Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.238–3.241

and lit fire in the torches, and sent them out through the crops of the Philistines, and burned all their crops and their stubble, and their vineyards and their olive groves. Further, in the second book of Ezra, where Tobiah the Ammonite hindered the building by those who had returned from captivity, as they were building the temple and the wall, he says to the foreigners: “Will these sacrifice or eat sacrificial meat in this place? Will not foxes go up and destroy their wall which they are building of stones?” These, meanwhile, are the passages of the divine Scriptures mentioning this animal that could occur to us for the present, so that from them every wise reader may prudently judge whether we have used a fitting exposition, in what is set before us, to explain the words, “Catch us the little foxes.” And though it is laborious to explain each of the passages we have taken as examples, yet we will touch briefly on what we can. And first let us look at the sixty-second psalm, where, when the ungodly were persecuting the soul of the righteous man, he sang, saying: “But they sought my soul in vain; they will go into the lower parts of the earth; they will be given into the hands of the sword; they will be portions for foxes.” In this surely it is shown that the depraved teachers, wishing to deceive the soul of the righteous with vain and empty words, are said to go into the lower parts of the earth, as minding the earth and speaking of the earth, and descending into its lower parts, that is, into the depth of folly. For I think that those who live carnally, since they harm only themselves, are said to be earth and to dwell on earth. But those who understand the Scriptures with earthly and carnal meanings, and deceive others by teaching so, because they put together certain subtleties and arguments of carnal and earthly wisdom, are said to enter the lower parts of the earth; or certainly, because those who teach earthly things sin more gravely than those who live so, an even heavier future punishment threatens them. And these same are prophesied to be given into the hands of the sword, perhaps that flaming and turning one. And let us see how they become portions of foxes. Every soul is either the portion of God or the portion of someone who has received power over men. For when the Most High divided the nations and dispersed the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and Jacob became the portion of the Lord. Since, then, it is agreed that every soul is either in the portion of God or in the portion of some other (since through freedom of choice it is possible for anyone to pass from the portion of another, either to the portion of God, if he has chosen the better with God's help, or, if the worse, to the share of the demons), hence mention of them is made in the psalm: those who sought the soul of the righteous in vain will be portions of foxes; as if he said, they will be portions of the worst and most wicked demons; so that every malign and deceitful power, through which the deceptions and frauds of false knowledge have been introduced, is figuratively called a fox;

and those who are led into this error and will not assent to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the teaching that is according to godliness, but let themselves be deceived by such, these become portions of such foxes and will go with them into the lower parts of the earth. They too are those in whom, according to the Gospel, those foxes we mentioned above are said to have holes, in whom the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Herod too must be believed to have been named a fox for his deceitful cunning. But as for Samson, who is recorded to have caught three hundred foxes and tied them together by their tails, put burning torches between the tails, sent them into the crops of the Philistines, and burned these together with the stubble and the olive groves and vineyards, the explanation of this form or figure seems to me very difficult. Yet let us try to knock at some of it as far as we can, and let us suppose, as our exposition above holds, that the foxes are deceitful and perverse teachers. These Samson, who bears the image of the true and faithful teacher, catching them with the word of truth, ties tail to tail; that is, he refutes those who oppose him and who think and teach things differing from one another, and taking propositions and inferences from their own words, he sends the fire of conclusion into the crop of the Philistines, and from their own arguments burns all their fruits and the vineyards and olive groves of a most wicked generation. And the very number of three hundred foxes, because they were different from and discordant with one another, indicates the threefold form of sins. For every sin is committed either in deed or in word or in mind.

Nor must what we said is written in the second book of Ezra be wholly passed over: where, when the Holy of Holies was being built, that is, when the faith of Christ and the mysteries of his saints were being founded, the enemies of truth and opponents of faith, who are the wise of this world, seeing the walls of the Gospel rising without grammatical art and philosophical skill, say as it were with a certain mockery that this can very easily be destroyed by the cunning of words, through crafty fallacies and dialectical arguments. Let these things suffice for now, so far as brevity allowed, concerning the examples taken. Now let us return to our subject. It seems, then, that in the Song of Songs a command is given by the Bridegroom to the powers that are his friends, to catch and convict the opposing powers that lie in wait for the souls of men, lest they destroy their beginnings of faith and the flower of virtues under the appearance of some secret and hidden wisdom; and these powers lurk, like foxes in holes, in those men who have given themselves to follow such things. And that they may more easily be refuted and convicted, they are commanded to be caught while the foxes themselves are small and have only the beginnings of a most wicked persuasion. For if perhaps they have grown and become bigger foxes, they could no longer be caught by the friends of the Bridegroom, but perhaps by the Bridegroom himself alone. But all the holy teachers and masters of the Church too, as they received power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, so they receive power also to catch foxes. For so power was given them over all the power of the enemy. One without doubt among the other powers of the enemy is the fox, which destroys the flowering vineyards, and which, while it is still small, is commanded to be caught; as in the hundred and thirty-seventh psalm he is called blessed who takes and dashes the little ones of Babylon against the rock, and does not allow the Babylonian sense to grow and increase in himself, but dashes it while it is at its beginnings and holds it to the rock: for then it is easily destroyed.

Let the order of the explanation run thus, then: “Catch us the little foxes, which foxes destroy the flowering vineyards.” And his saying “us” means: me the Bridegroom and the Bride; or certainly me and you who are my companions. But it can also be taken thus: “Catch us the foxes,” and, after a pause, “that destroy the little vineyards,” so that we refer “little” not so much to the foxes as to the vineyards; so that it is the little vineyards that seem able to be destroyed: that is, all small souls, and those that have only beginnings, not firm and strong ones, can be harmed by the opposing powers. As it is said in the Gospel, “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble.” In this it is shown that a great and perfect soul cannot be caused to stumble, but a little and untrained one; as is said in the psalm: “Great peace have those who love your name, and there is no stumbling for them.” By a similar example, then, it can be seen that every little vineyard, that is, a beginning soul, can be harmed by the foxes, that is, by evil thoughts or by depraved teachers, but a perfect and strong one cannot. But if these foxes are caught by good teachers and cast out of the soul, then it will advance in virtues and flower in faith. Amen.