Homilies on the Song of Songs 5

"The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of Bethel. Behold, he is behind our wall, peering through the windows, looking out through the lattices. My beloved answers and says to me: Arise, come, my close one, my beautiful one, my dove. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way. The flowers have appeared on the earth, the time of pruning has come, the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has put forth its early figs; the vines are in blossom, they have given their fragrance. Arise, come, my close one, my beautiful one, my dove. [You, my dove,] in the shelter of the rock, close by the outer wall, show me your face and let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, and our vines are in blossom. My beloved is mine and I am his, who pastures among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows move. Turn, be like, my beloved, a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of the hollows."

What has now been set before us in the reading from the philosophy of the Song of Songs both leads us to desire the contemplation of the goods that lie above, and puts grief into our souls, producing in a way despair of understanding what cannot be grasped. For who could be free of grief when he considers that the purified soul, raised by love through so many ascents toward participation in the good, does not yet seem, as the apostle says, to have grasped what is sought? Indeed, looking at those ascents traversed in the previous discourses, I called her blessed for her ascent, when she recognized the sweet apple, distinguishing it from the fruitlessness of the forest, and made its shade an object of desire, and, sweetened by its fruit, came into the storerooms of gladness. (She calls gladness wine, by which the heart of those who partake is gladdened, as we learn about the great Paul.) And when, set in order in love, she is strengthened with ointments, enclosed by the surrounding of the apples, and, having received love's arrow into her heart, becomes in turn herself an arrow in the hands of the archer, aimed at the target of truth in the hands of the mighty. Seeing these and the like, I reckoned that she who had been raised through so many had laid hold of the summit of blessedness; but, as it seems, what has been traversed is still the prelude of the ascent. For after all those ascents she names not some contemplation and clear catalogue of the truth, but the voice of the one she longs for, characterized by its particular qualities through hearing, not known and delighted in through understanding. If, then, she who was raised so high, [like Paul] caught up to the third heaven, shows that she has not yet grasped with precision what is set before her, what is it likely that we must suffer, or where must we reckon ourselves to be, we who have not yet even drawn near the entrance of the sanctuary of contemplation? From what she says one can see how hard to contemplate is what is sought. "The voice of my beloved," she says: not a form, not a face, not a character showing the nature of the one sought, but a voice, producing only a conjecture, not certainty, of who the speaker is. For that what is said resembles rather a guess than an undoubted assurance of comprehension is clear from the fact that her word does not hold to one thought nor look to one form, but is carried in her visions toward many, thinking she sees now one thing and now another, and not always remaining with the same character of what she has grasped, as is clear from what is said. "For behold," she says, "he comes," neither standing nor remaining, so as to [let her look at him] by his staying, before she comes to perfect knowledge; "for he leaps," she says, "upon the mountains and bounds over the hills." And now he is recognized as a gazelle, then he is likened to a young stag. "For my beloved," she says, "is like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountain of Bethel." So his character is always different at different times … These are the things that, on a surface understanding, lead me to grief, producing despair of an exact understanding of what lies above.

Nevertheless, setting our hope on God, who gives a word to those who preach the good news with great power, we must try to fit the contemplation in sequence to what has been understood before. "The voice of my beloved," she says. And at once she added, "Behold, he comes." What, then, have we understood in these words? Perhaps what is said foresees the economy of God the Word revealed to us through the Gospel, announced beforehand through the prophets and revealed through the appearing of God in the flesh of the Son. For the divine voice is borne witness to by deeds, and the outcome is joined to the word of promise, as the prophet says, "As we have heard, so also have we seen." "The voice of my beloved," she says: this is what we have heard. "Behold, he comes": this is what we have received with our eyes. "In many parts and many ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets": this is the hearing of the voice. "In these last days he has spoken to us by a Son": that is what is said, "Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills," likened naturally and fittingly to the gazelle by one particular reason, and again to the young stag by another meaning.

The gazelle signifies the sharp sight of him who looks upon everything. For they say that this animal, seeing extraordinarily well, has its name from its activity (dorkas from derkesthai). And derkesthai is the same as to behold. So the one who oversees and looks upon all things is named God (Theos) of all from his beholding (theasthai) all things. Since, then, God was manifested in the flesh, appearing in life for the destruction of the opposing powers, he is therefore likened to a gazelle, as the one who looks from heaven upon the earth; and to a young stag, as the one who covers the mountains and hills with his leaps, that is, who tramples and destroys the wicked heights of the demons' wickedness. For she calls mountains those troubled by his might, as the [psalm] says, [mountains] cast into the hearts of the seas and sinking into the kindred place of the abyss. Of these the Lord said to his disciples, "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain" (showing in his word that wicked lunatic demon), "Be lifted up and cast into the sea." Since, then, it is proper to the nature of stags to destroy wild beasts and to put the race of snakes to flight by their breath and the particular quality of their skin, for this reason the one who oversees all things is likened to the gazelle, and to the young stag, as one who tramples and [destroys] the opposing activity, which the figurative meaning calls mountains and hills …

The voice of the bridegroom, then, came through the prophets, in whom God spoke; and after the voice the Word came, leaping upon the opposing mountains and bounding down on the hills, making all the apostate power alike his footstool, both the lesser and the leading. For the distinction of hills from mountains hints at this, that what is prominent among the opponents is likewise destroyed, trampled by his power and authority. For the lion and the dragon, the eminent ones, are trampled alike, and the snake and the scorpion, which seem lower. For example: in the crowds following him there were mountains, demons, ... in the synagogues, or in the country of the Gerasenes, or in many other places, hills and mountains, eminent and subordinate, set against human nature; but the young stag, the destroyer of snakes, who also equips his disciples for the nature of stags, where he says, "I have given you authority to tread upon snakes and scorpions," sets his foot equally on all, putting these to flight and leaping from them to others, so that through these the greatness of those raised by virtue might appear, no longer overshadowed by the mounds of wickedness. For the mountains of Bethel seem, from the interpretation of the name, to indicate the lofty and heavenly life. For those who know the Hebrew language say that this word signifies house of God. That is why she says, "Upon the mountains of Bethel." The purified and clear-sighted eye of the soul saw these things, leaping along with those divine leaps made against the opposing mounds; and of the time that would come later she speaks as already present, because of the sureness and certainty of the hoped-for grace, seeing the hope as a deed.

For she says that the one who leaps over the mountains with nimble speed and bounds from hills to hills shows himself standing still, having come behind the wall and conversing through the lattices of the windows. The wording runs thus: "Behold, he stands behind our wall, peering through the windows, looking out through the lattices." What is sketched bodily in the word is this: the lover converses through the windows with the bride keeping at home inside, and the wall is in the middle [between] them both, [so that] the fellowship of speech comes about, the head peering in through the windows and the eye looking through to the inside through the lattices in the windows. But the contemplation by anagogy holds to the sense examined before. For in a way and in sequence the Word brings human nature into kinship with God, first shining on it through the prophets and the commands of the law. For so we understand it: the windows are the prophets who bring in the light; the lattices are the network of the commands of the law; through both of them the ray of the true light slips into the inside. After these comes the perfect illumination of the light, when the true light appears to those sitting in darkness and the shadow, through its mingling with our nature. First, then, the rays of the prophetic and legal thoughts, shining into the soul through what we have understood as windows and lattices, produce a desire to see the sun in the open air. Then what is longed for comes to be in deed.

Let us hear, then, what he says to the church, he who has not yet come inside the wall but has stood [behind it, speaking] through the [windows]. "[For] my beloved [answers]," she says, "and says to me: Arise, come, my close one, my beautiful one, my dove. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way. The flowers have appeared on the earth, the time of pruning has come. The voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has put forth its early figs. Our vines are in blossom, they have given their fragrance." How elegantly the maker of spring describes for us the grace of spring, he to whom David says, "Summer and spring, you made them." He dissolves the gloom of winter, saying that the wintry sullenness and the unpleasantness of the rains are past. He shows meadows teeming and made beautiful with flowers. He says the flowers are in their prime and suited for cutting, so that those who gather flowers may surely take them up for weaving a crown or making ointments. The word sweetens the season too, making it resound with the songs of birds in the groves, the sweet voice of the turtledoves reaching the ears. He speaks of the fig tree and the vine, prefacing by what appears the delight that will come from them: the one bringing forth early figs, the other blossoming with its flower, so that the smell may delight in its fragrance. So the word is enriched by its description of the spring season, casting off what is gloomy and lingering over sweeter narratives.

But we must not, I think, let the mind remain with the description of these elegant things, but be guided through them to the mysteries shown by these oracles, so that the treasure of thoughts hidden in the words may be uncovered. What, then, do we say? Humanity was once frozen by the frost of idolatry, the nimble nature of human beings having been changed into the nature of the motionless objects of worship. For "may those who make them become like them," it says, "and all who trust in them." And what happened was to be expected. For just as those who look to the true Godhead receive in themselves the particular qualities of the divine nature, so the one who devoted himself to the vanity of idols was transformed into what he looked at, becoming stone from man. Since, then, nature, turned to stone through the worship of idols, was immovable toward the better, frozen by the frost of idolatry, for this reason the sun of righteousness rises upon this harsh winter and makes spring, the southern wind, which dissolves such freezing, warming everything below together with the rising of the rays; so that the man turned to stone by the cold, warmed through by the Spirit and by the ray of the Word, may again become water springing up to eternal life. For "his wind will blow," it says, "and waters will flow," when the rock is turned into pools of water and the cliff into springs of water. This the Baptist cried out more plainly to the Jews, saying that from these stones children would be raised up to the patriarch, made like him through virtue.

The church, then, hears these words of the Word, receiving the ray of truth through the prophetic windows and the legal lattices, while the wall of the typical teaching still stands, I mean the law, which makes the shadow of the good things to come, not showing the very image of the realities; behind it stands the truth, close by the type, first shining the Word on the church through the prophets, and afterwards, by the manifestation of the Gospel, consuming all the shadowy appearance of the type; through which the dividing wall is destroyed, and the air in the house is joined to the light of the sky, so that there is no longer need to be lit through windows, since the true light itself lights up everything inside through the rays of the Gospel. That is why the Word, who raises up those who are fallen, cries out to the church through the windows that let in light, saying, "Arise," that is, from the fall, "you who were tripped up by the shame of sin through the serpent, and fell to the earth, and in the fall of disobedience [lay prostrate] …" "It is not enough for you," he says, "to be raised up from the fall; come forward also by progress in good things, completing the course in virtue." We have learned this also in the case of the paralytic. For the Word does not only raise up that bedridden burden, but commands him to walk. By this the word seems to me to signify the progress and growth toward the better through movement from place to place. "Arise, then," he says, "and come." O power of command! Truly the voice of God is a voice of power, as the psalmody says, "Behold, he will give his voice a voice of power"; and, "He spoke, and they came into being; he commanded, and they were created." Behold, now too he said to the one lying down, "Arise," and, "Come," and at once the command becomes deed. For as soon as she receives the power of the Word she both stands and comes forward and draws near to the light, as is testified by the one who called her, the Word saying, "Arise, come, my close one, my beautiful one, my dove." What is this order of the word? How does one thing hold to another? How is the sequence of thoughts kept in series as in a chain? She hears the command, she rises by the word, she comes forward, she draws near, she becomes beautiful, she is named dove. For how is it possible to see a beautiful face in a mirror unless it has received the reflection of a beautiful form? So the mirror of human nature did not become beautiful before it drew near to the beautiful and was formed by the image of the divine beauty. For just as it had the form of the serpent while it lay on the earth and looked to him, in the same way, when it rose and placed the good facing itself, putting wickedness behind its back, it is shaped according to what it looks at. It looks to the archetypal beauty; and the beauty is a dove. Therefore, drawing near to the light, it becomes light; and in the light the beautiful form of the dove is imaged, I mean that dove whose form [showed] the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Having thus addressed her, then, and named her beautiful because of her nearness and dove because of her beauty, the word also goes through what follows, saying that the gloom of winter no longer holds souls fast. For frost does not hold out against the ray. "Behold," he says, "the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way." He gives evil many names, named according to the differences of its activities. For the same thing is winter and rain and drops, each of the names signifying a particular kind of temptation. For in winter what was flourishing withers; the beauty of the trees, adorned naturally by their leaves, flows off the branches and is mixed with the earth. The melody of the musical birds falls silent; the nightingale flees, the swallow is numb, the turtledove is estranged from its nest; everything imitates the gloom of death; the shoot is deadened, the grass dies. And like bones separated from flesh, so the branches stripped of leaves become a loathsome sight instead of the splendour they had from their shoots. What could one say of the sufferings at sea that come with winter? How, turned up from the depths and swelling, it imitates crags and mountains, its water rising to a peak in upright shape? How it rushes against the land like an enemy, hurling itself beyond its bounds and shaking the land with successive blows of the waves like the assaults of siege engines? But understand for me the sufferings of winter, taking all these and the like in a figurative sense. What in winter is the [flourishing that is] withering? What is it that falls to the earth from the branches? What is the voice of the singing birds that falls silent? What is the sea that roars with its waters? What, besides these, is the rain? What are the drops of the rain? How does the rain go its way? For by this … the living and choosing [character] of such a winter … Perhaps, even if the word does not explain each one, the sense shown in each of these is clear to the hearer: how human nature flourished at the beginning while it was in paradise, fattened and blooming by the water of that spring, when instead of leaves the shoot of immortality adorned nature; but when the winter of disobedience dried up the root, the flower was shaken off and dissolved into earth, and man was stripped of the beauty of immortality, and the grass of the virtues withered, love toward God growing cold because lawlessness increased; whence the various passions were raised to peaks in us by the opposing spirits, through which the wicked shipwrecks of the soul come about. But when he came who produced the spring of our souls, who, when the wicked wind once roused the sea, rebukes the winds and says to the sea, "Be silent, be still," everything was changed into calm and stillness, and nature begins again to flourish and to [adorn itself] with its own flowers. [The flowers] of our life are the virtues, now blossoming, and holding their fruit for its own season. That is why the word says, "The winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way; the flowers have appeared on the earth, the time of pruning has come." "Do you see," he says, "the meadow blossoming with the virtues? Do you see self-control, that is, the bright and fragrant lily? Do you see modesty, the rose? Do you see the violet, the fragrance of Christ? Why, then, do you not weave crowns from these? This is the season in which one must pluck and adorn oneself with the weaving of such crowns." "The time of pruning has come." The voice of the turtledove solemnly bears witness to you, that is, [the voice of the one] crying in the wilderness. John is the turtledove. He is the forerunner of the bright spring, who shows people the beautiful flowers of virtue and holds them out to those who wish to gather them, through whom he pointed out the flower from the root of Jesse, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and urged repentance from evils and the way of life of virtue. For "the voice of the turtledove," it says, "has been heard in our land." Perhaps it calls those condemned in wickedness "land," whom the Gospel calls tax collectors and prostitutes, among whom the word of John was heard, while the rest did not receive the preaching.

What is said about the fig tree, that "it has put forth its early figs," let us understand in this way. The fig tree is especially apt, through its warmth, to draw up the moisture in the depth. Since much moisture gathers in the [roots], nature, through the digestion of the liquids that takes place in the plant, necessarily discharges the useless and earthy part of the moisture from the branches. And it does this many times, so that it may put forth in due season what is pure and nourishing, cleansed of the useless quality. What the fig tree puts forth in the form of fruit before the sweet and ripe fruit is called the early fig (olynthos); it too is sometimes edible for those who wish, yet it is not the fruit but a prelude of the fruit. The one who sees these surely expects the fruit very soon. For the early figs, which it says the fig tree has put forth, are a sign of edible figs. For since the word describes the spiritual spring to the bride, and this season is the boundary between two seasons, the gloom of winter and the share in fruits in summer, for this reason he announces plainly that the evils are past, but does not yet show the fruits of virtue completely; these he stores up for the proper season, when summer has come. You surely know what is signified by the summer from the Lord's voice, which says, "The harvest is the close of the age." But now he shows the hopes blossoming through the virtues, whose fruit, as the prophet says, appears in its own season. Since, then, human nature, like the fig tree mentioned here, has gathered much evil moisture through what we have understood as winter, the one who works the spring of souls in us, [and cultivates] humanity at the fitting [season], first casts out of nature all that is earthy and useless … Then, imposing on life some character of the hoped-for blessedness through a more refined life, he announces the future sweetness of the figs as by early figs. And this is what is said: "The fig tree has put forth its early figs."

So [understand] also the blossoming vine, whose wine, which gladdens the heart, will one day fill the mixing bowl of wisdom; and it will be set before the fellow-drinkers to draw from the lofty preaching at will, for a good and sober drunkenness, through which [human beings are carried] from material things to the [divine] … Now the vine is in blossom through its flower, and a fragrant vapour is given off by it, sweet and gentle, blended with the surrounding air. You surely know, having learned it from Paul, the Spirit who works this fragrance for those who are being saved. These are the marks of the beautiful spring of souls that the word shows to the bride; and he hastens her to the enjoyment of what is set before her, rousing her by his word, saying, "Arise, come, my close one, my beautiful one, my dove."

How many doctrines the Word shows us in a few words in these sayings! For it is not likely that the God-inspired teaching should linger over the same words in some superfluous idle talk; but some great thought befitting God is shown to us through the repetition. What is said is this. The blessed and eternal nature that surpasses all mind, containing all beings in itself, is contained by no boundary. For nothing is seen around it, not time, not place, not colour, not shape, not form, not bulk, [not] size, not extension, nor any other name or thing or thought of the kinds that circumscribe; but every good understood about it proceeds into the infinite and unbounded. For where wickedness has no place, there is no limit to the good. In the changeable nature, because an equal power lies in free choice for inclining to either of the opposites, the good in us and the evil end in their succession to one another, and the wickedness that comes upon it becomes the limit of the good; and all the pursuits of our souls that stand opposed to one another as contraries end in one another and are bounded by one another. But the simple, pure, uniform, unchangeable and unalterable nature, always the same and never departing from itself, because it does not admit fellowship with evil, remains unbounded in good, not seeing a limit to itself, because it sees nothing of the opposites. When, then, it draws the human soul to participation in itself, it always rises above the participant by the same measure in its superiority toward the better. For the soul always becomes greater than itself through participation in what surpasses it, and does not stop growing; but the good in which it participates remains the same in the same way, always found by the one who participates ever more to be equally superior. We see, then, the bride led by the hand by the Word to the heights through the ascents of virtue, as in the climbing of steps. First the Word sends the ray in through the windows of the prophets and the lattices of the commands of the law, and calls her to draw near to the light and become beautiful, formed in the light to the form of the dove. Then, when she has shared in good things as far as she had room, he draws her again from the beginning, as if she had not yet shared in good things, to participation in the beauty that lies above, so that her desire too grows in proportion to her progress toward what always appears beyond, and because of the excess of the goods always found in what lies above, she seems to be touching the ascent for the first time. That is why the Word says again to her who has been raised, "Arise," and to her who has come, "Come." For the one who truly rises will never lack the need always to rise, nor will the breadth of the divine course be exhausted for the one who runs to the Lord. For one must always be roused and never stop drawing near through the course. As often as he says "Arise," so often he gives the power of the ascent to the better.

Understand in this way also what follows in the text. For the one who commands her to become beautiful from beautiful is plainly setting forth the apostle's teaching, commanding her to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory; so that what is received and always found is always glory, yet, however great and lofty, it is believed to be less than what is hoped for. So, though she was a dove in what she had achieved before, he commands her to become a dove again none the less through transformation to the better. And if this should happen, the word in its sequence will again show what is beyond it through the name. For he says, "Come, you yourself, my dove, in the shelter of the rock close by the outer wall." What, then, is the ascent to perfection shown in what is said? No longer to look to the eagerness of those who draw her, but to have her own desire as guide to the better. "Come," he says, "you yourself," not from grief or from necessity, but of yourself, [strengthening] your eagerness for the good by your own thoughts, not with necessity leading. For virtue has no master and is voluntary and free of all necessity. Such was David, who prayed that only what he did voluntarily might be acceptable to God, and promised to sacrifice willingly. Such is each of the saints, offering himself to God, not led by necessity. "And you too, then, show the perfect state, by taking from yourself the desire for the ascent to the better. Having become such," he says, "you will come to the shelter of the rock close by the outer wall."

What is said is this; for we must change the discourse from riddles to something clearer. The one shelter of the human soul is the lofty Gospel, in which the one who has come to be [passes] from the shadowy teaching, through the typical and symbolic [commands, to the light] of the truth, [uncovering] the veiled riddles of the commands. That the grace of the Gospel is named rock no one who has any share in the faith would deny; for one can learn from many places in Scripture that the Gospel is a rock. What is said, then, is this: "If you have been trained, O soul, in the law, if you have beheld in your mind the gleams through the prophetic windows, remain no longer under the shadow of the wall of the law. For the wall makes a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the realities; but pass over from the wall to the rock close by. For the rock is close by the outer wall, since the law has become the outer wall of the faith of the Gospel; and the doctrines hold close to one another, being neighbours in their force. For what is closer to 'Do not commit adultery' than 'Do not desire'? And to keeping clean from murder than not defiling the heart even with anger? Since, then, the shelter of the rock is close by the outer wall, your passing from the wall to the rock is without interval. Circumcision in the wall, and circumcision in the rock; sheep and sheep; blood and blood; Passover and Passover; and almost all things the same, and holding close to one another through the same things, except that the rock is spiritual and the wall earthly, with the bodily and earthy moulded in with it. But the rock of the Gospel does not have the fleshly clay of thoughts. The man both receives circumcision and remains whole, no [cutting] mutilating the shape of nature. And he keeps the Sabbath by doing no evil, and does not admit idleness toward the good, having learned that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath; and he partakes of food without distinction, yet touches nothing unclean. For he is taught by the rock that nothing that goes in through the mouth is common; but, laying aside in all things the bodily observances of the law, [the soul] transfers the meaning of the words to the spiritual and intelligible, as Paul says, 'The law is spiritual.' For the one who has truly [understood] the law comes under the shelter of the rock of the Gospel, close by the bodily outer wall."

When the Word had cried these things to her through the windows, the dove answers well, illuminated by the gleam of the thoughts and having understood the rock, which is Christ. For she says, "Show me your face, and let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." What is said is this: "Converse with me no longer through prophetic and legal riddles, but show yourself to me openly as I am able to see, so that I may come within the rock of the Gospel, leaving the outer wall of the law; and give your voice as my hearing can contain, so that I may come to be [with you]. For if the voice through the windows is so sweet, much more will the appearing of your face hold what is lovely." The bride says this, having understood the mystery of the rock of the Gospel, to which the Word who had been at the windows in many parts and many ways led her by the hand; and she has come to desire the appearing of God through the flesh, that the Word should become flesh, and God be manifested in the flesh, and set before our hearing the divine words that promise eternal blessedness to the worthy. How the words of Simeon agree with the bride's prayer, who says, "Now you let your servant go, Master, according to your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation"! For he saw as she longed to see. And his sweet voice is recognized by those who received the grace of the Gospel, who said, "You have the words of eternal life."

For this reason the pure bridegroom accepts the bride's prayer, since it is just; and, about to show himself openly, he first urges the hunters to the hunting of the foxes, so that the vineyard may no longer be hindered by them from blossoming, saying, "Catch us the foxes, which are little, [and] the vines [will blossom], if what spoils them is no longer there. Catch us the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, and our vines are in blossom." Is it possible to reach worthily the greatness of these thoughts? What wonder of the divine majesty does the word contain! What excess of God's power does the sense of what is said show! How is that one, of whom such great things are said, the murderer, the one mighty in wickedness, whose tongue is like a sharpened razor, of whom the prophet says, "The arrows of the mighty are sharpened, with coals of the desert," and, "He lies in wait like a lion in his den"; the great dragon, the apostate, Hades, who opens wide his mouth, the world-ruler of the power of darkness, who holds the power of death, and all that the prophecy narrates in his person: he who removes the boundaries of the nations which the Most High set according to the number [of the angels]; who seizes the world like a nest and takes them up like abandoned eggs; who says he will set his throne above the clouds and be like the Most High; and all that the word in Job relates of him, the fearful and dreadful things, whose sides are bronze, his spine cast iron, his inward parts emery stone, and all such things by which the word describes that fearful nature; this one, then, so great and so mighty, the general of the legions among the demons, how is he named by the true and only power? A little fox. And all those around him, the army subject to him, all alike [are little foxes]. [He sends out] the hunters to hunt them. These might perhaps be the angelic powers that escort the Master's coming to the earth and lead the King of glory into life, pointing him out to those who do not know: "Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty in battle." Perhaps one might also say they are the ministering spirits sent out for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. Or perhaps one might say that the hunters are also the apostles, sent out to hunt these beasts, to whom he said, "I will make you fishers of men." [They would not have] achieved the human fishery, netting the souls of those being saved with the surrounding net of the oracles, unless first they had driven these beasts out of their dens, those little foxes, out of the hearts, I mean, in which they made their den, so as to make a place for the Son of God, where he may lay his head, the race of foxes no longer making its den in the hearts. But whoever the word supposes the hunters to be, we are taught the greatness and inexpressibility of the divine power by what is commanded them. For he did not say, "Hunt the [boar] from the forest that ravages the vine of God, or the solitary wild beast, or the roaring lion, or the great sea monster, or the dragon under the water." For then the word would have shown the hunters some power in such opponents. But, he says, all those earthly dominions against which human beings wrestle, principalities and authorities and world-rulers of darkness and spirits of wickedness, are little foxes, crafty and wretched, when judged against our power. "If you overcome them, you will recover your own grace. For our vineyard, human nature, will make a beginning of bearing clusters through the flower of the virtuous way of life. Catch us, then, the little [foxes, for] our vines are in blossom."

The vine heard the divine command, the wife of whom David says, "Your wife is like a flourishing vine," and saw herself cleansed of the ravaging of these beasts by the power of the one who commanded, and at once gives herself to the farmer who destroyed the dividing wall of the fence. For she is no longer walled off by the wall of the law from union with the one she longs for. "[I am my beloved's]," she says, "and my beloved is mine, who pastures among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows move." This means: "I have seen face to face him who always is what he is, who for my sake rose humanly from my sister, the synagogue; and I rest in him and become his dwelling place." For he is the good shepherd, who does not make grass the pasture of his flocks, but feeds the sheep with pure lilies, no longer feeding grass with grass. For grass is the proper food of irrational nature; but man, being rational, is fed by the true Word. And if he were filled with [grass], he himself becomes grass; for "all flesh," it says, "is grass," as long as it is flesh. But if someone becomes spirit, born of the Spirit, he will no longer feed on the grassy life, but the spirit will be his food, which the purity and fragrance of the lily hint at. He himself too will be a pure and fragrant lily, changed into the nature of his food. ["Until the day breathes,"] that is, the day that follows with its rays, or "breathes through", as the divine voice named the spreading of the rays through the breath (spirit), calling it a breathing through; by which the shadows of life are moved, the shadows at which those look eagerly who have not yet lit the eye of the soul with the light of truth, who see the shadow and the vain as subsisting and overlook what truly is. But those fed by the lilies, that is, those whose soul is fattened by pure and fragrant food, will see all the deceitful and shadowy appearance of the things sought after in this life [as without] subsistence, becoming sons of light and sons of day.

The bride sees these things and urges the Word to bring the [hoped-for] goods quickly to fulfilment: "[Turn, be like, my beloved,] a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of the hollows." See as a gazelle, you who see people's thoughts, who read the reasonings of hearts. Wipe out the offspring of wickedness, as a young stag destroys the race of snakes. Do you see the hollow mountains of human life, whose heights are not summits but ravines? The Word, then, runs swiftly to the hollow mountains. For everything raised up against the truth is a chasm and not a mountain, a hollow and not a height … "If, then, you run over these," it says, "every such ravine will be filled, and every such mountain will be brought low." The soul says this whom the Word pastures, not among thorns or grass, but in the fragrance of the lilies of the pure way of life. May we too be filled with them, pastured by the Word, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belong the glory and the power to the ages of ages. Amen.