Homilies on the Song of Songs 1

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your breasts are better than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments is beyond all spices. Your name is ointment poured out; therefore the maidens loved you, they drew you. Behind you, toward the fragrance of your ointments, [we will run. The king brought me into his] chamber. Let us rejoice and be glad in you; let us love your breasts more than wine."

You who, following Paul's counsel, have put off the old man like a filthy garment, together with his deeds and desires, and who through purity of life have clothed yourselves with the shining garments of the Lord, such as he showed at the transfiguration on the mountain; or rather, you who have put on our Lord Jesus Christ himself together with his robe of love, and have been conformed to him toward freedom from passion and toward what is more divine: listen to the mystery of the Song of Songs. Come inside the undefiled bridal chamber, clothed in white with pure and unstained thoughts. Let no one who brings in with him a passionate and fleshly thought, and who does not have the garment of conscience fitting for the divine wedding, be bound by his own thoughts, dragging the undefiled words of the bridegroom and the bride down into brutish and irrational passions, and, clothed through them with shameful imaginings, be thrown out from among those who rejoice at the wedding, exchanging the joy of the bridal chamber for gnashing of teeth and weeping. I give this solemn warning as I am about to take up the mystical contemplation in the Song of Songs. For through what is written here the soul is in a certain way dressed as a bride for her incorporeal, spiritual, and immaterial union with God. For he who wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth here shows the most perfect and blessed way of salvation, I mean the way through love. For salvation comes to some through fear, when, looking to the threats of punishment in Gehenna, we separate ourselves from evil. And there are some who achieve virtue because of the hope of the reward stored up for those who have lived piously, gaining the good not by love but by expectation of the recompense. But the one who runs up in soul toward perfection drives out fear (for such a disposition belongs to a slave, who does not stay with his master out of love but does not run away for fear of the whip); and he looks down even on the rewards themselves, so that he may not seem to value the reward, the gain, more than the giver. He loves with all his heart and soul and strength, not any of the things that come from him, but him himself, who is the source of good things. This, then, is the disposition that he who calls us to participation in himself lays down as law for the souls of those who hear him.

The one who confirms this legislation is Solomon, whose wisdom, by the divine testimony, has no measure: it is equally beyond comparison with all who came before and all who will come after, and it is without equal; nothing that exists escaped him. Do you think that I mean the Solomon born of Bathsheba, who used the mountain for sin? Another Solomon is signified through him, who was himself also born of the seed of David according to the flesh, whose name is peace, the true king of Israel, the builder of God's temple; who has embraced the knowledge of all things, whose wisdom is without limit, or rather whose very being is wisdom and truth and every name and thought that is lofty and befits God. He used this Solomon as an instrument and speaks to us through him, first in Proverbs, then in Ecclesiastes, and after these in the philosophy of the Song of Songs set before us, showing in his discourse the ascent to perfection by a way and in order. For just as in the life of the flesh not every age is capable of all the natural activities, nor does life proceed through the same things across the differences of age (for the infant does not take up the works of grown men, nor is the grown man [carried] in the arms of the [nurse] …), but at each season of life something different is suitable and fitting; so one can see in the soul too a certain likeness to the ages of the body, through which there is found an order and sequence that leads a person by the hand to the life of virtue. For this reason Proverbs teaches in one way and Ecclesiastes discourses in another, and the philosophy of the Song of Songs, by its loftier doctrines, lies above both. For the teaching of Proverbs addresses its words to one who is still a child, fitting them to his age. "Hear, son," it says, "the laws of your father, and do not reject the ordinances of your mother." You see from what is said that the soul's age is still tender and soft: it regards him as still in need of a mother's ordinances and a father's admonition. And so that the child may attend more eagerly to his parents, it [promises] him the ornaments of childhood as the fruit of zeal for learning … For the ornament of children is a golden [necklace] … But one must understand these things in whatever way the sense of the riddle may guide toward the better. And so it begins to describe wisdom to him, setting forth in varied and many-sided ways the loveliness of an inexpressible beauty, so that he may rise up toward participation in good things not by fear and compulsion but by desire and longing. For the description of beauty somehow draws the desire of the young toward what is shown, fanning their longing for a share in that loveliness. So that the desiring faculty in him may grow the more, transferred from attachment to matter to an immaterial relation, it adorns the beauty of wisdom with praises. And it not only displays in words the beauty of her loveliness, but also counts out her wealth, of which the one who comes to live with her will surely become master. Her wealth meanwhile is seen in her ornaments. For on her right hand is an ornament of whole ages, as the word says, "Length of life and years of life are in her right hand." On her left hand she wears the precious wealth of the virtues, which shines together with the brilliance of glory; for it says, "In her left hand are wealth and glory." Then it speaks of the sweet breath of her mouth, breathing out the fine scent of righteousness, saying, "Out of her mouth goes forth righteousness." On her lips, it says, instead of the natural red, law and mercy bloom. And so that beauty may be found gathered from every part in such a bride, even her gait is praised; for it says, "She walks in the ways of righteousness." Nor is her stature left out of the praise of her loveliness, since her growth has shot up like one of the well-grown plants. And the plant to which her height is likened, it says, is the tree of life itself, which becomes food for those who hold fast to it and a sure and unshaken pillar for those who lean on it. Through both I understand the Lord, for he is the life and the support. The wording runs thus: "[She is a tree] of life to all who hold fast to her, and to those who lean on her as on the Lord she is sure." Together with the rest of her praises her power too is included, so that the praise of wisdom's beauty may be completed through all good things. "For God," it says, "founded the earth by wisdom, and prepared the heavens by understanding"; and it leads each of the things seen in creation back to the power of wisdom, varying her with names: for it calls the same one wisdom and understanding, perception and knowledge and understanding … [Having dressed the] young man [as a bridegroom] for such a union, it now bids him look to the divine bridal chamber. For it says, "Do not forsake her, and she will hold fast to you; love her, and she will keep you; fence her about, and she will exalt you; honour her, so that she may embrace you, so that she may give a crown of graces to your head." And having adorned the bride with the wedding crowns, it bids him be inseparable from her, saying, "When you walk, take her with you, and let her be with you; and when you sleep, let her guard you, so that when you wake she may talk with you." Through these and similar words it kindles the desire of the one who is still young in the inner man, and in its discourse it shows wisdom herself telling of herself the things by which she most of all draws the loving disposition of her hearers, saying among other things, "I love those who love me." For the hope of being loved in return disposes the lover more vehemently to desire. Having added the rest in its sayings and brought him to a more perfect state, it then, in the last parts of Proverbs, where it went through the praises of that valiant woman, calls this good union blessed. Then it adds the philosophy of Ecclesiastes for one who has been sufficiently introduced, through the training of the proverbs, to the desire for the virtues. In that book it discredits people's attachment to appearances and says that everything unstable and passing is vain, where it says, "All that comes is vanity"; and it sets the longing movement of our soul toward the invisible beauty above everything grasped by sense. And having thus cleansed the heart of its attachment to appearances, then through the Song of Songs it initiates the mind into the inner divine sanctuary. In it what is sketched is the arrangement of a wedding, but what is understood is the human soul's mingling with the divine. That is why the one who in Proverbs is named "son" is here named bridegroom, and wisdom is moved over into the place of the bride, so that the human being may be betrothed to God as a pure virgin and, joined to the Lord, become one spirit, through mingling with what is undefiled and passionless becoming pure thought instead of heavy flesh.

Since, then, it is wisdom who speaks, love her as much as you can, with all your heart and strength; desire her as much as you have room for. And I boldly add to these words, "Love her passionately." For in incorporeal things this passion is blameless and passionless, as wisdom says in Proverbs when she lays down as law the passionate love of the divine beauty. The present text too commands the same, not by giving bare counsel about this, but philosophizing through hidden words: it sets before its thoughts an image of the pleasures of life to build up these doctrines. The image is the arrangement of a wedding, in which desire for beauty mediates the longing; yet not, as in human custom, with the bridegroom beginning the desire: the virgin anticipates the bridegroom, making her longing public without shame and praying that she may at last delight in the bridegroom's kiss. For the good matchmakers of the virgin, patriarchs and prophets and lawgivers, brought the divine gifts to the betrothed, which custom calls bride-gifts, so naming the gifts given before the wedding. These were forgiveness of transgressions, amnesty for evils, removal of sin, transformation of nature, change of the corruptible into incorruption, the delight of paradise, the dignity of a kingdom, joy without end. Having received these divine gifts, then, from the noble gift-bearers who brought her the gifts through the prophetic teaching, the virgin both confesses her desire and hastens the grace, eager already to delight in the loveliness of the one she longs for. Certain companions and age-mates of hers listen, stirring the bride to greater desire. And the bridegroom arrives, bringing a chorus of friends and intimates. These would be the ministering spirits, through whom human beings are saved, or the holy prophets, who, hearing the voice of the bridegroom, rejoice and exult as the undefiled union is joined, through which the soul joined to the Lord becomes one spirit, as the apostle says …

Again, then, I shall take up the word in Proverbs. Let no one who is passionate and fleshly, who still smells of the dead stench of the old man, drag the meanings of the God-inspired thoughts and words down to brutish irrationality. Rather let each one go out of himself and out of the material world, and return in some way through freedom from passion into paradise, and through purity be made like God; and so let him advance into the sanctuary of the mysteries shown to us through this book. But if anyone's soul is unprepared for such a hearing, let him listen to Moses' law, not to dare the ascent of the spiritual mountain before washing the garments of our hearts and purifying our souls with the proper sprinklings of our thoughts. So I think we must now, during the time in which we devote ourselves to this contemplation, forget all thoughts of marriage, according to the command of Moses, who laid down that those being initiated must keep pure from marriage; and that we must take up in every respect the commands of the lawgiver as we are about to approach the spiritual mountain of the knowledge of God, at which the female kind of thoughts is left behind, together with the material baggage, in the life below. And every irrational thought, if it should be seen around such a mountain, is stoned to death by the firmer thoughts as if by stones. For only so could we contain the voice of this trumpet, which sounds out something great and extraordinary and beyond the power of those who receive it, a voice sent out by the very darkness of obscurity in which God is, who burns up with fire everything material on such a mountain.

Now, then, let us go inside the Holy of Holies, which is the Song of Songs. For as in "the Holy of Holies" we are taught a certain excess and intensification of holiness by this superlative expression, so through "the Song of Songs" the lofty word promises to teach us mysteries of mysteries. For there are many songs in the God-inspired teaching through which we are taught the great thoughts about God, by the great David and by Isaiah and Moses and many others; from this title we learn that as far as the holy songs stand apart from the songs of outside wisdom, so far does the mystery in the Song of Songs surpass the holy songs. The greater part of it neither human hearing nor human nature can find or contain for understanding. And for this reason it set forth in riddles, as the guide to its doctrines, the most intense of the things done for pleasure, I mean the passion of love, so that we may learn from it that the soul, gazing steadily at the inaccessible beauty of the divine nature, must love it as much as the body has an attachment to what is akin and of its own kind, transferring the passion into passionlessness, so that, every bodily disposition having been quenched, the mind in us may boil with love by the spirit alone, warmed by that fire which the Lord came to cast on the earth.

So much, I say, suffices on how the soul must be disposed when it hears the mystical words. It would be time now to set the divine words of the Song of Songs themselves before the contemplation of our discourse. And first let us consider the force of the title. For it does not seem to me idle that the book is ascribed in its title to Solomon, but so that the readers may form the thought of expecting something great and divine in what is said. For since the wonder at his wisdom is unsurpassed in everyone's judgment through the testimony about him, for this reason the mention of his name is taken up at once at the beginning, so that the readers may hope for something great and worthy of his fame through this book.

Just as in the art of painting there is certainly some material in different colours that fills out the likeness of the living creature, yet the one who looks at the image does not linger over the colours that art has applied, but looks only at the form that the artist brought out through the colours, so it is fitting in the present Scripture too not to look at the material of the colours in the words, but to see in them, as it were, the form of a royal portrait expressed through pure thoughts. For according to their surface meanings these words are white, or yellow, or black, or red, or blue, or some other colour: mouth, and kiss, and ointment, and wine, and the names of the limbs, and bed, and maidens, and the like. But the form produced through them is blessedness and freedom from passion, union with the divine, estrangement from evil, and likeness to what is truly beautiful and good. These are the thoughts that bear witness to Solomon's wisdom, a wisdom that surpasses the bounds of human wisdom. For what could be more paradoxical than this, to make nature itself the purifier of its own passions, laying down freedom from passion as law through words thought to be passionate? For it does not say that one must get outside the passionate movements of the flesh and put to death one's members on earth and keep one's mouth pure of passionate words; rather it has so disposed the soul that it looks to purity through what seem to be unseemly words, and expresses an undefiled meaning through passionate expressions. Let our discourse, then, teach us this through these preliminaries: that those who are led into the sanctuary of the mysteries of this book are no longer human beings, but have been transformed in nature toward the more divine through discipleship to Christ. So the Word testifies to his own disciples that they were greater than human, when the Lord's distinction set them apart from human beings, as he says, "Who do people say that I am? But who do you say that I am?" For truly the one who is led by the hand through such words, whose surface meaning displays fleshly pleasures, without sliding down into a soiled thought, but toward the philosophy of divine things and to pure ideas, shows that he is no longer a human being, nor has a nature mingled with flesh and blood; rather he displays the life hoped for at the resurrection of the saints, having become equal to the angels through freedom from passion. For as after the resurrection the body, transformed into incorruption, is joined to the human soul, but the passions that now trouble us through the flesh do not rise with those bodies, and a peaceful state will take over our life, the mind of the flesh no longer rebelling against the soul, nor making civil war through the passionate movements against the law of the mind and leading the defeated soul like a captive to sin, but nature will then be pure of all such things, and there will be one mind through both, I mean the flesh and the spirit, every bodily disposition having been wiped out of nature: so through this book the word bids its hearers, even while we live in the flesh, not to turn our thoughts toward the flesh at all, but to look to the soul alone, and to offer all the loving expressions of this book, pure and unstained, to the God who is good beyond all mind, who alone is truly sweet and desirable and lovely, the enjoyment of whom, as it is continually renewed, becomes the starting point of greater desire, intensifying longing by participation in good things.

So Moses loved God; so Elijah; so John loved the bridegroom, saying, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom … rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice." So Peter, asked whether he loved, confesses with boldness, saying, "You know, Lord, that I love you." So the other apostles; so Paul, once a persecutor, who loved Christ whom he had not seen, wrote, "I betrothed you to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." So the church now, the bride, … loved the bridegroom, like the virgin in the Song who says, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." So the one who, through the converse with God that took place mouth to mouth, as Scripture testifies, came to a greater desire for such kisses after so many appearances of God, asking to see the one he longed for as if he had never yet seen him. So all the others in whom the divine longing lay deep never stopped in their desire, making everything that came to them from God for the enjoyment of the one they longed for into fuel and kindling for a more vehement desire. Just so now the soul joined to God is insatiable in its enjoyment: the more abundantly it is filled with the enjoyment, the more vehemently it is in the prime of its longing. For since the words of the bridegroom are spirit and life, and everyone who is joined to the spirit becomes spirit, and the one who is united to life passes from death to life, according to the Lord's word, for this reason the virgin soul longs to bring itself near to the spring of spiritual life. And the spring is the bridegroom's mouth, from which the words of eternal life gush up and fill the mouth that draws from it, as the prophet did, drawing in the spirit through his mouth. Since, then, the one who draws drink from the spring must put his mouth to the water, and the spring is the Lord, who said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink," for this reason the thirsting soul wishes to bring its own mouth to the mouth that pours out life, saying, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." And he who overflows with life for all and wills all to be saved wishes none of those being saved to be without a share in such a kiss; for this kiss is a cleansing of every stain. This is why, it seems to me, the Lord brought this reproach against Simon the leper, "You gave me no kiss." For surely he would have been cleansed of his disease if he had drawn purity in with his mouth. But he was naturally without love, being grown over with flesh through his disease as regards his own desire, remaining under the disease. But the purified soul, with no fleshly leprosy standing in the way, sees the treasure of good things; and the name of the treasure is the heart. And the prophet prayed that a pure heart might be created, from which comes the supply of divine milk to the breasts, by which the soul is fed, drawing grace in proportion to faith. This is why she says, "Your breasts are better than wine," indicating the heart through the breasts by their position. Anyone who understands by the heart the hidden and secret power of the Godhead will not go wrong; and one might reasonably take the breasts to be the good activities of the divine power on our behalf, by which God nurses each person's life, granting food suited to each who receives it.

In passing we also learn another doctrine through the philosophy of this book: that there is a double perception in us, one bodily, the other more divine, as the word of Proverbs says somewhere, "You will find a divine perception." For there is a certain correspondence between the movements and activities of the soul and the sense organs of the body, and this too we learn from the present oracles of the Spirit. Wine and milk are judged by taste; but since these are intelligible, the power of the soul that grasps them is surely intelligible too. A kiss is effected through the sense of touch, for in a kiss lips touch each other. But there is also a touch of the soul, which touches the Word, effected through an incorporeal and intelligible contact, as the one said who said, "Our hands have handled concerning the Word of life." Likewise the scent of the divine ointments is not a scent for the nostrils, but belongs to an intelligible and immaterial power, which draws in the fragrance of Christ by drawing in the spirit. For thus the sequence of the virgin's prayer runs at the beginning: "Your breasts are better than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments is beyond all spices." By these words, as we have understood them, no small or contemptible thought is shown. For perhaps in setting the milk of the divine breasts above, by comparison, the gladness that comes to us from wine, we learn from what is said that all human wisdom and science of beings, and every contemplative power and imagination of understanding, cannot bear comparison with the simple food of the divine teachings. For milk comes from the breasts, and milk is the food of infants; wine, because of its strength and warmth, becomes the enjoyment of the more mature. Yet what is perfect in outside wisdom is less than the childlike teaching of the divine Word. That is why the divine breasts are better than human wine. And the scent of the divine ointments is finer than all the fragrance of spices. From this the word seems to me to show the following sense. We understand the spices to be the virtues, such as wisdom, self-control, courage, prudence, and the like; anointed with these, each of us according to his own power and free choice comes to be fragrant in a different way, one from self-control or wisdom, another from righteousness or courage or another of the things understood as virtue; and another perhaps has in himself a fragrance blended from all such spices. Yet all these could not come into comparison with that perfect virtue which, the prophet Habakkuk says, has covered the heavens: "His virtue covered the heavens"; this is wisdom itself, righteousness itself, truth itself, and each of these things. The fragrance of the heavenly ointments, she says, has a grace beyond comparison with these spices known among us.

Again, in what follows, the soul, the bride, touches a loftier philosophy, showing the inaccessibility of the divine power and the impossibility of its being contained by human reasonings, when she says, "Your name is ointment poured out." For this seems to me to be signified by this saying: that the boundless nature cannot be grasped with precision by the meaning of a name, but every power of thoughts and every expression of words and thoughts, even if it seems to have something great and befitting God, does not by nature truly reach the thing itself; rather, as if from certain tracks and sparks, our reason guesses at the Word, conjecturing the incomprehensible from what is comprehended by some analogy. For whatever name we devise, she says, to make known the ointment of your Godhead, we do not signify the ointment itself by the meaning of what we say, but some small remnant of the vapour of the divine fragrance. For as with vessels from which ointment has been poured out, the ointment that was poured out of the vessels is unknown in its own nature, what it is, but from some faint quality left in the vessel from the vapour we form a conjecture about the ointment that was poured out: this, then, is what we learn from what is said, that the ointment of the Godhead itself, whatever it is in its being, is above every name and thought. But the wonders seen in the universe provide the material for the names of theology, by which we call him wise, powerful, good, holy, blessed and eternal, and judge, and saviour, and the like. All these show a small quality of the divine ointment, which the whole creation has taken as an impression on itself through the wonders seen in it, like a perfumer's vessel.

"Therefore," she says, "the maidens loved you, they drew you." She has stated the cause of the virtuous desire and of the loving disposition. For who, having an eye able to gaze at such loveliness, would remain without love for such beauty? The beauty that is grasped is not much, but what is guessed at through what appears is infinitely greater. But as material love does not touch those who are still infants (for infancy does not have room for the passion), nor can one see those worn out in extreme old age in such things, so too with the divine beauty: the one who is still an infant, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, and the one who is old and aged and near to vanishing, are found unmoved toward this desire. For the invisible beauty does not touch such people. Only the soul that has passed beyond the childish state … and has come to its prime through spiritual age, [not] having spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, neither without feeling through infancy nor [worn out] through old age, does the word name a maiden. She obeys the great and first commandment of the law, loving with all her heart and strength that beauty of which human thought finds no sketch, no example, no interpretation. Such maidens, then, having grown through the virtues and come of age for the divine mysteries, and having come inside the divine bridal chamber, love the bridegroom's beauty and through love turn him toward themselves. For such is the bridegroom that he returns longing to those who love him, he who said in the person of wisdom, "I love those who love me," and, "I will give to those who love me substance" (and he himself is the substance), "and I will fill their treasuries with good things." The souls, then, draw to themselves the longing of the incorruptible bridegroom, walking, as it is written, after the Lord God. And the cause of their love is the fragrance of the ointment, toward which they are always running, straining forward to what lies ahead and forgetting what lies behind. "Behind you," she says, "toward the fragrance of your ointments we will run." But those who do not yet have the perfection of virtue and are still young in age promise to run toward the goal that the fragrance of the ointments points to; for they say, "Toward the fragrance of your ointments we will run." But the more perfect soul, straining forward more vehemently to what lies ahead, already reaches the goal for which the race is run, and is counted worthy of the treasures in the chambers. For she says, "The king brought me into his chamber." For she who longed to touch the good with the tips of her lips, and who touched beauty only so far as the force of her prayer shows, praying to be counted worthy of something like a kiss through the illumination of the Word, having obtained it, and having slipped into the inner part of the secret things, cries out that the race toward good things is not only at the entrance, but that by the first-fruits of the Spirit, through whose grace, as by a kiss, she was counted worthy to search the depths of God, she sees in the sanctuaries of paradise, as the great Paul says, things not seen, and hears things that cannot be spoken.

The next saying reveals in its words the economy of the church. For those who were first made disciples by grace, and became eyewitnesses and ministers, did not keep the good within themselves, but by handing it on made the same grace available to those after them. That is why the maidens say to the bride, who was the first to be filled with good things through being mouth to mouth with the Word and who was counted worthy of the hidden mysteries, "Let us rejoice and be glad in you." For your exultation is our common joy; because as you love the breasts of the Word more than wine, so do we love you. Let us imitate your breasts, by which you give milk to drink to the infants in Christ. Let us love [them] more than human wine. And to bring the thought out more clearly, what is said is this: John, who reclined on the Lord's breast, loved the breasts of the Word, and set his own heart like a sponge beside the spring of life, and was filled by some secret transmission with the mysteries that lie in the heart of Christ; and he holds out to us too the nipple filled by the Word, and fills us with the good things placed in him by the spring, proclaiming with a loud voice the Word who always is. Hence we too may fittingly say to him, "Let us love your breasts more than wine"; if indeed we have become such as to be maidens, neither childish in mind through the youth that is yoked to vanity, nor wrinkled through sin in the old age that ends in vanishing. And we love the flow of your teachings for this reason, that "uprightness has loved you"; for this was the disciple whom Jesus loved, and Jesus is uprightness. This text names the Lord more beautifully and more fittingly for God than the prophet David. For he says, "The Lord God is upright"; but this text calls him uprightness itself, by which everything crooked is straightened. But may everything crooked become straight for us too, and the rough places smooth ways, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory to the ages of ages. Amen.