sea, like a well-broken colt, offers you its back and receives man as its rider.

If, then, you come to know yourself, O fairest among women, you will look down upon all the world, and gazing continually toward the immaterial Good, you will overlook the wandering after the footprints of this present life.

Of which may we too be counted worthy, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages. Amen.

Homily 3. 'To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots have I likened you, my near one.'

'How beautiful are your cheeks, like a turtledove's; your neck like little chains? We will make you likenesses of gold with studs of silver.'

'While the king was at his reclining, my nard gave forth its fragrance.'

'My kinsman is to me a bundle of myrrh; he shall lodge between my breasts.'

'My kinsman is to me a cluster of henna in the vineyards of Engedi.'

Whatever was contemplated by us in the introductory sections of the Song of Songs, before the present reading, resembles the light that comes after the night, about the dawn.

For that light is not pure light, but is a prelude to light;

and what has been said is of such a kind as to announce to us the rising of the true Light, yet not to have in itself the sun's own orb shining forth in full radiance.

For in those passages the bride speaks, and the friends and the maidens; but now the voice of the Bridegroom Himself, like a solar orb, rises, hiding by the radiance of its beams all the brightness both of the stars that appeared before and of the dawn that had shed its early light.

And all those earlier things had the power of certain purifications and lustral sprinklings, by which souls, being cleansed, are prepared for the reception of divine things; but the present word is a participation in the very Godhead, since God the Word Himself, through His own voice, imparts to the hearer communion in His incorruptible power.

And just as at Mount Sinai Israel, having been prepared beforehand by the purifications during two days, on the third at dawn is deemed worthy of the theophany—no longer occupied with the washing of garments, but openly receiving God Himself, for whose sake he had washed away the filth of the soul through the preceding purifications—so also now the contemplation of the introductions to the Song of Songs, accomplished in the foregoing homilies during the preceding two days, has profited us to such a degree as to wash and rinse away from the filth of the flesh the understanding contained in what was said.

But God the Word Himself will today—that is, on the third day after the first and second—appear to those who have been cleansed, not in gloom and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and terrible fire consuming the compass of the mountain from base to summit, making His presence manifest and conspicuous, but sweet and easy of approach, having transformed Himself from that fearful aspect into the joy befitting a bridal.

For when the bride had asked to learn the places of rest, where the good Shepherd has His abode, so that she might not through ignorance suffer any of the things she did not wish, and then the friends of the Bridegroom had pointed out the sure criterion of truth—namely, for the soul to look to herself and to know herself (for they declared that to be ignorant of oneself is the beginning and the consequence of not knowing anything else that is needful—

for how could anyone learn anything else while being ignorant of himself?)—upon these things, as the ruling faculty of the soul had now been sufficiently cleansed, the Word rises up to her who longs for Him, making an exhortation toward what is more perfect by means of His acceptance of what is present;

for the praise given for good achievements instills in those who have achieved them a keener eagerness toward what is better.

What, then, is the word addressed by the true Word to the virgin? 'To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots have I likened you, my near one,' He says.

But since it is not easy off-hand to discern the meaning of what has been said, it is fitting to examine carefully, as far as is possible, the matter before us.

We have learned from the narrative of another power that was set in array against the mare of Pharaoh: a cloud, and a rod, and a violent wind, and a sea divided in two, and a depth turned to dust, and a wall built of the waves, and a dry abyss made into dry land through the midst of the walls formed of water—by all of which came salvation to the Israelites, while Pharaoh with his whole army, together with the horses and chariots, was covered by the waves.

Since, then, no cavalry force was set against the Egyptian army, it might be difficult to learn to what mare, appearing against the chariots of the Egyptians, the bride is now likened by the Word;

for He says, 'To my mare, which among Pharaoh's chariots wrought the victory, have I likened you, my near one.'

Nor could anyone be defeated in a cavalry battle unless some cavalry force were set against him by the enemy. Since, then, the strongest part of the Egyptians' army was the cavalry, the Word named 'mare' the invisible power brought against it, through which the victory over the Egyptians came about;

for they too perceived the One who was fighting, and cried out to one another, 'The Lord fights against the Egyptians,' and 'Let us flee from before the face of the Lord.'

And it is clear that the true Commander-in-chief arrayed His own power correspondingly to the preparation of the adversaries.

There was, then, a certain invisible power, working through the wonders concerning the sea the destruction of the Egyptians, which the Word named 'mare.'

And we surmise that this is the angelic host, concerning which the prophet says, 'You will mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation.'

Moreover, the power that took up the prophet Elijah aloft from earth to the ethereal region is named by Scripture with the name of 'horses,' and the narrative calls the prophet himself the chariot and horseman of Israel; and those who go about the whole inhabited world, through whom the earth is settled and is at rest, the prophet Zechariah named 'horses,' conversing with the man who stood between the two mountains.

There is, then, a certain mare belonging to Him who possesses all things:

one that takes up the prophet, another that settles the inhabited world, another that is yoked to the chariot, another that takes up God as its rider for the salvation of men, and another that sinks the Egyptian power.

Since, therefore, there is much diversity manifested through their operations among the divine mares, the soul that has drawn near to God through the race of virtue is likened to the mare that overthrew the power of Egypt;

for thus the Word says to her: 'To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots have I likened you, my near one.'

And the Word has embraced within itself many great praises, and the likening to this mare is a kind of catalogue of good achievements;

for all the things recorded of Israel's sojourn among the Egyptians—the slavery, the straw, the clay, the brick-making, all the toil about the earth, the harsh taskmasters of such labors, those who daily exacted from them the tribute of clay, on whose account the water becomes blood and the light is darkened and frogs creep into the houses, and the furnace-soot causes blisters to seethe up from their bodies, and each and every one of the plagues, the locust, the gnats, the caterpillar, the hail, the sufferings of the firstborn—all these, and whatever else the narrative recounts toward the better, through which salvation comes to the Israelites, are a theme of praise for the soul that is joined to God;

for it would not have been likened to that power which destroyed the evils of the Egyptians, by which Israel is set free from the wicked tyranny, unless all these things had also been accomplished by it—both the things that destroy Egypt and the things that prepare for the journey toward God of those who are being removed from the Egyptian mire to the land of promise.

Therefore, since, as the divine Apostle says, all things that the God-inspired Scripture contains were written for our admonition, the Word by what was said to the bride counsels us nothing other than this: that we too, having received the Word as rider upon ourselves, and having subdued the Egyptian mare with her very chariots and riders, and having drowned in the water all their wicked dominion, should thus be likened to that power, casting the opposing host into the water like some filth.

But that we may learn more clearly what is being said, it is of this sort:

carrying along a good conscience into the life that follows thereafter;

for he who has been made thoroughly clean of all the Egyptian plagues—of blood and frogs and blisters and darkness, of the locust and gnats and hail and the downpour of fire and the rest, which the word of the narrative recalls—this man is worthy to be likened to that power of which the Word becomes the rider.

And assuredly we are not ignorant of what is signified by the plagues: how the blood becomes a plague to the Egyptians, and the stench of the frogs, and the change of light into darkness, and each and every one of them.

For who does not know through what sort of life one becomes 'blood,' being altered from the potable into corruption; and what one does to breed in one's own house the foul stench of the frogs; and how one transforms the luminous life into deeds dear to night and full of gloom, through which the furnace of Gehenna causes the wicked blisters of condemnation to seethe up? And thus it is easy also to apply each of the evils in Egypt to the instruction and chastening of the hearer; but it would be superfluous to prolong the discourse upon matters generally agreed.

Having, then, become superior to these and such as these, and having drawn near to God, we too shall assuredly hear: 'To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots have I likened you, my near one.'

For this reason He comforts such a thought in the following word, saying that your cheeks are not such—even if you are a mare—as to need a muzzle and bridle unto strangling, but rather your cheek is adorned by the purity of the turtledoves.

For He says, 'How beautiful are your cheeks, like a turtledove's?' And it is testified by those who have observed such things that this bird, if it be parted from its mate, remains thereafter without a partner, so that chastity is by nature perfected in it.

For this reason this bird was included by the Word in the enigma of the praises, so that the likening to the turtledove might serve as a bridle for the cheek of the divine mare, through which the pure life is signified as befitting such a mare.

Therefore in wonder the Word says to her, 'How beautiful are your cheeks, like a turtledove's!'

And He adds to this yet another praise by way of likeness, saying, 'Your neck is like little chains.'

For once having entered upon the figurative signification, He devises the praise for the bride through the things contemplated concerning the horses;

for He praises the neck that is arched in the shape of a circle, which indeed we see happening in the case of high-spirited colts;

for the mention of the little chains indicates the circle, the shape of which, displayed upon the neck, makes the colt more comely than itself.

Now 'hormos' (harbor) is properly said of coastal places, where the shore, hollowed inward in the shape of a crescent, receives the sea into its bosom and gives rest through itself to those sailing in from the open sea; but by metaphor, on account of the shape, the ornament worn about the neck is called 'hormos' (necklace).