Book 2

Commentary on the Song of Songs — Book Two

BOOK TWO

» I am dark and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the skins of Solomon. «

In other copies we read: "I am black and beautiful." Here again the person of the bride is introduced as speaking; but she speaks not to those young maidens who are accustomed to run with her, but to the daughters of Jerusalem, to whom she seems to make reply as to those who have disparaged her unsightliness, and to say: I am indeed dark, or black, so far as concerns color, O daughters of Jerusalem; but I am beautiful, if one looks upon the inner lineaments of my members. For the tents of Kedar too, she says — Kedar being a great nation — are black, and the very nation of Kedar is interpreted as blackness or darkness. But the skins of Solomon also are black, and yet on that account the blackness of the skins did not appear unseemly to so great a king in all his glory. Do not therefore, O daughters of Jerusalem, reproach me with the fault of my color, since there is no lack of beauty in my body, whether natural or acquired by exercise. This is what the historical drama contains, and the outward form of the tale set before us. But let us return to the mystical order. This bride who speaks holds the person of the Church gathered out of the nations. But the daughters of Jerusalem, to whom her discourse is addressed, are those souls who, on account of the election of the fathers, are indeed called most beloved, but enemies on account of the Gospel. These are the daughters of the earthly city Jerusalem, who, seeing the Church out of the nations — ignoble, as they suppose, in that she cannot ascribe to herself the nobility of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet forgetting her own people and her father's house, coming even to Christ — despise her and cast a shadow upon her for the ignobility of her race. And the bride, perceiving that the daughters of the former people impute this to her, and that on this account she is even called black, as one who has not the brightness of her fathers' learning, replies to these things and says: I am indeed black, O daughters of Jerusalem, in that I do not descend from the stock of illustrious men, nor have I received the illumination of the law of Moses; yet I have my own beauty with me. For there is in me first that which was made in me according to the image of God; and now, coming to the Word of God, I have received back my own comeliness. For although, on account of the darkness of my color, you compare me to the tents of Kedar and to the skins of Solomon, yet Kedar too descends from Ishmael. For in the second place there was born of Ishmael this Kedar; and Ishmael was not without a share in the divine blessing. But you also compare me to the skins of Solomon, which are none other than the skins of the tabernacle of God; and yet I marvel at you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you would reproach me with the blackness of my color. How do you not remember what is written in the law — what Miriam suffered, who disparaged Moses because he had taken to wife a black Ethiopian woman? How are you ignorant that the shadow of that image is now being fulfilled in me in truth? I am that Ethiopian woman; I am black indeed for the ignobility of my race, but beautiful because of repentance and faith. For I have received into myself the Son of God, I have received the Word made flesh. I have come to him who is the image of God, the firstborn of all creation, and who is the brightness of glory and the radiance of his substance, and I have become beautiful. Why then do you reproach one who is being converted from sin — a thing which the law forbids to be done? And how do you glory in the law, while you transgress the law? But since we are at those places where the Church that comes from the nations says that she is black and beautiful, although it may seem long and laborious to gather from the divine Scriptures in what places, or in what manner, the form of this mystery went before, nevertheless it does not seem to me a thing to be altogether omitted, but rather to be recalled as briefly as may be. First, then, in the book of Numbers it is thus written concerning the Ethiopian woman: "And Miriam spoke to Aaron, and they disparaged Moses on account of the Ethiopian woman whom he had taken to wife, and they said: Has the Lord spoken to Moses alone? Has he not spoken also to us?" And again in the third book of Kings it is written concerning the queen of Sheba, that she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, in this manner: "The queen of Sheba heard the name of Solomon, and the name of the Lord, and she came to test him with riddles; and she came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue: and camels bearing spices, and much gold, and precious stone; and she came in to Solomon, and spoke to him all the words that were in her heart, and Solomon declared to her all her words, and there was no word which the king omitted, and which the king did not declare to her. And the queen of Sheba saw all the prudence of Solomon, and the house which he had built, and the food of Solomon, and the seat of his servants, and the order of his ministers, and his garments, and his cup-bearers, and his burnt offerings which he offered in the house of the Lord, and she was astounded, and said to king Solomon: The word is true which I heard in my land concerning your word and your prudence, and I did not believe those who spoke to me until I came, and my eyes saw, and behold, not even the half is of what was told me. For you have added good things beyond all the report which I heard in my land. Blessed are your women, blessed are these your servants who stand in your presence always, and hear all your prudence. Let the Lord your God be blessed, who has given you the throne of Israel. Because the Lord loved Israel, and willed him to abide forever, he set you as king over them, that you might do judgment with justice, and judge them. And she gave to Solomon a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and very many spices, and precious stone. Never had such spices come, nor in such abundance, as the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon." Now this history we have wished to repeat somewhat more at length, and to insert into this our exposition, knowing that these things so greatly befit the person of the Church which comes from the nations to Christ, that the Lord himself in the Gospels made mention of this queen, saying that she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And he calls her the queen of the South, in that Ethiopia lies in the parts of the South, and is set as it were at the utmost, at the ends of the earth. We find, moreover, that Josephus too makes mention of this same queen in his history, adding this also, that after she had returned, he says, from Solomon, king Cambyses, marveling at her wisdom — which without doubt she had received from the wisdom of Solomon — named her, he says, by the name Meroë. And he relates that she held the kingdom not only of Ethiopia, but also of Egypt. We shall add still further those things which in the sixty-seventh psalm are contained concerning this same form. It says there, then: "Scatter the nations that desire wars, and let ambassadors come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand to God before the rest. Kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord." There is yet, in the fourth place, in Zephaniah the prophet, written concerning this same figure in this manner: "Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, in the day of my resurrection, in my testimony," that is, in my witness, "because my judgment is unto the gathering of the nations, that I may receive kings, and pour out upon them the wrath of my indignation. In the fire of my zeal shall all the earth be consumed. For then will I turn among the peoples a tongue into its generation, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve him under one yoke. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive those who are scattered, and they shall bring sacrifice to me. In that day you shall not be confounded, O Sheba, for all your devices in which you have acted impiously against me." But in Jeremiah also it is written, that certain princes of the people of Israel cast Jeremiah into the pit of Melchiah the king's son, which was in the house of the prison, and they let him down with ropes, and in the pit there was no water, but mire, and he was in the mire. But Abdemelech, an Ethiopian man, a eunuch, who was in the king's house, hearing that they had cast Jeremiah into the pit, spoke to the king, and said: My lord king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, in that they have cast him into the pit, and he will die there from the face of famine, since there are now no more loaves in the city. And the king commanded this Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying: Take from here thirty men, and lead him up out of the pit, that he die not there. And what more? It was Abdemelech the Ethiopian who led Jeremiah up out of the pit. And a little after: The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: Go, and say to Abdemelech the Ethiopian, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing my words upon this city for evil, and not for good, and I will save you in that day, and I will not give you into the hands of the men whom you fear. Saving I will save you from before their face, and by the sword you shall not fall, but your soul shall be for salvation, because you have trusted in me, says the Lord. These things, for the present, could occur to us from the holy Scriptures, by which it seems to me that the mystery of the little verse set before us from the Song of Songs is confirmed, in which she says: "I am dark (or black) and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tent of Kedar, and like the skins of Solomon." Moses, then, is found in Numbers to take a dark, or black, Ethiopian woman to wife, on whose account Miriam and Aaron disparage him, and, indignant, say: "Has the Lord spoken to Moses alone? Has he not spoken also to us?" In which, if you consider it carefully, the historical narrative is not even found to have coherence. For what will seem to fit the matter, that, being indignant on account of the Ethiopian woman, they should say: "Has the Lord spoken to Moses alone? Has he not spoken also to us?" For it were fitting, if this were the cause, that they should say: You ought not, O Moses, to have taken an Ethiopian woman to wife, and of the seed of Ham, but one of your own race, and of the house of Levi. None of these things do they say, but they declare: "Has God spoken to Moses alone? Has he not spoken also to us?" In which it seems to me too that, according to the mystery, they understood rather what was being done, and saw that Moses — that is, the spiritual law — was now passing over into the nuptials and wedlock of the Church gathered from the nations; and that Miriam, who held the form of the forsaken Synagogue, and Aaron, who held the image of the carnal priesthood, seeing that the kingdom was taken away from themselves, and given to a nation bringing forth its fruits, said: "Has God spoken to Moses alone? Has he not spoken also to us?" Finally, though such and so magnificent works of faith and patience of Moses are related, never was he exalted by God with such praises as now, when he took the Ethiopian woman to wife. Now it is said of him, that "Moses was a man exceedingly meek above all men who are upon the earth." Now the Lord also says of him this: "If there be a prophet among you, I will speak to him in visions, or in dreams, not so with my servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth will I speak to him, in his own form, and not in a riddle, and he saw the glory of the Lord. And why were you not afraid to detract from my servant Moses?" All these things, on account of his marriage with the Ethiopian woman, did Moses deserve to hear from the Lord. But of these things we have treated more fully in the book of Numbers; and if anyone judges it worthy to know them, let him seek them out there. But now let it suffice to prove from these things that she herself is the black one, and beautiful, and the Ethiopian woman, whom Moses — that is, the spiritual law, which without doubt is the Word of God and Christ — takes into his own wedlock, though the daughters of Jerusalem, namely this common people with their priests, detract and disparage. But let us also look at those things which we brought forward from the third book of Kings concerning the queen of Sheba — she likewise being no less an Ethiopian woman, to whom the Lord bears witness in the Gospels, that in the day of judgment she comes with the men of the unbelieving generation, and condemns them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and he adds, that "a greater than Solomon is here," teaching by this that the truth is greater than the figures of the truth. She came then, this queen — nay rather, according to her figure, the Church came from the nations to hear the wisdom of the true Solomon and the true peaceable one, our Lord Jesus Christ. And she came, first indeed testing him by riddles and questions, which before seemed to her insoluble, and by him she is set free concerning the knowledge of the true God and concerning the creatures of the world, or concerning the immortality of the soul and the judgment to come — which with her and with her teachers, the gentile philosophers at least, always remained uncertain and doubtful. She came, then, into Jerusalem — that is, into the vision of peace — with a multitude and much power; for she came not with one nation only, as the Synagogue before had the Hebrews alone, but with the nations of the whole world; bringing also gifts worthy of Christ: the sweetnesses of spices, that is, good works, which ascend to God through the odor of sweetness. But she came also filled with gold — that is, without doubt, with meanings and rational teachings, which before faith she had already gathered from this common and scholarly learning. She brought also precious stone, by which we may understand the ornaments of morals. With this equipment, then, she enters in to the peaceable king Christ, and opens to him her heart — that is, in the confession and repentance of her preceding faults — and she spoke to him all that was in her heart; wherefore Christ also, who is our peace, declared to her all her words, and there is no word which the king omitted and did not declare to her. Finally, when now the time of his passion drew near, thus he speaks to her — that is, to his chosen disciples: "Now I will not call you servants, but friends, because the servant knows not what his master does. But I have made known to you all things whatsoever I have heard from my Father." Thus, then, is fulfilled what he said, that there was no word which the peaceable Lord did not declare to the queen of Sheba — that is, to the Church gathered from the nations. But if you look upon the state of the Church and consider her dispensations and orderings, then you will perceive how the queen marveled at all the prudence of Solomon. At the same time inquire also why she did not say "all the wisdom," but "all the prudence" of Solomon; since indeed learned men will have prudence to be understood of human affairs, wisdom of divine. For this reason perhaps the Church too, now for the present, marvels at the prudence of Christ, while she is on earth and dwells among men. But when that which is perfect shall have come, and she shall have been translated from the earth to heaven, then she will see all his wisdom, when now not through an appearance, not through riddles, but face to face she will look upon each single thing. She saw also the house which he built — without doubt the mysteries of his incarnation. For this is the house which wisdom built for herself. She saw the food of Solomon. Those, I think, of which he said: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, that I may accomplish his work." She saw also the seat of his servants. He means, I think, the ecclesiastical order, which is held in the seats of the episcopate or the presbytery. She saw the orderings, or stations, of his ministers. He mentions, as it seems to me, the order of deacons who stand by the divine ministry. But she saw also his garments. Those, I believe, with which he clothes them, of whom it is said: "As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ." But his cup-bearers too — I reckon these are called the teachers, who mix the Word of God and doctrine for the peoples like wine, that it may gladden the hearts of the hearers. She saw also his burnt offerings — without doubt the mysteries of prayers and supplications. When, then, she had seen all these things in the house of the peaceable king — nay, of Christ — this black and beautiful one was astounded, and said to him: "The word is true which I heard in my land concerning your word and your prudence." For because of your word, which I have recognized to be a true word, I have come to you. For all the words which were spoken to me, and which I heard, when I was in my land — namely, from the teachers of the world and the philosophers — were not true. This alone is the true word, which is in you. But perhaps it may seem needful to inquire how the queen says this to the king, that "I did not believe those things which were told me concerning you," since surely she would not have come to Christ, had she not believed. But see whether we can solve in this way what is set down. "I did not," she says, "believe those who spoke to me." For I did not direct my faith toward those who spoke of you, but toward you — that is, I believed not men, but you, God. And through them indeed I heard, but to you I came, and I believed; with whom my eyes have seen far more things than were announced to me. For truly, when this black and beautiful one shall have come into the heavenly Jerusalem, and shall have entered into the vision of peace, she will look upon far more and more magnificent things than are now announced to her. For now it is as in a mirror and a riddle, but then she will see face to face, when she shall obtain those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man. And then she will see that not even the half is of those things which she heard while set in this her land. Blessed, then, are the women of Solomon — without doubt the souls which become partakers of the Word of God and of his peace. Blessed are his servants who stand in his presence always. Not those who sometimes stand by, and sometimes do not stand by, but who always, and without intermission, stand by the Word of God — these are truly blessed. Such was also that Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus, and heard him, to whom the Lord himself also gave testimony, saying to Martha: "Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken from her." Still further this black and beautiful one says: "Blessed is he who willed to give you upon the throne of Israel." For truly, because the Lord loved Israel, and willed that it should stand forever, he set you as king over it. Whom? The peaceable one, without doubt. For Christ is our peace, who made both one, and dissolved the middle wall of the partition. And after all these things, she gave, it says, a hundred and twenty talents of gold to king Solomon, did the queen of Sheba. This number, a hundred and twenty, is consecrated to the life of those men who were in the days of Noah, to whom this span of life is granted in which they are invited to repentance. And this same number was also that of the years of the life of Moses. The Church therefore offers to Christ, in the appearance and weight of gold, not only the multitude of her meanings and understandings, but she shows her meanings to be consecrated to the law of God by this number which contains the years of the life of Moses. She offers also the sweetnesses of spices, such and so many as had never come. Understand by this either prayers, or works of mercy. For never had she either prayed so rightly as now, when she came to Christ, or worked so piously, as when she knew that her righteousness was not to be done before men, but before the Father who sees in secret, and will reward openly. But it is much, in places not their own, to pursue all together these things which seem to be taken up for the sake of testimony. Let these things suffice from the third book of Kings. Let us look at some of those things which we brought forward from the sixty-seventh psalm, where it says: "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand to God before the rest." For if you consider how out of the fault of Israel there is salvation for the nations, and how their fall gave the nations a way to enter in, you will perceive how the hand of Ethiopia — that is, the people of the nations — anticipates and goes before those to whom first the oracles of God were given, in coming to God; and how in this is fulfilled: "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand to God before the rest"; and this black one becomes beautiful, even though the daughters of Jerusalem be unwilling, even though they envy and detract. But the testimony of the prophet also, which we have set down, where the Lord received even those who come from the places which are beyond the rivers of the Ethiopians, and bring victims to God, is, I think, to be perceived in a like sense. For it seems to me that he is said to be beyond the rivers of Ethiopia who is darkened with excessive and superabundant sins, and, infected with the black dye of malice, is rendered black and shadowy; and yet not even these does the Lord reject, but all who offer to God the sacrifices of a contrite spirit and a humbled heart — namely, those converted to him under the title of confession and repentance — are not rejected by him. For thus the peaceable one, our Lord, says: "Him that comes to me I will not reject." But it may also seem to be said of those who, set beyond the rivers of the Ethiopians, shall come, they too, to God, bringing victims — who, after the whole fullness of the nations, which is compared to the rivers of the Ethiopians, has entered in, shall come, they too, and then all Israel shall be saved; and on this account they are called "beyond the rivers of the Ethiopians," as being further off and later than these spaces, in which the salvation of the nations runs and overflows. And so perhaps this seems to be fulfilled which he says, that "in that day you shall not be confounded" — all Israel — "for all your devices, in which you have acted impiously against me," against Christ. It remains that that testimony which we took up from Jeremiah be explained, where Abdemelech — no less an Ethiopian man, a eunuch — when he had heard that Jeremiah was cast into the pit by the princes of the people, leads him out thence. And I think it does not seem unfitting if we say that him whom the princes of Israel condemned, and cast into the pit of death, this foreigner and man of an obscure and degenerate nation — that is, the people of the nations — leads out of the pit of death, believing, namely, his resurrection from the dead, and by his faith this one, whom they had delivered over to death, recalls and leads back from the lower regions. But this eunuch too is said to be an Ethiopian; I believe because he castrated himself for the kingdom of God, or also because he does not have the seed of malice in himself. He is also a servant of the king, because a wise servant rules over foolish masters. And Abdemelech is interpreted "servant of kings." And therefore the Lord, forsaking the people of Israel on account of their sins, directs his words to the Ethiopian, and sends the prophet to him, and to him says: "Behold, I am bringing my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and I will save you in that day, and I will not give you into the hands of men, but saving I will save you." And the cause of salvation to him is this, that he led the prophet out of the pit — that is, that by his faith, by which he believes that Christ rose from the dead, he is seen to have led him out of the pit. This dark, or black, and beautiful one has therefore very many testimonies, in which she may act freely, and with confidence say to the daughters of Jerusalem, that "I am indeed dark, or black, like the tents of Kedar, but beautiful like the skins of Solomon." Concerning the skins of Solomon I do not recall anything written expressly. But I think it can be referred to his glory, of which the Savior says: that "not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these." Yet we find the very name of skins frequently mentioned in the tabernacle of testimony, as when it says: "And you shall make skins of goats' hair for a covering over the tabernacle of testimony; eleven skins you shall make, the length of one skin thirty cubits, and the breadth four cubits. The same measure also shall be for the eleven skins; and you shall join five skins together, and the other six together, and you shall fold back the sixth skin at the front of the tabernacle; and you shall make fifty loops along the edge of one skin, and fifty loops along the edge of the other skin, by which they may be joined one to another; and you shall make fifty bronze rings, and you shall join the skins by them, and it shall be one whole; and you shall fold back what remains over of the skins, the half of one skin, at the front of the tabernacle, and of the other half what remains over you shall veil the hinder parts of the tabernacle, a cubit on this side and a cubit on that, of that which abounds in the length of the skins, and the tabernacle shall be covered by it on this side and on that." I think, then, that mention is made of these in the Song of Songs, and that this is of that Solomon who is taken as the peaceable one. His, therefore, is the tabernacle, and the things which pertain to the tabernacle; and especially if we consider that tabernacle which is called the true tabernacle, which God fixed and not man, and of which he says: "For Jesus entered not into the holy places made by hand, the copies of the true." If, therefore, the bride compares her beauty to the skins of Solomon, she speaks without doubt of the glory and beauty of those skins which cover that tabernacle which God fixed and not man. But if she has compared her blackness, which seemed to be reproached by the daughters of Jerusalem, to the skins of Solomon, then the skins of this tabernacle — which is called the copy of the true tabernacle — are to be understood; as being those which are indeed themselves black, inasmuch as they are woven of goats' hair, and yet furnish use and ornament to the divine tabernacle. But that, although she who speaks seems to be one person, she compared herself in blackness to several things, whether to the tents of Kedar or to the skins of Solomon, is thus to be taken: that though she seems one person, she is the Church — of whom there are, however, innumerable congregations, spread through the world, and immense assemblies and multitudes of peoples; just as the kingdom of heaven too is said to be one, and yet many mansions are recorded to be with the Father. But it can also be said of each single soul which, after very many sins, is converted to repentance, that she is black for her sins, but beautiful because of repentance and the fruits of repentance. Finally, of this very one who now says: "I am black and beautiful" — because she did not remain unto the end in that blackness — after these things the daughters of Jerusalem say concerning this same one: "Who is this that ascends made white, leaning upon her kinsman?"

» Do not look upon me, because I am darkened, for the sun has despised me. «

Darkened, or blackened: if the exposition seems fittingly suited to us which in the foregoing we wove either concerning the Ethiopian woman whom Moses took to wife, or concerning the queen of Sheba who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, then rightly does this woman who is dusky or black and yet beautiful now seem to make satisfaction for her blackness or darkening, and to render the causes of it to those reproaching her, as one who is not such by nature, nor so created by her Maker, but has suffered this from accidental things. "From this," she says, "that the sun has despised me." In which she shows that the discourse is not about the blackness of the body, which indeed the sun is wont to darken and blacken when it looks upon a thing rather than when it despises it. So, in fine, they report even of that whole nation of the Ethiopians, in whom by now a certain blackness is inborn by the succession of the carnal seed, that in those regions the sun burns with keener rays, and that bodies once scorched and darkened remain so by the succession of an inbred defect. But the blackness of the soul is of a contrary order. For it is scorched not by the sun's regard but by its disregard, nor is it acquired by being born but by being negligent; and therefore, just as it is taken on through sloth, so too it is repelled and driven off through diligence. Finally, as I said above, this very woman who is now said to be black is recorded, toward the end of this Song, to ascend whitened, leaning upon her kinsman. She was made black, therefore, because she came down; but if she begins to ascend and to lean upon her kinsman, and to cleave to him, and by no means to be separated from him, she will be whitened and shining white; and, every blackness cast off, she will shine, bathed round with the light of the true light. She says now, therefore, to the daughters of Jerusalem, making satisfaction for her blackness: Do not suppose, O daughters of Jerusalem, that this blackness which you see in my face is natural; but know that it was made by the sun's disregard. For the Sun of justice, because he did not find me standing upright, did not himself direct the straight rays of his light into me. For I am the people of the nations, who formerly did not look toward the Sun of justice, nor stood before the Lord; and therefore neither did he look upon me, but disregarded me, nor did he stand by me, but passed me over. And that this is so, even you who are called Israel will now, having experienced it in fact, come to know it and say: For just as, when I once did not believe, you were taken up and obtained mercy, and the Sun of justice regarded you, but disregarded and spurned me as one disobedient and unbelieving; so now, because you have become unbelieving and disobedient, I hope to be regarded by the Sun of justice and to obtain mercy. And that this disregard of the sun is mutual between us — that I first, for my disobedience, was disregarded, but you regarded; while now to you also has befallen not only the sun's disregard but even a certain blindness, though in part — I will bring forward for you a magnificent witness, and one privy to the heavenly secret, Paul, who speaks thus: For as you (speaking, without doubt, of the nations) once did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy through their unbelief; so also these have not believed in your mercy, that they too may obtain mercy. And again in another place he says: Because blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations should enter in. Hence, therefore, is in me this blackness which you reproach, because the sun has disregarded me on account of my unbelief and disobedience. But when I shall stand upright before him, and shall not be crooked in anything, nor turn aside to the right hand or to the left, but shall make straight paths for my feet, walking toward the Sun of justice in all his justifications without blame; then he too will look upon me uprightly, and there will be no crookedness, nor any cause of disregard, and then my light and my splendor will be restored to me; and this blackness which you now reproach will be so far driven away from me that I shall even deserve to be called the light of the world. So, therefore, this visible sun scorches and burns those bodies over which it has settled from the highest point of its balance; but those which are far off and set farther from that poising of it, it preserves in their fairness, and does not burn them at all, but illumines them. But the spiritual Sun, who is the Sun of justice, in whose wings health is said to be, on the contrary illumines those whom he finds of an upright heart and standing at the balance of his splendor, and surrounds them with all radiance; whereas those who walk crookedly with him, he too, of necessity, not so much regards as disregards crookedly, their own inconstancy and instability bringing this upon them. For how can those who are perverse receive that which is straight? Just as if you were to apply the straightest ruler to a crooked piece of wood, the depravity of the material would indeed seem to be shown up by the ruler, yet it is not the ruler that imposed on the wood the cause of its crookedness. And therefore one must hasten to the straight ways, and stand in the paths of the virtues, lest perhaps the Sun of justice, walking uprightly, if he find us standing crooked and perverse, should disregard us and we be made blackened. For insofar as we are incapable of his light, so far shall we give place to darkness and blackness. For this is that very Sun who is also the true Light, illumining every man coming into this world, and who was in this world, and the world was made through him. For it was not through that visible light that the world was made, since that too is a portion of the world, but through that true Light; from which Light, if we walk perversely, we are said to be disregarded. For it too walks perversely toward us when we walk perversely, as it is written in the maledictions of Leviticus: "And if," he says, "you walk with me perversely, and refuse to obey me, I will add to you seven plagues." And after a little: "And if," he says, "you are not corrected, but walk with me perversely, I too will walk with you perversely"; or, as we read in other copies: "If you walk with me crookedly, I too will walk with you crookedly." And after some space he again says at the last: "And because they walked crookedly in my sight, I too will walk with them crookedly in fury." Now these things we have taken up in order to prove from them in what manner the sun is said to "despise," that is, to look crookedly. And it has been made plainly evident that he disregards those, and walks crookedly and perversely with those, who walk crookedly with him. But let us not leave undiscussed this too which the present passage has suggested, that the sun seems to be of a twofold power: one by which it illumines, another by which it burns; but according to the things or materials lying beneath it, either it illumines something with light, or it darkens and hardens something with heat. According to these things, therefore, God is perhaps said also to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, namely because the material of his heart was such that it received the presence of the Sun of justice not on that side by which it illumines, but on that by which it burns and hardens: on this account, without doubt, that he too was afflicting the life of the Hebrews in hard works, and was making them work with clay and brick. And his heart, according to the things he pondered, was indeed clayey and muddy. And as this visible sun binds fast and hardens the material of clay, so the Sun of justice, by these same rays with which he was illumining the people of Israel, was hardening the heart of Pharaoh, in which were clayey thoughts, according to the very qualities of its own motions. And that these things are so, and that the servant of God writes through the Holy Spirit not a common history, as it seems to men, is shown also from this: that where he reports that the children of Israel groaned, he does not say that they groaned from the clay, nor from the brick, nor from the straw, but "from their works," he says. And again: "And their cry," he says, "went up to God." He did not say from the clay and brick, but again, "from their works." Wherefore he also adds: "Because the Lord heard their groaning" — since indeed he does not hear the groaning of those who do not cry to the Lord out of their works. These things, although they may seem to be said by way of digression, nevertheless, admonished by the opportuneness of the passages, we have by no means judged should be omitted, especially since they have some likeness to this which she says — that she was darkened because the sun disregarded her — which indeed is shown to happen there where the cause of sins goes before; and there someone is darkened or scorched by the sun, where the material of sin subsists. But where there is no sin, the sun is said neither to scorch nor to darken, as is reported of the just man in the Psalms: "By day the sun shall not burn you, nor the moon by night." You see, therefore, that the sun never scorches the saints, in whom there is no cause of sins. For, as we have said, the sun is of a twofold power: the just indeed it illumines, but sinners it does not illumine, but scorches, since they too hate the light, because they do evil. Finally, on this account our God also is said to be a consuming fire, and none the less a light in which there are no shadows. Light, without doubt, to the just, and fire he becomes to sinners, that he may consume in them everything that he finds of corruptibility or frailty in their soul. And that in many places of Scripture both the sun and the fire are said to be, not this visible one, but that invisible and spiritual one, you too, if you review them, will find in abundance.

» The sons of my mother fought against me, they set me as keeper in the vineyards; my own vineyard I have not kept. «

Still she herself — who is indeed dark on account of her former sins, but beautiful on account of her faith and manner of life — says this too, affirming that the sons of her mother fought, not against her, but in her; and after this war which they waged in her, they appointed her keeper of the vineyards, not of one vineyard, but of many. She further establishes this same point: that besides those vineyards over which she was set as keeper by the sons of her mother, she had another vineyard of her own, which she did not keep. This is the plot of the drama proposed. But now let us inquire who is the mother of this bride whom she alleges, who also are her sons who fought in her, and, the war being finished, handed over to her the vineyards for her to keep — as though she could not have preserved them unless there had first been fighting by those men; but that she, having undertaken the keeping of the other vineyards, was unwilling or unable to preserve her own vineyard. Paul, writing to the Galatians, says: "Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one from the bondwoman and one from the free woman. But he who was from the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was from the free woman, according to the promise: which things are allegorical. For these are the two testaments, one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children into bondage, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is compared to this present Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her sons. But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." This heavenly Jerusalem, then, Paul says is the mother of us all who believe. Finally he adds in what follows and says: "Wherefore, brethren, we are not the sons of the bondwoman, but of the free, by which liberty Christ has set us free." Plainly, therefore, Paul declares that everyone who through faith obtains liberty in Christ is a son of the free woman; and this free woman he says is the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all. Of this mother, then, this very bride too is understood to be a daughter, in those who fought in her and appointed her keeper of the vineyards. Whence these men who had such great power — that they both waged war in her and set her in order as keeper of the vineyards — seem not to have been of any humble or contemptible station. We may, therefore, take the apostles of Christ as the sons of the bride's mother, that is, as sons of the heavenly Jerusalem, who fought first in her who is gathered from the Gentiles. And they fought in order to conquer in her those whom she formerly held — the disposition of unbelief and disobedience, and every haughtiness exalting itself against the knowledge of Christ, as Paul says: "Destroying the reasonings, and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ." They fought, therefore, not against her, but in her, that is, in her thoughts and heart, so that they might destroy and drive out all unbelief, every vice, and all the doctrines which, planted among the Gentiles, had grown into her by the false assertions of the sophists. There was, then, for the apostles of Christ a great war, until they should undermine out of her all the towers of falsehood and the walls of perverse doctrine, until they should overthrow the arguments of iniquity, and vanquish the demons who worked these things and kindled them in her heart. When, therefore, they had put to flight from her all the dispositions of the old unbelief, they do not leave her idle, lest perhaps through idleness the old things creep back again, and those things which were driven out return; but they give her a work to do, and consign to her the keeping of the vineyards. Let us take the vineyards as each and every one of the volumes of the law and the prophets. For each of them was like a full field which the Lord has blessed. These, then, these strong men, after the victory of the war, consign to her to be preserved and kept. For they do not, as we said, leave her idle. But we can likewise take as vineyards the writings of the evangelists and the letters of the apostles themselves, which they handed over to be kept and cultivated by her who is gathered from the Gentiles, for whom also they fought. But in that she says that she did not keep her own vineyard, we may say that this is that learning in which each one was trained before the faith; which, without doubt, believing in Christ, she leaves and forsakes, and those things which seemed to her gains she counts as losses for the sake of Christ. Just as Paul too glories that the observances of the law, and all the glory of the Jewish institution, were to him only as dung, that he might be found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God. As Paul, therefore, having received the faith of Christ, did not keep his own vineyard — namely, the observances of the Jewish tradition; and perhaps he did not keep it because, when the true vine had been planted by God, it was turned into the bitterness of a strange vine, and their vineyard was already the vine of Sodom, and their branch from Gomorrah, and the cluster of bitterness in them, and their wine the fury of dragons, and the incurable fury of asps. So too among the Gentiles there were very many teachings of this kind, which, after those wars in which the teachers fought for the faith and the acknowledgment of Christ, she says were overcome. I think it should be reckoned altogether in the place of a crime if anyone should keep vineyards of this sort, and cultivate a field further planted with poisonous and harmful disciplines. And do not wonder if by these faults she who is gathered from the dispersion of the nations, and is now prepared as a bride for Christ, may sometime seem to have been liable. Recall how the first woman was seduced and made a transgressor: who is said to be saved in no other way than through the bearing of children — of those, at least, who remain in faith and charity with holiness. This, then, which is written of Adam and Eve, the Apostle thus affirms: "It is a great mystery in Christ and in the Church"; who so loved her that he gave himself up for her, while she herself was still ungodly, as he himself said: "For while we were still according to the time ungodly, Christ died for us." And again: "For while we were still unbelieving, Christ died for us." It is no wonder, therefore, if she who was seduced and made a transgressor, who was according to the time ungodly and a sinner, is said to have cultivated such a vineyard at that time, when she was still ungodly — a vineyard which she ought to leave, and by no means keep at all. But if it please to pursue also a third place of explanation, let us refer these things to each individual soul, which, being turned to God and coming to the faith, undoubtedly suffers the battles of thoughts and the struggles of demons striving to recall her to the allurements of her former life, or to the error of unbelief. But lest this happen, and lest again so much be permitted to the demons against her, divine Providence has provided that to all the little ones, and to those who cannot fight for themselves the battles against the wiles of the devil and of the demons — being as yet infants and sucklings in Christ — it should give protecting and defending angels: who are established as guardians and stewards by God over those who, placed in a weak age, cannot (as we said) fight for themselves. And that they may do this with greater confidence, it is granted to them always to see the face of the Father who is in heaven: and these I think are the little ones whom he commanded to come to Christ, and permitted them, whom he said were not to be hindered, and who, he said, always see the face of the Father. Nor let it seem contrary to you, if this soul which tends toward God calls them the sons of her mother. For if the mother of souls is the heavenly Jerusalem, and the angels are nonetheless named heavenly, nothing will seem discordant if those who are heavenly in like manner as she is are called by her the sons of her mother. Above all these things, moreover, it will seem fitting and suitable that those whose one Father is God should have also one mother, Jerusalem. But in that she says, "My own vineyard I have not kept," she seems to indicate that those institutions and habits and purpose in which she was trained while living according to the old man were laudably not kept by her. But from the moment when, by the aid of the angels, she fought, conquered, and utterly put to flight from herself the old man with his deeds, she was established by them as keeper of the vineyards — namely, of the divine senses and doctrines, from which she might drink the wine that gladdens her heart.

» Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you pasture, where you have your resting-place at noon, lest perhaps I become like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions. «

The bride is still speaking these words as well, but to the bridegroom, and no longer to the daughters of Jerusalem. Therefore, from the beginning where she says: "Let him kiss me," down to this place: "Beside the flocks of your companions," all that has been said are the words of the bride. But first her speech was directed to God, secondly to the bridegroom, thirdly to the young maidens; and, standing as it were midway between them and the bridegroom, and, as the dramatic form of the piece requires, having become like a leader of the middle chorus, she directs her words now to those maidens, now to him, and now also in answer to the daughters of Jerusalem. These last words, then, she now addresses to the bridegroom, asking of him where he pastures at noon and where he settles his flock, fearing lest, while she seeks him, she should stumble into those places where the companions keep their flocks stationed through the noontide. And she shows by these words that this bridegroom is also a shepherd: from the earlier passages we had learned that he is also a king—undoubtedly for the reason that he rules men; but a shepherd, for the reason that he pastures sheep; and a bridegroom, for the reason that he has a bride who reigns with him, according to what is written: "The queen stood at your right hand in a gilded robe." This, then, for the present, is the sense of the drama itself, which is, as it were, its historical sense. But now let us seek the mystical understanding: and, so as to anticipate a little those things which are to be treated of in what follows, in order that it may be made clear what disposition she has toward the companions, let us recall what is written—that the queens are sixty, but that out of all there is one dove, and one perfect one, and as it were the mother of the kingdom; while the rest, now inferior, are those who are called the eighty concubines; and the young maidens, of whom there is no number, are placed after the order of the concubines. Now all these are the souls of those who, believing in Christ, are joined to him by diverse affections; so that, to speak by way of example, the Apostle calls the whole Church, under a certain figure, the body of Christ; and in that body he declares there to be diverse members, and that some are eyes, and others hands, and others also feet, and that each is fitted into this body according to the merits of their works and pursuits. According to this figure, then, these things also are to be understood; and we must think that in this nuptial drama some, joined to the bridegroom by a more excellent and more illustrious affection, are held with him in the place and affection of queens; that others, whose honor in their advancements is undoubtedly lower, are reckoned in the place of concubines; and others in that of the young maidens, who seem to be placed indeed outside the court, yet not outside the royal city; while the later ones, and after all those mentioned above, are those who are called sheep. But if we look more attentively, perhaps we shall even find others inferior to all of these, and last of all: namely, those who are counted among the flocks of his companions. For the companions too are said to have certain flocks, into which the bride does not wish to stumble, and on this account she asks of the bridegroom that he tell her where he pastures, where he takes his noonday rest, lest, she says, I become like one veiled beside the flocks of your companions. It is asked, then, concerning these companions who are said to have certain flocks, whether they do this while giving their service to the bridegroom, and acting under him as under the chief of shepherds—since they are named his companions; or whether they have something of their own, and set apart, and that is not in accord with the bridegroom's mind—since the bride shrinks back, and fears lest she should perhaps stumble into the flocks of the companions while she seeks her bridegroom. But as to what she said: "Lest perhaps I become," not "veiled," but "like one veiled," consider whether by this she may not be hinting that there is some one, or some ones, of the companions, having as it were brides who themselves too have the nuptial habit, and are veiled and, as the Apostle says, have a covering and a sign of authority upon their head. And that a clearer explanation of this passage may be made, let us again follow out what is said in the order, as it were, of the drama. The bride demands of her bridegroom himself that he show her the place of his secret retreat and of his rest: since, impatient of love, she desires even at noon to hear the bridegroom, and that especially at the time when the light is brighter and the splendor of the day is perfect and pure, so that she may stand beside him as he pastures or refreshes his sheep; and she earnestly wishes to learn the way by which she ought to go to him, lest perhaps, if she be not taught the windings of this journey, she stumble into the flocks of the companions, and seem to be like one of those women who come veiled to his companions, and bear no modesty, nor fear to run about everywhere and to appear to many. But I, she says, who wish to be seen by no other but you alone, desire to know by what road I may come to you, so that it may be secret, so that there may be no one in the middle, so that no stranger or foreign onlooker may meet me. And perhaps on this account she seeks out those places in which the bridegroom knows his own sheep, and shows him her modesty, for the sake of which she does not wish to stumble into the flocks of the companions, so that he may usefully set apart his sheep from the companions, and pasture them by themselves; so that not only may the bride not be seen by others, but that she may also more secretly enjoy the hidden and ineffable mysteries of the bridegroom. Now, then, let us look at the matter point by point; and first indeed see whether we can say that the Lord, whose portion was Jacob and Israel the cord of his inheritance, is to be understood as the bridegroom, while his companions are those angels among whose number, when the Most High divided the nations and dispersed the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number, as it says, of the angels of God; and that these are perhaps the flocks of the bridegroom's companions—namely, all the nations, which have been set as cattle under the angels as shepherds; but that the flock of the bridegroom are those of whom he himself said in the Gospel: "My sheep hear my voice." For see, and mark attentively, that he said: "My sheep," as though there were also other sheep which are not his, just as he himself also said in another place: "For you are not of my sheep." All of which particulars will be seen to fit suitably with this hidden mystery. And if these things are so, the bride fittingly wished the flock of each of the companions to be understood as his bride, whom she named as veiled. But since she was certain that she herself was above all those, she does not wish to seem like any one of them, inasmuch as she knew that she ought to excel those brides of the companions—whom the bride names as veiled—by as much as her bridegroom had of eminence over the companions. But even on this account she will further be seen to have had reasons for inquiring, since she knows it to be the concern of the good shepherd to seek out the best pastures for his sheep, and to find whatever groves are green and shady for rest from the noonday heat. This indeed the companions know not how to do as the bridegroom does, nor do they possess, in choosing pastures, either so much knowledge or so much solitude: and on this account she says: "Tell me where you pasture, where you have your resting-place at noon"; desiring, namely, that time in which light is more abundantly poured upon the world, in which the day is more pure and the light purer and more full of bloom. Then, she says, tell me—you whom my soul has loved—where you pasture, where you have your resting-place at noon, lest perhaps I become like one veiled beside the flocks of your companions. The bride has now called the bridegroom by a new name. For knowing that he is the Son of charity, nay rather that he is himself the charity that is from God, she set upon him, as it were, this appellation: "Whom my soul has loved." And yet she did not say, "whom I have loved," but "whom my soul has loved"; knowing that the bridegroom's love is to be held not with any love whatsoever, but out of the whole soul, and out of all one's strength, and out of the whole heart. "Where you pasture," she says, "and where you have your resting-place." And I think that the prophet also, concerning this place which the bride now desires to learn from the bridegroom himself, and to hear of, being himself too placed under the same shepherd, says: "The Lord rules me," or as we read elsewhere: "The Lord pastures me, and nothing shall be lacking to me." And since he knew that other shepherds, through slothfulness or through inexperience, place their flocks in more arid spots, concerning this best shepherd, the Lord, he said: "In a green place, there he has settled me." "He has brought me up beside the water of refreshment," showing that this shepherd provides and looks to give his sheep not only abundant waters, but also wholesome and pure ones, and such as refresh in every way. But since from this state, in which he had lived as a sheep under the shepherd, he was turned toward things rational and higher and advanced, and attained this through conversion, he adds and says: "He has converted my soul. He has led me out upon the paths of justice for his name's sake." From this point, indeed, since he had advanced so far as to walk the ways of justice—and justice undoubtedly has injustice assailing it, and it is necessary that he who walks the road of justice should have battles with adversaries—being converted in faith and hope, he says of them: "For even if I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will not fear evils, for you are with me." And after these things, as though rendering thanks to him who had imbued him with the shepherd's disciplines: "Your rod," he says, "and your staff, by which I seem to have been instructed for the office of shepherd, these have consoled me." From here, indeed, when he sees himself transferred from the shepherd's pastures to rational foods and mystical secrets, he adds and subjoins: "You have prepared a table in my sight against those who trouble me. You have made fat my head with oil, and how excellent is your inebriating cup! And your mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days." That first, then—that is, the pastoral instruction—was at the beginning of these things, that, being settled in a green place, he might be brought up beside the water of refreshment. But these things which follow are required concerning the advancements toward perfection. And since we have set forth about pastures and greenness, it seems fitting also to confirm from the Gospels the things we have said. I have found there too this good shepherd discoursing about the pastures of the sheep, where, in addition to his professing himself the shepherd, he also mentions that he is the door, and says: "I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved, and shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures." Him too the bride now questions, that she may hear from him and learn in what pastures he drives the sheep, or in what pleasant places he provides for the noonday heats; calling "noon" those secret places of the heart, namely, by which the soul obtains from the Word of God a brighter light of knowledge. For this is the time in which the sun holds the loftier summit of its circuit. Whenever, then, Christ the Sun of justice manifests to his Church the lofty and difficult secrets of his virtues, he will be seen to teach the pleasant pastures and the noonday resting-places. For when she still has the beginnings of learning, and receives from him, so to speak, the first rudiments of knowledge, then the Prophet says: "And he will help her in the morning, at daybreak." Now therefore, because she already seeks more perfect things, and desires loftier things, she demands the noonday light of knowledge. Hence too, I think, of Abraham, after the many instructions with which God, appearing to him, imbued him concerning each matter and taught him, it is afterward related that God was seen by him as he sat at the oak of Mamre by the door of his tent at noon. "And looking up," it says, "with his eyes, he saw, and behold three men were standing over him." But if we believe these things to have been written through the Holy Spirit, I do not think it pleased the divine Spirit in vain that even the time and hour of the vision should be committed to the pages of Scripture, unless the reckoning of this hour and time conferred something toward knowledge for the sons of Abraham, by whom, indeed, just as the works of Abraham are to be done, so also these visitations are to be hoped for. For he who can say: "The night has gone before, but the day has drawn near; let us walk honorably as in the day, not in revelings and drunkenness, not in chamberings and wantonness, not in strife and rivalry"—and when he has passed through all these, he will be seen to have gone beyond this time in which the night has advanced and the day has drawn near, and to hasten not toward the beginning of the day, but toward noon, that he too may arrive at the grace of Abraham. For if the light which is in him, the light of the mind and the purity of the heart, shall be clear and splendid, this man will be seen to have the noonday time in himself; and through this purity of heart, as though placed at noon, he will see God, sitting at the oak of Mamre, which is interpreted "at the vision." He, then, who calls to the seeing of God sits at the vision at noon. Hence, finally, he is said to sit not within the tent, but outside at the door of the tent. For his mind is outside, placed outside the body—the mind of him who is far from bodily thoughts, far from carnal desires—and therefore God visits him, placed outside all these. Of the same mystery is it, too, that Joseph, when he had received his brothers in Egypt, pastures them at noon, and at noon they adore him with gifts. For this reason, finally, I think that concerning the things which the Jews committed against the Savior, none of the evangelists wished to write that these were done at noon—although the sixth hour indeed shows nothing other than the noonday time, yet none named noon. But Matthew said thus: "From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour." And Luke: "It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, the sun failing." And Mark too: "But when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour." From which it appears that in the visitation of Abraham, indeed, and in the banquet of the patriarchs at Joseph's, there was no need that this time should be signified under the name of the sixth number, but that it should be called noon. For the bride, who even then was being foreshadowed in those figures, wished to learn where the bridegroom pastured, and where he had his resting-place, and therefore she names noon. But the evangelists, in the things which they narrated, did not require the noonday time, but the number of the sixth hour—namely, to set forth the sacrifice of his victim, which was offered on the day of the Passover for the redemption of man, who was formed by God on the sixth day, after the earth had brought forth the living soul according to its kind, the quadrupeds, and the creeping things, and the beasts of the earth. On this account, therefore, in the present passage the bride desires to be illuminated with the full light of knowledge, lest, straying through inexperience, she become in any respect like those schools of teachers which are exercised not through the very wisdom of God, but through that of the philosophers and princes of this world. For this too the Apostle seems to say where he says that "we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew." And again he signifies these same things when he says: "For we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things that have been given to us by God." On this account, then, the bride of Christ seeks the noonday resting-places, and demands from God the fullness of knowledge, lest she seem to be like one of the schools of the philosophers, which is named "veiled," for the reason that among them the fullness of the truth is covered and veiled. But the bride of Christ says: "But we, with unveiled face, behold the glory of God."

» Unless you know yourself, O good (or beautiful) among women, go out yourself in the footsteps of the flocks, and pasture your kids in the tents of the shepherds. «

Among the many other remarkable sayings, this one is reported to belong to Chilon alone—one of the seven whom fame among the Greeks celebrates as having been singular in wisdom—in which he says: "Know yourself," or "Come to know yourself." Yet Solomon, whom in our preface we showed to have preceded all of these in time and in wisdom and in the knowledge of things, says this to the soul—as though to a woman—speaking under a certain threat: Unless you know yourself, O beautiful among women, and recognize that the causes of your beauty descend from this, that you were made to the image of God, whereby there is in you the greatest measure of natural comeliness, and unless you come to know how beautiful you were from the beginning—although even now you already surpass the other women, and are called the only beautiful one among them—yet unless you know yourself, who you are (for I do not wish your beauty to seem good by comparison with lesser things, but that you should answer to yourself and to your own comeliness, weighed and made equal to it). And unless you do this, I command you to go out, and to be placed in the lowest footsteps of the flocks, and now to pasture not sheep nor lambs, but kids—those, that is, who for their depravity and wantonness are to stand at the left of the king who presides in judgment. And when I have shown to you, brought into the royal chamber, what are the highest goods, if you do not know yourself, I will also show you what are the uttermost evils, so that from both you may profit, as much by the fear of evils as by the desire of goods. For if you do not know yourself, and live in ignorance of yourself, and have pursued no zeal for knowledge, without doubt you will have no tent of your own, but you will run about through the tents of shepherds, and now in the tents of one shepherd will pasture kids—a restless and wandering animal, and one assigned to sins. And these things you will suffer until by the very facts and by experience you understand how great an evil it is for the soul not to know itself, nor its own beauty, through which it excels the others—not virgins, but women, those namely who have suffered corruption and have not remained in the integrity of virginity. These are the things which the Bridegroom, after all those things which the Bride had spoken, says in the order of the drama set forth, rousing the Bride's spirits by a certain stern threat to the care of self-knowledge. But now, consequently, as with the rest, let us refer these things to Christ and to the Church, who, speaking to His Bride—that is, to the souls of believers—places the summit of salvation and blessedness in the knowledge of oneself. How, then, the soul may know itself, I think can be explained neither easily nor briefly; yet according to our strength we shall attempt to open up a few things out of many. It seems to me, therefore, that the soul ought to grasp the knowledge of itself in a twofold manner: what it is in itself, and how it is moved—that is, what it has in substance, and what in its affections. For instance, that it may understand whether it be of good affection or not good, of upright and right purpose or not right; and indeed if right, whether it holds the same tenor toward all the virtues, both in understanding and in acting, or only toward things necessary and near at hand. And whether it is in a condition to receive advances, so as to be increased in the understanding of things and in the increase of virtues, or whether it stands still and settles in that, and in what it was able to attain; and whether it is at leisure only for cultivating itself, or whether it strives to be of profit to others and to confer some usefulness, whether in the word of teaching or in the examples of its deeds. But if it recognizes itself not to be of good affection, nor of right purpose, in this very thing—that it may understand whether it is wholly lacking and far from the way of the virtues, or whether it is already set upon the road itself and already endeavors to advance, desiring to lay hold of the things that are before and to forget the things that are behind, but has not yet drawn near; or whether it is indeed close, yet has not yet come to perfection. But there also seems to be a work of the soul that knows itself, to know whether it is these same things, when it works evils, that it works out of affection and zeal, or out of a certain frailty and, as he says, doing as it were what it does not will and doing what it hates; and again, whether it appears to carry out the things that are good out of affections and right purpose. For example, whether it restrains anger in the presence of some persons but gives vent to it in the presence of others, or whether it always restrains it and gives it vent before no one at all. Likewise also sadness—whether in some affairs it casts it off but in others admits it, or whether in all affairs whatsoever it does not admit it. So too fear, and other things likewise which seem to be contrary to the virtues. Further, this also is a work of the soul that knows itself: whether it is much desirous of glory, or little, or not at all. Which it gathers from this: whether it delights much, or moderately, or not at all in praises; and whether in reproaches it is grieved a great deal, or little, or not at all. But also in giving and in receiving there are certain indications of the soul that knows itself: whether what it bestows and offers it does so with an affection so ready to share, and as though it be pleased that fairness be maintained among human beings; or whether, as he says, out of sadness or out of necessity, or certainly seeking favor either from those who receive or from those who hear. But also in receiving, the soul that knows itself will observe whether it holds indifferently the things it receives, or whether it rejoices as over some good. But such a soul will also weigh itself by the understanding, so as to know whether the hearing of any plausibility easily moves it, and whether it is filched away by the artifice or sweetness or cunning of speeches, or whether it rarely suffers this, or never at all. But let these things suffice as said by us concerning this kind of self-knowledge. For it is possible for anyone who wishes to gather other, innumerable things of like sort, by which the soul may be proved to know itself, and to contemplate its own beauty—which it received in its creation to the image of God—if it has been able to repair and restore it. This, then, is what the present discourse teaches the soul, under the figure of a woman, that it should recognize itself, and it says: Unless you know yourself; that is, unless you have led your senses through each of the things we have mentioned above, and have held the discernment of each—what things are to be done, what to be shunned, what is lacking to you and what abounds, what is to be amended and what to be kept: but if you have willed to act indifferently among the other souls of the common life of human beings, which here it calls women, among whom you are beautiful—inasmuch as you have already received the kisses of the Word of God and have looked into the secrets of His chamber; if, I say, you do not know yourself, but have willed to act indifferently like the common crowd, go out in the footsteps of the flocks, that is, be in the remaining flock; if after all these things that have been bestowed upon you, you do nothing excellent, and, not knowing yourself, have not set yourself apart from the herd-like manner of life. And you will be not only in the flock, but in the footsteps of the flocks. For he becomes last and lowest who has not understood his own primacy. And on this account, where he has neglected knowledge, it is necessary that he be carried about by every wind of doctrine unto the deception of errors, so that at one time he pitches his tent with that shepherd, that is, that teacher of the word, but now with another; and thus he is carried about everywhere, pasturing not sheep—which is a simple animal—but kids, that is, wanton and restless senses assigned to sin, cultivating them for this very purpose with diverse teachers sought out to that end: and this will be the penalty of the fault of that soul which has not been zealous to recognize itself, and to follow that Shepherd alone who laid down His own soul for His sheep. This is the one species by which the soul ought to understand itself in its affections and acts. But that other part is deeper and more difficult, by which the soul—which nonetheless is already beautiful among women—is commanded to recognize itself. And if it is able to obtain this, let it hope for itself all good things; if not, let it know that it must go out after the footsteps of the flocks, and pasture kids in the tents of shepherds foreign to it. Let us therefore look, and let us begin according to our strength to discuss the knowledge of this part also. The divine word says through the prophet: "Kindle for yourselves the light of knowledge." But also, among the spiritual gifts, one gift indeed is the greatest, which is ministered through the Holy Spirit—the word of knowledge; of which knowledge that is the chief work which in the Gospel according to Matthew it says thus: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son shall have willed to reveal Him." But in Luke it says thus: "No one knows what the Son is except the Father; and no one knows what the Father is except the Son, and he to whom the Son shall have willed to reveal Him." According to John, however, it is written thus: "As the Father knows me, and I know the Father." But in the forty-fifth psalm it says: "Be at leisure, and know that I am God." Therefore the chief office of knowledge is to know the Trinity; but in the second place, to know His creature, according to him who said: "For He gave me the true knowledge of the things that are, the substance of the world, and the power of the elements, the beginning, and the end, and the midst of the times," and the rest. Among these things, therefore, there will be also a certain self-knowledge of the soul, through which it ought to know what its substance is, whether corporeal or incorporeal, and whether simple, or composed of two or three, or indeed of more. But also, according to the questions of some, whether it was made, or altogether made by no one; and if it was made, how it was made; whether, as some think, its substance also is contained in the bodily seed, and its origin is transmitted together with the origin of the body; or whether, coming perfect from without, it clothes itself with a body already prepared and formed within the female inward parts. And if it is so, whether it comes newly created, and then first made when the body appears to be formed, so that the cause of its making may be believed to have arisen from the necessity of animating the body; or whether, made before and of old, it is thought for some cause to come to the taking up of a body; and if it is believed to be led into this for some cause, what that cause may be, so that it can be recognized, is a work of knowledge. But this also is inquired: whether it is clothed with a body only once, and afterward, having laid it aside, seeks it no more, or whether, when it has laid aside what it once took up, it takes it up again; and if it should always have what it took up a second time, or whether it sometime casts it off again. And if indeed, according to the authority of the Scriptures, the consummation of the world is imminent, and this corruptible state will be changed into incorruptible, it does not seem doubtful that in the state of the present life it can come into a body a second or a third time. For if this is admitted, it necessarily follows that, with such successions following one upon another, the world would not know an end. And further, let the soul inquire into knowledge of itself: whether there is some order, or whether there are some spirits of the same substance as itself, but others not of the same, but different from it—that is, whether there are also other spirits rational as it is, and others lacking reason; and whether its substance is the same as that of the angels also, since a rational being is believed to differ in no way from a rational being. Or whether it is not indeed such by substance, but will be such by grace, if it has deserved it; or whether it can by no means be made like to the angels, unless the quality or likeness of its nature has received this. For it will seem possible that what has been lost may be restored, yet not that that be conferred which the Creator did not give from the beginning. But this too let the soul inquire into, toward knowing itself: whether the virtue of its soul can increase and decrease; or whether it is immutable, or, once acquired, no more flows away. But what need is there to mention more instances from what causes the soul may know itself, lest perchance, if it neglects to know itself perfectly, it be commanded to go out in the footsteps of the flocks, and to pasture kids, and not in its own tent but in the tents of shepherds—since it is ready at hand for anyone willing to pursue these matters to take the very longest occasions from the things we have mentioned above, in which he may exercise himself in the word of knowledge according to his strength? But let these things be said by the Word of God also to the soul which is indeed set in advances, yet has not yet ascended to the summit of perfection. Which, indeed, for the reason that it makes progress, is called beautiful; but that it may be able to arrive at perfection, let the necessary threat be made to it—that unless through each of those things which we have said above it knows itself, and vigilantly exercises itself in the word of God and in the divine law, it will befall it to gather the opinions of divers persons about each of these matters, and to follow people who have spoken nothing excellent, nothing from the Holy Spirit. For this is to go out in the footsteps of the flocks, and to follow the teaching of those who have themselves also remained sinners, and could provide no remedy to those who sin. And whoever follows these will be seen to pasture kids—which surely hold the token of sinners—going about the tents of shepherds, that is, the diverse sects of the philosophers. Consider, therefore, more fully how terrible is that which is shadowed forth under this figure. "Go out," it says, "you, in the footsteps of the flocks." It speaks as though to a soul that is already within, and set within the mysteries; yet for the reason that it neglects to know itself and to inquire what it is, and what or how it ought to act, or what it ought not, it is said to it: "Go out, you"—as though one who, on account of this fault of sloth, is sent outside by Him who presides. So great is the peril of the soul to neglect the knowledge and recognition of itself. But perhaps, because we have given a twofold exposition of the soul's knowledge of itself, it will seem to someone that, according to that in which it neglects to examine concerning its own morals and acts, and to inquire concerning its advances, or to search out concerning its vices, it is deservedly said to it, "Go out," whereby it seems to be as it were driven outside from the interior places. But if according to the other version, in which we said that it ought to recognize its own nature and substance, and its state either in which it has been or in which it shall be, this will be thought grievous. For where will such a soul easily be found, so perfect, so powerful, to whom the reasoning and understanding of all these things lies open? To this we shall reply that the discourse which is in hand is not made to all souls, nor to the young maidens to whom here the Bridegroom speaks, nor to the outer women, nor to the eighty concubines, nor to the sixty queens, but to her who alone among all women is called beautiful and perfect. Whence it appears that these things are said to certain beloved souls, to whom, though much grace of perceiving and understanding has been given by God, nevertheless neglect the parts of knowledge, and apply no zeal to knowing themselves. To these, therefore, the divine word issues its threat, because from those to whom much is given, much is required. And the lowly one indeed will be worthy of this pardon and mercy, but the powerful shall be tormented powerfully. If therefore you also, O soul, who are more beautiful and more eminent among the rest, for example in doctrines, neglect yourself and remain in ignorance of yourself, how will either those who desire to be edified be instructed, or those who contradict be convinced and refuted? Deservedly, therefore, with a certain threat it is said to it: Go out, you, in the footsteps of the flocks, and pasture your kids in the tents of the shepherds. To this can also be drawn that which Moses writes: "That if any Israelite woman commit adultery, let her be stoned; but if she be a priest's daughter, let her be burned with fire." Thus, then, the threat will seem to be just against those who are able to be capable of self-knowledge and knowledge, but through sloth neglect it; against whom the Bridegroom's indignation is most just, because He knows that the negligence of one turns to the harm of many. For a soul of this kind will seem like either to him who hid the received denarius in the earth, lest the master of the money should acquire any gain from it; or to him whom God is said to have slain because he was malignant—Onan, that is, or Er—who, envying posterity, poured out upon the earth the received seeds of natural knowledge. The shepherds too, as we have already said before, if indeed this discourse of threat is made to the Church, are to be taken as the princes of this world, or those angels under whose care the remaining nations are held, whether allotted to this by lot, or led to it by certain more secret causes. But if this threat is referred to each individual soul that neglects to recognize itself, the wise men and masters of this age are to be understood, teaching the wisdom of this world: so that in sum this may be understood, that it is necessary for the soul—especially that which is good and beautiful, watchful in its senses and its wit—to know itself, and to give diligence to the knowledge of itself through the exercises of teaching and divine studies, and through this to be led by the Spirit of God and by the spirit of adoption. Or, if such a soul neglects itself and turns aside from divine studies, it is necessary that it give diligence to worldly studies and to the wisdom of the age, and be led by the spirit of this world again in fear. This the Apostle designates when he says: "But we have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God." And again: "For you have not received again the spirit of bondage in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry: Abba, Father." These things, in the meantime, we have been able to bring forward concerning the present passage; now let us turn to what follows.

» I have compared you, my beloved, to my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh. «

The historical sense, indeed, seems to show this. As, he says, then in Egypt, when Pharaoh in pursuit of the people of Israel advanced with chariots and cavalry, my cavalry — that is, the cavalry of my Lord the bridegroom — far surpassed the chariots of Pharaoh, and was more excellent, seeing that it overcame them and sank them in the sea; so also you, my beloved bride, surpass all women, having been made like to my cavalry, which, being compared to the chariots of Pharaoh, is assuredly more powerful and more magnificent. This, for the meantime, seems to me to be the order of the words themselves and the arrangement of the sentences. But let us consider whether perchance, according to the mystical understanding, he calls those souls which are under that spiritual Pharaoh, and are set under the spiritual wickednesses, the chariots of Pharaoh and his four-horse teams, which he himself drives and leads to pursue the people of God, and to oppress Israel. For it is certain that the temptations and tribulations which the demons stir up against the saints, they stir up through certain souls fitted and suited for this very thing. Mounting upon these as upon chariots, they harass and assail either the Church of God, or each single one of the faithful. But concerning the cavalry of the Lord, what this cavalry of his is — in Exodus, indeed, where the chariots of Pharaoh are overcome and sunk in the sea, we read nothing written, except only that the Lord cast the chariots of Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea. Yet we find in the fourth book of Kingdoms that Elisha, when his servant was terrified at the coming of the enemies who had come with cavalry and chariots, says to him: "Fear not, for they that are with us are more than they that are with them." "And Elisha prayed," he says, "and said: Lord, open the eyes of this boy that he may see. And the Lord opened his eyes, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horsemen, and chariots of fire round about Elisha, which had come down to him." But also in the prophet Habakkuk we read plainly and evidently concerning the cavalry of the Lord, and that he mounts his horses. These, then, are the words of the Scripture: "Wilt thou be angry with the rivers, O Lord, or is thy fury against the rivers, or thine onset against the Red Sea? Thou that mountest thy horses, and thy cavalry is salvation." There are, then, horses of the Lord, upon which he mounts, and his cavalry. These I think to be none other than those souls which receive the bridle of his discipline, and bear the yoke of his sweetness, and which are led by the Spirit of God, and in this is salvation for them. In the Revelation of John we read that a horse appeared to him, and one sitting upon it faithful and true, and judging with justice, whose name is the Word of God. He says therefore: "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon it was called faithful and true, and judging with justice and making war; and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and upon his head many diadems having a name written, which no one knows but he himself, and he was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood, and his name was called the Word of God. And his army was in heaven, and they followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and pure." But there is need of the grace of God, which may open to us the understanding of the words, whereby we may be able to perceive what these visions signify, what the white horse is, and who he is that sits upon it, whose name is the Word of God. And perhaps someone will say that the white horse is the body which the Lord assumed, and with which he who in the beginning was God the Word with God was either clothed or carried. But another will say it is the soul, which the firstborn of all creation assumed, and concerning which he said: "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." But another will think that it is both together, body and soul, as though, where there has been no sin, the horse is called white. Yet another, in the fourth place, will say that the Church, which is also named his body, is seen to be the white horse, as not having spot or wrinkle, which he himself sanctified for himself by the washing of water. And according to each of these particulars he will also take those things which follow — the soldiery of heaven, and the army of the Word of God, and how each single one of them, following the Word of God, sits upon white horses and is clothed in fine linen white and clean. To this white horse, then, upon which he himself is carried who is called the Word of God, or to this heavenly cavalry which follows him upon white horses no less, Christ compares and makes like his Church. But "among the chariots of Pharaoh" we may also take thus: that as much as here the cavalry of the Lord conquers and surpasses the cavalry and chariots of Pharaoh, so much do you, who are fair among women, surpass and conquer all the remaining souls which still bear the yoke of Pharaoh and endure him as their rider; or else, assuredly, that this cavalry of mine, which, cleansed by the washing of water, has been made pure and shining white, and has been counted worthy to have the Word of God as its rider, has been taken from the chariots of Pharaoh. For from thence come all who believe, because Christ came into this world to save sinners. In this way, then, the sense of this little verse may be explained: to my cavalry, which was formerly among the chariots of Pharaoh, and now follows me upon white horses, having been purified in the washing of water, I judge you like, my beloved. Blessed, therefore, are those souls which have bowed their back to receive the Word of God as rider upon themselves, and endure his bridle, that wherever he wills he may turn them, and drive them with the reins of his precepts: because now they walk no longer by their own will, but are led and led back to all things by the will of their rider. And perhaps it will seem, according to this — that the Church has been gathered out of many souls, and has received the example of life from Christ — that it received this not so much from the deity itself of the Word of God, which assuredly transcends those acts or affections which ought to be given to men as an example, but that that soul which was assumed by him, in which was the highest perfection, is the one set forth as an example, and that this itself is here called "my beloved"; whose likeness the Church too ought to have, which is gathered out of many souls — namely those which had formerly been under the yoke and chariots of Pharaoh, and are called the cavalry of the Lord. But which of the two expositions may seem to accord better with the proposed verse, you too who read shall judge.

» How beautiful your cheeks have become, like a turtledove's, your neck like little necklaces. «

The sequence of the drama seems to have this consequence: that after the bridegroom had employed a rather severe threat toward the bride, warning her that unless she came to know herself she would go forth in the tracks of the flocks and would pasture not sheep but kids, she blushed over the severity of the command; and the redness of shame, spreading over her face, made her cheeks beautiful, and much more lovely than they had been. And not only her cheeks, but her neck too was rendered so comely, as though adorned with the little chains of necklaces. The beauty of the cheeks, then, is compared to turtledoves, because by birds of this sort both the seemliness of the face and its liveliness are indicated at once. This is the explanation of the dramatic narrative. But let us come to the matter itself. The apostle Paul, writing to the Church of the Corinthians, speaks thus: "But the body is not one member, but many. And if the foot should say, 'Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body,' it is not on that account not of the body; and if the ear should say, 'Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body,' it is not on that account not of the body. If the whole body is an eye, where is the hearing? If the whole is hearing, where is the smelling? But now God has placed each single member in the body as He willed." And when he had discussed many things about this, at the last he says: "But you are the body of Christ, and members in part." And again, writing to the Ephesians, he says: "Subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord: for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the Church, He Himself the Savior of the body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be subject to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved His Church and delivered Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her by the washing of water in the word, that He Himself might prepare for Himself a glorious Church having no spot or wrinkle or anything of this kind, but that she might be holy and immaculate." And a little after: "For no one," he says, "ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of His body," and the rest. By these things, therefore, we are taught how the bride of Christ, which is the Church, is also His body and members. If, then, you hear the members of the bridegroom named, understand that the members of the Church are meant. Among these, just as there are some who are called eyes, doubtless for the light of understanding and knowledge, and others ears for hearing the word of teaching, others hands for good works and religious ministries, so there are also others who may be called His cheeks. Now the cheeks are said to be the parts of the face in which the seemliness and modesty of the soul are recognized: by which, without doubt, those among the members of the Church are indicated who cultivate the seemliness of chastity and modesty. For these, therefore, it is said to the whole body of the bride: "How beautiful your cheeks have become!" And observe that He did not say, "How beautiful your cheeks are," but "How beautiful they have become"; so as to show that they were not indeed so beautiful before, but that after she received the kisses of the bridegroom, and He who spoke through the prophets was first present, and cleansed His Church for Himself by the washing of water, and made her to have no spot or wrinkle, and granted her the knowledge of Himself, then her cheeks became beautiful. For then chastity and modesty and virginity, which before had not existed, was diffused with beautiful comeliness over the cheeks of the Church. Yet this comeliness of the cheeks, that is, of modesty and chastity, is compared to turtledoves. They say that the nature of turtledoves is of this sort, that neither does the male approach any female besides one, nor does the female endure more than one male; so that if it happen, one being taken away, that the other survives, together with its mate the love of intercourse is extinguished in it. Fittingly, therefore, is the likeness of the turtledove applied to the Church, either because after Christ she knows no marriage with another husband, or because in her there flits about, as it were, a multitude of turtledoves, of continence and modesty. According to this understanding let us also take the neck of the bride. By this, without doubt, ought to be understood those souls who take up the yoke of Christ, who says: "Take up My yoke upon you, for My yoke is sweet." Her obedience, therefore, is called her neck. Her neck, then, has become beautiful like little necklaces, and rightly so. For what the disobedience of transgression had before made unsightly, now the obedience of faith has made beautiful and lovely. "Your neck, therefore, has become beautiful like little necklaces." For to both is understood the phrase "has become beautiful." By "little necklaces" here He means the fastenings or clasps of necklaces which are wont to sit upon the neck, from which is drawn down, and descends over the whole neck, the rest of the ornament. To this very ornament, then, which is wont to be placed upon the neck and throat, He compared the neck of the bride. And we understand what is said in this way. We said that the neck is called subjection and obedience, because she takes up as it were the yoke of Christ for His sake, and offers the obedience of faith to Him. The ornament, therefore, of her neck is obedience, which is Christ. For He Himself was first made obedient even unto death; and just as through the disobedience of one, namely Adam, many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one, namely Christ, many are made righteous. The ornament, therefore, and necklace of the neck of the Church, is the obedience of Christ. But the neck of the Church too, that is, her obedience, has been made like to the obedience of Christ, which is the necklace of the neck. Great, therefore, is the praise of the bride in this, great the glory of the Church, where the imitation of her obedience follows after the obedience of Christ, which the Church imitates. This same appearance of a necklace is also mentioned in Genesis, given by the patriarch Judah to Tamar his daughter-in-law, when he lay with her as with a harlot. This mystery is not open to all. By this it is understood that Christ gave to the Church, which He had gathered out of the prostitution of many teachings, these pledges of future perfection, and placed this necklace of obedience upon her neck.

» We will make you likenesses of gold with markings of silver, until the king be in his repose. «

We said above that this little book, arranged in the manner of a drama, is woven together by a change of speakers; and so now these words seem to be spoken to the bride by the friends or companions of the bridegroom, who, according to the mystical understanding — and, as we have already said above — can be understood either as angels, or even as the prophets, or as the patriarchs. For it was not only when the Lord, after the baptism of John, was tempted by the devil in the wilderness that the angels departed and ministered to him, but they always ministered to her before the coming of his bodily presence. For the law also is said to have been ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. And the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says: "For if the word spoken through angels was made firm." They therefore were, as it were, the managers and stewards set over the little bride together with the law as tutor, until the fullness of the times should come, and God should send his Son, born of a woman, made under the law, and should lead her out from under the managers and stewards and the tutor which is the law, so that she might receive the kisses of the very Word of God — that is, his teaching and his words. Before, therefore, the time of these things was present to man, the bride was cultivated in many ways by the ministry of angels, who then appeared to men and spoke those things which the matter and the occasion required. For do not suppose that the bride, or the Church, is spoken of only from the coming of the Savior in the flesh, but from the beginning of the human race, and from the very foundation of the world — nay rather, that with Paul as my guide I may trace the origin of this mystery yet higher, even before the foundation of the world. For thus he says: "Even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, predestinating us unto the adoption of sons." But also in the Psalms it is written: "Remember your congregation, O Lord, which you gathered from the beginning." For the first foundations of the congregation were laid straightway from the beginning, whence also the Apostle says that the Church is built not only upon the foundation of the apostles, but also of the prophets; and among the prophets is numbered also Adam, because he prophesied a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church, saying: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh." For evidently concerning these his words the Apostle says that "this is a great mystery. But I speak concerning Christ and the Church." But the same Apostle also, when he says: "For if Christ loved the Church, so that he delivered himself up for her, sanctifying her with the washing of water," by no means shows that she did not exist before — for how could he have loved her who did not exist? — but without doubt he loved her who did exist. And she existed in all the saints who had been made from the beginning of the age. Loving her, therefore, he came to her. And just as her children shared in flesh and blood, so likewise he himself was made a partaker of the same, and delivered himself up for them. For they themselves were the Church which he loved, that he might either increase her in number, or cultivate her in virtues, or by the charity of perfection transfer her from the earth to heaven. From the beginning, therefore, the prophets ministered to her, and the angels also ministered. For what else was taking place then, when three men appeared to Abraham as he sat by the oak of Mamre? — although that manifestation showed something more than the ministry of angels, for there the mystery of the Trinity was being made known. This was also the case in Exodus, where the angel of the Lord is said to have appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in the bush. But immediately in what follows the Lord and God is written to speak in the angel, and he himself is designated the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Reading which, certain of the heretics have said that the God of the law and the prophets is far inferior to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; and they have stretched out their impiety to such a point that they place fullness indeed in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, but imperfection and weakness in the God of the law. But these things elsewhere. Now, however, our purpose is to show how the holy angels who before the coming of Christ managed the guardianship of the bride while she was as yet a little child, are themselves the friends and companions of the bridegroom who seem to say to her: "We will make you likenesses of gold with markings of silver, until the king be in his repose." They indicate, therefore, that they themselves make for the bride not gold (for neither did they have such gold as was worthy to be offered to the bride), but they promise that they will make for her, in place of gold, likenesses of gold — and not one likeness, but many. So too they speak concerning silver, but as though having a small quantity of silver material, they promise to make for her not likenesses, but markings of silver; inasmuch as there did not abound in them so great a quantity of silver material that they could produce from it any connected and solid work, but only markings, and certain small signs like points, which they might interweave into that work which they made for her out of the likeness of gold. These ornaments, therefore, the friends of the bridegroom — those of whom we spoke above — make for the bride. But what secret is contained in these things, and what the very novelty of the expression brings to birth, let us pray to the Father of the almighty Word and bridegroom, that he himself may open to us the barred doors of this mystery, whereby we may be illumined not only to understand these things, but also to set them forth, and, according to the measure of those who are going to read, to receive them with the moderation of spiritual speech. We have often shown in many places that the appearance of gold holds the figure of the invisible and incorporeal nature; but silver, the power of the word and of reason; according to which the Lord says through the prophet: "I gave you silver and gold; but you made silver and golden things for Baal" — showing through these and saying, that "I gave you sense and reason, whereby you might be able both to perceive me as God and to worship me; but you have transferred both the sense and the reason which is in you to the worshiping of demons." But also the oracles of the Lord, "the chaste oracles," are called "silver tried by fire." And likewise in another place the tongue of the just man is spoken of as "kindled silver." But the cherubim are called golden, since indeed they are interpreted as "the fullness of the knowledge of God." But also the candlestick in the tabernacle of the testimony was commanded to be set up golden and solid; which seems to me to hold the form of the natural law, in which the law of knowledge is held. But what need is there to heap up many testimonies, when it is at hand for those willing to know that in many places of Scripture this is indicated — that gold is to be referred to the sense and the mind, but silver is to be referred to the word and to oracles? Now therefore let us hasten to contemplate how, according to those things which we have set forth, the friends of the bridegroom say that they make for the bride likenesses of gold with markings of silver. It seems to me, therefore, that the law which was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator, inasmuch as it has "a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things," and "whatever befell those who are recounted in the law befell them in a figure and not in truth" — all these things were likenesses of gold, not true gold. Namely, that true gold is understood in those things which are incorporeal and invisible and spiritual; but the likeness of gold, in which is not the truth itself but the shadow of the truth, is to be taken as these corporeal and visible things. For example, a likeness of gold was that tabernacle made by hand, concerning which the Apostle says: "For Jesus did not enter into the holy places made by hand, the copies of the true, but into heaven itself." Therefore the things which are in the heavens, invisible and incorporeal, those are the true; but these which are on the earth, visible and corporeal, are said to be copies of the true, not the true. These, therefore, are what are called likenesses of gold; among which are also the ark of the covenant, and the mercy-seat, and the cherubim, and the altar of incense, and the table of the shewbread, and the loaves, but also the veil, and the columns and bars, and the altar of holocausts, and the temple itself, and all the things that are written in the law. All these were likenesses of gold. But even the visible gold itself, in that it was visible, was not true gold, but was a likeness of that true invisible gold. These likenesses of gold, therefore, the friends of the bridegroom — namely the angels and the prophets — made for the bride, the Church, they who ministered in the law and in the other mysteries. This, I think, Paul also understood when he said: "In the religion of angels, in the things which he has seen, vainly puffed up by the sense of his flesh." All Jewish worship and religion, therefore, are likenesses of gold. But when anyone has been converted to the Lord, and the veil has been taken away from him, then he will see the true gold; likenesses of which gold, before it was present and offered itself to be known, its friends made for the bride, that admonished and provoked by those likenesses she might conceive a desire of the true gold. For this Paul indicates was done, when he says: "But these things befell them in a figure. And they were written for our sake, upon whom the end of the ages has come." But the "end" of which Paul speaks, do not understand as the bodily one. For the bodily end will find many for whom these things were not written; for neither will such men receive an understanding concerning them. But understand the end of the ages as the perfection of things, which surely is said to have come to Paul and to those like him, and for their sakes these things are said to have been written. But these things we have said in a digression, wishing to show how the friends of the bridegroom say to the bride that they make for her likenesses of gold with markings of silver — namely through those things which in the law and the prophets they handed down in writing by means of figures and images and likenesses and parables. Yet there are among these also certain small markings of silver — that is, indications of the spiritual sense of the word and of the reasonable interpretation, though very rare and scanty. For before the coming of the Lord scarcely anywhere did any of the prophets disclose a little of the hidden discourse; for example, as Isaiah when he says: "The vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and the house of Judah is his beloved new planting." And again elsewhere: "The many waters are many peoples." And Ezekiel, naming two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, distinguishes the one to be Samaria and the other Judaea; and wherever such things are disclosed with the prophets themselves interpreting, these are called markings of silver. But when the Savior and our Lord Jesus Christ came, making all things known by the word of his power, in his passion an indication was given that the things which were held in secret places and were hidden should be brought forth into the light and come to manifestation — through this, that the veil of the temple, by which the Holy of Holies and the secret things were veiled, was rent from the top of it to the bottom, announcing that it would be made plain to all what within was seen to be covered. So therefore that which was ministered through the angels and the prophets was a likeness of gold, with the small and scanty markings of silver. But these things which were handed down through our Lord Jesus Christ himself are placed in true gold and in solid silver. For this which was made through the friends of the bridegroom, the likeness of gold with markings of silver, is not promised to abide forever; but a time is set for it by those very ones who say: "Until the king be in his repose." For when reclining he shall have slept "as a lion, and as a lion's whelp," and after this the Father shall have raised him up, and he shall have risen from the dead, if there be any who are conformed to his resurrection, they will no longer abide in the likeness of gold — that is, not in the worship of corporeal things — but they will receive the true gold from him, believing and hoping not in the things that are seen but in those that are not seen, nor in those that are on earth but in those that are in the heavens, "where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God," and they will say that "even if we have known Christ at one time according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so." No longer, therefore, will they use the small markings of silver, but silver spread out in breadth. For they will hear that in that likeness of gold the rock which is said to follow and to furnish drink to the people is Christ, and the sea is baptism, and the cloud is the Holy Spirit, and the manna is the Word of God, and the paschal lamb is the Savior, and the blood of the lamb is the passion of Christ, and the veil which is in the Holy of Holies by which those divine and secret things were covered is his flesh; and other things beyond number will be made plain from his resurrection, no longer small, as before, but disclosed by a most ample exposition. But further, that what he says — "Until the king be in his repose" — may become clearer, we will also bring forward from the second prophecy of Balaam, which contains this concerning Christ: "There shall arise," he says, "a star out of Jacob, and a man shall come forth from his seed, and shall have dominion over many nations. His kingdom shall be exalted above Gog, and his kingdom shall grow. God shall lead him out of Egypt, as the glory of the unicorn, and he shall devour the nations of his enemies, and shall suck out the marrow of their fatness, and shall shoot them with his darts. Reclining he shall rest as a lion, and as a lion's whelp. Who shall raise him up?" Consider therefore from these things more carefully, and see how every likeness of gold is recorded to stand until the last time — that is, until the repose of the king. After these things, therefore, his kingdom shall be exalted above Gog — that is, above the housetops — namely when it shall have been transferred from the earth to the heavenly things above the housetops. But concerning these things we have treated more fully, as the Lord granted, in the book of Numbers. Let us indeed inquire whether also to the holy fathers themselves and to the prophets who ministered the word before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of this perfection and of the true gold was given; or whether they only understood these future things and foresaw in the spirit the things to come; and whether for this reason alone the Lord said concerning Abraham that "he desired to see his day, and saw it, and rejoiced" — namely that in the spirit he foresaw the future things. And perhaps that saying too confirms more that this is so, which says: "Many just men desired to see the things which you see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which you hear, and heard them not." Although neither could there have been lacking to them the perfection that comes from faith. For the things which we believe to have been done, these they believed with a greater expectation as things to come. As therefore the faith of things past brought to the summit of perfection those who believe from the coming of Christ, so also did the faith of things to come bring those others. But if the exposition be referred to each individual soul, it will be seen that, so long as the soul is as yet little and imperfect, and placed under tutors and stewards — whether the teachers of the Church, or the angels who are said to be the guardians of the little ones and always to see the face of the Father who is in heaven — likenesses of gold are made for it, since it is not nourished with the solid and strong foods of the Word of God, but is imbued with likenesses; as, if we may so say, it is taught with parables and examples, for the sake of which Christ himself also is said "to grow in age and in wisdom and in grace with God and men." In those likenesses, therefore, it is imbued, and there come to be for it small markings of silver. For to those who are being imbued there are sometimes opened certain small and rare things of the more secret mysteries, that they may conceive a desire of greater ones. For neither can anything be desired if it be utterly unknown. And therefore to those beginning and set in the first stages of instruction, just as not all things are to be laid open suddenly, so neither are the spiritual mysteries to be utterly hidden; but, as the divine discourse says, markings of silver are to be made, and certain sparks of spiritual understanding are to be introduced into their souls, that they may in a manner take a taste of the sweetness that is to be desired, and not — as we have said — if it be utterly unknown, be in no way desired. But that we name the soul "little," let no one so take it as though it were called little according to substance; but if to anyone instruction is lacking, and in whom the understanding is scanty and the skill very small, this soul we call little. Therefore it is fitting that these things be done until the king be in his repose — that is, until such a soul make progress unto this, that it may receive the king, and have him reclining within itself. For thus this king says, that "I will dwell in them and walk in them" — assuredly those who furnish to the Word of God so great a breadth of their heart, that he is even said to walk about in them, namely in the ampler spaces of understanding and of a more widely diffused knowledge. So therefore he is also said to recline in that soul, without doubt, concerning which the Lord himself says through the prophet: "Upon whom shall I rest, save upon the humble and quiet, and him that trembles at my words?" This king, therefore, who is the word of God, has in that soul which has now come to perfection his repose; provided, however, that there be in it no vice, but that it be full of holiness, full of piety, faith, charity, peace, and all virtues. For then it delights the king to recline and to have his repose. For to this soul the Lord was saying, that "I and my Father will come, and will sup with him, and will make our abode with him." Where, therefore, Christ sups with it, and where he makes his abode, why should he not recline? Blessed is that breadth of the soul, blessed the couch of that mind, where the Father and the Son — as I do not doubt — together with the Holy Spirit reclines, sups, and makes his abode. With what riches, do you think, with what abundance are such guests fed? Peace there is the first food; humility is set on at the same time, and patience, meekness also and kindness, and — that which is of the highest sweetness to it — purity of heart. But charity holds the chief place in this banquet. In such a manner, therefore, even by a third exposition it will be seen able to be referred to each individual soul, that which he says: "We will make you likenesses of gold with markings of silver, until the king be in his repose."

» My nard gave forth its odor (or, his odor). «

In the manner of a drama, this appears to be shown: that after these words the bride entered in to the bridegroom and anointed him with her ointments, and, in some wondrous fashion, as though the nard which before had given no odor while it was with the bride, then gave forth its odor when it touched the body of the bridegroom—so that he seems not so much to have taken odor from the nard as the nard to have taken it from him. But if we read according to that variant which is found in other copies, "My nard gave forth his odor," something still more divine is discovered: namely, that this ointment of nard with which the bridegroom was anointed took not only its own odor, which is naturally wont to be in nard, but the very odor of the bridegroom himself, and the nard carried back his odor to the bride—so that in that with which she anointed him, it received the odor of the bridegroom through the office of the ointment itself. And this is what she seems to say: "My nard, with which I anointed the bridegroom, returning to me brought back to me the odor of the bridegroom, and, as though its own natural odor were overcome by the fragrance of the bridegroom, brought to me his sweetness." This is what the exposition of the historical drama holds; but let us now come to the spiritual understanding. Let us here set the bride, the Church, in the person of Mary, who fittingly indeed is said to bring a pound of ointment of precious spikenard, and to anoint the feet of Jesus and wipe them with her hair, and in a certain manner to receive and recover unto herself, through the hair of her head, the ointment tinctured by the quality and power of his body; and drawing to herself the odor not so much of nard through the ointment as of the very Word of God, through the hairs with which she wiped his feet, and putting upon her own head not so much the fragrance of nard as of Christ; and to say that "my nard, applied to the body of Christ, gave back his odor." Consider, then, how these very things are reported. "Mary," it says, "brought a pound of ointment of precious spikenard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. And the house," it says, "was wholly filled with the odor of the ointment." This surely indicates that the odor of the teaching which proceeds from Christ, and the fragrance of the Holy Spirit, filled the whole house of this world and the house of the whole Church. Or certainly it filled the whole house of that soul which received a share of the odor of Christ, offering first the gift of its faith, as it were the ointment of nard, and receiving from this the grace of the Holy Spirit and the fragrance of spiritual teaching. What difference, then, does it make whether in the Song of Songs the bride anoints the bridegroom with ointment, or in the Gospel the disciple anoints the master and Mary anoints Christ, hoping, as we have said, that from this ointment there should return to her the odor of the word and the fragrance of Christ—so that on this very account she may say: "We are the good odor of Christ unto God"? And since that ointment was full of faith and of precious affection, on this account Jesus too bore witness to her, saying: "She has wrought a good work upon me." So then, again, in the Song of Songs, after some passages, he embraces the emissions of the bride, just as here the work of Mary; for he says: "Thy emissions are a paradise with the fruit of apple-trees. Cyprus with nards. Nard and saffron." He embraces, therefore, in these also the sendings-forth and the gifts of the bride. We have indeed observed that in those things which we have just now mentioned, he set nard first in the plural, afterward in the singular; which I think was said according to that principle, because the merchant of the kingdom of heaven first trades in many pearls, until he arrives at one precious one. And perhaps in that he said, "Thy emissions are a paradise with the fruit of apple-trees," he indicates those fruits together with the many nards, which we bring from the instructions and the prophetic teaching. But from the teaching of our very Lord Jesus Christ our emissions and gifts have not many nards, but one. But now let us return to her who says, "My nard gave forth its odor"; and see whether we can understand this also here in the present passage: that, if ever we have been able wholly and fittingly to expound the deity of Christ, and to set forth his power and majesty with worthy assertions, then perhaps she will deservedly say—whether that Church, or the soul which has been able thus manifestly to expound his glory: "My nard gave forth its odor." Nor ought it to seem a wonder if Christ, just as he is a fountain and rivers of living water proceed from him, and just as he is bread and gives life, so also is nard and gives back odor, and is an ointment, by which those who have been anointed become anointed ones (christs), as he says in the Psalm: "Touch not my anointed ones." And perhaps according to that which the Apostle says of those who have their senses exercised to the discernment of good or evil, Christ is made each several thing to each several sense of the soul. For on this account he is called the true light, that the eyes of the soul may have wherewith to be illumined; on this account also the word, that the ears may have what they hear; on this account also the bread of life, that the taste of the soul may have what it may taste. On this account, therefore, he is called also an ointment or nard, that the smell of the soul may have the fragrance of the word. On this account too he is called palpable and to be handled with the hand, and the word made flesh, that the hand of the inner soul may be able to touch of the word of life. But all these are one and the same Word of God, which, here changed severally to the affections of the discourse, leaves no sense of the soul without experience of its grace.

» A bundle of a drop is my kinsman to me; he will abide (or dwell) in the midst of my breasts. «

These, as it seems, are still the words of the bride speaking to the young maidens. Earlier she had said that her nard had given its fragrance to the bridegroom, and that through the ointment with which she had anointed him she had received back the fragrance of its scent; but now she says: My kinsman is fragrant to me with a drop, and this drop not diffused nor scattered at random, but bound together and compressed, so that, namely, the odor of its very sweetness may be rendered thicker and stronger. And this one, she says, though he be of such a kind, tarries and abides in the midst of my breasts, and makes his rest and his dwelling in the place of my bosom. But since the bride has now for the first time called him her kinsman, and frequently uses the designation of this name through nearly the whole text of the little book, I think it worthwhile that we first inquire into the cause of this appellation, and expound what he is called a kinsman, or from what. A "kinsman" (fraternus) is the term for a brother's son. Let us first inquire who is the bride's brother, whose son this one is held to be. See whether we can say that the bride is indeed the Church from the Gentiles, but her brother the former people, and a brother, as the matter indicates, who is the elder. Since therefore Christ according to the flesh is born from that people, on this account he is called by the Church of the Gentiles the son of her brother. So then, when she says: My kinsman is to me a bundle of a drop, she indicates the sacrament of his bodily nativity. For in a certain way the body seems to be a binding and a kind of bond of the soul, which as a bundle of the drop is bound fast to Christ by the divine power and sweetness. But if the things that have been said are referred to each individual soul, the binding of the drop is understood as the compacting of the doctrines of continence and the knottedness of the divine sentences. For the reasons of the faith are interwoven with one another and bound fast by the bonds of truth. Finally, he says too that every vessel that is bound is clean, but that unclean which shall have been loosed and not tied. Of this thing this was the figure, that Christ, in whom there was never any uncleanness of sin, is called a bundle of a drop. And therefore the soul ought not to touch anything loosened, and which is not supported by reason and bound fast by the truth of doctrines, lest it become unclean. For whoever shall touch what is unclean will be unclean according to the law. For an irrational sense, alien from the wisdom of God, will touch him and will make him unclean. But see whether perhaps we can take the Son of God in the flesh to be called a drop, and named as something short and small, just as Daniel says of him: A little stone cut from the mountain without hands, and made after these things a great mountain. Or as in the little book of the twelve prophets it is likewise said that there shall be a drop which shall gather the people together. For it is thus written in the prophets: And it shall be, out of a drop of this people Jacob shall be gathered and gathered together. For it was fitting that he who was coming to gather together not only Jacob but also all the nations — which, as the prophet says, are reckoned as a drop from a bucket — emptying himself of the form of divinity, should himself become as it were a drop, and thus come to gather together the drop of the nations, the drop likewise of the remnants of Jacob. But also in the forty-fourth psalm it is said to the beloved, to whom also the psalm itself is ascribed: Myrrh and drop and cassia from thy garments. From the garments therefore of the Word of God, which is the teaching of wisdom, there proceeds myrrh, the token, that is, of the death undertaken for the human race. The drop, as we said above, is the divesting of the form of divinity, the condescension of the servile form assumed. Cassia too, since that kind of herb is said to be nourished and to grow together by unceasing waters, indicates the redemption of the human race given through the waters of baptism. Thus therefore the bride, speaking as it were in a nuptial drama, says that her kinsman as a binding of the drop tarries in the midst of her breasts: by the breasts, as we have already said above, understand the principal part of the heart, in which the Church holds Christ, or the soul holds the Word of God, bound and fastened by the bonds of her desire. For if anyone binds fast the Word of God in his heart with all his affection and with all his love, he alone will be able to receive the odor of its fragrance and sweetness.

» A cluster of henna, my kinsman, is to me in the vineyards of Engedi. «

As far as concerns the explanation of the letter itself, there is something ambiguous in what it says: "A cluster of henna is to me as a kinsman"; for a flowering vine is also called henna, since it too bears a certain flowering fruit put forth in the manner of a blossoming grape. But the words seem to refer rather to the fruit of the vine, since mention has been made of the vineyards of Engedi. Now Engedi is a district of the land of Judaea, flourishing not so much in vineyards as in balsams. This, then, will be the historical sense of the bride speaking to the maidens, so that she is understood to be saying, first indeed: "My nard renders to me the fragrance of my bridegroom." Second: "My kinsman has become to me a bundle of myrrh lingering between my breasts." Third: "A cluster of henna from the vineyards of Engedi, surpassing everything that there is among fragrances and flowers of sweetness"; namely, that the maidens hearing these things may be roused more and more toward love and affection for the bridegroom. And she names them one by one and in order — first her nard, then the myrrh, and after these also the cluster of henna — so that through these she may teach certain steps and advances of love. But let us now see what the spiritual understanding holds. For if this which is called a cluster is to be referred to the fruit of the vine — just as we receive the Word of God as wisdom and power and the treasure of knowledge, and many other things, so also is he called the true vine. As therefore in those in whom wisdom and knowledge are brought about, not suddenly, but through certain advances and steps, according to the zeal and intention and faith of those who share in him whether in wisdom, or in knowledge, or in virtue, he renders them wise and knowing and vigorous in virtues; so also in those in whom the true vine is brought about, he does not suddenly produce for them ripe and sweet clusters, nor is there suddenly made for them the wine that is sweet and gladdens the heart of man, but first he produces for them only the sweetness of fragrance in the blossom. This cluster is recorded to be flowering in the vineyards of Engedi, so that the grace of its fragrance may be sent into the beginnings of the soul, that after these things it may be able to endure the bitterness of tribulations and temptations which are stirred up for those who believe on account of the Word of God; and so at last he offers the sweetness of its ripeness, until he leads them to the winepresses where the blood of the grape is poured out, the blood of the new testament which is drunk on the feast day in the upper rooms, where the great couch is prepared. So then, through these individual advances of steps must they proceed who, initiated through the sacrament of the vine and the cluster of henna, are borne toward perfection, and strive to drink the cup of the new testament received from Jesus. But if the henna is to be taken as a tree of its own kind, whose fruit — indeed its flower — is said to possess not so much the sweetness of fragrance as also the power of warming and cherishing: without doubt there is taken that virtue of the bridegroom by which souls grow warm toward faith in him and love, which was touching those who said: "Was not our heart burning within us, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" Or certainly, since this cluster is said to be flowering from the vineyards of Engedi — and Engedi is interpreted as "the eye of my temptation" — if there is anyone who is able to have understanding of how the life of man upon earth is a temptation, and understands how one is snatched away from temptation in God, and who recognizes the character of his own temptation, so that it may be said of him that in all these things he did not sin with his lips before God: to such a one the Word of God becomes a cluster of henna from the vineyards of Engedi. It must be observed, however, that the words of the bride are so reported that both the nard and the bundle of myrrh and the cluster of henna are for herself alone, inasmuch as she has now ascended into these advances. For the soul alone that is perfect is the one that has so pure and purified a fragrance of itself that it can grasp the fragrance of the nard, and of the myrrh, and of the henna proceeding from the Word of God, and can draw in the grace of the divine fragrance.