Letters 65.9–65.21

'Grace is poured out on your lips; therefore God has blessed you for ever.' In the common edition we read 'anointed' for 'blessed'; but it should be known that the scribes' error must not be imputed to the Seventy translators, who in this place agree with the Hebrew truth. Reading, 'Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men,' and in another place, 'They marveled at the words of grace that came out of his mouth,' and that he had his word with authority, we can understand in what sense it is said, 'Grace is poured out on your lips.' Noah found grace before God in his days, and Moses and the rest of the prophets; but the whole abundance of grace was poured out on the Savior's lips, and in a short time it filled the whole world: 'like a bridegroom he came forth from his chamber; his going forth is from the height of heaven, and his circuit to its height.' For the holy Mary too, because she had conceived him in whom the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, is greeted as 'full of grace'; and the apostle, knowing that his preaching had overcome all the teachings of the world not by worldly eloquence but by the power of God, says: 'My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that our faith might not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.' And, correcting himself because he had said, 'I labored more than all,' he at once added, 'yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me,' and again, 'because his grace in me was not in vain.' The word 'poured out' is properly added in the case of the Savior to signify the abundance of grace, according to that saying, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,' and, 'The love of God has been poured out in our hearts.' And note that you must refer the understanding of all that is said to the person of him who was assumed from Mary, that he is said to be blessed for ever because of the grace of his lips; as the apostle too proclaims something similar: 'He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name above every name.' For as there the form of a servant is the injury of the passion, and the exaltation and gift of the name is the return to the Father, so here the pouring out of grace and the eternal blessing must be referred to him who can be humbled and grow.

'Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one, in your splendor and your beauty.' In the Hebrew: 'Gird your sword upon your thigh, most valiant one, in your glory and your majesty.' I think you understand this passage very well, and serve as a soldier girded with the sword of Christ. And so that you may know that virginity always has the sword of chastity, by which it cuts off the works of the flesh and overcomes pleasures, even pagan error has invented armed virgin goddesses. Peter too girded his loins and had a burning lamp in his hands. That the thigh signifies the works of marriage you will learn briefly from these examples. Abraham, sending to seek a wife for his son Isaac, says to the elder of his house: 'Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven': no doubt by him who was to be born of his seed. Jacob, after he wrestled with the man who appeared to him at the brook Jabbok, leaving Mesopotamia and entering the land of promise, did not receive the name of Israel until the sinew of his thigh withered. And to his son he says: 'A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs.' And again, when about to die himself, he makes Joseph swear by his thigh not to bury him in Egypt. In the book of Judges too we read: 'Gideon had seventy sons who came out of his thighs.' In the Song of Songs it is said: 'Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men around it, of the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, expert in war, each man with his sword on his thigh.' So, in his glory and majesty, or in the splendor and beauty of his divinity, mortifying the works of the flesh and born of a virgin, he became the prince of virginity for virgins to come.

'And bend your bow, advance prosperously and reign, for the sake of truth and gentleness and righteousness, and your right hand will lead you wonderfully.' In the Hebrew: 'In your majesty ride on prosperously for the sake of truth and the gentleness of righteousness, and your right hand will teach you terrible things.' 'In your majesty' is written a second time among the Hebrews, lest anyone think it repeated by a copyist's fault; it is the figure called repetition by the rhetoricians. So, in the manner of a panegyric, in which eulogists speak to those they extol with praises, he exhorts the armed one to battle, not to abandon the wars once undertaken, but, advancing as victor over the slaughter of the enemy, to prepare for himself a kingdom among those whom he has rescued from the devil's power and joined to his own rule, and to say: 'I have been appointed king by him over Zion, his holy mountain.' No one doubts that Christ is called truth, modesty, and righteousness, who says, 'I am the way and the life and the truth,' and, 'Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,' and who 'was made for us by God righteousness and redemption and holiness.' All these things are said of the body so that they may be required in the members. The Lord's victory is the triumph of the servants, the master's learning the progress of the disciples. And what follows, 'Your right hand will lead you wonderfully,' is to be understood either of the signs he performed in the Gospel or, figuratively, of the slaughter he made among the enemy. 'The heart of the wise is in his right hand, and the heart of the fool in his left.' Christ is on the right, Antichrist on the left. The Hebrew version differs in words, not in sense.

'Your arrows are sharp, most mighty one; peoples will fall under you, in the heart of the king's enemies.' In the Hebrew the rest is the same, without 'most mighty one.' This verse too is especially suited to you, who, wounded by the Lord's dart, sing with the bride in the Song: 'I am wounded with love.' No wonder if your bridegroom has many arrows, of which it is said in the hundred and nineteenth psalm, 'Sharp arrows of the mighty one, with desolating coals,' since he himself is the Father's dart and says in Isaiah, 'He made me like a chosen arrow; in his quiver he hid me.' Wounded by these arrows, Cleopas too, with his companion on the road, said: 'Did not our heart burn within us while he spoke on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?' And in another place we read: 'Like arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of the shaken off.' By these arrows the whole world has been wounded and captured. Paul was an arrow of the Lord, who, after being sent by the Lord's bow from Jerusalem to Illyricum and flying here and there, hastens to go to Spain, so that, a swift arrow, he might lay low East and West under the feet of his Lord. And because there are many enemies of the most mighty king, who had been wounded by the fiery arrows of the devil and struck in the liver like a stag by a dart, the Lord's arrows are sent, fiery, with desolating coals, to burn out whatever vice was in the heart of the king's enemies, and by a saving fire to drive out the destroying fire.

'Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.' In the Hebrew: 'Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of equity is the sceptre of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of exultation above your companions.' Understand two persons: God who is anointed, and God who anoints. Hence Aquila too translates the Hebrew word Elohim not in the nominative case but in the vocative, saying θεέ ('O God'), and we have put it so for understanding, though the Latin language does not admit it, so that no one may perversely think that the God of the beloved, most loving king is twice named Father. Although the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and each is to the other both dweller and throne, yet in this place the speech is directed to the king, who is God, and it is said to him that his rule (for so I understand 'throne,' according to what is written: 'Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne') has no end. This the angel also announced to Mary: 'The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.' Nor let us think that this is contrary to what the apostle says, writing to the Corinthians, that the Son will hand over the kingdom and be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all. For he did not say 'he will hand it over to the Father,' which would seem to separate the Son, but 'to God,' that is, to God dwelling in the assumed body, so that God may be all in all, and Christ, who before was in individuals through a few virtues, may dwell in all through all. That the sceptre and rod are the emblem of one who reigns the prophet himself shows, saying, 'The sceptre of equity is the sceptre of your kingdom.' Some, bringing forward the testimony of Isaiah, 'A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root,' understand the man who was assumed, to whom the rule is given, and who is said to reign because of his love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity, and to be anointed with the oil of exultation above his companions, as if to receive in the anointing the reward of love and hatred. We are taught that the seeds of both love and hatred are in us, since he himself, who raised to heaven the firstfruits of the lump of our bodies, both loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Hence David: 'Did I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and waste away over your enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred.' In what follows, 'God, your God, has anointed you,' the first name of God is to be understood in the vocative, the next in the nominative. I wonder why Aquila did not translate it in the vocative, as he had begun in the first verse, but in the nominative, naming God twice as the one who anointed the God mentioned above. In this place Photinus is crushed, but Arius raises his head, bringing forward testimony from the Gospel: 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' But since he hears of the beloved, of one girded with a sword upon his thigh, reigning for the sake of truth and gentleness, anointed because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and anointed above his fellows, of whom it is written, 'We have become partakers of Christ, if only we hold the beginning of our substance firm to the end,' I wonder why he calls only 'the God of God' into his slander, as if all that is said suited the divinity of the Word and not the lowliness of the man. Let him hear the Acts of the Apostles: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit'; let him hear the Gospel: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one born of you will be called the Son of God'; let him hear the Lord himself thundering: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.' The 'fellows' signify the apostles and believers, to whom he gave the name of his anointing, so that from the Anointed they are called anointed, that is, Christians.

'Myrrh and drops and cassia from your garments, from the ivory houses, from which the daughters of kings have delighted you in your honor.' In the Hebrew: 'Myrrh and stacte and cassia on all your garments, from the ivory houses, with which the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honor.' The preface itself has taught you that I wished to explain this psalm because, writing to a virgin, I found the title 'for the lilies' and flowers. So I will consistently refer these verses too to you, for whom this volume is written. You have put to death your members on earth, and, offering myrrh daily to Christ, you are the good odor of Christ, and therefore you present stacte, that is, a drop or drip, to the Lord. Those who know the virtues of spices say that stacte is the flower of myrrh. What follows, cassia, is the same that others call σῦριγξ, that is, 'pipe,' vocal in the praises of God, and by its heat drying up all the phlegm and rheum of pleasures. Where our copies have 'drop' or 'stacte,' in the Hebrew we read 'ahaloth' (aloes). Hence Nicodemus too prepared a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes to bury the Lord, and the bridegroom says to the bride, 'Myrrh and aloes with all the chief ointments,' and she answers, 'My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.' You too, cast away the works of death, buried with Christ in baptism and dead to this world, thinking of nothing but heavenly things, and say to your bridegroom: 'My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.' We read also of the priestly ointment, which David too mentions: 'Like the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron, which ran down on the border of his garment'; in it stacte too is mixed with the other spices. The magi too offer myrrh, and in the present place the beginning of Christ's garments is to accept his death and show it in one's own flesh. Prepare these garments for your bridegroom; let him go forth adorned with these clothes. And when you have woven him garments of this kind, you will yourself become a temple of the Lord and will gladden him from the ivory houses, or, as is better written in the Hebrew, from the temple of teeth, and you will sing praises to the Lord and, wholly dead to the world, imitate the choirs of angels. For the very nature of the names shows that ivory and teeth are an emblem of death and of the voice. And consequently it is added: 'from which the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honor.' The King of kings and Lord of lords is your bridegroom. These kings, who are petty kings under so great a king, are your fathers, who begot you by the teaching of the Gospel. As their daughter, you honor in all your garments and good odors and ivory temple him to whom it was said above: 'Grace is poured out on your lips,' and 'Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one,' and 'Your arrows are sharp,' and 'Your throne, O God, is for ever.' For what we translated 'ivory houses,' since the Greek has ἀπὸ βάρεων, some Latins, because of the ambiguity of the word, translated 'from the heavy ones'; whereas βάρις is a native word of Palestine, and to this day houses closed in on every side and built like towers and public walls are called βάρεις.

'The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing.' What follows, 'arrayed in variety,' no translator rendered except the common edition. In the Hebrew: 'The consort stood at your right hand in a golden diadem.' Where we translated 'consort,' the Hebrew reads shegal, for which Aquila has σύγκοιτον ('bedfellow'), Symmachus and the fifth edition παλλακήν, that is, 'concubine,' while the Seventy, Theodotion, and the sixth rendered 'queen.' Then, where I put 'in a golden diadem,' Symmachus translated 'in first-quality gold,' Aquila, the fifth, and the sixth 'in dye' or 'in gold of Ophir.' Those who are daughters of kings and are being prepared for the bridegroom's embraces delight him, whose throne is for ever and ever, by myrrh, drops, cassia, and ivory houses. But she who is already founded with firm root on the rock, Christ, the catholic church, the one dove, perfect and nearest, stands at the right hand and has nothing left-handed in her; she stands in gilded garments, passing from the words of the Scriptures to their sense and full of all virtues, or, as we translated, in a golden diadem. For she is queen and reigns with the king, whose daughters we can understand both as the souls of believers in common and properly as the choirs of virgins. Ophir is a kind of gold, named either from a place in India or from its color; for among the Hebrews there are seven words for gold. Let us understand the wife and the concubine too from the Song of Solomon, she who cannot sleep without her bridegroom or husband.

'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; and the king will desire your beauty, for he is your Lord, and they will worship him.' In the Hebrew: 'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; and the king will desire your beauty, for he is your Lord, and worship him.' Up to this point the Holy Spirit speaks by the tongue of the prophet, which he compares to the pen of a swift writer, addressing the king himself, warrior, God, and bridegroom. From here the person of the Father is brought in, speaking to the bride of his Son and exhorting her, having despised the error of the old paganism and idolatry, first to attend to what is said (and for this she is called 'daughter' though a foreigner); then to see, either the things said or the whole creation, understanding the invisible things from the visible and perceiving the Creator from the creatures; and diligently to incline her ear, so as to hold in memory what is said. And when she has heard, seen, and inclined her ear, and given herself wholly to the teaching and understanding of what is said, let her first forget her people and, going out of Chaldea with Abraham, leave the land of her birth and kindred. No one doubts that our father, before we were adopted by God, was the devil, of whom the Savior says: 'You are of your father the devil.' 'When, then,' he says, 'you have forgotten your ancient father and shown yourself such that, having put off your former filth, you come up made white, leaning on your kinsman, and such that my Son can love you, then the king will desire your beauty.' And lest you think that the one by whom you are to be loved is one of the crowd, he himself is your king and your Lord. And because sometimes those who are kings and lords are kings and lords in power but of the same nature as those over whom they rule and reign, I point out to you that he is also your God and that you ought to worship him. The Seventy translators did not say 'you will worship him' but 'they will worship him,' so that the sense is: 'He who will love you, who will love your beauty, is God and to be worshipped by men.' What we have explained of the church gathered from the Gentiles, let each apply to himself and to the soul of the believer: that, having left its former vices, it is adopted as a daughter, inclines its ear, forgets its old way of life, and, with the apostle, leaves its dead father, and shows itself such as to be loved by the king. For he is its Lord, to whom it must bend the knee and, laying aside pride, take up the yoke of humility.

Let us ask the Jews who this daughter is to whom God speaks. I have no doubt that they will answer, the synagogue. And how is it said to the synagogue and the people of Israel, 'Leave your people and your father's house'? Does it abandon the Hebrew nation and Abraham, its ancient father? If they say that the calling of Abraham is signified, because he left the Chaldeans, who is this king who is to love the beauty of Abraham? Certainly the one who speaks, 'Hear, O daughter,' is one, and the one of whom he speaks, 'The king will desire your beauty,' is another; and this other is not only king but also Lord and God, who is to be worshipped.

'Daughter of Tyre, the rich of the people will entreat your face with gifts.' In the Hebrew: 'And, O daughter of the strongest, the rich of the people will entreat your face with gifts.' The Hebrew word sor, which we read in Ezekiel according to the Seventy, can be translated 'Tyre,' 'tribulation,' 'strongest' (masculine or feminine), and 'flint,' that is, the hardest stone. Hence the error arose in the present place: Aquila, the Seventy, Theodotion, and the fifth edition translated 'Tyre'; the sixth put the Hebrew word sor; Symmachus κραταιάν, that is, 'strongest.' We referred it to God, so that she to whom he had said above, 'Hear, O daughter, and see,' is called daughter of the strongest; or at least she herself is strongest, because she has imitated her strong Father, whose face the rich of the people will entreat with various gifts: rich in all good works and knowledge; or those who are thought rich in the world, the wise of this world and those trained in the schools of the philosophers; or, better, those who were rich before, having the oracles of God and the covenants and the prophets, that is, of the people of Israel. For as, before the Savior's coming, those who were of Tyre, that is, of the Gentile people, and wished to be proselytes, entreated the rich people of Israel and were brought by them into the temple, so, after the Lord's coming, whoever of Israel wish to believe (once rich in God's familiarity and protection) will come to the daughter of Tyre and, offering various gifts of virtues and of confession of Christ, will entreat her, so that they may find among the Gentiles the salvation they lost in Judea.

'All the glory of the king's daughter is within, in golden fringes, arrayed in variety.' In the Hebrew: 'All the glory of the king's daughter is within; she is clothed with golden bands.' For what is written in the Seventy ἔσωθεν, which we have translated 'from within' or 'inwardly,' in some copies esebon is found, which means 'thoughts.' This shows that all the glory of the church, to whom it was said above, 'Hear, O daughter, and see,' and 'O daughter of Tyre,' and who is now called the king's daughter, is within and in the thoughts, that is, in the inner man and in the circumcision not made with hands but by the Spirit, having the confidence of conscience toward God, and all her beauty placed rather in the worth of meanings than in the flower of words. And as in the warp from which the fringes hang the woof is woven in, and the whole strength of the garment is in the warp, so in the golden meanings of the Scriptures, in which the whole garment of the church is woven, some things about nature and morals are mixed in. And this is what is signified by the garment of Aaron, woven of gold, purple, scarlet, fine linen, and blue, which the women made to whom God gave wisdom for weaving. And that we may understand that all the adornment of the king's daughter is within, she herself says in the Song: 'The king has brought me into his chamber,' in which, the door of the lips being shut, we are commanded to pray to God the Father. The title of the ninth psalm too is inscribed: 'For the hidden things of the Son.' Joseph too had a tunic of many colors, which his mother the church wove for him. Of these fringes of the Savior the woman with a flow of blood touched one and was healed. What is written in the Hebrew, 'She is clothed with golden bands,' signifies the same as above: 'All the glory of the king's daughter is within'; the inner members of the church are wrapped in the bands of divine meanings, and the whole compass of the womb is covered. These bands the bride cannot forget, according to Jeremiah, because they bind the breasts and protect the heart in which the thoughts are.

'Virgins will be brought to the king after her; her companions will be brought to you; they will be brought with gladness and exultation; they will be led into the king's temple.' According to the Seventy, the first verse is still sung of the daughter's adornment, the next is directed to the bridegroom and king himself. But according to the Hebrew, everything is said to the bride, up to the place where it is written, 'You will make them princes in all the earth,' and it reads: 'In embroidered garments she will be led to the king; virgins will follow her, her friends will be brought there. They will be led with gladness and exultation; they will enter the king's bridal chamber.' The Song of Songs shows that there is much difference among the souls who believe in Christ, where it is written: 'There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and young maidens without number. One is my dove, my perfect one, my nearest,' of whom it is said: 'The daughters saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.' She, then, who is perfect and holy in body and spirit and deserves to be called dove and nearest, is the daughter of whom it was said above: 'The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing.' Those who have passed beyond the six days of the world and sigh for the kingdom to come are called queens. But if one has indeed the circumcision of the eighth day but has not yet come to the marriage, she is called a concubine. The varied multitude of believers, who cannot yet be joined in the bridegroom's embraces or bear children by him, is called the young maidens. I think that among those virgins who follow the church and are placed in the first rank are you and all who persevere in virginity of body and soul; and that the companions and friends are the widows and those continent in marriage; all of whom are led with gladness and exultation into the temple and into the king's chamber: into the temple as priests of God, into the chamber as brides of the King and Bridegroom. This temple John too saw in the Apocalypse, and the prophet longs for it: 'One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.' And again: 'Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place where your glory dwells.' And in another place: 'For I shall pass into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, to the house of God, with the voice of exultation and praise, the sound of those keeping festival.' The embroidered garments with which the queen is adorned for her bridegroom are the same as those we read in the Seventy: 'arrayed in variety.'

'Instead of your fathers sons are born to you; you will make them princes over all the earth.' In the Hebrew: 'Instead of your fathers there will be sons to you; you will set them as princes in all the earth.' The speech can be understood, from the person of the Father, not about the daughter but again addressed to the daughter, and also from the person of the Holy Spirit and of the sons of Korah. If, then, the speech is directed to the bride, and the bride is gathered from the nations, to whom it is said above, 'Forget your people and your father's house,' we must know the bride's fathers so as to know consequently her sons too. Instead of your fathers, of whom you said in Jeremiah, 'How false are the idols our fathers possessed!' and, 'There is none among them who gives rain'; instead of Plato and the other teachers of various doctrines and errors, sons are born to you, whom you have made your princes and made teachers among the peoples. Or at any rate otherwise: O church, your sons, whom you have borne, will be turned into your fathers, when you make them teachers instead of disciples and place them in the priestly rank by the testimony of all. But if we understand the fathers of the church as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the other patriarchs, let us understand the sons born to her in the place of the fathers as the apostles, who were sent by the Lord to preach to the ends of the earth and to baptize believers in the name of the Trinity. But it is asked how the church from the Gentiles can have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as fathers, when it was said to her above, 'Forget your people and your father's house.' Let us read the Gospel: 'Do not say, We have Abraham as father; God is able from these stones' (that is, from the hard heart of the Gentiles) 'to raise up children to Abraham,' and in another place: 'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.' And in Genesis God says to Abraham himself: 'In your seed all the nations will be blessed.' For as he was justified by faith in uncircumcision, so we too shall be justified in the same faith, if we have the faith and works of our father Abraham. This same verse can also be said to the Savior, either by the Father or by the prophetic choir and the Holy Spirit: 'Instead of your fathers,' that is, the stock of the Jews, who left you and denied you, 'sons are born to you,' the apostles and believers from the nations, 'whom you have made princes in all the earth.'