Commentary on the Song of Songs 1 part 2/9

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' For it signifies that, having shattered the whole armour of the enemies and set free as captives those who long served under them, he brought them under himself, and bound up the kingdom of all who came willingly.

'I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' Of the same kind is also this: 'All you nations, clap your hands;

shout unto God with the voice of exultation, for the Lord Most High is terrible, a great King over all the earth.' And again:

'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one.'

'In your comeliness and your beauty draw the bow, and prosper, and reign.' And again:

'Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.' Now in these songs the prophets recount the victory of the king, and they hymn him for the liberation of the captives.

But the Song of Songs describes his wedding, and portrays his love for the bride.

And by 'bride' it means those who, in those songs, were delivered from captivity and obtained freedom, and were joined in kinship to the king, and held an unforgetting memory of his benefactions, and displayed much goodwill and affection toward him, and continually followed him;

and then, when the powers above inquired, 'Who is this King of glory?', they were the ones longing to be with him, and unwilling to be separated even for the briefest portion of a day from him who had saved them.

For this reason this book is called the 'Song of Songs,' the word signifying that those other songs came into being for the sake of this song, and that they lead toward this one.

And that he not only bestowed the grace of adoption as sons, but also called her 'bride' and made her such, and, after the manner of a bridegroom, joined himself to her, and offered countless bridal gifts, and prepared beforehand a bridal chamber and marriage bed;

and, when she was naked, clothed her, and became for her a covering, and food, and drink, and a way, and a shield, and life, and light, and resurrection.

But indeed I am striving to number the sand, or the drops of rain, or to measure the sea with a cup, daring to attain by speech unto the divine love for mankind.

The book is entitled 'Song of Songs' as teaching us the greater forms of God's goodness, and as revealing to us the innermost and inaccessible mysteries, the holy of holies of the divine love for mankind.

'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.'

These things the bride says, praying to the Father of the bridegroom.

For she had heard both the promises given to the patriarch Abraham, and the foretellings concerning Jacob spoken in blessings.

She had heard also great Moses prophesying concerning him;

she had heard also the Psalms recounting his beauty and power:

'For you are fairer in beauty,' it says, 'than the sons of men.'

'Grace is poured out upon your lips;

therefore God has blessed you for ever.'

'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one.'

'In your comeliness and your beauty draw the bow, and prosper, and reign;

for the sake of truth, and meekness, and righteousness.' She was taught that this same one, fair and comely, is both God and the Son begotten before the ages.

'For your throne, O God, is for ever and ever;

the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of your kingdom.' And Isaiah too cries aloud:

But let no one of those who cleave to the ground and to earthly things be scandalized by the mention of 'kisses';

rather let him consider how, in the mystical season, receiving the members of the bridegroom, we kiss and embrace them, and lay them upon our eyes and upon our heart, and imagine, as it were, a certain bridal embrace, and reckon that we are together with him, and are embracing and kissing him, love casting out fear, according to the divine Scripture.

The bride therefore longs to be kissed by the bridegroom himself, all but saying to his Father:

for this rather than that you wish to hear;

long have I awaited him, long have I yearned.

I grew weary receiving his letters through the patriarchs, through the lawgivers, through the prophets;

I can no longer bear the flame of love;

it is a fire burning and blazing within my inmost parts.

But I do not know for what cause he delays and overlooks me as I long for him.

'And I will betroth you to myself in righteousness, and in judgement, and in mercy, and in compassions, and I will betroth you to myself in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.' He said to me through Isaiah:

'Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who do not travail, for many are the children of the desolate rather than of her who has a husband'; and I await day by day, in eager desire, to obtain the promises.

These things she hints at, saying:

'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' And lest we interpret in a merely assertive manner, come, let us summon as witness of what has been said the blessed Paul.

This man, writing to the Hebrews and setting forth a discourse concerning faith, says such things concerning Abraham:

'By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the fellow-heirs of the same promise.'

'According to faith,' he says, 'these all died, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar, and having greeted them, and having confessed that they were strangers and sojourners upon the earth;

for those who say such things make it plain that they are seeking a homeland;

and if indeed they had remembered that land from which they came out, they would have had opportunity to return;

but now they reach out for a better one, that is, the heavenly;

wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God;

for he prepared for them a city.'

And concerning great Moses he says that 'He chose rather to be ill-treated together with the people of God than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin;

esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;

for he looked toward the recompense of reward.'

'By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king;

For he endured as seeing the Invisible One. And concerning all the saints together, who were distinguished under the Old Covenant, he says such things as these:

And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that they without us should not be made perfect. And the Lord too, in the holy Gospels, says such things as these to the apostles: Many prophets and kings and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them;

and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. And discoursing with the Jews he said:

Abraham your father desired to see my day;

and he saw it, and was glad. And Simeon the aged was told by divine oracle that he should not see death until he had seen the Christ of the Lord.

So when [the Child] had been born and brought up into the temple, and Simeon had received Him into his hands, he said:

for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; and what follows.

Wherefore the Song of Songs introduces the bride saying:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. By 'kiss' we understand not the joining of mouths, but the communion of a devout soul with the divine Word.

And the bride seems to be saying something like this:

I have heard thy words through the Scriptures;

but I long also to hear thy very voice itself;

I desire to receive the sacred teaching directly from thy mouth, and to kiss it with the lips of my understanding.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. When the bride had said these things, immediately the bridegroom appears to the bride, fulfilling that promise, In thy very speaking, behold, I am present. And she, at once beholding the One she longed for, is astonished, and marvels at His breasts and His fragrance, and cries out:

Thy breasts are good above wine, and the scent of thy ointments above all spices.

I know, she says, the ointments prepared by Moses, both the oil of anointing and the incense of the compound;

but thy ointment is the most fragrant of all those spices.

By 'ointment' here she calls the spiritual grace, of which He being full, out of His fulness He has given to us all.

to some a savour of death unto death;

but to others a savour of life unto life. For to the carrion-eating vultures the ill-smelling bodies are food, but ointment is destruction.

So too, to the impious and to those who have chosen to dwell in the stench of sin, the foul odour of licentiousness is most pleasant, but the teaching of Christ is heavy and burdensome;

wherefore it brings upon them the death they have chosen of their own accord.

For this, He says, is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. Fittingly, then, the bride says:

Of thy ointments — showing that thy gifts of grace are many and numberless.

For to one, according to the blessed Paul, is given the word of wisdom;

to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

to another faith by the same Spirit;

to another the workings of miracles;

Thy name is ointment poured forth. For these many and various streams, she says, which have filled the whole world with fragrance, have one channel and fountain: thy ointment.

For in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead, and He Himself, according to His humanity, received together all the gifts of the Spirit.

There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up out of his root;

and the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness;

and the spirit of the fear of God shall fill Him.

Thy name is ointment poured forth; and she does not say simply 'ointment,' but 'poured forth.' For just as ointment hidden in a vessel keeps its fragrance hidden also, but if it be poured out, it fills the very air;

so, when He endured the cross and death, and the vessel of His body was as it were opened, immediately the blessed apostles were filled with that fragrance;

and running forth, traversing land and sea, and carrying the proclamation across to all, they filled the whole world with the fragrance.

Thy name is ointment poured forth. For the very naming of Christ suffices, as it were, to perfume and to fill with all fragrance the souls of the devout.

And if you wish to understand it also more mystically, call to mind the sacred mystagogy, in which those being initiated, after the renunciation of the tyrant and the confession of the King, receive as it were a royal seal, the anointing of the spiritual ointment;

receiving, as in a figure under the ointment, the invisible grace of the all-holy Spirit.

(3.) They have drawn thee; we will run after thee into the scent of thy ointment.

Laying hold, she says, of this fragrance of thy ointment — that is, of thy divine and saving teaching — the youthful and manly souls (for these the text calls 'maidens') so ardently loved thee, that they drew thee to themselves, and followed after thee; and did this moreover at a run, lest they be left behind, nor be separated from the One they longed for.

I press on, if I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of. And again:

So run, he says, that ye may obtain. And elsewhere:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. So then those souls that have gained a youthful resolve run, having fled the soft and dissolute and slack manner of life, and having chosen toil instead of luxury, allured after the bridegroom and called by the fragrance of the ointment, and held as it were by an ineffable bond.

These things, then, the bride, not yet deemed worthy of the bridal chamber, recounts both to the Father of the bridegroom, and to the bridegroom Himself who has come to her.

But she is deemed worthy also of the bridal canopy, and of the bridegroom's chambers and inner rooms; and taking pride in it she says to her own choir:

The King brought me into his chamber — that is, he revealed to me his hidden counsels;

he made known to me the mystery which has been from the ages and from the generations;

the treasures, the dark and hidden and invisible ones, he opened to me, according to the prophecy of Isaiah.

Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to those it is not given.

And the Lord too calls the understanding a 'chamber,' saying:

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and pray to thy Father who is in secret. The King brought me into his chamber; all but saying, together with the blessed Paul, that Things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him;

but to us God has revealed them by His Spirit.

For we have the mind of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. — The King brought me into his chamber. It is necessary to inquire why the bride alone is brought in, while the maidens are not brought in, but standing outside await the bride who has entered;

and when she comes out and describes how the King brought her into his chamber, they add:

Let us rejoice and be glad in thee.

We will love thy breasts above wine.

Righteousness has loved thee. Not all who have believed are of equal worth.

For in my Father's house are many mansions, says Christ — that is, differences of dignities.

For one rank is that of the patriarchs, and another of the prophets;

another of the apostles, and another of the martyrs;

another of those who have shone in virginity, and another of those who have lawfully taken up the yoke of marriage;

another of those who have served God in wealth, and have become faithful stewards, and another of those who have steadfastly endured the manifold sufferings of poverty;

another of those who pursue the civic virtue, and another of those who dwell in the mountains, and who choose to attend to divine contemplation alone.

And even within these very ranks it is possible to find many differences;

some pursuing more fervently, others more slackly, the things they pursue;

and some more diligently, others more carelessly.

And this too one can find from the parable of the Lord;

and some He deems worthy of the bridal chamber, while against others He shuts the doors.

And He answers them, honoring their virginity, yet does not deem them worthy of entrance, on account of their negligence regarding the other virtues.

Since, then, we have thus made these matters clear, let us understand the bride to be those souls made perfect in all the virtues, and the maidens who follow after her to be those who love the Bridegroom and are eager to follow Him, but who have not yet imitated the perfection of the bride.

And that these things are so, the Holy Spirit bears witness in the forty-fourth psalm, speaking to like effect.

And in addition to these, He also brings forward that human virtue which He assumed, when, existing in the form of God, He counted it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; and besides these, the anointing that took place according to His humanity, and the gifts offered by the Magi.

'The Queen stood at Thy right hand, clothed in a vesture wrought with gold, embroidered.' And He calls those souls made perfect in virtue a queen, since Paul too speaks thus:

'If we endure, we shall also reign with Him'; and by the vesture wrought with gold and embroidered He means the same manifold gifts of the Spirit.

Then He also offers her counsel:

And reminding her of His ineffable love for mankind, He says, 'Because He is thy Lord and thy God, and thou shalt worship Him.' He foretells to her also the worship that ere long she shall receive from kings and rulers.

'For all the rich among the people,' He says, 'shall entreat thy face.' Now the face of the Church, according to what is seen, is the priestly dignity; but according to what is understood spiritually, it is the Bridegroom Himself, who deigned to become her head, according to the Apostle's word.

Then He describes her hidden glory:

'For all the glory of the king's daughter is within.' Since, according to the blessed Paul, 'Our life is hidden with Christ in God'; and in the present life 'all who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus shall be persecuted.'

'All the glory of the king's daughter is within, clothed in fringes of gold, embroidered.' Again by 'fringes of gold' and 'embroidered' He means the various gifts.

'Virgins shall be brought to the king in her train;'

'her companions shall be brought to Thee; they shall be brought with joy and gladness;'

'they shall be led into the temple of the king.' It is therefore plain from what has been said that those who have attained to a perfect man, to the measure of stature, according to the blessed Paul, and have acquired the perfection of virtue, are named the bride;

but those who have not yet attained to perfection, but fall short of these, are as certain maidens who follow the bride, showing all goodwill and tender affection both toward her and toward the Bridegroom.

'The king brought me into his chamber.'

'Let us be glad and rejoice in thee.' For they do not envy nor grudge, though they remain outside and have not yet attained the bridal chamber;

but they rejoice and are glad and delight in the honor of the bride, and are content to enjoy her most sweet voice.

'We will love thy breasts more than wine.' And what she said to the Bridegroom, this these say to the bride, on account of their goodwill and affection toward her, thereby drawing to themselves the favor of the Bridegroom.

For Christ also says to the apostles:

'He that receiveth you receiveth Me'; and, 'Whosoever shall give to drink a cup of cold water to one of these little ones that believe in Me, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.' And the maidens again call the breasts of the bride the springs of teaching, which pour forth streams suited to every age;

and they promise to love the breasts of the bride above all human joy.

For this is figuratively called wine, which 'gladdens the heart of man.'

For in the Old Testament God, revealing things to come to the prophets, through them taught the men of that time what was needful.

And they enjoyed the treasuries and hidden things of God, and going forth they told men the things revealed and made manifest.

'The hidden and secret things of Thy wisdom Thou hast made manifest to me.' And those who through the prophets enjoyed the divine streams gave heed to the prophets as to mediators between God and men;

and the apostles likewise, being inspired from God, continued conveying this proclamation of godliness to all men.

they became hearers of the apostolic springs, as of certain breasts more precious than all wine and all joy.

And in the present time also, the teachers of the Church offer the divine streams to the people, as it were from certain treasuries.

And he who enjoys them draws spiritual nourishment as from certain breasts, and reckons it better than all the joy of this life.

'The king brought me into his chamber.' And the maidens answered:

'Let us be glad and rejoice in thee'; and they promise, saying:

'We will love thy breasts more than wine'; and they add the reason.

Then again the bride says:

'I am black, and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.'

'Look not upon me, because I am darkened, because the sun has looked askance upon me.'

'I am not only black, but also comely;'

'for I who was long ago blind have recovered sight, and I who was clad in old rags am now clothed in a vesture wrought with gold, embroidered, and have obtained the royal dignity and stand beside the king, having thrust thee out—thee who didst rage madly against the king, and didst deliver Him to death, and didst defile the bridal chamber with the multitude of adulterers.'

'Therefore reproach me not for the blackness of my skin, nor bring forward against me my former evils.'

'For I am black, I confess, but comely and pleasing to the Bridegroom.'

'Fear the example of Miriam;'

'for she too reproached Moses, because he had taken an Ethiopian woman to wife, and she became leprous, white as snow;'

'and as one unclean she was cast forth outside the camp, and did not enter in until she had repented.'

'I too, then, am an Ethiopian woman, yet the bride of the great Lawgiver;'

'and the daughter of a priest of Midian, an idolatrous man;'

'but I forgot my people and my father's house;'

'therefore the king greatly desired my beauty.'

'Look not upon me, then, because I am darkened, because the sun has looked askance upon me;'

'ye shall see me who am now darkened made white, and ye shall cry aloud:'

'Who is this that cometh up, made white?' And I will tell you also the cause of this blackness.

'For I was darkened by serving the creature rather than the Creator, and by worshipping this visible sun instead of the Sun of righteousness.'

'But I saw the difference between that One and this, and forsaking the thing made, I worshipped the Maker.'

'Look not upon me, then, because I am darkened, because the sun has looked askance upon me,' or, as Symmachus renders it, 'because the sun has touched me.'

'For I am black, and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem'; black on account of my former impiety, comely on account of my repentance;

black on account of unbelief, comely on account of faith.

And I was so exceedingly black, as the tents of Kedar, which is interpreted 'darkening';

but I have become so comely, as the curtains of Solomon—that is, as the tents of Solomon, as the coverings of Solomon, concerning which the Lord says:

'Consider the lilies of the field, which neither spin nor weave, and your heavenly Father clothes them;'

clothed and nourished.

The bride therefore says: 'Of old I was likened to the tents of Kedar, which is interpreted darkening, and I was in bondage to the darkness and served the demons; but now I have suddenly been changed, and I have come to resemble the curtains of Solomon;'

since she too became not only a bride, but also a temple of the peaceful Christ.

'The sons of my mother fought against me.' And these things too are connected with what was said before.

'For the sons of my mother,' she says, 'fought against me,' calling the holy apostles her sons, concerning whom the Holy Spirit speaks in the forty-fourth psalm to the queen herself:

'Instead of thy fathers, sons have been born to thee;'

'thou shalt make them princes over all the earth.' And she calls the Jerusalem which is above the mother both of herself and of them, concerning which the blessed Paul says:

'But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.' The sons therefore of my mother, she says, fought against me—meaning the war that was waged by the apostles against idolatry and every other lawlessness;

who in each of their hearers took up, as it were, a certain battle and war, striving to cast out the wicked habits of souls and to plant firmly the laws of godliness.

And that we may learn more clearly how the blessed heralds of godliness contended within the souls of those being discipled, let us listen to the blessed Stephen contending and saying:

'Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye.' And the blessed Paul also, writing to the Corinthians, says:

'It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles'; and again, 'Lest, when I come again, my God humble me among you, and I shall mourn many of those who have sinned before and have not repented.' And writing to the Galatians he says, 'O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not be persuaded of the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified?' Thus, by rebuking and exhorting, by smoothing out the wrinkles of transgressions and scraping away the aged habits, the first prophets and heralds of true religion rendered the bride of the Lord new instead of old, comely instead of misshapen and ugly, and radiantly white instead of black.

'The sons of my mother fought against me.'

'They made me a keeper in the vineyards.' For they handed over to me, as it were, certain vineyards—the divine commandments;

and they charged me not only to work and cultivate them, but also to guard them, lest any of the wicked beasts should ravage the fruit.

For she means either this: that 'The former vineyard of mine, which I cultivated before the faith, the one handed down to me from my forefathers, I have left uncared for and unguarded, so that the former things have already been utterly destroyed and given over to oblivion';

or that 'My own vineyard—that is, the benefit of my own soul—I have neglected, choosing the gains of others before my own gains.'

For this too the blessed Paul declares, that 'Love seeks not her own'; and again, 'Let no one seek his own, but each the good of the other'; and concerning himself he says, 'I seek not my own profit, but that of the many, that they may be saved.' I have set down both interpretations, that those who read may have knowledge of both, and may take whichever seems to them the truer.

she lays bare her love toward him, and says:

'Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; lest perhaps I become as one veiled beside the flocks of your companions.'

'Since my soul has loved you, tell me at the hour of noon where you feed your flock, or where you make your sheep lie down;

lest, being ignorant, I wander here and there, and roaming and straying fall in with flocks not accounted worthy of your oversight, but having other herdsmen and cowherds.'

For the word 'veiled' Symmachus has rendered 'roaming.'

And with good reason does the bride inquire, at the hour of noon, where the bridegroom abides; for when the light of knowledge had grown strong, the heresies sprang up, bearing indeed the name of Christians, but destitute of the truth.

For this cause, striving anxiously to learn, she longs to know the place of the bridegroom, where at the hour of noon he makes his sheep lie down, so that she may not fall in with the flocks of those called 'companions.'

And one must know that, just as there were prophets and, opposed to them, false prophets, and again apostles and, thinking the contrary, false apostles, so also are there false christs, as they are called by the divine Scripture.

For such men are false apostles. The bride entreats not to fall in with these;

since they display the guise of a shepherd, and likewise appear to have flocks and folds;

such as are those who hold the opinions of Arius, and Eunomius, and Marcion, and Valentinus, and Manes, and Montanus;

clothing themselves in a Christian guise and name, and building churches, and reading the divine Scriptures to sheep gone astray, and evilly pasturing those who are persuaded by them, and being reckoned companions of the bridegroom, yet being in truth treacherous and destructive, and holding out poisons to the sheep in place of nourishing pasture.

The bridegroom therefore answers the bride: