Homilies on the Song of Songs

Contents

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1. 0Gregory tells Olympias why he has written up his Lenten homilies on the Song of Songs and defends reading Scripture for a meaning beyond its surface sense.
2. 1Gregory warns that only those freed from fleshly thoughts should hear the Song, explains how Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song lead the soul by stages to union with God, and expounds Song 1:2–4 on the kiss, the breasts, the ointment and the maidens.
3. 2Expounding Song 1:5–8, Gregory teaches that the soul, blackened by sin through the free choice of fallen powers rather than by its Creator, is made beautiful by Christ's love, and must guard that beauty by knowing itself as God's image.
4. 3Expounding Song 1:9–14, Gregory interprets the bride's likeness to the mare that overthrew Pharaoh's chariots, the turtledove cheeks and necklaces as virtues, the 'likenesses of gold' as the limits of all language about God, and the myrrh, nard and henna cluster as Christ dwelling in the purified soul.
5. 4Expounding Song 1:15–2:7, Gregory describes the soul refined like gold and made a mirror of the Word, the shaded couch as the Incarnation, the cedars and cypresses as virtues, the apple tree as Christ, the right ordering of love, the wound of love's arrow, and the oath by the angelic powers.
6. 5Expounding Song 2:8–17, Gregory reads the bridegroom's leaping over the mountains as the Incarnation overthrowing the demons, the wall and windows as the law and prophets giving way to the Gospel, spring as the end of idolatry's winter, and the repeated 'Arise, come' as the soul's endless ascent into the infinite good.
7. 6Expounding Song 3:1–8, Gregory teaches that the soul's every attainment is the beginning of a higher desire, that God is found in the divine darkness only by faith beyond every name and created thing, and that the sixty armed men around Solomon's bed are the senses armed by self-control in the one church.
8. 7Expounding Song 3:9–4:7, Gregory reads Solomon as a type of Christ, the litter as souls transformed from wood into gold and silver, the crown as the church woven by love, and the bride's eyes, hair, teeth, lips, cheek, neck and breasts as the members of the church: its overseers, ascetics, teachers, confessors and nursing teachers.
9. 8On Song 4:8–9 Gregory teaches that the soul's ascent to God never ends, since each good attained is the beginning of a higher one, and reads the angels' praise of the bride as their wonder at God's manifold wisdom shown through the church.
10. 9On Song 4:10–15 Gregory reads the bridegroom's praises of the bride's breasts, garments, lips, locked garden, sealed fountain, and spices as stages of the soul's ascent, ending with the bride as a well of living water, that is, a soul made like the divine fountain.
11. 10On Song 4:16–5:2 Gregory reads the bride's banishing of the north wind and summoning of the south wind as the soul's authority over evil and its welcome to the Spirit, the bridegroom's feast as the eucharistic mysteries and a sober drunkenness of ecstasy, and the bride's sleep with a waking heart as the senses stilled while the mind contemplates God.
12. 11On Song 5:2–4 Gregory urges wakefulness against the dreams of worldly life, describes the soul's ascent from light through cloud into the divine darkness, reads the keys "sister, close one, dove, perfect one" and the putting off of the tunic of skin as the opening of the soul to the Word, and interprets the hand through the opening either as God known only by his works or as the incarnation.
13. 12On Song 5:5–7 Gregory reads the myrrh dripping from the bride's hands as voluntary death to sin through which the soul rises, the bridegroom's passing by as God always beyond the soul's grasp (as with Moses), and the watchmen's blows that remove her veil as the healing discipline of the Spirit and the angels, by which her longing for God is endlessly renewed.
14. 13On Song 5:8–12 Gregory explains the bride's oath "by the powers of the field" as the gospel's "Yes" (sound faith and a pure life), the wound of love as Christ's love for sinners, and begins the description of the bridegroom as Christ in his incarnate economy and his body the church: white and ruddy for his flesh, "chosen" for his virgin birth without labour, his golden head the sinless first fruits of our nature, his locks the apostles, his eyes the church's overseers.
15. 14On Song 5:13–16 Gregory continues the description of the bridegroom's body as the church: the cheeks are teachers who give plain, guileless food; the lips are preachers whose lily-bright words drip the myrrh of dying to the world (Paul with Thecla, Peter with Cornelius); the golden hands are faithful stewards (Judas the warning); the belly is the pure heart as a tablet of the law; the legs are the pillars of the church, or the two great commandments; and "this is my close one" is Christ as the Good Samaritan.
16. 15On Song 6:1–9 Gregory, beginning from Philip leading Nathanael to Christ, reads the bride's directions to the young women as the gospel of the Word who came down to replant humanity as his garden, "I am my beloved's" as the soul become a clear mirror of Christ, the bride's praised features as ranks in the church, and the sixty queens, eighty concubines, and countless young women as souls advancing by love, by fear, or as beginners, all meant to become the one perfect dove, united by the Spirit until God is all in all.