Homilies on the Song of Songs

Prologue. To Olympias.

I have welcomed your earnest request concerning the Song of Songs, which you put to us both face to face and by letter, as fitting for your venerable life and your pure soul: that through a contemplation suited to it the philosophy hidden in the words might be brought to light, purified in undefiled thoughts of the meaning that lies on the surface of the wording. So I have gladly taken up this task, not as though it would be of any use to you for your own character (for I am persuaded that the eye of your soul is clean of every passionate and soiled thought, and that through these divine words it looks without hindrance toward the undefiled grace), but so that the more fleshly might be given some guidance by the hand toward the spiritual and immaterial state of the soul, to which this book leads through the wisdom hidden in it.

But since some churchmen think it right to keep to the letter of holy Scripture in everything, and do not agree that anything is said by it in riddles and hidden meanings for our benefit, I think it necessary first to make a defence on these matters to those who bring such charges against us: that we do nothing out of place when we take pains to hunt down in every way what is profitable in the divine and God-inspired Scripture. So, if the wording too, understood as it is spoken, should be of some profit, we have what we seek ready at hand. But if something said with concealment, in hidden meanings and riddles, should be useless for profit according to its surface sense, we turn such words over, as the Word who teaches us through the Proverbs directs, so as to understand what is said either as a dark saying, or as an utterance of the wise, or as one of the riddles. Whether one wishes to call the contemplation of these things by uplifting interpretation (anagogy) tropology, or allegory, or some other name, we will not quarrel about the name, provided only that it holds profitable thoughts.

For the great apostle too, when he says that the law is spiritual, includes under the name of the law the historical narratives as well, since all God-inspired Scripture is law to those who read it, teaching those who listen attentively, not only through what it states plainly but also through the historical narratives, toward knowledge of the mysteries and toward a pure way of life. He uses interpretation as he pleases, looking to what is profitable, and does not trouble himself about the name by which the kind of interpretation ought to be called. Now he says that he changes his voice, when he is about to carry the history over to the demonstration of the economy concerning the covenants; then, recalling the two children of Abraham, born to him of the slave woman and of the free woman, he calls the contemplation concerning them allegory. Again, having narrated certain events of the history, he says, "These things happened to them as types, but they were written for our admonition." And again, having said that the ox treading out the grain must not be muzzled, he added that God is not concerned about oxen, but that it was written entirely for our sake. Elsewhere he calls the dimmer perception and the partial knowledge a mirror. And again he calls the passage from bodies to intelligible things a turning to the Lord and the removal of a veil. In all these different modes and names of contemplation according to the mind he points us to one form of teaching: that we must not by all means remain with the bare event, since the surface sense of what is said harms us in many respects for the life of virtue, but must pass over to the immaterial and intelligible contemplation, so that the more bodily thoughts are changed into mind and understanding, the more fleshly sense of the words being shaken off like dust. And for this reason he says, "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life," since in many places [of Scripture, that is,] the history, if we stop at the bare events, does not offer us examples of a good life. For what does it profit the hearer toward virtue that Hosea the prophet has children of prostitution, and that Isaiah goes in to the prophetess, if one stops what is said at the wording? [What] do the narratives about David contribute to the virtuous life, where adultery and murder ran together in one and the same defilement? But if some account should be found that shows what was arranged through these things to be blameless, then the word of the same apostle will be shown to be true, that "the letter kills" (for it holds in itself examples of wicked deeds), "but the Spirit gives life"; for it transposes the unseemly and discredited thought into more divine meanings.

We know also that the Word himself, who is worshiped by all creation, when in the likeness and form of a man he handed on the divine mysteries through the flesh, so unveiled for us the thoughts of the law that he said the two men whose testimony is true were himself and the Father; and he carried the bronze serpent set up on high, which was the people's remedy against the deadly bites, over to the economy accomplished for us through the cross. And he trained the sharpness of his own disciples through veiled and hidden words, in parables, in dark sayings, in sayings uttered in riddles, which he explained to them privately, resolving their obscurity; and there were times when, if the meaning of what was said was not grasped by them, he reproached their slowness and their misplaced understanding. For when he commanded them to keep away from the leaven of the Pharisees, and they in their small-mindedness looked at their bags, in which they had brought no provision of bread, then he rebukes them for not understanding that what was meant by the leaven was teaching. And again, when the disciples set a meal before him, he answered, "I have food to eat that you do not know"; and when they supposed that he was speaking of bodily food, [he explained] … his own word, that the food fitting and proper to him is the fulfilment of the saving will. And countless such things can be gathered from the sayings of the Gospels, in which what is understood at first sight is one thing, and what the meaning of the words looks to is another: for example, the water that he promised to the thirsty, through which those who believe become springs of rivers; the bread that comes down from heaven; the temple that is destroyed and raised in three days; the way; the door; the stone fitted at the head of the corner; the two on one bed; the mill; the women grinding; the one taken and the one left; the corpse; the eagles; the fig tree growing tender and putting out branches. All these, and whatever is like them, might serve to urge us to search the divine words, to give attention to reading, and in every way to track out whether some account higher than the surface understanding might be found, leading the mind by the hand to things more divine and incorporeal.

For this reason we are persuaded that what was forbidden to be eaten from the tree was not a fig, as some have declared, nor any other fruit of the orchard. For if the fig had been deadly then, it would certainly not be edible now. At the same time we have learned from the voice of the Master, laying this down as a doctrine in a negative statement, that "nothing that goes in through the mouth can defile the man." But we seek some other meaning in the law, worthy of the majesty of the Lawgiver; and even if we hear that paradise is the work of God's planting, and that a tree of life was planted in the middle of paradise, let us seek to learn from him who reveals hidden mysteries of what plants the Father becomes the farmer and the gardener, and how it is possible for two trees, the tree of salvation and the tree of destruction, to be in the very middle of paradise. For the exact middle, as in the outline of a circle, is surely at the one centre. If another centre were set beside the centre at some point, the circle would necessarily have to be shifted along with the centre, so that the former would no longer be the middle. Since, then, paradise is one, how does the word say that each of the trees is to be seen on its own, and yet that both this one and that one are in the middle, when the word that declared all God's works to be very good teaches that the deadly one is foreign to God's planting? Unless one contemplates the truth in these things through philosophy, what is said appears incoherent or fabulous to those who do not examine it …

And it would take long to gather each detail from the prophets: how Micah says that in the last days a manifest mountain will come to be on the tops of the mountains, so naming the mystery that comes to pass for the overthrow of the … ; how the lofty Isaiah says that a rod springs up and a flower from the root, so indicating the Lord's appearing through the flesh; what meaning, apparent in the wording, the curdled mountain has in the great David, or the chariot ten thousandfold, or the assembly of bulls let loose among the heifers of the peoples, or the foot dipped in blood, or the tongues of the dogs, or Lebanon beaten small with its cedars like the calf. And countless more besides can be gathered from the rest of prophecy to teach how necessary is the contemplation of the words according to their meaning. Whoever rejects it, as some are pleased to do, seems to me to act as if someone were to set the crops on the table for human food unprocessed, without rubbing out the ear, without separating the seeds from the chaff with the winnowing fan, without grinding the wheat into flour, and without making bread in the proper way of baking. As, then, the unprocessed produce is food for cattle and not for human beings, so one might say that the God-inspired words, if they are not worked up through a finer contemplation, are food for irrational rather than rational beings: not only those of the Old Testament, but also much of the teaching of the Gospel, such as the winnowing fork that clears the threshing floor, the chaff, the grain remaining at the winnower's feet, the unquenchable fire, the good barn, the tree that bears evils abundantly, the threat of the axe that fearfully displays the trees in their prime, the stones made over into human nature.

Let this be written by me, in a letter to your intelligence written in haste, as a defence against those who admonish us to seek nothing more from the divine words than the surface meaning of the wording. And if, after Origen laboured diligently on this book, we too have been eager to commit our own labour to writing, let no one accuse us, looking to the divine saying of the apostle, who says, "Each will receive his own reward according to his own labour." This discourse was not composed by me for display. But since some of those who were with me, out of love of learning, took notes of much of what was said in church, I took from them as much as their notes held in sequence, and added from myself whatever needed to be added, and so I have made the dictation in the form of homilies, carrying the contemplation of the words forward in order, word by word, as far as time and circumstances gave me leisure for it during the days of the fasts. For in these days the discourse on this book was delivered earnestly to the public hearing. And if God, the steward of our life, grants time of life and a peaceful season, we shall perhaps run through what remains as well. For as of now our discourse and contemplation have advanced only as far as the half. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of us to the ages of ages. Amen.

"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.

"I am black and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not look at me, for I have been blackened, because the sun has looked askance at me. My mother's sons fought in me; they made me a keeper in the vineyards; my own vineyard I did not keep. Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you rest at midday, lest I become like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions. If you do not know yourself, O beautiful [among women, go out in the footsteps of the flocks], and pasture the kids beside the tents of the [shepherds]."

In the holy tent of witness what showed on the outside was not of equal worth with the beauty hidden within. The court of linen hangings, the curtains of goats' hair, and the coverings of red skins made up the outward array of the tent, and nothing great or precious appeared besides these to those who saw the outside. But within, the whole tent of witness shone with gold and silver and precious stones: the pillars, the bases, the capitals, the altar of incense, the altar [of sacrifice] …, the veils at the entrances, whose beauty was blended from every kind of brightly coloured dye: golden thread woven with skilled fine work, beautifully, together with blue and purple and fine linen and scarlet, a blend of them all, made the woven fabric flash as in the rays of a rainbow. What I have in view in beginning from this will surely become clear from what is to be said.

Again the Song of Songs is set before us, for the teaching of all knowledge of God and philosophy. This is the true tent of witness, whose outer coverings and curtains and the surrounding of the court are certain words and expressions of love, displaying the attachment to the beloved, and a description of beauty, and mention of bodily members, both those that appear in the face and those within; but within there is truly a lampstand of many lights, an ark full of mysteries, the altar of fragrance and the means of cleansing from sin, that all-golden altar of incense of piety, the beauty of the veils gracefully woven from the bright colours of the virtues, the unswerving pillars of the thoughts, the immovable bases of the doctrines, the beauty of the capitals, by which the grace of the soul's ruling part is expressed, the basins for washing souls, and everything that looks to the heavenly and incorporeal way of life, which the law commands in riddles: all this is in the thoughts hidden in the wording, if only we make ourselves fit, by care for our life, for entry into the Holy of Holies, having washed away in the basin of the word all the stain of shameful thought, lest, against the command of the law, we die, having touched some thought that is dead or one of the unclean desires, and be shut out without seeing the wonders inside the tent. For the law of the Spirit does not admit such people to enter unless one washes the garment of his own conscience, as Moses commanded for one who has touched a dead and abominable thought.

The sequence of what has already been examined leads our discourse to the contemplation of what the bride says to the maidens. It is this: "I am black and beautiful, daughters [of Jerusalem, like the tents] of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon." The teacher rightly begins to lead the souls she is instructing into good things from the point where she should. For they are eager, as they promise, to value the grace flowing from her spiritual breasts above every human word, which they call wine figuratively, saying in so many words, "We will love your breasts more than wine, because uprightness has loved you." She, however, adds to her disciples' wonder at her, so that we may learn the more the measureless love of the bridegroom for mankind, who by his love bestows beauty on the one he loved. "Do not wonder," she says, "that uprightness has loved me, but that I was black from sin and akin to darkness through my deeds, and he made me beautiful through love, exchanging his own beauty for my shame. For having taken over to himself the stain of my sins, he gave me a share in his own purity and made me partner of his own beauty. First he made me lovely from loathsome, and so he loved me." After this she urges the maidens to become beautiful themselves, holding out her own beauty as an example, like the great Paul when he says, "Become as I am, for I also became as you are," and, "Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." For this reason she does not let the souls she instructs despair of becoming beautiful by looking at their past life, but bids them look at her and learn from the example that the present becomes a veil over the past if it is blameless. For she says: "Even if my beauty now shines, which was formed on me by being loved by uprightness, yet I know that I was not bright at the beginning but black. Such an appearance, dark and gloomy, was produced in me by my former life. Yet though I was that, I am this; for the likeness of shame has been remade into the form of beauty. You too, then, daughters of Jerusalem, look up to your mother, the Jerusalem above. Even if you were tents of Kedar, because the ruler of the power of the [air] dwelt in you (for Kedar is interpreted as darkness), you will become curtains of Solomon, that is, you will be the temple of the king, King Solomon having made his dwelling in you." Solomon means peaceable, the one named after peace. By "curtains of Solomon" she named, from a part, the whole covering of the royal tent.

Paul seems to me to have entered into these thoughts quite closely in the letter to the Romans, where he commends God's love for us, that while we were sinners and black he made us … and lovely through his grace. For as at night everything, even if it is bright by nature, is blackened together with the prevailing darkness, but when light shines on it, the likeness to darkness does not remain in what was darkened, so when the soul is transferred from error to truth, the dark form of its life is changed too into luminous grace. Paul says to Timothy what the bride of Christ says to the maidens, Paul who afterwards became bright from black: that he too was counted worthy to become beautiful, he who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent man and black; that Christ came into the world to make the black bright, calling not the righteous to himself but sinners to repentance, whom by the washing of regeneration he made to shine like lights, washing off their gloomy appearance with water. This very thing David's eye sees in the city above, and he makes the sight a wonder: how in the city of God, of which glorious things are spoken, Rahab the prostitute is also remembered, and foreigners and Tyre and the people of the Ethiopians come to be in her; so that no one any longer reproaches this city with having no inhabitants, saying, "No one will any longer say to Zion, 'A man was born in her.'" For there the foreigners become citizens of the city, and the Babylonians become Jerusalemites, and the prostitute a virgin, and the Ethiopians bright, and Tyre the city above. So here too the bride encourages the daughters of Jerusalem, commending the goodness of the bridegroom, that even if he takes a black soul he makes it beautiful by communion with himself, and even if one is a tent of Kedar, it becomes a dwelling of light when the true Solomon, that is, the peaceable king, has come to dwell in it. That is why she says, "I am black and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem," so that you may look at me and become curtains of Solomon, even if you were tents of Kedar.

Then she adds to what she has said what follows, by which she necessarily secures the minds of her disciples against attributing the cause of the dark appearance to the Creator, [and teaches them that] each one's free choice [is] the beginning of the appearance. "[Do not look] at me," she says, "for I have been blackened. I did not come to be such at first. For it was not fitting that one shaped by the luminous hands of God should be coloured over with a dark and black appearance. I was not such," she says, "but I became so. For I am not black by nature; this shame was brought in on me from outside, when the sun changed my form from bright to black. 'For the sun,' she says, 'looked askance at me.'" What, then, do we learn through this? The Lord tells the crowds in a parable that the one who sows the word sows not only on the good heart, but whether it is stony, or overgrown with thorns, or by the roadside and trodden down, he throws the seeds of the word on all out of love for mankind. And explaining in his discourse what is peculiar to each, he says of the stony soul that what is sown does not take root in depth, but at once promises the ear through a shallow shoot; then, when the sun heats what lies beneath more strongly, because there is no moisture under the roots, it withers. And in the explanation he calls the sun temptation. From the teacher, then, we learn this doctrine: that human nature came into being as an image of the true light, far from dark features, gleaming with likeness to the archetypal beauty; but temptation, falling on it by deceit with its burning heat, while the first shoot was still tender and without root, before it had acquired any settled possession of the good and before it gave drink to its roots in depth by the cultivation of thoughts, at once dried up through disobedience its green and flourishing appearance, and through the burning made it black. If the hostile assault of temptation is called the sun, let none of my hearers be surprised, since he is taught such things in many places by the God-inspired Scripture. For in the second of the songs of ascents it pronounces this blessing on the one who has help from him who made heaven and earth, that he will not be burned by the sun by day. And the prophet Isaiah, prophesying the state of the church, sketches a kind of procession for her way of life, brightening the account with his word. He speaks of daughters carried on shoulders and children in litters with parasols … the light. In riddles he describes by this the life of virtue: by the infant age showing what is newborn and innocent; by the parasols, the relief from the burning heat that comes to souls from self-control and purity. From this we learn that the soul being dressed as a bride for God must be carried on shoulders, not trampled by the flesh but seated on the bulk of the body. And hearing of a litter, we learn of the shining grace of baptism, through which we become children, no longer pressing our footprint on the earth but carried on it to the heavenly life. And our life becomes shaded and dewy, since the burning heat is quenched by the parasols of virtue. This, then, is the sun, when its blaze is not walled off by the cloud of the Spirit, which the Lord spread out for them as a covering. This is the sun that scorches the bright appearance of the body by the assault of temptations …

Then she tells where the change of our good colour into black began. "My mother's sons," she says, "fought in me; they made me a keeper in the vineyards; my own vineyard I did not keep." And let the hearer grant me this: not to be too exact about the construction of the wording, but to look to the train of thought. If [something seems disjointed, let him put it down to the inexperience] of those who rendered the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language. For those who have taken care to be trained in the Hebrew language find nothing of the kind that seems to be disjointed. But the structure of our language, not [corresponding] to the structure of Hebrew eloquence, causes some confusion for those who follow the meaning of the wording too superficially. The sense of the words quoted above, as far as we have grasped it, is this: that at the beginning man came into being lacking none of the divine goods. His only task was to keep the goods, not to acquire them. But the plot of the enemies stripped him of what he had, since he did not keep the good fortune given to his nature by God. This, then, is the sense of the words; and the handing on of this thought through the riddling words runs thus: "My mother's sons," she says, "fought in me; they made me a keeper in the vineyard; my own vineyard I did not keep." The word teaches many doctrines in a few words. First, what Paul too likewise declared, that all things are from God, and there is one God and Father from whom are all things, and there is nothing among the things that exist which does not have its being through him and from him. For "all things," it says, "came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." But since all that God made is very good (for he made all things in wisdom), he gave the rational nature the grace of self-determination and added a power of discovering what it desires, so that what is in our power might have its place and the good might not be forced and involuntary but the achievement of free choice. And since this self-determining movement leads us with sovereign power toward what seems good, there was found in the nature of beings one who used his power badly and, in the apostle's words, became an inventor of evils. Inasmuch as he too is from God, he is our brother; but inasmuch as he willingly fell away from participation in the good, introducing the entry of evils and becoming the father of lies, he placed himself in the rank of an enemy against all those whose aim of free choice looks toward the better. Since through him, then, the occasion for flying away from good things came to be in the rest, which indeed happened to human nature too, she who was once black but now beautiful rightly attributes the cause of her gloomy appearance to such sons of her mother, teaching us through what is said that there is one cause of beings, like a father, for all that exist; and for this reason all things understood among beings are brothers of one another; but the difference of free choice has split nature into friend and enemy. For those who have stood away from their relation to the good and by apostasy from the better have given evil subsistence (for evil has no other subsistence than separation from the better) put all their zeal and ingenuity into drawing others too into partnership in evil. And this is why she says, "The sons of my mother" (for the plural signifies the many divisions of wickedness) "set up war in me," not fighting from outside by invasion, but making the soul itself the battlefield of the war within it. For the war is in each one, as the divine apostle explains, saying, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin that is in my members." "Since, then, this civil war was set up in me by my brothers, who are enemies of my salvation, I became black, defeated by the enemies, and I did not keep my own vineyard."

We must understand the vineyard to be the same as paradise. For there too man was appointed to keep the [paradise] …; and neglect of keeping casts man out of paradise, removes him from the east and makes him a dweller in the west. That is why the east appears to the west. "Sing," it says, "to the Lord who rides upon the west," so that, as the light shines in darkness, the darkness may be changed into the ray, and the black one become beautiful again. The apparent disjointedness of the wording with respect to the sense we have found can be eased in this way. ["They made me a keeper in the vineyards"] is equivalent to "They made Jerusalem a garden-watchman's hut." For they did not appoint her keeper of the divine vineyard, as one might suppose at first sight; rather, the one who appointed her is God, while they only fought in her and made her like a booth in a vineyard and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field. For, deprived of the fruit she was guarding through disobedience, she was left a useless sight, since what was guarded in her was no longer there. And since God set man to work and keep paradise, the bride says this: "When God set my soul for life (for the delight of paradise was life, in which God set man to work and to keep it), the enemies removed it from the delight of paradise so that it should take pains over their vineyard, whose cluster cultivates bitterness and whose grape gall." Such a vineyard was Sodom, such a vine-branch Gomorrah, condemned together with Sodom, through which the incurable wrath of dragons overflowed in the wicked winepresses of the Sodomites. Even until now one can see most people as caretakers and keepers of such vineyards, who carefully guard the passions within themselves as if afraid of losing their evil. You see the wicked keepers of idolatry, both that practised in impiety and that practised in greed, how they keep watch in guarding their evils, thinking it a loss to be deprived of their lawlessness. And in the same way with the others one can see how those who have received pleasure deep within, or arrogance, or vanity, or anything else of the kind, cling to such things with every care, counting it gain that their soul is never cleansed of the passions. This is what the bride laments, saying: "This is why I became black, because, keeping and tending the tares of the enemy and their wicked branches, I did not keep my own vineyard." O how much feeling this stirs in those who listen with perception: "My own vineyard I did not keep"! The cry is plainly a lament, moving the groans of the prophets to sympathy. How has the faithful city Zion, full of judgment, become a prostitute? How has the daughter of Zion been left like a booth in a vineyard? How does the city that was full of people sit alone? She who ruled over provinces has become subject to tribute. How has the gold grown dim, how has the good silver changed? How has she become black, who at first shone together with the true light? "All this happened to me," she says, "because I did not keep my own vineyard." The vineyard is immortality; the vineyard is freedom from passion and likeness to the divine and estrangement from all evil. The fruit of this vineyard is purity, this bright and ripe cluster, distinctive in appearance and sweetening the senses of the soul in chastity. The tendril of the vineyard is the embrace of and union with eternal life; the branches that grow are the heights of the virtues climbing up to the height of the angels; the leaves waving on the branches are the manifold adornment of the divine virtues, which flourish together with the Spirit … "Possessing all these," she says, "and shining in the enjoyment of them, because I did not keep the vineyard I was blackened with mourning; for, falling from purity, I put on the gloomy appearance." Such in appearance is the tunic of skin. "But now, having become beautiful and luminous again through the uprightness that loved me, I am anxious about my good fortune, lest I lose my beauty again, failing in my keeping through ignorance of the way to be secure."

That is why, leaving off her speech to the maidens, she calls on the bridegroom again in prayer, making her inner attachment to him the name of the one she longs for. For what does she say? "Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, or where you rest at midday, lest I become like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions." Where do you pasture, good shepherd, who carry the whole flock on your shoulders? For the whole of human nature is one sheep, which you took up on your shoulders. Show me the place of the green pasture, make known to me the water of rest, lead me out to the nourishing grass, call me by name, so that I, your sheep, may hear your voice, and give me through your voice eternal life. "Tell me, you whom my soul has loved." For so I name you, since your name is above every name and is inexpressible and uncontainable for every rational nature. Your name, then, which makes your goodness known, is my soul's attachment to you. For how should I not love you, who so loved me, and that when I was black, that you laid down your life for the sheep whom you pasture? One cannot conceive a greater love than this, that you exchanged your life for my salvation. "Show me, then," she says, "where you pasture," so that, finding the saving pasture, I may be filled with the heavenly food, without eating which one cannot enter into life; and running to you, the spring, I may draw the divine drink, which you pour out for the thirsty from your side, opened by the iron …, whoever tastes it becoming a spring of water welling up to eternal life. For if you pasture me among these, … lying down in peace together, I shall rest in the shadowless light. For midday is shadowless on every side, the sun shining down from the summit; in it you bring to rest those whom you have pastured, when you receive your children with yourself into the bed. But no one is counted worthy of the midday rest who has not become a son of light and of day; whoever has separated himself equally from the darkness of evening and of dawn, that is, from where evil begins and where it ends, is brought to rest at midday by the sun of righteousness. "Make known to me, then," she says, "how I must rest, and what is the way of the midday rest, lest, falling away from your good guidance, ignorance of the truth make me one of a flock with herds foreign to your flocks."

She said this in anxiety about the beauty that had come to her from God, and asking to learn how her comeliness might remain with her for ever. But she is not yet counted worthy of the bridegroom's voice, since God foresaw something better for her: that the delay of enjoyment might kindle her desire into a greater longing, so that her gladness might grow together with her longing. Instead the friends of the bridegroom speak to her, setting forth by counsel the way to keep secure the goods she has. Their word too is veiled in obscurity. The wording runs thus: "If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, [go out in the] footsteps of your flocks and pasture the kids beside the tents of the [shepherds] …" [whoever does not know himself] fails of both, letting go of the one and unable to hold the other. The sense of these words is clear from the sequence of what has been examined, but the construction seems somehow obscure. What, then, is the sense? The surest safeguard for us is not to be ignorant of ourselves, and not to think that we are seeing ourselves when we see something else of what is around us. This is what happens to those who do not examine themselves: seeing in themselves strength, or beauty, or reputation, or power, or some abundance of wealth, or vanity, or pomp, or size of body, or good fortune of form, or something else of the kind, they think that they are such things. That is why they are unreliable guardians of themselves: through their attachment to what is foreign they overlook their own and leave it unguarded. For how could anyone guard what he does not know? The surest guard of the goods in us, then, is not to be ignorant of ourselves, and for each to know himself as he is, and to distinguish himself accurately from what is around him, so that he may not without noticing guard what is foreign instead of himself. For the one who looks to the life in this world and judges the things honoured here worthy of keeping does not know how to distinguish his own from what is foreign. For nothing that passes away is ours. How could anyone hold what is transient and flowing? Since, then, the intelligible and immaterial nature is lasting and always the same, while matter passes away, always changing through a kind of flow and movement, of necessity the one who separates himself from what stands, [holding to] what passes and abandoning what stands, [is deprived] of both. That is why [the counsel] of the bridegroom's friends says what was said: "If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, go out in the footsteps of the flocks and pasture the kids beside the tents of the shepherds." What is this? That the one who does not know himself falls out of the flock of the sheep and becomes a companion of the kids, whose place was thrust off to the left; for so the good shepherd set the sheep on his right and separated the kids from the better portion to the left. From the counsel of the bridegroom's friends, then, we are taught that we must look at the very nature of things and not guess at the truth by following misleading footprints.

The account of these things must be set out more clearly. Many people do not themselves judge how things are by nature, but looking to the custom of those who went before them they miss the sound judgment of what is, putting forward as the criterion of the good not intelligent reasoning but irrational custom. Hence they push themselves into offices and powers and the distinctions of the world, and set great store by material pomp, though it is unclear where each of these will end after the present life. For custom is not a safe guarantor of what is to come; its end is often found to be a flock of kids, not of sheep. You surely understand the word from the voice of the Gospel. … The one who looks to what is proper to human nature, that is, reason, will despise irrational custom and will choose as good nothing [but what] brings gain to the soul. So we must not look at the footprints of the herds, which those who have gone through life before us have imprinted with their heels on earthly life; for the judgment of what is preferable is hidden from what appears, until we are outside of life and learn there whom we have followed. The one, then, who does not distinguish good from worse by the things themselves, but follows the footprints of those who have gone before, setting up the past custom of life as the teacher of his own life, often fails to notice, at the time [of judgment] … So we can hear the friends saying this: "You, soul, who have become beautiful from black, if you care that the grace of your comeliness should last with you for ever, do not wander after the footprints of those who have gone before [and fall away] from the just judgment, becoming a kid instead of a sheep … [as you pass through] life. For it is unclear whether what appears is not a track of kids; following them behind, since those who wore the path with their footprints are not visible to you, once you have passed through life and slipped into the fold of death, you may be added to the flock of kids, which you were following without knowing it through their footprints." For "if you do not know yourself, beautiful among women, go out in the footsteps of the flocks and pasture the kids beside the tents of the flocks." This can be understood more clearly through another copy, so that the construction of the words does not seem disjointed. For it says: "If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, you have gone out from the footsteps of the flock and pasture kids instead of the tents of the flocks"; so that the sense appearing in these words agrees exactly with the contemplation of the passage given above.

So that you may not suffer this, then, "Take heed to yourself," as the word says. For this is the safe safeguard of good things: know how far above the rest of creation you have been honoured by your maker. Heaven did not become an image of God, nor the moon, nor the sun, nor the beauty of the stars, nor any other of the things that appear in creation. You alone have become a likeness of the nature that surpasses all mind, a resemblance of the incorruptible beauty, an impression of the true Godhead, a vessel of blessed life, a stamp of the true light; looking to it you become what it is, imitating the one who shines in you by the ray reflected from your purity. Nothing among beings is so great that it can be measured against your greatness. The whole heaven is enclosed in God's span, and earth and sea are held in the hollow of his hand. Yet he who is so great and such, who grips the whole creation in his palm, becomes wholly contained by you and dwells in you, and is not cramped as he passes through all your nature, he who said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them." If you look to these things, you will not occupy your eye with anything on earth. What am I saying? Not even heaven will seem wonderful to you. For how can you admire the heavens, O man, when you see that you are more lasting than the heavens? For they pass away, but you remain for eternity with the one who always is. You will not marvel at the breadth of the earth or at seas stretched out without limit, over which you were appointed to preside, like the charioteer of a 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 colt that answers the rein, offers you its back and receives man as its rider. If, then, you know yourself, O beautiful among women, you will look down on the whole world, and, looking always to the immaterial good, you will disregard the error of the footprints of this life. Always take heed to yourself, then, and you will not wander off among the flock of kids; you will not be shown at the time of judgment a kid instead of a sheep, nor be separated from the seat on the right; but you will hear the sweet voice that says to the woolly and gentle sheep, "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." May we too be counted worthy of it, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belongs the glory to the ages of ages. Amen.

"[To my mare] among the chariots of Pharaoh [I have likened you], my close one. How beautiful your cheeks have become, like turtledoves, your neck like necklaces. We will make you likenesses of gold with studs of [silver, until the king is in his reclining]; my nard gave its fragrance. A pouch of myrrh is my beloved to me; between my breasts he shall lodge. A cluster of henna-blossom is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi."

All that we have contemplated before the present reading, in the opening parts of the Song of Songs, is like the light that comes about at dawn after the night. That is not yet pure light but the prelude of light; and what has been said is such as to announce to us the rising of the true light, without yet holding in itself the very disc of the sun appearing far and wide. In those passages the bride speaks, and the friends, and the maidens; but now the voice of the bridegroom himself rises like the sun's disc, hiding by the rays of its beams all the brilliance of the stars that had appeared and of the dawn that had begun to glimmer. All those passages had the force of certain purifications and preparations, by which the soul is prepared to receive divine things; but the present word is participation in the Godhead itself, as God the Word by his own voice gives the hearer communion with the undefiled power. And just as at Sinai Israel, prepared beforehand by purifications for two days, on the third day at dawn was counted worthy of the appearance of God, no longer busy with washing garments but receiving God himself visibly, for whose sake he had washed away the stain of the soul by the preceding purifications: so now the contemplation of the opening parts of the Song in the earlier discourses, over the two preceding days, profited us so far as to wash out and rinse away from the stain of the flesh the mind [that attends] to what is said. And today, which is the third day, after the first and second purification, God the Word himself will appear, not making his presence fearful and manifest by darkness and storm and the sound of the trumpet and fire smouldering fearfully over the whole mountain from base to summit, but sweet and approachable, having changed from that fearful form to bridal gladness.

For when the bride asked to learn the places of rest in which the good shepherd spends his time, so as not to suffer anything unwelcome through ignorance, and then the friends set forth the safe criterion of truth, that the soul should look to itself and know itself (for they declared that ignorance of oneself is the beginning and consequence of not knowing anything else that one should; for how could one learn anything else if one does not know oneself?), upon this, the ruling part of the soul having now been sufficiently purified, the Word rises on the one who longs for him, urging her to perfection by his approval of what she has. For praise for good deeds makes those who have done them more vehemently eager for the better. What, then, is the word spoken by the true Word to the virgin? "To my mare among the chariots of Pharaoh," he says, "I have likened you, my close one." But since the sense of what is said cannot be seen at first sight, we must examine what is set before us with care, as far as possible.

We have learned from the history of no other force drawn up against Pharaoh's cavalry than a cloud, and a rod, and a violent wind, and the sea divided in two, and the deep turned to dust, and walls made of waves, and the abyss become dry land in the midst of springs of water; through all of these salvation came to the Israelites, when Pharaoh with his whole army, horses and chariots, was covered by the waves. Since, then, no force of cavalry was brought up against the Egyptian army, it would be hard to learn to what mare, appearing against the Egyptian chariots, the bride is now likened by the Word. For he says, "To my mare that won the victory among the chariots of Pharaoh I have likened you, my close one." Clearly, just as no one can be defeated in a sea battle unless a naval force destroys the enemies' strength on their ships, so no one could be defeated in a cavalry battle unless some [cavalry] force was drawn up against him from the other side. Since, then, the cavalry was the strongest part of the Egyptian army, 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 fighting them, and shouted to one another, "The Lord fights against the Egyptians; let us flee from the face of the Lord." It is clear that the true commander-in-chief armed his own force to match the preparation of the enemy. There was, then, an invisible power, working the destruction of the Egyptians through the wonders at the sea, which the word named a mare. We take this to be an angelic army, of which the prophet says, "You will mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation." David also mentioned the chariot of God, saying, "The chariot of God is ten thousandfold; thousands of those who flourish are yoked to it." And the power that took up the prophet Elijah high from earth to the region of the ether is called by Scripture by the name of horses; and the history calls the prophet himself "the chariot of Israel and its horseman." And the prophet Zechariah named horses those who go about the whole world, through whom it is inhabited and is at rest, conversing with the rider who stands between the two mountains. There is, then, cavalry belonging to the one who possesses all: one bearing up the prophet, one settling the world, one yoked to the chariot, another receiving God as rider for the salvation of men, another destroying the Egyptian power. Since, then, there is much difference in the divine Scriptures, shown by their activities, the one who has drawn near to God through the course of virtue is likened to the mare that destroys the Egyptian power. For so the Word says to her: "To my mare among the chariots of Pharaoh I have likened you, my close one."

The word holds within itself many great praises; the likening to this mare is a sort of catalogue of good deeds. For all that is recorded of Israel during its sojourn in Egypt, the slavery, the straw, the clay, the brick-making, all the labour on the land, the harsh overseers of such works who demanded their tribute of clay each day, on whose account the water becomes blood, and the light is darkened, and frogs creep into the houses, and the dust of the furnace makes boils break out on the bodies, and every single thing, the locust, the gnats, the [flies], the hail, the sufferings of the firstborn, all these and whatever the history relates of the better, through which salvation comes to the Israelites, are the subject of praise for the soul joined to God. For she would not have been likened to that power which destroys the Egyptian evils, by which Israel is freed from the wicked tyranny, unless all these things had been achieved by her too: both what destroys Egypt and what prepares the journey to God of those who move from the Egyptian mire to the land of promise. Since, then, as the divine apostle says, all that the God-inspired Scripture contains has been written for our admonition, through what is said to the bride the Word counsels us nothing else than this: that we too must receive the Word as rider upon us, and, having overcome the Egyptian cavalry with its chariots and riders and drowned all their wicked power in the water, so become like that power, having let the opposing army go down into the water like a [cavalry]. To learn more clearly what is said, it is this: one cannot be likened to the mare through which the chariots of the Egyptians were sunk in the deep, unless, freed through the mystical water from slavery to the adversary, one leaves every Egyptian thought and all foreign wickedness and sin in the water and comes up pure, bringing nothing of an Egyptian conscience into his life afterwards. For the one who has kept exactly clean of all the Egyptian plagues, the blood, the frogs, the boils, the darkness, the locust and the gnats, the hail and the downpour of fire, and the rest that the history records, is worthy to be likened to that power on which the Word rides.

We are surely not ignorant of what is signified by the plagues: how blood becomes a plague for the Egyptians, and the stench of the frogs, and the change of light into darkness, and every single thing. For who does not know through what kind of life one becomes blood, changed from something once drinkable into corruption? And by doing what one breeds in his own house the stench of frogs? And how one changes the luminous life into dark works that love the night, through which the furnace of Gehenna makes the wicked boils of condemnation break out? So too it is easy to turn each of the evils in Egypt to the instruction and correction of the hearer; but it would be superfluous to lengthen the discourse with what is agreed. Having become superior to these and the like, then, and having drawn near to God, we too shall surely hear: "To my mare among the chariots of Pharaoh I have likened you, my close one."

But perhaps the likening to a horse grieves those who are self-controlled and have practised a pure life, because many of the prophets forbid us to be like horses: Jeremiah signified adulterous madness by the name of horses, where he says, "They became horses mad for females; each neighed after his neighbour's wife"; and the great [David] makes it a thing to fear to become like a horse and a mule, whose jaws he bids be held in with muzzle and bridle. This is why he eases such a thought in what follows, saying: "Your cheeks are not such, even if you are a mare, as to need muzzle and bridle for choking; your cheek is adorned by the [likeness] of turtledoves." For he says, "How beautiful your cheeks have become, like turtledoves." It is attested by those who observe such things that this bird, [when it has lost] its mate, remains unmated thereafter, so that self-control is achieved in it by nature. This is why this bird was taken up by the Word into the riddle of his praises, so that the likeness of the turtledove takes the place of a bridle on the cheek of the divine mare, signifying that the pure life befits such a mare. That is why the Word says to her in wonder, "How beautiful your cheeks have become, like turtledoves."

To this he adds another praise by likeness, saying, "Your neck like necklaces." For having once entered on the figurative meaning, he devises the praise for the bride from what is seen in horses. He praises the neck that is curved into the shape of a circle, which we see in spirited colts. For the mention of necklaces indicates the circle, whose shape, the necklace shown on the neck, makes the limb more comely than itself. Hormos (necklace) is said properly of coastal places where the shore curves inward and receives the sea in its bay, giving rest by itself to those sailing in from the open sea; by metaphor, because of the shape, an ornament round the neck is called hormos; and when we say hormiskos instead of hormos, by this word we indicate a small likeness of the shape. The likeness of the neck to the necklaces, then, shows many things that contribute to the praise of the bride. First, that the colt, bending its neck into the shape of a circle, looks to the steps of its own feet, by which it makes its course without stumbling and safe, neither striking against a stone nor stepping into empty space in a pit. And it is no small thing for the good repute of a soul, to look to itself and with all safety press on to the divine course, leaping over and passing beyond all the hindrances to the course that arise from temptations. Then the original sense of the word hormos itself, from which [the ornament is named] because of the shape, contains an excess of great praises when the neck is likened to harbours. What are the praises that the word shows us through these? That the harbour is a place of salvation for those who put in, and those who, after hardship at sea, [reach] a harbour forget the evils of the sea and give themselves wholly to rest, consoling their long labours with quiet; there is no longer for them any fear of shipwreck, or suspicion of reefs, or danger of pirates, or disturbance of winds, or a sea swelling up from the depths through the winds, but those who were storm-tossed are outside all such dangers, [though] the open sea [is still raging]. If, then, one so [settles] one's own soul as to have calm in quiet, not stirred at all by the winds of wickedness, neither swelling through arrogance nor foaming with the waves of anger, nor tossed about by any other passion and carried about by every wind that raises the varied waves of the passions; if, then, the soul itself is so, and also calms within itself those who are storm-tossed on the sea of life in the many-crested waves of every kind of evil, spreading under them the life of virtue very calm and without waves, so that those who have come into her are outside the evils of shipwreck, she is rightly likened to the necklaces praised by the Word, the plural meaning signifying perfection in each form of virtue. For if she were likened to one only, the praise would be imperfect, as not having the same testimony for the rest of the virtues; but as it is, the likening to the multitude of necklaces includes in the word the testimony to all the virtues. And this is a counsel offered by the Word to the whole church: that we must not look to one of the good things and be negligent about the other good deeds. If self-control has become a necklace for you, making your neck shine with the pure life as with pearls, let there be for you another necklace too, enclosing in itself the precious stones of the commandments and increasing by itself the beauty of the neck; let there be for you also another ornament enfolding the neck of the soul. This is the golden chain that shines round the neck, made from the undefiled gold of the knowledge of God, of which the proverb says, "You will receive a crown of graces on your head, and a golden chain about your neck." Such, then, is the counsel through the necklaces.

It would be time to add to the contemplation the next word, which the friends of the bridegroom address to the virgin. The wording is this: "We will make you likenesses of gold with studs of silver, until the king is in his reclining." To one who looks at the train of the contemplation given us before, the sense of these words seems to be connected and to have its sequence; but the wording, going deep into figurative meanings, makes what is shown through the riddles hard to understand. For since the soul's beauty was likened to the mare that destroys the Egyptian chariots, that is, to the angelic army, and the noble rider says that this mare has for a bridle purity, which [he showed] by likening her cheeks to turtledoves, [and he adorned her neck] with the necklaces of the virtues, the friends too wish to make some addition to the mare's beauty, adorning her trappings with likenesses of gold, in which they set the purity of silver as well, so that the beauty of the ornament may shine the more, the gleam of the silver being blended with the brilliance of the gold. But we must leave the figurative expressions and not let the discourse depart from the sense that profits us. The soul purified through the virtues was likened to that mare; but she has not yet come under the Word's hand, nor has she carried on herself the one who rides on such horses for salvation. For the horse must first be adorned in every way, and so receive the king as rider. Whether the one who, according to the prophet, mounts his horses upon us and rides for our salvation fits the horse to himself from above, or whether he comes to be within us, dwelling and walking about and slipping into the depths of our soul, makes no difference to the meaning. For whichever of the two comes about, the other is achieved along with it. For the one who has God upon him surely has him within too, and the one who has received him within has gone under the one who has come to be in him. So the king is about to rest upon this horse. As has been said, sitting and reclining are the same in the case of the divine power; for whichever of the two comes about in us, the grace is equal. Since, then, the king's preparers make the horse fit to receive him through its ornaments, and for God being in someone and being upon someone are the same, leaving the sequence of the figurative meaning, the preparers and attendants made the horse a couch. "For we must," they say, "make likenesses of gold with studs of silver, adorning the horse's form, so that the king may be not in a seat but in a reclining." Such is the sequence of the wording, as the Word has shown.

But it is worth not passing over without contemplation why it is not gold itself that is taken for ornament but likenesses of gold, and not silver itself but studs of this material hammered into the likeness of gold. What we have supposed about this is as follows. All teaching about the inexpressible nature, however much it seems to show a lofty thought befitting God, is a likeness of gold, not gold itself. For the good that is beyond thought cannot be presented with precision; even if one is a Paul, initiated in paradise into the secret things, and a hearer of words that cannot be spoken, the thoughts about God remain [inexpressible]. For he says that the words of these thoughts are not to be spoken. Those, then, who put good thoughts in us about the understanding of the mysteries cannot say how it is by nature, but they say "radiance of glory", "stamp of the substance", "form of God", "Word in the beginning", "Word God". All these seem gold to us who have not seen that treasure; but to those able to look up to the truth they are a likeness of gold and not gold, shining through the thin studs of silver. And silver is the meaning of words, as Scripture says, "The tongue of the righteous is silver tried by fire." What is shown through these, then, is this: that the divine nature lies beyond every comprehending thought, and the thought about it that arises in us is a likeness of what is sought. For it does not show that form itself, which no one has seen or can see, but through a mirror and in a riddle it sketches some reflection of what is sought, arising in souls from some conjecture. And every word that signifies such thoughts has the force of a point without parts, unable to show what the mind intends; so that every thought is lower than the divine understanding, and every interpreting word seems a small point unable to stretch out together with the breadth of thought. So the soul led by the hand through such thoughts toward the understanding of what cannot be grasped must, it says, make the nature that surpasses all mind dwell in itself through faith alone. And this is what the friends say: "We will make you, O soul, beautifully likened to the mare, certain images and likenesses of the truth. For such is the power of these words of silver that the expressions seem like sparks, unable to show with precision the thought within them. But you, receiving them, will become through faith the mount and dwelling place of the one who is about to recline in you by dwelling in you; for you will become both his throne and his house."

Perhaps one might say that the soul of Paul, and any other that has been like his, was counted worthy of such words. For he, having once become a chosen vessel for the Master, had the Lord both upon himself and in himself: upon himself in carrying his name before the nations and kings, having become a horse; in himself in no longer living himself but showing in himself that one living, and giving proof of Christ speaking in him …

When the friends of the bridegroom had bestowed these gifts on the pure and virgin soul (and these would be the ministering spirits sent out for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation), the bride becomes somehow more perfect through the addition of the gifts. And having drawn nearer to the one she longs for, before his beauty appears to her eyes, she touches the one she seeks by the sense of smell, perceiving as it were the particular quality of his skin by the power of smell; and she says that she has recognized his scent by the fragrance of the ointment whose name is nard, using these words to the friends: "My nard gave its fragrance." "Just as you," she says, "do not [give me] the undefiled gold of the Godhead itself, but give likenesses of the gold through thoughts that we can contain, not revealing what concerns him in a word that shines far, but offering some reflections of what is sought through the slowness of the studs of rational silver, so I too, through the fragrance of my own ointment, have received by my sense his own scent." What is said seems to me to have some such meaning as this. Since a skilled and measured mixture of many different spices, each fragrant with its own particular quality, produces such an ointment, one fragrant herb among those put in, whose name is nard, giving its name to the whole preparation, and the purified sense receives the fragrance from all the qualities blended into one, as the very scent of the bridegroom: we think that by what is said the Word teaches us that whatever that is in its being which lies above the whole constitution and governance of beings is inaccessible, intangible, and incomprehensible; but the [fragrance] compounded in us through the purity of the virtues takes its place for us, imitating by its own purity the nature that is undefiled, by its goodness the good, by its incorruption the incorruptible, by its unchangeableness the unchangeable, and by all the good deeds of virtue achieved in us the true virtue, of which the prophet Habakkuk says that it has spread through all the heavens.

So when she says to the friends of the bridegroom, "My nard gives me his fragrance," she seems to me to be saying, philosophically, things like this: that the one who has gathered every fragrant flower or spice from the varied meadows of virtue, and has made his whole life fragrant through the sweet scent of each of his pursuits, and has become perfect in all, cannot by nature look steadily at God the Word himself, as at the disc of the sun; but he sees the sun in himself as in a mirror. For the rays of that true and divine virtue, shining out in the purified life through the passionlessness that flows from them, make the invisible visible to us and the inaccessible graspable, painting the sun in our mirror. With respect to the thought in question it is the same to speak of rays of the sun, or emanations of virtue, or the fragrances of spices. For whichever of these we take for the aim of the discourse, one thought arises from them all: that the knowledge of the good that surpasses all mind arises in us through the virtues, just as the archetypal beauty can be inferred through an image. So Paul too, the bride, imitating the bridegroom through the virtues and painting the inaccessible beauty in himself through his life, compounding this nard from the fruits of the Spirit, love and joy and peace and such kinds, said that he was the fragrance of Christ, smelling in himself that inaccessible and surpassing grace, and offering himself to others like incense for each to take as he could; and according to each one's disposition he became a life-giving or a death-dealing fragrance. Just as the same ointment, if set before a dung-beetle and a dove, does not work the same on both, but the dove becomes stronger through the fragrance of the ointment while the beetle perishes, so too the great Paul: if one was a dove, a Titus or a Silvanus or a Timothy, he shared with him the fragrance of the ointment, advancing in every good thing by the examples he gave; but if one was a Demas or an Alexander or a Hermogenes, not bearing the incense of self-control, they were driven off by the fragrance like beetles. For this reason the one fragrant with such ointments said, "We are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one a scent from death to death, to the other a scent from life to life."

Whether the nard of the Gospel too has some kinship with the bride's ointment, whoever wishes may infer from what is written: what that very precious nard was, which was poured on the Lord's head and filled the whole house with its fragrance. For perhaps the ointment is not foreign to the ointment, the one that gives the bride the bridegroom's scent, and the one in the Gospel which, poured on the Lord, fills with fragrance the house in which the banquet was. For it seems to me that there too the woman, by some prophetic spirit, foretold through the ointment the mystery of death, as the Lord testifies to what she had done, saying, "She has anticipated anointing me for burial." And he suggests that the house filled with fragrance be understood as the whole world and all the inhabited earth, saying that wherever this Gospel is preached in the whole world, the fragrance of the deed will be spread with the preaching of the Gospel, and the Gospel, he says, will be her memorial. In the Song of Songs, then, the nard gives the bride the scent of the bridegroom; in the Gospel the fragrance that then filled the house becomes the fragrance of Christ for the whole body of the church in all the inhabited earth and in the whole world; perhaps some fellowship is found through these in both, as one …

So much for these things. The next saying seems to fit the subject of the wedding drama, as from one prepared in the bridal chamber; but it shows a greater and more perfect philosophy, which only those already made perfect can achieve. What, then, is said? "A pouch of myrrh is my beloved to me; between my breasts he shall lodge." They say that women who love adornment take care not only to devise for themselves outward ornaments, but also to make their bodies seem more pleasant to their husbands by some fragrance, hiding the spice suited to such use inside the folds of their clothing, which gives off its own vapour, and the body [takes on its scent] … Such being their custom, what does this high-minded virgin dare? "For me," she says, "the pouch that I hang from my neck onto my breast, by which I give fragrance to my body, is none of the fragrant spices; the Lord himself, become myrrh, lies in the pouch of my conscience, lodging in my very heart." For those who have studied such things say that the heart is placed in the middle between the breasts. And the bride says she has the pouch there, [in which] place the good is treasured. They also say that the heart is a kind of spring of our warmth, from which the warmth spreads through the arteries to the whole body, by which the members of the body become warm and full of life, [warmed] by the fire of the heart. The soul, then, that has received the fragrance of Christ in its ruling part, and has made its heart the pouch of such incense, prepares all the pursuits of life, like the members of a body, to boil with the spirit that passes through from the heart, no lawlessness [cooling] its love for God in any member of the body.

But let us pass to the next word. Let us hear what the flourishing vine says about its fruits, the vine spread out, as the prophet says, on all the sides of God's house, and twining by the tendrils of love around the divine and undefiled life. "A cluster of henna-blossom," she says, "is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi." Who is so blessed, or rather who is so far beyond all blessedness, that, looking at his own fruit, he sees the master of the vineyard in the very cluster of his soul? See how far she has grown, she who recognized the bridegroom's fragrance by her own nard, made myrrh fragrant for him, and held the spice in the pouch of her heart, so that the good might remain with her always without evaporating: she becomes mother of the divine cluster, which before the passion is in blossom, that is, flowering, and in the passion pours out the wine. For the wine that gladdens the heart becomes and is called the blood of the grape after the economy of the passion. Since, then, the enjoyment in the cluster is double, one from the flower, when it gladdens the senses with its fragrance, the other from the fruit already ripened, when one is free either to delight in eating it or to be cheered by its wine at banquets, here the bride asks the flowering cluster to bear fruit, calling the vine-blossom kypros. For the child Jesus born to us, who advances differently in those who receive him, in wisdom and stature and grace, is not the same in all, but according to the measure of the one in whom he comes to be, as far as the one who contains him is capable, so he appears, either advancing or being perfected, after the nature of the cluster, which is not always seen on the vine with the same form, but changes its form with time, flowering, blossoming, being perfected … with its own fruit, which is not yet ripe for wine but awaits the fullness of the seasons, yet not unenjoyable for delight. For instead of taste it gladdens the smell with the expectation of good things, sweetening the senses of the soul with the vapours of hope. For the sure and undoubted character of the grace hoped for becomes enjoyment for those who wait for what is expected with patience. Such, then, is the cluster of henna-blossom: a cluster promising wine but not yet become wine, assuring the grace to come through its flower (and hope is the flower). The addition of "Engaddi" signifies the rich ground in which the vine, once rooted, produces a well-nourished and sweet fruit. Those who have studied places say that the region of Engaddi is well suited for the nourishment of clusters. Since, then, the one who has his will in harmony with the law of the Lord, and meditates on it all night and day, becomes an evergreen tree, fattened by streams of water, giving its fruit in due season, for this reason the bridegroom's vine too, [planted] in Engaddi, the rich place, that is, in deep understanding, watered by the divine teachings and growing, [has produced] this blossoming cluster, in which she sees her own farmer and gardener. How blessed such a field, whose fruit is likened to the very form of the bridegroom! For since he is true light and true life and true righteousness, as Wisdom says, and all such things, when one becomes through his works what he is, then, looking at the cluster of his own conscience, he sees the bridegroom himself in it, reflecting the light of truth in his luminous and undefiled life. That is why the flourishing vine says, "My cluster blossoming in flower is himself, the true cluster, who showed himself on the wooden carrying-pole, whose blood becomes drinkable and saving for those who are saved and made glad," in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the power to the ages of ages. Amen.

"Behold, you are beautiful, my close one; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are a dove's. Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, and indeed comely. Our couch is shaded; the beams of our houses are cedars, our panelled ceilings cypresses. [I am a flower of the plain, a lily of the valleys.] As a lily among thorns, so is my close one among the daughters. As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons. In his shade I desired and sat down, and his fruit was sweet in my [throat]. Bring me into the house of wine; set love upon me. Strengthen me with ointments, heap me up with apples, for I am wounded by love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love [until it pleases]."

They say that those who refine gold, if the beauty of its brilliance has been dulled by some [impurity], cure the bad colour by melting it in the fire, and do this many times, and at each melting look to see how much brighter the gold has become in the following melting compared with the one before, and do not stop purifying the material by fire until the very form of the gold bears witness to itself that it is pure and unadulterated. Why we have mentioned these things as we take up the contemplation of the present reading will become clear to us from the very sense of what is written. Human nature was at the beginning something golden, shining with its likeness to the undefiled good; but afterwards it became discoloured and black through the admixture of wickedness, as we heard at the beginning of the Song from the bride, that neglect of the vineyard made her black. Curing her ugliness, God, who fashions all things in wisdom, does not devise some new beauty for her that did not exist before, but leads her back to the first grace, by the dissolving of what [had been mixed] with evil, toward the undefiled. Just as, then, the exact assayers of gold, after the first melting, look to see how far the material has advanced in beauty by spending its dross in the fire, and again, after a second melting, if it was not sufficiently purified compared with the first, reckon the beauty added, and doing the same many times always recognize the additions of beauty by their expert testing, so now the one who cures the blackened gold, having made the soul bright as in a melting pot by the remedies applied to her, in what went before bore witness to the comeliness of a horse in what appeared; but now he welcomes the beauty that has appeared in her at last as that of a virgin. For he says, "Behold, you are beautiful, my close one; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes [are a dove's]."

By what is said the word teaches that this is the recovery of beauty: to come close to the spring of the beautiful and draw near again to the true beauty from which she had gone away. For he says, "Behold, you are beautiful, my close one." "This is why you were not beautiful before, because, estranged from the archetypal beauty, you were made like the loathsome by your wicked neighbourhood with evil." What is said is this. Human nature has come into being receptive of whatever it wills, and toward whatever the inclination of its free choice leads it, according to that it is changed. Receiving the passion of anger, it becomes angry; and when desire prevails, it is dissolved into pleasure. When the inclination is toward cowardice and fear and each of the passions, it puts on the forms of each passion; just as, on the contrary, receiving in itself patience, purity, peaceableness, freedom from anger and from grief, courage, fearlessness, it marks the character of each of these on the state of the soul, being calm in tranquillity. Since virtue stands directly opposed to wickedness, it follows that both cannot be present at the same time to one person. For the one who has departed from self-control is surely in the licentious life, and the one who has loathed the impure life has achieved the unstained by turning away from evil. So too with all the rest: the humble-minded is separated from arrogance, and the one who has puffed himself up with vanity has thrust humility away. What need to spend time in listing each? How, in things opposed by nature, the absence of one becomes the presence and existence of the other … Since, then, our free choice is such that it has power to be conformed to whatever it wishes, … the word rightly says to the one made beautiful: "Having departed from the fellowship of evil you have drawn near to me; and having come close to the inaccessible beauty you too have become beautiful, formed like a mirror by my character." For human nature is truly like a mirror, changed according to the reflections of its free choices. If it sees gold, it appears gold and shows the same gleams of the material by reflection; and if something loathsome appears in it, it takes the impress of its ugliness by likeness too, imitating in its own way a frog, or a toad, or a centipede, or some other unpleasant sight, whichever of these it is found to face. Since, then, the soul purified by the Word, having put evil behind its back, has received the sun's disc in itself and has shone together with the light seen in it, for this reason the Word says to her, "You have now become beautiful by coming close to my light, drawing to yourself the fellowship of beauty by your nearness." "Behold, you are beautiful," he says, "my close one."

Then, waiting, and as it were seeing her come to an addition and intensification of beauty, he takes up the same word again, saying, "Behold, you are beautiful." But in the first case he called her his close one; here, the one known by the form of her eyes; "for your eyes," he says, "are a dove's." For earlier, when she was likened to a horse, the praise was for [her cheeks] and neck; but now, when her own beauty has appeared, the grace of her eyes is praised. And the praise of the eyes is that they are a dove's eyes, which seems to me to show some such sense as this: since the faces of those who gaze into them are seen in the pure pupils of the eyes (for those who are expert in such natural science say that the eye produces sight by receiving the impact of the images that flow off visible things), for this reason the form of the dove appearing in their pupils becomes praise of the comeliness of the eyes. For whatever one gazes at, he receives its likeness in himself. Since, then, the one who no longer looks to flesh and blood looks to the spiritual life, as the apostle says, living by the spirit, walking by the spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body by the spirit, and becoming wholly spiritual, not soulish or fleshly, for this reason the soul freed from bodily attachment is testified to have the form of the dove in her eyes, that is, to have the character of the spiritual life shining in the soul's power of sight. Since, then, her eye has become pure, receptive of the dove's character, she is therefore able to behold the beauty of the bridegroom too. For now for the first time the virgin gazes at the bridegroom's form, when she has the dove in her eyes. "For no one can say 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit." And she says, "Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, and indeed comely. Since nothing else seems beautiful to me, but I have turned away from everything that was formerly counted among beautiful things, my judgment of the beautiful no longer goes astray, so as to think anything beautiful besides you: not human praise, not glory, not distinction, not worldly power. For these, to those who look to the senses, are coloured with the appearance of the beautiful, but are not what they are thought to be. How could anything be beautiful that has no subsistence at all? For what is honoured in this world has its being only in the opinion of those who think it to be. But you are truly beautiful; not only beautiful, but always such by the very essence of the beautiful, always being what you are, neither blooming for a season nor in turn shedding the bloom at a season, but stretching your loveliness along with the eternity of your life; whose name is love for mankind. For Christ has risen for us from Judah, and the people of the Jews is a brother of the one who comes to you from the nations; rightly, because of the manifestation of your Godhead that came about in the flesh, [you are named] the beloved (adelphidos) of the [soul from the nations]."

Then she added, "Our couch is shaded." That is, [the couch] made shaded by the economy. "For you came," she says, "the beautiful, the beloved, the comely, to our couch, having yourself shaded the unmixed ray of the Godhead … by covering yourself with the form of a slave. Who could have endured your appearing? For no one shall see the face of God and live. You came, then, the comely one, but having become such as we are able to receive. You came, overshadowing the rays of the Godhead with the covering of the body. For how could mortal and perishable nature have been able to be joined in the undefiled and inaccessible union, unless the shade of the body had mediated toward the light for us who live in darkness?" The bride calls it a couch, expressing by a figurative meaning the mingling of human nature with the divine; just as the great apostle too joins us to Christ as a virgin and dresses the soul as a bride, and says that the joining of the two into the fellowship of one body is the great mystery of the union of Christ with the church. For having said, "The two shall become one flesh," he added, "This mystery is great; but I speak with reference to Christ and the church." Because of this mystery, then, the virgin soul named the fellowship with the divine a couch. And this could come about in no other way than by the Lord's appearing to us shaded through the body.

He is not only bridegroom but also builder, himself fashioning the house in us and becoming [the whole of] the art. For he puts a roof on the house, beautifying the work with incorruptible material; such are the cedar and the cypress, the strength in whose wood is superior to every cause of decay … Of these, the cedars, because they are long, span the breadth of the house in the roof; the cypresses, through what is called panelling, beautify the inner construction of the house. The wording runs thus: "The beams of our houses are cedars; our panelled ceilings cypress." The riddles shown through the woods are surely clear to those who follow the train of thought. In the Gospel the Lord calls the various assaults of temptations rain, saying of the one who built his house well on the rock, "The rain came down, and the winds, and the rivers came, and the building remained unharmed by them." Because of this evil downpour, then, we need such beams. These would be the virtues, which do not admit the inflow of temptations within themselves, being firm and unyielding, and [keeping] in temptations what cannot be softened toward evil. We may learn what is said from the [saying] in Ecclesiastes, which says, "Through sloth the roofing will sink, and through idleness of hands the house will leak." For just as, if the timbers that span the roof are weak and slack through thinness, and the master of the house is lazy about care for the roof, he gets no benefit from the covering, since the rain [comes through] … the roof, yielding to the weight of the water, and the slackness of the timbers does not hold out against the force of the weight but gives way; for this reason the water passes through to the inside, and these drops, according to the proverb, drive a man out of his own house on the day of rain. So by the riddle of the parable he commands [us to be] unyielding against the inflow of temptations through the strength of the virtues, lest, softened by the falling in of the passions, we become hollow and receive into our storerooms the inflow of such waters running from outside into the heart, by which our stored goods are ruined.

These are the cedars of Lebanon, which the Lord planted, in which the sparrows will make their nests, among which the stork's nest leads. These cedars, then, the virtues, [roof] the house of the bride …, [the souls] becoming sparrows and flying above the snares, whose leader is the stork's nest, which the word calls … They say that this bird is averse to mixing [with others] … and is held back by some necessity of nature, signifying distaste. Hence the word seems to me to signify purity in a riddle by this name. … [The wise master-builder Paul fitted] such things together well and harmoniously, he who says, "Let all things among you be done decently and in order." These, then, are the beams the bride sees on the roofs of the pure bridal chamber. She also sees the ornament of cypress through a well-smoothed and harmonious joining; for she said that what is done is the panelled ceilings of the roof, and panelling is said to be a rhythmic and carved fitting of boards that variegates the beauty of the ceiling. What, then, do we learn from these? Cypress is fragrant by nature and does not admit rot, and is well suited for all the craftsmanship of carpentry, becoming smooth and well fitted, and suitable for ornamentation by carving. By what is said, then, I think we are taught not only that the virtues must be achieved as a settled state in the soul invisibly, but also that we must not be careless of seemliness in what appears. For we must take thought for what is honourable before the Lord and before men; be made manifest to God, persuade men, have a good testimony from outsiders, shine with works of light before men, and walk becomingly toward those outside. These are the panelled ceilings, wrought skilfully in the seemliness of life through the fragrance of Christ, of which the cypress is a riddle, as …

When these have been achieved in this way, an increase of the beauty in us takes place, the broad plain of our nature giving forth the fragrant and pure flower. The flower's name is lily, whose natural brilliance hints at the gleam of self-control. For the bride relates these things about herself, saying: "After the bridegroom came to our couch, shaded by the body, who built himself the house, having roofed my covering with the cedars of the virtues and [panelled] the roof with the fragrance of [cypresses], I have become a flower of the plain of nature, differing from the other flowers in colour and fragrance. For I sprang up a lily from the valleys." The wording runs thus: "I am a flower of the plain, a lily of the valleys." For truly the soul cultivated by what we have contemplated [has become a flower] in the breadth of nature. For when we heard "plain", we understood the breadth of human nature, because it is receptive of many and countless thoughts and words and lessons. The soul, then, laboured over in the said way by the one who cultivates our nature, springs up as a fragrant, bright and pure flower from the plain of our nature. And this plain, even if it is called a valley in comparison with the heavenly way of life, is no less a plain, and the soul well cultivated in it is not hindered from becoming a flower; for the shoot rises from the hollow to the height, as one can see happening with the lily. For the stalk of the lily, running up far and straight from the root like a reed, then gives forth the flower from its top, setting it a considerable distance from the earth, so that, I think, its beauty may remain pure in the air, [not] soiled by [contact] with the earth.

For this reason the righteous eye [of the bridegroom, seeing] the one who has become this, or [wishes] to become it (for we have understood both from what is said: either that she boasts as having already become what she longed for, or that she asks the farmer to become a flower, running up through his wisdom from the valleys of human life into the beauty of a lily); whether, then, she wishes to become this, or has already become what she wished, the righteous eye of the bridegroom, looking at the good desire of the one who looks to him, rightly nodded assent that she should become a lily, not choked by the thorns of life, which he named daughters, showing, I think, by implication [the ones] whose father is named the inventor of evil. "As a lily among thorns," he says, "so is my sister among the daughters." See how much advance in the ascent to the height takes place in the soul. The first ascent was to be likened to the mare that destroys the Egyptian power. The second ascent was to become close and to make her eyes a dove's. The third ascent, then, is to be named no longer close but sister of the Master. "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven," he says, "he is my brother and sister and mother." Since, then, she has become a flower, not harmed at all by the thorn-bearing temptations so as to keep her from becoming a lily, and, forgetting her people and her father's house, has looked to the true Father, she is therefore named sister of the Lord, adopted into this kinship by the spirit of adoption. And freed from fellowship with the daughters of the falsely named father, she becomes again higher than herself, and sees the mystery through the dove's eyes, I mean by the spirit of prophecy. What she says is this: "[As an apple tree among] the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." What, then, has she beheld? Holy Scripture customarily calls the material life of human beings a forest, which hides the various kinds of passions, whose nature, remaining inactive in light and sun, has its strength through darkness. For after the sun sets, the prophet says, when night comes on, the beasts come out of their dens in it. Since, then, the solitary boar fed in the forest ravaged the fair vine of human nature, as the prophet says, "The boar from the forest ravaged it, and the solitary wild beast fed on it," for this reason … [the Lord, appearing among] the powers hostile to human life … [became an apple tree among the trees of the forest, and she sat in his shade,] "and his fruit was sweet in my throat." The apple tree, by being a tree, is of the same substance as human material; for he was tempted in all things in likeness, without sin. But by bearing such fruit, through which the senses of the soul are sweetened, it differs more from the forest than the lily from the thorns. For the lily has its delight only as far as appearance and fragrance; but the grace of the apple is fittingly divided among three senses, gladdening the eye with the loveliness of its form, sweetening the sense of smell through its fragrance, and becoming food [for taste] … So the bride saw her own difference from the Master: that he becomes for us the grace of the eyes, being light; ointment for the smell; and life for those who eat. "For the one who eats him will live," as the Gospel says somewhere. But human nature, perfected through virtue, becomes a flower, not feeding the farmer but adorning itself. For he does not need our goods, but we need his, as the prophet says, "For you have no need of my goods." That is why she sees the bridegroom, the purified soul, as an apple tree come to be among the trees of the forest, so that, grafting into herself all the wild branches of the forest, she may make them abound with like fruit. Just as, then, we understood the daughters, because they were likened to thorns, to be the children of the falsely named father, who, growing up beside the flower, in time pass over themselves to the grace of the lily, so here too, hearing of those likened to such trees of the forest, we took it that not friends of the bridegroom are signified but his opponents, whom, being sons of darkness and children of wrath, he refashions by sharing his fruit into sons of light and sons of day. That is why the soul whose senses are trained says, "His fruit was sweet in my throat"; and the fruit is surely the teaching. "For how sweet to my throat are your words," says the prophet, "more than honey to my mouth."

"As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons. In his shade [I desired and sat down, and his fruit was sweet in my throat]." For the senses of the soul are truly sweetened by the Word when the shade of the apple tree walls us off from the blaze of temptations, [so that we are not] scorched by such a sun boiling over our bare head. And one cannot be refreshed under the shade of the tree of life otherwise than by desire leading the soul up to it. You see why the desiring power is placed in you: to make you long for the apple tree, whose enjoyment is manifold for those who come near. For the eye rests on the loveliness of its beauty, the nostril breathes its fragrance, the body is fed, the mouth is sweetened, the burning heat is turned away, and the shade becomes a throne, on which the soul sits that has refused the seat of the pestilent.

Then she says, "Bring me into the house of wine, set love upon me; strengthen me with ointments, heap me up with apples, for I am wounded by love." [See] how the one well [likened] to the horse runs the divine course, straining forward [with ever-renewed] leaps to what lies ahead and not turning back to what is behind. How much she has obtained in what went before, and she still thirsts! And the intensity of her thirst is so great that she is not content with the mixing bowl of wisdom, nor does she think it enough to cure her thirst that the whole bowl should be poured into her mouth; but she seeks to be brought into the very house of wine, and to hold her mouth under the winepresses themselves overflowing with sweet wine, and to see the cluster pressed in the winepresses, and that vine which nourishes such a cluster, and the farmer of the true vine, who makes the cluster so well nourished and sweet. It would be superfluous to examine each of these, since the figurative meaning seen in each is plain. She surely wishes also to see that mystery, how the bridegroom's garments are reddened in the winepress, of which the prophet says, "Why are your garments red, and your clothing as from a trodden winepress?" For these reasons and the like she longs to be inside the house in which is the mystery of the wine. Then, once inside, she leaps up again to the greater. For she seeks to be subjected to love. And God is love, according to John's word; and David declared that the soul's being subjected to him is salvation. "Since, then, I have come," she says, "into the house of wine, subject me to love," or, "set love upon me." However you take the inversion of the word, the same is signified by each: being set under love, and love being set upon her.

Or perhaps we are also taught by this saying a doctrine of the more refined kind: what kind of love it is fitting to offer to God and how to be disposed toward others. For if all things must be done in order and decently, much more is order fitting in such matters. For Cain would not have been condemned for dividing wrongly if, together with offering rightly, he had kept what was fitting in order, both in what was left for his own use and in what was consecrated to God. For when he should have offered the first-fruits of the sacrifice to God from the first produce, he filled himself with the more valuable and received God with the leftovers. One must know, then, the order of love which he sets forth through the law: how God must be loved, how one's neighbour, and one's wife, and one's enemy, lest the fulfilment of love become disordered and confused. For God must be loved with all one's heart and soul and strength and perception; one's neighbour as oneself; one's wife, if one is of a purer soul, as Christ loved the church; but if one is more passionate, as one's own body; for so the one who ordained such things commands; and the enemy, by not returning evil for evil but repaying injustice with kindness. But now one can see love confused and disordered among most people, working astray through unfitting disharmony. For money and honours and women, if they happen to be warmly disposed toward them, they love with all their soul and strength, so that they would even be willing to give their life for them; but God only as much as seems fitting; and to their neighbour they would barely show the love prescribed for enemies. And their attitude toward those who hate them is to take revenge on those who first grieved them with a greater evil. "Set love upon me, then," she says, "so that I may offer to God as much as is owed, and in the case of each of the others not miss the fitting measure." Or perhaps one may also understand this by the word: "Since, having been loved at the first, I was counted among the enemies through disobedience, but now I have come back to the same grace, joined to the bridegroom through love, confirm for me," she says, "the ordered and immovable state of this grace, you friends of the bridegroom, keeping for me by care and attention, with firmness, my inclination toward the better."

Having said this, she goes up again to what is higher; for she seeks to be strengthened with ointments for the stability of good things. "Strengthen me," she says, "with ointments." O paradoxical and new supports! How do ointments become the pillars of a house? How is the firmness of a roof's construction propped up by fragrance? Or is it quite clear that the matter of the virtues, achieved in us in many forms, is also named according to the differences of their activities? For virtue is not only seeing the good and coming to participate in the better, but also being preserved unchangeable in the good. The one, then, who wishes to be strengthened with ointments seeks to come to be in the virtues. For virtue is ointment, because it is separated from all the stench of sins. One might wonder also at the sequence of what is said: with what she desires the house to be heaped. Not with brambles and thorns and grass, or straw (or rather, as the apostle says, not with wood and straw and grass), with which material houses are built; but apples become the heaping of the house's roof. For she says, "Heap me up with apples," so that this fruit may become all in all to her: beauty, ointment, sweetness, food, refreshment through shade, the throne that gives rest, the pillar that makes firm, the roof that covers. For as beauty it is seen with desire, as ointment it sweetens the smell, as food it fattens the body and sweetens the taste, as shade it cools the burning heat, as a throne it rests weariness, as the roof of a house it becomes a covering for the one who dwells in it, as a pillar it gives steadfastness, as a visible apple it adorns the ceiling. For what more beautiful sight could one imagine than an arrangement of apples, when the well-arranged fruit, continuously joined on some flat surface, is variegated to the sight, the red of the fruit mingled with the whitish? If, then, it were possible to see an arrangement of apples hanging above from a flat surface, what would be more elegant than such a sight? This is not impossible in the desire for intelligible goods. For the form of that fruit is not heavy, weighed down and dragged toward the earth, but has by nature its inclination toward the height. For virtue grows upward and looks upward. That is why the bride desires the ceiling of her own house to be adorned with the beauty of such apples.

But it does not seem to me that the word is primarily concerned with this, that some visible sight should be seen on the heap through the arrangement of apples. For what guidance toward virtue would come from these, unless some thought that profits us were in what is said? What, then, do we conjecture? The one who out of love for mankind sprouted up in the forest of our nature, by sharing in flesh and blood, became an apple tree. For in this fruit one can see by its colour a likeness to each of these. By its whiteness it imitates the particular quality of flesh, and the red coloured over it is testified by its form to be akin to the nature of blood. When, then, the soul that delights in divine things desires to see this roof …, we are taught this by the riddle: from looking upward and attending to the apples we are guided to the heavenly way of life through the teachings of the Gospel, which the one who comes from above and is above all showed us through his manifestation in the flesh, having shown in himself the examples of all good ways of life, as the Lord says, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." The apostle too, setting forth humility for us, says the same; for it is possible to confirm the whole truth in discourse through one contemplation. For to those who look to the things above he says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave," he who came to dwell in life through flesh and blood, and instead of the joy set before him willingly came into a share in our lowliness, and descended even to the experience of death. That is why the bride says, "Heap me up with apples," so that, looking always to the height, I may see the examples of good things shown in the bridegroom. There is gentleness, there freedom from anger, there forgetfulness of wrongs toward enemies, love toward those who grieve us, [repaying] wickedness with kindness, … patience, [freedom] from all vainglory and deceit.

Having said this, she praises the archer for his good aim, since he directed the arrow well at her. "For I am wounded by love," she says. She shows in her word the arrow that lies deep in her heart. The archer of the arrow is love; and we have learned from holy Scripture that God is love, who sends his chosen arrow, the only-begotten Son, upon those who are being saved, having coloured the threefold edge of the point with the Spirit of life. The point is faith, so that in whomever it comes to be, it brings in the archer together with the arrow, as the Lord says, "I and the Father are one," and, "we will come and make our dwelling with him." The soul, then, raised up through the divine ascents, sees in herself the sweet arrow of love by which she was wounded, and makes the wound her boast, saying, "I am wounded by love." O beautiful wound and sweet blow, through which life slips into the inner parts, the opening made by the arrow opening for her as it were a door and entrance! For as soon as she received the arrow of love, the shooting was at once changed into bridal delight. It is clear how the hands handle the bow, dividing their activities for the use. The left grips the bow; the right draws the string toward itself, pulling the arrow by its notch while it is aimed at the target by the left hand held out in front. She, then, who a little before had become the target of the arrow, now sees herself in place of the arrow in the archer's hands, the right and the left holding the arrow in different ways. But since, through the figure of the wedding, the meanings of the contemplations are carried forward in sequence, he did not make the arrow's point held by the left hand, nor the right holding the other end, so that the soul might become an arrow in the hand of the mighty, aimed at the target above; but he made the left hand placed under the head in place of the point, and the rest held by the right, so that, I think, the word might philosophize at once in the double riddles about the divine ascent, showing that the same one is both our bridegroom and archer, using the purified soul both as bride and as arrow: as an arrow, aiming her at the good target; as a bride, taking her up to share in incorruptible eternity, granting length of life and years of life through his right hand, and through his left the wealth of eternal goods and the glory of God, in which those who seek the glory of the world have no share. That is why she says, "His left hand is under my head," through which the arrow is aimed at the target; "and his right hand," holding me and drawing me to himself, makes me light for the upward flight, sent there and yet not separated from the archer, so that I am at once carried by the shot and at rest in the Master's hands. And the proverb states the particular qualities of these hands: that length of life and years of life are in the right hand of wisdom, and in her left wealth [and glory].

Then she turns her word to the daughters of the Jerusalem above. The word is an exhortation, given with an oath, to make love abound and increase always, until he who wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth makes his will effective. The word she spoke is this: "I have adjured you, daughters [of Jerusalem], by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love until it pleases." An oath is a word that confirms the truth by itself; and the working of an oath is double. Either one confirms the truth to the hearer himself, or by adjuring one lays on others the necessity of not lying at all. For example: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not set it aside"; here the faithfulness of the promise is made fast by the oath. But when Abraham, taking thought for a noble marriage for his only son, commands his own servant not to [take] any of the race of Canaan, those [condemned] to slavery, in marriage for Isaac, lest mixture with a servile race spoil the nobility of the succession, but to arrange the marriage for the boy from his ancestral land and kindred, he lays on him the necessity of not being slack about the command by adjuring him, that he would do through him all that he had decided about the boy. So the servant is adjured by Abraham to arrange a fitting marriage for Isaac. The working of an oath being double, then, here the soul that has run up to such a height as we contemplated in what was examined before, setting forth for the souls being instructed the progress toward perfection, does not by an oath give her hearers certainty about what she herself has obtained; but by adjuring them she leads them by the hand to the life of virtue, so that they may keep their love sleepless and wakeful until his good will comes to its fulfilment. And this is that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. As the adjuring there was done by the patriarch's thigh, so here it is by the powers and by the strengths of the field, the word saying thus: "[I have adjured] you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love until it pleases."

We must consider in these words, then, first what the field is; then what the strength of the field is, and the power, and whether these differ from one another or one thing is signified by both; besides these, what is the rousing and what the awakening of love. For "until it pleases" has been shown already by what was said … That the Master's voice signifies the world by the field is clear to everyone from the Gospels; and that the form of this world passes away and nothing firm is shown in unstable nature is clear from the loud voice of Ecclesiastes, who counted everything that appears and passes away among vanities. What, then, is the power of such a field, which is the world? Or what is the strength, the mention of which makes the command to the daughters of Jerusalem inviolable by the adjuring? For if we look to what appears, as if there were some power in it, Ecclesiastes strikes out such a supposition, calling vain everything shown and sought in these things. For the vain does not subsist; and what does not subsist in being has no strength. Or perhaps through the plural meaning of "power" we can find some conjecture of the thought? For we know such a distinction in holy Scripture in the case of such names: when power is spoken of in the singular, the mind is referred by such a word to the divine; but when it is uttered in the plural form, it presents the angelic nature in the word. For example, "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom," here by the singular it made known the divine. "Bless the Lord, all his powers": here the plural of powers shows the meaning of the intelligible nature of the angels. And the name of strength, taken together with power, has an intensification of the meaning of the thought, Scripture thus [making plain] by repetition what it intends; as in "Lord, my strength and my firm support." For each of the words signifies the same thing; but the combination of words of equal force shows an intensification of what is signified. The plural meaning of powers, then, and the like mention of strengths, seems to lead the hearers' thought to the angelic nature; so that the adjuring offered to the souls being instructed, for confirming what the teaching has decided, is not made by the world that passes away, but by the nature of the angels that remains for ever, to which she bids them look, so that she may confirm by the example the firmness and stability of the life of virtue. For since he has promised that the life after the resurrection will be like the state of the angels (and the one who promised does not lie), it would follow that life in the world should be prepared for what is hoped for afterwards, so that, living in the flesh and spending our time in the field of this world, we do not live according to the flesh nor are conformed to this age, but practise beforehand the hoped-for life through our life in the world. This is why the bride produces in the souls of those being instructed the confirmation through the oath, so that their life achieved in this field may look to the powers, imitating angelic purity through freedom from passion. For when love is roused and awakened in this way, that is, raised up and always increased toward the greater, she said that the good will of God is fulfilled as in heaven so on earth, angelic passionlessness [being achieved] in us too.

This is what we have understood of "[I have adjured] you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love until it pleases." But if some other account should be found that comes closer to the truth of what is sought, we shall receive the grace and give thanks to the one who reveals hidden mysteries through the Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belongs the glory to the ages of [ages. Amen].

"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.

"On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. I will rise now and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. The watchmen who go about in the city found me: Have you seen him whom my soul loved? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love until it pleases. Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders of the perfumer? Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel. All of them hold swords, trained in war; each man has his sword on his thigh because of fear [in the nights]."

Again through the present reading we are taught the great and lofty doctrines of the Song of Songs. For the bride's narrative, in which she relates what concerns herself, is philosophy, teaching how lovers of the transcendent beauty must be disposed toward the divine. [The doctrine taught] through the oracles before us is this; for I think we must first set out the sense contained in the words, and then fit the God-inspired words to what has been contemplated. To put it briefly, then, the doctrine that appears through what is said is something like this. The nature of beings is divided in two in the highest division. One part is perceptible and material, the other intelligible and immaterial. We call perceptible whatever is grasped by sense perception, [and intelligible what escapes sense and falls under] the understanding of the mind. Of these the intelligible is infinite and unbounded, while the other is enclosed in every way by limits. For since all matter is circumscribed by quantity and quality, what is seen about it in bulk and form and surface and shape becomes the limit of the understanding of it, so that the one who investigates matter can grasp nothing in imagination beyond these. But the intelligible and immaterial, free of such circumscription, escapes boundary, limited by nothing. Again, the intelligible nature too is divided: one part is uncreated and makes the things that are, always being what it is and always remaining the same, above all addition and diminution, not receptive of goods [as from outside]; the other, brought into being by creation, always looks to the first cause and is preserved in the good continually by participation in what surpasses it, and in a way is always being created, being changed for the greater through increase in good things, so that no limit is seen in it either, nor is its growth toward the better circumscribed by any boundary; but the good that is present at any time, however great and perfect it seems, is always the beginning of what lies above and is greater. So in this too the apostle's word is true, by the straining forward to what lies ahead, what has been traversed being forgotten. For what is always found greater and surpassingly good, holding the disposition of those who participate around itself, does not let them look to what is past, pushing aside the memory of what is inferior by the enjoyment of what is more precious. This, then, is what we take to be the thought set forth as doctrine in the philosophy of the bridal narrative.

It would be time first to recall the very wording of the God-inspired oracles, and then to fit the sense contained in the words to what has been contemplated. "On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved; I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not [hear] me. I will rise now and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him. The watchmen [who go about in the city] found me: [Have you seen him whom] my soul [loved]? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of [her who conceived me]." How, then, do we find in what is said the thoughts we contemplated beforehand? [The bride's progress] came about in the preceding ascents in proportion to the growth that took place each time. For, always being changed for the better and never standing still at the good she had grasped, now she is compared to the mare that overthrew the Egyptian tyrant, then she is likened to necklaces and turtledoves in the ornament round her neck. Then, as if not content with these, she advances still higher. For through the sweet nard she recognizes the divine fragrance; and she does not stay even in this, but again she hangs the one she longs for himself, like a fragrant spice, between her spiritual breasts, from which the divine teachings gush, clothing herself with him in the capacity of her heart. After this she makes the farmer her own fruit, calling him a cluster, fragrant with something sweet and gentle through its flower. And having grown in this way through such ascents she is called beautiful, and becomes close, and the beauty in her eyes is likened to doves. Then again she goes on to the greater. For, having become more clear-sighted, she learns the Word's loveliness, and marvels how he comes down shaded to the bed of the life below, overshadowed by the material nature of the human body. Besides these she describes the house of virtue, whose roofing material is cedar and cypress, not receptive of rot and decay, by which she expresses the permanence and unchangeableness of her relation to the good. Besides these her difference toward the better is shown by comparison, … and she seems a lily among thorns; and again the bridegroom's difference from others is seen by her. For he is named an apple tree among a fruitless forest, made beautiful by the good colour of its fruit; coming under its shade she is in the house, and is strengthened with ointments, and heaped with the fruits of the apple tree, and, receiving the chosen arrow in her heart through the sweet wound, she in turn becomes herself an arrow in the hands of the archer, the left hand aiming her head at the target above, the right drawing the arrow to itself. After this, as if she had already reached perfection, she sets forth for the others too by her word the eagerness for the one she longs for, rousing their love by a kind of adjuring. Who, then, would not say that the soul raised so high had come to the highest limit of perfection? But nevertheless the end of what she has traversed becomes the beginning of guidance toward what lies above. For all those things were thought to be the sound of a voice, the soul turning to the contemplation of the mystical things through hearing; and she begins to see the one she longs for, appearing to her eyes in another form. For he is likened to a gazelle and compared to a young stag; and what appears does not stand still, either before our sight or in its place, but leaps upon the mountains, bounding from the peaks to the summits of the hills. And again the bride comes to a greater state, when a second voice comes to her, by which she is urged to leave the shadow of the wall and come into the open air, and to rest in the shelter of the rock close by the outer wall, and to delight in the spring season, plucking the flowers of the season, in their prime and lovely and fit for cutting, and whatever else the season grants for enjoyment to those who delight in it, among the voices of the musical birds. Through these the bride, becoming again more perfect, asks to see openly the face of the one who speaks, and to receive the word from him, no longer speaking through others. Again it is reasonable at this point to call the soul blessed, having reached through her lofty ascent the summit of what she longed for. For what greater blessedness could one imagine than to see God? But this too is the end of what has been traversed and becomes the beginning of the hope of what lies above. For again she hears the voice commanding the hunters, for the safety of the spiritual vineyards, to hunt the beasts that harm the fruits, those little foxes; and when this has been done, the two pass over into one another, God coming to be in the soul and the soul in turn moving to dwell in God. For she says, "My beloved is mine, and I am his," who pastures among the lilies and has transferred human life from shadowy appearances to the truth of what is. Do you see to what height she has gone up, she who, according to the prophetic word, goes from power to power, so that she seems to have reached the summit of the hope of good things? For what is higher than to be in the one longed for himself, and to receive the one longed for in oneself? But nevertheless, having come to this, she laments again as one in need of the good, and, as one who does not yet have what is set before her desire, she is at a loss and distressed; and she makes public in her narrative such distress of soul, and describes in her word how she found what she sought.

We learn all these things through the contemplation of the words set before us, by which we are clearly taught that the greatness of the divine nature is bounded by no limit, and that no measure of knowledge becomes a boundary of the understanding of what is sought, after which the [seeker] of lofty things must stop his forward movement; but the mind that runs upward through the understanding of what lies above is so disposed that every perfection of knowledge attainable by human nature becomes the beginning of the desire for higher things. And consider exactly, I pray, the word set before our contemplation, having first understood this: that the bodily sketch of the word is a bridal chamber and a wedding arrangement, which gives material to the contemplation, whose philosophy, transferring the meanings of the thoughts to the pure and immaterial, carries the doctrines forward through what is done in them, using the riddles of events for the clarity of what is shown. Since, then, the word has posited the soul as bride, and God, loved by her with all her heart and soul and strength, is named bridegroom, consistently, having come, as she thought, to the summit of what is hoped for, and supposing that she was already mingled with the one she longed for, she names the more perfect participation in the good a bed, and calls the time of darkness night; and by the name of night she shows the contemplation of invisible things, like Moses, who came into the darkness in which God was, who, as the prophet says, "made darkness his hiding place round about him." [Having come] to stand [there], she is then taught that she is as far from having reached perfection as those who have not even begun. "For already," she says, "as one counted worthy of perfect things, resting myself as on a bed in the comprehension of what I had known, when I came within the invisible, leaving the senses behind, when I was enfolded by the divine night, seeking him who is hidden in the darkness, then I had love for the one I longed for, but the beloved himself flew out of the grasp of my thoughts. For I sought him on my bed in the nights, so as to know what his being is, where he begins, where he ends, and in what he has his existence. But I did not find him. I called him by name, as far as I was able to find a name for the one who cannot be named. But there was no meaning of a name that reached the one sought. For how could the one who is above every name be found by being called by a name?" That is why she says, "I called him, and he did not hear me." "Then I knew that there is no limit to his majesty, his glory, his holiness."

That is why she raises herself up again and goes about in her mind through the intelligible and supra-cosmic nature, which she calls a city, in which are the principalities and dominions and the thrones appointed to the authorities, and the assembly of the heavenly beings, which she calls a market, and the multitude that number cannot comprehend, which she signifies by the name of broad street, to see whether the beloved might be found among these. So she went round searching the whole angelic order, and when she did not see the one sought among the goods she found, she reasoned thus with herself: "Is what I love perhaps comprehensible to them?" And she says to them, "Have you seen him whom my soul loved?" When they were silent at such a question, and by their silence showed that what she sought was incomprehensible to them too, when she had gone through all that supra-cosmic city with the busy searching of her mind and did not know the one she longed for even among the intelligible and incorporeal beings, then, leaving behind all that she found, she recognized what she sought in this alone: that it is not known what it is, that it is, whose every comprehending mark becomes a hindrance to those who search for it. That is why she says, "Scarcely had I passed from them," letting go of the whole creation, and passing by everything understood in creation, and leaving behind every approach of comprehension, "I found the beloved by faith; and I will not let go, holding fast to what I have found with the grip of faith, until he comes into my chamber." And the chamber is surely the heart, which then becomes receptive of the divine indwelling, when it returns to that state in which it was at the beginning, when it was formed by the one who conceived it. And one who understands the mother to be the first cause of our constitution [will not be mistaken].

It would be time again to set out the divine words in their very wording, so that the words may be fitted to what has been contemplated. "On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. I will rise and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him. [The watchmen who go about in the] city [found me]: Have you seen him whom my soul loved? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me." After this she again, out of love for others, converses with the daughters of Jerusalem, whom earlier, in comparison with the bride's beauty likened to the lily, she named thorns; and through the oath by the powers in the world she raises them to an equal measure of love, so that the will of the bridegroom may become effective in them too. It has been said in what went before what the world is in which the strengths and the powers are, and what is the will of the one loved with all the heart and soul, so that there is no need to go over the word again …, since the sense of the words contemplated before makes sufficiently clear what is understood in this place.

But let us go on to what follows in the text, if it should be possible for us too to go up with the perfect dove as she flies up to the height, and to hear the voice of the friends of the bridegroom, who marvel at her ascent from the wilderness. This increases the astonishment of the onlookers the more, if the wilderness produces such a one as to imitate the beauty of trees, the trees in the wilderness cultivated by the vapours of incense. The incense was myrrh and frankincense; and from these, [together with] the vapour, a kind of powder was raised up from the finely ground spices and went up with it, so that instead of dust there was the fine diffusion of the spices mingled with the air, through which the powder rose upright and hung aloft. The wording runs thus: "Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders [of the perfumer]?" If one attends exactly with the mind to [what is said], he will find the truth of the doctrine we understood before. For just as in the processions of the theatres, even if those who act out the story put before them are the same, yet they seem to appear as different people, changing their appearance by the difference of masks, and the one who now appears as a slave and a private person is seen a little later as a hero and a soldier, and again, leaving the subordinate role, takes on the appearance of a general, or puts on the form of a king: so too in the advances of virtue, those who are being transformed from glory to glory through the desire of higher things do not always remain with the same character, but in proportion to the perfection of good things achieved by each at any time, a particular character shines in their life, becoming different from what it was, through the increase of good things. That is why the friends of the bridegroom seem to me to be astonished at what appears: they had known her before as beautiful, but beautiful as among women; after that by the likeness of gold with studs [of silver] …; [now], seeing about her none of the earlier marks, but characterizing her from loftier ones, they marvel not only at her ascent but also at where she ran up from. For this is what intensifies their astonishment: the one who comes up is seen as one, and what appears is compared to a grove of trees; for she is thought to be seen as tree-trunks rising up to a height and growing. And what nourishes these trunks is not some rich and well-watered land, but a dry, thirsty and desert one. In what, then, are these trunks rooted, and from where do they grow? Their root is the powder of the spices; their watering is the vapour of the incense, bedewing this grove with its fragrance. How much praise the word contains for [the bride] testified to in such things! For their questioning one another about the one who has been seen, as shown in another form and not according to her former shape, is the most perfect praise of progress in virtue, bearing much witness to her change and transformation toward the better. For the voice is that of people astonished, marvelling at her appearance as being beyond the usual form: "This one from the wilderness, who was seen by us as black before, how did she wash off her dark form? How does her face flash like snow? The wilderness, it seems, is the cause of these things, which made her height spring up like a shoot and changed her into such beauty." For this running up to the height did not come about by some chance coincidence, nor by some arbitrary allotment, but she acquired the beauty from her own labours through self-control and care. So once the prophet's soul too became thirsty for the divine spring, since his flesh, having become desert, trackless and waterless, received the divine thirst in itself. Her coming up from the wilderness, then, contains testimony that she ran up through attention and self-control to so great and so high a height that she became a wonder even to the friends of the bridegroom, who express her beauty by many likenesses, since it was not possible to include it all in one.

First they liken her loveliness to trunks, and not to one of them, but the likeness of the wonders in her is led to a multitude of trees, so that the many forms and variety of the virtues may be shown through the sketch of the grove. Then smoke from incense is taken up into the image of her beauty, and this not simple, but blended of myrrh and frankincense, so that from both vapours one grace comes to be, by which the beauty of the bride is described. Another praise of her is the mixture of these spices. Myrrh is suited to the burial of bodies; frankincense, for a certain reason, is consecrated to the honour of God. The one, then, who is about to dedicate himself to the service of God will not otherwise be frankincense burned to God unless he first becomes myrrh, that is, unless he puts to death his members that are on earth, buried with the one who took our death upon himself, and receiving in his own flesh, by putting to death his members, that myrrh which was used at the Lord's burial. When these things have come about, every kind of spice of virtue in the circle of life, ground fine as in a mortar, produces that sweet powder, [breathing] which one becomes fragrant, being filled with the perfumed spirit.

After the testimony to her beauty, the friends of the bridegroom, the preparers of the chaste bridal chamber and matchmakers of the pure bride, show her the beauty of the royal bed, so that they may lead the bride the more into desire of the divine and undefiled [union] with him. And the description of the king's bed is this, which they bring before her eyes with a word that points, through what they relate. For they say, "Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, trained in war; each man has his sword on his thigh because of fear in the nights." That the account of the bed is not from the history would be clear to everyone from what is narrated bodily about Solomon. The word described his palace and his table and the rest of his manner of life in the kingdom with all exactness; but it said nothing new or unusual about his bed; so that it is altogether necessary not to keep the explanation to the letter, but to take the word over by some understanding, removing our mind from the material meaning to spiritual contemplation. For what adornment of a bridal bed could come from sixty armed men, whose lessons are the fearful ones of war, whose ornament is the sword held out before the body, and around whom is a nocturnal terror? For by the word "fear" the text shows the fearful alarm that arises from certain night terrors, which it says are present to these armed men. So by every means we must seek some sense through these words that follows from what has been contemplated before.

What, then, is the sense? The divine beauty seems to have its loveliness in what is fearful, shown by what is contrary to bodily beauty. For here what is gentle and soothing to the sight is a provocation to desire, and … But that undefiled beauty is also undaunted courage. For since the passionate and soiled desire of bodies, seated in the members of the flesh, lies in wait for the mind like a band of robbers and often seizes it and leads it captive to its own will; and what happens is hostile to God, as the apostle says, that the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God; for this reason it follows that divine love comes about from what is contrary to bodily desire: so that, if slackness and relaxation and soft dissipation lead the way in the one, in the other a fearful and undaunted courage becomes the material of divine love. For when manly spiritedness has frightened off and put to flight the account of pleasure, so the pure beauty of the soul appears, defiled by no passion of bodily desire. Necessarily, then, the bridal bed of the king is surrounded by the armed men, whose experience of war and readiness of the sword on the thigh produce fear and alarm in the darkened thoughts, which [shoot] in the nights and in the moonless dark at the upright in heart. That the arming of those who surround the bed destroys filthy pleasures becomes clear from the description of the text, which says, "All of them trained in war, each man with his sword on his thigh." For truly [it belongs to those] who know how one must campaign against flesh and blood to have the sword fitted on the thigh. And whoever is not inexperienced in the thoughts and riddles of Scripture surely understands what is signified by the mention of the thigh, and that the sword is the word. The one, then, who is girded with the fearful weapon, I mean the sword of self-control, is the one who is lovely to the incorruptible bed, one of the mighty men of Israel and worthy of the list of the sixty.

That this number has some mystical meaning [is not doubtful], but it is clear only to those to whom the grace of the Spirit reveals hidden mysteries. We, however, say that it is well, having been filled with the readily available thoughts of the text, as Moses legislated for the Passover, [to leave the marrow] hidden in the bones of obscurity of what appears. But if anyone desires the hidden marrow of the text, let him seek it from the one who reveals hidden things to the worthy. But so that we may not seem to run past the text without exercise, nor to be negligent of the divine command which bids us search the divine Scriptures, let us examine the account of the sixty in this way. Twelve rods, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, are taken by Moses at the divine command, but one of them all was preferred, the only one that sprouted beside the others. Again, stones equal in number to the tribes of Israel are taken by Jesus son of Nave out of the Jordan, none of which is rejected, all alike [serving] as testimony of the [crossing] of the Jordan. And there is much sequence in what is narrated. For the word shows a certain progress of the people toward the more perfect: so that at the beginning of the legislation [one rod was chosen,] and the rest were rejected as dry and fruitless. But when more time had passed and the commands of the law had come to a more exact understanding among them, so that they also conceived and received the second [circumcision], the stone knife cutting off all that was unclean in them (and the attentive hearer surely understands what is signified by the stone and the knife), it was reasonable, the lawful and virtuous life having been confirmed in them, that none of the stones taken in the name of the tribes of the Israelites should be found rejected. But since we must always seek the increase of good things, when time went on and the power of Israel became greater [than the] cutting brought on them by Jesus and [the] circumcision, [then] … For so the word says in the words set before us, "of the mighty men of Israel": then no longer one stone or one rod from each tribe is taken, but instead of rods or stones five warriors from each tribe, trained in war, of the mighty men of Israel, bearing swords, surrounding the divine bed. For this reason none of them is rejected, because the five are the first-fruits of every tribe, whose number, summed up twelve times, makes the full count of sixty. Five from each tribe, then, must become fearful armed guards of the king's bed, so that if one is lacking from the number of five, the rest too is unacceptable.

May we, then, now dare the conclusion of the reasoning? How are the five from each tribe armed, so as to become guards of the royal bed? How does each of these five become fearful to those drawn up against him by his arming, holding out the sword from his thigh? Or is it clear that the one stone is [one man], and these five armed men are [his five senses], each sense holding out its own fitting sword for the destruction of the opponents? The eye's [sword] is always to look to the Lord, and to see rightly, and to be defiled by no filthy sight. The hearing's weapon likewise is listening to divine teachings and never receiving a vain word into itself. So one can arm also taste and touch and smell with the sword of self-control, [fitting it] to each of the senses. [So comes about the] alarm for the dark thoughts, whose time for plotting against souls is night and darkness. For in it, the prophet said, the beasts of the field contrive wicked food for themselves from the flocks of God. "For you made darkness," he says, "and it became night; in it all the beasts of the forest will pass through, lions' whelps roaring to seize [prey]." Since, then, everyone who is saved becomes Israel (for not all who are of Israel are Israel, but those who see God are properly named by this title from the activity), and it is proper to one who sees God to look toward sin with none of the senses (for no one can look to two masters, but one must be hated if the other is to be loved), for this reason all that is saved becomes one bed of the king. For all who have become pure in heart will see God, and those who have seen God become and are properly named Israel; and this name is divided into twelve tribes for some secret reason; so the fullness of those being saved is rightly summed up by the number sixty, one being taken from each part, and this one being [multiplied] into five according to the number of the senses. So all who have put on the divine armour surround one bed of the king, all having become Israel; and through the twelve tribes, the valour understood everywhere, the whole fullness of the champions being summed up into the number sixty, all will become one line of battle and one army, and one bed, that is, one church, and one people, and one bride, under one commander and head of the assembly and bridegroom, so that those who are saved are joined into one body. And we are taught this from God's voice too, which says to the one who knocks shamelessly at night, "The door is already shut, and my children are with me in bed." The word rightly names children those who through the weapons of righteousness have achieved freedom from passion, teaching us through this that the good that comes to us from care is nothing other than what was laid in nature from the beginning. For when one who has girded on the sword has cast off passion through attention to the life of virtue, then he [becomes] like an infant in age, insensible of such passion. For the unripeness of age does not have room for passion. It is the same thing, then, to learn that there are armed men around the bed and that there are infants resting on the bed. For freedom from passion is one in both: in those who have not received passion and in those who have thrust it away. For the one have not yet known it; the others have brought themselves back to the first state, turning and becoming children by divine freedom from passion. How blessed it is to be found among these, having become either a child or an armed man or a true Israelite: as an Israelite, seeing God with a pure heart; as an armed man, guarding the king's bed, that is, one's own heart, in freedom from passion and purity; as a child, resting on the blessed bed, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory to the ages of ages. Amen.

"[King Solomon made himself a litter] from the woods of Lebanon; its pillars he made of silver and its back of gold, its step of purple; within it is a paving of stones, love from the daughters of Jerusalem. Daughters of Zion, go out and look upon King Solomon, at the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding and on the day of the gladness of his heart. Behold, you are beautiful, my close one; behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves, apart from your silence. Your hair is like flocks of goats that have been revealed from Gilead. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and none among them is barren. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your speech is lovely. Like the rind of a pomegranate is your cheek, apart from your silence. [Your neck is like the tower of David,] built for Thalpioth; a thousand shields hang upon it, all the darts of the mighty. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, [that pasture among the lilies, until the] day [breathes] and the shadows move. I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are all beautiful, my close one, and there is no blemish in you."

In many things King Solomon is taken as a type of the true king: in many things, I say, related of him in holy Scripture for the better. For he is called peaceable, and has measureless wisdom; he builds a temple, reigns over Israel, and judges the people in righteousness; and he is of the seed of David. And the queen of the Ethiopians comes to him. All these and the like are said of him typically, but they sketch beforehand the power of the Gospel. For who is so peaceable as the one who killed the enmity and nailed his enemies to the cross, reconciling us, or rather the world, to himself, and destroying the dividing wall of the fence, so as to create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, who preached peace to those far off and those near, through those who announce the good news of good things? And who is such a builder of a temple as the one who lays its foundations on the holy mountains, that is, on the prophets and apostles, and builds on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, as Paul says, the living and ensouled stones, rolled, according to the prophetic word, into the fitting together of the walls, so that, joined in the unity of the faith and the bond of peace, they make the holy temple grow by themselves, to become a dwelling place of God in the Spirit? That Solomon by his own wisdom points to the true wisdom no one would deny who looks to the history and to the truth. For he is testified by the history to have passed beyond the bounds of human wisdom, containing the knowledge of all things in the breadth of his heart, so that he outran those before him and was unreachable by those after him; [but] the Lord in his own nature, that very thing which he is, is the being of truth and wisdom and power. That is why, when David said, "You made all things in wisdom," the divine apostle, interpreting the prophet, says that all things were created in him, since the prophet signified him by wisdom. That the Lord is king of Israel is testified even by his enemies, who wrote on the cross the confession of his kingship: "This is the King of the Jews." We accept the testimony, even if it is thought to belittle the greatness of his power by limiting his lordship to the kingdom of the Israelites. For it is not so; rather, from a part, this inscription attributes to the cross rule over all, by not adding that he is king of the Jews only. For the word, having testified to his rule over the Jews absolutely, [implies] by what it leaves unsaid his power over all in this confession. For the king of the whole earth surely has lordship over the part too. Solomon's zeal for just judgment signifies the true judge of the whole world, who says, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son," and, "I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just." For this is the highest standard of just judgment: not to give a sentence to those judged from oneself out of some partiality, but first to hear those subject to judgment, and then to deliver the verdict on them. That is why the power of God confesses that it is unable to do something: for truth cannot turn judgment aside from what is just. That the Lord is of the seed of David according to the flesh we shall pass over, since it is clear from what has happened. But the mystery of the Ethiopian queen, how, leaving the kingdom of the Ethiopians and crossing so great a space between, she hastens to Solomon because of the fame of his wisdom, receiving the king with precious stones and gold and the sweetness of spices, would be clear to one who considers which of the wonders of the Gospel it looks to. For who does not know that the church from the nations was black from idolatry at the beginning, before it became the church, separated from the knowledge of the true God by a great interval of ignorance? But when the grace of God appeared and wisdom shone out, and the true light sent its ray to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, then, when Israel had shut its eyes to the light and withdrawn itself from participation in good things, the Ethiopians come, those of the nations who run to the faith, and those who were once far off become near, washing off their blackness in the mystical water; so that Ethiopia stretches out her hand to God beforehand and brings gifts to the king: the spices of piety, the gold of the knowledge of God, and the precious stones of the works of the commandments and the virtues.

But I shall now make clear in my discourse what I have in view in beginning from here the contemplation of the words before us, first setting out the very wording of the divine oracles, which runs thus: "King Solomon made himself a litter [from the woods of Lebanon; its pillars] he made of silver, and its back of gold, its step of purple; within it a paving of stones, love from the daughters of Jerusalem." Just as, then, in what was examined before about Solomon, the word found through what things the mystery of the temple [was shown] in that person, so too through the construction of the litter the economy concerning us is signified. For God comes to be in those worthy of him in many ways, coming to be in each according to the power and worth each has. One becomes a place of God, another a house, another a throne, and another a footstool. And one becomes a chariot, or a horse obedient to the rein, receiving the good rider upon himself and completing the course as the one who guides him wishes. And as we are taught now, one becomes also his litter, who according to his wisdom [is constructed] not only from wood but also from gold, silver, purple and stones, fittingly in each part, through which his love becomes effective; not all having room for the working of love, but [only] if one is recognized by his life as a daughter of the Jerusalem above, the free woman. That the one who carries God in himself is a litter of the one who dwells and is seated in him would be clear even before our words. For the one who, according to the holy Paul, no longer lives himself but has Christ living in him, and gives proof of Christ speaking in him, is properly called and becomes a litter of the one carried in him and borne by him. But this is not what is sought. Rather we should consider carefully what the variety and multiplicity of the material means. How is the nature of wood taken up together with gold and silver and purple and stones for the construction of the litter? And yet the wise master-builder Paul judges wood, together with grass and straw, to be rejected in the building of the house, the work being consumed by the power of fire. But we know a nature of wood that does not remain in what it is, but changes itself into gold or silver or some other precious thing. For in God's great house, the apostle says, some vessels are by nature of gold and silver, by which I think he hints at the incorporeal and intellectual creation; others are of wood and of clay, perhaps indicating us by these, whom sin, coming through the tree, made wooden vessels instead of golden. The use of the vessels is divided according to the worth of the material: those of more precious material are assigned to honour, while the others are cast aside to dishonourable service. But what does Paul say of such things? That the vessel has power by its own free choice to become golden from wooden, silver from earthenware. "For if anyone cleanses himself," he says, "he will be a vessel for honour to the Master, prepared for every good work."

Perhaps, then, through what has been said we are somehow brought to the contemplation of the text before us. The mountain of Lebanon is mentioned in many places of holy Scripture to signify the opposing power, as when it says through the [psalm], "The Lord will shatter the cedars of Lebanon and beat them small, and Lebanon too, like that calf," clearly the one ground fine in the wilderness by Moses and made drinkable for the Israelites because it was fine. For it is shown here by the prophecy that not only the evils that sprang from the opposing power, but the mountain itself, the first root of evil, Lebanon, the material of such trees, will be reduced to non-being. So we too were once the woods of Lebanon, as long as we were rooted in it through the wicked life and the deceit of idols; but since we were cut out from there by the rational axe and came into the hands of the craftsman, he made us his litter, transforming the nature of the wood through regeneration into silver and gold and bright purple and the gleam of stones. And just as the apostle says that God has distributed to each the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to one he gives prophecy according to the proportion of faith, to another another of the workings, as each is fitted by nature and able to receive the grace, becoming an eye of the body of the church, or being assigned as a hand, or giving support as a foot, so too in the construction of the litter one becomes a pillar, another the step, another the part at the head, which he called the back; and there are some assigned to the inside. For all of these the craftsman, by some reason, does not devise the material for adornment of a single kind, but all are adorned with beauty, while a loveliness different and fitting to each of them is devised. The pillars of the litter, then, are silver; their steps purple; the back that is under the head, in which the bridegroom rests his head, is of gold; and all the inside is variegated with precious stones. We must understand the pillars, then, as the pillars of the church, for whom the word is exactly pure and refined silver. The purple are those who have mounted to the height of the way of life of the kingdom; for purple is thought to be the special mark of kingship. Its ruling part, in which the maker of the litter rests his head, is the gold of pure doctrines. And whatever is unseen and hidden is adorned with the precious stones in the pure conscience; through all of these love is composed from the daughters of Jerusalem. But if one should wish to call the whole church the litter, and to divide the parts of the litter among persons according to the differences of their activities, as was said before about this, the word holds much ease in this way too, fitting the parts of the litter to each order of those appointed in the church; as the apostle says, "God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers," then each thing for the equipping of the saints; so that by the names that contribute to the construction of the litter, priests and teachers are understood, and the venerable virginity within the litter, [shining] with the purity of the virtues as with the gleam of stones … But so much for these things.

The next word contains an exhortation addressed by the bride to the daughters of Jerusalem. For as the great Paul counted it a loss if he did not share his own goods with all, and for this reason said such things to his hearers: "Become as I am, for I too was once like you," and, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ," so too this bride, who loves mankind, having been counted worthy of the Master's divine mysteries, when she saw the bed and became the king's litter, cries out to the maidens (these would be the souls of those being saved): "How long," she says, "will you shut yourselves up in the cave of life? Go out from the veils of nature and see the wonderful sight. Having become daughters of Zion, behold the crown that befits the head of the king, which his mother put on him," according to the voice of the prophet who says, "You set on his head a crown of precious stone." Surely none of those who have studied judging words about God will be pedantic over the meaning of the name, that mother is mentioned instead of father, taking one sense from either word. For since the divine is neither male nor female (for how could any such thing be understood of the Godhead, when even for us human beings this does not remain for ever, but when we all become one in Christ we put off the marks of this difference together with the whole old man?), for this reason every name found is of equal force for indicating the incorruptible nature, neither female nor male defiling the meaning of the undefiled nature. That is why in the Gospel the father is said to make the wedding, while the prophet says to God, "You set on his head a crown of precious stone," and here it says that the crown is put on the bridegroom by the mother. Since, then, the wedding is one and the bride one, and the crown is put on the bridegroom by one, it makes no difference at all whether one calls the only-begotten God the Son of God or the Son of his love, according to Paul's word, since by either name the power that dresses him as bridegroom for our union is one. "Go out, then," says the bride to the maidens, "and become daughters of Zion," so as to be able from a high watchtower (for so Zion is interpreted) to see the wonderful sight, the bridegroom wearing his crown. The church becomes his crown, [crowning his] head with living stones; [and the one who weaves] such a crown is love, which, whether one calls it mother or love, he will not be mistaken; "for God is love," according to John's word. The bride says that he is glad in this crown, exulting in the adornment. For he truly rejoices, having made the church his partner, crowned with the virtues of those who are distinguished in it. It would be better to set down the divine words themselves in their wording, which runs thus: "Go out and see, daughters of Zion, King Solomon, [at the crown with which] his mother [crowned him], on the day of his wedding and on the day of the gladness of his heart."

The Word, then, welcoming such love of mankind in the bride, that in imitation of the Master she too wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, makes her more venerable, becoming the herald and painter of her beauty. For the praise of her loveliness is not spoken simply, containing some general commendation of beauty; but he lingers in his word over each of her parts, bestowing on each member its own [praise] by comparison and likeness. He speaks thus: "Behold, you are beautiful, my close one; behold, you are beautiful." For she who imitated the Master's will that loves mankind, and bade the maidens go out, like Abraham, each from her own land and from her kindred among the senses, so as to see the pure bridegroom wearing the church as a crown, truly comes to be close to the Master's goodness, having drawn near to God through love of her neighbour. "You are beautiful, then," the Word says to her, "by the beautiful free choice, having drawn near to the good." The repetition of the praise shows that the testimony cannot lie; for the divine law declares that truth is confirmed by a double testimony. That is why he says, "Behold, you are beautiful, my close one; behold, you are beautiful."

But since the whole church is one body of Christ, and in the one body, as the apostle says, there are many members, and all the members do not have the same function, but God created the eye in the body, and another was planted as an ear; and there are some who become hands by the working of their powers, and some are called feet, who carry the burdens; and there would be some work of taste and smell, and every other thing by which a human body is composed; and it is possible to find in the common body of the church lips and teeth and tongue, breasts and belly and neck, and, as Paul says, even those parts of the body that seem less honourable: for this reason the exact assessor of beauty makes, of the members that pleased him from the whole body, a praise proper and fitting for each. He begins the praises from the more important members. For what among our members is more precious than the eyes? Through them the light is perceived, from them comes the recognition of friends and enemies, by them we distinguish our own from what is foreign; they become guides and teachers of every work, natural and inseparable leaders on the journey without error; their position above the other senses shows how much more precious is the benefit that comes to us from them. And it is surely clear to the hearers to which members of the church the praise of the eyes looks. Samuel the seer was an eye, for so he was named; Ezekiel was an eye, appointed by God to watch for the salvation of those guarded by him …; Micah who sees was an eye, and Moses who beholds, who for this reason was also named god; all those were eyes who were appointed to guide the people, whom the people of that time called seers. And now those who fill that place in the body of the church and are appointed to oversee (episkopein) are properly called eyes, if they look exactly at the sun of righteousness, nowhere [looking] to the works of darkness, and if they distinguish their own from what is foreign, knowing that all that appears and is temporary is foreign to our nature, while what is set before us through hope is our own, the possession of which remains for ever, never taken away. It is the eyes' work also to distinguish friend and enemy, so as to love the true friend with all one's heart and soul and strength, and to show perfect hatred against the enemy of our life. And the one who sets forth what must be done, teaches what is profitable, and leads by the hand on the journey to God, performs exactly the work of the pure and healthy eye, standing out before the rest by the loftiness of his way of life, like the bodily eyes.

That is why the Word begins to praise the bride's beauty from here, and says, "Your eyes are doves." For seeing that those placed in the rank of eyes were innocent toward evil, and welcoming the simplicity and innocence of their character, he named them doves; for innocence is proper to doves. Or perhaps the word bears witness to the eyes with some such praise as this. Since the images of all visible things, falling on the pure pupil, produce the activity of sight, it is altogether necessary that whatever one looks at, he takes up its form through the eye, receiving the impression of the form of what appears like a mirror. When, then, the one who has received this power of sight in the church looks to nothing material and bodily, the spiritual and immaterial life is achieved in him. And such a life [is formed by] the perfect [dove]: the praise of the eyes is that the form of the life is seen in them; for the dove is the Holy Spirit. And the pair of eyes is praised, so that the whole person may be in praise, the one who appears and the one who is understood. For this reason he added another surpassing praise, saying, "apart from your silence." For of the good life one part is evident, so as to be known even to people, while another is hidden and secret, seen by God alone. The one, then, who sees what has not yet been worked out and looks into the hidden things bears witness that in the person praised what is kept silent is more than what appears, by saying, "Your eyes are doves, apart from your silence." For what is admired through silence lies outside what has already been praised.

By a way he carries the praise of beauty forward in order, moving the discourse to the hair, and says, "Your hair is like flocks of goats that have been revealed from [Gilead]." We must first understand the nature of hair, and then recognize the praise that the word bestows on the bride through the hairs. Hair is named by Paul a woman's glory [on her] head, and he says that the long hair has been given to the woman instead of a covering. And he says that modesty and self-control are the fitting covering for women, writing in so many words that they should adorn themselves "with modesty and self-control". Through these words the hairs on the head, by which the woman is long-haired, are understood through Paul's wisdom as modesty and self-control. For no other glory is fitting to be thought of for a [soul] that professes godliness than modesty and self-control, which he named long hair; when she does not have it, she dishonours her head, as the apostle says. If, then, Paul philosophized thus about the hairs, the apostle's words should be applied to the praise of the church in the passage about the hair, according to the present saying, "Your hair is like flocks of goats that have been revealed from Gilead." For by these words the Word praises the virtuous way of life. But to the account of the hairs this too should be added, that the hairs have no share in any living sensation. And this is no small thing for the increase of the praises, that there is no sensation of pain or pleasure in the hairs. For the body from which they grow feels pain; but the hair itself, whether it is [cut] or burned or smoothed down by some hairdresser's art, has no sensation of what happens. And having no share in sensation is proper to the dead. So the one who admits no sensation of the things sought after in this world, neither puffed up by glory and honour nor painfully affected by insult and dishonour, but keeping himself the same in both of the opposites, this one is the praised hair of the bride, become plainly dead and unmoved toward the affairs of the world, whether they are this way or otherwise. Why the excellence of the hairs is [likened] to the flocks of goats [revealed] from [Gilead], what one should know exactly about these things we have not yet been able to grasp; but we conjecture that, just as the king, having transformed the woods of Lebanon into gold and silver and purple, built himself a litter, so the good shepherd knows how to take flocks of goats and change into [his] flocks the herds of goats of Mount Gilead. This is the name of a foreign mountain, which reveals such grace, so that those of the nations who have followed the good shepherd contribute to the hair of the bride's beauty, by which self-control and modesty and continence and the putting to death of the body are signified, according to the account contemplated before. Or perhaps Elijah too contributes to the contemplation of the goats, who practised philosophy on Mount Gilead for a long time, who above all led the way in the life of self-control, rough in appearance, shaggy-haired, covered with a goat's skin instead of some soft garment. All, then, who achieve their life after that prophet become the ornament of the church, in flocks, according to the manner of philosophy that now prevails, labouring at virtue together with one another. That such flocks were revealed from Gilead has a greater excess of wonder, that our passage to the philosophy according to God came about from the life of the nations. For it was not Zion, his holy mountain, that led the way in such a way of life; but the nation devoted to idols came to so great a change of life that it adorned the bride's head with the excellences of virtue.

Then the Word puts the teeth next in the sequence of praises, passing over the praises of the mouth and the lips. This deserves not to be passed over unexamined. Why are the teeth put before the lips in the praises? Perhaps one might say, wishing to show the beauty more elegantly, that a smile of the mouth is shown together by implication through the description of the teeth. But I, looking to something else, reckon that the beauty of the teeth precedes the praises of the mouth in the praises. For after this he did not leave the lip unpraised either, saying that her lips are a scarlet thread and her speech lovely. What, then, do I conjecture about this? The best order in learning is first to be taught and then to speak; and one who says that the lessons are the soul's foods will not miss what is likely. For just as we grind bodily food with our teeth and make it fit for our inward parts, in the same way there is a power in the soul that makes teachings fine, through which the lesson becomes profitable to the one who receives it. Those, then, who are critical and analytical leaders of the teachings, through whom the teaching becomes easy for us to take in and profitable, I say are named teeth figuratively by the word. That is why the praise of the teeth comes first, and then the praise of the lips is brought in. For the lip would not have blossomed with rational beauty unless those teeth, through a more laborious understanding of the lessons, had put the grace of discourse on the lips. This, then, is the reason we have understood for the sequence of the praises in the case of the teeth.

It would be time to examine the praise itself, how it compares the beauty of the teeth to shorn flocks which, having just come up from the washing, all exult alike in twin births. The praise runs in its wording thus: "Your teeth are like flocks of [shorn ewes that have come up] from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and none among them is barren." If we look at the bodily side of the example, I do not know how one could say that the teeth are praised by comparison with flocks that bear many young. For the praise of teeth is firmness and harmonious placing and being fixed firmly in the gums by an even and regular arrangement. [But] what loveliness of teeth flocks coming up from the washing, scattered with their twin offspring over the glens, sketch by their example, one cannot understand at first sight. The teeth stand in rows, holding harmoniously to one another; the flocks scatter from one another, spreading out for the need of pasture. And the woolly is not well fitted for comparison with the tooth, which is by nature bare. So we must search how the one who adorns with praises the beauty of the teeth [likens them] to those that have shorn off their wool and washed off the dirt of the body in a bath. What, then, shall we understand about this? Those who [make clear] the divine mysteries, so that this spiritual food may become [digestible] for the body of the church, perform the work of the teeth, taking into their own mouth the coarse and solid bread of the word, and through [finer interpretation preparing it] for the souls of [those being fed]. For example (it is better to present the thought through examples), the blessed Paul now simply and without elaboration sets before us, like an unworked morsel, the command of the law, saying, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Then, softening it by explanation, he makes the intent of the law easy to receive, saying, "Is it for oxen that God cares, or does he speak entirely for our sake?" And many other such things: for example, "Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman." This is the unworked bread. But how does he grind it fine and make it edible for those who are fed? He takes the history over to the two covenants, the one [bearing children for slavery, the other for freedom] … So too with the whole law, not to spend time listing each thing, he takes a coarse body and grinds it fine by contemplation, making it spiritual from bodily, saying, "We know that the law is spiritual." What we have understood in Paul, then, that the church needs teeth who do their work in grinding fine the clarity of the doctrines, we say also of everyone who in imitation of him makes the mystery clear to us. So the teeth of the church are those who make fine for us and chew the unworked grass of the divine oracles.

Just as, then, the divine apostle describes the life of those who aspire to the good work of the office of bishop (episkopē), saying in detail what kind of person the one who has taken up the priesthood should be, so that together with all the rest he has also the grace of teaching, so here the word wishes those appointed in the church to the service of teeth first to be shorn, that is, [rid] of every material burden; then to be pure of every defilement of flesh and spirit by the washing of conscience; besides this, always going up through progress and never being dragged back down into the pit; and above all to exult in double births of good offspring in every kind of virtue and to be barren in none of the good pursuits. The double offspring becomes a riddle of good repute in each of the two parts understood in us, so that such teeth bear twins: freedom from passion for the soul, and seemliness for the bodily life. He adds to these, in sequence, the beauty [of the lips], whose interpretation he himself added, naming the thread "lovely speech". This has already been contemplated in what went before, how the beauty in the lips is made lovely by the service of the teeth. For the mouth of the church speaks together with [the service] of the teeth, that is, of the teachers' instructions. For this reason the teeth are first shorn and washed, and are not barren, and bear twins, and then the lips blossom with scarlet colour, when the whole church becomes, by agreement in the good, one lip and one voice. The example of beauty is double. For he does not say simply that the lips are a thread, but added the flower of good colour too, so that through both [is shown the beauty of] the mouth of the church, through the thread and through the scarlet, distinctly in each part. By the thread it is taught agreement of mind, so that it all becomes one thread and one cord out of different thoughts; and by the scarlet it is taught to look to the blood by which we were redeemed, and always to carry in its mouth the confession of the one who bought us with his blood. For through both of these the comeliness of the lips of the church is completed, when the faith of the confession shines out and love is woven together with faith. And if we must enclose the example in a kind of definition, we shall define what is said thus: the scarlet thread is faith working through love, so that by faith the scarlet is shown, and by love the thread is interpreted. The truth bears witness that the bride's lips are adorned with these. The lovely speech needs no finer contemplation or other interpretation. For the apostle has already made clear that this speech is the word of faith that we preach: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation." This is the lovely speech, by which the lips of the church blossom becomingly like that scarlet thread.

After the loveliness of the mouth the bridegroom is pleased also with the redness of the cheek. Custom calls this part of the face an apple (mēlon) by an extended use. He likens the apple of the cheek, then, to the rind of the pomegranate, writing his praise in these words: "Like the rind of a pomegranate is your cheek, apart from your silence." That what is praised is modesty is easy for everyone to reckon from the sequence of what has been contemplated. For the Word, having given the church a body in the form of the bride, and [assigning] each of the virtues fittingly to the sketch of the beauty of the face, now through the redness glowing on the cheeks fittingly praises self-control, adorning it with modesty in the riddle of the pomegranate. For this fruit is astringent and is nourished within a rind that cannot be eaten. That is why it is well and fittingly taken over by contemplation to the achievement of self-control. For as the astringency of the pomegranate's rind nourishes and guards the sweetness of the fruit within, so the astringent, continent and austere life becomes the guardian of the goods of self-control. The praise of this virtue is double here too, through what appears in the seemly life and through what is achieved in the soul's freedom from passion; whose praise, as the apostle says, is not from men but from God. For the modesty that shines on what is done has its own praise from what is evident; but beyond it are the wonders kept silent and hidden, which are seen only by that eye which sees what is hidden.

From what follows we learn that everything done by the God-bearing saints became a type and teaching of what is achieved for virtue. Marriages, emigrations, wars, constructions of buildings, all were prefigured for some reason for the admonition of later life. "For these things were written," it says, "for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come." The war against the foreigners counsels us to be manly against wickedness. The zeal over marriages suggests to us in riddles the union of the virtues. Likewise the emigration suggests the settlement of the virtuous life; and all the care they took over the construction of buildings bids us take care of our own houses, built by virtue. That is why it seems to me that that famous tower, in which David dedicated the first-fruits of his spoils, looking to the progress of the church, [is a figure] of what is sought after in virtue, [standing on] some summit and stretching up to a height; at that time it was thought suitable for keeping the spoils which the king made his own gain, together with the other goods, when he subdued the foreigners. The king, then, through his wisdom showed what good for human life David had in view, setting out as it were a counsel for later life through the construction of the tower. For being about to praise the beauty of the whole body of the church, each of its members by comparison and likeness with something, he describes in sequence in his word what kind of people those in the people who hold the place of the neck should be, and he mentions this tower, which is named after David and is known also from its battlements; for the battlements are called Thalpioth. The wording runs thus: "Your neck is like the tower of David, built for Thalpioth; a thousand shields hang upon it, all the darts of the mighty." The bodily construction of the tower is admired because it is the work of King David, and because of the prominence of the place, and because of the weapons dedicated in it, shields and darts, whose multitude the word shows by the name of a thousand. But our aim is to understand the force of the divine word: how that part of the church whose name is neck is compared to this tower.

First, then, we must examine what part in our body is called by the name of neck, and then fit the name to the member of the church. The part rooted in the middle of the shoulders, holding up the head upon itself and becoming the base for what lies above, is called the neck. At the back it is supported by bones; [at the front, where it is] … it is free of the covering of bones. The nature of the bone is not continuous and undivided in itself like that of the forearm or the shin, but the bones being divided in many places in the form of vertebrae, their union with one another comes about through the sinews, marrows and ligaments that grow with them, and through the pipe-shaped marrow passing through the middle, whose covering is united to the membranes and its content to the brain. At the front the neck holds the windpipe, which is the receptacle of the breath that comes in and flows into us from outside, by which the fire in the heart is naturally fanned for its activity. It holds also the entrances of food, through the gullet and the throat, carrying across everything brought in through the mouth to the cavity that receives it. And the neck has something else special beyond the other members. For in the upper position of the windpipe is the workshop of the voice; all the vocal organs are prepared there, through which sound is produced, the windpipe being made to vibrate in a circle by the breath sent up. The [bodily neck] having been described to us in this way, it would be easy from what has been contemplated here to understand the neck of the church's body too: who is the one that properly takes this name through the corresponding activities, being named neck and likened to the tower of David. First, then, and this is indeed first, if anyone carries upon himself the true head of the universe, I mean that head which is Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and held together, he properly bears this name. Besides this, if he is receptive of the Spirit who makes our heart fiery and warms it, and if he serves the Word through a resonant voice. For God built the human voice into human nature for no other reason than that it should be an instrument of the word, articulating the movements of the heart by itself. Let this neck also have the nourishing activity, I mean the teaching, through which the strength of the whole body of the church is preserved. For while food always flows in, the body remains in being; when it fails, it wastes and perishes. Let it also imitate the harmonious placing of the vertebrae, by making those who contribute individually in the people into one member through the bond of peace, bending and straightening up and turning nimbly to either side. Such a neck was Paul, and anyone else who in imitation of him has achieved his life, who carried the name of the Lord, having become a chosen vessel for the Master; and the head of all was so exactly fitted to him that, in all he spoke, it was no longer he who spoke but his head that uttered it, as he showed the Corinthians that Christ was speaking and uttering in him. So his windpipe was well-voiced and resonant, articulating the word of truth through the Holy Spirit; so his throat was always sweetened by the divine oracles, nourishing the whole body through itself with those life-giving teachings. And if you seek the vertebrae too: who so joined all into one body by the bond of peace and love? Who so taught the neck to bend among the lowly, and again to turn about in thinking the things above, and to look round to the sides nimbly and with agility in turning aside from and guarding against the various schemes of the devil? Such a neck, then, is truly [built] by David.

Understand by David the king, the father of the king, who from the beginning made man to be a tower and not a ruin, and rebuilt him again through grace, securing him with the many shields, so that he is no longer easily mounted by the assaults of enemies. For the hanging shields, not lying on the ground but seen in the air around him, and with the shields the darts of the mighty, produce fear in those who make war, so that they do not even attempt to run against the tower. I think that the angelic guard walled around such a tower is signified to us by the mention of the shields. The mention of the darts also shows this sense; for he did not say simply "darts", but by the addition "of the mighty" he showed those who fight for us; so that what is said is that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and will deliver them. The number of a thousand does not seem to me to signify exactly ten hundreds; it was taken by the word to show multitude. For it is customary by the extended usage of Scripture to show multitude by this number, as David says instead of a multitude, "thousands of those who flourish," and, "above thousands of gold and silver." So we have understood the neck rooted on the shoulders. And we understand the shoulders, on which it grows, as the practical and active endeavours, through which our arms work out their own salvation. The one who has followed attentively what is said has surely seen the increase toward the greater of the soul raised according to God: that earlier the bride was content to be likened to the mare that overcame the Egyptian tyrant, and to have the comeliness of her neck like necklaces; but now how much perfection in the good he testifies to her, that he does not liken the loveliness of her neck to necklaces round the throat, but it is said to be a tower because of its greatness, which is made conspicuous and seen even by those far off, not only by the ambition of the building that raises the height as far as possible, but also by the position of the place, which naturally rises above its neighbours. When, then, the tower was the work of a king and happens to stand on the lofty way of life, then what the Lord says is shown true: "A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden." Understand, I pray, tower instead of city.

It would be time to consider also the two fawns of the gazelle, which lodge about the bride's heart, called breasts by the Word, as he says: "Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that pasture among the lilies"; because the heart is placed between them, whose pasture is not grass or thorn, but lilies that stretch out their flower through the whole time of pasture, and do not bloom for a season nor [wither] at a season, but provide by themselves lasting food for these fawns, so that the shadows no longer hold sway through the deceit that is sought after in life, but, the light having shone out everywhere, all things are lit up by the day, which breathes the light where it wills. For so the Word says: "until the day breathes and the shadows move." You surely know, having learned from the Gospel, that it is the Holy Spirit who, by blowing where he wills, produces light in those who rise up, [though one does not know] where he comes from and where he goes; of whom the word now relates thus: "Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that pasture among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows move." That the Holy Spirit is called day, breathing light on those in whom he comes to be, I do not think anyone of sense would doubt in the word. For if those born of the Spirit become sons of light and sons of day, what else must we understand the Holy Spirit to be than light and day, whose breath puts to flight the shadows of vanity? For when the sun has appeared the shadows necessarily do not remain, but move off and depart.

It would be timely to add to the examination of the text the mystery of the two fawns of the gazelle, whose birth is twin, whose food is the lily, and whose place of pasture is the good and rich earth. This is the heart, according to the word of the Lord's parable; and pasturing in it, and [gathering] from it pure thoughts … [The lily] has by nature full grace, fragrance mingled with good colour, so that in both respects it is lovely to those who pluck it, whether they bring it to the smell or delight their eyes in the beauty of its loveliness. For the smell is filled with the fragrance of Christ, and by its form what is pure and spotless is shown. Perhaps, then, by what has been said the meaning of the word has been made clear to us: that since two human beings are seen in each one, the bodily and visible and the intelligible and invisible, the birth of both is twin, as they come to dwell in life together with one another. For neither does the soul exist before the body, nor is the body fashioned before the soul, but they come into being at the same time in life. Their food by nature is purity and fragrance and all such things as the virtues bear. But there are times when they feed on what is poisonous to the virtues and take delight in thorns and thistles. For so we have heard the parable of the Gospel name sins, whose evil sprouting the curse of the serpent [made known]. Since, then, there is need of discerning eyes, able to distinguish exactly the lily and the thorn, and to choose the saving and send away the destructive, for this reason he named the one who, like the great Paul, has become a breast for infants and nurses with milk the newborn of the church, a pair of breasts born together with one another, likened to the fawns of the gazelle, bearing witness in all things to the proven worth of such a member of the church: that in both respects it goes well toward the pasture of pure lilies, discerning the thorn sharp-sightedly from what is nourishing; and that it dwells about the ruling part, which is the heart, which through itself [pours forth] the breasts …; and further, that it does not shut up grace in itself, but holds out the nipple of the word to those who need it, as a nurse cherishes her own children, as the apostle did and said.

After advancing the praise with these members of the church, the Word in what follows makes her praise whole, when through death he has destroyed the one who has the power of death, and has led himself back again to his own glory of the Godhead, which he had from the beginning before the world was. For having said, "I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense," showing the glory of the Godhead, he added, "You are all beautiful, my close one, and there is no blemish in you," teaching by what is said, first, that no one takes his life from him, but he has power to lay it down and power to take it again, going of himself to the mountain of myrrh, not from our works, so that no one may boast, but by his own grace, having taken on himself death for sinners; and then, that human nature could not otherwise be cleansed of blemish unless the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world wiped out all wickedness through himself. Having said, then, "You are [all] beautiful, my close one, and there is no blemish in you," and having brought in the mystery of the passion through the riddle of the myrrh, then mentioning the frankincense, by which the divine is shown, he teaches us this: that the one who has shared the myrrh with him will surely share the frankincense too. For the one who suffers with him is surely also glorified with him. And the one who has once come to be in the divine glory becomes wholly beautiful, having come outside the opposing blemish. From it may we too be separated through Christ Jesus our Lord, who died and was raised for us, to whom belong the glory and the power to the ages of ages. Amen.

Homily 8 (Song 4:8–9)

"Come from Lebanon, bride, come from Lebanon; you will come and you will pass through from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. You have given us heart, our sister bride; you have given us heart with one of your eyes, with one ornament of your neck."

The great apostle, who passed through the great visions, testifies to the Corinthians about himself (whether what he was then was body or mind, he alone knew) at the time of his initiation into the mysteries in paradise. He says that he does not yet reckon that he has laid hold, but that he is still straining forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what is already behind. It is plain that even after the third heaven, which he alone came to know (for Moses told nothing about it in his account of the making of the world), and even after hearing the unspeakable mysteries of paradise, he still presses on to what is higher, and never stops climbing, never making the good he has grasped the limit of his desire. By this, I think, he teaches us that in that blessed nature of the good, however much is found at any time, what lies beyond what is grasped is always infinitely greater; and this is so for the one who shares in it without end, through the whole eternity of the ages, since the increase comes to those who share in it through ever greater goods. For the one who is pure in heart, according to the Master's truthful voice, sees God, always receiving understanding in the measure of his capacity, as much as he can hold. Yet the boundless and incomprehensible character of the Godhead remains beyond all comprehension. For that whose magnificence and glory have no limit, as the prophet testifies, is always the same, contemplated always at the same height. And so the great David, who set fair ascents in his heart and went ever from strength to strength, cried out to God: "But you, Lord, are most high for ever." By this saying, I think, he signifies this: in the whole eternity of the endless age, the one who runs toward you always becomes greater and higher than himself, always growing in proportion through the increase of goods; but you are the same, most high, abiding for ever, never able to appear lower to those who climb, because you are always equally higher and loftier than the power of those who are lifted up.

This, then, is what we have taken the apostle to teach about the nature of the unspeakable goods when he says that eye has not known that good, even though it always sees. For it does not see as much as it is, but as much as the eye is able to receive. And ear has not heard it as far as what is revealed extends, even though it always receives the word by hearing. And it has not entered the heart of man, even though the pure in heart always sees as much as he can. For what is always grasped is greater than everything grasped before, yet it does not set the limit of what is sought in itself; rather, the end of what has been found becomes, for those who climb, the beginning of the discovery of higher things. And neither does the one who climbs ever stand still, receiving beginning after beginning, nor is the beginning of ever greater things completed in itself. For the desire of the one who climbs never comes to rest in what is known; but through another, greater desire the soul climbs in turn toward another that lies beyond it, and so, always through higher things, journeys toward the boundless.

With these points distinguished in this way, it would be time to add the contemplation of the divine words. "Come from Lebanon, bride, come from Lebanon; you will come and pass through from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards." What, then, have we understood in these words? The fountain of goods always draws the thirsty to itself, as the fountain says in the gospel: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." In these words he set no limit to the thirst, nor to the eagerness toward him, nor to the enjoyment in drinking; by the continuous form of the command he makes the exhortation to thirst and to drink and to be eager for him last for ever. For those who have already tasted, and learned by experience that the Lord is good, the taste becomes, as it were, an exhortation to share in more. For this reason the summons toward him, which always draws toward what is greater, never fails the one who climbs. Let us recall the urging that the Word has already given the bride many times in what has gone before: "[Arise, come], my close one," he says; and again, "Come, my dove"; and "Come, [you, in the shelter] of the rock." The Word has spoken other such words to the soul, which urge and draw it toward desire for greater things; and he has already testified to the soul climbing toward him that it is blameless in every way, saying, "[You are all fair, my close one,] and there is no blemish in you." So that she may not grow slack at this testimony and be hindered in the ascent to greater things, he bids her once more, by this word of exhortation, to climb to the desire for what lies beyond, saying, "Come from [Lebanon]."

What is said is something like this: "You have followed well," he says, "in what has gone before; you came with me to the mountain of myrrh. For you were buried with me through baptism into death. You came with me also to the hill of frankincense. For you rose with me and were lifted up into the fellowship of the Godhead; [and] from these, [go up] to other mountains also, advancing and being lifted up through active knowledge. Come, then, … For it is not possible for one to live with me who has not been changed through the myrrh of death toward the frankincense of the Godhead. Since you have now come to this height, do not stop climbing, as though by these steps you had already reached perfection. For this frankincense, in which you shared through the resurrection, becomes for you the beginning of faith, and the beginning also of the journey to the higher goods. From this beginning, then, which is faith, you will come and you will pass through; that is, you will come now, and you will be for ever passing through such ascents, not … ."

The wording runs thus: "You will come and pass through, from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon." By this it hints at the mystery of the birth from above. For it says that from there the springs of the Jordan come forth, above which lies this mountain, divided into two ridges, which bear these names, Sanir and Hermon. Since, then, the stream from these springs has become for us the beginning of our transformation toward the divine, she therefore hears him calling her to himself. He says: "Come from Lebanon, and from the beginning of faith, and from the head of these mountains, from which the springs of the mystery have come to you." And he fittingly adds the mention of lions and leopards, so that by setting painful things alongside he might make the enjoyment of what gladdens sweeter. For when man once put off the divine form, he became a wild beast, in the likeness of the irrational nature, becoming a leopard and a lion through evil practices. For the one who is dragged by the lion lying in ambush in its den, as the prophet says, and humbled in its snare, is transformed into its nature, since the beast has overpowered his nature. "May those who make them become like them," it says, "and all who trust in them." In the same way, the one who has branded his soul with the spots of his life becomes a leopard. Since, then, there was a time when the human race was in such conditions, led astray by idolatry and Jewish deceit and the many-coloured wickedness of sinners, and since after this, through the Jordan and the myrrh and the frankincense, it was lifted so high that it now journeys aloft with God, the word therefore increases its gladness in the present goods by setting beside them the troubles that once were, recalling the state in which the soul was before the frankincense and the beginning of faith, and before the mysteries made known to us at the Jordan. For as a life of peace becomes sweeter after war, seasoned by grim stories; and as the good of health delights the senses of our body more when nature returns to itself from the misery of some illness, in the same way the good bridegroom, arranging some heightening and increase of gladness in goods for the soul that climbs toward him, not only shows the bride his own beauty, but also reminds her in his word of the most fearful form of beasts, so that she may delight the more in the fair things present, learning by the comparison what she has received in exchange for what.

Perhaps some other good is also prepared for the bride by this, with forethought. For the Word wishes that we who are changeable by nature should not flow away toward evil through change, but should have change as a fellow worker toward the ascent to higher things through constant growth toward the better, so that through the changeability of our nature unchangeableness toward evil may be achieved. For this reason the Word brought forward the memory of the beasts that once overpowered us, as a kind of tutor and guard for our estrangement from evil, so that by turning from the worse we may achieve steadiness and firmness in goods, neither halting in change toward the better nor being altered toward evil. That is why he bids the bride come from Lebanon, and reminds her of the den of lions where she used to lodge, and brings up in his word the mountains of leopards, on which she spent her time when she lived among beasts.

But since the voice of the Word is always a voice of power, and as at the creation the light appeared together with the command, and again the firmament with the commanding word, and all the rest of creation in the same way together with the creating Word, so now too, when the Word bids the soul, which has become better, to come to him, she is empowered by the command without delay and becomes such as the bridegroom wished, transformed toward what is more divine, and changed by the good alteration from the glory in which she was to the higher glory. So she becomes a wonder to the chorus of angels around the bridegroom, and all of them, praising her, utter to her their cry of wonder: "You have given us heart, our sister bride." For the stamp of freedom from passion, shining on her and on the angels alike, leads her into kinship and sisterhood with the bodiless ones, since she has achieved passionlessness in the flesh. For this reason they say to her, "You have given us heart, our sister bride," and she is honoured properly by each of the two names: our sister, because of the kinship of freedom from passion; bride, because of her union with the Word. We think that "you have given us heart" means something like "you have given us soul," as though they said to her, "You have put heart into us."

For clarity, so that what is said may become plainer to us, we shall take the divine apostle as interpreter of these mysteries. He says somewhere in his writings, writing to the Ephesians, when he described to us the great economy of God's appearing in the flesh, that not only was human nature instructed in the divine mysteries through this grace, but also to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God was made known, revealed through the economy in Christ among men. The wording runs thus: "So that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church, according to the purpose of the ages which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him." For in truth the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the powers above the world through the church, the wisdom which by opposites has worked great wonders. For how has life come through death, and righteousness through sin, and blessing through a curse, and glory through dishonour, and power through weakness? In the times before this the powers above the world knew only the simple and uniform wisdom of God, working wonders in keeping with nature; and there was nothing manifold in what was seen, since the divine nature, having power, made all creation by authority, bringing the nature of things into being by the mere impulse of its will, and making all things very good, welling up from the fountain of the good. But this manifold form of wisdom, made up of the interweaving of opposites, has now been clearly shown through the church: how the Word becomes flesh, how life is mingled with death, how by his own bruise he heals our wound, how by the weakness of the cross he wrestles down the power of the adversary, how the invisible is manifested in flesh, how he ransoms the captives, being himself both the buyer and the price (for he gave himself as a ransom for us to death), how he comes to be in death and does not depart from life, how he mingles with slavery and remains in the kingdom. All these and such works of wisdom are manifold and not simple; and the friends [of the bridegroom], learning them through the church, were given heart, perceiving in the mystery another stamp of the divine wisdom. And if it is not too bold to say it, perhaps they too, seeing the beauty of the bridegroom through the bride, marvelled at what is invisible and incomprehensible to all beings. For he whom no one has ever seen, as John says, nor can anyone see, as Paul testifies, made the church his own body, and by the addition of those who are saved builds it up in love, until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. If, then, the church is the body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the body, shaping the face of the church with his own stamp, perhaps the friends of the bridegroom, looking at this, were given heart, because they see the invisible more clearly in her. Just as those who cannot look at the disc of the sun itself see it by looking into the gleam of water, so they too, gazing as in a pure mirror at the face of the church, see the sun of righteousness, who is perceived through what appears.

For this reason the friends say to the bride not once only, "You have given us heart," which means, "You have produced in us through yourself a soul and a mind for perceiving the light"; but they say the same word again, adding credibility to what is said by the repetition. For they say, "You have given us heart with one of your eyes." It is this above all that produced in the friends their wondering disposition toward the bride. For the soul's power of sight is double, one seeing the truth, the other wandering among vain things. Since the bride's pure eye is opened only to the nature of the good, and the other lies wholly idle, the friends therefore give their praise to the one eye, through which alone she contemplates the One alone: I mean the One alone who is perceived in the unchangeable and eternal nature, the true Father, the only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit. For that alone truly is one which is contemplated in one nature, the difference of the hypostases producing no separation or estrangement. For there are some who with differing eyes look keenly, to their harm, at what has no existence, dividing the One into many natures in the imaginings of distorted eyes. These are those called "many-seeing," who by seeing many things see nothing; and all who now look toward God but then again wander among material imaginings are unworthy of the praise of the angels, … [but the one who,] looking keenly toward the Divine alone, [is not distracted] by the imaginings of things that do not exist, is blind to everything else that the eyes of the many look at. For this reason the bride makes the friends marvel by one of her eyes. So the many-eyed one, who looks at vain things with many eyes, is blind; but sharp-sighted and clear-seeing is the one who with the one eye of the soul [looks] toward the good alone.

What that one is, and what the ornament of the bride's neck is, would not be hard to work out from what has been examined, even if the wording seems somewhat unclear in its construction. For the word says: "You have given us heart with one of your eyes, with one, with an ornament of your neck." So "with one" agrees with "one of your eyes," if we understand by ellipsis "with one soul." For in each of the uninstructed many souls arise: in them the passions, by gaining the upper hand, take the place of the soul by turns, and the character of the soul changes to grief and pleasure, anger and fear, cowardice and rashness. But the soul that looks toward the Word is attested to live with one soul by the uniformity of the life of virtue. So the sentence should be divided thus: "with one" is joined in sense to what was said before, if we understand either "with one soul" or "with one condition"; while what follows, "with an ornament of your neck," has another meaning. As if someone, recasting the whole more clearly, should say: "Your eye is one, in looking toward the One; and your soul is one, because it is not divided among different dispositions; and the setting of your neck has its perfection, since it has taken the divine yoke upon itself. Since, then, we see the yoke of Christ in the ornament of your neck, and one eye and one soul in your disposition toward what is truly good, we therefore confess that you have given us heart by your wonders, showing one eye and one soul in the ornament of your neck." And the ornament of the bride's neck is the yoke, as has been said.

This, then, is the praise of the angels, which they have spoken over the bride's beauty; for we have understood these to be the friends of the bridegroom. So that their praise may not seem undiscerning and mistaken, the Word confirms the friends' judgment of the bride's beauty by adding his vote, and himself adds the greater wonders to the testimony of her beauty, describing in his word the loveliness that shows in her very members. This we shall set out in what follows, God granting, if some power for understanding the mysteries should come to us from the alliance from above, both for the knowledge of the beauty of the church and for the praise of the glory of his grace in Christ Jesus, to whom all glory is fitting for ever. Amen.

Homily 9 (Song 4:10–15)

"[How fair have] your breasts [become], my sister bride! How fair have your breasts become from wine, and the fragrance of your garments beyond all spices! Your lips drip honeycomb, bride; honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense. A garden locked [is my sister bride, a garden locked,] a fountain sealed. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruit of fruit trees, henna with nard; nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloes with all the first perfumes. A fountain of a garden, and a well of living water, and [a stream from Lebanon]."

"If you were raised with Christ, [set your mind on] the things above, not on the things on earth": so says to us the one who speaks in Paul. "For you have died," he says, "and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed in glory." If, then, we have become dead to the nature below, having moved the hope of life from earth to heaven, and the life in the flesh is hidden in us, according to the proverbial word which says that "the wise hide [perception]," let us wait for the true life, which is Christ, to be revealed in us, so that we too may be revealed in glory, transformed toward what is more divine. So we shall hear the present words as men who have died to the body, not dragged down in mind by what is said. For the one who is dead to passions and desires will carry the meanings of the words over to what is pure and undefiled, setting his mind on the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father, in whom there is no passion, and forgetting low and grovelling thoughts. Let us hear, then, the divine words by which the Word describes the beauty of the undefiled bride; and let us hear them as those who have come to be outside flesh and blood and have been changed in their elements into the spiritual nature.

"How fair have your breasts become, my sister bride! How fair have your breasts become from wine, and the fragrance of your perfumes beyond all spices!" That everyone who does the will of God is his brother and sister and mother, and that the pure virgin betrothed to the Lord, to share in the undefiled bridal chamber, is properly named bride, would be plain to anyone who is not ignorant of the God-inspired words. But as I search out the sense of these divine sayings, I see that it is not mere praise that the Word offers the bride by such a name; rather, I say, the bridegroom goes through the causes of her growth in beauty. She would not have been made fair in the fountains of good teachings, which he names breasts in a figurative sense, had she not first made herself the Lord's sister by good works, and, renewed into virginity through the birth from above, become the betrothed and bride of the one who joined her to himself. So he who named her his sister and bride states the cause of the change of her breasts to what is better and more perfect: they no longer gush with milk, the food of infants, but pour out pure wine for the gladness of the more perfect, whose grace the water of the hucksters has not spoiled.

In what is said the loving kindness is preserved, as in a wedding's delight, with the two in turn returning to each other their loving disposition. For the bridegroom greets the church in turn with the same words with which she had first sung his beauty at the beginning. At once, in her first words, when she longed for the Word from the divine mouth to come into her own mouth (she signified this by the riddle of the kiss), she stated the cause of her desire: that his breasts were good, surpassing the nature of wine by what they supply, and passing all the fragrance of perfumes and spices. Thus she said: "Your breasts are good beyond wine, and the fragrance of your perfumes beyond all spices." In all other matters too we learn this teaching from the divine philosophy: that the Divine always becomes for us such as we show ourselves to God by our free choice. For David testifies in his prophecy that he is good to the good; to those who have become beasts by their way of life another of the prophets says he is a bear and a leopard. By riddles he sets forth beforehand the teachings of the gospel, in which the character of the King's words is seen to be one toward those on the right and another toward those on the left: to some he is good, [to others stern], fitting himself correspondingly to the free choice of those who are judged.

For this reason the Word now makes a fitting return to the bride: in the same terms in which she sang the beauty of the Master, the Lord gives her praise in return. For he too welcomes the change of her breasts to what is better through their activity, because they have stopped bearing milk [and give] wine, [from which] comes gladness for those who are no longer tossed about by infancy, but are able to fill their mouths from the mixing bowl of wisdom and the goods [it offers]. Having praised her breasts for bearing wine, he adds praise of her fragrance, saying: "And the fragrance of your garments beyond all spices."

We must understand such praise by learning from holy Scripture the nature of the spices named. Every sweet-smelling spice is a pleasure to the sense of smell. So let us understand the word to mean by spices whatever Scripture has taught us is fragrant. For example, Noah offers the sacrifice to God, and the Lord smelled an odour of fragrance. So the sacrifice becomes a spice to God. Many sacrifices were offered to God after this through the law, sacrifices of propitiation, of thanksgiving and of peace, of purification, and for sin. Put all these among the spices: the whole burnt offerings and the holocausts, and the partial dedications of the portions set aside, the breast of the victim, the lobe of the liver, the fat over the kidneys, and besides these the frankincense, the [fine flour mixed] with oil, the compounded incense, and everything else that had its nearness to God through fire: let these be in the list of spices. When, then, we hear that the bride's perfume is thought worthy of greater acceptance than all spices, we learn by this word that the mystery of the truth, accomplished through the teaching of the gospel, is alone fragrant to God, preferred above all the spices of the law, since it is no longer covered by type and shadow but has become fragrant by the manifestation of the truth. For if the Lord smelled any of the earlier spices for an odour of fragrance, each of them was thought worthy of acceptance according to the meaning that showed through it, not according to the obvious and bodily form of what was done. This is plain from the prophet's great saying: "I will not accept calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks; for I will not eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats." Yet many animal sacrifices were often made; but even if these are done, what is legislated for you through them in a riddle is something else: that the passions must be slaughtered in you. For "a sacrifice to God," it says, "is a broken spirit; [a broken and humbled heart God] will not despise." Hence comes our sacrifice of praise, which glorifies the one who smells such a fragrance.

Since, then, [the soul that has learned to see beyond] all the types of the law, like Paul, who was a fragrance of Christ, has itself become fragrant by its way of life, breathing out sweetly the perfume of the priesthood and the compounded incense through the varied contribution and mixture of the virtues, it has appeared worthy of the bridegroom's sense of smell, for an odour of fragrance. For this reason the divine perception, as Solomon names it, adds to the bodily spices of the law that immaterial and pure fragrance compounded from the virtues, saying: "And the fragrance of your perfumes beyond all spices."

The next word leads the praise higher, testifying to the abundance of spiritual gifts that has come to her from study and attentiveness. For the proverbial word wishes the disciple of wisdom to go to the bee (and you certainly understand from the disciples who the teacher is), saying to the lovers of wisdom: "Go to the bee, and learn how industrious she is, and how she carries on her work as something solemn; her labours kings and private persons [use] for health." [Understanding] this force of the word, [the bees] carry [what they gather] fittingly to each. And it says that she is longed for by all and held in honour, weak in strength, but having honoured wisdom, and for this reason she has been brought forward as an example of life for the virtuous. "For having honoured wisdom," it says, "she was advanced." By these words it advises us to keep away from none of the good teachings, but, flying over the meadow of the God-inspired words, to [gather] from each something for the acquisition of wisdom, [building] the honeycomb for oneself, laying up this industry in one's own heart as in a hive; constructing, as it were, cells in a honeycomb, separate storehouses for the many kinds of teaching in the memory, unconfused; and so, in imitation of that wise bee, whose honeycomb is sweet and whose sting does not wound, to carry on this solemn work of the virtues continually. For he truly trades, exchanging the labours of this life for the eternal goods, and giving his own labours to kings and private persons for the health of the soul; so that such a soul becomes [longed for] by the bridegroom and held in honour by the angels, perfecting power in weakness through the honour it pays to wisdom.

Since, then, the stories about that wise bee are an example of instruction and love of labour, and the various distributions of spiritual gifts come to those who have laboured in proportion to their zeal, he therefore says to the bride: "Your heart has become full of the honeycombs from every kind of instruction; from there you bring out of the good treasure of the heart the honeyed drops of words, so that your word is honey mixed with milk." For "your lips drip honeycomb, bride," he says; "honey and milk are under your tongue." For your word is prepared, not displaying a uniform benefit to its hearers, but fitted to the capacity of those who receive it, so as to suit both the more perfect and those who are still infants: honey to the perfect, milk to infants. Such was Paul, nursing the newborn with the gentler of his words, but speaking wisdom among the perfect in a mystery, the wisdom hidden from the ages, which this age does not hold, nor its rulers. He says that this provision of honey and milk lies under the tongue, showing by this expression the well-managed and timely use of words. For the one who knows how he ought to answer each person has under his tongue [the teaching suited to] the varied [capacities of] his hearers, [to bring out] in season what is needed.

Having offered such praise to the mouth and tongue of the bride, he passes again to greater praises, saying: "[And the] fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense." This word is a kind of philosophy, showing men what the life of virtue looks toward. For the goal of the virtuous life is likeness to the Divine; and for this reason purity of soul, and freedom from admixture with every passionate disposition, are achieved by the virtuous through diligence, so that by a nobler life some stamp of the nature that lies above us may come to be in them too. Since the way of life according to virtue is not uniform or of one kind only, but, as in the making of fabrics the art of weaving makes the garment from many threads, some stretched straight and others drawn across, so too in the virtuous life many things must come together, through which the noble life is woven; just as the divine apostle counts up such threads, through which the weaving of pure works is made, naming love and joy and peace, patience and kindness, and all such things, with which the one is adorned who puts off the perishable and earthly life and puts on heavenly incorruption. For this reason he welcomes the adornment in the bride's clothing as like frankincense in its fragrance.

And yet before this he said that the fragrance of the bride's perfume surpasses all spices, so that this might seem a lowering of the praises, if she who was set above every spice is now likened by comparison to one of the spices, since the Word says: "The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense." But since the incense of frankincense was, for some reason, set apart in a special way for the honour of the Divine, she who was judged to be above all spices is thought worthy of being likened to the one spice that is dedicated to God. So the sense of the riddle is this: "Your clothing of the virtues, O bride, imitates the divine blessedness, being made like the unapproachable nature through purity and freedom from passion." For such is the fragrance of the divine garments that it resembles the frankincense dedicated to the honour of God.

Again, through the next praises we learn how someone may become the Lord's sister and yokefellow, where he says, "A garden locked, my sister bride." So if anyone lays claim to become a bride by cleaving to the Lord, and a sister by doing his will, as the gospel says, let him become a garden in bloom with all the loveliness of plants: the sweet fig, the fruitful olive, the palm with lofty foliage, the flourishing vine; not some thorny bush, nor fleabane, but in their place the cypress and the myrtle. For so the great David and the lofty Isaiah know how to make such a garden lovely. The one says, "The righteous will flourish like a palm"; and, "But I am like a fruitful olive"; and, "Your wife is like a flourishing vine." And by another prophet the one who rests under his own fig tree is called blessed. Isaiah says that instead of the bush the cypress, and instead of the fleabane the myrtle, will spring up. To set out in detail the riddles about each of these trees which the prophecy has shown us would be superfluous, since it is plain to all what the sweet fruit of the fig is: from a most pungent juice it is at first bitter and inedible, but later it becomes a peaceable fruit and sweetens the senses of the soul. And what the olive's bearing of fruit gives us, through the most pungent and bitter juice nourished in the fruit at first, which afterwards by suitable ripening and husbandry it changes into the nature of oil, which becomes the material of light, a release from weariness, a relief from labours, a brightening of the head, and a help for those who compete lawfully in the contests. And how the palm makes its fruit hard for thieves to get at, storing it on high and not bearing it near the ground; and the grace of the vine, and the fragrant cypress, and the sweetness of the myrtle. All these things, understood by a figurative contemplation with reference to the word of virtue, are plain to everyone who listens intelligently, as to what they point to. So the one who has become a garden of such trees, flourishing and well planted, and [fenced] on every side by the hedge of the commandments, [will] give the thief and the beasts no way in against him. For the one who [is fenced] round about with the hedge is not ravaged by the wild boar from the forest. If, then, anyone is a garden and is secured, he becomes sister and bride of the one who says to such a soul, "A garden locked, my sister [bride]."

But this garden also needs a fountain, so that the grove may remain flourishing, continually enriched by the water. For this reason he joined the fountain to the garden in the praises, saying, "A garden [locked], a fountain sealed." The Proverb teaches us the meaning of the fountain by a riddle, where it says: "Let the fountain of water be sweet to you, and let it be yours alone, and let no stranger share it with you." As there it forbids the water of the fountain to be spent on strangers, so here it testifies that the fountain is in no way open to strangers by saying "sealed," which is the same as saying "guarded." What is said is this: properly speaking, in my judgment, the fountain is the thinking power of our soul, which gushes and wells up all sorts of thoughts in us. But the movement of the mind becomes ours when it moves toward what is good for us, giving us every help toward acquiring goods. But when someone turns the activity of his thoughts to the devising of evil, then [the fountain flows to strangers], watering the thorny life with the alliance of wicked thoughts, while the better planting dries up and withers, since no moisture from good thoughts nourishes its root.

Since, then, the seal [gives] security [to what it guards against the] thief, and everything that is not stolen remains intact for its master, the praise here seems to testify to the bride's highest virtue: that her mind remains untouched by enemies, guarded in purity and freedom from passion. Purity seals this fountain for its own Master, with no mud of thoughts disturbing the clearness and airy brightness of the heart. To bring the thought out more clearly, it is this. Of the things in us, some are truly ours, whatever belongs to the soul; others we claim as ours, I mean what concerns the body and external things, thinking through some mistaken supposition that what belongs to another is our own. For what has the immaterial nature of the soul in common with material grossness? [The word does not allow] the fountain of our mind to be spent on what is foreign to us, I mean what concerns the body and external things, but [bids it] busy itself with its own garden, enriching God's planting. We have learned that the virtues are God's planting; and when the thinking power of our soul is occupied with them and flows away to none of the external things, it is sealed with the stamp of the truth by its relation to the good.

Let us see also the force of the next praises. "Your shoots," it says, "are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruit of fruit trees, henna with nard; nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of Lebanon; myrrh and aloes with all the first perfumes. A fountain of gardens, a well of living water, rushing from Lebanon." That some vast and extraordinary thought lies in these words, through which the beauty of the soul lifted up according to God becomes a wonder, praised by manifold extravagances of praise, is plain even from the surface wording. But what the true sense is that these words signify, only one would know clearly who knows, as holy Paul did, how to speak the divine mysteries in the Spirit. For how is what is sent out by the bride a paradise of pomegranates? How is the fruit of fruit trees borne from the pomegranates? How do the fruit trees become a list of perfumes and spices? For among the fruits of the fruit trees are henna and nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, and every tree of Lebanon, so that no variety of the spice of Lebanon is missing from those counted; to these are added myrrh and aloes, and all the first perfumes. And she who was earlier named a garden above by the one who praises her is now called a fountain of gardens, and a well of living water rushing from Lebanon. But the true account of these things would be seen, as I said before, by those who can search out the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. As for us, so that we may not be left wholly without a taste or enjoyment of the goods in this place, we shall bring a few words to the text, making God the Word himself the guide of our effort.

The whole list of praises, both that spoken before these and all that the word has now set before us about her, seems not to look primarily to mere praise, but to put power through what is said for the heart's ascent to what is greater and higher. Thus she is named sister and bride of the Word; and each of these names joins the soul to the bridegroom: the meaning of "bride" makes her one body, as Paul says, with the incorruptible bridegroom, while her zeal for his will leads her into the kinship of a sister, according to the voice of the gospel. Then the nature of breasts that pour out wine instead of milk is praised, and plainly the praise becomes a deed. For [it is not a word only, but the soul's own growth]. Besides this her perfume is judged above all spices. This would not have been so judged had she not truly run up to that height through her advance in the better. After this the honeycombs of [her] word, dripping, are admired, and the mixed provision of wisdom lying under the tongue, milk mixed with honey. And these are power, not words. For, led by the hand by the Word to the ascent of higher things, she grew so much as to make her mouth a fountain of honey and her tongue a storehouse of mixed wisdom, in which the land of promise is seen, flowing with honey and milk. Having lifted her so high by these ascents, the Word leads her higher still, saying that her clothing breathes the fragrance of frankincense, by which the Word testifies that she has put on Christ. For the end of every virtuous life is participation in God; and through frankincense the Divine is indicated.

And not even here did the soul stop, which is always led higher by the Word; but after she has been made like the fragrance of frankincense, she becomes a garden in the likeness of paradise: a garden not, as it was with the first human beings, unguarded and left open, but walled on every side by the memory of the commandment. Do you see how much power she has gained toward what is above? Look again, please, at the ascent beyond this. For she has not only become a garden locked, bearing sweet food as fruit, but she also becomes drinkable to the thirsty, changed into the nature of a fountain, and a sealed one at that. And not even here did she stop, but she reached so far in growth toward the greater that a paradise sprouts from her mouth. For whoever attends to the sense of the Hebrew [finds that] instead of saying, "Your shoots from your mouth," it says, "a paradise of pomegranates." This means: "The word sent out from your mouth is a paradise of pomegranates." And the pomegranates [yield] a wealth of every fruit, with nard, and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, and every kind of Lebanon, and myrrh, and aloes, and the first perfumes.

Since, then, according to the blessing in the psalm, the help coming to her from God, she has set these fair ascents in her heart, always going from strength to strength, the shoots of her mouth are fittingly named a paradise of pomegranates in her more perfect state. The word "shoots" (literally "things sent out") has been fitted aptly to the underlying thought. For what is sent passes from the sender to the receiver. This can be learned from the common use of the word, as the gospel also says that the Word named the disciples sent out to preach the truth "apostles." What, then, is it that the mouth of the bride sends out? Plainly the word of faith, which, coming to be in those who receive it, becomes a paradise, planted in their hearts through hearing. Common usage calls a grove thickly planted and shaded with trees a paradise. So that we may learn the kind of plants that are cultivated by the Word in the souls of believers, it names pomegranates the trees which the Word tends, the Word sent out from the bride's mouth. The pomegranate [has] branches hard to handle [for their thorns], and it encloses and nourishes its fruit in a covering harsh and bitter to the taste. In its own time, after ripening, the fruit shows within, sweet to see and pleasant, honey-like and painless in taste, and [delightful]. For this reason the word sent out from the bride's mouth seems to me to work a paradise of pomegranates in the souls of the hearers, so that we may be taught by what is said not to grow soft in the present life through slackness and luxury, but to choose the life made hard by self-control. For so the fruit of virtue would become unapproachable to thieves, fenced by the astringent covering of self-control, and through a solemn and unsmiling bearing, as by the points of thorns, piercing those who approach with evil intent. But when the season gives the signal for enjoying the fruits, the pomegranate becomes a wealth of food from every kind of fruit tree, the enjoyment of the fruits coming not in sloes or [wild fruits] or the like, but a varied and manifold nature of spices is found from the fruit trees.

[Henna] with nard is a fine pairing, the one hot, the other fragrant. For heat is not praiseworthy in itself, when the heat is a foul-smelling burning; but purity must be attested together with the heat through the fragrance, so that one may become fervent in spirit, which is to be found in the fruit trees; and the other spices, nard, it says, and saffron. The fragrance of nard we learned in the words above; it remains to present the riddle of the saffron in words. Those who have studied the power of this flower say that it stands midway between cold and heat and avoids excess in either direction; so that by this perhaps [the word teaches] us the account of virtue: for every virtue is a mean between evils, between falling short of the good and overshooting it. For example, they say that courage and liberality, the one [is a mean between] cowardice and rashness, the other between stinginess and prodigality. Cowardice and stinginess they say arise in vice by falling short of what is fitting, prodigality and rashness by excess and overshooting; and the mean between the excesses on either side they name virtue. So the account of the saffron might have something to say about virtue, in keeping with the middle position of its power, expressing the condition of virtue as lacking nothing and having nothing superfluous.

But I say, even if what is said is somewhat homely, that the riddle of the saffron perhaps [applies] more properly to the account of faith. For the flower is nourished in a threefold calyx, and the calyx itself, in its airy colour, is a flower. When the covering of the calyxes is opened, there are always found three flowers, fragrant and useful for healing, hidden in the calyxes, alike to one another in size and beauty and fragrance and the particular quality of their power, and the three shown to be one in every respect, in good colour, as has been said, and in fragrance, and in the quality of their power. Beside them grow three others, yellow to look at, but without any quality for any healthful use. About these the inexperienced go astray, who because of their good colour pick the spurious instead of the better. This is what those who err about the faith do now, choosing sophistical deceptions before sound doctrines. Let the hearer's judgment choose from either account what it wishes, whether one of them or both. For in a way both are one, the [possession] of perfect virtue and the possession of the Godhead; for virtue is not outside the Godhead.

Let us pass on to the contemplation of the remaining spices, mentioned in sequence by the word. "Calamus," it says, "and cinnamon," and fruit trees. The fruit trees are those borne as fruit from the pomegranates of the bride's paradise. They say that calamus surpasses the others in fragrance, so that it is [prescribed] by the law also for the holy incense. [Cinnamon] they claim has a varied effect through some natural power, much of which seems beyond belief. For they say that when water is boiling in a cauldron, if only this spice touches it, it cools the water at once; and brought into a fiery bath it changes the stifling heat in the air to coolness; and that it has the nature of destroying the creatures bred from some corruption; and they go through other such things about it which seem beyond the belief of the hearers. For they say that if it is put in the mouth of a sleeper, the sleeper is in no way hindered from answering those who question him, but remains asleep and gives sober and articulate answers word for word. To affirm firmly that this is so, without having learned by experience the truth of what is told of it, would be rash and unconsidered. But since this spice too was counted, by some mystical reason, in the list of the fruit trees, not because it truly grows from pomegranates (for the bride's mouth does not send out such perceptible paradises), but so as to become a symbol of some thought that contributes to the praise of the bride, I do not think it right to leave out the tales told about the cinnamon, both those the word has now gone through and anything else besides that those who describe it see fit to relate. For from what is said some contribution might be made to the praise of virtue, each thing told being clearly taken over to show the perfection of the life of virtue.

For in the instructed and reasoning one may find this cinnamon in the soul, when someone, boiling either with desire or with anger, quenches the passions by reasoning; or when, in the sleep of this life, holding in his mouth this sober cinnamon of reason, like the sleepless and wakeful angels, he displays the sense of what is said unerring and unconfused, imitating by the truth of his word the sleepless nature of the angels, whom no compulsion of any imagining dislodges from the truth. Such a one might be said to make cinnamon well up through his mouth, by which the burning of desire and the boiling of anger around the heart are quenched, and he is cleansed by reason of all the dreamlike imagining and confusion of this life. And let no one, looking at the incredibility of what is said about the cinnamon, slander the word as not offering the bride praise drawn from what is true. For holy Scripture often knows how to take over even certain myths from outside to help its own purpose, and without shame to mention certain names from mythical story, to show more vividly the thought at hand. So with the daughters of Job: the word, marvelling exceedingly at their beauty, showed by their names the surpassing wonder about them, saying that one was called Day, another Cassia, and the third Amalthea's Horn. It is plain to everyone that a Greek myth invented the story of Amalthea, who they fable was a goat that nursed that Cretan; when one of her horns broke off, the myth made every kind of fruit gush from its hollow. Did holy Scripture, then, believe the tales told of Amalthea? It is not so; but by this name it presents the abundance of the goods of virtue, testifying it of Job's daughter, so that one who listens to Scripture with reason may understand the aim of the praise from the name alone and let the mythical marvels go. So too when we hear "Cassia" and "Day," we did not learn from the names either the aromatic material or the sun's course above the earth; we have taken the names as showing their way of life in virtue. Of these, the one indicates the purer and fragrant character of their practices, and Day their seemliness, as the apostle says that those who live purely are named children of light and sons of the day. So here too the things said of the cinnamon do not fail to contribute to the praises of the bride, [for the same reason].

The one who has already become so great, and has reached this height of praises by his way of life, shows in himself in every respect the features of the divine image. This is what the one shows who says, "From all the trees of Lebanon." For those who have observed such things say that the tree from which [frankincense] flows is not of one kind; there is some difference among the trees, the form of the spice varying with the kind of tree. So the one who marks the godlike on himself in all the practices of life shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of Lebanon, by which the divine form is stamped. But no one becomes a partaker of God's glory without first being conformed to the likeness of death. Therefore the praise says this too in the list of spices: that the fruit trees of the pomegranates are the rest of the spices which the word went through, and with them myrrh and aloes and the first perfumes. By the former, I mean the myrrh and the aloes, fellowship in burial is shown, as the lofty gospel says that the burial for the death on our behalf was done with these. By the first perfumes the word shows what is pure and unmixed with all hucksters' tampering; as Amos too reproaches those who live in luxury with these, saying: "Those who drink strained wine and anoint themselves with the first perfumes"; and before this, "Those who eat kids from the flock and calves from the midst of the herds, who clap to the sound of the instruments." There neither does dregs cloud the wine, nor does any mixture spoil the purity of the perfume's fragrance. There, certainly, we must think that the prophecy reproaches the Israelites, because, though they were filled with the unmixed word of Scripture, strained of all dregs, and had the unadulterated fragrance of the perfumes, and enjoyed the spiritual feast in every way, they gained nothing from such luxury, since their evil free choice turned even the clearness of the wine into a muddy stirring-up, and spoiled the purity of the first perfumes by the admixture of wicked thoughts. Here, however, the word testifies to the bride that her doctrines are unadulterated and pure, by her bearing of the first perfumes as fruit.

And not even here did the bride stop, straining herself forward to higher things, nor did the Word stop working with her toward the ascent. For she whose shoots from her mouth are paradises of pomegranates and spices now becomes a fountain, [watering] the paradises that have grown up from her: not as we have learned in the case of Paul and Apollos, where one plants and the other waters, but she does both, at once making the paradises grow and watering them. Or perhaps the praise contains some loftier meaning. For it says that she is a fountain, not of some stream poured out, but of gardens: [a fountain that sends forth] not streams of waters but the gardens themselves, welling them up and making them gush forth. So the divine apostle made living gardens gush forth among those with whom he was, making the paradise of the church grow by his teaching.

Then the word leads the bride by its praises to the very summit, naming her a well of living water, rushing from Lebanon. [What this water is] we have learned from holy Scripture concerning the life-giving nature: at one time the prophecy says in the person of God, "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water"; again the Lord says to the Samaritan woman, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me water to drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water"; and, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly. This he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive." Since, then, everywhere the divine nature is understood by the living water, here the truthful testimony of the word establishes that the bride is a well of water whose flow is from Lebanon. This indeed is the most paradoxical of all. For of all wells, which hold their water collected together, the bride alone has water running through her, so that she has the depth of the well and the perpetual motion of the river. Who could worthily reach the wonders shown, as through the likeness now coming to be in her? Perhaps she no longer has anywhere to rise above herself, having been made like the archetypal beauty in every respect. For she has exactly imitated the fountain with her fountain, the life with her life, the water with her water. The Word of God is living; the soul that has received the Word lives too. That water flows from God, as the fountain says: "I came forth from God and am here." She holds what flows into the well of the soul, and therefore becomes a storehouse of that living water which flows, or rather rushes, from Lebanon, as the word has named it. May we too become sharers in it, having acquired that well, so that, according to the command of wisdom, we may drink our own water and not another's, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever. [Amen.]

Homily 10 (Song 4:16–5:2)

"Awake, north wind, and come, south wind, and blow through my garden, and let my spices flow. Let my beloved come down into his garden and eat the fruit of his fruit trees. I have come into my garden, my sister [bride; I have gathered] my [myrrh] with my spices; I have eaten my bread with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, my close ones, and drink, and be drunk, brothers. I sleep, and my heart [is awake]."

The contemplation of the divine words now set before us from the sequence of the Song of Songs contains thoughts hard to reach, veiled in obscurity among things unspoken. So we have need of greater attention, or rather of more help through prayers and of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we may not suffer, in our amazement at these lofty wonders, what we usually suffer with the stars. For we marvel at their beauty from far off, but can devise no means of knowing what they are made of; from their beauty we have only the [enjoyment] of what appears. For the gleams and flashes of these divine words are simply stars, shining far above the eyes of the soul and [standing apart from us], as high as heaven is from the earth, as the prophet says. But if what we hear happened to Elijah should happen to our soul too, and our mind should be taken up in the fiery chariot and carried aloft to the heavenly beauties (we shall understand the fire to be the Holy Spirit, which the Lord came to cast upon the earth, divided to the disciples in the form of tongues), it will not be beyond hope for us to come near these stars, I mean the divine thoughts, which flash about our souls through the heavenly and spiritual words.

"Look up" with the eye of the soul (I say it to you, the hearer), as the Lord's voice said to the patriarch; "look up to this heaven, and see the stars," whether you can measure the height of their thoughts. See the authority of the queen, perceiving her power from her commands, how a kind of sovereign authority shows in what she says. For she does not achieve what she wishes by prayer, but according to the truthful voice of the one who promised, who says that the faithful and wise steward becomes master of all his Master's possessions. Taking hold of this authority, she disposes royally of what she wishes concerning the two winds, banishing the north wind from herself by command, while calling the south wind kindly and urging it to come to her. The wording runs thus: "Awake, north wind, and come, south wind."

Perhaps something akin to what is said may be found in the words of the centurion, at which God the Word himself marvelled, as the evangelist relates, saying that "when Jesus heard it, he marvelled," and he set the centurion's word above the faith of Israel. For it seems to me that he does not compare the centurion in faith with the Israelite people, but with Israel himself, who in his wrestling with the adversary barely escaped a fall, with God's help, and did not come away wholly clear of the adversary's harm; for he received the injury in his thigh. But this centurion, of whom we are now speaking, with a kind of royal power sends away by authority what is foreign to him and takes to himself what he wishes. It seems to me that the man won the Lord's wonder above all for this: that he says that among the soldiers under his hand he sends away by full authority whom he wishes, calls to himself the one he wishes, and orders his slave to the service that is fitting. There too there is a philosophy in the centurion's words: he does not bring back to himself the one once sent away, but when that one has departed, he settles another in his place. For having said, "Go, and he goes," he says that he calls another, not the one he sent away. The word teaches, I think, this doctrine: that things opposed to each other cannot by nature dwell together in the same place. For there is no fellowship of light with darkness, says the apostle; but when the darkness has withdrawn, what is seen in its place must be light, and when vice has gone out of the way, virtue is brought in in its stead. When this is achieved, the mind of the flesh no longer rises against the spirit; it cannot, since its power of resistance has been put to death, but it becomes fit for every fitting service, obedient and subject to the rule of the spirit. For when the soldier who fights for vice has been driven away, and the hoplite of virtue has come in instead, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and, among his weapons, the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith, and bearing on himself the whole spiritual armour, then the slave, the body, fears its own master and readily receives the commands of the one who rules, through which virtue is achieved by the service of the body. This is what the centurion's word shows when he says, "And to my slave I say, 'Do this,' and [he does it]."

But let us hear the queen, how she drives the north wind away from herself, turning its blowing back the other way. For she does not order it to be still, as the Lord on the rough sea ordered the squall to be quiet, commanding silence to the waves; but she bids it withdraw and flee, so that the south wind may flow unhindered, with nothing obstructing its course. "Awake," [she says,] driving off the north wind. And what is the reason for removing this wind? "The north wind is a harsh wind," says the word of Proverbs on this, "but it is called by the name 'on the right.'" Yet the north wind is on the right of no one, unless someone has the east at his back and is making his way to the west. You understand the riddle of what is said: that whoever turns away from the East (for so Christ is named by the prophecy) and drives himself toward the setting of the light, where the power of darkness is, has the north wind on his right, welcoming him with wicked provisions, by which the course toward darkness is made. So the self-indulgent man finds the north wind on his right, blowing along with the passion of dishonour; so this spirit of wickedness becomes "on the right" for the greedy man when it heaps up for him the materials of greed like sand or dust. So, giving its own help to each of the sins, it becomes "on the right" to those with whom it is. Harsh by nature, it hides its hardness under pleasures. For this reason she, having put on strength against the passions, banishes the north wind from her own realm, saying, "Awake, north wind."

That the opposing power is signified by this name would be plain to anyone who has studied the nature of visible things. For who does not know the movement of the sun, that it makes its course from the east through the south and inclines toward the west? The shape of the earth is spherical, as those who study such things say; and in whatever part it is lit by the sun, it is wholly shaded [in the opposite part,] beyond the middle. Since, then, that region always remains without light and chilled, neither lit by the sun's rays nor warmed, the Word therefore names "north wind" and "harsh" the ruler of the power of darkness, who petrifies the tender nature of souls like water by freezing and makes them hard, the worker of the gloom of winter: I mean that winter in which the gospel says flight from dangers is impossible. For in it the bloom of those who flower in virtue withers. Fittingly, then, the queen's voice drives this one away by authority, and calls the noonday wind, the warm and ever-bright one, which she names the south wind, through which the torrent of delight flows, saying: "And come, south wind, blow through my garden, and let my spices flow." So that, by the violent blowing, as we have heard it happened to the disciples in the upper room, falling on the living plants, it might move God's planting to the bearing of spices, and make the fragrant prophecy flow through the mouth, and the saving doctrines of the faith, pouring forth the fragrance of the teachings unhindered in every kind of tongue. So the hundred and twenty disciples, planted in the house of God, [blown upon by such a south wind,] flowered with the teaching through tongues. For this reason the bride says to such a south wind, "Blow through my garden." For she became mother of a garden, [by the] voice of the bridegroom who made her, as the text that speaks of garden and fountain contains. For this reason she wishes her garden, the church, teeming with living trees, to be blown through, so that the spices may flow from them. For the prophet says: "His wind will blow, and waters will flow." But the bride, resplendent with royal wealth, [makes] magnificent streams, rivers of spices flowing from the trees of the garden through the violence of the wind, so that we may learn by this the difference of the Old Covenant from the New: the prophetic river was filled with waters, the gospel river with spices. Such a river of spices was the great Paul, flowing from the garden of the church through the Spirit, whose stream was the fragrance of Christ; such was John too, and Luke, Matthew, Mark, and all the rest, the noble plants of the bride's garden, who, blown upon by that bright noonday south wind, became fountains of spices, gushing with the fragrance of the gospels.

"Let my beloved come down," she says, "into his garden, and eat the fruit of his fruit trees." O bold voice! O generous and munificent soul, surpassing all [magnanimity]! Whom does she welcome to a feast with her own fruits? For whom does she prepare a banquet from her own goods? Whom does she call to the entertainment of what has been prepared? The one from whom are all things, through whom are all things, and in whom are all things; the one who gives food to all in due season, who opens his hand and fills every living thing with good pleasure; the bread coming down from heaven and giving life to the world, who pours life on all beings from his own fountain. For him the bride sets a table. And the table is the garden, planted with living trees. And we are the trees, if indeed we too are those who set before him as food the salvation of our souls; for so says the one who feasts on our life: "My food is to do the will of my Father." And the aim of the divine will is plain: he wishes all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. This, then, is the food prepared for him: that we be saved. And our fruit is our free choice, which by itself hands our soul to God as by a branch. Through these words we must see that the bride was first sweetened by the fruit of the apple tree, saying, "And his fruit is sweet in my mouth"; and then she herself becomes fruit, ripe and sweet, set out for the husbandman's [enjoyment].

The word "let him come down" has the meaning of a prayer, uttered in the same way as "Hallowed be your name" and "Your will be done." For as there the form of those words carries the sense of a prayer, so here too the "let him come down" is the prayer of the bride, showing God the fruitfulness of the fruit trees of virtue. And the coming down signifies the work of his love for mankind. For since it is not otherwise possible to be taken up to the Most High unless the Lord [comes down] to the meek, the soul that climbs to things above, calling on the guidance of the one who lies beyond, prays that he will come down a little from his own greatness, so that he may become reachable by those below. And he who said through the prophet, "While you are still speaking, behold, I am here," before the bride had finished her prayer both heard what she asked and attended to the readiness of her heart; he came to be in the garden blown through by the south wind, gathered the fruits of the spices, filled himself with the fruit trees of virtue, and made the feast a story, speaking thus to the bride: "[I have come] into [my] garden, my sister bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spices; I have eaten my bread with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, my close ones, and drink, and be drunk, my brothers."

Do you see how he surpasses the request by his munificence? The bride prayed that her plants in the garden might become fountains of spices, when the south wind blew on them at noon, and that she might welcome the husbandman with the fruit of the fruit trees. Now it is plain to all that every fragrance is a pleasure to the sense of smell; and fruit from trees, as food, is weaker than the power of bread for the good condition of those who are fed. But he who came down to his own garden, changing the nature of the fruits to what is greater and more precious, gathers from the garden myrrh, finding it with his spices. For that whatever is good, wherever it is found, is from him, the prophetic word has sung. And instead of fruit trees he makes the trees gush with bread mixed with his honey. Let the prophetic word be uttered with this too: that the honey is his, as is all the rest. And he draws wine from them, mixed with his milk. For from him and through him and to him are all things.

O blessed those gardens, whose plants are attested to gush with such fruits, so as to change fittingly into every kind of food according to the desire for enjoyment! For to one who delights in fragrance it becomes myrrh, compounding, through the deadness of the members that are on earth, the pure and fragrant life mixed from the varied and different spices of virtue. To one who seeks more perfect food it becomes bread, no longer eaten with bitter herbs, as the law commands (for the bitter herb belongs to the present), but making honey its relish, when in its own season the fruit of virtue sweetens the senses of the soul. A proof of this is the bread that appeared to the disciples after the Lord's resurrection, sweetened with the honeycomb. And to the thirsty it becomes a mixing bowl full of wine and milk; not a sponge soaked with gall and vinegar, such as the Jews held out on the reed to their benefactor, showing their friendship.

We are surely not ignorant of the riddles of what has been said: how Paul was a myrrh-bearing tree, dying every day and himself giving himself the sentence of death, and becoming fragrant through purity and freedom from passion, a fragrance of life to those who are being saved; how the living plants of the garden make bread for the master of the garden, as the one seated on the throne testifies: "I was hungry, and you gave me to eat." For doing good is a bread of gladness, sweetened with the honey of the commandment. And again, how the well-grown plants of the garden pour wine for the bridegroom, to whom he says, "I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink," mixing the wine with milk, not with water, as hucksters usually do. Milk is the first food of human nature, pure and simple, truly childlike and guileless, cleansed of every evil cause.

Having said this to the bride, the Word sets before his close ones the mysteries of the gospel, saying: "Eat, my close ones, and drink, and be drunk, my brothers." For to one who knows the mystical words of the gospel there will appear no difference between the words here and the initiation given to the disciples there. For in the same way here and there the Word says, "Eat and drink." The exhortation to drunkenness which the Word makes here to the brothers might seem to many to contain something more than the gospel. But if someone examines it carefully, this too will be found to agree with the gospel. For what he here commanded the friends in word, he did there in deeds, since all drunkenness usually produces an ecstasy of the mind overpowered by wine. So what he exhorts to here came about then through that divine food and drink, and always comes about, since there enters together with the eating and the drinking a change and ecstasy from worse to better. So, as the prophecy says, those are drunk who drink the fatness of the house of God and are given drink from the torrent of delight. So the great David was once drunk, when he went out of himself and came into ecstasy and saw the beauty that cannot be seen, and cried out that celebrated saying, "Every man is a liar," entrusting the interpretation of the unspeakable treasures to [no human] word. So Paul too, the younger Benjamin, was drunk, when he came into ecstasy, saying: "If we are beside ourselves, it is for God" (for his ecstasy was toward God himself); "if we are in our right mind, it is for you," as he showed in his words to Festus that he was not mad, but uttering words of sober truth and righteousness.

I know that blessed Peter too was in this kind of drunkenness, being at once hungry and drunk. For before he took bodily food, when he became hungry and wished to eat, while his own people were preparing the table for him, the divine and sober drunkenness came upon him, by which he went out of himself and saw the gospel sheet let down from above by four corners, containing in it every race of men, in countless forms of birds and four-footed creatures and reptiles and beasts, shaped according to their differences. The Word bids Peter sacrifice their bestial and irrational form, so that, when they have been cleansed, what remains may become fit to eat; when also the word of piety is delivered bare, the divine voice saying not once, "What God has cleansed is not common." But the proclamation was made three times, so that we may learn in the one voice that the Father is God who cleanses; in the second, likewise, that the God who cleanses is the only-begotten Son; and in the other, in the same way, that the God who cleanses everything unclean is the Holy Spirit.

Since, then, such is the drunkenness from the wine which the Lord sets before his fellow drinkers, by which the soul's ecstasy toward more divine things comes about, the Lord fittingly bids those who have become close through the virtues, not those who stand far off: "Eat, my close ones, and drink, and be drunk." For "whoever eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment on himself." And he fittingly called those worthy of the food "brothers"; for whoever does his will is named by the Word brother and sister and mother.

In sequence, sleep follows drunkenness, as power follows good condition. For this reason after that banquet the bride falls asleep. But this sleep is a strange one, foreign to natural habit. For in ordinary sleep the sleeper is not awake, and the one who is awake does not sleep; but each ends in the other, sleep and [waking], by their succession to each other. Here, however, a new and paradoxical mixing and meeting of opposites is seen in her. "I sleep," she says, "and my heart is awake." What sense, then, must we take of this? Sleep is a likeness of death. For in it every perceptive activity of bodies is loosed: neither sight, nor hearing, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch performs its own work during the time of sleep. It also loosens the tension of the body; it produces forgetfulness of human cares, puts fear to rest, tames anger, relaxes the tension of those embittered, and produces insensibility to all evils, as long as it holds the body in its power. So we learn this from what has been said: that she who boasts of these things and says, "I sleep, and my heart is awake," has become higher than herself. For in truth, in those in whom the mind alone lives by itself, troubled by none of the senses, the nature of the body would be slack, as in a kind of sleep and coma; and one may truly say that sight sleeps through inactivity, since those spectacles are held in dishonour that usually astonish childish eyes. I do not mean only the things of earthy matter, such as gold and silver, and those stones that by some beauty of colour stir greed in the eyes, but also the wonders that appear in the heavens, the rays of the stars, the disc of the sun, the many-shaped form of the moon, and anything else that brings pleasure to the eyes, since none of them remains for ever, but they move with the passage of time and are carried round with it. When all such things are despised for the contemplation of the true goods, the eye of the body is slack, [useful] for nothing of what belongs to the more perfect soul, since the mind sees only what lies beyond things visible. So hearing too becomes dead and inactive, [since the soul is occupied] with things beyond speech. As for the [grosser] of the senses, it is not even worth saying that smell [turns away] from scents as from some deathly stench, and taste, which sits at the service of the belly, and besides these touch, the slavish and blind sense, which nature perhaps made only for the blind. When all these are held as in a kind of sleep through inactivity, the activity of the heart is pure, and reason looks upward, remaining undisturbed by the noise and undarkened by the movement of the senses.

For since pleasure in human nature is double, one worked in the soul through freedom from passion, the other in the body through passion, whichever of the two free choice takes, that one has the mastery over the other. So if someone looks to sense perception, drawing to himself the pleasure that arises in the body through it, he remains without a taste of the divine [gladness], since the better is by nature [darkened] by the worse. But for those whose desire has its inclination toward the Divine, the good remains undarkened, and everything that bewitches the senses is thought something to flee. For this reason the soul, when it delights in the contemplation of what is alone, is awake to none of the things done for pleasure through the senses, but, having put every bodily movement to sleep, receives the manifestation of God with a mind bare and pure through the divine wakefulness. May we too be found worthy of it, achieving the wakefulness of the soul through the sleep we have spoken of, in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever and ever. [Amen.]

Homily 11 (Song 5:2–4)

"The voice of my beloved knocks at the door: 'Open to me, my sister, my close one, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.' I have taken off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them? My beloved put out his hand through the opening, and my belly was stirred [for him]."

This too is one of the Lord's great commandments, by which the mind of those who are disciples of the Word, shaking off from itself, like dust, everything material in nature, is lifted up to the desire for things that lie beyond. It is this: that those who look to the life above must be stronger than sleep and keep watch in mind continually, driving drowsiness from their eyes as a kind of deceiver of souls and plotter against the truth. I mean that drowsiness and sleep through which these phantoms are shaped for those sunk deep in the deceit of life: offices of rule, powers, conceit, the bewitchment of pleasures, love of glory and of enjoyment and of honour, and everything that in this life the unreflecting pursue in vain through some imagining. These things, flowing past with the passing nature of time, have their being in seeming: they are neither what they are thought to be, nor do they remain for ever even in being thought so, but they seem to come into being and perish at once, like the waves that rise to a crest on the waters. For a moment these swell with the movement of the winds and have a mass that is not secure in remaining; for, having risen up for a short moment with the gust, they again show the surface of the sea level, subsiding together with the wind.

So that our mind may come to be outside such phantoms, he bids us shake off this heavy sleep from the eyes of the soul, so that we may not slip away from what subsists and truly is through zeal for what has no existence. For this reason he suggests to us a device for wakefulness, saying: "Let your loins [be girded] and your lamps burning in your hands." For the light shining in the eyes scares sleep away from them, and the loins bound tight by the belt make the body unreceptive to sleep, since the feeling of discomfort does not allow the relaxation that sleep brings. What is shown through the riddles is surely clear: the one girded with self-control lives in the light of a pure conscience, his life lit by the lamp of boldness; and when the truth shines forth, the soul remains sleepless and undeceived, wasting itself on none of these imperfect dreams. [If] this is achieved according to the Word's guidance, a kind of angelic life takes us over. For the divine commandment likens us to them, where it says: "And you, be like men waiting for their master, when he returns from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks they may open to him at once." For they are the ones who wait for the Lord's return from the wedding, [watching] at the heavenly gates with wakeful eye, so that the King of glory may enter through them again when he returns from the wedding to that blessedness above the heavens. From there, as the psalm says, the bridegroom went out as from a bridal chamber and betrothed us to himself as a virgin through the mystical rebirth, we who had played the harlot with idols, re-forming our nature into virginal incorruption. Since, then, the wedding has already been accomplished and the church has been wedded by the Word, as John says, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom," and since she has been received into the chamber of the mysteries, the angels were waiting for the King's return, when the church is brought back up to the blessedness that is according to nature. He said, then, that our life too must be made like theirs, so that, as they, living far from vice and deceit, are ready to receive the Master's coming, so we too, [keeping watch], may make ourselves ready to obey whenever he stands and knocks at the door. "For blessed," he says, "are those slaves whom their master, when he comes, will find doing so."

Since, then, it is blessed to obey the one who knocks, the soul that looks always toward blessedness, keeping good watch over its own treasures, perceives the one standing at the door and says: "The voice of my beloved knocks at the door." How could anyone worthily understand through these words the bride's ascent to more divine things? [She who] with such authority and confidence [drove away] that harsh north wind from herself, [and] drew to herself the bright [noonday] wind, who makes paradises of pomegranates through her mouth, whose fruit trees were spices, who set her garden as a table before the Master of creation, of whose offerings nothing appeared fit to be thrown away, but all were attested to be good, the myrrh, the spice, the bread with honey, the wine with milk; she to whom the Word testified her perfection, saying, "[You are all] fair, and there is no blemish in you": she is now so disposed as though she were about to receive the manifestation of God for the first time, and as though she had not yet received the Word who now stands before the doors, or made him dwell with her; she treats the power of his voice with wonder. For this reason she says that the bridegroom's voice touches not yet herself, but her door: "For the voice of my beloved," she says, "knocks at the door."

Do you see how boundless the course is for those who climb toward God, how what is grasped at any time becomes the beginning of what lies beyond? For we hoped from what was said to her that some halt had come to the course of her journey toward the heights. For what more could anyone seek after the testimony of perfection? Then we see that she is still within, and has not yet come outside her doors, nor delighted in a face-to-face manifestation, but is still led by hearing toward participation in the goods. So we learn this teaching from what has been said: that for those who are always advancing to greater things, the apostle's saying is fitting: "If anyone thinks he has known, he has not yet known as he ought to know." For the soul knew him in what went before as far as it grasped him. But since what is not yet grasped is infinitely greater than what has been grasped, the bridegroom has therefore been seen many times by the soul, and yet, as though he had never come before her eyes, he promises by his voice that he will be seen by the bride.

To make the thought clearer to us, I shall add an image to the argument by way of example. If someone came near that fountain which Scripture says at the beginning came up out of the earth, so great in quantity as to water the whole face of the earth, the one who came near the fountain would marvel at that boundless water always gushing out and pouring forth from it; yet he would not say that he had seen all the water. For how could he see what is hidden in the bosom of the earth? So, even if he stays a long time by the welling spring, he is always at the beginning of his contemplation of the water. For the water never stops, always flowing and always beginning to well up. So the one who looks toward that divine and boundless beauty, since what is found at any time is seen to be wholly newer and more wonderful than what has already been grasped, marvels at what is always appearing, yet never stops in his desire to see, because what is hoped for is more magnificent and more divine than everything that is seen. For this reason here too the bride, always marvelling and astonished at what is known, never halts her longing for what is contemplated at what she has already known. So now too she perceives the Word as still knocking at the door, and rises to obey, and says: "The voice of my beloved knocks at the door." Then, giving quiet to her hearing, she hears what the one who sounded through the voice [says]: "Open to me, my sister, my close one, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night."

One might grasp the sense of this in contemplation thus. For the great Moses the manifestation of God began through light; after this he speaks with him through a cloud; then, having become higher and more perfect, he sees God in darkness. What we learn through this is something like this. The first withdrawal from false and erring notions about God is the passage from darkness to light. The closer perception of hidden things, which guides the soul by the hand through what appears to the invisible nature, becomes like a cloud, which overshadows all that appears and guides the soul and accustoms it to look toward what is hidden. And the soul that journeys upward through these, having left behind the things below as far as is attainable for human nature, comes to be within the sanctuaries of the knowledge of God, enveloped on every side by the divine darkness; in which, since everything that appears and is grasped has been left outside, there remains for the soul's contemplation only the invisible and incomprehensible, in which God is, as the word says of the lawgiver: "And Moses entered into the [darkness where God was]."

With these points considered in this way, we should examine also the kinship of the words set before us with what has been said. There was a time when the bride was black, darkened by unenlightened doctrines, the sun having looked askance at her, the sun which through temptations scorches the rootless seed on the rocks; when, defeated by those who fought within her, she did not guard her own vineyard; when, not knowing herself, she shepherded flocks of kids instead of sheep. But when she had withdrawn herself from her natural union with evil and longed through that mystical kiss to bring her mouth to the fountain of light, then she becomes fair, illumined by the light of the truth and having washed off the blackness of ignorance in the water. Then she is likened to a horse for her swiftness, and to the dove for the quickness of her mind. Flying through everything that is grasped and appears, like a horse and like a dove, she first rests with desire in the shade of the apple tree, naming "apple tree" instead of cloud what overshadows her; but now she is already enclosed by the divine night, in which the bridegroom comes but does not appear. For how could what is not seen appear at night? But he gives the soul some sense of his presence, while escaping clear perception, hidden in the invisibility of his nature.

What, then, is the initiation that comes to the soul through this night? The Word touches the door. And by the door we understand the conjecturing thought about things unspeakable, through which what is sought comes to dwell within. The truth, then, standing outside our nature, through knowledge in part, as the apostle says, knocks at the door of the mind with certain hints and riddles, saying, "Open," and with an exhortation suggests the manner in which the door should be opened, offering, as it were, keys: these fair names, by which what is locked is opened. For the meanings of these names are simply keys, which open what is hidden: sister, close one, dove, and perfect one. "For if you wish," he says, "that the door be opened to you, and the gates of your soul be lifted up, so that the King of glory may enter, you must become my sister, by receiving my will into your soul," as he says in the gospel that the one who lives in his will becomes his brother and sister. "And you must also draw near to the truth, and become close, so as to be walled off by nothing in between, and have perfection in the nature of the dove: that is, to be lacking in nothing and filled with all innocence and purity. Taking these names, O soul, as keys, open by them the entrance to the truth, becoming sister and close one and dove and perfect one. And your gain from receiving me will be the dew from my head, with which I am full, and the drops of the night that flow from my locks."

Of these, we have learned clearly from the prophet that the dew is healing, for he says: "The dew from you is healing to them." The drops of the night belong to the sense contemplated before. For it is not possible for one who has come within the sanctuaries and the unseen to meet a rain shower or a torrent of knowledge. It is enough if the truth sprinkles knowledge of itself on us in fine and faint thoughts, the drops of reason flowing through the saints and those borne by God. For I think that the locks hanging from the head of the universe are figuratively named the prophets and evangelists and apostles, each of whom, drawing as much as he could hold from the dark, hidden, and invisible treasures, becomes for us rivers; but compared with the truth as it really is, they are drops of dew, even if they overflow with the quantity and greatness of their teaching. Such a river was Paul, cresting with the waves of his thoughts above heaven, as far as the third heaven, as far as paradise, as far as the unspeakable and unutterable words; and, though he [overflows] with the word through all such lofty speech, he shows again that this word is a drop of dew compared with the Word who truly is, where he says, "We know in part, and we prophesy in part"; and, "If anyone thinks he has known anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know"; and, "[I do not reckon] myself to have laid hold." If, then, the moisture of the dew and the drop from the locks seem rivers and seas and waves when judged by our capacity, what must one reckon about the fountain that said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink"? Let each of the hearers take a conjecture of the wonder in proportion to what has been said. For if the drop sufficed for the making of rivers, what [must we] reckon, by analogy from this drop, the river of God itself [to be]?

Let us see also how the bride obeys the Word, how she opens the entrance to the bridegroom. "I have taken off my tunic," she says; "how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?" She heard well the one who bade her become sister and close one, dove and perfect one, so that through these the truth might come to dwell in the soul. For she did what she heard: she took off the tunic of skin which she had put on after the sin, and washed off from her feet the earthiness with which she had been wrapped from the time she was released from her life in paradise into the earth, when she heard, "Earth you are, and to earth you shall return." For this reason she opened the entrance to her soul for the Word, the veil of the heart, that is, the flesh, having been drawn aside. By "flesh" I mean the old man, whom the divine apostle bids those who are to wash off the filth of the soul's feet in the bath of the word to put off and lay aside. So, having put off the old man and taken away the veil of the heart, she opened the entrance to the Word; and when he has come within, the soul makes him her garment, according to the guidance of the apostle, who bids the one who has put off the fleshly covering of the old man to put on the tunic created according to God in holiness and righteousness; and he says that the garment is Jesus.

The bride's declaration is that she will no longer take up again the tunic she has cast off, but will be content with one tunic, according to the law given to the disciples, which [she received] through the birth from above: the Lord's word, which bids those once adorned with the divine garment no longer to put on over it the tunic of sin, nor to have two tunics, but one only, so that two tunics incompatible with each other may not be [worn] about the same person. For what fellowship has the dark garment with the one that is light-like and immaterial? The law says not only that one must not have two tunics, but also that one must not sew new cloth on an old garment, so that the unseemliness of the one who wears such a thing may not become worse, when the patch does not stay and the old garment suffers a worse tear, hard to mend. "For the new patch," he says, "pulls away from the old, and a worse tear is made," so that the unseemly parts are exposed through it. For this reason she says, "I have taken off my tunic; how shall I put it on?" For who, seeing about himself the Lord's tunic shining like the sun, put on him through purity and incorruption, such as he showed at the transfiguration on the mountain, would then consent to put on himself the beggarly and ragged garment which the drunkard and the fornicator, as the proverb says, wear?

Nor, having washed her feet, [will she take on] again on her step the defilement from the earth. "For I have washed my feet," she says; "how shall I soil them?" For neither is Moses recorded, after he had freed his feet from the dead covering of skins at the divine command, when he stepped on the holy and illumined ground, to have bound his feet again in sandals; even when he skilfully made the priestly vestment according to the pattern shown on the mountain, mixing in the weaving the gleams of gold and purple, fine linen, blue and scarlet, so as to make a beauty mingled of them all, he devised no adornment for the feet: the adornment of the priestly foot was to be bare of all covering and free. For the priest must surely stand on holy ground, on which it is not lawful to walk with dead skins. For this reason the Lord forbids sandals to the disciples, since he bids them not to go on the road of the Gentiles, but to proceed by the holy road. You surely know the holy road on which the disciples are bidden to run, having learned it from the one who said, "I am the way," which no one can touch who has not taken off the covering of the dead man.

Since, then, the bride has come to be on this road, on which the Lord washes the feet of those who walk on it with water and wipes them with the towel with which he girded himself (and the Lord's girdle is a power that cleanses sins: "For the Lord has put on power," it says, "and girded himself"), she therefore, with her feet cleansed, keeps herself on the royal road, turning aside neither to the right nor to the left, so that she may not, by setting her step outside the road on either side, soil her foot with mud. You surely understand what is shown through these words: that she who has once taken off her sandals through baptism (for loosing the straps of the sandals is the proper work of the one who baptizes, as John testified that he could not do this in the case of the Lord alone; for how could he have loosed one who had never been bound by the strap of sin at all?) has washed her feet, casting off every earthly filth together with the sandals. So she keeps her step unsoiled on the paved road, as David also did, when, having freed himself from the material of the mud, he set his feet on the rock, saying in his word: "He brought me up out of the pit of misery and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps." By the rock we understand the Lord, who is light and truth and incorruption and righteousness, with which the spiritual road is paved. Whoever does not turn aside from these on either side keeps his footprint safe, soiled nowhere by the mud of pleasure.

These, in my judgment at least, are the things by which the door is opened to the Word by the bride. For the declaration that she will no longer take up the mud she has cast off, nor receive earthy defilement in the journey of life, becomes the entrance of sanctification into the soul so prepared. And the Lord is sanctification. [So much for these words.]

After this the soul again reaches the ascent that lies beyond, no longer with a voice knocking at the heart's door, but with the divine hand itself slipping inside through the opening. "For my beloved," she says, "put out his hand through the opening, and my belly was stirred for him." To one who listens intelligently it is surely plain how much higher what is now said is than what came before. Saying "Open" to the bride, the Word gives her, through the divine names, the power to open. The bride obeys the Word; she becomes what she heard, sister and close one and dove and perfect one; she strips off that tunic of skin, washes off the filth of her feet, and neither puts on again that hateful and ragged garment nor sets her step on the earth any more. She heard his voice, then, and obeys the command. She opens the door, taking away the veil of the heart; she tears apart the curtain of the flesh at the door; the whole gate of the soul is opened, so that the King of glory may enter. But the breadth of the gate proved to be a small hole, narrow and short, through which not the bridegroom himself but only his hand could barely pass, so as to come inside through it and touch her who desires to see the bridegroom; and she gained only so much as to know that the hand is that of the one she longs for.

What teachings are shown us we might learn through the philosophy in these words, if we spend a little more time on the text. The human soul is on the border between two natures, one bodiless, intellectual, and pure, the other bodily, material, and irrational. As soon as it has been cleansed of its attachment to the coarse and earthy life, [and has turned] through virtue to what is akin to it and most divine, it does not stop searching out and seeking the principle of beings: what the fountain of the beauty of beings is, from where its power gushes, what wells up the wisdom that shows in their being. But, setting in motion all reasonings and every power of searching thought and busying itself with what is sought, it makes the limit of its grasp of God only his activity that comes down to us, which we perceive through our life. And as the air that rises from the earth together with water does not stay at the bottom of the pool, but, becoming a bubble, runs up to what is akin to it, and when it has passed through the topmost surface of the water and been mixed with the air, then stops its upward movement, so the soul that searches out divine things experiences something similar: when from things below it stretches itself up to the knowledge of what lies beyond, having grasped the wonders of his activity, it cannot advance further by its curiosity, but marvels at and reveres the one known only to exist, from what he works.

It sees the heavenly beauty, the rays of the luminaries, the swift circling of the sky, the well-ordered and harmonious revolution of the stars, the year's circle turning back on itself through four seasons; the earth disposed together with what surrounds it, varying its own activities with the difference of the movement of what lies above; the many forms of nature among living creatures, those that live in the waters, those allotted movement through the air, and those whose life is on dry land; the manifold kinds of plants and the varied herbs, differing from one another in quality, power, and shape, and the properties of fruits and juices, and the other things through which God's activity is shown. Seeing these, the soul reckons in mind, through wonder at what appears, that the one who is understood through his works exists. But perhaps in the age to come, when everything that is seen passes away, according to the Lord's word, who says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away," and we pass on to that life which is beyond eye and ear and mind, then we shall no longer know the nature of the good in part through his works, as now, nor will what lies beyond be understood through the activity of what appears; but the form of the unspeakable blessedness will surely be grasped in another way, and there will be another manner of enjoyment, which by nature cannot now enter the heart of man. For the time being, though, the limit for the soul of knowledge of the unspeakable is the activity that shows itself in beings, which we have understood to be called figuratively a hand.

This, then, is the teaching that has been set out in philosophy for us through these divine words: the pure soul, no longer walking on the earthly and material life, so as not to soil her step by leaning on things below, expected to receive the bridegroom himself, wholly come into the house; [but] she has been content for the time being to see only the hand in the opening, by which his active power is interpreted. "My beloved," she says, "[put out] his hand through the opening." For human power has no room to receive the boundless and incomprehensible nature into itself. "And my belly," she says, "was stirred for him." The word "stirring" signifies a certain amazement and astonishment at the wonder that appeared. For her whole power of thought was moved to wonder at what is worked by the divine hand, whose understanding, lying beyond us, interprets by itself the incomprehensibility and the uncontainability of the nature of the one who works. For the whole creation of beings is the work of that hand which was made manifest to us through the opening, as John cries out, and the prophet sounds together with the gospel. For the one says, "All things came into being through him"; and the prophet names the power that made beings a hand, saying, "My hand made all these things." Since, then, [the soul sees] the works of that activity, all the rest and the heavenly beauties too, yet the searching mind of man has not yet grasped what man is in his essence, or the sun, or any other of the wonders that appear in creation, for this reason the heart is stirred at the divine activity: if it has no room to grasp these things, how will it grasp the nature that lies beyond them?

Perhaps someone, taking the riddles of what has been said in another way, will offer a contemplation not beyond what is reasonable. For I think that the whole of human life is to be understood as the bride's house, and that this hand which made beings, coming to dwell in us, contracted itself to the shortness and worthlessness of human life by sharing our nature in all things, in likeness, without sin. And having come to be among us, it produced stirring and astonishment in souls: how is God manifested in flesh? How does the Word become flesh? How is there birth in virginity? How is the light [mingled] with darkness, and life with death? How has the short opening of life room to receive into itself the hand that holds all beings, by which the whole heaven is measured, and all the earth and all the water are held? It is reasonable, then, that the grace of the gospel is signified to us prophetically by the bride through the riddle of the hand. For when the Lord was seen on earth and lived among men, we came to know the pure and immaterial beauty of the bridegroom, the Godhead of the Word, and the brightness of the true light, through the hand of his works. For by the hand we understand his power that worked the wonders, by which the dead were brought to life, the sight of the blind was restored, the disease of leprosy was banished, and every kind of incurable and grievous sickness left bodies at a command.

Since this twofold contemplation of the hand has been set before us, of which the one proposes that the divine nature, being wholly incomprehensible and beyond conjecture, is known through its activity alone, and the other says that the grace of the gospel is proclaimed beforehand by the bride through these words, we shall leave it to the hearer to choose the more suitable one, the one that fits the subject better than the other. But whichever is thought more profitable to the soul, sufficient guidance toward the good would come to us through each of the two. For from knowing that what can be known of God, according to Paul's word, is clearly seen, being understood from the creation of the world, we shall refrain from curiosity about things incomprehensible, so that heresy may not find material against the truth through speculation about the unreachable and unutterable nature. And if we suppose that the riddle of the hand looks to the gospel, our faith in the mystical teachings will become firmer in this way too, through [the prophecy spoken beforehand], in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever.

Homily 12 (Song 5:5–7)

"[I rose to open to my beloved; my hands] dripped myrrh, my fingers full of myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. I opened [to my beloved; my beloved had passed by]; my soul went out at his word. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. The watchmen who go about in the city found me; they struck me, [they wounded me; the watchmen of the walls took my veil from me]."

Those who set out on a voyage overseas in the hope of wealth, when they have already cast the merchant ship off from the harbour and the man who sits at the tiller has turned the prow toward the open sea by the steering oars, make a prayer the beginning of the voyage, asking God, they say, to become their guide to a good passage. The chief point of their prayer is that a gentle and favourable wind may fall on the sail, standing astern, toward the helmsman's goal. When it blows on them as they wish, the sea becomes pleasant with quiet waves, and the breadths of the open sea are painless as the ship flies easily over them and glides on the waters; and the wealth hoped for from the trading is already before their eyes, the good passage being known even before the trial. To the more apt of the hearers the aim of this preface is surely plain. A great sea lies before our discourse, the contemplation of the divine words. Much wealth of knowledge is hoped for from this voyage; and this living ship, the church, in all its company, looks on, eager, toward the wealth of the interpretation. But the helmsman, the word, does not take hold of the tiller before a prayer is made in common by the ship's company, that the power of the Holy Spirit may blow on us, stir the waves of thoughts, and through them bring the discourse on its straight course with a fair wind; so that, having put out to sea in contemplation, we may trade for the wealth of knowledge, if through your prayers the Holy Spirit should come upon the discourse and fill [its sails].

Let the beginning of the discourse be the recalling of the God-inspired words, which run word for word thus: "I rose to open to my beloved. My hands dripped myrrh, my fingers [full of myrrh]." That the living Word, I mean the pure and unblemished bridegroom, who unites the soul to himself through incorruption and holiness, cannot come to be in us in any other way unless someone, by putting to death the members that are on earth, removes the curtain of the flesh and so opens the door to the Word, through which he comes to dwell in the soul, is plain not only from the divine teachings of the apostle but also from what the bride has now said. "For I rose," she says, "to open to my beloved," by making my hands fountains of myrrh, flowing with the spice of themselves, and showing myrrh as the fullness of my fingers. For she tells through these words the manner by which the door is opened to the bridegroom: "Because I was buried with him through baptism into death, I rose." For the resurrection would not have taken effect without the voluntary deadness going before. And the drop of myrrh that flows from her hands, and her fingers being filled with this spice, [show] the voluntariness. For she does not say that the myrrh came to her hand from elsewhere; for then what is shown by the myrrh might have been thought to have befallen her by circumstance and against her will. But she says that her hands themselves (by the hands she signifies the active movements of the soul) dripped the myrrh of themselves, the putting to death of bodily things that comes from within, from free choice, signifying by this the [deadness] filling all her fingers. By the name "fingers" she interprets the particular kinds of what is pursued separately through virtue, so that the whole sense of what is said is this: "I received the power of resurrection by putting to death my members that are on earth, the putting to death of such members having been worked voluntarily by me; the myrrh was not put into my hands by another, but flows from my own free choice; so that such a disposition is seen without lack in all the practices of virtue, which she has named fingers."

For in those who pursue virtue one may see that they are dead to one passion but alive in others. So we see some putting to death in themselves, as it may be, licentiousness, while carefully nourishing conceit, or some other passion that harms the soul, such as love of money, or anger, or love of glory, or some other such thing. While this lives wickedly in the soul, it is not possible to show the fingers full of myrrh; for the putting to death of evil and estrangement from it does not appear through all the practices. But when all such fingers have been filled with the myrrh we have understood, the soul both rises and opens the entrance to the bridegroom.

For this reason perhaps the great Paul too, having understood well the Master's word that says the ear cannot grow unless the grain is first dissolved by death, proclaims this teaching to the church: that death must lead the way for life, since it is not possible for life to come to be in man otherwise unless it takes its passage through death. For since the nature in us is double, the one fine, intellectual, and light, the other coarse, material, and heavy, the impulse in each of these must be incompatible with the other and its own. For the intellectual and light has as its own the movement upward; the heavy and material always inclines and is carried downward. Since, then, their movement is by nature in opposite directions, the one cannot prosper unless the other grows slack in its natural course. And standing midway between the two, our self-determining power and free choice of itself produces strength in the one that flags and slackness in the one that prevails; for whichever part it [sides with], to that it gives the prize of victory over the other. So in the gospel the faithful and wise steward is praised; this, in my judgment, is the free choice that presides well over what is in us. For he is praised because he feeds the Master's household through putting their opposites to death; for the destruction of those is the food and good condition of the better. But that wicked slave is accused who, by keeping company with drunkards, maltreats God's household with blows. For the prosperity of vice is truly a blow against the virtues.

It is well, then, for those who have emulated the prophetic word to make a morning for themselves by killing all the sinners of the land, so as to destroy from the city of the Lord (and the city is the soul) all the thoughts that work lawlessness, whose destruction becomes the life of the better ones. So we live through death, when, of what is in us, as the prophet says, the Word who said, "I will kill, and I will make alive," kills the one and makes the other alive. So Paul too lived though dying, was strong though weak, ran his course though bound, made rich though poor, and possessed all things having nothing, always carrying about in his body the dying of Jesus.

But let us return to what was set before us: that through death the soul rises from death. For unless it dies, it remains dead for ever and incapable of receiving life; but by dying it comes to be in life, having laid aside all deadness. And this teaching is confirmed for us by the text before us, since the bride says, "I rose to open to my beloved. My hands dripped myrrh, my [fingers] full of myrrh." No one familiar with the divine Scriptures would doubt that myrrh is a symbol of death. But how death raises us from death, I think some seek to have the account of this made more clearly distinct. We shall speak, then, as far as we can, giving the discourse some order in sequence.

The account of the making of the world testifies that all that God made was very good. Among the very good things was man; or rather, he was adorned with beauty more than the good things. For what else could be so good as the likeness of the undefiled beauty? If all things were very good, and among all, or rather before all, was man, then death was certainly not in man. For man would not have been anything good if he had in himself the gloomy stamp of the dejection of death. But being an image and likeness of the eternal life, he was truly good, and very good, adorned with the bright stamp of life. He also had the divine paradise, gushing with life through the fruitfulness of its trees; and God's commandment was a law of life, that he should not die. Now, in the middle of the planting of paradise was the tree that gushes with life (whatever that tree must be understood to be whose fruit is life); and the death-bearing tree, whose fruit he declares to be both good and evil, was also in the middle of paradise. Yet it is impossible for there to be room for both trees at the very centre. For whichever of the two we grant occupies the centre, the other is necessarily excluded from the place of the centre. For the exact position of the centre is grasped in relation to what surrounds it, when it stands at equal distances from the edge on every side. Since, then, the centre of the circle is exactly one, there could be no way, the same circle remaining, of finding two centres in the middle. For if someone sets another centre beside the first, the circle is necessarily moved with it, and the first falls outside the middle, the circumference of the circle being drawn around the second centre. Yet it says that both this and that are in the middle of paradise, although they are opposed to each other in power, I mean the life-giving tree and the one whose fruit was death, which Paul named sin, saying, "The fruit of sin is death."

We should understand, then, through the philosophy of these words, this teaching: that the very centre of God's planting is life, but death is unplanted and rootless, having no place of its own anywhere; it is planted by the privation of life, when participation in the better grows idle in the living. Since, then, life is in the middle of the divine plants, and the nature of death comes to subsist in falling away from it, therefore the one who set out this teaching in philosophy through riddles says that the death-bearing tree too is in the middle of paradise, whose fruit he said has a power mixed of opposites. For he defined the same thing as both good and evil, hinting, I think, at the nature of sin by this. Since some pleasure certainly leads the way in everything done through vice, and no sin can be found separated from pleasure, whatever passions come through anger and whatever through desire, the fruit is therefore named good according to the mistaken judgment of the good, seeming such to those who place the good in pleasure; but afterwards it is found evil, in the bitter digestion of what was eaten, according to the proverbial saying that honey drips from the lips of vice, which for a moment smooths the throat, but afterwards is found more bitter than gall by those wickedly sweetened.

Since, then, man, having turned away from the abundance of goods, filled himself through disobedience with the corrupting fruit (and the name of this fruit is death-dealing sin), at once [he died to the] better life, [and exchanged it for] the irrational and bestial life of [mortality; and since] death [was mingled] with nature, deadness passed through the successions of those born. So a dead life took us over, our very life having in a way died. For our life is simply dead, deprived of immortality. For this reason the one who is known to be in the middle of the two lives mediates between these two lives, so that by the destruction of the worse he may give the prize of victory to the undefiled one. As, then, by dying to the true life man fell into this dead life, so when he dies to this dead and bestial life he is changed over to the life that always lives. [So it is] beyond doubt that one cannot come to be in the blessed life without having become dead to sin. For this reason the word set out in philosophy that each of the two trees is in the same place, in the middle, since the one is there by nature, and the other comes upon what exists through privation. For from the same to the same, through participation and privation, the exchange of life and death takes place; since whoever has been put to death to the good lives to evil, and whoever has become dead in vice has come back to life for virtue.

Fittingly, then, the bride shows her hands full of myrrh, rising through deadness to all vice in order to open to the Word the entrance into herself. And the Word whom she brings in to dwell with her is life. Yet the soul that looks to God, lifted to such greatness through what we have contemplated, has not yet known, as Paul says, as one ought to know, nor does she reckon in herself that she has laid hold, but she still runs to what lies beyond, [straining forward] to what is ahead. For the sequence of the next words suggests that we understand this of her: "On the handles of the bolt I opened to my beloved." And she added: "My beloved had passed by; my soul went out at his word." She teaches us by this that in the case of the power that surpasses every mind there is one way of grasping: never to stop at what has been grasped, but for the one always seeking not to halt at the more that has been grasped. For she who has become full of myrrh, marking in all the practices of life (which she figuratively names fingers) the putting to death toward evil, and showing the voluntariness of her virtue by the myrrh dripping from her hands from within, says that her hands touched the bolt: that is, she says her works drew near to the narrow and hard entrance, whose bolt the Word entrusts to those like Peter. So she opens for herself the door of the kingdom by both: by the hands, by which works are shown, and by the bolt of faith. For through both of these, I mean works and faith, the key of the kingdom is prepared in us by the Word.

When, then, she hoped, as Moses did, that the face of the King would be manifested to her knowably, then the one she longed for passed beyond her grasp. For she says, "My beloved had passed by," not leaving the soul that follows him, but drawing her to himself. "For my soul went out at his word." O blessed that going out, which the soul that follows the Word goes out on! "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in," says the prophet. This is truly the going out and coming in that is kept by God for the worthy. For the going out from where we are becomes the coming in to the goods that lie beyond. This, then, is the going out on which the soul went out, using as guide the Word who said, "I am the door," and "the way," and "If anyone enters by me, he will go in and go out," never ceasing from going in nor stopping from going out; rather, he [never] stops, going in by advance to what lies beyond and always coming to be outside what has been grasped.

So then that longed-for face of the Lord passed by Moses too; and so the soul of the lawgiver was always coming to be outside the place where it was, following the Word as he went forward. For who does not know those ascents of Moses, who was always becoming great and never stopped growing toward the greater? He grew at the beginning, when he counted the reproach of Christ higher than the kingdom of the Egyptians, choosing rather to suffer ill with the people of God than to have the passing enjoyment of sin. He grew again when, as the Egyptian was oppressing the Hebrew, he killed the foreigner, fighting for the Israelite. You surely understand the manner of growth in these things, if you change the history into figurative contemplation. Again he became greater than himself, keeping his life free from the din for a long time through philosophy in the desert. Then he is illumined by the fire in the bush. Besides this, he bares his feet of their dead covering; with his rod he consumes the serpents of the Egyptians; he delivers his kinsmen from Pharaoh's tyranny; he is guided by a cloud; he divides the sea; he sinks the tyranny under the water; he sweetens Marah; he makes the rock flow; he is filled with the food of angels; he hears the trumpets; he ventures onto the burning mountain; he touches the summit; he goes under the cloud; he comes to be within the darkness in which God was; he receives the covenant; he becomes a sun unapproachable to those who draw near, flashing light from his face. And how could anyone in words go through all his ascents and his varied manifestations of God? Yet this man, so great and of such a kind, who had come to be in so many such things, and through being lifted so high toward God, still has an insatiable desire for more, and becomes a suppliant to see God face to face. And yet the word had already testified that he had been granted face-to-face converse with him. Yet neither speaking with him as with a friend, nor his mouth-to-mouth converse with God, halts his desire for higher things. But "If I have found favour in your sight," he says, "show yourself to me knowably." And he who promised to give the favour asked, who said, "I know you above all," passes by him at the divine place, on the rock, covered by the divine hand, so that after his passing he barely saw his back. By this, I think, the word teaches that the one who desires to see God sees what he longs for in always following him, and the contemplation of his face is the unceasing journey toward him, achieved by following the Word from behind.

So now too the soul, when she rose through death, when she was filled with myrrh, when she brought her hands to the bolt through her works and hoped to bring the one she longs for to dwell with her, then he passes by, and she goes out, no longer remaining in what she was in, but following as the Word goes forward ahead. The next word confirms our earlier understanding more, that the greatness of the divine nature is not known in being [grasped], but in passing beyond every grasping imagination and power. For the soul that has already gone out of [its own] nature, so as [to use] none of its accustomed [means] for the knowledge of things invisible, neither stops seeking what is not found nor ceases calling what cannot be uttered. For she says, "I sought him and did not find him." For how could that be found which shows nothing of what is known: no form, no colour, no outline, no quantity, no place, no shape, no conjecture, no likeness, no analogy, but, being always found outside every approach that grasps, wholly escapes the hold of those who seek? For this reason she says: "I sought him through the soul's powers of discovery, in reasonings and thoughts and [concepts], and he was wholly outside, escaping the approach of the mind." And how could he, who is always found outside every distinguishing mark, be comprehended by some meaning of a name? For this reason she devises every power of names for signifying the unspeakable good, but every power of speech is defeated and shown to fall short of the truth. So she says: "I called as I could, devising words to indicate the unspeakable blessedness; but he was greater than the indication of what is signified."

So the great David does too, often calling the Divine by countless names and confessing that he falls short of the truth. "For you, O God," he says, "are compassionate and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and true," and "strength," and "firmament," "refuge," and "power," and "helper," and "protector," and "horn of salvation," and the like. And again he confesses that his name is not known in all the earth, but is marvelled at: "How wonderful," he says, "is your name in all the earth!" So too the one who gave the oracle to Manoah about his child, when asked about his name, says that it is wonderful and too great to be held by human hearing. For this reason the soul calls the Word as she can; but she cannot as she wishes. For she wishes more than she can; yet she will not even wish as much as he is, but as much as free choice can wish. Since, then, the one called is beyond the reach of the caller's impulse, she therefore says: "I called him, and he did not hear me."

What the bride adds to what has been said, even if on the surface it gives a gloomier indication, seems to me to look to the same aim and to hold to the ascent to higher things. For she says: "The watchmen who go about in the city found me; [they struck me, they wounded me; they took my] veil from me, the watchmen of the walls." To some these may seem the words of one lamenting rather than rejoicing, "they struck" and "they wounded"; but to one who has examined the sense of what is said, they are the cries of one boasting of the finest things. What is said may become plain to us thus. A little before, in what went earlier, the word testifies that she is pure of all [covering], where it says in the person of the bride, "I have taken off my tunic; how shall I put it on?" But here again she says that her veil was taken from her. [The veil is put] over the head and covers the face, as the history says about Rebekah. How, then, does she who was stripped of every covering still have the veil, which the watchmen now take from her? Is it not plain from these words how far she has climbed by advance from that point to what is higher? For having put off the old tunic and [put away every covering, she] becomes purer, so that, by comparison with the purity that has now come to her, she seems not to have put it off; but after that stripping she finds again something about her to lay aside. So the ascent toward the Divine shows that something coarse is always found about her. For this reason, by comparison with her purity, that stripping of the tunic described before is taken off again, as a covering, by those who find her. These are the watchmen who go about the city; and the city is the soul; and they took away her veil by striking and wounding her, those whose work is to guard the walls of the city.

That the removal of the veil is something good, so that the eye, freed of its covering, may gaze unhindered at the beauty it longs for, no one would [doubt] who looks to the apostle, who ascribes the removal of the veil to the power of the Spirit, saying: "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed; and the Lord is the Spirit." And that whatever produces the good is itself certainly good, no one would doubt who knows how to look to the sequence of reasoning. If, then, the removal of the veil is good, the blow and the wound by which the removal is achieved would certainly be good too. But since, by the obvious sense, some unpleasantness appears in these words (for the words "they struck me" and "they wounded me" indicate pain), it would be well first to observe the use of such words in holy Scripture, where it has mentioned them in a better sense, and then so to contemplate the force of what is said here. How does wisdom deliver the soul of the young man from death? Let us hear wisdom itself, what it counsels to do so that the young man may not die. "If you strike him with a rod," it says, "he will not die. For you will strike him with a rod, and deliver his soul from death." So the word "they struck" seems to interpret immortality, as the word says, "If you strike with a rod, he will not die," and that the soul cannot otherwise be delivered from death unless it is struck with the rod. So being struck has been shown by these words to be good, since it is truly good that the soul be delivered from death. The prophet says that God too acts so, giving life by killing and healing by striking: "For I," he says, "will kill, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal." For this reason the great David too said that not a blow, but comfort comes from such a rod, saying: "Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me." From them come also the preparation of the divine table and everything the psalm contains in sequence: the oil on the head, and the unmixed wine of the cup that works the sober drunkenness, and the mercy that well pursues him, and the length of days in the house of God. If, then, that sweet blow provides these things, both according to the teaching of Proverbs and according to the prophet's word, it is good to be struck with the rod from which comes the abundance of such goods.

But rather, let us examine what was passed over before these words. The Word passed by the bride, becoming beyond the reach of her who longs for him; but he passed not so as to leave her whom he ran past, but rather so as to draw her to himself. For she says, "My soul went out at his word." So the soul goes out from where it was, and so is found by those who guard the city. "For the watchmen," she says, "who go about the city found me." If the dangers of Hades had found her, or she said that robbers found her, it would be grievous for her to become the find of such. For the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But if the watchmen who go about in the city find her, she is surely to be called blessed for such a finding. For one found by the watchman cannot be stolen by robbers. Who, then, are the watchmen? Who else but the servants of the one who guards Israel? Of the one who keeps the right hand by his guarding? Of the one entrusted with keeping the soul from all evil? He is guardian of the going in and the going out; he is the guardian of the city, of whom [the psalm] says: "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman has kept awake in vain." So by the watchmen who go about the city the word shows the ministering spirits, sent for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. And the soul, as has been said, is God's dwelling place.

By these, then, the soul was found, she says, as the sheep was once found by the good shepherd, at which all the choirs of the flocks were moved to gladness, according to the Lord's word. So too the coin was once found by the lamp, at which all the friends and neighbours rejoice. Such a find David too becomes, the servant of the Lord, as the psalm says in the person of God: "I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him." Since he became the possession of the one who found him, let us hear what he is granted: "My hand," it says, "will help him, and my arm will strengthen him; and I will cut down his enemies before him, and put to flight those who hate him," and all the rest the list of blessing contains. So it is good for the soul to be found by the angels who go about the city. For the great [David] suggests that we understand it so, saying: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and will deliver them." So she who said, "The watchmen struck me," was boasting that some addition had come to her advance upward. And if she says she has also been wounded, she presents in words the mark [of the blow] that has gone deep into her through the divine rod. For she does not receive the working of the spiritual rod superficially, so that the place where she received the rod cannot be recognized; but the blow is shown to be distinct through the wound, and the bride boasts of it.

What is said is this. That divine rod and comforting staff, which works healing by striking, is the Spirit, whose fruit is all the goods that Paul counted, and among the others self-control, the tutor of the virtuous way of life. So too Paul, branded with such blows, exulting in these wounds, said: "I bear the marks of Christ in my body," showing [by them] his weakness in every evil, through which the power according to Christ is made perfect in virtue. So the wound too has been shown by these words to be good, through which the removal of the veil has come to her, so that the beauty of the soul is uncovered for her, no longer darkened [by the veil].

[Let us go over] the sense of what has been said. The soul that looks to God, and takes up that good longing for incorruptible beauty, always has a fresh desire for what lies beyond, never blunting her longing by satiety. For this reason she never ceases straining forward to what lies ahead, going out from where she is and entering into what is further within, where she has not yet been; and what at any time appears to her wonderful and great she makes lower than what follows, since what is always found is altogether more beautiful than what was grasped before. So Paul too died every day, since he was always passing to some new life, always becoming dead to what had gone by and forgetting what lay behind. For this reason the bride too, running to the bridegroom, finds no halt to her advance toward the greater. She makes paradises of pomegranates through her mouth, flowing with spices. She prepares food for the Master of creation, welcoming him with her own fruits. She makes gardens well up. She becomes a well of living water. She is shown to be all fair and unblemished, according to the Word's testimony. Having come again beyond these, she perceives more magnificently, as the Word goes forward, filled on his head with dew and with the drops of the night that form in his locks. She washes her feet, takes off her tunic, drips myrrh from her hands. She brings her hands to the bolt, opens the entrance, seeks the one who is not grasped, calls the one beyond reach. She is found by the watchmen. She receives on herself the striking rod. She imitates the rock, of which the prophet says, "He struck the rock, and waters gushed out." Do you see to what height the bride has run up? Struck for this reason, like the flint by Moses, so that in its likeness she too may well up for the thirsty with the Word, pouring from the fountain. Then, besides this, [she lays bare] the beauty of her face, [when] the veil [is taken off] by the watchmen.

These are the things we have been able to grasp in this place. There is no grudging if a contemplation more profitable to the soul comes to anyone in these texts from the one who reveals hidden mysteries. Perhaps someone will say that Isaiah's vision too has some fellowship with the texts before us. I mean that vision when, after the death of the leprous king, he says he saw the one seated in majesty on the high and lifted-up throne, whose form, size, and appearance he could not see. For he would surely have told it, if he had been able, as he did with the other things he saw, counting the wings and describing their standing and flight. But he says he heard only a voice, when the lintel was lifted by the hymn of the seraphim, and the house was filled with smoke, and by one of the seraphim a burning coal was put to the prophet's mouth; when this was done, not only his lips but also his hearing was cleansed to receive the word. For as here the bride says she was struck and wounded by the watchmen and so stripped of the covering of the veil, so there, instead of the veil, the lintel is lifted, so that the contemplation of what is in the sanctuary may be unhindered for him; instead of the watchmen the seraphim are named; instead of the rod, the coal; instead of the blow, the burning. The end is common to the bride and to the prophet's soul: purity. As, then, the prophet is not pained when burned by the coal but glorified when made bright, so here too the bride does not complain of pain from the blow, but boasts of the increase of her boldness, [which the] word has named [a wound].

One may also find in the words before us another sense, in no way out of tune with what has been contemplated. For the soul that went out at his word, seeking the one who is not found and calling the one beyond the reach of the meaning of names, is taught by the watchmen that she loves the unreachable and longs for the incomprehensible. By this she is in a way struck and wounded by despair of what she longs for, thinking her desire unfulfilled and without enjoyment of [the beautiful]. But the veil of grief is taken away by learning that always advancing in seeking and never ceasing from the ascent is the true enjoyment of what is longed for, since desire, ever filled, begets another desire for what lies beyond. When, then, the veil of despair was taken off and she saw the beauty of the beloved, beyond hope and uncircumscribed, always found greater through the whole eternity of the ages, she is stretched out in more vehement longing, and through the daughters of Jerusalem she makes known to the beloved the disposition of her heart: that, having received in herself God's chosen arrow, she has been struck in the heart by the point of faith, having received the shot of love in a vital place. And love is God, according to John's word, to whom glory and power are fitting for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily 13 (Song 5:8–12)

"I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field: if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? That I am wounded by love. What is your beloved more than a beloved, O fair among women? What is your beloved more than a beloved, that you have so adjured us? My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousands. His head is gold of Kephaz; his locks are lofty, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the fullness of waters, bathed [in milk], by the fullness of waters."

He who gave the mysteries of the law through Moses, and fulfilled the whole law and the prophets through himself, as he says in the gospel, "I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfil it"; who by doing away with anger wiped out murder along with it, and by removing desire drove out with it the pollution of adultery: he also banishes from life the curse of perjury, binding the sickle in idleness by forbidding the oath. For there cannot be a breach of an oath where there is no oath. So he says: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.' But I say to you," he says, "do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King; nor shall you swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your word be 'Yes, yes' and 'No, no'; anything more than these is from the devil."

The soul attested to be perfect through the Song of Songs, having taken away the veil of the soul in putting off the old tunic and cast off the veil, which we understand to be every doubting and wavering thought, so as to look at the truth purely and without doubt, adjures the daughters of Jerusalem neither by the divine throne, which the word names heaven, nor by God's royal city, whose name is Jerusalem, nor yet by the precious head, whose hairs can become neither white nor black; but she transfers the oath to the field, putting the adjuration on the young women by the powers in it, saying: "I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the [field]." That she who was attested to be wholly fair and pure of every blemish utters nothing superfluous, which belongs to the devil's portion, but makes her speech from God, from whom, according to Micah, comes whatever is good and whatever is fair, and nothing besides these, is plain to anyone who has learned from the Master's testimony the advantages that belong to the bride. For she has let go all the forbidden kinds of oath, and has made neither the royal city nor the throne of the great King an object of oath for the young women (by this we are taught how far we must keep from venturing on God in oaths, since we are not permitted to take even the throne or the city into an oath); and she has spared besides the precious head, which in what follows she describes in words as golden, whose hairs are neither white nor black (for how could gold be blackened or changed in colour to white?). Surely, then, she puts to the virgins an adjuration of such a kind as does not fight against the law of the gospel, and becomes a ground of praise for those who have sworn, according to the prophet's word that says, "Everyone who swears by him shall be praised." So the sense of what is said is not outside the double word by which the law of the gospel wishes the truth to be confirmed, saying: "Let your word be 'Yes, yes' and 'No, no.'"

If, then, among the thoughts of the oath the King's throne is forbidden to be taken, and the city in which the palace is is forbidden, and in the same way the true head is forbidden from being taken into an oath, and only "Yes" and "No" are allowed, the truth being seen equally through both in the "Yes," it would be plain that now too the oath which the bride puts on the young women is drawn up within the sense of "Yes," where the assent of our soul must be firmly set. The wording runs thus: "I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field: if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? That I am wounded by love." These things have already been contemplated in what went before, as the sequence of thoughts required; but what we find will be said briefly now too.

The apostle says that the oath is an unchangeable thing, confirming the truth by itself, and he defines it as the end of every dispute, for the confirmation of what is known. So the bride puts the adjuration on the virgins, so that what is said may be kept by them without being betrayed. But since every oath is made by what is greater, as the apostle says (for no one would make an oath by what is less honourable than himself), we should examine what greater thing is put to the young women by the bride in the oath. "I have adjured you," she says, "O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field." What, then, in these is above us? We do not doubt that the field is to be understood by figurative meaning as the world, since the Lord both named and interpreted the world so. What, then, are the many powers and strengths of the world set before us in the oath, which must be thought greater than us, so that the oath, made by what is greater, may have strength for the confirmation of the truth? It would therefore be necessary, for clarity about the words before us, to set beside them another edition interpreting the texts, which runs thus: "I have adjured [you, daughters of] Jerusalem, by the [gazelles] and by the deer of the field." We are taught, then, by these names in what the strength of this world consists and in what its power, which are taken up through the oath for the confirmation of the truth.

There are two things that make man God's own. One is the unerring character of the conception of what truly is, so as not to be carried away by deceived suppositions into pagan and heretical opinions about the Divine; this is truly the "Yes." The other is pure reasoning, which banishes every passionate disposition of the soul; nor is this estranged from the "Yes." The mention of the gazelles and the deer makes known through symbols the power of this double possession of goods, one of which makes us look up to what truly is, while the other puts to flight the passions that harm the soul. For of these, the one sees unerringly, and the other has a power of devouring and destroying wild creatures. This, then, is the "Yes" that the bride puts to the virgins: that one must look to the Divine with piety and pass through life purely in freedom from passion. When these are achieved, the unchangeable thing, the "Yes," is confirmed in us. For this is the oath that guarantees the truth, by which everyone who swears is praised, as the prophet says. For truly the one who has achieved security in himself in these two things, in the word of faith, when he looks unerringly to the truth, and in the manner of life, when he is pure of every defilement from wickedness, swears to the Lord not to go up to the couch of his bed, not to give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids, until he finds in himself a place for the Lord, having become a tabernacle for the one who dwells in him.

If, then, we too are children of the Jerusalem above, let us hear the bride, our teacher, how it is possible to see the [beloved]. What, then, does she say? If we make this the object of our oath, to be in the powers of the clear-sighted gazelles and in the strengths of the deer that destroy vice, it is possible through these to see the pure bridegroom, the archer of love, and for each one's soul to say to him, "I am wounded by love." We have learned from Proverbs too that the wounds of love are good, where it says, "The wounds of a friend are to be chosen, but even the kisses of enmity are evil." Who is the friend whose wounds are preferable to the enemy's kisses? It is plain to all who are not ignorant of the mysteries of salvation. For the true and steadfast friend is the one who did not stop loving us even when we had become enemies; and the faithless and savage enemy is the one who brought us to death though we had done him no wrong. To the first-formed humans the prohibition of evil given through the commandment seemed a wound; for estrangement from what was pleasant was thought a wound, and the urging toward what was pleasant and appeared fine a kiss. But experience showed that what were thought the friend's wounds were more profitable and more to be chosen than the enemy's kisses. Since, then, the fair lover of our souls showed his love by this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us, the bride, loving in return the one who loved her, shows the arrow of love lodged deep within her, that is, fellowship in his Godhead. For love is God, as has been said, who came into the heart through the point of faith. And if we must also say the name of this arrow, we have found what we learned from Paul: that this arrow is faith working through love. But let these things stand as seems good to each.

Let us see also the question put to the teacher by the virgins: "What is your beloved more than a beloved, O fair among women? What is your beloved more than a beloved, that you have so adjured us?" The saying seems to me to contain some such sense as the sequence of what has been examined lets us conjecture. For the virgins saw the fair going out of the bride's soul, when she who said, "My soul went out at his word," clung to the Word. And they knew that, having gone out, she was seeking the one who is not found through signs, and was calling aloud the one who did not answer to names. For this reason they say: "How shall we come to know him, who is found by no recognizable sign, who neither answers when called nor is held when sought? You too, then, take the veils from our eyes, as the watchmen of the city did for you, so that we may have some guidance toward what is sought. Tell us who your beloved is, as he is in the account of his nature. Give us an approach to knowing him by some recognizable proofs, you who have been filled with the beautiful and for this reason have become fair among women. Make known to us what is sought, and teach us by what signs the invisible one is found, so that we may tell him about the arrow of love by which you have been wounded in the middle of the heart, increasing your longing through the sweet pain." It would be better to take up the same saying again word for word, so that the sense set out may fit the texts: "What is your beloved more than a beloved, O fair among women? What is your beloved more than a beloved, that you have so adjured us?"

Let us hear, then, the one who has been [freed of the veil], who looks at the truth with the eye of the soul: how she describes what is sought for them, how she paints in words the character of the one she longs for, how she brings before the virgins' eyes the one who is unknown.

For of Christ, one aspect is uncreated and the other created. We call uncreated in him what is eternal and before the ages and the maker of all beings; and created what, in the economy on our behalf, was conformed to the body of our humiliation. Or rather, it would be better to set out the sense of this in words through the divine sayings themselves. We call uncreated the Word who was in the beginning, through whom all things came into being, and without whom nothing of what has come into being exists; and created, the one who became flesh and dwelt among us. Even when he was made flesh, the glory that showed forth reveals that God was manifested in flesh: God, surely, the only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, as John says: "We beheld his glory." And though what appeared was a man, what was made known through him, he says, was "glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Since, then, what is uncreated in him, before the ages and eternal, is wholly ungraspable and unutterable for every nature, but what was manifested to us through flesh can to some extent come into knowledge, the teacher therefore always looks to these things and makes her discourse about whatever can be taken in by her hearers. I mean the great mystery of piety, through which God was manifested in flesh, he who was in the form of God and lived among men through flesh. Since he once drew to himself through the first fruits the perishable nature of the flesh, which he took up through incorrupt virginity, he always sanctifies the common nature with incorruption through those who are united to him by fellowship in the mystery, nourishing his own body, the church, and fitting to the common body the members that grow through faith in him, each in its place. He makes the whole comely, disposing believers suitably and fittingly as eyes and mouth and hands and the other parts. For so Paul says: "The body is one, but the members are many." And the members do not all have the same rank; but there is an eye in the body that does not despise the hand, and one who is a head does not push away the feet; rather, the whole body is blended with itself through its members in the variety of their activities, so that the members may not rebel against the whole. Having set out these thoughts through riddles, he brings the discourse to greater clarity, saying: "God has set in the church apostles, prophets, teachers, and shepherds, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." And again: "Let us grow up into him in all things, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is supplied, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of his body, for building up in love." So the one who looks at the church looks straight at Christ, who builds up and enlarges himself through the addition of those who are saved.

She, then, who has put off the veil from her eyes sees with pure eye the unspeakable beauty of the bridegroom, and for this reason has been wounded by the bodiless and fiery arrow of passionate love. For love intensified is called passionate love (ἔρως); of which no one is ashamed, when the shot from it is not against the flesh; rather, one boasts of the wound when one receives in the depth of the heart the point of immaterial longing. This is what the bride too has done, saying to the young women, "[I am wounded by love]."

She, then, who has advanced to such perfection, since she had also to show the virgins the beauty of the bridegroom, does not speak of what was in the beginning (for it was not possible for the unspeakable to be revealed by power of speech), but leads the virgins by the hand to the [manifestation] that came about through flesh. The great John too did this, keeping silence on what was from the beginning, and describing carefully what we have seen and heard and our hands have handled concerning the word of truth. So the bride says to them: "My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousands. His head is gold of Kephaz; his locks are lofty, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the fullness of waters, bathed in milk, sitting by the fullness of waters. His cheeks are like bowls of spice, putting forth perfumes. His lips are lilies, dripping full myrrh. His hands are turned, golden, filled with Tharsis. His belly is an ivory tablet on a sapphire stone. His legs are pillars [of marble] on bases of gold. His appearance is like chosen Lebanon, like cedars. His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire. This is my beloved, and this is my close one, daughters of Jerusalem."

All these things, through which the description of his beauty has been made, are not indications of the invisible and incomprehensible things of the Godhead, but of what was manifested in the economy, when he was seen on earth and lived among men, having put on human nature. Through these, according to the apostle's word, his invisible things too are clearly seen, understood through the things made, manifested through the construction of the church's world. For the construction of the church is the creation of a world, in which, according to the prophet's word, a new heaven is created, which is the firmament of faith in Christ, as Paul says; and a new earth is prepared, which drinks the rain that comes upon it; and another man is formed, renewed through the birth from above after the image of the one who created him; and another nature of luminaries comes to be, of whom he says, "You are the light of the world," and "among whom you shine as luminaries in the world"; and many stars, rising in the firmament of faith. And it is not yet this that is wonderful, that there are multitudes of stars in this new world, numbered and named by God, whose names the maker of such stars says are written in the heavens. For so I have heard the creator of the new creation say to his own luminaries: "Your names are written in the heavens." Nor is this the only paradox of the new creation, that a multitude of stars is made in it by the Word, but also that many suns are created, lighting the inhabited world with the rays of good works. For so the maker of such suns says: "Let your light shine before men," and "Then the righteous will shine like the sun."

As, then, the one who looks at the perceptible world, and understands the wisdom that shows in the beauty of beings, reasons by analogy, through what is seen, to the invisible beauty and the fountain of wisdom whose outflow constituted the nature of beings, so the one who looks at this new world of the creation in the church sees in it the one who is and becomes all in all, his knowledge being led by the hand through what can be taken in and grasped by our faith toward what cannot be contained. For this reason, since the virgin souls make this request of the soul that has run up to perfection, that the one she longs for be made known to them, she describes to the virgins the marks of the one sought through what has been manifested to us for salvation. And having made the whole church one body of the bridegroom, she shows some particular thought through each of the members in the description of the beauty, so that from all the parts contemplated singly [the beauty of the whole body may be made known].

She makes the beginning of her teaching, then, with what is near and familiar to us. For she begins from the body of instruction, just as Matthew did: having traced the genealogy of the mystery according to the flesh from Abraham and David, he left it to the great John to proclaim, to those already instructed in the elements by these things, the beginning understood from eternity and the Word understood together with the beginning. Through these thoughts, then, the bride initiates the young women: that our mind will not be led to the ungraspable and boundless before it has laid hold by faith of what was seen; and what was seen is the nature of the flesh. For when she says, "My beloved is white and ruddy," she describes in words the property of the flesh through the mixing of these two colours. She did this also earlier, naming him an apple tree, whose appearance is seen to be mixed of both colours. For the apple is white and grows red, showing symbolically, I think, the nature of blood by its redness. But since all flesh is constituted in one way, marriage always opening the road to birth for those who [come] into this life through generation, so that no one, accepting a generation of flesh in the mystery of piety, might let his mind slip down to the works and passions of nature, thinking the generation of that flesh to be of the same kind as all: for this reason she confessed that the one who shared in flesh and blood is white and ruddy, hinting at the nature of the body through the two colours; yet she does not say that he was born in the same way, by the common birth. But out of all the ten thousands from whom human beings have come, and to which nature will advance as it flows through the birth of those who come after, he alone is the one who touched this life by a new kind of childbirth, for whose coming into being nature did not cooperate but served.

For this reason, she says, this white and ruddy one, who came to dwell in life through flesh and blood, is alone out of all the ten thousands [born] from virginal purity: the childbirth undefiled, the travail painless. His bridal chamber is the power of the Most High, overshadowing the virginity like a cloud; the wedding torch is the shining of the Holy Spirit; the bed is freedom from passion; and the marriage is incorruption. He, then, who came into being from such things was fittingly named "chosen" (ἐκλελοχισμένος) out of all the ten thousands, which signifies that he is not from a childbed (λέχος). For his birth alone was without childbirth, as his conception was without marriage. For in the case of one incorrupt and without experience of marriage it is not possible properly to speak the name of childbirth, since the names of virginity and childbirth are incompatible in the same person. But as a Son was given to us without a father, so the child was born without childbirth. For as the Virgin did not know how the body that received God was formed in her body, so neither did she perceive the birth, the prophecy testifying to the painlessness of her travail. For Isaiah says: "Before the pains of travail came, she escaped and bore a male." For this reason he is "chosen out of childbirth," departing in both respects from the sequence of nature, neither beginning from pleasure nor coming forth through pain. And this happens consistently and is not beyond reason. For since she who brought death into nature through sin was condemned to bear in griefs and pains, it was altogether fitting that the mother of life should begin her pregnancy from joy and complete the birth through joy. For "Rejoice," the archangel says to her, by that word [taking away] the grief that from the beginning was allotted to childbirth because of sin.

This, then, is the one who, by the new and singular manner of birth, out of all the ten thousands alone became such, fittingly named white and ruddy because of the flesh and the blood, and chosen out of ten thousands because of the incorrupt and passionless character of his birth compared with the others. Or perhaps the bride fitted this word to him also because of the other kinds of birth that came about through childbirth. You surely know how many times the firstborn of all creation was born: among many brothers, the firstborn from the dead, the first who loosed the pangs of death and opened for all the way of birth from the dead through the resurrection. In all these he was born, yet he did not pass into birth through childbirth. For the birth from water did not admit the experience of childbirth, nor the rebirth from the dead, nor his being firstborn of this divine creation; but in all these the birth is pure of childbirth. For this reason she says: "Chosen out of ten thousands."

What his beauty is like as she describes it in each of his members, it would be time to understand through what has been said. "His head is gold of Kephaz." If [translated] into our language, gold pure and unadulterated and free of every admixture is shown by this word. Those who put the words of the Hebrews into Greek seem to me to have left the word "Kephaz" untranslated because they found no word in Greek speech that expresses the meaning seen in the Hebrew word. But we, having learned that such a word indicates what is purely clean, unmixed with all filthy matter and not admitting it, are led to understand this about the text before us: that the head of the body of the church is Christ. And by Christ we now mean, not referring this name to the eternity of the Godhead, but to the man who received God, who was seen on earth and lived among men, the shoot of virginity, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, the first fruits of the common lump, through whom the Word clothed himself with our nature, making it undefiled, [pure of] all [evil]. For the prophet says of him, "He committed no sin," [and the apostle speaks] of the one who was tempted in all things according to the likeness of our nature, without sin. The head, then, of the body of the church, the first fruits of our whole nature, is the gold pure and unmixed with all vice and not admitting it.

And the locks, which were once gloomy and black, like ravens in appearance (I mean those ravens whose work is to peck out eyes, according to the proverbial word, and to prepare those robbed of their organs of sight as food for the eagles' young), these, becoming "lofty," the high trees that reach to heaven, because they have run up from earth to the heavenly height, become an addition to the bridegroom's beauty, hanging from his divine head. Surely no one is ignorant of what the work of these locks is, having learned it above from the bridegroom's own voice: "My locks are filled with drops of water." His, then, are the dripping locks, named clouds by the prophets, from which comes the rain of teaching that waters the lifeless fields for the fruitfulness of God's husbandry. I think that by the locks the apostles are figuratively signified by God the Word, some of whom were formerly gloomy in the practices of their life: the robber, the tax collector, the persecutor, and anyone else of the sort, like the black and flesh-eating raven that destroys eyes. I mean the ruler of the power of darkness, as the one says who became a lofty tree from a raven and for this reason was named a lock of the divine head: that, being formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, while he was a raven, he was changed to this grace, becoming a lock soaked with heavenly dew, sprinkling the whole body of the church with the word of hidden and dark mysteries. We have understood, then, that these are called locks by the bride; hanging from the golden head, they make no small addition to its loveliness, stirred by the breeze of the Spirit. These become crowns of beauty for the undefiled head, adorning it with their circle. For of these the prophecy seems to me to say, "You set on his head a crown of precious stone." So they are understood by both thoughts, as comely locks and as precious stones, by which the head [is adorned].

It would follow to contemplate in words also what is said about the eyes. The wording is this: "His eyes are doves by the fullness of waters, bathed in milk, sitting by the fullness of waters." The sense of what is said is higher than our grasp. For whatever we understand about these we think less than the truth; but as we examine it carefully, it seemed to us something like this. The divine apostle says somewhere in his writings that the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," making it a teaching by this that the body of the church must act well through both, the clear sight of the truth being blended with what is active; since neither does contemplation by itself perfect the soul unless the works that achieve the moral life are present, nor does practical philosophy provide sufficient benefit unless true piety leads what is done. If, then, the pairing of the eyes with the hands is necessary, perhaps we are led by what has been said first to understand who the eyes are, then to take in contemplation the praise of them; the account of the hands we shall keep for its own place. For seeing is the proper work of eyes by nature; for this reason in their position they lie above all the senses, set in front by nature for the guidance of the whole body. When, then, we hear that those who lead in the truth are so named by divine Scripture, one of whom was called the Seer, another the One Who Sees, and another named by the prophecy the Watchman before God, we are led by these to understand here as eyes those appointed to oversee and look upon and watch over.

And we are taught that the wonder about them comes by a certain comparative likeness, the comparison with something better describing their beauty. For it says: "His eyes are doves." For innocence is truly a fine praise of such eyes, which those achieve who are no longer defiled by a fleshly life, but live and walk by the Spirit. For the spiritual and immaterial life is characterized by the form of the dove, since the Holy Spirit himself was seen so by John, flying from heaven upon the water. So the one appointed by God as eyes for the body of the church, if he is to oversee and look upon purely, must wash off in the water all the rheum of vice. And it is not one water that washes the eyes, but it says the fullnesses of such waters are many. For as many as the virtues are, so many must we understand the fountains of cleansing waters to be, through which the eyes become always purer than themselves: for example, self-control is a fountain of cleansing water; another such fountain is humility; truth, righteousness, courage, desire for the good, and estrangement from evil. These and such are waters from one fountain, but gathered from different streams into one fullness, through which the eyes are cleansed of all the rheum of passion.

The eyes, then, are by the fullnesses of the waters, made like doves through their purity and innocence; and it says that their bath is milk, since the word says, "bathed in milk." It is a fitting praise for such eyes that such a dove is made lovely by bathing in milk. For the observation about milk is true, that it alone has this property: no image or likeness appears in it. For all things of liquid nature, like mirrors, make the likenesses of those who look into them appear back through the smoothness of their surface; in milk alone such image-making has no place. For this reason the most perfect praise of the church's eyes is this: to sketch for themselves by deceit nothing unsubstantial, erring, and vain, beside the truth of beings, but to see the one who truly is, and not to admit the [deceptive] sights and imaginings of this life. For this reason the perfect soul [counts] the bath of milk a safe thing for the purity of the eyes.

The next word is a law for those who understand, telling on what the eyes must spend their zeal. "Sitting," it says, "by the fullness of waters." For such a word suggests the constant attendance of attention on the divine teachings, by which it praises pure eyes, and teaches us how we may take up again the proper beauty of the eyes: [by sitting] always by the [fullnesses] of the waters. [But now] many of those appointed to be eyes, having left off attending such fullnesses, sit beside deep rivers [of another kind], fulfilling the accusation made in the person of God against such men: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water." The lesson, then, of how an eye may become fair, suiting and fitting the golden head, is this: that it be innocent like the dove, unerring and undeceived like the nature of milk, [wandering] in no error, through remaining and attending by the fullnesses of the divine waters, like the tree planted by the channels of the waters and not moved. For so its fruit will be put forth in its own season, and the branch will be kept ever green, stirring with the bright colour of its leaves. But now those of the eyes who neglect these spiritual waters and care little about attending to the word either dig for themselves the cistern of love of money, or dig the well of vainglory and pride, or carefully dig some other cisterns of deceit, which by nature cannot hold for ever the water they are eager for; for honour and power and glory here, on which the zeal of the many is spent, always flow away as soon as they are formed, and leave no trace of the zeal in those deceived. The Word wishes those who see and oversee to be such that the security of the divine teachings is set before them like a covering of eyebrows, and the purity and brightness of their way of life is covered by self-control as by a covering of eyelids, so that the beam of conceit may never fall into the pure pupil and become a hindrance to sight.

What the praise is in the members of the bridegroom [after] the eyes [we shall consider] in what follows, God granting, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Homily 14 (Song 5:13–16)

"His cheeks are like bowls of spice, putting forth perfumes. His lips are lilies, dripping [full myrrh. His] hands are turned, golden, filled with Tharsis. His belly is an ivory tablet on a sapphire stone. His legs are pillars of marble, founded on bases of gold. His appearance is like chosen Lebanon, like cedars. His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire. This is my beloved, and this is my close one, [daughters of Jerusalem]."

He who nourishes with pure milk those still in the infancy of spiritual age, becoming a nurse of the newborn in the church, as the apostle himself says, keeps the bread of wisdom for those perfected in the inner man, saying, "Yet among the perfect we speak wisdom." These, having the senses of the soul trained by the habit of good teachings, become ready to receive the bread of wisdom, grinding the reasoning fine with their teeth, since they need a jaw for their food. So there must also be cheeks in the body of Christ for those who no longer cling to the breast of the Word but already desire more solid food. Of these the bride now speaks, saying thus: "His cheeks are like bowls of spice, putting forth perfumes."

That the account of the cheeks follows on what was contemplated about the eye would be plain to anyone who listens intelligently. For this is why the eye, attending to the fullness of spiritual waters, must be bathed in the unerring and pure milk and made like a dove: so that it may make all who contribute to the body of the church sharers in its own goods. For this reason the great Isaiah too bids the one who has climbed the high mountain by his way of life to cry aloud with a clear voice, so that through him the hearers may know the Lord who comes with strength, and the arm that has authority over beings, who shepherds his flock, gathers the lambs, and comforts those who are pregnant well with good hopes; who has measured heaven with a span and holds the whole earth in his grasp; and whatever else besides the prophecy says must be proclaimed by the one who has climbed the summit. If, then, through these the power from the waters and the milk comes to the eyes for knowledge of the truth, it follows that after them the cheeks are praised, whose work is to grind fine the food by which the nature and strength of the body are preserved.

Let us see, then, in what the praise of the cheeks consists. Let us hear the bride, what she relates about them: "His cheeks," she says, "are like bowls of spice, putting forth [perfumes]." By the name "bowl" the word signifies a [shallow] kind of drinking vessel, in which the hollowness is concealed by its making, the shape being neither very deep nor laid straight out flat, so that it seems neither exactly hollow nor flat. If, then, the bride shows such a shape through the bowl, the praise of the cheeks would have a particular meaning from this shape. For one might say that the word, wishing to praise the simple, open, and guileless character of teaching, mentioned the bowl, in which the depth forbidden by the prophet cannot form, who said, "May I be delivered from those who hate me, and from the depths of the waters." So we say that the truth appearing in simplicity, without any deceitful hollowness, is signified by the name of the bowl, whose material is spice and whose work is to put forth perfumes. For "his cheeks are like bowls of spice," not made of silver or gold or glass or any other such material, but of the spice itself, putting forth from themselves the things from which perfumes are made.

The sense seen in these texts through what has been said is surely clear: that it belongs to the pure eyes of the church to [provide] such food to the body by the power of the cheeks, so that nothing deep and treacherous is seen in what is said, but all is clear and free and separated from all deceitful concealment and depth, so as to be plain even to infants, as the prophet says, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making infants wise"; "the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening [the eyes]." For if such are the bowls of the Word, they will clearly not be constituted of earthly material; their nature will be of the spice, I mean that spice which the bride says at the beginning of the Song is above all spices. Such a bowl was Paul, who commended himself not by handling the word with cunning, but by the manifestation of the truth. His material put away being from earth, from the time when through baptism he cast off the scales from his eyes together with the flesh; and he was re-formed from the fragrant spice, having become a child of the Holy Spirit. Since by such smithing he was fashioned a chosen vessel, becoming a bowl for pouring the wine of the word, he no longer had need of a man to pour into him the knowledge of the mysteries (for he did not confer with flesh and blood); but he himself put forth in himself and welled up the divine drink, compounding the varied flowers of the virtues through the fragrance of Christ for his hearers, so that, according to the differences and peculiarities of those who receive the word, a spice suited to the need of each seeker was found: for Jews, for Greeks, for women, for men, for masters, for slaves, for parents, for children, for those without the law, for those under the law. Truly the grace of his teaching was manifold, blended through every virtue, the bowl compounding perfume through his varied teachings for those who received the word, fitting each one's need.

Such cheeks, then, she praises who paints in words the beauty of the bridegroom's body. And that the praise of the cheeks looks to this, the next word testifies in sequence. For after the cheeks the lips are praised, through which the fragrant word comes forth. The praise runs thus: "His lips are lilies, dripping full myrrh." By the double example she testifies to two virtues of the word at once. One is the truth, seen bright and luminous in what is said; for such is the appearance of the lily, whose brightness is a riddle of the purity and truth of what is said. The other is that the teaching shows forth only the intellectual and immaterial life, the life below, worked through flesh and blood, being put to death through the contemplation of intelligible things. For the myrrh that flows from the body and fills the soul of the one who receives it becomes an indication of the putting to death of the body. For it has often been observed in the use of the God-inspired words that the name of myrrh signifies death.

The perfect and pure eye, then, which makes the cheek a bowl putting forth and welling up perfumes, makes the lilies of words flower through the mouth, words adorned with divine brightness. For so [the lips of the saints become lilies, from which drips] the drop of myrrh, filling without lack the minds of those who receive it: which is the despising of the material life, all that is pursued here becoming inactive and dead through desire for the goods that lie beyond. Such myrrh Paul once poured from his mouth, mixed with the pure lily of self-control, in the ears of the holy virgin. The virgin was Thecla, who, receiving well into her soul the drops that flowed, takes the outer man in death, quenching in herself every fleshly thought and desire. After that good teaching her youth was dead, her visible beauty was dead, all her bodily senses were dead; only the word lived in her, through which the whole world had died to her, and the virgin had died to the world. So too once at Cornelius's house the great Peter, uttering the bright lilies of the word, made the souls of the hearers full of myrrh; at once receiving his word, they were buried with Christ through baptism, becoming dead to this life. And besides these one may find countless examples among the saints of how, becoming the mouth of the common body of the church, they made their hearers full of the myrrh that puts the passions to death, bearing flowers through the lilies of the word, by which the great champions of the faith [made] the good confession at the time of their witness [before the persecutors]. But there is no need to lengthen the discourse on these at greater length, since the sense has become plain to us through what has been said: how the mouth of the church becomes a lily, how myrrh drips from the lily, and how the [soul] of those who receive it is filled with such a drop.

But let us now come to the next word. For it says: "His hands are turned, golden, filled with Tharsis." That in the body of the church the grace of the eye is imperfect when separated from the service of the hands we have learned clearly from the great Paul, who says, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you.'" For the activity of the eyes is shown most when the works testify to the eye's keen sight, marking by zeal for what is good the good guidance. Since we must set out the praise of the hands of the divine body and be guided by what is said as to how those who serve as hands in the church should be fitted, we shall try, God granting, setting out the divine saying itself, to contemplate as far as possible the sense lying in it. "His hands are turned, golden," it says, "filled with Tharsis." For the time being this much of the thought is plain from what has been said: the same things by which the form of the head is praised also complete the praise of the hands. And we understood the head to be Christ, in whom God was reconciling the world to himself, according to Paul's word, who manifested himself in the flesh through powers and wonders. If, then, this head as we understood it was named by the word pure gold, because it is outside all sin ("He committed no sin," it says, "nor was deceit found in his mouth"), and the word says that the hands are golden, what is understood by this is plain: the word legislates for the hand what is understood to be wholly pure and sinless, unmixed with all vice and not admitting it. And by the hand we surely understand the one who manages the common goods of the church for the needs of the commandments, whose praise is to be conformed to the nature of the head in purity and sinlessness.

The hand becomes pure when, through the turning, it scrapes off everything that hinders beauty. For as those who shape marble into some form of a living creature [remove by the turning what is superfluous, so that what remains may be a] likeness of the archetypal form, so in the beauty of the hands of the body of the church much must be scraped off by the turning of reasonings, so that the hand may become truly golden and undefiled. It is surely plain to all what things, if not removed from the hand, [are harmful] to its beauty: love of gain, looking only to appearance, seeking some distinction for oneself through what one handles, using the provision of the commandments for one's own luxury and enjoyment. All these and the like must be scraped off with the tools of reasoning, leaving only the pure gold of free choice, made like the undefiled head.

What is said would become clearer to us through the apostle's words. Having named God faithful, he asks nothing else of stewards too than that they be found faithful, writing in these words: "Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful." So the faithful and wise steward, serving as a hand to the church, shows the hand of the body golden in the likeness of the head, imitating his wise Master through his way of life. That Judas was not such a hand in the body of the apostles, the pitiable and wretched one, or rather the hateful and abominable one, who, entrusted with the management of the poor, did not scrape off the leprosy of love of money; but, being the guardian of the money box against thieves, became himself a thief of himself, stealing with his own hands what he held in his hands, and looking not to the commandment but to the money. And what came of its enjoyment? A voluntary noose, estrangement from life, the utter destruction of the soul, an evil memorial stretching through all the time after him. So the hands must be turned and carved, so that, when the evils have been removed, what remains may be gold, [made like] the beauty of the head in [purity].

The word "Tharsis" has many meanings in the usage of Scripture, not always found in the same sense; often its meaning is taken toward what is condemned, and often toward what is divine and blessed. When the prophet Jonah flees from the face of God, he seeks a ship going to Tharsis. And the great David says that a ship of Tharsis is shattered by a violent wind. I think the violent wind spoken of is the one that appeared to the disciples gathered in the upper room, which was first known beforehand by hearing, as of a violent wind rushing, and afterwards was manifested to the eyes too, shaped into a form and [taking] the nature of fire, [which shatters the ships of evil], which the prophet named ships of Tharsis. These, then, are the things by which the worse is signified by this name. But the great Ezekiel, bringing into description the vision of the manifestation of God that came to him, signifies by this word the form of one of the divine sights, saying, "And its appearance was like the appearance of Tharsis." Those who [have examined] the Hebrew words with accuracy say that [what is invisible] and bodiless is signified by this word in the prophecy. So, though the meaning of the word is not single, since it is plain that what this word signifies has now been taken in the better sense (for no one would take what is blameworthy as praise), it would follow to understand this of the hands being praised: that, carefully [scraping off] from themselves everything superfluous, they pass over to what is divine and intelligible, shaking off every material and heavy attachment to things. Something of the sort, they say, gem cutters do with the emerald stone. For having worn away with the whetstone what is lustreless and earthy, they leave only [that part of the stone] in which there is a pure gleam, green and at the same time oily. The divine apostle, interpreting this more clearly, seems to me to counsel this in one of his writings: that we must put away attachment to what appears and press with our desires toward the invisible. "For we look," he says, "not at what is seen, but at what is not seen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is not seen is eternal." This, then, is what we have understood in the praise of the hands: how, turned free of material attachment, they become undefiled, changed by free choice toward what is immaterial and intelligible. "For his hands are turned," it says, "golden, filled with Tharsis."

It would follow to examine also the next word, which she has spoken about the belly. The wording runs thus: "His belly is an ivory tablet on a sapphire stone." When the lawgiver of nature gives Moses the law engraved on stone tablets, he named the slabs on which the divine characters were imprinted "stone tablets" (πυξία), the one who gave the oracle to Moses speaking thus about them: "Come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you the stone tablets, the law and the commandments." After this, since the law scraped off what was bodily and earthy through the clarity of the gospel, the tablet that receives the letters is no longer of stone, but of bright and newly polished ivory. For what receives the commandments and laws, which has been named the belly, [is a] tablet, she says, of ivory on a sapphire stone. I think we must first make the bodily example plain in words, and then come to the contemplation of what has been said. Box (πύξος) is a dense, whitish wood, from which those concerned with letters skilfully make writing tablets for themselves. Such a writing tablet, made for the use of letters, even if it happens to be made of another material, is called a "box tablet" (πυξίον) by extension. So when we hear "tablet," we understand a smooth implement suited to receive letters. Since, then, "tablet" is a general name for such writing boards, here the word adds to the example also the kind of material, saying that the tablet is made not of wood but of ivory. They say that such bone, because of its great density and hardness, remains incorrupt for a very long time, receiving no damage from time. And the sapphire is thought to be a relief for the weariness of the eyes by the blue form of its colour, such a gleam naturally resting the sight by itself. This, then, is the example to which the praised belly of the church is likened by comparison.

But I, having heard the prophecy command in the person of God, "Write the vision clearly on a tablet," take a notion of what must be understood by the name of the belly in the praised body of the Lord. For since the word commands that the divine vision be written clearly on the tablet, perhaps it signifies by the name of the belly the purity of the heart, on which we inscribe the divine visions through memory. So the one who opened the mouth of the great Ezekiel and put into it the roll of the book, full of writing on both sides, outside and inside, says to him: "Your mouth shall eat, and your belly shall be filled," calling "belly" the thinking part of the soul in which he stored the divine teachings. In the same way we know that the great Jeremiah too named "belly" the heart pained by those gloomy thoughts [of the coming calamities], so he says: "I am pained in my belly, and the senses of my heart are in tumult." And if we must set out from the divine word the most authoritative of the sayings that lead us to this sense, we say this: that the Lord said to those who had believed that rivers of living water flow from the belly of those who believe in him. The wording runs thus: "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly."

Through all that has been said, then, we are led to understand the pure heart by the name of the belly, which becomes a tablet of the divine law: of those, as the apostle says, who show the work of the law written on their hearts, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, such letters being engraved on the soul not on tablets of stone, as the apostle says, but on the tablet of the heart, pure and smooth and shining. For the ruling part of the soul must be such that the memory of the divine words is preserved in it clear and unconfused, articulated as in distinct letters. And the sapphire is fittingly taken together with such a tablet for the praise of the belly. For the gleam of the sapphire is heaven-like. Such a riddle becomes a symbol of our heart setting its mind on and looking to the things above, where it lays up its treasure, and resting its sight there, so that it may not grow weary in attending to the divine commandments, [the heavenly hope refreshing] the sight of the [soul].

Then the praises of the legs follow the praise of the belly. For it says: "His legs are [pillars of marble, founded on bases of] gold." The house of wisdom, which she built for herself, has many pillars. Many too are the pillars that support the tabernacle of witness, adorned with different materials, whose capitals and bases were golden, while the middle was beautified with an overlay of silver. But the pillars of the church (and the church is a house, as the apostle says, "how one ought to behave in the house of God"), the bride says, are of marble, standing on bases of gold. That the bride agrees in her description of beauty with the wisdom of Bezalel, adorning the head and the bases with gold as he did, is plain to anyone familiar with what is said about the tabernacle. For [as] he, fitting the capital to each of the pillars, sets it on a golden base, so here she who looks purely at the bridegroom's beauty says that his head is pure and undefiled gold (for this is what the word "Kephaz" shows), and she says that his legs are founded on bases of gold.

To what the riddles about the pillars must be transferred, we shall not fall from the true understanding if we are disciples of holy Paul, who named those prominent among the apostles, Peter and James and John, pillars. And since we should also learn how one may become a pillar, so that we too may become worthy of such a name, let us hear this too from the wisdom of Paul, who says that the pillar is also the foundation of the truth. So the truth is gold, which also becomes the base of the legs and beautifies the hands and the head by itself. And whoever takes the foundation to mean the nature of marble will not go wrong; so that the sense of what is said is this: the legs of the body are the marble pillars, that is, those who carry and support the common body of the church by a bright life and sound word, through whom the base of faith has its firmness, the course of virtue is accomplished, and in the leaps of the divine hopes the whole body is lifted up. This is achieved through these two, truth and steadfastness: the gold being taken to mean the truth, which, according to Paul's word, becomes and is named the foundation of the divine building. For he says thus: "No one can lay another foundation than the one laid, which is Jesus Christ." And Christ is the truth, on which the legs, the [pillars] of the church, are founded; while by the marble we understand the brightness of life and the solidity and immovability of the disposition toward goods.

But since the pillars of the tabernacle of witness are many, and many too are those who support the house of wisdom, while now two suffice to hold up the whole body by themselves, perhaps we must bring the aim of the riddle over to another sense. For I think this is established by them: that the guidance of the law toward virtue takes many forms, and the precepts of wisdom are many, looking to the same aim; [but] the concise word of the gospel has known how to bring the whole perfection of the virtuous life into a number easily counted and concise, since the Lord said, "On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets." It is surely the same in power to hold up the weight either hanging from below or resting on top. For through both the same strength of power is seen, carrying the burden in either way. For it bears alike by itself, whether it has the weight hanging from it or takes up what it carries [from below]. Since, then, the Lord says that the whole law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, and now the bride says that the body is carried by two pillars standing on golden foundations, it would be well, for the contemplation of the riddle of the legs, to take those two commandments together with it. Of these the Lord names one first, and says the other is like the first: that to love God with the whole heart and soul and strength is the first commandment, and to love one's neighbour as oneself is equal in power to the first. And Paul too, building the great Timothy as a kind of house fit to receive God, sets up these two pillars in him, giving the one the name faith and the other conscience: by faith signifying the love for God from the whole heart and soul and strength; and by good conscience, the loving disposition toward the neighbour. Perhaps the sense now found is not opposed to the earlier thought. For through both of these one becomes a pillar, like Peter and James and John, and anyone else who has become or will become worthy of such a name as they. For the one perfected in these two commandments is built into a pillar and foundation of the truth, according to the apostle's word. So the whole body of the truth rests on these two achievements as on legs, the golden foundation of the base of faith producing in the reasonings what is unswerving and immovable and firm in every good.

After these praises, as though summing up the whole beauty of the bridegroom, she says: "His appearance is like chosen Lebanon, like cedars. His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire. This is my beloved, and this is my close one, daughters of Jerusalem." In this I think she shows more clearly that the praise is about the bridegroom's visible beauty: I mean the visible beauty which the apostle forms into a body through the several members that make up the church. For she says that the ten thousands of cedars, with which Lebanon is covered on every side, are one appearance of his, showing by what she says that nothing low and grovelling contributes to the comeliness of the body unless it is lofty like the cedar and pressing toward the summit.

Or rather, let us first consider what was set beside what has been said. The form of everything comes to be [known] by the setting beside it of its opposite. Since, then, "good" is a name shared both by what truly is such and by what is not, but pretends by deceit and seems to be what it is not, the one who does not fail in the judgment of the beautiful has chosen the [true] good instead of the [false]. Since, then, here she likened the bridegroom's appearance to chosen Lebanon, the word suggests that we understand, in sequence, two Lebanons: one wicked and to be cast away, which, according to the prophecy, is crushed like the calf together with the cedars on it; and the other chosen and precious, whose beauty is fitting for God and godlike.

What is understood through what has been said is this. There is one King properly, truly, and primarily, the King of all creation. Yet the world ruler of darkness too dignifies himself with the name of kingship. There are legions of angels with the true King, and legions of demons with the ruler of the power of darkness. Principalities and powers and authorities are under the King of kings and Lord of lords; that one too, according to the apostle's word, has principalities and authorities and powers, those that are abolished when evil is to vanish into non-being. "For when he abolishes," it says, "every principality and authority and power." The prophet sees the King of glory seated on a throne, high and lifted up; and that one promises to set his own throne above the stars, so as to be like the Most High. The Master of all has vessels of choice in his great house; that one too has vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Again, the Lord of the angels supplies life and peace through angels to the worthy; that one too sends anger and wrath and affliction through the wicked angels. And why should we tell each thing in detail, by which the adversary rises up in opposition against the nature of the good?

Since, then, as a thing of sense, Lebanon is a conspicuous sight, the mountain shaded and thick with tall cedars on every side, for this reason the mountain is divided by Scripture between opposite meanings by examples drawn from its appearance, being taken suitably in either sense. And so one may see in the same prophets the same name used according to the difference of what is shown, both praised and reproached. At one time the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon, and crushes all Lebanon with its cedars, like the calf made an idol in the desert. By this the prophecy presents that evil itself and every height raised from it against the knowledge of God will come round to non-being. At another time it takes the better meaning, saying: "[The righteous] will flourish like a palm, like the cedar in [Lebanon] he will be multiplied." (And the righteous one is the Lord.) He who rose from the earth for our sake, that palm with lofty foliage who sprang up in the matter of our nature, becomes a mountain for the cedars, which, when they are planted in the house of God, will flower in the courts of our God. By the house we have understood the church, following the apostle's guidance, in which the planting of God's cedars takes place; and by the courts the eternal tabernacles, in which the flowering and manifestation of good hopes will come about at the appointed times.

Since, then, the body of Christ is completed through the several members ("for the many members become one body," as the apostle says), she therefore named the whole beauty of the bridegroom chosen Lebanon, [setting it against the other Lebanon]. For that is the Lebanon which, according to Isaiah, will fall with its lofty ones when the flower rises from the root of Jesse, and the rod of authority springs up, through which the nature of the lion, the leopard, and the asps is changed to what is tame and gentle, so that the lion lives with the calf, the leopard lies down with the kid, and over them is set that little child who was born to us, whose hand goes into the hole of the asps, touching the offspring of the asp and blunting their poison. [When these things] come to pass, the prophet says, Lebanon too will fall with its lofty ones. What the prophecy shows through these riddles would be superfluous to set out in detail, since it is plain to all. For who does not know the child born to us, who [touches the holes] of the asps and makes the [wildest] of beasts share a tent with the gentle, forgetting their natural bitterness? Since, then, through these the Lebanon of vice falls, and the first beginning of evils falls with it, the heights raised against the truth, the bride therefore likens the Lord's beauty to the chosen Lebanon, saying in these words: "His appearance is like [chosen Lebanon]."

She adds to the throat the fitting praise, naming it sweetness and desire. The wording runs thus: "His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire." What we understand about this is this. Common usage calls the part under the chin the throat, in which they say sound is produced, whirled about by the striking of the breath from the windpipe. Since, then, fair words are honeycombs of honey, and the voice is the instrument of the word, whose origin is from the throat, whoever understands this name to signify the servants and interpreters of the Word, in whom Christ speaks, will not go wrong. For the great John, asked who he was, named himself a voice, since he was the forerunner of the Word; and blessed Paul gave proof of Christ speaking in him; lending his own voice to Christ, he was sweetness as Christ spoke through him. And all the prophets, giving up their organs of speech to the Spirit sounding in them, became sweetness, making the divine honey well up through their own throats, which kings and private persons take for health; whose enjoyment does not cut off desire by satiety, but rather nourishes longing through sharing in what is desired. For this reason she names him altogether desire, as though describing the beauty of the one sought by a kind of definition through this word: "For he is altogether," she says, "desire." O blessed those members, through which the whole becomes desire, producing through perfection in every good a lovely beauty blended from all, so that he is desirable as a whole, not in the eye only and the cheeks or the locks, but alike in the feet and in the hands, in the legs and in the throat, none of the members [falling short] in the surpassing degree of beauty.

"This," she says, "is my beloved, and this," she says, "is my close one, daughters of Jerusalem." For having brought before their eyes through the description in words all the marks by which the manifestation of the one sought could come about, she then uses the demonstrative word, saying: "This is the one sought, who by becoming our brother rose for us from Judah, and became neighbour to the one who fell among robbers, healing his wounds with oil and wine and bandages, lifting him onto his own beast, giving him rest in the inn, providing the two denarii for his life, and promising on his return to repay what was added for the work of the commandment." What each of these looks to is surely plain. For to the lawyer who was testing the Lord, wishing to show himself above the others, and in pride spurning equality of honour with the rest, saying, "And who is my neighbour?", the Word then sets out in the form of a story the whole economy of his love for mankind: telling of man's descent from above, the ambush of the robbers, the stripping off of the incorruptible garment, the wounds of sin, and death's advance over half of nature, the soul remaining immortal; and the useless passing by of the law, since neither priest nor Levite healed the wounds of the one who had fallen among robbers (for it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sins); but the one who put on the whole of human nature through the first fruits of the lump, in which there was a share of every nation, Jew and Samaritan and Greek and all men together, this one, with his body, which is the beast, came to the place of man's misery, healed his wounds, gave him rest on his own beast, and made his loving economy an inn for him, in which all who labour and are heavy laden find rest together.

And the one who has come to be in him surely receives in himself the one in whom he has come to be, as the Word says, "Whoever abides in me, and I in him." Receiving him in his own capacity, he lodges in himself the one who cannot be contained, from whom he receives the two coins, of which one is the love for God from the whole heart, and the other the love for the neighbour as oneself, as the lawyer too answered. But since it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified, one must not only receive these two coins, I mean faith toward the Divine and a good conscience toward one's own kind, but must also contribute oneself through works to the fulfilment of these commandments. For this reason the Lord says to the innkeeper that everything done by him for the care of the one who had been injured he will receive back at his second coming according to the worth of his zeal.

He, then, who has become our neighbour through such love for mankind, who has become our beloved by rising for us from Judah, this is the one whom the bride's word shows to the young women; this is the one made known to the daughters of Jerusalem by the undefiled bride, where she says: "This is my beloved, and this is my close one, daughters of Jerusalem." May we too find and receive him through the marks that have been shown, for the salvation of our souls, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory for ever and ever. [Amen.]

Homily 15 (Song 6:1–9)

"Where has your beloved gone, O fair [among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may] seek him with you? My beloved has gone down into his garden, to the bowls of spice, to shepherd in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, he who shepherds among the lilies. You are fair, my close one, as good pleasure, lovely as Jerusalem, [awesome as ranks drawn up. Turn] your eyes away from me, for they have given me wings. Your hair is like flocks of goats that have appeared from Gilead. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and there is none barren among them. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your speech is lovely. Like the rind of the pomegranate is your cheek, apart from your silence. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and young women without number. One is my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, chosen of the one who bore her."

Philip the apostle was attested to be from the city of Andrew and Peter. This seems to me a praise of Philip, that he was a fellow citizen of the brothers who were admired before him in the gospel through the story about them. For Andrew, when the Baptist pointed out who the Lamb is who takes away the sin of the world, both perceived the mystery himself, following the one who was shown and learning where he stays, and announced to his own brother the good news that the one foretold by the prophecy was present. And he, his faith all but outrunning his hearing, gave himself with his whole soul to the Lamb, and was transformed by the Lord toward the more divine through the change of his name: instead of Simon he was named and became Peter. Yet the Lord gave Abraham and Sarah the blessing of their names many years later, after many manifestations of God, appointing the one father and the other princess through the change of names. In the same way Jacob too, after the night-long wrestling, was found worthy of the name and power of Israel. But the great Peter did not advance to this grace little by little through growth; rather, at once he heard his brother, believed in the Lamb, was perfected through faith, and, clinging to the rock, became Peter.

This Philip, then, the fellow citizen worthy of men so many and so great, since he became the Lord's find, as the gospel says, "Jesus finds Philip," was appointed a follower of the Word who said, "Follow me." And drawing near to the true light, like a lamp he drew from there to himself fellowship in the light; and he shines around Nathanael, holding the torch for him of the mystery of piety, where he says: "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." Nathanael received the good news attentively, because he had been instructed with all exactness by the prophecy in the mystery concerning the Lord, and knew that the first manifestation of God through flesh would be from Bethlehem, and that because of the life spent among the Nazarenes he would be called a Nazarene. He was looking to both and reckoning that in David's Bethlehem, because of the economy of the birth according to the flesh, the mystery of the cave and the swaddling clothes and the manger had to come about, while Galilee would one day be called the region of the Gentiles, by the Word who loved to dwell among the Gentiles. So he agreed with the one who had shone the light of knowledge on him, and said, "Can anything good be from Nazareth?" Then Philip becomes a guide to the grace, saying, "Come and see." Through these words Nathanael, leaving the fig tree of the law, whose shade hindered participation in the light, lays hold of the one who withers the leaves of the fig tree for its barrenness of goods. For this reason he is testified by the Word to be a genuine, not a spurious, Israelite, showing in himself by the guilelessness of his free choice the pure stamp of the patriarch. "For behold," he says, "an Israelite in whom there is no guile."

What the story in the preface looks to is surely plain to the more apt hearers from the reading of the Song of Songs set before us in sequence. For as Andrew was guided to the Lamb by John's voice, and Nathanael, enlightened by Philip and coming outside the shadow of the law that enclosed him, came to be in the true light, so too the young women, for the finding of the good [not yet known] to them, use as guide the soul perfected through beauty, saying to her: "Where has your beloved gone, O fair among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?" The virgin souls put their question to the teacher in due order. For first they made their inquiry about what he is, saying in the question before this saying, "[What is] your beloved, O fair among women?" Having been taught this through the signs described, that he is white and ruddy and the rest, by which she describes the form of the one sought, they ask about where. So they say: "Where has your beloved gone, or where has he turned?" So that, learning where he is, they may [come and] worship at the place where his feet stood; and, taught where he looks, they may so place themselves that his glory may look upon them too, whose appearing becomes the salvation of those who behold it, as the prophet says: "Show your face, and we shall be saved."

And the teacher, like Philip who said, "Come and see," leads them all to the grasp of the one sought, instead of saying "See," pointing out the place where the one sought is and where he looks. For she says: "My beloved has gone down into his garden, to the bowls of spice." Up to this point, where he is is signified by the word. From this point, what he sees and where he looks the teacher shows in words, saying, "To shepherd in the gardens and to gather lilies." This is the guidance the word gives the young women by indication, through which they learn both where he is and where he looks. But we must also come to know the benefit of this God-inspired Scripture through spiritual contemplation. So when we hear, "My beloved has gone down into his garden," we learn through these words the mystery of the gospel, each of the names making this mystical meaning clear to us. God, manifested in flesh, because he rose from Judah and shone on the Gentiles who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, is fittingly and aptly named by the name "beloved" (literally "nephew," ἀδελφιδός) by the one betrothed to him for eternal union, since she is the sister of the people of Judah. "Has gone down" shows the time when, for the sake of the one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, he himself goes down with the descent of the one who fell among enemies; by which it signifies the condescension from the unspeakable majesty to the lowliness of our nature. And through the riddle of the garden we learn this: that the true husbandman plants again his own field, us human beings. For we are his field, according to Paul's word. Since, then, he is the one who at the beginning cultivated in paradise the human nature which the heavenly Father planted, for this reason, when the wild boar had grazed down our garden and ravaged God's field, he went down to make the desert a garden again, adorned with the planting of the virtues, channelling by the word the pure and divine fountain of teaching for the care of the plants.

The bowls of spice were taken in the description of the beauty for the praise of the cheeks, through which spiritual foods are ground fine for those who are fed. But here they are shown by the word to be the bridegroom's place and dwelling. We learn this: that the bridegroom does not lodge in a soul empty of virtues, [but] if someone, according to the account given before, becomes a bowl of spice putting forth perfumes, such a one, becoming a mixing bowl of wisdom, receives in himself the divine and pure wine, through which [the sober drunkenness] comes about for [the soul].

The next word teaches us on what pastures the flocks of the good shepherd are fattened. For he does not drive the sheep out to deserted and thorny places to crop grassy herbage; but the spices from the gardens are set before them as food, and instead of grass there is the lily, which it says is gathered by the shepherd to feed the sheep. By this the word teaches us in philosophy that the nature and power that hold all beings, enclosing all things in itself, makes its place and room the purity of those who receive it, in whom the garden, manifold through the virtues, flourishes with the flowers of lilies and gushes with the fruit-bearing of spices. For the lilies become a riddle of the brightness and purity of the mind, and the fragrance of the spices of being foreign to every stench of sins. It says, then, that the overseer of the rational flocks lives among such things, pasturing in the gardens, cutting and gathering lilies for the feeding of the sheep. These he sets before the sheep through the great Paul, who brings out for us from the divine storehouse the food from the lilies: "Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is lovely, whatever is holy, whatever is of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise." These, in my judgment at least, are the lilies with which the flock is fed by the good shepherd and teacher.

The next word, which the pure and spotless bride has spoken, saying, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine," is the rule and definition of perfection according to virtue. For we learn through these words that the purified soul must have nothing in itself but God, nor look to anything else; but must so cleanse itself of every material thing and thought, that, wholly transferred to what is intelligible and immaterial, it makes itself a most vivid image of the archetypal beauty. And as the one who sees on the panel the painting exactly formed after the archetype declares that the form of both is one, saying that the beauty on the image is that of the prototype and that the archetype is vividly seen in the imitation, in the same way she who said, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine," says that she has been conformed to Christ, receiving back her own beauty, the first blessedness of our nature, made lovely after the image and likeness of the first, true, and only beauty. And as happens with a mirror, when it has been skilfully made and fitted for its use, it shows exactly on its pure surface the features of the face that appears in it, so the soul, having fitted itself suitably for its use and cast off every material stain, has imprinted in itself the pure form of the undefiled beauty. This living mirror, which has free choice, says this word: "Since I look with my whole circle at the face of my beloved, therefore the whole beauty of his form is seen in me."

Paul imitates these words exactly, saying that he who has become dead to the world lives to God, and that Christ alone lives in him. For he who said, "For me to live is Christ," cries out through the word this: that none of the human and material passions lives in him, neither pleasure nor grief, nor anger, nor fear, nor cowardice, nor alarm, nor conceit, nor rashness, nor remembrance of wrongs, nor envy, nor any vengeful disposition, nor love of money, nor any other of the things that stain the soul through attachment; but he alone is mine, who is none of these. For having scraped off everything seen outside his nature, I have nothing in myself such as is not in him. For this reason, for me to live is Christ; or, as the bride says, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine," who is sanctification and purity and incorruption and light and truth and all such things, which shepherd my soul, not in grass or brushwood, but in the splendours of the saints. For the nature of the lilies, in the brightness of its colour, hints this sense to us. For this reason, then, the one who shepherds among the lilies leads his flock to the meadows of lilies, so that the brightness of the Lord our God may be upon us. For what is fed is surely disposed according to the kind of food. I mean something like this. Suppose there is a hollow vessel of glass, in which whatever is put [shows through], whether something [dark] or something pure and bright. So, putting the brightness of the lilies into souls, he makes their souls bright, the form lying within showing through to the outside. To bring this thought to greater clarity for us, we say that the soul is fed through the virtues, and she names the virtues lilies by a riddle. Whoever has been filled with them through a good way of life makes himself manifest, showing through his life, in his character, the form of each virtue. Let self-control be a pure lily for you, and righteousness and courage and prudence, and whatever the apostle says is true, honourable, lovely, just, holy, of good report: "if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise." For all these, coming to be within the soul, are shown in the pure life, adorning the one who contains them and themselves adorned through the one who has received them.

She, then, who has devoted herself to the beloved and received the beauty of the one loved in her own form: let us hear of what she is thought worthy by the one who glorifies [those who glorify him], through the sequence set before us in the words. For the Word says to the bride: "You are fair, my close one, as good pleasure; lovely as Jerusalem; awesome as ranks drawn up." That glory is sent up by the heavenly army to God in the highest for good pleasure among men, in the hearing of the shepherds, when they saw peace come to be on earth; and that Jerusalem is named by the Master of all creation the city of the great King, would be plain to anyone familiar with the words of the gospel. So through these we cannot fail to know what beauty the Word testifies to the bride through the comparison with Jerusalem and with good pleasure. For it is plain that the Word shows this about her: that through the ascent achieved the soul has been lifted so high as to strain itself forward to the wonders of the Master. For if God in the highest, being in the bosom of the Father, is mingled with blood and flesh for the sake of good pleasure among men, so that peace may come to be on earth, it is plain that she, having made her own beauty like this good pleasure, imitates Christ by her achievements, becoming for others what Christ became for the nature of men. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, did, cutting himself off from life so as to exchange his own suffering for the salvation of Israel, saying: "I could wish to be accursed from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh." To him it would fittingly suit to say what is said to the bride: "Such is the beauty of your soul as was the good pleasure of the Master on our behalf, who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and gave himself as an exchange for the life of the world, and for our sake became poor though he was rich, so that we might live in his death, be rich in his poverty, and reign in the form of his slavery."

And the loveliness of Jerusalem shows her greatness likewise: plainly the Jerusalem above, the free, the mother of the free, which we have learned from the Master's voice is the city of the great King. For she who has made room in herself for the one who cannot be contained, so that God dwells and walks in her, [is adorned] with the loveliness of the one [dwelling] in her, having received his beauty upon herself. And the beauty and loveliness of the King's city are surely the beauty of the King himself. For he is, according to the word of the psalm, the loveliness and the beauty, to whom the prophecy says: "In your loveliness and your beauty, bend your bow, and prosper, and reign, because of truth and meekness and righteousness." For by these the Divine is characterized, I mean by truth and righteousness and meekness. So the soul formed in such beauties becomes lovely as Jerusalem, adorned with the King's loveliness. These words, then, have the praise of the bride's beauty plainly, completed by the comparison with good pleasure and with Jerusalem.

We do not doubt that the next word is a praise of the bride; but the sense in which she who was thought worthy of this praise is honoured by it cannot be learned from the surface. For the wording runs thus: "Awesome as powers drawn up in ranks." Perhaps someone, following what was contemplated before, might say that the bride is magnified by the Word in her praises through the comparison with the nature above the world. For those are the powers drawn up in ranks, where the Authorities are always in authority, the Dominions rule wholly, the Thrones stand firm, the Principalities remain unenslaved, the Powers bless God without ceasing, the flight of the seraphim does not stop and their standing does not change, the cherubim do not cease holding up the high and lifted throne, and the ministers do not stop doing his work and hearing his words. Since, then, these authorities are drawn up in ranks by God, and the order of the intelligible powers above the world remains unconfused for ever, no vice overturning their good order, for this reason the soul too, doing all things in order and seemliness in imitation of them, stirs in herself such wonder as is in those powers drawn up in ranks. For the sense of "awe" is interpreted as amazement; and understanding the wonder through the amazement we do not miss the truth.

The saying set next to these in sequence makes the persons doubtful, both by whom it is spoken and to whom: "Turn your eyes away from me, for they have given me wings." Some think that this is said by the Master to the pure soul; but I suppose that the saying fits the bride rather, and is fitted to her. For I find the sense of what is signified by the word suited to her. I shall set out briefly what occurred to me. I have heard divine Scripture tell in many places that God has wings: at one time the prophecy says, "In the shelter of your wings you will shelter [me]," and "Under his wings you will hope"; again Moses in the great song describes this, where he says, "Spreading his wings he received them"; and what was said by the Lord to Jerusalem, "How often I would have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!", which someone looking to the sequence would say is not outside the thought before us. If, then, the God-inspired word declares, for some unspeakable reason, that there are wings about the divine nature, and the first construction of man testifies that our nature was made after the image and likeness of God, then surely, having been made after the image, he had in all respects likeness to the archetype. Now the prototype is winged, according to holy Scripture; so the nature of man too was constructed winged, so as to have the divine likeness also in its wings. It is plain that the name of wings will be taken by some figurative contemplation to a thought fitting for God, power and blessedness and incorruption and the like being signified by the name of wings. Since, then, these things belonged to man too, as long as he was like God in all respects, but afterwards the inclination to evil stripped us of such wings (for having come outside the shelter of God's wings, we were stripped of our own wings too), for this reason the grace of God appeared, enlightening us, so that, putting off impiety and worldly desires, we may grow wings again through holiness and righteousness.

If, then, these things are not cut off from the truth, it is fitting that the bride confess the grace that came upon her from the divine eyes. For at once God looked on us with the eyes of his love for mankind, and we were given wings again according to the ancient grace. This, then, is what I think the word shows through these sayings: what David says to the Lord, praying in the sixteenth psalm: "Let your eyes see uprightness," plainly my uprightness. "For you have tested my heart," he says, "you have visited me by night; you have tried me with fire, and no wrong was found in me." It is the same, then, to say, "Let your eyes see uprightness," and "Let your eyes not look on the opposite." For whoever has seen the upright has not seen the crooked; and whoever has seen the crooked has surely not seen the upright. So by the removal of the opposite she shows the good to the divine eyes, through which the soul, which shed its feathers through the disobedience of the first-formed, is given wings again. This, then, is what we have understood through these words: "When your eyes look upon me, they are turned away from the opposite. For they will see in me nothing of what opposes me. For this reason it comes to me from your eyes to be given wings again, and to take up again through the virtues the wings of the dove, through which the power of flight comes to me, so as to fly away and be at rest": that is, that rest with which God rested from his works.

After these words the description of the bride's beauty follows again, the word honouring each of the things that contribute to her loveliness by some apt likeness. For the beauty of her hair is praised, and the setting of her teeth, and the bloom on her lip, and the sweetness of her voice, and the blush of her cheek. And the praise of each of these is completed for the bride by some suitable comparison and juxtaposition. Her hair is likened to flocks of goats that appeared from Gilead; the flocks of shorn ewes, exulting in twin births, complete the praise of the teeth by the likeness; [her lips are likened] to a scarlet thread, [and her speech is called lovely; and with the rind] of the pomegranate the cheek is adorned. The wording runs thus: "Your hair is like flocks of goats that appeared from Gilead. Your teeth are like flocks [of shorn ewes that came up from the] washing, all bearing twins, and there is none barren among them. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your speech is lovely. Like the rind of a pomegranate is your cheek, apart from your silence." Since all these have been examined sufficiently in what went before, it would be superfluous to bring weariness into the discourse by repeating the same contemplations. But if anyone should want the account of them given now too, for the sake of those who did not hear what was contemplated on these texts earlier, we shall run over the sense of the riddles briefly.

The hairs of the body have a nature peculiar to them compared with the rest of the body. For while the whole body is served by the power of sense, without which it cannot by nature live (for sense perception is the life of the body), we see that the hairs alone, though they are part of the body, have no share in sensation. This part shows this peculiarity: that the hairs are not pained, like the rest of the body, either by burning or by cutting. Since, then, according to Paul's word, a woman's hair is her glory, adorning the head with its tresses, we are taught by the praise of the bride's hair that those seen about the head of the bride, through whom the church is glorified, must be stronger than the senses, hiding sense perception through wisdom; as Proverbs says, "The wise hide perception." For them sight does not become the criterion of the beautiful, nor is the good tested by taste, nor by smell or touch, nor is the judgment of the beautiful entrusted to any other sense; but, every sense having been put to death, they lay hold of and reach for the goods that appear to the mind through the soul alone, and so they glorify the woman, the church, neither puffed up by honours nor shrinking through faintheartedness before troubles. But even if they must be cut for the faith in Christ, or thrown to beasts or into fire, or endure any other painful thing, they put on the insensibility of the hairs in the trial of pains. Such was Elijah, who rose from Gilead with a hairy and rough body, covered with goatskins, undaunted by every threat of the tyrant. So all who, imitating the prophet's greatness of nature, raise themselves above the whole world, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, in mountains and caves and the holes of the earth, of whom the world is not worthy: these, seen in flocks about the head of the universe, become the glory of the church, [climbing] with the Gileadite to the heavenly grace.

The animal, the goat, was taken for the praise of the hair perhaps because the nature of this animal too has been made suited to the growth of hair, so that the animal naturally thick with hair becomes a riddle of the adornment through hair; or because it goes over rocks without slipping and lives about the summits of mountains, making its way boldly over impassable and sheer places, which [fits] aptly those who succeed on the rough road of virtue. Or rather someone might say that, because the animal was taken by the lawgiver for many parts of the legal worship, these [hairs] contribute to the praise of the head. I know too that in the riddles of Proverbs, among the four that go prosperously, the he-goat that leads the flock is counted among those that walk well. What we suppose about this by conjecture is this. Every practice that begins through one is passed on to many. As Scripture says that Tubal was the inventor of the art of smithing, and so refers to him the skill of all who after him have handled the working of iron, so Abel led the way in shepherding, Cain in farming; it says Nimrod was the founder of the art of hunting, Noah of vine growing, and Enosh, it says, began hoping in God; and many such things can be learned from holy Scripture, that when one practised something, the practice entered life by imitation. Since, then, Elijah led the way in divine zeal in a special way, by every pre-eminence, all who after him imitated his zeal and followed in the same footsteps of the prophet's boldness have become the flock of the one who led the way in such a life. These become the glory and praise of the church, ranked in the adornment of the hair, from whom the life of sense has been separated and estranged.

By like means she completes the praise of the teeth too. These would be those who nourish through themselves the body of the church, whom she wishes always to be seen clean as from the washing, without superfluous hair as from a fresh shearing, and bearing twins in the birth of the virtues, becoming fathers of double purity, that seen in the soul and that in the body, so that everything barren in the better is banished from these teeth.

The thread laid on the lip shows by the riddle the measured ministry of the word, which the prophet named a guard and a door of enclosure, when the mouth of the word [is opened] in due season and in due season is shut. That the thread is the name of a [measure] we have learned from the prophecy of Zechariah: that the angel who spoke in him held a measuring line in his hands. And the word attains its measure most when it attains the red colour, which becomes a riddle of the blood of the one who ransomed us. If someone, like Paul, has Christ speaking in himself, who ransomed us with his own blood, he has the measuring line on his mouth, [dyed in] the [scarlet of that blood].

The next word is an interpretation of the riddle before it. For it names the scarlet thread "lovely speech," by which again it signifies what is pure and measured. For what is exactly lovely, appearing in its own season of prime, is neither unripe nor past its season. And adorning the apple of the cheek with the rind of the pomegranate, he testifies to the bride a great perfection in goods. For it signifies that her treasure has been prepared for her in nothing else, but that she is her own treasure, holding within herself the provision of every good. For as the edible part of the pomegranate is enclosed in the rind, so it shows that her inward treasure is enclosed in the visible beauty of her life. This, then, is the hidden treasure of hopes, the soul's own fruit, enclosed by the virtuous life as by the rind of a pomegranate. "Apart from your silence," I think, has this sense: "Your praise is not so great from what appears, as much as is shown by word, but rather from what is hidden in silence, escaping the showing of the word." For as silence is understood as what is apart from speech, so whoever understands speech as what is apart from silence will not go wrong. For we keep silent about what we are unable to report through words. If, then, silence is understood as what is apart from that, it follows that we think speech to be what is apart from silence. So the one who said, "Apart from your silence," presents this clearly in words: that the things that can appear through speech are fair and great, [all that] is outside your silence; but what is outside speech, covered by silence, the unspeakable and unutterable, is surely more wonderful than what is uttered.

Let us hear also the next praises, whose sense is like the well in the history, which a stone covering its mouth made impossible for the shepherdesses to share the water of; but Jacob came and levered the stone from the mouth, and having filled the troughs with water, gave the flock freedom to delight in the streams. What, then, is it that we liken to such a well? "There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, young women without number. One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one of her mother, chosen of the one who bore her." Who, then, will roll away for us the stone of this obscurity? Who will draw up the water of these thoughts, lying so deep as to be beyond the reach of our discourse? But it seems to me good to testify this to your hearing: that to know these things belongs only to those to whom the apostle says, "In everything you were enriched, in all speech and all knowledge." Our poverty is unable to lay hold of the treasures of the word set before us. Yet, so that we may be outside the condemnation of idleness, because of the one who legislated for us to search the Scriptures, we shall not shrink from adding a little sweat to these too.

We say, then, that the philosophy in these texts sets before us, through the praises of the bride, one of the more refined teachings. The teaching is this. Beings are not created and re-created with the same sequence and order. For when at the beginning the nature of creation came into being through the divine power, in each of the beings the end was completed together with the beginning without interval, perfection rising together with the beginning in all things that came from non-being into being. And human nature is one of the created things; nor did it, like the others, come to perfection by advance, but was formed together with perfection from its first existence. For it came to be, as the word says, after the image and likeness of God, which shows the highest and most perfect of goods. For what could be found higher than likeness to God? In the first creation, then, the end appeared together with the beginning without interval, and nature began to be from perfection. But since, having been made akin to death through its attachment to vice, it slipped away from remaining in the good, it does not take back perfection all at once, like the first constitution, but advances by a kind of road to the greater, putting away little by little, in a certain sequence and order, its passionate attachment to the opposite. For in the first construction nothing hindered the perfection of nature from coinciding with its coming into being, since there was no vice; but in the second re-forming, a sequence [of time] must follow for nature as it runs back up to the first good; because our mind, bound through vice to passionate attachment to matter, is scraped little by little through a nobler way of life, as of some bark surrounding it, and so pushes off its natural union with the worse.

For this reason we have learned that there are many dwelling places with the Father, according to the proportion of each one's relation to the beautiful and his withdrawal from the worse, the reward being prepared for all. For one is at the beginning of feeding on the better, having just swum up, as from some depth of a life of vice, to participation in the truth; another has already gained through diligence some addition of the better; another has grown further through desire for goods; another holds the middle of the ascent to the heights; another has passed the middle; and there are some who have raised themselves above these; others strain toward the upward course beyond those, and others beyond these; and, in a word, according to the varied difference of free choices, God receives each in his own rank, paying back to all what is deserved, gathering the rewards of goods for the higher and measuring [the lesser] to the lesser. This is what we have supposed the word teaches in philosophy through the texts before us, distinguishing in what has been said the difference of the souls that look to the bridegroom. For some she names young women, surpassing the nature of number by their multitude; others concubines; and others she says are queens, limiting the number of the concubines to eight tens; and having said that the queens come to sixty, she sets above them all the perfect dove seen in unity, whom she declares to be the only one of her mother and chosen of the one who bore her.

We are led by the divine words to understand this: that those who have just come out of a kind of womb of deceit lying in the depth, being newborn and not yet articulated, having taken the word into themselves, are seen in a boundless multitude through a less reasoned assent of faith, having believed that the word of the mystery is saving, but not [holding it] with any knowledge and full assurance through reason, having the truth firmly founded in themselves. These are the ones named young women, because they are young in spiritual age: born by the word of faith, they have not yet become such through due growth as to come to the prime of marriage and attain to the perfect man, to the measure of marriageable age, so as to be able to conceive by the fear of the Lord and bring forth a spirit of salvation; but they still live with a somewhat less reasoned disposition through the infancy and imperfection of their mind. Yet these too are among those who are saved, as the prophet says, "Men and beasts you will save, O Lord," calling "beasts" the less rational part of those who are saved.

But of those who have grown in mind through due diligence and have already left infancy behind, we are taught by the word a twofold difference. For souls become one body with the Word, both these and those; but some cling to him with a disposition of passionate love, such as was the soul of David and of Paul: the one saying, "But for me it is good to cling to God," and the other, "No one will separate us from the love of Christ: not life, not death, not the present, not the future, nor anything else among beings." Others flee the attempts of adultery out of fear of punishment. For these too remain in incorruption and holiness; but, trained by fear rather than by longing alone, they do not admit evil. Those, then, who through the more perfect disposition have been blended with the purity of God by longing for incorruption are named queens because of their fellowship in the kingdom; while those who labour at virtue through fear of the threat the word names concubines. For none of them can yet become mother of a king and sharer of his rank. For how could she who has not yet taken up for herself the masterless and sovereign character of the virtuous [life], [but keeps] away from fellowship with evils [only through fear]? Examples of what has been said: for the queens, those found worthy to stand on the right, to whom the King says, "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you"; and of the second and lower rank would be those to whom the Lord says, "Fear him who, after killing, has authority to cast into the Gehenna of fire."

The difference in the numbers seems to me to indicate this distinction between the two ranks by a riddle. What do I mean? There are six commandments through which the kingdom of God is prepared for those on the right. Let us reckon each of these to be a talent of the Master, which ought to be multiplied tenfold by the good and faithful servant through his work, so that he may thus enter into the joy of his Lord, found faithful in a few things and set over many. If, then, through these six commandments fellowship in the kingdom comes to the soul, and the perfection of the work in each case is to multiply the commandment tenfold, as that good slave said, "Your one talent has made ten talents," we find in sequence the one queen expanded into sixty: she who was received into fellowship in the kingdom through the tenfold multiplying of the six commandments, so that the one is many, formed in a particular way by each of her achievements. So the one is divided into sixty queens, distributed according to the kinds of commandments; and the bride becomes a sharer in the kingdom of Christ, the one having become a people of queens, she who [is counted as many] through the honours won by the commandments.

If we have supposed, not beyond reason, that the six of the commandments, cultivated tenfold in one soul, are signified by the riddle of the sixty queens, then by the same kind of riddle we say that the mystery of the Eighth is indicated through the eighty, looking to which those trained by fear are kept from fellowship with evils. For so we have learned in the psalms, in which "the Eighth" is set at the head by the title; and they are plainly the cries of those being scourged, bending the hearing [of the judge] to mercy through fear of what is expected. For the one who looks to the Eighth says to the fearful judge: "Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak; heal me, Lord, for my bones are troubled," and whatever else is put before the impartial judge in sequence in the supplication, among which he laments also that there is no remembrance of God in death. For how could the gladness that comes from remembering God come to those condemned to weeping and gnashing? As the prophet says elsewhere, the remembrance of God brings gladness. Putting these and other such things before him, the one who fears the Eighth comes to perceive his share in mercy, saying, "He has heard the voice of my weeping."

And since many blessed fears are shown by holy Scripture, there would be in these too, in proportion to the six commandments, the tenfold increase: so that the one taught by the psalm how the fear of the Lord is achieved, by turning away from evil and doing good, multiplies tenfold through work, like a mina or a talent, the wealth of divine fear. And so the soul second after the queen, who achieves the good by fear and not by love, is expanded to the number of eighty, showing in her life, unconfused and unhidden, each kind of what is achieved through fear; so that in her case too the meaning of the Eighth is expanded by the tenfold increase, and she becomes [a concubine] by servile fear, and not [a queen], in place of the queen: because of the fear of the Eighth she has grown tenfold in achievements, reaching the number of eighty. The word of the history too bids her who served a spurious, temporary, and ignoble birth not to live with the queen to the end, since the slave's offspring is not equal in the royal inheritance with the free birth. "For cast out," it says, "the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman."

If the contemplation applied to the number in the texts seems to anyone rather forced, let him remember that at the beginning we testified that we could not attain the truth in these things, but would touch them only so far as not to pass by the riddles wholly unexercised. But if love casts out fear perfectly, as it is written, and fear, transformed, becomes love, then what is saved is found to be a unity, all being united with one another in their natural union with the only good, through the perfection of the dove. For we understand something like this from the next word, which says: "One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one of her mother, chosen of the one who bore her."

This is interpreted more clearly in the gospel by the Lord's voice. For, laying up in his disciples the whole power of the blessing, he grants the saints the other goods through his words to the Father, and adds the chief of the goods: that they should no longer be split in many directions by some difference of free choices in the judgment of the good, but that all should become one, grown together with the one and only good; so that through the unity of the Holy Spirit, as the apostle says, bound tight by the bond of peace, all may become one body and one spirit, through one hope to which they were called. It would be better to set out word for word the divine sayings of the gospel themselves: "That all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one." And the bond of this unity is the glory. That the Holy Spirit is called glory no one who has examined it would dispute, looking to the Lord's own words. "For the glory," he says, "which you have given me, I have given them." For he truly gave such glory to the disciples, he who said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." And he received this glory, which he always had before the world was, he who [put on human nature]; [and since that nature was glorified by the] Spirit, the sharing of the glory of the Spirit comes to all that is akin, beginning from the disciples. For this reason he says: "The glory which you have given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one."

So the one who has run up through growth from infancy to the perfect man and has reached the measure of intelligible age, who from slave woman and concubine has received the rank of the kingdom, and has become able to receive the glory of the Spirit through freedom from passion and purity, is the perfect dove to whom the bridegroom looks, saying, "One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one of her mother, chosen of the one who bore her." We surely know the mother of the dove, recognizing the tree from the fruit. For as when we see a man we do not doubt that he is from a man, so too, seeking the mother of the chosen dove, we have understood her to be none other than that dove. For in the child the nature of the one who begot it is surely seen. Since, then, what is born of the Spirit is spirit, and the child is a dove, the mother of the child too is surely a dove, the one who flew down from heaven upon the Jordan, as John says and testifies. Her the young women call blessed; her the concubines and queens praise. For a course common to all souls from every rank lies before them toward such blessedness. So they say: "The daughters saw her and will call her blessed; concubines and queens will praise her." And all nature strains with desire toward what is blessed and praised. So if the daughters call the dove blessed, they surely desire to become doves themselves. And the praise of the dove by the concubines is a proof that they too have zeal for what is praised; until, all having become one, all looking to the same goal of desire, with no vice left in anyone, God becomes all in all, in those united with one another in the [fellowship of the good, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.]