ENARRATIONES IN CANTICA CANTICORUM

551BTo the most glorious and most excellent emperor LOTHAIR, ever Augustus: ANGELOMUS, the least of monks, entreating by entreating, entreats to obtain everlasting glory.

Lately, when I was keeping watch in your sacred palace — under the pretext, I say, of the handing down of the liberal arts and of the unfolding, namely, of Holy Scripture — your sagacious prudence deigned, as it is not unmindful, to summon me to your attentive presence, and to hold converse with me. But after the spiritual conversations of the heavenly life, and the supports of prayers, it pleased you by commanding — nay rather, by threatening [ minitando ] — to command that, by the office of the pen, according to the sense of the ancient fathers and the frugality of my slender wit, I should set in order a little work upon the Song of Songs of Solomon, where the conjunction of Christ and the Church, 551Cand the mysteries of the allegories, are proved to be contained beyond the rest of the τοῖς βιβλοῖς of the Old Testament; and that, so to speak, I should not refuse to expound it, and should not omit to display it to the presence of your eminence — whereby your diligence might have it, often frequented after the ordering of the commonwealth and brought back to your ears by reading, stretching itself out in contemplation away from the tumult of the affairs of the empire, and above all from the loss of your most holy consort, who by God's granting, as we believe, has been enrolled into the fellowship of the holy women and inscribed on the roll of blessedness — by reading contemplative things for the sake of consolation, and like the solitary turtledove, whose nature it is, as the natural philosophers report, that if once she has by mischance lost her mate, she does not seek another, but keeping chastity remains in a manner a widow, groaning alone and doing penance: of which we read in 551Dthe same book: « The voice, he says, of the turtledove is heard in our land (Cant. II), » that is, of Christ saying: « Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near (Matth. III). » [Vulg. appropinquavit, "hath drawn near"] And fair are thy cheeks as the turtledove's, the little channels of the cheeks being flooded with a shower of tears, so that you might have been able to pour out in secret to the Lord prayers for your own excesses and for the absolution of the most devoted empress. Which having heard, dreading the weight of so great a matter, astonished — nay, stupefied — I began to wonder why it had pleased your clemency to enjoin so great a work, to be dreaded even by the most erudite men, upon me, unlearned, and one who has not attained all the disciplines of the liberal arts, and feeble in the oracles 552Band blessings of Holy Scripture, when you had in your monarchy many doctors who could have handled it honorably and catholicly. But considering the censure of your rule, and silently turning over that apostolic word by which it is said (I Petr. II): « Be subject to every human creature for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as excelling, or to leaders as sent by him » [Vulg. propter Deum, "for God's sake"] , but rather that word of the Lord's, where he promises: « Amen, he says, I say to you, whatsoever you ask praying, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done for you (Marc. II). » [Vulg. Marc. XI, 24 Propterea dico vobis, omnia quaecumque orantes petitis … et evenient vobis] Perceiving also, by the inward weighing of my mind, that what was commanded by so great a majesty would not be without the divine assent, with rash mouth I presumed to gainsay by no apologetic and no winding of excuse, but rather, as far as 552CI could, relying on divine supports, I attempted, though fearful, to comply with the imperial commands. But not counting it worth a straw that, without the assurances and likewise the orders of my magnificent lord and abbot, namely Drogo your uncle, lest I should seem to exceed the discipline of the Rule, I should have had to set my pen to the writing — not only because he was the son of the emperor Charlemagne, and brother of your most holy and most devoted father Louis Caesar, but because he was a chief bishop and my distinguished abbot. And when by suggestion I had brought it in to his sacred ears, and had set forth the order of the matter, which having been drunk in by his ears, he not only refused, but — as he is most gentle, and persuadable in affability, most excellent in kindness, and most fervent toward every good — 552Dafter the manner of his modesty he not only commanded frankly by free authority, but with soothing tranquillity and devout address, that I should not refuse to undertake, as best I might, the angustale work and spiritual ornament. Hearing which, so now at last emboldened by his exhortations, driven on by your nurturing utterances and holy commands, and above all relying on divine helps and stirred up by the prayers of the holy doctors: whatever, O most learned prince, I shall be able to find scattered among the holy doctors in our keeping — especially in the sayings of the most blessed Pope Gregory, of the ornament of Roman eloquence, since I find it compacted throughout by none alone 553A— I shall attempt to take in hand out of the tradition of my master, by the conjecture of my own wit, with the pen running, in a manner of speech rather clipped and compendious, though unpolished; and I shall endeavor to finish it in the form of a little book, so that your highness may have as it were an enchiridion, that is, a little book excerpted and in a manner handy, which, God favoring, it may please you to read often at fitting hours after the labors of empire, after the cares of the Church, ruminating upon divine things unto consolation. And because he cannot run through the most broad fields, namely of Holy Scripture, let it at least not irk him, at rest, to search out our stromata briefly. But it must indeed be known that, as is the custom of certain writers, we have not assigned all the names of the several doctors man by man on the little page in the margin, marked with letters; but rather, out of their sayings, we have judged it right to fit together some things of the 553Bexpositors from among many kinds — by briefly cutting short, that is, the manifold matters, the superfluities being removed — and, following their sense, to join together some things from the more prolix by excerpting, and, by interpolating some things of our own, to enlarge the longer ones. Thus assuredly, thus, with the various allusions of the dramas running through the short trains, which by knitting together in turn we have ordained to fill out the little book of sentences, not greatly fearing those who twist the nose as though they were wise, nor those who are readier to reprehend than to imitate, and who cannot fulfil what they contrive to reprehend by sneering. For we know, we know, that in the concord of the organ the pipes of bronze are some longer, some shorter; but when one blast has been administered by the bellows, and a trained hand commands, 553Cand the fingers handle one — though the pipes are diverse — they sweetly render to astonished ears a harmony as a salpinx, the voices of trumpets and a concord, breathing forth melody in sweet song. So indeed, since some sentences are longer, the superfluities being cut away, and others shorter, the necessary things being added, we shall have dared — the Holy Spirit breathing through one body, the hand commanding and the fingers touching the pen — with the sentences glued together in turn, to fill out the dictations of the enchiridion, with the help of him who in this book says prophetically concerning the mingled gifts of the Church: Cypress with spikenard, spikenard with saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloes with all the chief ointments. [Vulg. Cant. IV, 14 nardus et crocus, "spikenard and saffron"] But in what manner these virtues of the Church, alternating, are fitted together among themselves in mingled fashion, we shall say afterward in its own 553Dplace. Whence now at last I suppliantly entreat the imperial ornament, and equally those to whom it may perchance fall to read it, that what I have striven to do — after the manner of physicians and perfumers, who, that they may be able to compound various ointments and antidotes in due measure, take pains to weigh them evenly in the scales of the balance, so that the one may not overbalance the other, nor may they leave behind the less useful of the others, but may compound their own with an even scale — namely, to weigh sentences in the equal scale of the mind, and in a manner to compound honeys and antidotes for souls: that he neither shudder at it nor let it grow squalid, but read it through, surveying it with diligent assay, and gratefully search out the medicines of the soul. But before the prolegomena come to their end, it must be noted that in this book one ought to seek nothing carnal and nothing historical, 554Abut ought not to doubt that the mysteries of the allegories are contained in it. For in this book kisses are named, breasts are named, cheeks are named, thighs are named. In which words the sacred description is not to be derided, but the greater mercy of God is to be considered, because while he names the members of the body, he thus calls us to his own love. Whence it is to be considered how wonderfully and how mercifully he works with us, who, that he might kindle our heart to the incitement of sacred love, will descend even to the words of base love, as Pope Gregory expounds. But whence he humbles himself in speaking, thence he exalts us to understanding, because from the discourses of this love we learn with what power we are to be fervent in the love of the Godhead. But this must be diligently observed by us, lest, when we have heard the words of outward 554Blove, we remain at the perceiving of outward things. For this Scripture is in you just as a picture is in colors and in things. And he is exceedingly foolish who so clings to the colors of the picture that he is ignorant of the things. For if we embrace the words that are spoken outwardly and are ignorant of the senses, then, as though ignorant of the things that are depicted, we hold the colors alone. For we know that after the human race was driven out from the joys of paradise, and coming into this pilgrimage of the present life, it has a heart blind to spiritual understanding. To which blind heart, if it were said with the Lord's voice, "Follow God" or "Love God," it would not, through the torpor of insensibility, take in cold what it heard. Therefore by certain riddles the divine speech speaks to the torpid and cold soul, and out of things that it knows 554Cit secretly insinuates a love that it does not know; and for the soul set far beneath, away from God, as the aforesaid treatise-writer says, he has made as it were a kind of engine, that by it she may be lifted up to God. For, riddles being interposed, while she recognizes in the words something that is her own, in the sense of the words she understands what is not her own, and through earthly words eternal things are hoped for. Therefore, O most unconquered Caesar, we pray that you seek nothing in this volume after the historical manner, but that you search out the flowers of the allegories together with the moral understanding, which in certain places we have determined to append for your consolation, lest, pressed down by the allusions of the allegories alone, your highness should violently grow weary in reading contemplative things. Let him also hear what is said through the same Solomon: « The glory of God is to conceal a word, and the glory of kings to search out 554Da speech (Prov. V). » For to a mind seeking God, God appears the more gloriously the more subtly he is searched out that he may appear. We ought therefore to seek what God conceals in mysteries. And so there follows: "and the glory of kings to search out a speech." For they who not only reign over lands, but have known how to rule and to search out their own bodies, or the motions of the flesh, are kings. To whom it is also said through the Psalmist: « And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you that judge the earth (Psal. II), » and the rest. The glory of kings, therefore, is to search out a speech, because it is the praise of those who live well to scrutinize the secrets of the commandments of God. Search therefore the Scriptures, most glorious emperor, so that, by penetrating and understanding the divine mysteries, your wisdom and diligence may be able to search out and to rule the desires and 555Amotions of the flesh, and to teach the rest who are subject to your rule, and most honorably to govern their acts by prudence and by counsel. These things therefore having been tasted beforehand — nay rather, urgently demanded — 556Awe shall at last endeavor to bend the pen to those things which you have commanded. We pray that your glory, and the ornament of the Franks, may ever fare well in Christ, prevailing with prosperous successes.

• 555

Before, O imperial ornament, I stretch out my hand to write to the pipes of the spiritual harmony — that is, to the concord of the allegories — the Holy Spirit breathing; and before, by the office of the pen, I touch the depths of contemplation by spreading the sails of the history, and unbar as with a key the hidden things of the house, whereby the inner mysteries may more easily be revealed: I have determined to show, in the argumentation 555Bof the faith, why this book is placed third among the little works of Solomon, and what significance it bears, or of what life it is asserted to hold the type; and likewise by what names holy Church is inscribed in this same book; why too the same volume is called not simply the Song, but the Song of Songs; and finally by what names Solomon is marked out in Holy Scripture — so that, all things being tasted beforehand, when they have been known in advance, the exposition may afterward be grasped more easily and more eagerly. For the Scriptures teach most plainly that Solomon was called by three names. Solomon, that is, peaceable, because he obtained the kingdom in peace and instructed the people by parables, as a signification 555Cof the Savior, who says to his disciples: « Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you (Joan. XIV). » And he himself taught the crowds by parables, of whom also it is written: « His empire shall be multiplied, and of peace there shall be no end (Isa. IX) » and the rest. And Idida, that is, beloved of the Lord, namely because he was first beloved by the Lord, likewise as a type of the Lord who is beloved by the Father, as he himself says: « This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matth. III). » And Coheleth, that is, Ecclesiastes. Now he is called Ecclesiastes in the Greek tongue, and by that, because he gathers the assembly, that is, the Church — whom we may name the preacher, because he speaks to the people, and his discourse is directed not specially to one, but generally to all; who as with hand outstretched quiets the tumults of all 555Dand calls them back to one judgment. So the same Solomon is shown to have done in this book, when at the end of the book he says: « Let us all alike hear the end of speaking: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is all man (Eccli. XIII), » prefiguring him who not only brought in peace and stood forth beloved of God the Father, but who says to all: « Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven will draw near (Matth. III) » [Vulg. appropinquavit, "hath drawn near"] — who, « the middle wall being destroyed, » and emptying out the enmities in his own flesh, made both one, and who commands us to fear God and to keep his commandments. Finally, as Solomon was called by the three aforesaid names, so according to the number of the appellations he published three volumes: namely Proverbs, which we name Parables, which the Hebrews call Masloth; 556AEcclesiastes, which they also, as we have said, name Coheleth; and the Song of Songs, which they entitle Schir aschirim. And these he distinguished in a reasonable order. For in Proverbs he teaches the little one, and instructs him as it were concerning duties by maxims; whence also his discourse is often found addressed to a son. But in Ecclesiastes 556Bhe instructs a man of ripe age, that he by no means believe anything among the things of the world to be perpetual, but that all things we behold are falling and brief. Lastly, in the Song of Songs he joins in embraces the man now made perfect and prepared, the world being trodden underfoot. For unless we have first left our vices, and, renouncing the pomps of the world, have made ourselves unencumbered for the coming of Christ, we shall not be able to sing the Song of Songs, and to say: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » Or he published the volumes thus, in which he set forth the disciplines of three kinds, by which one arrives at the knowledge of things. For in the first the moral, in the second the natural, and in the last of all the contemplative — which the Greeks have named thus, ethnicam, physicam, and theoriam. Whence it is not repugnant to the understanding that 556Cthis book is placed in the third place among the little works of Solomon. So then in Proverbs the moral life is expressed, where it is said: « Hear, my son, my wisdom, and incline thine ear to my prudence (Prov. I). » [Vulg. Prov. V, 1 Fili mi, attende ad sapientiam meam, "My son, attend to my wisdom"] But in Ecclesiastes, the natural. For there it is considered that all things tend toward faith, when it is said: « Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity (Eccli. I). » But in the Song of Songs the contemplative life is expressed, while in it the coming and the sight of the Lord himself is desired, when it is said with the voice of the bride: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » These orders also the lives of the three patriarchs signify, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For Abraham held morality by obeying, when he went out from his own land, and did not delay 556Dto sacrifice his son. But Isaac figured the natural life by digging wells; for indeed to dig wells is, by natural consideration, to search out by scrutiny all the things that are below. But Jacob held the contemplative life, who saw the angels ascending and descending. But because natural consideration is not brought to perfection unless morality be first held, rightly is Ecclesiastes placed after Proverbs. And because the heavenly contemplation is not beheld unless these slipping things below be first despised, rightly is the Song of Songs placed after Ecclesiastes. For first is to order one's morals; then, to consider all things that are present as though they were not present. But in the third place, with a clean keenness of heart, to behold the things above and the things within. By these degrees of the books, therefore, as the treater of the sum of moral 557Abooks, Pope Gregory, sets forth, he made a certain ladder and engine unto the contemplation of God: so that, while first in the world honorable things are well performed, afterward even the honorable things of the world are despised, and at the last even the inmost and secret things of God are contemplated. Whence not undeservedly is this book named not the Song, but the Song of Songs, where the conjunction of the heavenly Word of God and of the soul is shown. Which song is so understood to excel all songs, as our Lord, the man assumed, excels the apostles, the patriarchs, or the prophets, or whatsoever those heavenly powers are: so that, as Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, so also the Song of Songs is entitled above all the songs that were sung by the prophets. And as in the Old Testament 557Bsome things are holy places and others the Holy of holies, and some are sabbaths and others sabbaths of sabbaths, so also some are songs and others the Song of Songs. The holy places were in the tabernacle, and the things that were done outwardly; the sabbaths were those which were celebrated out of each several week; but the Holy of holies was received with a certain more secret veneration, and the sabbaths of sabbaths were not celebrated except in their own festivals. In the Song of Songs there is a certain secret and an inward solemnity, which secret is penetrated in hidden understandings; for if it is attended to in outward words, it is not a secret. Whereof we have already disputed above in the preface. It is also to be known that in Holy Scripture some songs are songs of victory, others songs of exhortation and attestation, others songs of exultation, others songs of help, 557Cothers songs of conjunction with God. The song of victory is that which Miriam sang when the Red Sea had been crossed, saying: « Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously honored: horse and rider he has cast into the sea (Exod. XV). » [Vulg. Exod. XV, 1 gloriose enim magnificatus est … deiecit in mare, "gloriously magnified … cast down"] The song of exhortation and attestation is that which Moses spoke to the Israelites as they drew near to the land of promise. « Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth (Isa. XXVIII). » [Vulg. Deut. XXXII, 1 Audite, caeli, quae loquor; audiat terra verba oris mei] The song of exultation is that which Anna sang, not only for Samuel, but having foreseen in herself the fruitfulness of the Church, saying: « My heart hath exulted in the Lord (I Reg. II). » Where through her own self the truth expressed the fruitfulness of the ecclesiastical offspring, when she says: « The barren hath borne very many, and she that had many sons is made weak (Ibid.) » The song of help David sang after 557Dthe battle, saying: « I will love thee, O Lord, my might (Psal. XVII). » [Vulg. Psal. XVII, 2 fortitudo mea, "my strength"] But the song of conjunction with God is that song which is sung at nuptials as an epithalamium of bridegroom and bride, that is, the Song of Songs, which is by so much more solemn than all songs, as it is offered at nuptials of a more sublime solemnity. By those songs vices are shunned; but by these each one is enriched with virtues. By those the enemy is guarded against; by these the Lord is embraced with familiar love. Other songs too were sung by divers prophets, for divers persons or causes: as Habakkuk also noted his beforehand for the ignorant. Deborah too sang concerning the victory over Sisera. The three children also sang in the furnace, in which the marvels of Almighty 558AGod are recounted. Jeremiah too sang a song of lamentation concerning the conversion of Jerusalem and of the sanctuary and of his whole people; and many others. But this is called the Song of Songs for this reason: because it is plainly proved to belong to the proper conjunction of Christ the King and the Church, where the Church prays to the Father of the Bridegroom, who is the Word of God, that now not through go-betweens — who are the angels and the prophets, who bore from the Son of God to the Church tidings of the reprobation to come — but that he show him himself at last in person through the mystery of the incarnation; that now she may deserve to embrace his form, beautiful above the sons of men, and to receive from him most sweet kisses, and to handle his most welcome breasts. For she who thus desires is called by the Greek word ἐκκλησία; in Latin she is interpreted congregatio, or better convocatio; in Hebrew 558BSynagoga. According to place or time she is proved to have been called by divers names by the Word of God. Concerning whose appellations we made promise above. For sometimes Jerusalem, sometimes Sion, very often friend, but often beloved. Sometimes sister, or beautiful bride, dove, or spotless, or perfect — so is she known to be called in the person of Christ by the mouth of the prophets and in this book. She is called Jerusalem indeed, because after the wrath of Almighty God she received the peace sent from heaven by the Father, in that she is signified to have some peace. Which peace and conjunction she is said to entreat when she beseeches him: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » But Sion, because out of the valley of the tears of idolatry, where she had fallen in Adam in body, and not in heart, she ascends again to the mount of paradise, 558Cand by offering herself as a mirror to the undivided Trinity for cleanness of heart, she is made conspicuous and lofty. In which Almighty God may delight to walk as upon a fertile mountain, and to scatter the blessed seed of his doctrine; on account of which watchtower or seed is interpreted in her. But she is called friend, because by repudiating the devil she called God back to friendship. But she is named beloved, because after the most bitter hatreds of unbelief she is made beloved of God by the gifts of belief. She is named sister, namely, through the mystery of the assumed flesh, when he is born to the lands out of the same matter of seeing out of which the Church too is begotten. She is pronounced beautiful, namely, being wiped clean through baptism from all the stains of sins, after much Ethiopian and shadowy custom of crimes, 558Dher skin being cleansed and she called back to her native beauty. But she was made bride by joining his body and blood to her own body. By which sacrament she pledged that besides him she loves no other lover with her whole heart, preserving with great zeal his precious ring of faith. For she is proclaimed shapely, by reforming in her soul the form of that image in which she was created. But she is named dove: since all the rapacity which she had been wont to perpetrate with hooked hands as of vultures has been laid aside, now, joined in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, she shines with the whiteness of the simplicity and bounty of doves. And she who in evil teachers had been wont to snatch away from other souls the foods of eternal life, now in good teachers imparts them again from her own most sweet 559Athroat to those who hear, as is the nature of doves. But she is praised as spotless: the old and ancient custom of crimes being laid aside, and the robe of most holy baptism having once been put on in luta, by living spotlessly she has not stained herself further. And having been made the imitator of her Lord Christ, by dying for his name she grows bright with the file of martyrdom and of mortification. She could find no other iron tool stronger, by which the ancient dross of the soul might be filed away, as Apponius says, save the file of martyrdom; by which, in the furnace of torments, the soul — however great the mass of the filth of sins by which it is surrounded — may be renewed in its own blood; by which she may be a perfect dove, and spotless in Christ. Whence indeed she is named perfect also, as one who is to receive all judgment from the Father, namely, in 559BChrist. This Church, therefore, in whom the multitude of all who believe in Christ consists — she who before, namely before the coming of the Bridegroom, lay ignominiously and defiled in her own blood, according to the prophet; nourished amid great cares, and advanced even to the years of puberty, and adorned with his doctrine as with necklaces, but by his conjunction exalted even to the kingdom of heaven. But how ignominiously and trodden down she lay is rebuked through the Prophet. « Thy root and thy generation is of the land of Chanaan. Thy father an Amorrhite, and thy mother a Cethite, in the day wherein thou wast born. In the day of thy birth thy navel was not cut; thou wast not washed with water unto health, nor salted with salt, nor swaddled in cloths. My eye did not spare over thee, to do one of these things for thee, out of pity for thee; but 559Cthou wast lying naked and full of ignominy, trodden down in thy blood. Thy breasts swelled, and thy hair grew, and behold, thy time of lovers; and thou wast lying naked, full of confusion (Ezech. XVIII). » [Vulg. Ezech. XVI, 5 Non pepercit super te oculus (without meus), and for the clause following, sed proiecta es super faciem terrae in abiectione animae tuae] And in what manner, having pity on her, he willed through the coming of his conjunction to do one of these things, he subjoined: « And I sent my mantle, and covered thy ignominy. I washed thee with water and cleansed thy blood from thee, and anointed thee with oil, and clothed thee with a many-colored garment. With fine flour and honey I nourished thee. I girded thee with fine linen, and shod thee with hyacinth, and set a crown of comeliness upon thy head, and rings in thy ears; and I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine. saith the Lord God (Ibid.). » [Vulg. Ezech. XVI, 8–10 expandi amictum meum super te; vestivi te discoloribus; calceavi te ianthino] Which, although the people of the Jews is accused 559Dof stubbornness, he addresses in her person — every soul that is born through the laver of regeneration, by his will, which soul she had formerly begotten through the sin of the Amorrhite, who is interpreted bitter, that is, of the devil, and through the nefarious custom which in the present place is called Cethite, which is interpreted excess of mind, should have forgotten to be reproved — it is proved by the rebuke with which our merciful Lord Jesus Christ, through his holy appearing, nourished her, gathered though unknowingly out of the aforesaid filth, and adorned her with precious garments and necklaces, and deigned to make her the consort of his kingdom through the wave of most holy baptism, where the glorious coupling of Christ the Son of God and of the Church is celebrated. In which sacred mystery she is washed with the water of ablution; the salt of wisdom being received, she is salted with the faith of the undivided 560Aand coeternal Trinity by the handing over of the brothel; being stripped naked, she is covered with garments by the charism of various virtues. She is filled with the fatness of the Holy Spirit, with the unction of the charism. Where she is nourished with fine flour in the body of Christ, and with honey in his eloquences; where her ears are adorned with the rings of divine understanding, the jewelled crown of martyrdom shining upon her head; she is girded with fine linen, which is the token of purity, that is, with the love of virginity and chastity, which keeps her from all dissolution and, having called her back, binds her fast. They are shod with hyacinth, which in Hebrew is called preparing color, that the feet may be prepared to run together always to the precepts of the Gospel of peace. With these ornaments, namely, the Church desired to be adorned; but because she could not be adorned save through his appearing, therefore she 560Bdesired his visitation. For she had heard, as a bride, through the prophet, in the person of the Bridegroom, that is, of the Word of God the Father, saying: « I will espouse thee to me for ever, I will espouse thee to me in justice, I will espouse thee to me in judgment, I will espouse thee to me in mercy, I will espouse thee to me in faith (Ose. II). » [Vulg. Ose. II, 19–20 sponsabo three times, and includes et in miserationibus] And through Isaiah likewise the voice of the Church herself says: « He has set a mitre upon me as upon a bride, and has clothed me with the garments of salvation; as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels, he has encompassed me (Isa. LXI). » [Vulg. Isa. LXI, 10 lacks Posuit mihi mitram sicut sponsae and reads et indumento iustitiae circumdedit me] And Zacharias, in announcing glory of this kind to the trembling Church, says: « Fear not, daughter of Sion; behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek and gentle, sitting upon the colt of an ass; he himself is Savior and Redeemer (Zach. IX). » [Vulg. Zach. IX, 9 Exsulta satis, filia Sion … ecce rex tuus veniet tibi iustus et salvator; ipse pauper, et ascendens super asinam et super pullum filium asinae] All these patriarchs and prophets, therefore, 560Csang of the future, ineffable coupling of Christ and the Church. But the Apostle set it forth as already celebrated, saying: « Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, who delivered himself up for her, that he might present to himself a spotless Church, not having spot or wrinkle (Ephes. V). » [Vulg. Ephes. V, 27 gloriosam Ecclesiam, "a glorious Church"] And again to the Corinthians: « For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ (II Cor. XI). » And in another place he thus exhorts the faithful: « You are the body of Christ, and flesh of his flesh (I Cor. XII). » [Vulg. I Cor. XII, 27 Vos autem estis corpus Christi, et membra de membro, "and members of a member"] To her, namely, who is to be confirmed by so great and such witnesses, all the offices of the nuptials are to be applied. Where there are at hand also the friends of the Bridegroom, the companions too of the bride, and the manners as well of the singers, who with sweet modulation may sing the power of the Bridegroom or praise the beauty of the bride, by which she obtained the bounty 560Dof the Bridegroom: how the exalted one humbled himself from that height of deity to the mire of the deep, that he might join to his own majesty the humble and cast-down matter of flesh, lifted up to the summit of the heavens. And it must be noted that sometimes Holy Scripture calls him Lord, sometimes father, sometimes bridegroom. For when he wills to be feared, he names himself Lord; when he wills to be honored, father; when he wills to be loved, bridegroom. He himself says through the prophet: « If I am Lord, where is my fear? If I am Father, where is my honor? (Mal. I) » [Vulg. Mal. I, 6 Si ergo pater ego sum, ubi est honor meus? et si Dominus ego sum, ubi est timor meus? — the two clauses in the reverse order] And again he says: « I have espoused thee to me in justice and in faith; or assuredly, I have remembered the day of thy espousal in the desert (Ose. II). » [Vulg. Ose. II, 20 sponsabo te mihi in fide; the second clause answers rather to Jerem. II, 2 recordatus sum tui … et caritatem desponsationis tuae] And what is there with God of "when," and when 561Ait is not. But because he wills first to be feared, that he may be honored, and first to be honored, that one may come to his love, he both names himself Lord on account of fear, and father on account of honor, and bridegroom on account of love — that through fear one may come to honor, and through honor one may arrive at his love. By how much, then, honor is worthier than fear, by so much the more does God rejoice to be called father than Lord. And by how much, then, love is dearer than honor, by so much the more does God rejoice to be bridegroom than father. In this book, therefore, the Lord and the Church are named not lord and handmaid, but bridegroom and bride, so that service may be rendered not to fear alone, not to reverence alone, but also to love, and that in outward words the inward affection may be stirred up. When he names himself Lord, he indicates that we are created. When he names himself father, he indicates 561Bthat we are joined. But it is more to be joined to God than to be created and adopted. But thus generally, in the voice of the Church, the coming of the Lord is awaited in this work, so that also specially each single soul may receive the entrance of God into her heart as the approach of the bridegroom into the bridal chamber. And it must be known that in this book four speaking persons are introduced: namely the bridegroom and the bride, and the maidens with the bride, and the flocks of companions with the bridegroom. For the bride herself is the perfect Church, the bridegroom the Lord, as has often been said. But the maidens with the bride are the souls that are beginning, and coming to maturity through a new zeal. But the companions of the bridegroom are either the angels, who often appeared to men, coming to them, or assuredly all the perfect men in the Church, who have known how to announce the truth 561Cto men; but they who singly are maidens or companions are, all together, the bride, who all together are the Church — although these names can also be so taken with respect to each single believer. For he who already loves the Lord perfectly is the bride; he who preaches the bridegroom is a companion; he who as yet, being new, follows the way of the good is a maiden. Let us imitate, therefore, that we may be the bride. If we are not yet able for this, let us be companions. If neither have we attained this, let us at least come together to this bridal chamber as maidens. But it must be known, before we come to the peace of conjunction, that the most wise Solomon showed in figure and in riddles whatsoever, from the beginning of the world unto the end, the Word of God has done or shall do in mysteries toward the Church. In which song 561Dall the things that are narrated, covered over with mysteries, are taught to have been revealed and fulfilled in the incarnation of the Word — where the human race, dashed down, is raised up; fettered, it is loosed; corrupted, it is reformed to the integrity of virginity; driven out of paradise, it is restored: out of a captive, free; out of a stranger, a citizen; out of a handmaid, a mistress; out of the most vile, a queen — and it is shown to have been made, by the kindness of its Creator the Word of God Christ, a bride worthy to receive his kisses, and, made one spirit together with him, to reign exalted in the heavenly places. Which sublimity is known to have been celebrated by the humbling of the Son of God, as the teacher of the Gentiles teaches, saying of Christ: « He humbled himself, that he might exalt us (Phil. II). » [Vulg. Phil. II, 8 humiliavit semetipsum, factus oboediens usque ad mortem; ut nos exaltaret is not in the received text] For it is not reckoned an injury to a craftsman, when a precious ring has fallen into a pit of the body, 562Ato lay aside his robe for a little while and go down to seek it, and, having found it, to restore it again to his right hand. For whatsoever the foolish and impious heathendom — whose mist of unbelief has blinded the eyes of the heart — reckons humble, whatsoever most vile, whatsoever despised and unworthy: this is proved to be glorious, this marvellous, this, I say, magnificent, in the sight of the divine clemency and of all the heavenly powers. For what immense power, what sweetness of goodness, what surpassing fragrance of compassion out of all the works of the paternal excellence, admired by the angels and by the choirs of all the saints, is offered with lofty voices and perpetual praises, unless that the Lord should couple to himself a truly poor little handmaid — as an outsider, a mortal one — the Lord Jesus Christ, through the assumption of flesh, the Church, that is, the Word of God 562Bthe soul, under the title of conjunction? Since therefore we have rather often spoken of bridegroom and bride, of the Lord and the Church, and rightly, according to the poet, we lighten the way with speech: Both hope and faith accompany my step into steep places, More kindly at last we come through to the highest citadel.

That we may now open out the very text of the divine oracle: as maidens, as companions, let us hear the words of the bridegroom, let us hear the words of the bride, and in their discourses let us learn the fervor of love. And so holy Church, long awaiting the coming of the Lord, long thirsting for the fountain of life — how she wishes to see the presence of her bridegroom, how she desires and speaks.

« Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » The Lord had sent angels to her, 562Cand to her the patriarchs and the prophets, bearing spiritual gifts; but she sought to receive those gifts themselves not through the servants of the bridegroom, but now through the bridegroom himself. Let us set before our eyes the whole human race from the beginning of the world unto the end of the world — namely, that the whole Church is one person: who had received earnests by a spiritual gift, but nevertheless sought the presence of her bridegroom, who says. « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, » For holy Church, sighing for the coming of the Mediator of God and men, for the coming of her Redeemer, makes the words of her prayer to the Father, that he may send the Son, and that he may enlighten her with his own presence; that he may make speech to that same Church no longer through the mouths of the prophets, but with his own mouth — as if she said more openly: Let him touch me with the sweetness of his presence, 562Dwhich I have rather often heard promised by the prophets. Whence also concerning the same bridegroom it is written in the Gospel (Matth. V), when he was sitting on the mountain and was speaking the words of the sublime precepts: « This Jesus, opening his mouth, said. » [Vulg. Matth. V, 2 et aperiens os suum, docebat eos dicens, "and opening his mouth he taught them, saying"] As if it were said: Then he opened his own mouth, who before, for the exhortation of the Church, opened the mouths of the prophets. Behold gladly, Caesar Augustus, how from the beginning of the world — namely from Adam, nay rather from Abel the just — unto John the Baptist the Church always sought Christ in those who were of higher understanding, and through all the patriarchs and prophets cried with tearful voice to the Almighty Father that his kisses be brought near to her; whom, both in the baptism of Jordan the voice of the Father from the cloud, and John with his finger, pointed out, saying: 563A« Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world (Joann. I). » And the Father himself from the cloud: « This is my Son, he says, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased (Matth. III). » But understand John to be one of the many friends of the bridegroom preparing the bride, by whose presence the Church received the holy kisses of Christ, he himself testifying concerning Christ. « He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom rejoiceth with joy at the voice of the bridegroom (Joan. III). » [Vulg. Joan. III, 29 amicus autem sponsi, qui stat et audit eum, gaudio gaudet propter vocem sponsi] John marvels, namely, when he saw him coming to the baptism for the sanctification of the waters, who says: « I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? » (Matth. III.) But he rejoices with joy, hearing the voice of him saying: « Suffer it now, for so it behooves us to fulfil all justice (Ibid.). » [Vulg. Matth. III, 15 sic enim decet nos, "for so it becometh us"] Wherein were fulfilled the prayers of the Church, 563Bpromised long since, to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » But while therefore holy Church desires the bridegroom yet absent, who is to be incarnate, suddenly she beholds him present. For the grace of our Redeemer has this: that when we speak of him as those who seek him, we enjoy his presence — thus it was concerning the two, namely Cleophas and the other, as is written in the Gospel. Whence she subjoins: « For thy breasts are better than wine, » « and the odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices (Cant. III). » The wine was the knowledge of the law, the knowledge of the prophets; but the Lord, coming, because he willed his wisdom to be preached through the flesh, made it as it were to grow milky into the breasts of the flesh. And that which we were by no means able to grasp in his divinity, we might come to know by his incarnation: 563Cwhence not undeservedly are his breasts praised, because the condescension of his preaching wrought that in our hearts which the doctrine of the law was by no means able to work. For the preaching of the incarnation nourished us more than the doctrine of the law. « And the odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices. » The ointments of the Lord are the virtues. The ointment of the Lord was the Holy Spirit, concerning whom it is said to him through the Prophet: « God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows (Ps. XLIV). » With this oil he was anointed then, when he was incarnate. For he did not first exist as man and afterward receive the Holy Spirit; but because he was incarnate by the mediation of the Holy Spirit, he was anointed with this same oil then, when he was created man. The odor, therefore, of his ointments is the fragrance of the Holy Spirit, who, proceeding from him, remained in him. 563DThe odor of his ointments is the fragrance of the virtues which he wrought. This Church had aromatical spices, because she had many gifts of the spirit, which in the house of God, that is, in the congregation of the saints, would give forth the odor of good repute. But the odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices, because the fragrance of the bridegroom's virtues, which was made through his incarnation, conquered the preachings of the law, which had been bestowed beforehand as earnests by the bridegroom. Those aromatical spices of the law were ministered through angels; this ointment was given through the presence of the bridegroom, For by so much the more does the Church believe unto understanding, as she also deserved to be enlightened by the grace of a fuller vision. But this which we have said generally of the whole Church, let us now understand specially 564Aof each single soul. Let us set before our eyes that there is a certain soul clinging to the pursuits of the gifts, receiving understanding from another's preaching, who desires that she too be enlightened by divine grace, so that at some time she may understand even of herself; who considers that she understands nothing except through the words of preachers, and who says: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » As if she said: Let it touch me within, that I may know understanding, and that I may enjoy no longer the voices of preachers, but the touch of his inward grace. The Lord kissed Moses as with the kiss of his mouth, when through the confidence of familiar grace he extended understanding to him. Whence it is written. « If there be a prophet, in a dream I speak to him, and not as to my servant Moses. For I speak to him mouth to mouth (Num. XII). » [Vulg. Num. XII, 6–8 Si quis fuerit inter vos propheta Domini, in visione apparebo ei, vel per somnium loquar ad illum. At non talis servus meus Moyses] For to speak mouth 564Bto mouth is, as it were, to kiss, and to touch the mind with inward understanding. There follows: « Thy breasts are better than wine. » The breasts of God are, as we said before, the most humble preaching of his incarnation; but the wisdom of the world is as it were a kind of wine. For it inebriates the mind, because it renders it a stranger to the understanding of humility. The philosophers are inebriated as with a kind of wine, while through worldly wisdom they pass beyond the manner of the common people. Let holy Church despise that wisdom; let her seek after the most humble incarnation of the Lord's preaching. Let that savor more to her whereby she is nourished through the infirmity of his flesh, than that whereby this world is exalted through the elation of false prudence; and let her say: « For thy breasts are better than wine, » that is, the most humble preaching of thy incarnation surpasses the puffed-up 564Cwisdom of the world. Whence it is written: « That which is weak of God is stronger than men. And that which is foolish of God is wiser than men (I Cor. I). » [Vulg. I Cor. I, 25 quod stultum est Dei, sapientius est hominibus: et quod infirmum est Dei, fortius est hominibus — the two clauses in the reverse order] But because the wise men of this world themselves sometimes seem to pursue certain virtues — for we see very many have charity, keep gentleness, practice outward honorableness in all things. Which virtues, however, they display not that they may please God, but that they may please men. Which for that reason are not virtues, because they do not seek to please God. Yet they smell sweet in human nostrils, while by human judgment they render a good repute. But let these be compared with the true odor of our Redeemer, let them be compared with true virtues, and let it be said: « And the odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices, » that is, the fragrance of thy 564Dvirtues surpasses every appearance of the virtues of the wise men of the world, because, namely, it transcends their feigned images out of truth. Since we have said that in the second place this which has been said is to be understood of each single soul, let us still pursue the same sense more subtly, if we can, with God helping. Every soul that fears God is already under his yoke. But still far off, because it fears. For each one becomes near to God only when he loses the punishment of fear and receives from him the grace of charity. Let us set before our eyes the soul of any elect person, which is kindled by continual desire into the love of the vision of the bridegroom; because what it is not able perfectly to receive in this life, it contemplates his loftiness and is pricked with compunction out of that very love. For that very 565Acompunction which comes about through eagerness, because it is also kindled by desire, is as it were a kind of kiss. For as often as the soul is pricked with compunction in his love, so often does it kiss God. For there are many who already indeed fear God, already receive him in good working, but do not yet kiss him, because they are by no means pricked with compunction by his love. Which was well signified in the banquet of the Pharisee. Who, when he had received the Lord, and when in his heart he disparaged the woman kissing his feet, heard. « I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no kiss; but she, from the time she came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet (Luc. VII). » Everyone who already gives alms, who is already zealous in good works, receives Christ as it were into a banquet, feeds Christ, because he does not cease to sustain him in his members. 565BBut if he is not yet pricked with compunction through love, he does not yet kiss his footsteps. But it is well said, « she hath not ceased to kiss his feet (Ibid.) » [Vulg. Luc. VII, 45 pedes meos, "my feet," as also in the quotation printed just above] For it is not enough to be pricked with compunction once in the love of God and to rest, but the compunction ought both to be and to grow frequent. Whence the woman is praised in this, that she did not cease to kiss, that is, she by no means ceased to be pricked with compunction. Whence also it is said through the Prophet: « Appoint a solemn day in frequentings, even to the horn of the altar (Psal. CXVII). » [Vulg. Psal. CXVII, 27 in condensis, "in thick boughs"] The compunction of our heart is a solemn day to the Lord. But then is a solemn day appointed in frequenting, when one is assiduously moved to tears for love of the Lord. Wherefore, or if we should say, how long are we to do these things, how long are we afflicted with tribulations? at once he subjoined the limit up to which it ought to be done, 565Csaying: « Even to the horn of the altar. » For the horn of the altar is the exaltation of the inward sacrifice. When we have now arrived there, it is by no means necessary that we make a solemnity to the Lord out of our lamentation. Let the soul, therefore, which already desires to be pricked with compunction through love, which already seeks to contemplate in the vision of her bridegroom, say: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. » Or assuredly the kiss of his mouth is that very perfection of inward peace, at which when we have arrived nothing further will remain that we should seek. Whence also it is aptly subjoined. « For thy breasts are better than wine. » The wine is the knowledge of God, which, placed in this life, we receive. But we embrace the breasts of the bridegroom then, when in the eternal fatherland we contemplate him, now present, through embrace. Let her say therefore: « Thy breasts are better than 565Dwine. » As if she said: Great indeed is the knowledge which thou hast conferred upon me concerning thyself in this life; great is the wine of the knowledge of thee wherewith thou inebriatest me; but thy breasts are better than wine, because then, through sight and through the sublimity of contemplation, whatever is now known of thee through faith is transcended « And the odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices. » Here holy Church has aromatical spices, while she is strong in the virtue of knowledge, the virtue of chastity, the virtue of mercy, the virtue of humility, the virtue of charity. If the life of the saints did not have the odor of aromatical spices out of the virtues, Paul would not say: « We are the good odor of Christ unto God in every place (I Cor. II). » But far more excellent is that unction of the contemplation of God, to which we are one day to be led; 566Afar more excellent is the odor of the ointments of God than the aromatical spices of our virtues. And if the things we have received are already great, yet far more powerful are those which we are to receive from the contemplation of our Creator. Whence let the soul pant and say: « The odor of thy ointments above all aromatical spices, » that is, those good things which thou preparest through contemplation of thee transcend all these gifts of the virtues which thou hast bestowed in this life. Let us say hence to the Church, let us say hence to the soul thus out of her senses, thus burning with love for her bridegroom, whence nevertheless she conceived her desire, whence she laid hold of the knowledge of his divinity. But behold, she herself expresses it and says:

« Ointment poured out is thy name. » [Vulg. oleum effusum nomen tuum, "oil poured out"] The ointment poured out is the divinity made flesh. For if ointment be 566Bin a little vessel, it gives back less of its scent outwardly; but if it is poured out, the scent of the poured-out ointment is spread abroad. The name of God, therefore, is ointment poured out, because from the immensity of his divinity he poured himself out outwardly unto our nature, and from that which is invisible he rendered himself visible. For if he had not poured himself out, he would by no means have become known to us. The ointment pours itself out when he both kept himself Lord and showed himself man. Of which pouring out Paul says: « Who, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. II). » What Paul said, « emptied, » this Solomon said, « poured out. » Since therefore the Lord became known to the human race through the humility of the incarnation, let it be said to him: Ointment poured out is thy name. But 566Cbecause in the Hebrew verity something is otherwise held, we are compelled to make an apostrophe to the things above, and to insert some things otherwise. Finally, when she had said: « Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, » and had subjoined: « For thy breasts are better than wine, » where the exceeding joy of love fulfilled is shown by the handling of the breasts, straightway she added, according to the Hebrew: fragrant with the best ointments — which things, although they have been set forth mellifluously above by the highest expositor in shining discourse, we can nevertheless repeat again according to the opinions of certain men. The wine, they say, was the word of the messengers, brought down by angels, who spoke to the prophets or in the prophets, as Zacharias the prophet says (Cap. II). And he said to the Angel « who spoke in me, » [Vulg. Zach. I, 9 dixit ad me angelus, "the angel said to me"] which gladdened the heart of the Church, 566Dhearing of the coming of him whom she desired. But when with mouth and hands she handled his body and blood, she knew breasts better — flowing with the milk of the apostolic doctrine and of the Gospels, where is all the divine perfection which is now ministered — than the wine of the Old Testament and of the law, which according to the Apostle brought no one through to perfection. For although perfect apostolic men, who are teachers to the Christian people appointed beforehand, are understood to be the breasts of Christ, whom Christ nourishes as little ones, yet it will not be unfitting: he understands properly the two breasts of Christ to be the Baptist and the Evangelist, the two Johns, who after the kisses of the aforesaid sacrament were proffered to the Church as fullest words, since the one shows him to the Church as alone taking away the sin 567Aof the world, and as the lamb, and the other as, in the beginning, the Word, God, abiding with God the Father — who through an unspotted life so clung in his love as breasts to the bosom, while the one shows to the Church, still little and suckling, the true man under the name of the unspotted lamb, and the other, from the effect of the creating of all things, shows him the maker, in the beginning the Word, God, through whom all things were created. No taste of sweetness of this kind, therefore, had until this time come to the Church, that in the meekness of the lamb, the king being terrible, the troops of the wolves, the demons, should be put to flight — whose presence strikes terror into all earthly and ethereal powers, who clothes others with the covering of the Holy Spirit and himself has need of none, who lead the Church, lifted up 567Bfrom earthly things, to the fellowship of the Father through the assumption of flesh, with which he was made one in mind and in matter, sitting at the right hand of the Father, with whom in the beginning was God the Word. By the milk, therefore, of his doctrine conferring eternal life — the aforesaid breasts of Christ our Lord flowing to the beloved Church, from whose milky bosom eternal life, which Adam had lost, was poured into the apostles through the whiteness of doctrine — which life, if the Church has received it through the breasts in believers, she holds out daily also to her own posterity, as butter made from milk, through the interpretation of the word. For first it contains a mystery through the nature of milk, that is, the liquid of what is chaste; and when the liquid has been worked by art it yields butter: so also the milk of the apostolic doctrine, when it has found a master, declares 567Cthat it contains within itself the undivided Trinity. Unless the soul shall have used these foods unceasingly, it will not be able to live for ever. Which food the Church received from the aforesaid breasts in the sacrament of baptism, where by the threefold confession of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit she knows the scent of that knowledge, since it has often been said to her that the milk of doctrine has conferred the threefold marrow of redemption: namely, the most white liquid of baptism, and the sweet juice of the body of Christ, and the richest butter, the oil of the sacred chrism, through which the Holy Spirit is poured in. Of which fatness the Church, in another Prophet, prays that the marrow of her soul be filled, saying: « Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness (Psal. LXII) » Whose scent raises up again souls wounded by sins; 567Dby the power of whose fatness the fragrance hidden in the aforesaid breasts, which after the kisses received she is taught to praise in the following little verse, saying: « Fragrant with the best ointments. » That ointment in the Old Testament, compounded with God for master, was indeed of good odor, that is, of merit; with it kings, prophets, and priests were anointed. But by as much as a living man differs from a picture smeared over with the dyes of colors, by so much is there a difference between what the Church receives by being born again in the Spirit and that whose figure the Synagogue was receiving in the body — whose things were so great that scarcely in one nation, Judea, and to a few, did it grant the primacy. But this ointment of the Church bears in itself so much power, of fragrance and of medicine at once, that it renders all believers most sound, 568Aappoints them kings and priests, and the scent of the knowledge of it has filled the whole world from the rising of the sun even to its setting. What other fragrance can it be understood to contain within itself, save the name of Christ? Of which it follows: « Ointment poured out is thy name. » For as men shut in amid a multitude of putrid corpses are endangered by disease, so it had befallen the inhabitants of this world through Adam, the devil bringing in a plural number of gods by the mouth of the serpent, saying: « You shall be as gods (Gen. II). » But when the name of the one true God had been brought in, the little vessel having been laid up in a body through the mystery of the incarnation — which vessel, being broken by the blows of the nails and of the lance, by the scent of the knowledge of him every stench of the devil's doctrine was wiped away from the whole world. And that great name which in the people of Israel alone was known 568Bthrough the anointing of the chrism — now, as when the vessel of ointment is poured out in a house the whole house is filled with the scent, so also from the time of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ the whole world is proved to be filled with the knowledge of the name of the one true God, Christ, so that through all the nations of the Gentiles the fragrance of the virtues runs back daily like the scent of ointment, « while the dead rise at the invocation of his name, the blind see, the lame walk, the dumb speak, » demons are put to flight, every sickness falls away, languor is driven off, in the power of this name invoked. Behold with what odors the love and affection of Christ kindles the young maidens' souls — of whom, namely, he now says: « Therefore the young maidens have loved thee. » These things having been tasted beforehand, let us return to the sense above of the most sweet doctor. For it follows: « Therefore the young maidens 568Chave loved thee. » What do we take the young maidens to be in this place, save the souls of the elect renewed through baptism? For the life of the sinner belongs to the old man, the life of the just man to the new. Since therefore the ointment poured itself outward, it made young maidens burn in its love, because it showed souls renewed and aflame with desire for it. The age of boyhood is not yet suited to love. He is a boy who has not yet begun the zeal of an ardent life. He is an old man who had indeed begun, but has left off. Since therefore neither do these burn in the Lord who have not yet begun, nor these who have already begun the faith but have grown cold, the boyish and the aged life being set aside. The young maidens are said to run, that is, those souls which are in the very fervor of love. Yet this we can also understand otherwise. For adolescence can be referred to weakness. 568DFor the youthful ages are the orders of the angels, who have been conquered by no debility, overcome by no infirmity. Let it therefore be said: « Ointment poured out is thy name, therefore the young maidens have loved thee, » that is: through thy incarnation thou hast poured out the knowledge of thee outwardly; therefore weak souls have strength to love human nature. For those highest Powers, like the youthful ages, love thee even there where thou art not poured out, because there too they see thee, where thou containest thyself in the state of thy divinity. Thou therefore who by those highest orders, as by youthful ages, art seen even when not poured out, art poured out outwardly for the sake of men, that thou mayest be loved also by young maidens, that is, by weak minds. It follows.

569A« Draw me. » Everyone who is drawn is led forth unwilling, either as one not able or as one not willing. But he who says, draw me, has something which he is able to do, has something which he is not able to do. Human nature wills to follow the Lord, but, overcome by the habit of infirmity, it has not the strength to follow as it ought. It sees, therefore, that there is one thing in itself whither it strives, another thing in itself which it is not able to do, and rightly it says, draw me. Paul had seen himself as willing and yet not able, when he said: « With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom. VII); » and: « I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind. (Ibid.) » Since therefore there is something which incites us, and another which weighs us down, let us say: « Draw me; we will run after thee in the odor of thy ointments. » [Vulg. in odorem, accusative, "to the odor of thy ointments"] We run in the odor of God's ointments when, 569Bbreathed upon by his spiritual gifts, we gape after the love of the vision of him. But it must be known that, in the fact that men follow God, sometimes they walk, sometimes they run, sometimes they run strongly, as it were after God. He walks who follows lukewarmly. He runs who follows fervently. He runs perfectly who follows perseveringly. For the heart was immovable for the following of God, and was unwilling to walk after him, when the coming of the Lord appeared in the world and moved human minds from their insensible standing. Whence it is written: « His feet stood, and the earth was moved (Psal. CVI). » But to these not motion but running is spoken of, because it is not enough that we follow, unless we also run by desiring. But because neither does it suffice to run, unless it be run perfectly, Paul says: « So run that 569Cyou may obtain (Rom. IX). » But some, while they run too much, slip away into indiscretion. For they are wise more than is needful, and they set behind them the judgments of him whom they were following. Whence well, when it was said we will run, there was set before it, after thee. For they run after God who consider his judgments, who prefer his will to their own, and who strive to come to him under worthy work with discretion. Hence the Prophet, considering the will of God and following it, says: « My soul hath cleaved after thee (Ps. LXXII). » Here it is said to Peter as he gives counsel: « Go back behind me, Satan. For thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men (Matth. XVI). » [Vulg. Vade post me, Satana, "Go behind me, Satan"] Since therefore perfect souls behold the judgments of God with the utmost caution, and presume to run before them neither through torpor nor through indiscreet fervor, well 569Dis it said: « We will run after thee in the odor of thy ointments. » For then do we run after God, when we both follow by loving and, by fearing, anticipate the divine judgments. It follows: « The king hath brought me into his bedchamber; we will exult and rejoice in thee. » [Vulg. in cellaria sua, "into his storerooms"] The Church of God is like a certain house of the king, and that house has a gate, has an ascent, has dining-halls, has bedchambers. Everyone who within the Church has faith has also entered the gate of that house, because as the gate opens the rest of the house, so faith is the door of the remaining virtues. Everyone who within the Church has hope has already come to the ascent of the house. For hope lifts up the heart, that it may seek high things and forsake the lowest. Everyone set in that house 570Awho has charity walks about, as it were, in the dining-halls. For charity is broad, which is stretched out even to the love of enemies. Everyone set in the Church who now searches out the high secrets, who now considers the hidden judgments, will enter as it were into the bedchamber. Of the gate of that house a certain one said: « Open ye to me the gates of justice; having entered into them, I will confess to the Lord (Ps. CXVII). » Of the ascent of hope he said: « He hath disposed ascents in his heart (Ps. LXXXIII). » Of the broad dining-halls of that house it is said: « Thy commandment is exceeding broad (Ps. CXVIII). » In the broad commandment charity is specially designated. Of the bedchamber of the king he was speaking who said: « My secret to myself (Isa. XXIV). » And elsewhere: « I heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak (II Cor. XII). » [Vulg. audivit, "he heard"] The first approach of that house, 570Btherefore, is the gate of faith; the second advance, the ascent of hope; the third, the breadth of charity; the fourth is now the perfection of charity unto the knowledge of the secrets of God. Since therefore holy Church, in her perfect members, in her holy teachers, in those who are now full and rooted in the mysteries of God, has come as it were to the high secrets, and, still set in this life, already penetrates those things, she says: « The king hath brought me into his bedchamber. » For through the prophets, through the apostles, through the teachers, who, set in this life, already penetrated the high secrets of that life, the Church had entered into the bedchamber of that king. And it is to be observed carefully that she does not say, into the bedchamber of the bridegroom, but into the bedchamber of the king. For by naming the king she wishes to show the reverence of the secrets, because the more open 570Cthe bedchamber is, the greater is the reverence to be shown to those things into which one enters: lest therefore, while each one knows the secrets of God, while he searches out the hidden judgments, while he is raised up to the heights of contemplation, he be lifted up and slip away into pride, it is said to be the king's bedchamber that he enters. To whom the greater reverence is to be shown, the more the soul is led to the knowing of his secrets, so that each one who advances, who now, exalted by grace, has come to the high secrets, may attend to himself and by that very advance be the more humbled. Whence Ezekiel also, as often as he is led to the contemplating of high things, is called Son of man. As if it were said to him: But attend to what thou art, and be not lifted up because of those things unto which thou art raised. But it belongs to few in the Church to search out and 570Dcomprehend these high and hidden judgments of God: nevertheless, while we see that strong men are able to come to so great a wisdom that they contemplate the secrets of God in their hearts, let us little ones also have confidence that at some time we shall come to pardon, at some time to his grace. Whence also, from the words of the young maidens, it is subjoined. « We will exult and rejoice in thee. » While the Church, in those who are perfect, enters the bedchamber of the king, the young maidens promise themselves the hope of exultation. Because while the strong come to the contemplating of high things, the weak take hope of pardon for their sins, therefore she says: « The king hath brought me into his bedchamber; we will exult and rejoice in thee. » -- « Mindful of thy breasts above wine. The upright love thee. » This bridegroom has 571Abreasts; he who is also called king for reverence' sake has breasts — holy men cleaving to him with the heart. The breasts are fixed in the narrow part of the bosom, and they draw nourishment for what is without, unto those whom he has nourished abroad. Holy men, therefore, are the breasts of the bridegroom, because they draw from the inmost things and nourish outwardly. His breasts are the apostles and all the preachers of the Church: the wine, as we also said above, was in the prophets, the wine was in the law. But because fuller commandments were given through the apostles than had been given through the prophets, she says: « Mindful of thy breasts above wine; » Because they who can fulfill those things which are commanded in the New Testament, they without doubt transcend the knowledge of the law. Yet this we can also understand otherwise: « Mindful of thy breasts above wine; » there are many who indeed have the wine 571Bof wisdom, but have not the knowledge of humility. This knowledge puffs up, because charity does not build up. [Vulg. scientia inflat, caritas vero aedificat, "knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth"] But there are many who so have the wine of knowledge that they know how to consider the gifts of doctrine. For the gifts of spiritual grace are like certain teats in the bosom, which subtly minister to spiritual men by hidden passages and nourish them. Therefore she says: « Mindful of thy breasts above wine. » Because these, who know how to remember the gifts of thy grace, so as not to ascribe to themselves what they are wise in, and are not lifted up, on account of the same wisdom which they have received, above those who are lifted up and puffed up on account of their own wisdom. For it is more to be wise humbly than to be wise proudly. For neither is it truly to be wise, not to be wise humbly; she says: « Mindful therefore of thy breasts above wine. » Because those who know how to consider 571Cthe gifts of spiritual grace transcend those who indeed have knowledge, but have not in memory the knowing of the gifts. Openly, therefore, is it to say: « Mindful therefore of thy breasts above wine, » because humility is stronger than knowledge. Wine is the knowledge which inebriates the memory of the breasts, which inebriates him whom it calls back to the knowing of the gifts. Let her say: « Mindful therefore of thy breasts above wine, » because humility conquers the abundance of knowledge. The upright love thee. No one, he says, loves thee save the upright. And no one is upright, save he who loves thee. For everyone who does good works through fear, even if he is perfect in the work, is not upright in desire. For he would wish that there were not that which he fears, so that he might not do good works. But he who does good works through love is upright both in work and in desire. 571DBut the sweetness of love is hidden from those who fear. Whence it is written: « How great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee, and hast perfected them for them that hope in thee (Ps. XXX). » [Vulg. perfecisti eis qui sperant in te, "thou hast perfected [it] for them that hope in thee"] For sweetness is unknown to those who fear God; to those who love, it becomes known. He therefore who has striven through love to be upright, his love is perfect, so that he does not fear the judge when he comes, so that whatever he has heard of eternal punishments, he does not dread. Whence Paul also, while he awaited the coming of the judge, while he sought the rewards of eternal life, said: « Which God hath prepared not only for me, but for all who love his coming (II Tim. IV). » [Vulg. II Tim. IV, 8 non solum autem mihi, sed et his qui diligunt adventum eius, "and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming"; the opening Quae praeparavit Deus is not in that verse] For eternal rewards are prepared for those who love the judge, because everyone who knows that he does 572Aevil works fears the judge when he comes. But he who presumes upon his own works seeks the coming of the judge. Rewards therefore are prepared for those who await the coming of God and love his coming, because they do not love the coming of the judge save as presuming upon their own cause. But all certitude of uprightness is in love, and therefore it is rightly said: The upright love thee. It follows:

« I am black, but comely, O daughter of Jerusalem, as the tabernacles of Cedar, as the skins of Solomon. Do not consider me that, » etc. [Vulg. filiae Hierusalem, plural, "O ye daughters of Jerusalem"] We know that in the first beginnings of the Church, when the grace of our Redeemer had been preached, some out of Judea believed, others did not believe. But those who believed were despised by the unbelieving and suffered persecution, and were judged to have departed, as it were, into the way 572Bof the Gentiles. Whence the Church cries out in those same ones against those who were not converted. « I am black, but comely, O daughter of Jerusalem. » Black indeed by a true judgment, but comely through the illumination of grace. How black? « As the tabernacles of Cedar. » For Cedar was the second of the stock of Ishmael, and the tabernacles of Cedar were Esau's. How then black? As the tabernacles of Cedar. Because in your sight I have been judged after the likeness of the Gentiles, that is, after the likeness of sinners. How then comely? « As the skins of Solomon. » It is reported that Solomon, when he built the temple, covered all the vessels of the temple with skins. But doubtless the skins of Solomon could be comely, which were fitted to the tabernacle. Which, if they were in his tabernacle, could not but be comely 572Cfor the service of the king. But because Solomon is interpreted peaceable, we understand him to be the true Solomon himself, because all souls cleaving to God are the skins of Solomon, mortifying themselves and bringing themselves back into the service of the king of peace. But in your judgment I am as the tabernacles of Cedar, because I am judged to have departed, as it were, into the way of the Gentiles; but according to the truth I am as the skins of Solomon, because I cleave unto the service of the king. Do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath discolored me. That part which had not believed regarded as a sinner that part which had believed in Christ. But let this one say:

« Do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath discolored me. » The sun is the Lord himself; he himself, coming, discolored me; by his precepts he showed that I was not fair 572Din the precepts of the law. Whom the sun touches more closely, him it has discolored: so also the Lord, coming, discolored him whom through his grace he touched more strictly, because the more we draw near to grace, the more we know ourselves to be sinners. Let us see Paul, coming out of Judea, discolored in the sun. But if, wishing to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also have been found sinners. He who finds himself a sinner in Christ is found discolored in the sun. But behold, that part which believed out of Judea suffered persecution from the unbelieving Jews, afflicted with many tribulations and pressed. Whence it follows: « The sons of my mother have fought against me. » Because the sons of the synagogue who remained in unbelief waged a war of persecution against the faithful 573Aof the synagogue. But while that part which came out of Judea to the faith suffers persecution, it departed to the preaching of the Gentiles. Whence it follows: « They have set me keeper for the vineyards. My vineyard I have not kept. » Because, while those who are in Judea persecute me, they have made me a keeper in the churches. « My vineyard I have not kept, » because I forsook Judea. Whence Paul also says: « To you the word of God had been sent, but because you have judged yourselves unworthy, behold we turn to the Gentiles (Act. XIII). » [Vulg. Act. XIII, 46 vobis oportebat primum loqui verbum Dei; sed quoniam repellitis illud et indignos vos iudicastis aeternae vitae, "to you it behoved us first to speak the word of God: but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life"] As if he should say: We wished to keep our own vineyard, but because you yourselves have rejected us, you send us over to the keeping of other men's vineyards. These things which we have said of the Synagogue converted to the faith, let us now say of the Church called out of the Gentiles to the faith. « I am black, but comely, O daughter of Jerusalem. » 573BThe Church, coming out of the Gentiles, considers the souls of the faithful which she found, which she also calls daughters of Jerusalem. For Jerusalem is called the vision of peace. She considers what she was, considers what she has become, and confesses her past faults, that she be not proud. She confesses her present life, that she be not ungrateful, and says: « I am black, but comely. » Black through merit, comely through grace. Black through her past life, comely through the manner of life that follows. How black? As the tabernacles of Cedar. For the tabernacles of Cedar were the tabernacles of the Gentiles, they were the tabernacles of darkness. And to the Gentiles it was said: « You were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph. V). » How comely? As the skins of Solomon. We have been macerated through penance; and being mortified through penance, 573Cas a skin it is led into the service of the king. All who afflict themselves through penance make themselves members of Christ. The members of Christ, therefore, afflicted through penance, are the skins of Solomon, because they become mortified flesh. But behold, there were faithful in Judea who disdained to come to the faith of the Gentiles. Whence they rebuke Peter also, that he had received Cornelius. Whence here too the Church of the Gentiles subjoins: « Do not consider me that I am brown. » Do not despise the heathenism of my unbelief, do not despise my former sins, do not regard what I was. Why? « because the sun hath discolored me. » For the sun discolors him upon whom it presses itself more closely and more strictly. God, when he holds strict judgment, when he shows forth his strictness more fully, also discolors, while he shines 573Dmore fully, because while he exercises his strictness more subtly, he strictly adjudges. For the sun as it were holds back its rays when it mercifully desires our works. As it were strictly it shows forth its power when it strictly weighs our works. Let the Church therefore say: Thence am I brown, thence a sinner, because the sun has discolored me, because when my Creator forsook me, I fell through sorrow. But thou, O afflicted one so forsaken, what hast thou merited?

What hast thou obtained from the gift? The sons of my mother have fought against me. The sons of the mother are the apostles. For the mother of men is the Jerusalem above. They fought against the Church, when out of unbelief, in the faith of their preaching, they pierced her through as with certain lances. Whence Paul also, as a certain fighter, says 574A(II Thess. II). « Destroying the counsels of thoughts, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. » [Vulg. II Cor. X, 5 consilia destruentes, without cogitationum] He who destroys height is assuredly a fighter; these fighters, therefore, these sons of the mother Jerusalem, warred down the Church from her error, that they might found her unto justice: « The sons of my mother have fought against me. » And what did they do in fighting? « They have set me keeper in the vineyards. » The vineyards of the Church are the virtues which bear fruit, because while the vices fight it out within me, they storm as it were my own evils within me. They gave me fruitfulness and the pursuits of the virtues; they made me keeper in the vineyards, that I might bring forth fruitfulness. After the storming, let her say specially: « My vineyard I have not kept. » The vineyard of the Church is the ancient habit of error. Which, while one is set as keeper unto the virtues, he forsakes — 574Bthat vineyard, that ancient habit of his error. We have spoken of the heathen world converted; let us now speak generally of the whole Church together, and specially of what is to be thought concerning each single soul. Depraved hearers are wont to consider their teachers not as what they are, but as what they were. But sound teachers both confess what they were and bring forward what they are, so that they neither hide that they were sinners, nor again, like ungrateful men, deny the gifts. Let the Church therefore say in these. « I am black, but comely. » Black through myself, comely through the gift. Black from the past; comely, from that I have been made so in things to come. How black? how comely? Black « as the tabernacles of Cedar, comely as the skins of Solomon. » And it is not just that anyone be weighed from his past life, and that there be not more regarded what he was, but what he is. Whence 574Cshe subjoins: « Do not consider me that I am brown, because the sun hath discolored me. » Sometimes in Holy Scripture the sun is put for the excessive heat of earthly desires. Whence then brown? Because the sun hath discolored me. Thus it is understood: Do not consider that I was black before through unbelief, because the sun, Christ — of whom it is written: « But unto you that fear my name the sun of justice shall arise (Matth. IV), » — has discolored me through faith. « The sons of my mother have fought against me. » In all creation two rational creatures were founded, the human and the angelic. The angel fell; he persuaded man. For the mother of every creature is the kindness and the power of God. We therefore and the angels, from the fact that we were founded rational, have as it were a certain fellowship of brotherhood, because the angels were founded by the same power by which we also 574Dwere. Yet because the falling angels daily wage war against us, she says: « The sons of my mother have fought against me. » Behold, while these spirits, reasons, fight — these spirits, the sons of the mother, while they fight against the soul, make it lean upon earthly things, be at leisure for the actions of the world, seek transitory things. Whence she subjoins: « They have set me keeper in the vineyards: the vineyard I have not kept. » For the vineyards are earthly actions. As if she should say: In earthly actions they have set me as keeper. And what? My vineyard, that is, my soul, my life, my mind, I have neglected to keep; because, while outwardly I was wrapped up in the action of earthly things, I fell away from the inward keeping. Very many consider themselves from that which is beside them, 575Anot from that which they are. Beside them are dignities, beside them are the inner ministries. And while they keep what they have beside them, they neglect to keep themselves. Let her say therefore: « They have set me keeper in the vineyards, my vineyard I have not kept, » that is: while by an outward keeping I serve in secular actions, I have lost the solicitude of the inward keeping. But behold, the soul, brought back to the grace of her Creator, now loves, now seeks where she may find her Redeemer. Whence it follows:

« Show me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday. » At midday the sun is more fervent; everyone who is fervent in faith is fervent in love. This bridegroom, who below is called a fawn, feeds in their heart with the greenness of virtues; she says: « Show me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday. » 575BWhy she thus asks where he feeds, where he lies, she has given the cause of her inquiry. « Lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions. » God's companions are his familiar friends, such as are all who live well. But many appear to be companions, and are not. For many teachers, while a perverse doctrine was persuading, seemed indeed companions, but proved enemies. While Arius, Sabellius, Montanus was a teacher, they seemed as it were companions; but when they were strictly examined, they appeared enemies. Let her say therefore: « Show me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions. » As if she should say: Show me in whose hearts thou truly restest, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of those who seem to be thy companions, that is, who are believed to be thy familiars, and are not. All 575Cpriests, all teachers are companions as to appearance; but as to life, many are not companions, but are adversaries. For many little ones, faithful within the Church, desire to live well and wish to hold to a life of uprightness; they consider the life of the priests who are set over them, and while those priests themselves do not live well, those who follow slip away into error. Whence the Church, as it were in those same little ones and faithful, says: « Show me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, » that is: show me the life of those who truly serve thee, that I may know where thou feedest with the greenness of virtues, that I may know where thou liest in the midday, that is, restest in the fervor of charity, lest, while I look upon the flocks of thy companions, I myself begin to wander, not knowing whose words I ought to believe, 575Dwhose teaching I ought to use. Behold, the words of the bridegroom are returned to the bride.

« If thou know not thyself, O fairest among women, go forth, and go after the steps of thy flocks, and feed thy kids beside the tabernacles of the shepherds. » Every soul ought to care for nothing more than that it know itself. For he who knows himself has known that he was made to the image of God. If he was made to the image of God, he ought not to follow the likeness of beasts, nor to be rolled down either in luxury or in present appetite. Of which ignorance it is said elsewhere: « Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts, and was made like to them (Psal. XLVIII). » The steps of the flocks are the actions of the peoples. 576AWhich, by how much they are many, by so much are they hindered, by so much perverse. Let it therefore be said to the Church: « If thou know not thyself, O fairest among women, go forth and go after the steps of the flocks and feed thy kids beside the tabernacles of the shepherds. » O thou who wast foul through ignorance, through faith thou art made fair among the souls of others. Which is evidently said to the Church of the elect. If thou know not thyself, that is, if thou art ignorant of this very thing, that thou wast made to my image, go forth, go outside. But if thou knowest not, thou hast been made something, go forth and go after the steps of the flocks. Follow not my examples, but the examples of the peoples. « And feed thy kids beside the tabernacles of the shepherds. » Our kids are carnal motions; the kids are our unlawful temptations. « Go after the steps of the flocks, » that is, depart after 576Bthe examples of the peoples. « And feed thy kids, » that is, nourish carnal motions — no longer spiritual senses, but carnal motions. Thou wouldst go beside the tabernacles of the shepherds, or to feed lambs, that is, in the doctrines of masters, in the doctrines of the apostles, in the doctrines of the prophets. Or if thou feedest kids, feed them beside the tabernacles of the shepherds, that thou mayest be called Christian by faith and not by works, because thou art seen to be within through faith, and not within through works. Behold, thou hast rebuked; behold, thou hast reproved. For what dost thou not say. What hast thou kindly wrought in her? Say it plainly. For it follows:

« To my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh have I likened thee, O my love. » All who serve luxury, who serve pride, who serve avarice, who serve envy, who serve deceit, are still under the chariot of Pharaoh, that is, 576Cunder the rule of the devil, who are as it were under the chariot of Pharaoh. But everyone who is fervent in humility, in chastity, in doctrine, in charity has already been made a horse of our Creator, is already set in the chariot of God, already has God for his rider. Whence to a certain one over whom the Lord presided it is said: « It is hard for thee to kick against the goad (Act. IX). » As if he should say: Thou art my horse; now thou canst not fling thy heels against me; now I preside over thee. Of these horses it is said elsewhere: « Thou hast sent thy horses into the sea, troubling many waters (Habac. III). » [Vulg. Habac. III, 15 viam fecisti in mari equis tuis, in luto aquarum multarum, "thou madest a way in the sea for thy horses, in the mud of many waters"] God therefore has a chariot, because he presides over holy souls and runs about everywhere through holy souls. Whence it is written: « The chariot of God is ten thousand (Psal. LXVII), » and the rest. Pharaoh nevertheless has chariots, which chariots nevertheless were sunk in 576Dthe Red Sea. The bridegroom therefore says: « To my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh have I likened thee. » While thou wast still serving devilish works, I likened thee to my cavalry, because I regarded what I had done in thee through predestination, and compared thee to my horses. Where the hidden judgments of God are to be considered: how many seem, through preaching, through wisdom, through chastity, through liberality, through long-suffering, to be horses of God, and yet by God's hidden judgment are likened to the horses of Pharaoh. And many seem, through avarice, through pride, through envy, through luxury, to be horses of Pharaoh, and yet by God's hidden judgment are likened to the horses of God, because he sees the former turned from good to evils, and sees the latter brought back 577Afrom evil to good. For as through predestination many who seem to be horses of God are horses of Pharaoh through the reprobate life which follows them, so also through piety many who seem to be horses of Pharaoh are, through the holy life which they will keep at their end, likened to the horses of God. Whence he speaks flatteringly and says: « To my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh have I likened thee, O my love, » that is: thou wast still serving the vices among the chariots of Pharaoh, thou wast running under viti s, but I regarded what I have done concerning thee through predestination. To my cavalry have I likened thee, that is, I regarded thee as like to my elect. Behold, at last thou perceivest, magnificent Caesar, what we said beforehand in the introduction: that nothing is found historically in this volume, but all things are redolent with the allusions of allegories, and are fragrant with the runnings-through of dramas 577Band with the sweetnesses of moral senses. Wherefore I greatly desire to persuade, nay rather to suggest, though rashly, to the summit of your excellence, that, since you have obtained a great wisdom of skill and have attained the defense and protection of holy Church, you should not only, set in readiness for wars by the aid of arms, fenced about with wedges of nobles and thronged with troops of soldiers, protect her from the incursions of the foreign nations of adversaries, but also persist devoted and diligent in sacred doctrine and in the understanding of the divine Scriptures, so that, fortified by the Gospels, girded with the swords of the divine Scriptures, adorned with the darts of sentences, you may be able to defend that same holy Church among your subjects from the shields, that is to say, of the inward malignant spirits: who always seek to extinguish not the bodies, 577Cbut the souls of the faithful. Whence Peter exhorts, saying: « Watch, because your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist ye, strong in faith (I Petr. V). » And that your nobility may learnedly be able both to beware of the snares of the ancient enemy and to preach them to others, be busy to study the expositions of this volume and of other books at fitting hours after the ordering of the empire, so that she may deservedly and with rejoicing be able to say what is read here: « The king brought me into the wine cellar, he set charity in order in me. » And that: « Show me where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions, » so that the bridegroom himself, namely the Lord who below is called a fawn, may deign, through the keeping of thyself and the vigilance of others 577Dand the understanding of the sacred Scriptures, in some manner to feed in you with the greenness of virtues, and to lie down in the fervor of charity. It follows:

« Fair are thy cheeks as the turtledove's. » After the holy kisses received, after all the gladness numbered out above, after the battle of the aforesaid sons of the mother, after the knowledge of herself, after the care of what sort she is and by whom she was created, after her power compared to the Lord's cavalry, the voice of Christ speaks to the Church. And now we are taught that the beginnings of her beauty are known, before the other members, from her cheeks. And these, for a great thing, are compared to the turtledove, that by its riddles he might show that she is to be drawn far away from the tumultuous disturbance of this world. This beauty, then, of the cheeks, which are adorned with the blush of chastity 578Aand the whiteness of modesty, and are in the face of the body: it is no wonder if the persons of those who adorn the face of the Church are compared to them. Whence in the cheeks of the Church are the ancient Fathers, who stand first in that very face of honor and are red with the comeliness of martyrdom. But the Church is compared to the turtledove on account of the variety of diverse goods, or the chastity of virtues. Which bird alone before other birds, withdrawn from the throng of men, loves to inhabit secret places, and there sets its nest and brings up its young, where its enemy either never or scarcely has access. So assuredly the holy Fathers, so the holy and faithful soul, which is called his love by the Word of God, by which soul indeed — by fleeing and by rejecting the fellowships of the wicked, whatever is seen to be precious in the present life — in that 578Bmanner she is known to make a heavenly offspring, and she sends to heaven the offspring begotten by the word of her doctrine and nourished by the example of her life. For the turtledove, as we tasted beforehand in the preface, is related by those who have described the natures of birds to be of such chastity that it knows no mate beyond one. Of which, if one shall by chance have failed, never now is another joined to the other, but in all its life it seeks by longing its own lost mate. To which, through the comeliness of chastity and of modesty, the Church is fittingly compared in the beauty of her cheeks. For he says: « Fair are thy cheeks as the turtledove's. » As if it were said by Christ: With so great a variety of virtues have I adorned thee, that thou shouldst corrupt by no seduction of depraved teachers the chastity of the faith promised to me. These things indeed have been said according to the order of history; but 578Caccording to the opinion of some, a loftier sense is said to lie hid in this comparison. For to certain men it seems that the cheeks of the Church's beauty are compared to that turtledove of which it is said in the Psalm: « For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtledove a nest for herself where she may lay up her young (Psal. LXXXIII). » Where no wise man will be ignorant that the figure of the Holy Spirit is named in the sparrow, and that of the unspotted flesh assumed in the turtledove. Then, namely, is the Church praised as fair in her cheeks, which lie open to all, by the good and by the evil, by both, when through the greatest goods of chastity she shall have drawn ever so little into the likeness of the man assumed by Christ. Then is the whole body of the Church discerned to be most fair, when the modest look of the cheeks is admired by the impious for the glory of chastity. For then 578Dis chastity proved of great power by its own enemies, when those who assail it will not be able to conquer it. For as the members which are in the head, if they have been fair, excuse the foulness of the other members which are covered with garments, so also those which through priestly honor are known to be members of the head of the Church adorn by their own chastity the foulness of the people's negligence. And on the contrary there is nothing so deformed, so abject in the body of the Church, save when in the aforesaid members a most base life or reputation is discerned. And because holy Church in her prelates and teachers imitates by chastity and by variety of virtues the image of the turtledove, that is, of Christ, she is necessarily praised by him, saying: « How fair are thy cheeks as 579Athe turtledove's. » It follows: « Thy neck is as jewels. We will make thee golden murenulae, inlaid with silver. » In the neck there seem to be praised those who by the word of edification instruct the rest unto salvation, who transmit the spiritual food of the word, by interpreting it in whatever way, to the members of the body of Christ, whom belief alone supports; who through golden doctrine and through the jewel-like example of life are displayed upon the neck of the Church. For by the jewel the adornment of gems is discerned. But that their appearance may become fairer, they have need of the material of gold, by which, being joined together, they may be held in their own place. This too, the very natural talent of our nature, which is hewn out from a stony heart into the likeness of a gem, has need of the most shining help of the Holy Spirit, through whom the words of the divine law of the New and Old Testament, 579Bwhich declared or showed that the Saviour of the world had come — when, chained together as by one little chain of truth, the word is made, passed through the jewel-like minds of souls — adorns the neck of the Church through the concord of faith, through the sense of unanimity. And because the holy teachers, who are designated by the neck, adorned with virtues, minister the word of preaching to others, and what they teach in word they carry out in works. Which works are expressed by the jewels; and because they preach the Scripture of both Testaments, which is designated by the golden murenulae — namely, because it shines within with the gold of spiritual senses, and glitters without with the silver of heavenly eloquence — rightly is the Church praised in them when it is said: « Thy neck is as jewels. Murenulae » or little chains « of gold we will make thee, inlaid 579Cwith silver, » because the holy teachers cannot have the gifts aforesaid unless they receive them from him, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. It follows:

« While the king was at his repose, my spikenard gave forth its odor. » Spikenard is an aromatic shrub, with a heavy, as they say, and thick root, but short and black and brittle, though it is rich, smelling in its place like cypress, of a rough taste, with a small and dense leaf, whose tips spread themselves out into ears; and therefore the perfumers celebrate the spikes and the leaves of spikenard for a twofold endowment. And this is what Mark says: « Of ointment of precious spikenard (Marc. XIV). » Namely, because that ointment which Mary brought to the Lord was compounded not only from the root of the spikenard, but also — 579Dthat it might be the more precious — by the addition of its spikes and leaves the grace of its odor and of its power had been heaped up. The naturalists also relate of spikenard that it is the chief ointment, whence deservedly the anointing of the head and feet of the Lord was offered. There are indeed many kinds of it, but all are herbs, except the Indian, which is more precious. But mystically this devotion of Mary ministering to the Lord designates the faith and the piety of holy Church, which speaks here in the song of love, saying: « When the king was at his repose, my spikenard gave forth its odor. » Which words she assuredly both fulfilled once according to the letter by the hands of Mary, and does not cease daily to fulfill spiritually in all her members. Which, spread through the whole 580Aworld, glory and say: But thanks be to God, who always maketh us to triumph in every place, « for we are the good odor of Christ unto God. » When she confesses with worthy reverence, praises and preaches the might of his divine power, which is his together with the Father, she assuredly pours precious ointment upon his head. But when she receives with equally worthy reverence the mysteries of the humanity assumed, she assuredly poured upon the feet of the Lord the ointment of pistic spikenard, that is, faithful and true: because that nature of his by which he deigned to touch the earth, that is, to dwell among men, she commends with pious preaching, and venerates with devoted services. Whence the repose is understood as the burial of Christ, although he had then reclined at table in the house of Simon the leper. But the spikenard is the women themselves who 580Bcame at first dawn to the tomb with spices, to anoint Christ and to spread abroad to believers the report of his resurrection. Whence it was said to them: « Go, tell my brethren that he goeth before you into Galilee; there you shall see him (Matth. XXVIII). » [Vulg. Matth. XXVIII, 10 ite nuntiate fratribus meis ut eant in Galilaeam, ibi me videbunt, "go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see me"; the clause praecedit vos in Galilaeam, ibi eum videbitis stands at Matth. XXVIII, 7] Or the repose of Christ is the beatitude of the heavenly secret. For she says: « When the king was at his repose, my spikenard gave forth its odor: » because, namely, while Christ the king rests in the beatitude of the heavenly secret, the spikenard gives forth its odor, that is, the virtues of the saints in the Church minister to us the grace of great sweetness. Or also the repose of the king is understood as the holy Church of the elect. In her Christ found rest for himself, as he himself speaks through the Prophet: « This is my rest for ever and 580Cever (Psal. CXXXI). » The spikenard is said of the Church on account of the odor of the virtues. Whence the Apostle says: « We are the good odor of Christ unto God in every place (II Cor. II). » Which Church, when the devil has seen her enriched, adorned with innumerable jewels of graces, and, the blandishments of all the sweet things of the present life being despised, hastening to that one sweetness of eternal rest, he sends in innumerable inflictions of bitterness, both by himself and by his satellites, at every moment. But because God the Redeemer is always in the midst of her, she is not moved from the footstep of truth, nor is she disturbed on account of the assault of the impious rushing upon her, because Christ is both all things and in all. For if bitter things are brought upon her for the love of Christ, they grow sweet with the dew of future hope and of everlasting 580Dgladness. Therefore it follows:

« A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts. » Holy Church, or the faithful soul, perseveres in the praise of her Creator, whom she ponders as having suffered in the bitterness of his passion. Whence, always having in the memory of recollection how near he is to the breasts of the bosom, and how he suffered for her unto the glory of her redemption, she says: « A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts. » As if she had said: The death of my beloved, which he underwent for my salvation, shall always abide in my memory, for imitation and for the glory of praise. And because she rejoices that he suffered, she glories 581Aalso that he rose again from the dead; rightly she subjoined:

« A cluster of cypress is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. » Well does he say: « A cluster of cypress is my beloved to me, » as if he cried out openly: He who was a bundle of myrrh in the bitterness and sadness of the passion, the same is a cluster of cypress in the sweetness of the resurrection; myrrh signifies sadness, wine gladness: because, namely, Christ, begotten of the Jews according to the flesh, and hung by them upon the wood of the cross like a cluster, yet on the third day after the winepress of death showed the gladness of the resurrection to his disciples. And well « in the vineyards of Engaddi, » on account of the gifts of graces, which after the resurrection he lavished in baptism upon those who share in them. For Engaddi is called fount of the kid, or 581Beye of the kid, signifying, namely, baptism, where out of kids lambs are made. But in that it is interpreted eye haeai, it hints at Christ himself, who is the light of all sinners who come to him. Behold, for brevity's sake these things have been said concisely, that they may the more quickly be impressed upon my reader's mind. But because holy Church desires in her members to imitate the mystery of Christ's passion, that she may come with Christ to the glory of the resurrection, and may deserve to be set apart not with the kids on the left, but with the sheep on the right, let us speak more fully. Finally, when she had said, « a bundle of myrrh is my beloved, » she added to me: she understood that he had suffered for her salvation, and had risen from the dead for her glory. For she says: « A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts. » 581CFor myrrh is interpreted bitter, which signifies in itself the saving discipline which the Church received in Christ; and as she, for his name, endures in her diverse members the diverse bitternesses of torments, Christ is made for her a bundle of myrrh. The tree of myrrh, therefore, from which is begotten a juice that will profit many infirmities of the body, is like the willow; and it is asserted by those who have described the natures of trees that it puts forth little branches with very fine and twisted twigs after the manner of little bundles. This aforesaid Church, therefore, or any holy soul whatever, when through the hearing of eternal life she receives the sweetness of taste at the coming of the bridegroom, does not feel the manifold and bitter sufferings brought upon her — that is, prisons, exiles, proscriptions, the stripping of present goods, hunger, 581Dthirst, chains, unjust slaughters, reproaches, perils, shipwrecks, showers of stones, the headlong casting into the deep, and the stings of various punishments, and many other things. When she has undergone these for the death of her Redeemer, with great gladness she says: « A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me. » When therefore, for the healing of the many infirmities inflicted by the devil, she has patiently borne many chastisements from God, or has with joy sustained the diverse sufferings brought upon her for his name, as was said above, Christ is made her bundle of myrrh, for the driving out of all the diseases of the vices from her breast. Then, now clean and made ready with prayers, she is a divine lodging, so that now with such great confidence she invites Christ himself into the 582Arecess of her heart, as though within her breasts, saying in the Gospel: « I and the Father will come, and will make our abode with him (Joan. XIV.) » [Vulg. ad eum veniemus, "we will come to him" — the received text does not name the speakers here] Or also the Church rejoices that he abides between her breasts, among those men without doubt who, according to their age or according to their capacity, nourish little ones with the spiritual milk of their teaching. Of whom the Lord himself says: « If two or three shall have agreed upon earth, whatsoever they shall ask in my name shall be done for them. » [Vulg. Matt. XVIII, 19 si duo ex vobis consenserint super terram de omni re quamcumque petierint fiet illis a Patre meo, "if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning anything whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father"] And: « Where two or three shall have been gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them (Matth. XVIII). » One of whom said out of his own breasts to his hearers: « I gave you milk to drink, not meat (I Cor. III). » There can also, if it please anyone, be understood as the two breasts of the Church Moses and Elias, in whose midst Jesus, transfigured on the mountain, the beloved 582Bof the Church, is proved to have abode unto the future glory of that same Church: of whom the one showed him promised, the other proclaimed that he had already come, in signification of the two Testaments. Whence it is said: In the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be known. [Vet. Lat. reading of Hab. III, 2; Vulg. in medio annorum vivifica illud, "in the midst of the years bring it to life"] Which two Testaments are the breasts of the Church. In whose midst Christ abides. And because Moses the lawgiver, and Elias the chief of the prophets, were the ones speaking of the departure of his passion, therefore there follows: « A cluster of Cyprus is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. » Before all lands, as it is reported, the island of Cyprus is attested to beget clusters of grapes of wondrous size. Of that size was the cluster which is read to have been carried by two young men out of the land of promise into the desert, and which in every way marked the figure of the assumed 582Cmanhood of Christ our Redeemer: which indeed, according to place, or time, or occasion, has been made the food and drink of the Church through the sacrament of his body and blood. But Cyprus is interpreted sadness or mourning. Engaddi, as has been said, fount of the kid. He is therefore a cluster of Cyprus to his friend the Church, while he sows in the minds of sinners the sadness, or the mourning, of penance, that he may lift them up to that blessedness of which he himself said in the Gospel: « Blessed are they that mourn now, for they shall be comforted (Matth. V). » [Vulg. Beati qui lugent, quoniam ipsi consolabuntur, without nunc, "now"] Who, like that cluster of which we spoke, was lifted up by two peoples — the Jew, namely, as persecutor, and the Roman soldier in command — by the phalanx onto the gibbet of the cross. Who to this day, through sadness and mourning, has begotten for the Church a life conferring eternity, as has been said before, in 582Dthose who, after countless heaps of crimes, are gathered into the bosom of the Church. But the aforesaid cluster daily supplies spiritual food and drink to those who believe in him, to those at least who are gathered in the vineyards of Engaddi, where is the fount of the kid, which is the fount of the most holy baptism, where the kids go down who were to be assigned to the left hand before the tribunal of the judge, to be handed over to eternal fire, and there ascend spotless lambs, to be gathered at the judge's right hand, to be granted the eternal kingdom. It is certain therefore that, just as the one Jewish nation is named the vineyard of the Lord through the knowledge of the divine law, so also the diverse nations brought to the faith of Christ through the husbandry of the apostles and the teaching of the doctors are called many vineyards. In the midst of which, as has been said, 583Ais the fount of the water of holy baptism, to which the kids come, that they may be made lambs. Which vineyards of Engaddi beget not wine, but balsams. Engaddi is a very great village in the land of Judaea, next to the Dead Sea. Which land holds the figure of the land of the living, where are the vineyards of balsam, which of old were only within the bounds of twenty iugera. After the Romans got possession of that same region, it was propagated also over the broadest hills — in stock like the vine, in leaves like rue, but whiter and always remaining. But the tree is balsam; the wood is called chirobalsamum, that is, its little branch; the fruit or seed, carpobalsamum; the juice, opobalsamum. Which is therefore signified with an addition, because the bark of the wood, struck with iron claws, distils through its caverns a drop of surpassing fragrance. For a cavern 583Bin the Greek tongue is called ὀρὴ. Its drop they adulterate by mixing in oil of cyprus or honey. But balsams, if they be pure, have such force that, if the sun grow hot, they cannot be held in the hand. From which vineyards many kings have transplanted little balsam trees into other places or lands — which the Romans too are read to have done — and they were utterly unable to take root or to live. Whence it came about, as we hinted above, that in that same place, or within those same bounds, great zeal was applied by kings in planting vineyards that beget balsams. And what the cause may be, that in no other soil do the vineyards come forth save in Engaddi alone, is worth the labor of understanding. I think, as a certain one of the doctors says, that this juice of these vineyards is to be understood to hold the type of the confession of the one faith, in which the hope 583Cof the faithful stands, in which each good medicinal fragrance of Christ, restoring life to dead souls, is proved to germinate. From which confession, whatsoever nation or soul shall have been plucked away or transplanted by evil husbandmen or by heretics, withers. Which is proved to have befallen many souls, which, torn away from the one most true aforesaid confession of faith and dried up, offered themselves as fodder for gehenna. For just as the body cannot subsist without food and drink, so it is declared by the voice of the Church that without the cluster which is Christ, the eternal life coming down from heaven, it cannot live; because in no other land of promise, in no other vineyard save in the vineyards of Engaddi is he found by those who hunger and thirst after justice — that is, in no congregation of heretics, in no sect of philosophers, in no 583Dflattery of schismatics, where, if anyone be transplanted, deceived by the report of his own perversity, he perishes withered. Understanding these things indeed, the Church says: « A cluster of Cyprus is my beloved to me, in the vineyards of Engaddi. » There follows:

« Behold thou art fair, my friend, behold thou art fair: thy eyes are of doves. » After the comeliness of the cheeks and of the neck, by rendering the bride her turn, the beauty of the eyes is praised in the simplicity of her doctors, and by a doubled proclamation kept hidden. Both the beauty of the whole body, and the eyes, are compared to the eyes of doves. And they are compared to that creature which, in gentleness, in fruitfulness, in keenness of sight, in swiftness of wings, is found more excellent 584Athan all winged living things. The eyes therefore are proved to be the guides of the whole body, without which either the body cannot advance, or it advances only scarcely, by stumbling. In them are understood the holy doctors, contemplating heavenly things with spiritual sight, who for their simplicity and innocence are compared to doves. There can also be understood, in right order, the priests, to whom the most holy mysteries have been committed, in whose faith the Church is adorned, in whose unspotted life she is exalted with frequent praises. For she is fair in exhibiting to God the purest knowledge; fair in showing to enemies and to those estranged from the faith of Christ a blameless manner of life. A third praise of beauty is also brought in, in the keenness of the eyes. For the nature of doves, beyond those things we have said, is proved to have this peculiar thing also, 584Bthat it watches for the coming of the enemy behind it from afar, before it in the water — the coming, namely, of the hawk — and considers lest he be able to snatch away her young. So without doubt the holy doctors, endowed with simplicity and innocence; so the priests of the Church, contemplate heavenly things with the keenness of their contemplation. Meditating, they sit upon the streams of the Scriptures, and they busy themselves to declare to their hearers, by the admonition of their words, the snares of the devil, who hastens to snatch away the souls of believers, that they may beware; and therefore in such the beauty of the Church is praised by the bridegroom. Whence he repeats "fair" and "fair," because he saw her praiseworthy in them both in preaching and in action. There follows:

« Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely; our little bed is flowering. » The voice of the Church to Christ. 584CAs if she said: Thou alone art fair; I am fair from thee. And because she understands that she was justified not by her own merits, and that she received the beauty of the virtues from him, being kindled in his love, she praises his beauty. No one can praise the comeliness of anyone whom he loves not at all, nor can he love him with whose ways he does not agree, as the Apostle teaches, saying: « No man, he says, speaking in the Spirit of God, saith anathema to Jesus. And no one saith the Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit (I Cor. XII). » [Vulg. nemo potest dicere Dominus Iesus, "no man can say the Lord Jesus"] He therefore can both see the beauty and the form of the beloved Son of God, and extol it with praise, who by holy works has kept his Spirit in his own mind; and therefore in the present place, the Church, full of the Spirit of truth, as the bridegroom himself showed above, saying: « Behold thou art fair, 584Dmy friend, » — he who in the likeness of a dove came down from heaven upon the assumed man in the Jordan — and recognizing the beauty of his body without sin, and the comeliness of his true soul without lie and guile, utters in reciprocal and doubled praise, saying: « Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely; our little bed is flowering (Ephes. V). » Although, namely, a comely face or a costly garment may show the bride her costly bridegroom set at a distance, yet until the joining of the little bed she does not know the comeliness of the rest of the members. But when the lawful joining has been celebrated, and the two have been made one flesh according to the sentence of the first man — which sacrament master Paul asserted was carried through in Christ and in the Church — so also 585Athe aforesaid friend, up to the day of the burial, loved him indeed by desiring his coming, and praised him seen and kissed; but nevertheless all the love, and all the form of his comeliness, is proved to have reached, from the time of the resurrection up to the appointed term, as far as the shedding of blood for his name. For the flowering bed, that is, one strewn with flowers, where she recognized his beauty and comeliness in all his members, is understood by the Church, spoken in riddles, as the sepulchre of the Lord, where the body which the Word of the Father had assumed is proved to have lain. And the bed is with just reason proclaimed flowering, in which the spices, or the aloes, which are composed by the perfumer's art out of the juices or flowers of many kinds of herbs, were brought in with the body of Christ, and with which, when he rose again, the sepulchre 585Bwas besprinkled. In whose teaching the Church, that is, the throng of the faithful, found liberty; in death, life; in burial, silence; in hard labors, rest — which labors, driven by the scourges of the demons, she was daily discharging; where the true man is known to have dwelt, by the enclosing of his body, under the seal of the impious, and the true God to have gone forth by rising again from the sepulchre that had been marked. Where, under the name of the little bed, the joining of the Son of God and of the Church was celebrated; where with him the Church deserved to find the delightful sleep of the passion and the joy of the eternal waking, while the Apostle cries out to her members: « If you be dead with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is at the right hand of God the Father (Colos. III). » [Vulg. Col. III, 1 si consurrexistis cum Christo, "if you be risen with Christ", and in dextera Dei sedens, "sitting at the right hand of God"] For his resurrection both the minds of men are daily prepared for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, and 585Cthe roofs of the congregations of believers; and even visibly, how innumerable houses of God and churches are enlarged without ceasing at every time, and of what things or from what materials they are built, or how durable they are, or how comely, he taught by saying:

« The beams of our houses are of cedar, the ceilings of cypress. » But it is to be known that certain of the doctors understand by the flowering bed the peace of holy Church, in which, secure from the tumult of the vices and from the dominion of the malignant spirits, she rests in Christ, and flowers with holy virtues, and is multiplied with spiritual flower. But let us, as we began, follow out the former sense. By the little bed we understand the sepulchre of the Lord, where his flesh, through the slumber of death, rested as though in a little bed, 585Dwhich truly flowered through the glory of the resurrection. For the divine word says: « The beams of our houses are of cedar, our ceilings of cypress. » The beams and the ceilings are, it may be, the doctors and the hearers, or the hearts of the elect, on account of their strength and comeliness; of cedar and of cypress he says, on account of their surpassing virtues, the fragrance of a good life and of incorruptions, in which Christ rests as under a roof. And, that it may lie open more plainly, let us speak by an example: The nature of the cedars is said always to grow, nor is it ever suffered to pass into old age, according to that saying of the Psalmist: « The just shall flourish like the palm tree, and shall be multiplied like the cedar of Libanus (Psal. XCI). » The juice of which trees, according to the opinions of the physicians, is of such virtue that it heals the diverse 586Amembers of bodies, kills the worms of ulcers, and, when bodies are anointed with it, defends them from the stings of flies. With the wood of which tree, together with living water and a bundle of hyssop bound with scarlet in an earthen vessel, the cleansing of sins by sprinkling is celebrated in the Old Testament. Which is now taught to be celebrated in truth through the priest, through baptism, and through the blood of Christ, who, defending the multitudes of the one faith, encompassed by that bundle, from the assault of the devil, is taught to be celebrated in the eternal and in the temporal remission of sins. The houses, namely, of the Son of God and of the Church — the little assemblies of the Christian people, where the aforesaid redemption of souls is celebrated — are known to be in the whole world. Which houses are proved to be built out of the doctors, nay rather by the doctors, that is, by the hewn iron tools of their teaching, in whose minds the Lord deigns to dwell. The very incorruptible cedar timbers 586Bof the aforesaid houses are understood to be those who do not perish from their strength of holiness by the most foolish suggestions of wicked thoughts, and, always forgetting the things that are past, grow daily without intermission, like cedars, toward the good works that are before them — that is, they are multiplied by the fruits of the saints unto the help of gains for holy souls; the juice of whose speech or of whose consolation defends souls from the stings of the demons, and heals the wounds of the habits of filthy misdeeds long since inflicted, and destroys the worms of the most wicked thoughts. In which, worthily, for the delight of those dwelling there, the cypress ceilings, fixed for the faithful, rightly hang down. For the wood of the cypress, planed by the craftsman's hand, affords a comely 586Cappearance, and gives back a most pleasant odor to him; it is proved to contain in itself the virtue of medicine for many sufferings of the body. Which things are understood to express chastity, modesty, obedience, humility, charity and mercy — the pattern of the hearers who dwell there, the honor of the priests who venerate — who hang unceasingly upon the word of the doctors, who, after the manner of a vault, by solacing out of their just labors the doctors of the present time, deck the aforesaid ceilings joined to the beams of the houses and cover their nakedness. For the glory of the doctors is the people, and likewise the glory of the people is the firm establishing of the doctors: while the one impart spiritual gifts to the people, and the people carnal offerings to them, glorious houses are prepared for Christ; and the flowers of heavenly wisdom, and lilies of integrity, through their 586Dpenance, the Lord himself bestows upon the aforesaid houses unto the great delightfulness of honor. Whence there follows:

« I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. » As if it were said openly: I am the glory of the world and the glory of the humble. Although hell too may be understood, by way of surplus, and the place where Christ deigned to descend to rescue the patriarchs, as certain men understand it. But let us, these things having been tasted beforehand, lest we be charged with having been ignorant of the meaning of certain men, speak more richly, setting down the words of blessed Ambrose. Before his incarnation, he says, the Savior, speaking in the person of an angel to the partriarchis and to the prophets, alone, to whom none is like among the angels, the thrones and the dominations, to be marveled at by all, is proved to be the singular flower glittering in the whole field of the heavens. 587AWhich portion of the fragrance of his knowledge the patriarchs or the prophets bore as they were able, and the world itself always admonished mortals by teaching. All knowledge, through the prophets, through the powers of signs — by slaying the impious through the waters of the deluge, or the Sodomites through fire — whereby the unwise might understand wisdom, and the foolish proud might at some time have sense that a loftier judge abides above them, paying out just vengeance. But when through the sacrament of the incarnation he came down hither into the valley of tears, among the thorns and the fellowships of sinners, he testifies that he was made a lily. In which valley what else was rioting but the forests of thorns — the foulest religion of idolatry, of envy, of thefts and murders, 587Bof soothsaying and auguries, or of fornications, or of magic arts? In the midst of which Christ, shown forth in the fragrance of his teaching and in the whiteness of his example, daily sets free the throng of believers. Three things therefore delightful in themselves and exceedingly pleasing to the eyes the nature of the lily is proved to contain, that is, whiteness, fragrance, and a medicine when burnt with fire. Which three wonderful things the Lord is known to have brought by like reason into this valley of the world, that is, the abolishing of sin, the wiping away of the lie, the tempering refreshment of the generative fires, from which is born the love of preserving virginity. And whosoever in either sex restrain themselves from such things are kindled by the examples of the glorious assumed manhood and of the blessed Virgin Mary. And thus he is called the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys 587Cthrough the assumption of an immaculate body. Which sacrament was for the freeing of his people, whereby he might heal us in his diverse members from our diverse languors; and the wounds which had been inflicted by the demons with the fiery darts of fornications might be healed by his teaching; and those which with the keenness of wickedness were wounding his friend in the prophets and the doctors might be turned into the pleasantness of lilies, from which the Church, born again, shines out — and she is pricked with the most bitter goads, as he himself says in what follows:

« As the lily among thorns, so is my friend among the daughters. » These friends, therefore, among whom the Church stands as a lily among thorns, although it is not said with distinctness whose daughters they are, yet from the fact that they are compared to thorns we can perceive that they are called the offspring, not of God, but 587Dof the devil, through most wicked teaching. For among so many venomous thorns the Church dwells — the world, namely, of the Gentiles or of the heretics, who assail her; and lest she grow numb with idleness, she is permitted to be armed against enemies and to be assailed, so that after the fight her strength may appear. Of such the Lord says: « Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (Matth. XVI), » which is the teaching of the heretics. [Vulg. a fermento Pharisaeorum et Sadducaeorum, "of the Pharisees and Sadducees"] And the Apostle (I Cor. VI): « What, he says, fellowship hath light with darkness? » Or what meaning hath the temple of God with idols? Or what communication hath Christ with Belial? [Vulg. II Cor. VI, 16 qui consensus templo Dei cum idolis, "what agreement hath the temple of God with idols"] And nearly in like manner Isaias says: « Go out, he says, from the midst of them, and be ye clean, you that carry the vessels of the Lord (Isa. LII). » [Vulg. Isa. LII, 11 exite de medio eius … mundamini qui fertis vasa Domini, "go out from the midst of her"; de medio eorum, "from the midst of them", is the reading of II Cor. VI, 17] But in that he says: « As the lily among thorns, so is my friend 588Aamong the daughters, » he shows not the reproach of the just, who are the members of the Church, but their praise, that he might teach us that it is exceedingly praiseworthy to live piously among the impious, and to be in no way drawn along by the thorny converse of the perverse, among whom the just man is proved to shine like a light in the darkness. As if it were said to the Church: Thou seekest rest, but remember the praise of the little bed, that thou art made whiter by the goads of tribulations, and shalt acquire greater fruits from preaching than from quiet. And well does he say: « As the lily among thorns, so is my friend among the daughters, » that is, as the lily among thorns keeps its own fragrance and whiteness, so the Church of the elect among depraved Christians and heretics, if she yield not to them, is fragrant with virtues. There follows:

588B« As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my throat. » As therefore before the mystery of the incarnation, « in many parts and in many ways, » according to the Apostle, « the Son of God spoke to our fathers (Hebr. I), » or was shown forth in the prophets, so after the aforesaid mystery he kept festival, bestowing many good things in diverse ways upon human nature; and he is compared to diverse things and to diverse persons, according to time and place, or occasion. [Vulg. Hebr. I, 1 multifariam et multis modis olim Deus loquens patribus in prophetis, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets"] For according to David the prophet (Psal. LXVII) he is the mountain of God, for that the fullness of the divinity was to dwell in him. He is also the young calf putting forth horns, through the two Testaments. And hoofs, through the eight beatitudes, put forth from the feet of the four evangelists. 588CAnd the lamb taking away the sin of the world, through the imparting of the gentleness of the Holy Spirit, so that, while clothing others, he himself always abounds. He is also the beloved bundle of myrrh, and the cluster of cypress in the vineyards of Engaddi; and so, according to the place, the Church calls him the apple tree or the pomegranate, for that he is the tree of life, offering himself with a different savor to different persons. He is without doubt the pomegranate tree, which shelters and defends under the shadow of his protection the souls afflicted with the emptiness of hunger, wearied under the burning sun of wickedness, and with the fruit of the lips of his teaching refreshes by his sweetness those who hunger and thirst. From the expulsion from paradise up to the childbearing of the Virgin, the human offspring was afflicted with many labors and with intolerable assaults of the demons — which offspring is here, under the person of the Church, 588Dcalled the friend; and at the coming of him who said: « Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will make you rest (Matth. XI), » [Vulg. et ego reficiam vos, "and I will refresh you"] resting under the covering of his protection, believing in one God, she says with gladness: « I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired. » Which sweetness of the kingdom of the heavens — although present protection may be understood, and she names the rest of the blessed — or else, tasting his body and his blood, which confer eternal life, she says with exultation: « And his fruit was sweet to my throat. » It may be that it was uttered so that the sweetness of the divine Scriptures should be understood in the holy preachers, who are called the throats of the Lord. Of which sweetness the Prophet says: « Taste, he says, and see that the Lord is sweet. » 589A« Blessed is the man, etc. (Psal. XXXIII). » And that: « How sweet are thy words to my palate! O Lord, more than honey to my mouth (Psal. CXVIII). » From the fruit of this tree, as one languishing in the last infirmity of despair, the throng of believers was restored at his coming by the juice of the pomegranate; which fruit is shown to be poured daily into the throat of the Church through those who act in Christ's stead; and thus through the several degrees of advancement she is led in to the hidden understanding of the divine law, that she may be able to recognize all those things which were done in the Old Testament. For she says: « As the apple among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. » As if it were said: As the apple goes before all the trees of the wood in sight, in fragrance and in taste, so Christ goes before all the saints who are called the sons of God. Of whom it is said: 589B« Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice before the face of the Lord, because he cometh (Psal. XCV). » Whence they are called sons, not by malice, as the daughters are, who are compared to thorns. There is indeed great exultation to the trees of the woods, while they behold that such a tree has risen up in their midst, whose fruit has adorned the whole forest, has taken away all the languors of souls, and has sweetened all the fruits of bitterness. Under whose shadow, all the heat of sadness and all the weight of sin being cast off, the Church tells of the rest long desired and now found, and, fattened with the sweetest fruit, of the joys obtained for growing souls. « Under the shadow which I desired, she says, I sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my throat. » As if she said: With him protecting me, whom I always sought to have present, I remain quiet and secure, 589Cand by his grace he has made me a partaker of heavenly sweetness: and thus she testifies that she is led in, in due order, to the understanding of higher mysteries, saying:

« The king brought me into the wine cellar, he set in order charity in me. » [Vulg. introduxit me in cellam vinariam, without rex, "the king"] The wine cellar ought to be understood as the Church, as not a few suppose, in whose unity alone the Holy Spirit is wont to be given and received. Whose grace is designated in this place by the name of wine. Wine — since, when the apostles had received the Holy Spirit, the Jews said: « These men are full of new wine (Act. II). » In which cellar charity has been set in order, that each may love God with his whole heart more than himself, and his neighbor as himself. Although the wine cellar may, by way of surplus, be understood as the mystery of Christ's passion, into 589Dwhich the Church has been led, when through faith she deserved to share in his sacraments. But because she testifies that she has been led in, in due order, to the mysteries to be understood by growing souls, of necessity she wishes the wine cellar to be understood as the knowledge and the sweetness of the divine law. To which sweetness she invites the young maidens, and by praising it urges them to hasten — the sweetness which Christ taught by giving it to drink, when he said: « Labor for the food which perisheth not, but which endureth unto eternity (Joan VI). » [Vulg. operamini non cibum qui perit sed qui permanet in vitam aeternam, "labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting" — the received text sets the negation on cibum] Those set in this work the Prophet calls blessed, saying: « Blessed are they that search his testimonies, that seek him with their whole heart (Psal. CXVIII). » For there are testimonies of the law in the Old Testament which prove that Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, was to come, has come, 590Aand will come again in glory. Let us therefore set down the law as a most spacious palace, in which Christ the king dwells, the Word of the almighty Father, where the souls of believers are led in to the eternal warfare; where she says that she has been led in — into that same understanding of the law, namely — to consider the marvels which God wrought through the several patriarchs or prophets up to the childbearing of the Virgin, which she has now figuratively named the wine cellar; where, being led in, she received into herself the order of charity. In which order of charity, what else is to be believed that she is first imbued with, save that she should believe and acknowledge that first the bread ought to be named, in whom the Son always is, that he may invoke him as the Word; second the Son, in whom the Father always is; third the Holy Spitum, who by true reason is proved to proceed, as from voice and word, from 590Bthe Father and the Son? Who through all is the one God to be loved, according to that saying at the beginning of the Decalogue: « Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. » The second order is, « with thy whole soul. » The third order is, « with thy whole strength (Exod. XX). » Then already in the several precepts of the law charity sets in order how, or with what affection, the neighbor is to be loved, or the several persons in the Church. For by one order is reciprocal charity to be weighed out to God, who according to the Apostle (I Joan. IV) first loved us, who is proved to have conferred upon us the whole sum of charity through Christ. By another order to a faithful friend, by another order to a dearest son, by another order it is to be paid to parents, through whom we are who were not; by another order to a full brother, by another order to a spouse; by another order the servant 590Cto his master, by another order the master to his servant, by another to a stranger, by another to an acquaintance, by another to a priest, by another to kinsmen and neighbors. For to bestow necessary things upon a needy sick man, or upon a stranger, not for the display of human praise but for the sake of eternal recompense, is the token of ordered charity. To console the needy and those oppressed by unjust judgment, to visit the sick or those consigned to prison, is shown to be ordered charity. In no business to stand in awe of a man's person against the truth, mercifully to admonish the unwise, most truthfully to rebuke the proud, is the manifest order of charity. But whoever loves father, or mother, wife, sons, or brothers, or the riches of the present time, more than God, there is indeed charity in him, but not ordered, since above all things we ought to love him 590Dand our neighbor as ourselves. This is the order of charity. The Son of God therefore has set charity in order in his Church, that every son of the Church may know in what order of charity he is to render his duty to each, saying in the Gospel: « Render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God (Matth. XXII). » And through the Apostle he says: « Render to each one his dues: to whom honor, honor; to whom fear, fear; to whom tribute, tribute; to whom custom, custom (Rom. XII). » [Vulg. Rom. XIII, 7 reddite omnibus debita, "render to all their dues", and the received order runs tributum … vectigal … timorem … honorem] Not all who are called by the Christian name are led in through this order of charity into the aforesaid understanding which she named the wine cellar, but he who shall have imitated, however little, Paul, who said (II Cor. XI): I have labored more than 591Aall, in watchings, in fastings, and the rest: « and I have counted all things, he says, as dung, that I may gain Christ (Phil. III). » At the head of this canticle the Church, led into the bedchamber or the storeroom of the king, gives praise, where, having entered, she says, « We will be glad and rejoice in thee, » having recognized, namely, his bodily presence, who is the wisdom of the Father, who lay hidden as in an inner chamber amid the heralds of the prophets, in whom are all exultations and gladnesses and treasures. But here she says that she is led in to the understanding of the divine law and to the learning of the order of charity, and that she does not rejoice and exult, but languishes, for that, according to Solomon (Eccle. I): « He that addeth knowledge, addeth sorrow. » [Vulg. Eccle. I, 18 qui addit scientiam addit et laborem, "he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour"] And whoever by pursuing has begun to be made nearer to wisdom, by so much does he scarcely behold her, drawn far off. 591BFrom which sorrow is born the blessed love of Christ, and from love a more glorious soundness, the languor of the soul, which withdraws from her all her powers for sinning. And though she has attained the hidden mysteries of the manifold wisdom of God, though she holds the citadel of perfection, yet she does not believe that the sum of the aforesaid sentence or understanding alone suffices for her, unless she be compassed with apples and stayed up with diverse flowers. Whence she straightway subjoined:

« Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love. » She seeks the bodily presence of the wisdom of God the Father, that is, Christ, in the cellar of the knowledge of the law; but because she is not yet permitted to see him whom she desires as he is, she demands the examples of others for her consolation, whereby she may be able meanwhile to temper her languor. For she says: 591C« Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, » that is, console me with the examples either of those beginning a good work, or of those bringing it to perfection: because as yet, in the weariness of my pilgrimage, I languish with the love of the vision above. Whence not undeservedly by the flowers are understood the souls already beginning a good work and giving out the fragrance of heavenly desire; by the apples from the flowers, the minds already perfect in good things, which come to the fruit of a good work from the beginning of a holy purpose. She therefore who languishes with love seeks to be stayed up with flowers, to be compassed about with apples, because she is still not permitted to see none whom she desires; it is a great consolation if she rejoice at the advances of others, so that the soul which is not yet able to contemplate the face of God may rest in the good work of her neighbor. Let us see what the mind of Paul was, who said: « To me to live 591Dis Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. I). » Hence it is that again he says: « I have a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by much the better (Ibid.). » But behold, thou who desirest to be dissolved, let us see with what love thou languishest. Because meanwhile thou seest thyself put off, dost thou not seek, I pray, to be stayed up with flowers? Plainly thou dost seek it: for there follows: « But to abide in the flesh, I judge necessary for you (Ibid.). » [Vulg. Phil. I, 24 permanere autem in carne magis necessarium est propter vos, "but to abide in the flesh is more needful for you"] And to his advancing disciples he says: « For what is our hope or joy, or crown of glory? Are not you, before our Lord Jesus Christ? » (I Thes. II.) The soul therefore, joined to the Word of God, led into the understanding of the law, running through the several points of Scripture, as has often been said, and tasting the savors of the several vessels of the wine cellar 592Aof the divine books, as though inebriated with the wine of the gladness of the beatitude always to come, although she does not discern the bridegroom in the present, says that she languishes with love, because she comes to him but slowly. With that love, without doubt, of which the Prophet says: « My soul hath thirsted after God, the living fount; when shall I come and appear before the face of the Lord? » (Psal. XLI.) [Vulg. ad Deum fortem vivum, "after the strong living God", and ante faciem Dei, "before the face of God"] Through which love of knowledge is germinated the love of eternal life, and from the love of eternal life the endurance of persecution. Savoring which love, as though placed upon a little bed, she besought that she might be embraced by the left hand of promise and the right hand of Christ's help, saying:

« His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. » For what is designated by the left hand but the present life, or the temporal gifts 592Bof God almighty? And what by the right hand, but everlasting life is figured? For the left hand of God — the Church, namely — has placed the prosperity of the present life and its temporal gifts as it were under her head, which she presses down with the intention of the highest love. But the right hand of God embraces her, because she is held with whole devotion beneath his eternal blessedness. Since here the bridegroom strengthens the mind through hope, and there glorifies it through recompense. Or by the left hand the Old Testament, and by the right hand the New Testament, is intimated. For it can be so understood, that the left hand of Christ sustains the soul on the left, lest by the hooks of the incentives of the vices she be led astray on the left, but that, being always displayed with hidden compunctions, she be lifted up to the kingdom. And lest, uplifted into pride, she make a fall on the right, in which the devil fell, he embraces her with his right hand by permitting tribulations 592Cand manifold restraints, and by helping her when she is wearied. It is also of force, by way of surplus, to understand it thus: that the left hand under the head is the shield of faith, which the fighter holds in his left hand, and that the embrace of the right hand is understood as the sword of prayer, with which he is always armed on the right, so that by the one kind of arms the adversary may be repelled, and by the other laid low. There follows:

« I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up, nor make the beloved to awake, till she please. » After many labors, namely of the Church, and many runnings to and fro, through which she is rendered anxious and, wearied within the holy wine cellar, is given over to slumber, the daughters 592Dof Jerusalem are adjured not to stir her up, lest, awakened from sleep, she be too quickly given back to her former labors; and by this they are adjured, that she may be loved with firm charity. By the roes, namely, and the harts of the fields, which are given to be understood as souls of no small merit or labor, and by which the daughters of Jerusalem are adjured. For among the Christian people souls are compared to diverse animals according to the quality of their merits. Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore has a palace, which is understood to contain within itself many storerooms, and a wine cellar, and the spaces of the fields. Whose flowers blessed Paul, having entered, praises in wonder: « O the depth, he says, of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! (Rom. XI.) » In which palace, among many riches, that is, the multitude of the saints, he is understood to have also diverse souls, 593Ajust as in a great house, according to the Apostle (II Thes. II), there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of earth and of wood. Whence not undeservedly the daughters of Jerusalem are the souls of the elect, contemplating the vision of peace of the country above. But the spiritual roes or harts he calls the loaves of the Old and the New Testament, for which the multitude of the sacred Scriptures is the pasture. Or else certain men will have those souls understood as roes which, by the keenness of dialectic, by the sense of understanding, have been accustomed to range about through philosophy and with the mind — which souls, now enclosed within the aforesaid palace by the net of the hunters' art, that is, of the apostles and of the other doctors, taken by their hand, their religion being changed for the better, range over the fields of the divine Scriptures, or, interpreting whatever is steep and obscure in wisdom, range over the 593Bmountains; and the worship of the gods is daily turned into the praise of the Creator. And they show the swiftness of their course in faith, and with keenness of sense, after the manner of roes, they look out from afar upon the ambushes of their adversaries. It is the nature of roes to have the front part of the body proved higher, the hinder part lower. And for this cause, always ascending upward, it is found swifter in its course upon the mountain, by which route the adversary is the lesser in pursuing. But harts appear to be understood as those who, in the very swiftness of their philosophy of teaching, confessed not many gods, but one God invisible, immense, inestimable, the Creator of all things, filling the whole world everywhere — who themselves also were taken by the holy doctors with the net of preaching into the bosom of the Church. Who, dwelling in the steep places of life, 593Cafter the manner of harts seek the fount of waters, destroy serpents, and, like clean animals, chew the cud. These therefore are without doubt the harts of the fields and the roes, that is, the souls of faithful philosophers, converted from the unbelief of superstitions, by whom the bridegroom conjures the daughters of Jerusalem to suffer the bride to rest a little in the sleep of rest — souls which delight to run together with the Church in those works in which they themselves were exalted to heavenly glory, that through them, the bodily burden being laid aside, they may feast with those souls in the heavens. Whom the Lord Christ bids to rest in the body, for the gain or the consolation of other souls, till she herself please, until the bridegroom himself, looking to her advantage, and she herself, may know her own strength: because without him she can do nothing. 593DBut it can be understood, according to the former understanding, where we said that the roes and harts signify the Fathers of the Old and the New Testament, in this way: I call to witness the peaceable — as if it were said, the souls of the faithful — by their several virtues, which were signified by the clean and cud-chewing animals, that they hinder not by any importunity the pious pursuits of the brethren, but that each so rejoice at the advancement of his neighbors as at his own. Otherwise Christ admonishes that no one of the doctors frighten off, by gifts, namely, or by threats, those who are about to believe, but that they preach only the things that are holy, and lead those about to believe, or those converted, willingly to the faith or to religion, and disturb them not in their own tranquillity, until, driven by divine inspiration, they gird themselves to the pursuits of a loftier life. But the perfect 594Asoul of the elect, and, so to say, holy Church, in the very slumber of rest always hears him by fearing him, always sees him by loving him. Whence now she says — it is to be supplied — this is he whom I heard adjuring the daughters of Jerusalem, that they should not stir me up as I rested in his embrace. Or else his voice is the evangelical preaching. And what this voice of the beloved of the Church may say, he declares in the Gospel itself with his own mouth. « See, he says, that you be not seduced by false prophets. For many shall come in my name, saying that I am Christ, and shall seduce many, and shall give signs, so that even, if it be possible, the elect be led into error (Matth. XXIV). » [Vulg. Matt. XXIV, 4 videte ne quis vos seducat, "take heed that no man seduce you"; a pseudoprophetis, "by false prophets", is not in the received text] And: « See that your hearts be not made heavy with surfeiting or drunkenness (Luc. XXI). » And: « Be like to servants who wait for their lord, when 594Bhe shall return from the wedding (Luc. XII). » [Vulg. Luc. XII, 36 similes hominibus expectantibus dominum suum, "like to men who wait for their lord"] Lest the Church, resting in the embraces of the bridegroom, be deceived under the appearance of doctors. And lest she grow numb with idleness after her labors, or be unstrung by delights, she is thus admonished in the Gospel. But in the very rest of her security let her be solicitous always to lend the ear of her heart to the voice of Christ — that is, in the divine Scriptures — and let her study to give her labor to assiduous prayer. Those therefore who are set over the Christian people are admonished by these things to announce to the people without intermission what this voice of the beloved of the Church enjoins: how, namely, he came from the bosom of the Father into human fellowship, that the Word might be made flesh; how, according to Habacuc the prophet (Cap. III), humbling the pride of the demons, he broke the mountains of violence, and melted the everlasting hills, treading down under the feet of believers 594CSatan, leaping across the aforesaid mountains. And weighing this, the Church says:

« Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. » Wilt thou hear what leaps he made? Such leaps, I say, did my beloved make. From heaven he came into the womb, from the womb into the manger, from the manger he came to the cross, from the cross he came into the sepulchre, from the sepulchre he returned into heaven: he it is who was raised up also above all mountains and hills, that is, the Fathers of the New and of the Old Testament, who by the merit of their virtues and by the summit of their faith are more eminent than the rest. In these the Lord is said not only to dwell, but to leap across, because he appeared incomparable not only in divinity, but in humanity. Or else through the apostles, as we began to say above, he melted all the pride of the wisdom of the world lifting itself up 594Dagainst the Creator, and, brought to nothing, it is humbled. In whom shone not rhetorical arguments, but the power of the Holy Spirit; and, the throng of demons laid low under the feet of believers, he was shown to the Church to have come into the world leaping upon the mountains and skipping over the hills, and he conversed among men. Whence also there is presently subjoined:

« My beloved is like a roe and a young hart of the harts. » We understand Christ compared to a roe not by any diminishing of the divinity, who is always the same, but through the mystery of the incarnation, namely because he appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh, in which the nature of the flesh, received into heaven, obtained increase. For some think he was likened to a roe for this reason also, 595Athat the illumination of our salvation, taking away the blindness of the heart, showed itself by coming in the flesh in the latter part of the age — which illumination he had shown to Moses when he asked for it on Mount Sinai. Of which mystery David says: « The wings of the dove are silvered over, unto the hinder parts of his back (Psal. LXVII). » Just as the hinder part of the body of roes shows whiteness; and because many, not only of the Jews but also of the philosophers of the Gentiles, believed through the humility of his incarnation — by whom are understood those wild souls, once cleaner than the rest of those mentioned above, which through his teaching were gathered into the fellowship of the one true Israel. To such, according to the opinion of some, he is proclaimed like, in the voice of the Church, who for the innocent and for the multitude of believers is compared to a young hart of the harts. 595BHe is called a young hart of the harts for this reason, that he was begotten of the stock of the patriarchs, who are designated by the name of harts; or else a young hart of the harts on account of the form of his humility, the horns of his power not yet being lifted up, with which at the second coming he will plead against the world, of which it was said in the psalm: Then « the horns of the just shall be exulted (Psal. LXXIV). » [Vulg. cornua iusti exaltabuntur, "the horns of the just shall be exalted"] For the young hart of the harts is without horns, and shows in itself the love of its own aspect rather than terribleness, as our Lord Christ is known to have done at his first coming. Of whose first coming there is presently subjoined: « Behold he standeth behind our wall, looking back through the windows, looking forth through the lattices. » [Vulg. despiciens per fenestras, "looking down through the windows"] Clothed with the wall of our mortality, he lay hidden as to the substance of his divinity. But looking forth toward us 595Cthrough the lattices and the windows while he wrought miracles, so that he might appear from his miracles who lay hidden from his sufferings. For he who showed to human eyes that which he assumed of mortal nature, and in his own self, who remained invisible, stood as it were behind a wall for those seeking to see him in the open, because he did not offer himself to be seen with majesty made manifest. For he stood as it were behind a wall, who showed the nature of the humanity which he assumed, and hid the nature of the divinity from human eyes. For whoever looks back through windows or lattices is neither wholly seen nor wholly not seen. For our Redeemer, because he both did divine things and endured human things, came to men as it were through lattices and windows: that as God he might appear from his miracles, as has been said, and lie hidden from his sufferings, and be discerned as man from his sufferings. 595DRightly is it said: « Behold he standeth behind our wall, » and the rest. It can, if it please anyone, be understood thus: Behold he himself who was crucified, who with the right hand of his divinity held the Church languishing, that is, mourning in the apostles, in the embrace of consolation, with whom he was buried in the flesh — with her indeed he stands, rising again, behind the wall of our unbelief, which we had built with muddy works by sinning. Of which he says through Isaias the prophet: « Is not my hand strong to deliver? But your sins have made a wall between you and God (Isa. L). » [Vulg. Isa. L, 2 numquid adbreviata et parvula facta est manus mea ut non possim redimere, "is my hand shortened and become little, that I cannot redeem?"; the second clause conflates Isa. LIX, 2 iniquitates vestrae diviserunt inter vos et Deum vestrum, "your iniquities have divided between you and your God"] Standing behind which, the Lord Christ waits to be called upon by the impious, and calls the sinful soul to penance, waits to be believed by the unbelieving. Behind which wall he 596Astands, until the time of baptism or of penance. And though we do not deserve to look upon him, yet by this, that we renounce idolatry, we make windows in the aforesaid wall, through which Christ looks back upon us, defending us from unclean spirits. And by bending the knees of the heart to him alone we make lattices, through which he may look forth upon our compunction as we turn to him. But when we have come to the true conversion of the aforesaid baptism, or of penance, he takes it away out of the midst, pardon of sins being granted, and speaks to us, saying: « Come to me, all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matth. XI). » And: « Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matth. XXV). » Even as the master of the Gentiles, Paul, taught that it was done at his coming. 596B« Who took away, he says, the wall of the fence from the midst, and reconciled us to God the Father through his own blood (Ephes. II). » [Vulg. Ephes. II, 14-16 medium parietem maceriae solvens … ut reconciliet ambos in uno corpore Deo per crucem, "breaking down the middle wall of partition … that he might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross"] Whence, when the Church was in a manner shut in within the enclosures of walls for fear of persecution, after his resurrection, while the Apostles were afraid and cast down with exceeding terror, he entered, the doors being shut, and brought great confidence and great joy, saying: « Peace be to you. It is I, fear not (Luc. XXIV). » Then was fulfilled that which follows:

« My beloved speaks to me: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. » He speaks to her, that is, by calling her to the perfection of life, by telling her no longer to fear the author of death, the devil, nor to remain any longer within the 596Cbarriers of unbelief and of torpor. « Make haste, » he says, « and come, » because I by dying have given back the life that was lost. Now be no longer terrified by death, whose empire I have destroyed. For he was standing behind our wall, because the sun of justice stood in our way with his own shadow, of whom the prophet had promised, saying: « The sun of justice shall rise for you that fear God, and health in his wings (Mal. IV). » [Vulg. timentibus nomen meum, "that fear my name"] He speaks to the Church in the apostles when, rising from the dead, he consoles them, saying: « Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world (Joan. XVI). » And: « All power is given to me in heaven and in earth (Matth. XXVIII). » And: « Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Matth. XI). » Whence by this saying she is summoned to the office of preaching, as she herself says: « my beloved speaks 596Dto me, » that is, he exhorts me to preach, saying: « Arise, make haste, my love, and come, » that is, arise from the couch of repose, on which you seek to take care of yourself alone; make haste, and come, to fulfil also the care of your neighbour's salvation; spend your zeal on the office of diligent preaching. For he also grants confidence by affable words when he adds:

« For winter is now past, the rain is gone and departed. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come. » He teaches her, that is, no longer to fear at all the savagery of wicked men, nor to dread the terrors of the demons, because he has both reconciled God the Father to the Church by the offering of the flesh he assumed, and has hamstrung the army of the demons by the cross, 597Aand after the wintry and icy harshness has shown the flowery time of his springtime coming, and — as to how great and of what sort would be the rewards of joys that he was to display to her by his presence — has told what was still to come as though it were already done. Whence it is also said to her: « Rise up, make haste, my love, my beautiful one, and come. » For she becomes his love by acknowledging God; beautiful, by keeping the humility of Christ. And she is made a dove by requiring nothing of earthly desires beyond the meanest food and the clothing of the body, but, always holding the simplicity of doves, she joins herself to the Holy Spirit. Or she is called love through charity; beautiful or fair through the comeliness of the virtues and the laver of regeneration; a dove through the pouring-in of the Holy Spirit. As therefore when spring comes on, the forerunner of summer, which puts winter to flight, 597Bwhen every creature rejoices restored to life, and all animals after their kind are embodied for offspring, and being made pregnant build their lairs, and the birds put together their nests, and call one another with their distinct voices and movements; when now the ground prepares banquets for creeping things, lest food be lacking to the feathered creatures; when the tuneful voice of the flying things resounds sweetly in melody and pipes, and the bee, armed with wings, goes forth to plunder the flowers: so our Lord Jesus Christ, after the rough winter of idolatry and philosophic teaching, adorned with the flower of springtime — which is our Pasch, the passing from death to life — through his passion the face of the world of martyrs, or of all holy works, and the beginnings of the faith of believers. At that time he calls the Church from the couch of repose to the office 597Cof preaching, nay rather from the valley of tears to the mountain of God's paradise, by the example of his own death. In short, when he had said, « Arise, make haste, my love, my beautiful one, and come, » he presently added, « for winter is now past, » that is, the power of darkness, which made the world sorrowful, passes from this world to hell, now that Christ the sun of justice is come. Now the cold of unbelief infidelitatiis and the rain of iniquity have departed, which covered the whole globe until the time of the Lord's incarnation and resurrection. « The flowers have appeared in our land, » that is, the beginnings of faith and of justice flowered in the world as the Church grew. « The time of pruning is come, » that is, when the useless shoots of vain religion have been cut away, the hearts of men are prepared for the faith to come; for the summer time is come, 597Dwhen out of one stock of the body the good are separated from the wicked, lest by the nearness of the wicked the good perish, lest by the treachery of unbelievers believers be endangered. This, surely, was the time of pruning announced as coming, of which the Lord says in the Gospel: « For I came to separate the son from the father, and the daughter-in-law from her mother-in-law, and the daughter from her mother (Matth. X), » and the rest. [Vulg. Matt. 10:35 reads hominem adversus patrem suum, "a man against his father," filiam adversus matrem suam, nurum adversus socrum suam — "against," not "from," and "a man," not "the son"] Or, winter is past, because the tribulation of the present life has withdrawn. The rain too has gone, because when we are led to contemplate almighty God in his own substance, the drops of words will no longer be necessary, so that the rain of preaching should have to be poured out. For what a man can here hear less of, there he shall see more fully: « Because now we see through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face, 598Aand we shall see him as he is (I Cor. XIII). » [Vulg. 1 Cor. 13:12 stops at "face to face"; the final clause is drawn from 1 John 3:2] Then the flowers appear in the land, because when the soul has begun to taste beforehand certain first sweetnesses of the life of eternal blessedness, it is as though already going out it smells among the flowers what, after it has gone forth, it shall have more abundantly in the fruit; whence there also is subjoined: « The time of pruning is come. » For in pruning the barren shoots are cut back, so that those which prevail may bear fruit more abundantly. And so the time of our pruning shall come when we forsake the unfruitful and hurtful flesh of corruption. Which fruit shall be for us most abundant: the vision of the one God. As is the time of pruning, so is the calling out of the world of the soul of the heavenly ones. There follows: « The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. » Let us state the opinions of various persons, lest perhaps we seem to plead ignorance. The voice 598Bof the turtledove, on account of the comeliness of chastity, they would have understood as the blessed Mary, whose voice was first heard in our land when she said to the angel: « How shall this be done, because I know not man? » (Luc. I.) And: « Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word (Ibid.) » . And: « From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed (Ibid.) » . To whom the angel answered: « The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. » And: « That which shall be born of thee, holy, shall be called the Son of God. » And she is worthy indeed, whom alone all generations call blessed, whom, glorious among all women, not only the nations of divers peoples but even the powers of the heavens praise in wonder; for through her the entrance of life, death put to flight, the world reconciled, are our joy. But some assert the blessed John 598Cthe Baptist, whose voice was heard saying: « I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord (Matth. V). » And: « Bring forth fruits worthy of penance (Luc. III). » For so long as the winter of transgression, a sorrowful time and bound fast from every good shoot, had covered the face of the world, and the devil held the earth under his dominion, this most sweet voice of the turtledove, whether through the blessed Mary or through John, was not heard in the land. But when that great sun of justice, who rose for us bringing by his indulgence the richness of summer, then by the desire of preserving chastity the voice of the turtledove began to be heard in our land. For with just reason virginity is compared to the turtledove, that most chaste bird — virginity which in John or in Mary holds the first place. 598DFor she, once joined to the Word of God or to the Holy Spirit, never thinks of another mate, nor is there any other joining of the desires of her love save to him to whom she is proved to have been once cemented — like the turtledove, which loves the dwelling-places of the beloved wilderness, and calling its mate resounds with a sweet voice, and when he is lost seeks not another, but always sends forth to the other the voice of its promise and of its mind, to whom it promised to keep the affection of love. When he is dead, it is never said to be joined to another; but all the days of its life it seeks with longing him to whom it was once joined. But it must be known that, although the voice of the turtledove which was heard in our land be such, it is that of the Lord and Saviour, who says in the Gospel: « Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near (Matth. III). » [Vulg. appropinquavit, "hath drawn near," perfect] Or, by the turtledove most rightly 599Ais the holy Church understood, adorned as with feathers by the variety of the virtues.

« The fig tree hath put forth her green figs. » Since therefore the harvest of human redemption and the coming of the glorious Redeemer were drawing near, the fig tree, that is, the Synagogue, bound fast by the winter and the frost of impiety, is understood to have had in itself nothing but the most bitter juice of a teaching which it falsely gives out as food of souls. But at the Lord's coming, after the voice of the turtledove was heard saying, « Do penance, » and the rest, the fig tree put forth her green figs, that is, the precepts of the law fell, and she herself through the apostles put forth her green figs, who, begotten of her, were made the most sweet food of teaching for souls. But because she would not believe them, she withered with an everlasting barrenness, and, stripped of all comeliness, was kept as nothing in herself but fuel for the eternal fire. 599BThe people, freed from the shadow of her perverse oppression, began — the evil teachers, the Pharisees, being removed — to flower by believing in Christ, and by their own example to summon the nations of other peoples to the flower of belief. Of whom it is said in the following verse: « The flowering vines have given their odour. » For by believing in one almighty God the vines flowered, that is, the evangelical people. Or, the flowering vines, holy ways of life, gave their odour far and wide throughout the world. For as in the winter season the vines are without leaves and flowers and without comeliness, so it is most certainly proved that the nations throughout the world, which he has now called vines, were without the comeliness of justice and the ornament of holiness. There follows:

« Arise, make haste, my love, my fair one, and 599Ccome, my dove, in the holes of the rock, in the hollow of the wall. » The Church, then, called from very far off, was lying in a place lowly enough and hidden, troubled and oppressed by the storm of the demons — she who now is proved to reign in the whole world. But when the sacraments of Christ's passions were celebrated through the teaching of the apostles, in whom Christ speaks, she is summoned to arise and to come to the bridegroom walking among the vines, to rejoice with him, and to put herself forth unto the yield of the fruit of justice of the aforesaid nations. As if it were said to her: O bride and love, to whom I have offered such great goods and for whom I have borne such great things, arise and come, gird thyself for the contest, whence thou mayest receive eternal rest « in the holes of the rock, in the hollow of the wall. » What the rock is, the Apostle sets forth: « The rock, he says, was Christ (I Cor. 599DX). » Whoever therefore desires to be snatched from the enemies of the power of the air, and to escape unharmed, let him always enter, by keeping faith, into the holes of this rock — that is, let him consider the wounds of the nails and of the lance which the bridegroom took upon himself for the safety of the bride — and into the hollow of the wall, that is, the keeping of the heavenly virtues. For this rock has many holes, that is, approaches, through which entrance is made to the Father who prepares the kingdom for believers: namely, meekness, humility, patience, contempt of riches, the accepting of no persons, passing the night in prayer, the mastery of mercy, unmoved chastity, the form of kindness, a singular mirror, the acknowledgment of the undivided Trinity, in which is our redemption. These are beyond doubt the 600Aholes in which the soul is taught to come to the joys of the kingdom of heaven. The hole of the rock may be understood as the protection of that same Lord Jesus Christ, to which the Church takes refuge, as a dove to the hole of the rock. Hence Isaias says: « Enter into the rock, hide thyself in the trench in the earth (Isa. II). » The hollow of the wall may be taken to signify the defence of the Holy Spirit, or the congregation of the faithful — although the holes of the rock may be understood as the affirmations of the four Gospels, which bear witness that the body of that same rock was pierced through by the blows aforesaid. But the hollow of the wall [is] the teachings of the apostles, out of which God is proved to have built for the people of believers, as for a vineyard, a most firm wall against the assault of the malignant spirits. For as they [came to know] the divine mysteries through Christ, so we too, coming to know them 600Bthrough the apostles, are held within the sight of that faith which they themselves confessed. And because « faith without works is idle (Jac. II), » it is rightly subjoined: « Show me thy face. Let thy voice sound in my ears. For thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely. » As if it were openly said: Show me thy face, I pray; go forth into the public view of action; do not rest under the torpor of repose, and show thy faith by works. And let thy voice sound — that is, the voice of preaching, of praise and of confession — in my ears. For his voice is sweet to God who knows how sweetly and pleasantly, out of the sweetness of the kingdom, to declare the words of the Lord to his neighbours, and to resound praises to the Lord himself. And that faith is comely which, adorned with works, does not fear to suffer adversities. There follows:

« Catch us the little foxes that destroy 600Cthe vines; for our vineyard hath flowered. » The storm of the demons being now over, which above he called winter, the bride, already joined to the king's body through the sacraments of baptism, is invited into the vineyard, that is, into the people of believers gathered to her from the Gentiles, and she finds it putting forth flowers through the good of nature, made ready to trust in the God of heaven. But [it being] made ready for pulling down and devouring by the craft and the ambushes of the foxes that await the ripeness of the fruit — which are the most biting dogmas of the heresy of perverse souls — Jesus says to his teachers: « Catch us the little foxes that destroy demo liuntur the vines, » that is, convict the heretics and schismatics, depraved in faith and deceitful in word, who are wont to tear with the tooth of depraved teaching the untrained minds of the faithful. For our vineyard hath flowered, that is, the holy souls of the elect 600Dbring forth the fruit of faith and of good works far and wide. But what he says, "our," is understood in a twofold way, that is, whether he has called it his own and the Father's, or whether he calls the Church joined to himself a sharer. And when he had seen both the Church from the Jews and, in greatest measure, that from the Gentiles put forth flowers, he prepares hunters or guards to catch the foxes before the flowers bring forth ripe fruits. Of whose number is one who said: "Reproving every man, we bring into captivity every knowledge that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God." [Vulg. 2 Cor. 10:5 brings into captivity "every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" and speaks of "every height," not "every man" and "every knowledge"] For whether the foxes be understood as demons, or as heretics and perverse teachers through whom the demons speak blasphemies, it is manifest that both agree — men through whom the minds 601Aof men, in which the right faith of the Church dwells, are broken apart. Whose destruction, or whose hidden ambushes, we ought carefully to guard against, and to love God with our whole heart that we may deserve to be loved by him; and therefore the Church most rightly subjoins:

« My beloved to me, and I to him. » The Church therefore being joined to Christ, or the soul to the Word of God, so that he may heap upon her a more abundant joy in all things — both those in which he himself is fed with gladness, and what it is that delights him in her, he shows; and what she ought to answer for such great benefits is taught. The bridegroom, that is, desires in her a comely face, as he intimated above: one stained with no blackness of sin, not hidden by base words and by lying, nor dreadful of voice with the hoarseness of blasphemies, but she renders in turn a sweetness resounding 601Bin her praises; and that same Church says: « My beloved to me, and I to him. » Christ and she, head and body, are as one man; and as the members [follow] the head, so by loving she follows him, and for that reason she speaks in this manner. For there is no beloved and helper of the Church save Christ, and no beloved of Christ save the Church: because no other rightly loves Christ save the one only Church, and no other is loved by him save she. « Who feedeth among the lilies, till the day break, and the shadows be bowed down. » That is, who is fed with the cleanness of faith and the whiteness of the virtues, until the true day of that judgment of the world to come arrives, and light arises, and the shadows — that is, the errors of the present world, which hinder us — pass away before the sun of justice, and are bowed down together with their lovers into the chasm of hell.

601C« Return: be like, my beloved, to a roe and to a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel. » [Vulg. Bether] This is the voice of the aforesaid Church to Christ: I beseech thee, my beloved, that thou wouldst return to me more often by the coming of thy visitation, because the flesh which thou tookest from the stock of the patriarchs, rising from the dead, thou hast borne up above every one of the heavenly mountains, that thou mayest lighten the labour of my pilgrimage by eternal beholding. The roe in this place, as we have tasted beforehand above, they say is the flesh of Christ, on account of the likeness of the flesh of sin. He himself is called the young hart, because begotten of the stock of the patriarchs, who after his resurrection returning to the heavens was exalted above the mountains of Bethel, which is called the house of God, that is, the heavenly fatherland of the angels. Whence the Psalmist, speaking to him, 601Dsays: « O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! How exalted is thy magnificence above the heavens! » (Psal. VIII.) [Vulg. reads Quoniam, "For," where Migne prints "How"] Nor indeed is the moral sense to be admitted. For every one of those who believe in God has made himself either a mountain of God by holy conversation, or a mountain of the devil by living perversely. For Bethel is interpreted the house of God, as we have said before. Whoever therefore has so displayed his own life that the Holy Spirit delights to dwell in him, is made a mountain of God, which is the Church of God. Above these things therefore, if at any time, being offended by the sins of the people, he has withdrawn afar, he returns; he is made like in course or in habit to the roe and to the young hart, whose nature it is, when a voice sent forth behind their back resounds before them in the mountains, while they suppose it to be running to meet them, 602Ato return with swifter course to the place from which they had departed. And this is the reason why, being provoked by enemies, it will not forsake its accustomed seat. So too Christ our Lord, however provoked, however exasperated by the sins of men, being called back by fastings and prayers, returns to the accustomed seat of his mercy. And if at any time he seems to be provoked, so that zeal in seeking him may be deservedly increased, no one ought to lose trust nor to cease from seeking. Whence there follows:

« In my little bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth. I sought him, and found him not. » « I came, as is added in certain codices, and called 602Bhim, and he answered me not. » These things therefore, although they were foretold and seem to have been fulfilled in the Lord's burial — while the women keep vigil at the Lord's sepulchre, when the apostles mourn unbearably — yet the things which are subjoined look further to higher matters; as if the Church, or each holy soul, were to say more openly: Long since with much zeal I sought him, but because I was still subject to the enticements of my flesh, and blinded by the darkness of a deep ignorance, I found not the light of truth, that is, the Lord. In another way the Church or the holy soul seeks her beloved in her little bed, when, undisturbed by every commotion of the world, in the quiet of her heart she thinks upon her Lord. Whom, seeking, she therefore finds not at all, in order that, kindled with love of him, seeking more ardently. By night 602Cwe seek, because even if the mind already keeps watch in him, yet the eye is still dim. « I called him, and he answered me not. » Whoever believes Christ to be man only, will not find him. And whoever does not believe deity in Christ, will not find him. And whoever does not believe deity in Christ, calls indeed upon the Lord, the Son of God, in the nights of his perverse senses, but he does not answer him, as he did not answer king Saul, from whom God had withdrawn. Without cause therefore does he spend labour in seeking, who has not confessed in both natures — equal to men without sin, and coeternal with the Father — God who redeemed, and the man through whom God redeemed those who were lost; of whom the Psalmist says: « A brother hath not redeemed, a man shall redeem (Psal. XLVIII). »

602D« I will rise, and will go about the city: through the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth. I sought him, and I found him not. » I purposed in my mind to rise from the little bed of carnal pleasures, and to go about lands and seas, and to approach the mysteries of the philosophers, but not even so did I find him. It can also be understood otherwise. The city in this place is understood as the holy Church of the elect, or Holy Scripture. But the streets and the broad ways he calls the books of the law and of the prophatarum, in which the Church or the elect soul, while she ardently seeks her beloved, that is, Christ, finds him — whom she did not discover in the books of the philosophers.

« The watchmen who keep the city found me. Have you seen him whom my soul loveth? » (Psal. CXXVI.) The watchmen who keep the city, that is, the Church, 603Aare the apostles or the other teachers, who found the anxious heathen world by the searching out of truth. Of whom it is said: « Unless the Lord keep the city, they watch in vain that keep it (Psal. CXXVI). » [Vulg. Ps. 126:1 is singular — "in vain hath he watched that keepeth it" — and reads "in vain" with a different word]

« When I had a little passed by, I found him whom my soul loveth. » That is, when I gave myself over to their teaching, at once I found the light of truth which I sought. Otherwise: as we seek, the watchmen who keep the city find us, because the holy Fathers, who keep the state of the Church, meet our good endeavours, that they may teach us either by their word or by their writing. And when we have a little passed them by, we find him whom we love, because our Redeemer, even if in humility he was a man among men, yet in divinity he was above men. 603BFor unless a man has passed by all the saints with the steps of faith and with a pure mind, and has believed Christ more excellent than all the saints, he will by no means be able to find him. « I held his hand, nor will I let him go, till I bring him into my father's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me. » [Vulg. Song 3:4 reads "I held him" and "into the house of my mother"] I hold him with firm faith, until at the end of the world, by the office of preaching, I bring him into the house and into the chamber of the Synagogue, which bore me in the Lord, « and there shall be one fold and one shepherd (Joan. X). » There follows:

« I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up, nor awake my beloved, till she please. » Wherever therefore in this song like words of believers at divers times are found, the persons of divers 603Cpeoples are brought in. For here the person of that people seems to be introduced which after Christ's ascension, wearied with longing, sought him whom her soul loved — the Church, namely, from the Gentiles, which, being a little fortified with the peace of tranquillity, desired to rest in the sleep of security; and therefore the bridegroom repeats this verse, lest you should think he had less solicitude for the Church gathered from the Gentiles than for the Jews, but that of the two there might be one bride, and she most beloved — which little verse we have already expounded above. The daughters of Jerusalem are the souls of the elect, which behold the vision, that is, the peace of that heavenly Jerusalem. The roes or the harts are understood as the Fathers of the New and of the Old Testament, whose pastures are in the height of contemplation.

603D« Who is she that goeth up by the desert? » This, I think, is the nation going up by the desert, which Paul the teacher of the Gentiles, gathered from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, and anointed with the ointments of doctrine, and sprinkled with the spices of the mysteries of the sacraments, leads all the way to the bed of the peaceable king, of which we read in what follows. Whence the Synagogue wonders how the people of the Gentiles, cleansed by no mystery of circumcision, instructed by no admonition of the prophets, had suddenly gone up from the lowest pleasures, through the desert of heathenism and of idolatry, to the high summits of the virtues and to the embraces of the bridegroom. Truly it was a desert place where the name of Christ had not been named. « As a little rod of smoke, of the spices 604Aof myrrh and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer. » That is, kindled with the fire of love, or straining toward heavenly things with every effort of the virtues. By myrrh, the mortification of carnal pleasures; by frankincense, the equality of prayers; and in the divers powders of the perfumer, the odour of all the virtues. But morally, when the holy Church of the elect raises herself from this world in holy prayers with burning love, she goes up through the desert which she has deserted. Smoke is born of incense. And by the Psalmist it is said: « Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight, O Lord (Ps. CXL). » Smoke is wont to shake out tears. And so the smoke from the spices is the compunction of prayer conceived out of the virtues of love. Which prayer, however, is called a little rod of smoke, because while it asks for heavenly things alone, it goes forth so straight 604Bthat it is not in the least bent back to the seeking of earthly and temporal things. And it is to be noted that it is called not a rod but a little rod, because sometimes, in the ardour of compunction, the force of love is of such subtlety that not even the mind itself, which enlightened has deserved to have it, [can] comprehend it. Well is this said, "of myrrh and frankincense." For frankincense by the law of the Lord is burnt in sacrifice. But by myrrh dead bodies are embalmed, lest they be corrupted by worms. They therefore offer the sacrifice of myrrh and frankincense who both afflict the flesh, lest the vices of corruption have dominion over them, and burn the fragrant victim of their love in the sight of the Lord, and show forth themselves to God in holy virtues. Whence there also is subjoined: « And of all the powders of the perfumer. » The powder of the perfumer 604Cis the virtue of good working. And it is to be noted that the virtues of those who work well are called not perfumes but powders. For when we do any good things, we offer perfumes. But when we go back over those very good things which we do, and take heed by the judgment of review lest there be anything sinister in them, we make, as it were, powder out of perfumes, so that we may burn our prayer to the Lord more subtly by discretion and by love.

« Behold threescore surround the bed of Solomon, of the most valiant of Israel. » [Vulg. Song 3:7 reads "threescore valiant ones surround it"; Migne's lemma omits the word "valiant," which the gloss below expounds] Solomon, who is interpreted the peaceable, signifies the Lord Jesus Christ. The bed of Solomon is the quiet mind of the saints, in whom he himself rests as in a bed. The threescore valiant ones are the holy preachers, and most valiant warriors, who with a clean heart are worthy to see God. 604DFor the number six is perfect, on account of the six days in which God made the world and the six ages of the world. But the number ten pertains to the decalogue of the law. Which, when it has been multiplied by six, they make up sixty. Six times ten are sixty.

« All holding swords, and most expert in war: every man's sword upon his thigh, because of fears in the night. » For they hold the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, who fulfil in works what they teach with the mouth. But the sword is a watchful guard, pressing down the concupiscences of the heart, lest the uncleanness of life stain the word of preaching. But the fears of the night are the ambushes of the devil and hidden temptations. For neither is it to be believed of Solomon, a king of such 605Agreatness, who so overflowed with immense riches that the weight of his gold could not be reckoned, and silver in his days had no price, that he made himself a litter of the woods of Libanus, as there follows:

« King Solomon made him a litter of the woods of Libanus. » The litter of Solomon is the holy Church, which lifts believers to the banquets of eternal blessedness, which is built of those strong in soul as of woods that cannot rot.

« The pillars thereof he made of silver. » The silver pillars are the teachers shining with the light of eloquence. « The seat of gold. » The golden seat is the hope of perpetual rest promised to the faithful, or the splendour of that inmost brightness in which the souls of the elect recline unto rest. And the golden seat rests upon silver pillars, 605Bbecause through this, that he is said to shine from the holy preachers, the minds of the hearers find the splendour of the brightness in which they may recline. For through this, that they hear clearly and openly, they rest in that which grows bright in the heart. Silver pillars therefore and a golden seat have been made, because through the light of speech there is found in the mind the brightness of rest. For he already shines who inwardly irradiates the mind, so that by intention it may rest there where the grace of preaching is not sought. But further, as to what is shown bright within, he adds of what sort the ascent is, when he immediately subjoins concerning the same litter: « The going up of purple. » What is the purple going up, save the blood of the martyrs and the passion of our Redeemer? For there is no going up to the banquets of life save through the mystery 605Cof Christ's passion. And well is the purple going up subjoined. For true purple, because it is dyed from blood, is not undeservedly seen in the colour of blood. And because the greatest multitude of the faithful, in the beginning of the Church's birth, came to the kingdom through the blood of martyrdom. Our King made a purple going up in the litter, because to that bright thing which is beheld within, one comes through the tribulation of blood. What then shall we do, wretched and destitute of all fortitude? Behold, we cannot be pillars in this litter, because in us neither the fortitude of work nor the light of preaching shines forth. We have no seat, because we do not yet, as we ought, behold through spiritual understanding the rest of eternal charity. We are not the purple going up, because we are not strong enough to pour out our blood for our 605DRedeemer. What then is to be done concerning us? what hope will there be, if none comes to the kingdom save he who has been endowed with the highest virtues? But our consolation too is at hand: let us love God as much as we can, let us love our neighbour also, and we too belong at the same time to God's litter, because, as it is written, he covered it with charity in the midst. For he has charity, and there without doubt thou dost come beforehand, where both the silver pillar is raised and the purple going up is held: for that this is said on account of our weakness is openly shown when it is subjoined there: « He covered it with charity in the midst, because of the daughters of Jerusalem. » They say daughters, not sons, that is, the weak: by the sons of Jerusalem he signifies the minds 606Aof those who are weak, for whom, among the holy preachers and martyrs, he has appointed a place in the heavenly things through the precepts of charity; because those also who are weak in the virtues, if they do not neglect to do with charity the very good things which they can, are not strangers to the building of God. For everyone who has the charity of God and of his neighbour comes with gladness to this rest and to these banquets. All these ornaments Christ bestowed upon the Church, out of the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, and delivered himself up for us.

« Go forth and see, ye daughters of Jerusalem, king Solomon. » [Vulg. Song 3:11 reads "daughters of Sion"] To this gladness therefore, and to the contemplation of the secrets of this mystery, not the weak but the perfect souls are called together, they who understand dominion in king Solomon, to whom it is said: Go forth 606Bin mind and in deed from the turbulent converse of the world, that you may be able to see the king. « In the diadem wherewith his mother crowned him. » See the Lord Christ in the humanity which, taken from his virgin mother, he set at the right hand of the Father's majesty. « In the day of his espousals. » That is, in the time of his incarnation, in which he came forth from the virginal womb to join to himself the Church as bride. « And in the day of the joy of his heart. » That is, of the redemption of the human race, which was a day of joy to Christ. Otherwise: he admonishes that holy souls should always have before the eyes of the heart king Solomon, that is, our peaceable one, who is Christ. In the diadem, that is, in that crown of thorns wherewith his mother crowned him, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, of which according to the flesh 606Che was begotten, in the day of his espousals, in which he espoused to himself the Church. What greater gladness could there be to Christ, than when through his passion the redemption of the human race was accomplished?

« How beautiful thou art, my love, how beautiful thou art! » He praises, that is, the twofold beauty of the Church, scraped clean of every habit of the vices of the flesh, and turned from the worship of many foul gods to the one true God. He called the Church beautiful, and he repeats "beautiful," because he saw her to be praiseworthy both in preaching and in action. « Thy eyes are of doves. » Thy senses, he says, are excellent in the contemplation of spiritual things, and modest. Or by the eyes the holy 606Dteachers are understood, the glory of the people. « Besides that which lieth hid within. » Great indeed is the glory of open work, but far more undesirable is that of the eternal recompense, which cannot yet be seen. « Thy hair is as flocks of goats, which have come up from mount Galaad. » By the hairs the faithful peoples may be understood, who by their multitude furnish the greatest adornment to the Church. Galaad is interpreted a heap of testimony, which well suits the united multitude of the saints. By the hairs there may be designated in particular those very men who believed from the circumcision; these came up from mount Galaad, because through the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures they came to the faith.

« Thy teeth are as flocks of the shorn, which have come up 607Afrom the washing. » In the hairs the more frail are designated, but to those seeing, all the more perfect, and the expounders of the holy Scriptures, and those fit for governing the Church, who do not need the milk of doctrine, and who by chewing impart solid food to others. Which have come up from the washing, that is, from the font of holy baptism — who are both shorn and washed, that is, stripped of their goods, renouncing the world, and cleansed by the washing of life. « All with twin offspring. » That is, fruitful with a twofold charity, or with faith and work. « And there is none barren among them: » there is none who does not bring forth the offspring of good work.

« Thy lips are as a scarlet fillet, and thy speech is sweet. » Scarlet is the color of blood; the scarlet fillet (it is called myrrh) designates the gore of the blessed martyrs. Or the scarlet fillet is understood as the doctrine of truth. 607BThe lips of the bride, that is, of the Church, are likened to scarlet, because she does not cease to preach the price of the Lord's blood by which she was redeemed, and in preaching she blazes with the ardor of holy charity, and makes her hearers burning in the love of God. « As a piece of a pomegranate, so are thy cheeks, besides that which lieth hid within. » In the cheeks modesty is expressed, in the pomegranate the passion of Christ. The bride therefore has in her cheeks the redness of a pomegranate, when she confesses in words the mystery of the Lord's cross, and proves it by deeds. Otherwise: For those make the face of the Church comely who, with modesty accompanying, keep chastity. Or assuredly the cheeks of the Church are the holy martyrs, who, imitating the passion of Christ, have been suffused with the rosy comeliness of their own blood, like a piece of a pomegranate.

607C« Thy neck is as the tower of David, which is built with its own bulwarks. » The tower of David is holy Church, or the perfection or doctrine of the saints, which is not from itself, but from Christ. The neck is the preachers themselves, by whose constancy that same city is both firm and on every side unconquerable. But the bulwarks of that same city are the defenses of the holy Scriptures, or the examples of the preceding fathers. « A thousand bucklers hang upon it. » Because as many as are the precepts in the divine books, so many are the defenses of our breast, by which we are defended against all snares. « All the armor of valiant men. » It is every equipping, whether of work or of heavenly doctrine, through which we not only escape but even overcome. Let us speak as Pope Gregory, after his manner, wonderfully thunders. 607DFor in the neck is the throat, in the throat the voice. What is designated by the neck of holy Church, if not the sacred utterances? On which a thousand bucklers are recorded to hang: by this perfect number the universal number is shown, because our whole fortification is contained in sacred utterance. For there are the precepts of God, there the examples of the just. For if the soul grows sluggish from the desire of its Creator, let it hear what is said: « Thou shalt love the Lord thy God (Exod. XX), » and the rest. Perhaps it slips into hatred of its neighbor: let it hear what is said: « Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Matth. XXII). » It covets the goods of others: let it hear what is written there: « Thou shalt not covet the property of thy neighbor (Exod. XX). » [Vulg. domum proximi tui, "the house of thy neighbor"] The mind is kindled to anger over an injury inflicted by a neighbor's mouth or deed: 608Alet it hear what is said: « Seek not revenge, nor shalt thou be mindful of the injury of thy fellow citizens (Levit. XIX). » The mind, ill-wounded, is kindled in the concupiscence of the flesh; lest the eye follow the mind, let it hear what was said: « He that shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matth. V). » Perhaps someone purposes to let his soul loose in hatred against an enemy: let him hear what is written there: « Love your enemies (Ibid.), » and the rest. But he who now seizes not the goods of others, yet perhaps still holds them in a disordered way: let him hear what is said there: « Sell what you possess, and give alms (Luc. XII). » The soul of one growing weak, who desires to enjoy God and the world at once: let it hear what is written there: « No man 608Bcan serve two masters (Matth. VI). » Another keeps his possessions not for the necessity of a livelihood, but for the will of desire: let him hear what is said there: « He that shall not renounce all that he possesses, cannot be my disciple (Luc. XIV). » On the neck of the Church, that is, in the preaching of sacred utterance — which for its fortification and its height is called like the tower of David — a thousand bucklers hang, because as many as are the precepts there, so many also are the defenses of our breast, as has been said: And so, for the keeping of innocence, even when wronged by a neighbor we hasten to persevere in humility. Let Abel come before our eyes, who is both said to have been slain by his brother, and is not read to have resisted. So is it to be judged of the other examples of the saints. Because therefore in the voice of sacred utterance, if we seek the defenses 608Cof any virtue whatever, we find them. A thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men. For behold, if we hasten to stand strong against the powers of the air, in this tower we find the armor of our mind, so that from it we may take the precepts of the Creator, from it the examples of the preceding fathers, by which we may be armed unconquerably against our adversaries. And it is to be noted that it is said to be built with its own bulwarks. For here the bulwarks do what the bucklers do, since both fortify the fighter. But this differs between the two, that we move bucklers wherever we wish for our defense, whereas by a bulwark we can be defended, but we cannot move it. The buckler is in the hand: for the bulwark is not held. What then differs between bulwarks and bucklers, save that in sacred 608Dutterance we both read the miracles of the preceding fathers, which we are not able to work, and hear the virtues of good works, by which in working we can be fortified?

« Thy two breasts are like two twin fawns of a roe, that feed among the lilies, till the day break and the shadows incline. » The two breasts of the Church are the two Testaments. The two fawns are the two peoples, coming from the circumcision and from heathendom, because from thence they are nourished. And these through humility understand themselves to be little ones and sinners, and running with charity they pass over all the obstacles of the world. Which feed among the lilies, that is, among the most white examples or doctrines of the saints. Of which we read that it was discussed above, as it were from the armor of valiant men. Till the eternal day break, and the shadows of the present life pass away. 609AAnd of this we have already discussed above. « I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. » By myrrh the mortification of the flesh is expressed, by frankincense the devotion of prayer. As if the Bridegroom were to say: I will frequent them, and, propitious, I will glorify with a holy illumination those whom I find to be sublime in virtues through sufferings or prayers. Otherwise: It is the voice of the imperfect, who ascend to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense when they desire to be imitators of those who were pleasing through the mortification of the flesh and most pure prayers.

« Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot in thee. » This is what the Apostle says (Eph. V): « That he might present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot » of evil working, « nor wrinkle » of a doubled 609Bfaith.

« Come from Libanus, my bride, come from Libanus, come. » Libanus is interpreted whiteness, that is, the soul made white by good acts, whom the Bridegroom exhorts a third time to come. First, coming in the flesh through good works; second, released from the flesh to receive eternal life; third, the body having been taken back, to enjoy the perfect joys after the resurrection. « Thou shalt be crowned from the head of Amana, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. » Lions on account of pride, leopards on account of cruelty, designate the malign spirits; but by the name of mountains are designated the proud hearts of unbelievers, where unclean spirits have their seat. While holy preachers convert such men to the life of salvation, they are crowned from the head and from the top 609Cof the mountains, that is, from the princes of the wicked: because from the labor of the contest the crown of glory grows. Otherwise: Libanus, as has been said, is interpreted a whitening. For unless a man has received the remission of sins through the whiteness of holy baptism, he cannot come to Christ. For Sanir is interpreted a lamp; Amana, iniquity; but Hermon, consecration. All which are referred to Christ, who consecrates those whom he enlightens after iniquity, and crowns them also. They come from the dens of lions who run to the faith from the houses of the kings and princes of this world. From the mountains, he says, of leopards, they who, having left behind the elation of pride or the tradition of divers philosophers, go simple and humble to Christ.

« Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, thou hast wounded 609Dmy heart. » In the wounding of the heart the greatness of Christ's love in the Church is understood. « With one of thy eyes, and with one hair of thy neck. » That is, in the holy unity of the teachers; and with one hair of thy neck, that is, in the devout unity of the subject people, that is, of the hairs. Again: With that eye, therefore, the Church was pleasing to Christ, with which she looked not on temporal things, but on eternal. Whence the Psalmist: « One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life » (Psal. XXVI). « And with one hair of the neck, » which sought to be adorned not with visible things, but with eternal. And this Church is alike the sister of Christ and his bride. Bride, that is, through faith; sister, through love.

610A« How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my bride. » By the name of breasts the holy teachers are expressed, on account of the consolation of the weak and the sustaining of little ones. The sweetness of grace is more beautiful than the austerity of the law. « And the odor of thy ointments above all spices. » The most sweet report of the faith, spread through the whole world, is broader than that of the old law and of the fathers in it, which are confined within Judea alone. What is meant by spices, save the gifts of the Old Testament, which are compared to the odor of the Church, that is, to the grace of the Holy Spirit, or to her most beautiful virtues. The Bridegroom continues always to render like for like to the Church, just as the Church had praised him above. Therefore he says: « Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, » and the rest.

« Thy lips are a dropping honeycomb, O bride. » What is meant by 610Bthe wax, if not the letter? and by the honey, if not the spiritual sense? The honey in the wax is the spiritual sense of the divine utterances within the letter. The honey drips from the wax, because almost every single sentence brings forth manifold senses. The lips of the bride are the teachers, who lay open the manifold senses that lie within the sacred letters. « Honey and milk are under thy tongue. » In the milk the instruction of little ones, in the honey the stronger doctrine of the perfect is signified. Under the tongue, that is, in the meditation of the heart. There is no need to subjoin what Paul the Apostle says thereupon: « And the odor of thy garments is as the odor of frankincense. » The garments of the Church are her good works, which are compared to the odor of frankincense: because all the holy things that the Church does for the Lord render in return the office of prayers on her behalf. For the garments of the Church are understood as her preachers, 610Csending up pure and clean prayers to the Lord.

« My sister, my bride, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. » Above, in the preface, we determined to discuss this succinctly. The garden enclosed is the Church: enclosed, because, fortified by the Lord's protection, she stands firm in the holy faith; a garden, because she brings forth manifold seeds of spiritual works, or she is so called on account of the sons who are spiritual through baptism. She is a fountain, because she overflows with saving doctrine. She is called sealed up by the word of faith.

« Thy shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of the orchard. » Through the watering of holy baptism, holy Church sends forth a paradise out of herself, because the men whom she begets through holy baptism 610Dshe desires to direct to the paradise of heaven. The pomegranates are called the holy martyrs; by the fruits of the orchard the sweetnesses of good works are understood. But because not only the command but also the coming is at hand, we have resolved from this point to pluck the sentences of the book more hastily than we had begun to draw them out above, lest we should seem to exceed the measure of the little book, as we have confessed.

« Cypress with spikenard, spikenard with saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon. » [Vulg. nardus et crocus, "spikenard and saffron"] The cypress is an aromatic tree, signifying the blessing of heavenly grace. Spikenard holds the type of the Lord's passion. Saffron expresses the fervor of charity. The cypress is joined to the spikenard when divine grace strengthens coufortat us to suffer with Christ. Again, the spikenard is joined with the saffron when through charity 611Awe willingly undergo the death of Christ. Sweet cane, which is also called cassa, is an aromatic tree, but a small one, and therefore it designates the humble in spirit. Again cinnamon signifies those who deceive themselves, and it too is a low tree, but fragrant and sweet. So humility has great praise and sweetness with him. « With all the trees of Libanus. » As sweet cane and cinnamon designate the humble thoughts of the saints, so also the trees of Libanus designate their lofty actions: « because a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits (Matth. VII). » « Myrrh and aloes with all the chief ointments. » Myrrh and aloes are aromatic trees, which express the mortifications of the vices and the penance of the flesh. With all the chief ointments, that is, with the more excellent free gifts of the virtues. And 611Bbeautiful is the joining of these trees with the ointments, because while we bridle the flesh from wantonness, it follows that we receive the greater gifts of the Spirit.

« The fountain of gardens, the well of living waters, which flow with force from Libanus. » The Church is both: she is the fountain of gardens, because she begets spiritual fruits, and the well of living waters, on account of the hidden mysteries which are laid open to the saints alone through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Of living waters, on account of the divine utterances which proceed from the invisible treasures of divine grace. Which flow with force from Libanus, that is, from the Church herself, who is both white through the cleanness of faith, and lofty through the glory of the virtues. Otherwise: By the fountain of gardens Christ is understood, watering his Church. By the well of waters the Holy 611CSpirit is understood, from whom divers gifts are said to proceed: which are called living, because those whom they fill they make to live. Which flow from Libanus, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. By the fountain, which runs openly, Christ can be understood according to his humanity; by the well, which has hidden and most deep water, the same according to his divinity. From whom the waters flow with force, as he himself bears witness in the Gospel: « He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (Joan. VII). »

« Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and the aromatical spices thereof shall flow. » This is the voice of the Bridegroom: for in the north wind the adversities of the world are designated, in the south wind its blandishments, because by a twofold assault the Church is proved. Arise: this is the voice of one permitting, 611Dnot of one commanding. In the aromatical spices are understood the virtues of the conscience, set in order with a marvelous odor. Otherwise: By the north wind, which is said to be cold and to freeze the earth, lest it bring forth fruit, the devil is understood. He is bidden to withdraw from the garden, that is, from the Church. But by the south wind, which is a warm wind, and is said to loose the earth from the frosts, the Holy Spirit is intimated. Who by blowing, that is, by enlightening his holy Church with his gifts, makes her to bud it forth in divers virtues. Well does he say: « Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, » and the rest. Because assuredly, when the Spirit of truth has filled holy Church with the virtues of his gifts, he scatters from her far and wide the odors of good work.

• 612A

« Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apple trees. » That is, let Christ come into his Church, and himself keep her everywhere unspotted, and make her fruitful with the fruit of faith, and gladly look upon and thankfully receive the works of his saints. « I am come into my garden, my sister, my bride. » This is not the voice of one commanding, but of one declaring a past time. As if he were to say: I have come, he says, most often into my Church, and I come to correct, to help and to confirm, even as thou hast besought. « I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatical spices. » By myrrh, suffering or mortification; by the aromatical spices, all the virtues are expressed. He reaps the myrrh with the aromatical spices, since he leads the martyrs, with the rest of the elect, to the ripeness 612Bof their rewards. « I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, and I have drunk my wine with my milk. » In the honeycomb and the wine the preachers are understood, in the honey and the milk the hearers, and over both is the inward judge who proves and rewards. « Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved. I sleep, and my heart watcheth. » It is the voice of Christ to the Church. As if he were to say openly: Friends, by doing the things I command. Dearly beloved, by embracing with whole charity. I beseech you therefore, fill your inward parts with the deeds of the saints, as with choice banquets. To whom the Church answered: « I sleep, and my heart watcheth, » that is: by the giving of God's grace, I worship him in the peace of the present life; and the more tranquilly I am free from inward assaults, the more loftily I see how good God is. Morally, a man sleeps with a watching heart 612Cwho, by the fact that he advances inwardly in contemplating, rests from restless work without. But among these things it is to be known that, so long as one lives in this mortal flesh, no man so advances in the virtue of contemplation that he fixes the eyes of his mind upon that ray of light which is now uncircumscribed. For neither is almighty God yet beheld in his own brightness, but the soul discerns something beneath that brightness, whereby, being refreshed, it may advance, and afterward attain to the glory of his vision. This voice can also be understood as addressed to the apostles: « Eat and drink. » As if he were to say: Let there be joy and refreshment to us from the conversion of the peoples, who pass over into your unity.

« The voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. » The Lord knocks when he teaches through 612Dholy doctrine the things that are good. Or he knocks at the door of our heart when he rouses us to the increase of the virtues. For the Church opens when she lays bare to him the inmost parts of her heart. She is called sister, because she is co-heir through the blood of Christ. Love, because she is privy to his secrets, or through love, because she keeps the things that are commanded. Dove, because she is enlightened by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Undefiled, because she alone is worthy of the sight of God. « For my head is full of dew, and the locks of my head of the drops of the nights. » The head of Christ is God. The locks are the gatherings of the faithful. In the dew and the drops of the nights is shown the charity growing cold in many, which they ought to have had toward God and toward their neighbors. Therefore of necessity the Lord rouses each of the faithful to the zeal 613Aof preaching. And to him, calling her to the labor of teaching, the Church answered:

« I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? » As if she were to say openly: I have forsaken worldly business for thy sake, how shall I seek it again? « I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? » That is: I have already washed away earthly thoughts with the tears of secret compunction, how shall I be polluted again with the filth of the world? Because the office of preaching can scarcely be without worldly occupation. Otherwise: The priests in the Church, who in the very congregation of the faithful minister the visible sacraments, are described as certain locks in her adornment. But because for the most part they are darkened by the village of this mortality, or by works of darkness, weighed down as with the drops of the nights, they seem as it were to cleave to Christ. 613BBut because they do not sincerely announce that same Christ, therefore, groaning for such men, there follows: « I have stripped off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? » That is: coming to the faith, I have already laid aside the old man according to my former manner of life, and have put on the new; and if any defilement came upon my feet while I was walking among earthly things, it has been washed away by Christ's washing; and now I behold the ministers of the sacraments, by whom I ought to be ordained, infected with carnal vices. Is it right that I should suffer myself again to be defiled by my former evils, by living ill after their examples?

« My beloved put his hand through the key hole. » My beloved indeed puts his hand through the key hole 613Cwhen the Lord invisibly kindles us by hidden compunction to the work of the virtues, and teaches us to pass through the strait and narrow way to the kingdoms of heaven, and calls back to our memory how and how greatly he suffered for us, coming down from the bosom of the Father. « And my belly trembled at his touch. » The bride, recalling these things in her inmost conscience, wholly terrified, accusing the sloth of her rest, hastens to the labor of preaching. Morally: The beloved puts his hand through the key hole when by his power the Lord knocks at our mind through a subtle understanding. And the belly trembles at his touch, because our weakness, by the very fact that it is touched by an understanding of heavenly joy, is troubled by its own exultation; and there comes to be in the mind a dread within the gladness, because it now feels what it loves of heavenly 613Djoy, and still fears that it may not obtain what it scarcely and faintly feels. What therefore remains, save what follows:

« I arose up to open to my beloved: my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh. » It is the voice of the bride. To arise is to awaken in heart to Christ. To open is to preach the word of God, or to bring forth pure confusion. In the hands works are signified, in the fingers discretion, or else the martyrs. In the myrrh, the mortification of the flesh, or sufferings. Which is then the choicest, when either continence is practiced, or sufferings are undergone, solely for the charity of God and of one's neighbor

« I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved. » The Church 614Aopened the bolt to the Bridegroom, because she makes the temple of her breast worthy of the divine visitation and indwelling. « But he had turned aside and was gone. » Because to no one in this life is the full vision of God granted, as it is in the life to come, therefore he is said to pass by, because in the life to come he shows himself more fully to be seen and enjoyed. « My soul melted, as the beloved spoke. » The Church continues in the wonder of her amazement. The more sweetly, she says, I received the voice and the nearness of my beloved, the more loftily did whatever was cold in me grow warm with charity, and whatever was rigid melted away. « I sought him and found him not. » Because the gift of compunction and of inward sweetness is not in the choice of him who wills, but in the mercy of him who gives. Therefore they do not always have it in equal measure, because God does not so offer himself 614Bto those laboring in exile as to those reigning in the fatherland.

« The keepers that go about the city found me: they struck me and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took away my cloak from me. » The keepers of the city, that is, of the Church, are the holy teachers, who by diligent preaching go about the hearts of individuals, and wound them with the darts of heavenly love, and set them aflame that they may burn the more, and take from them the covering of their old manner of life. By the keepers of the city there can also be understood the powers of this world, who are known to rule the commonwealth as a kind of city. For these, seizing the elect Church in her first beginnings as she believed in Christ, laid her waste with blows and torments, and, slaying her priests and ministers, 614Ctook away, as it were, a certain cloak of her adornment.

« I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love. » Who the daughters of Jerusalem are has often been said: rightly does the bride languish when, struck with the sword of the word of God, she puts off the mantle of earthly action. And she adjures the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, the souls worthy of God, to carry the greatness of her love to God, and to ask for themselves heavenly help toward seeing his glory.

« What manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, O thou most beautiful among women? what manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, that thou hast so adjured us? » It is the voice of the holy preachers 614Dquestioning her and inquiring after the faith of the Church from her answer; that is: I beseech thee, since thou hast so adjured me, that thou show me the love by which thou sayest thou languishest, and make manifest what manner of one thy beloved is of the beloved, that is, the Son of the Father, God of God, and in what part he may be loved and not feared. since « perfect charity casteth out fear. »

« My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. » The beloved of the Church, Christ, is white, because without sin. Otherwise: He is called white according to that word, « in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. » Ruddy, because « the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. » Or white in virginity, ruddy 615Ain the blood of his passion. Chosen out of thousands, because he alone is the mediator of God and men.

« His head is as the finest gold. » The head of Christ is God. As among metals nothing is better than gold, so neither among creatures shall anything be compared to the Creator, because he alone is good and best. « His locks are as branches of palm trees, black as a raven. » The locks of Christ are the companies of the saints, which cleave to God in faithful service. Branches of palm, according to that word of the Apostle: « Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. III): » Black, on account of their contempt among men, or because they testify that they are sinners. They can also be called branches on account of victory, and black on account of afflictions: The Bridegroom praised the beauty of the bride, and therefore the bride renders like for like and praises him.

615B« His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters. » That is, the holy teachers, through whom the Church sees the things that are right: who are well compared to doves on account of simplicity and innocence, and to brooks of waters on account of the divine free gifts. « Which are washed with milk, and sit beside the plentiful streams. » He calls them washed with milk, that is, cleansed with most sweet grace, or purified through baptism. The plentiful streams are the abundance of all spiritual gifts. In the brooks there can be designated the instruction of the old law, and in the streams the fullest perfection of evangelical doctrine, because the holy preachers bring forth from their treasures new things and old (Matth. XIII).

« His cheeks are as beds of aromatical spices, set by the perfumers. » In the cheeks of our Saviour his modest 615Cmercy, and at the same time his severity, is expressed. By the beds of aromatical spices his virtues and his sweetness and the report of his glory are designated. Set by the perfumers, that is, by the prophets and the apostles, who tell the secrets of his incarnation to come, and his deeds. Otherwise: As in the eyes the apostles, so in his cheeks are understood those Churches which in the first beginnings believed through the apostles, and out of a holy manner of life brought forth from themselves, as it were a bed of aromatical spices, unto the gift of the virtues; which beds were set, that is, instructed, by devout preachers, that is to say, « His lips are lilies dropping choice myrrh. » His lips are the words of doctrine. Lips, because by their brightness they promise the heavenly kingdom. Dropping choice myrrh, because they preach that it is to be attained through the contempt of present pleasures. Otherwise: The lips 615Dof Christ are his teachers, virgins in mind or even in flesh. And in this they preach his passion and death, that for him who died for us we should not refuse to undergo death.

« His hands are turned and golden, » etc. His hands are his works, because what he taught in words he fulfilled in deeds. Turned and golden, because they hold in themselves the whole rule of justice, as he himself says: « For so it becometh us to fulfil all justice (Matth. III). » They are called golden, because all that he did in man, he filled with the glory of his divinity. Full of hyacinths, because he rouses us to the hope and the love of heavenly things, since the hyacinth is a gem of an ethereal color. There can also be reckoned among the hands of Christ those who do not cease to work the things that are good, 616Abecause for the hope of the kingdom of heaven they always persist in every good work, and are ready to bring it to perfection.

« His belly is of ivory, set with sapphires. » The belly, then, of the beloved designates the frailty of his humanity. The ivory, the comeliness of chastity; the sapphire, the loftiness of the heavenly virtues. Set with sapphires, because partly his human frailty is understood in hunger, temptation, weariness, death; partly his divine loftiness in miracles, in the resurrection and in the glory of the ascension. By the belly there can be understood those in the body of Christ who, believing, bring forth in faith a good work. The belly of ivory is also understood as the font of holy baptism, or of ivory on account of the perseverance of chastity, out of which all believers are born in faith and persevere in the chastity of faith and of mind.

616B« His legs are as pillars of marble, that are set upon bases of gold. » By the word "legs" the journeys of Christ's incarnation are intimated, which are compared to pillars of marble on account of their firmness and straightness. Which are set upon bases of gold, because whatsoever was done by him or concerning him, all of it was ordained before the ages of the world by the counsel of the divine promise. Otherwise: The legs, which bear the whole body, are they who uphold the gift of the Church, as it were the gift of the pillars. In fine, both in the tabernacle and in the temple pillars of silver were wrought, in signification of the teachers who uphold the fabric of the Church. Set upon bases of gold, that is, upon the preaching of the preceding fathers, and strengthened through the books of the law and of the Gospel. « His stature is as that of Libanus. » 616CAs Libanus excels the other mountains in loftiness and in the grace of its trees, so assuredly the Lord Christ excels all the saints in the loftiness of merits and in the grace of virtues. « Chosen as the cedar. » [Vulg. ut cedri, "as the cedars"] As the cedar surpasses in its own dignity the other trees that grow on Libanus, so Christ transcends by his own glory all who are born to life in the Church.

« His throat is most sweet, and he is all lovely. » In the throat the inward sweetness of his words is recorded, and he who tastes it does not hunger. In the throat there can also be understood those who expound the mysteries of Christ, and daily meditate on his law, who bring forth from their mouth the word of preaching. And he is all lovely: O man, what more dost thou seek? He is all lovely, because he is wholly God and wholly man, on whom 616Dthe angels desire to look. God in the majesty of the Father, man in the virginity of his mother: in the one the Creator, in the other the Saviour. « Such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. » The Church speaks exulting with thanksgiving, on account of her reconciliation and the known mysteries of her Bridegroom, and, as it were rejoicing and made more familiar, she says: The more devoutly a man loves God, the more familiarly he holds him as a friend; and such, she says, must thou understand him to be, if thou wilt have him for thy friend.

« Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou most beautiful among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? and we will seek him with thee. » This is the voice of the young maidens who 617Aspeak to the bride. For the persons of the speakers are varied for the comeliness of the song, but nevertheless this most beautiful among women designates the Church of Christ, which is expressed by the word "bride." Beautiful are the several churches of the saints, but most beautiful is the whole body of the entire holy Church throughout the whole world. Otherwise: For rightly is holy Church called most beautiful among women, because she is a virgin and uncorrupted, to whom the Apostle, speaking, says: « For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (II Cor. XI). » And so the peoples of the heretics, of the Jews and of the hypocrites are called women, but corrupted in faith and in work. But the Church alone is most beautiful not only in the font of baptism and in the variety of the virtues, but in faith and in work, not having spot or wrinkle. For 617Bthe young maidens say: Whither is thy beloved turned aside? we will seek him with thee; that is: tell us whither he has turned aside who once dwelt on earth in bodily form, that we may follow him with thee.

« My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the little bed of spices, » and the rest. As though he had said: Thither he ascended, whence he came down. Into the garden, that is, into his Church, that he might water her with the fountain of his grace, as it were a little bed of spices, that she might bud forth with the flowers of the virtues. Otherwise: The beloved of the Church, Christ, came down into his garden when he visited his former people. By the little bed of spice he means holy Mary the Virgin herself, of whom he was born 617Caccording to the flesh: « That he may feed in the gardens, and gather lilies. » That is, that he may reign among the nations, or take his delight in the Churches, that out of them he may take to himself virgins and saints. Otherwise: « That he may feed in the gardens and gather lilies. » He feeds in the gardens while he takes delight in the holy labors of the saints. He gathers lilies while he leads to the heavenly kingdoms those who come to the whiteness of perfect merits.

« I to my beloved, and my beloved to me, who feedeth among the lilies. » These things holy Church speaks out of the confidence of her love. I prepare for my beloved a place of dwelling in myself, and he for me with himself. I am his kingdom, and he my king. I am his body, and he my head: who is ever fed, that is 617Ddelighted, among the holy desires of chaste minds or bodies. Thus far it is the voice of holy Church seeking and praising; now what he who is sought may answer is subjoined.

« Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army set in array. » Thou art beautiful, holy Church, through justice: my love, because ever peaceable; for Jerusalem is interpreted the vision of peace, by whose name the heavenly fatherland is expressed. Holy Church is called sweet and comely as Jerusalem, because her life and her desire are already compared to the vision of inmost peace, so that in this — that she loves her author, that she longs to see his beauty, of whom it is written (I Petr. I): « Upon whom the angels desire to look, » — she may already, 618Aby the very desires of her love, be called like to the angels. And the more she is made lovable to God, the more she brings it about that she becomes terrible to the malignant spirits. But in what manner she is terrible is shown by the comparison subjoined, that is, as an army set in array. We know, and it is agreed, that an army is then terrible to its enemies, when it has been so packed close and thickened that in no place does it seem broken. For if it is so disposed that an empty place is left through which one might enter, assuredly it is no longer terrible to its enemies. We too therefore, when we set the line of spiritual combat against the malignant spirits, it is above all needful that we be found always united and bound together through charity, and never broken through discord: for whatever good works there shall have been in us, if charity be wanting? Through the evil 618Bof discord a place is opened in the line, whence the enemy may be able to enter to strike us. But the ancient enemy does not fear chastity in us if it be without charity, because he himself is not pressed by flesh, that he should be dissolved into its wantonness. He does not fear abstinence, because he himself uses no food, being one who is not urged by the necessity of the body. He does not fear the distributions of earthly goods, if to those same the works of charity be wanting, because neither does he himself need the supports of riches. This he greatly fears in us — true charity, that is the humble love which we bestow upon one another in turn. And he exceedingly envies our concord, because we fear this on earth which he himself, unwilling to hold it, lost in heaven. Well therefore is she called terrible, and the rest: because the malignant spirits are the more affrighted at the multitude of the elect, in that they behold them, united through the concord of charity, 618Cmassed together against themselves.

« Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away. » That is: with the eyes of thy mind do not seek to know me perfectly on the journey of thy pilgrimage, which cannot be done, because the more intently thou seekest to know me, the more certainly thou understandest me to be incomprehensible. And do not seek on the way the reward which is reserved for thee in the fatherland. But it is understood otherwise, as if he said: Wouldst thou not always seek him to be beheld in the body, whom thou always discernest better through faith? For this cause indeed I ascended into heaven, that I might always appear to thee as bound to a place. « Thy hair is as flocks of goats, which have come up from mount Galaad. » [Vulg. at Cant. 6:4 grex caprarum quae apparuerunt de Galaad, "a flock of goats that have appeared from Galaad"; the wording printed here is that of Cant. 4:1] These little verses have been expounded before, but repetition is a token 618Dof steadfastness. In the hairs are understood the peoples, in the teeth the doctors, in the twin young the precepts of charity.

« As the rind of a pomegranate, so are thy cheeks, besides thy eyes. » [Vulg. absque occultis tuis, "besides that which is hidden within thee"] The cheeks of the Church are the spiritual fathers, as we have said above, who are wonderful in virtues and venerable in character, and not ashamed to glory in the cross of Christ. And these things Et.haec which are seen in her are exceedingly great, but far greater are those which are not seen, and are reserved for the time to come. Whence the Prophet: « All the glory of the king's daughter is within. (Psal. XLIV). »

« There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and of young maidens there is no number » The queens are they who, out of love of the bridegroom and with a view to the heavenly reward, beget spiritual offspring for the eternal king through the preaching of truth and of faith, 619Aand through the font of holy baptism. The number six pertains to the perfection of the present life, on account of the six days in which it is lawful to work good things. But the concubines signify the simple in the Church, who, having received the seed of the word, are wise not spiritually but carnally; or those who teach Christ, in a merely carnal manner as it were, by preaching or by baptizing. The young maidens are souls newly born again in Christ, whose sum, because of the multitude of the heavenly citizens, transcends number. And so by the young maidens may be understood those who always desire to hear the things that are holy, yet do not busy themselves to fulfil in works the things they have heard.

« One is my dove, my perfect one; she is one to her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. » [Vulg. una est matris suae, electa genetrici suae, "she is the one of her mother, the chosen one to her that bore her" — the cases are inverted here] Holy 619BChurch, namely, the universal Church throughout the whole world, is one to her mother, that is to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all, whence the grace of the Holy Spirit descends to us, through which we are born again to God. And she is called one because, when all the reprobate have been cast out, she alone shall be joined to Christ. « The daughters of Sion saw her, and declared her most blessed; the queens and the concubines praised her. » [Vulg. Viderunt eam filiae, without Sion] Those whom he before called young maidens he now names daughters. The queens and the concubines are the same as before, and all of them praise the Catholic Church.

« Who is she that cometh up as the morning rising, fair as the moon, chosen as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? » [Vulg. quae progreditur, "that goeth forward" — the word the gloss below itself uses] This is the voice of the Synagogue admiring the beauty of the Church out of the nations, 619Cin that, without the judgments of the law and the instruction of the prophets, she had grown up at the preaching of the Gospel so suddenly and with so great a perfection of virtues, even as she had already marvelled above. For she says.: « Who is she that cometh up as the morning rising, » etc. The Church goes forward as the dawn, because now the sun of the true light is shown to have risen in her upon the world after the darkness of long ignorance; or when, leaving behind her the works of darkness, she lives chastely and soberly, and tends toward the perfect day: « Fair as the moon, » because, illumined by the sun of justice, she lights up the night of the world. « Chosen as the sun, » because she bears the image of her Creator in all justice, holiness, and truth. Otherwise: « Fair as the moon, » through virtue and comeliness in the present world. « Chosen as the sun, » in the blessedness to come. Or « fair 619Das the moon, » in the married; « chosen as the sun, » in virgins: terrible to the powers of the air, and through the power of binding and loosing. Set in array in the unity of faith, of hope, and of charity, and in the disposition of the mysteries.

« I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys. » For the garden of nuts is the present Church, where we in no wise see one another's consciences; but when the shell of the flesh or of the body has been broken through temptation, the taste of the inward sweetness will appear. The fruits of the valley are the fruit of humility: for holy Church goes down through the holy doctors, that she may see who advance to the fruits of good things, and who as yet need the watering of doctrine. The garden of nuts may also be taken to designate the canon of the New and the Old Testament: in which, 620Aunder the covering of the letter, as under a rind, the spiritual sense lies hid. « That I might see if the vines had flourished. » That is, if the faithful people had flourished in the pursuit of the virtues. « And if the pomegranates had budded. » If any had been made ready, after the example of the Lord's passion, to shed their own blood.

« I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Amminadab. » The voice of the Synagogue: I knew not that the gifts of spiritual grace were in thee, O bride; but my soul troubled me, because of the bringing in of the New Testament and of the evangelical chariot. For Amminadab is interpreted the willing one of my people, that is Christ, who is borne through the whole world. To whom the Church, comforting her, forthwith answered:

« Return, return, O Sunamitess; return, return, 620Bthat we may behold thee. » [Vulg. Sulamitis] That is: Be not troubled, but return to the knowledge of thy Redeemer, who was rather promised to thee in the prophets and in the law. Return by purity of faith, return by perfection of works. O Sunamitess, that is, captive, return now from the bond of unbelief to thy Redeemer, that thou mayest be saved!

« What shalt thou see in the Sunamitess, but the companies of the camps? » [Vulg. in Sulamite, nisi choros castrorum] That is: Thou grievest that the Synagogue is hardened; the time is at hand when thou shalt see in her the companies of those who war against the malignant spirits and who praise God. I knew not may also be understood otherwise. My soul troubled me, because of the chariots of Amminadab. What did Christ not know, save sin? He knew not 620Cthose also to whom he will say in the judgment: « Amen, I say to you, I know you not (Matth. XXV). » By the chariots of Amminadab he means the evangelists. For Amminadab is interpreted the willing one of the people, that is, the faithful people of the Church. This Sunamitess signifies the Church, whose figure that Sunamitess in the book of Kings bore. Which for this cause, which is adorned with the blood of Christ, sounds in the Latin scarlet; to whom it is frequently said by the holy preachers, « Return: » that even if through adversities she has fallen away, she may not sink down into despair, but may come to her senses out of the habit of sinning, with hope of pardon. « How beautiful are thy steps in shoes, O prince's daughter! » Now the praises of the Church are set forth by the bridegroom himself, and first the constancy of her works and the mortification of pleasures are praised in her, whom also he names the daughter 620Dof the prince, that is of Christ, on account of the grace of baptism and the nobility of her virtues. « The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, that are wrought by the hand of a craftsman. » The concord of the two peoples, made fruitful with a special offspring, is designated in the joint of the thighs, which are as jewels wrought by the hand of a craftsman, that is by the unspeakable bounty of our Creator: in the jewels good works are expressed.

« Thy navel is like a turned bowl, never wanting cups. » Thy navel is the frailty of our infirmity. The bowl is made turned when, admonished by the consciousness of our mortality, we busy ourselves to hand round with a ready mind the cup of the word of salvation. Likewise in the navel are understood those who dwell not at the edge but in the midst 621Aof the body of the Church. In these therefore are found the things that are useful vessels: in this it is turned, because they are always ready for obedience and for every good work. In this it never wants cups, inasmuch as they are wholly filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. « Thy belly is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies. » For those who always receive the nourishments of the Holy Scriptures, and gather within themselves the things that are salutary, and cease not to preach, dealing out their teaching to others like wheat, are reckoned in the likeness of the belly. It is a heap of wheat set about with lilies when the abundance of good work is gathered by the hope of perpetual light alone. In the belly memory is expressed, in the wheat the multiplication of good work, in the lilies the chastity of hope.

621B« Thy two breasts are like two twin fawns of a roe. » Of this verse it was spoken above, but repetition is a token of steadfastness. The two breasts are the doctors of either people. They are twin fawns because of their one concord: likewise the two breasts of the Church are the two Testaments, fitted to the two peoples that come from the propagation of sin. For these are born again in Christ as fawns, and sucking from these two Testaments the milk of wisdom.

« Thy neck is as a tower of ivory. » In the neck the doctors are designated, who are compared to a tower of ivory because of their firmness and their beauty, since they afford strength and comeliness to the city of God. In the neck may also be designated the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, which is therefore called a tower of ivory, because those who apply themselves to the word of God, 621Cby daily progress advance to loftier things through the brightness of justice. « Thy eyes like the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude. » The eyes of the Church are the doctors, because of their foresight, as the neck is because of nourishment. And rightly are they compared to fishpools, because they cease not to offer the streams of doctrine to their hearers. Hesebon is interpreted the girdle of sorrow, because the saints, in place of the vain gladness of the flesh, are bound with the girdle of abstinence. And well, in the gates of the daughter of the multitude, because of the abundance of the peoples running together through the gate of faith into the Church. By the gate Christ also may be understood. « Thy nose is as the tower of Libanus. » In the nose are designated the dispensers of the word of God, by reason of discernment, who, perceiving the odor of the justice which is in Christ, hold it out to their hearers, and by the understanding 621Dof discernment distinguish from on high between the odor of the virtues and the stenches of the vices. They are likened to a tower, who through wisdom hold the most eminent place in the Church. « Which looketh toward Damascus, » that is, toward the bloody and the impious, for Damascus is interpreted drinking blood, and signifies the carnal and the cruel, against whom the holy doctors keep watch always in the tower of Libanus, that is in the firmness of the Church.

« Thy head is like Carmel, and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels. » In the head the mind is designated, in the hairs the thoughts: and as the members are ruled by the head, so are the thoughts by the mind, that they may be occupied in Carmel, that is in the loftiness of the virtues and in the passion of Christ, which is expressed by the name of purple. 622AThe channels are the inward parts of the saints, in which such thoughts are bound. Otherwise: The head of the Church is Christ, than whom nothing is more lofty. The hair of the head is all the more eminent saints, namely the blessed martyrs, made like to purple, joined to royal ornaments and to saving doctrines.

« How beautiful art thou, and comely, my dearest, in delights. » The Church is called beautiful, in faith and in work. Comely, by the ornaments of the virtues. Dearest, through love. « In delights, » that is, in spiritual virtues.

« Thy stature is likened to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. » That is, the uprightness of good working ever tends to victory. To the breasts are compared the doctors of the Church, because of the milk of first instruction, and they are matched with clusters, because of the mysteries of most sweet eternity.

622B« I said: I will go up into the palm tree, I will take hold of the fruits thereof. » For fittingly is the most victorious cross compared to a palm, into which Christ, going up, took hold of its fruit. For they go up into the palm who advance in the cross of Christ. Whereof the Apostle says: « For they that are Christ's have crucified their own flesh with the vices and concupiscences (Gal. V). » -- « And thy breasts shall be as the clusters of the vine, » that is, the gifts which he bestowed upon holy Church, which from that time budded forth the clusters of the vine, that is the holy doctors, who after the cross and resurrection of the Savior abounded in greater knowledge and grace. By the breasts may also be understood the preachers of the Church, who nourish those that are born again in the faith. « And the odor of thy mouth like the odor of apples. 622CThy throat like the best wine to drink. » In the throat is designated the voice of teaching present, in the odor the fame of it absent. And therefore the one is compared to wine, because of the fragrance of the virtues, the other to apples, because of the sweetness of absent fame: « Worthy for my beloved. » For the bride snatched the word out of the mouth of the bridegroom, because he had compared her to the best wine, and she subjoined it. Worthy for my beloved, that is: so great is the loftiness of the evangelical preaching, that my beloved himself, first appearing through the incarnation, opened the heavenly way to the world: in the throat may be understood those who through evangelical preaching inebriate the hearts of the hearers: whence Christ is drunk, when out of her the Christians, who are his members, are filled with incomparable sweetness. « And for his lips 622Dand teeth to chew upon, » that is, for the apostles and the preachers, to whom above all he gave it to meditate upon.

« I to my beloved, » and to no other, upon whom I bestow the whole care of my service and of my love. « And his turning is toward me, » that is, he loves me alone, and helps me, that I fail not in the way. To which beloved it is said by the Psalmist in the voice of the Church: « My soul hath cleaved after thee: thy right hand hath received me (Psal. LXII). »

« Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages; let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard hath flourished, if the flowers bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates have flourished. » Since the Church is in no wise sufficient either to go forth and advance to the working of good, or to abide by persisting in the exercise of good working, 623Aor even to rise up to the purpose of acting well, or to discern how far the minds of her hearers have advanced, unless she be helped by the grace of God, who said: « Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matth. XXVIII). » Christ goes forth with the Church into the field, when through the holy doctors he visits the world. He abides in the villages, namely through faith, among the peoples believing out of the nations, spread abroad on every side. He rises early to the vineyards, that the souls which through faith have already deserved to be gathered may know that Christ rose again in the morning hours, and may no longer doubt of the resurrection of their own body. Let us see if the vineyard had flourished, if the Church also brings forth flowers by faith, if the flowers bring forth fruits, that is, if the holy faithful pronounce with the mouth 623Bwhat they have believed with the heart. If the pomegranates have flourished, if they who have believed in Christ so advance in love that they even delight to be slain for him. For in each one of these the bride seeks the penitence of her beloved. « There will I give thee my breasts, » that is, the tutors of my little ones. Because in all these things the holy doctors advance, in this holy confession my doctors shall be joined to thee. And because they are ready to suffer for thee, they shall reign with thee.

« The mandrakes have given their odor in our gates. » [Vulg. Mandragorae dederunt odorem, without suum; there in portis nostris opens the clause that follows] Of mandrakes there are two kinds, the male and the female. The female is red, the male white: in both there is one power for medicines. They are called mandrakes because they have sweet-smelling apples, of the size of an apple, whence the Latins also call it the apple of the earth: this 623Cthe poets call ἀνθροπόμορφον, because it has a root resembling the form of a man; which is given in wine to drink to those whose body must be cut for the sake of treatment, that being lulled asleep they may not feel the pain. Mandrakes, because of their manifold kinds of medicines, are compared to the virtues of the saints, which, after the manner of physicians, are shown to be healed from the infirmities of the vices unto the health of souls. The gates of the Church are the holy doctors, and in gates of this sort the mandrakes give their odor, when all spiritual men spread abroad from themselves far and wide the palm of the virtues. « All the fruits, new and old, my beloved, I have kept for thee. » The new and old fruits are the precepts or the promises of the New and of the Old Testament, all of which the Church refers to his grace; or the Fathers of the New and of the Old Testament may 623Dbe understood, because the Church is one and the same.

« Who giveth me my brother, sucking my breasts? » [Vulg. Quis mihi det te fratrem meum sugentem ubera matris meae, "Who shall give me thee for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother"] This is the voice of the men of old, desiring the coming of Christ in the flesh, and that he should be born and nourished in the Synagogue, according to the nature of the human condition. « That I may find thee without, and kiss thee. » Within was the beloved, while « in the beginning was the Word »; without, while « the Word was made flesh. » « And kiss thee »: that I may see face to face, and speak mouth to mouth. Of which kiss I think enough has been said at the opening of the book. « And now let no man despise me. » Before the coming of Christ the Church was only within the narrow bounds of Judaea; after 624Athe ascension she was spread abroad in the whole world, and made venerable. Before it had been said, « God is known in Judaea »; but now it is said: « Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth. » It may also be understood otherwise. Christ sucks the breasts of his mother when the Christian people is refreshed with the histories of the ancient law. For they call the Synagogue the mother of the Church, that is of the body of Christ, to whom in the beginning the divine oracles were entrusted; and what in the Old Testament was covered under a figure is found in truth through the Gospel in the New.

« I will take hold of thee, » that is, I will receive thee coming with ready and faithful devotion. « And I will lead thee into my mother's house. » The dispensation of the flesh accomplished, I will lead thee, returning, with joyful eyes into my mother's house, 624Bthat is of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is our mother. « There thou shalt teach me, » that is, thou shalt make me hope for better gifts than I had had in the law. « And I will give thee a cup of spiced wine, » that is, a fervent love made fragrant or adorned with the various pigments of the virtues. « And the new wine of my pomegranates, » that is, the triumph of the glorious holy martyrs, who with most fervent charity do not hesitate to pass over to thee through sword and flames. Otherwise: The Church leads Christ into the house of her mother, the heavenly Jerusalem, when together with all the good things which she has obtained through his grace she also deserves herself to be led thither. And there she is taught, « that she may now see, not in a riddle through mirrors, but face to face, » when martyrdom shall have brought forth its best and sweetest fruits, as it were the new wine of 624Cpomegranates.

« His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. » In the left hand are expressed the gifts of Christ's incarnation; in the right, the joys to come of the saints with Christ. Or in the left hand the present life, which the saints place under the head of the mind, because they despise it. In the right hand, the beatitude which the saints, out of exceeding desire, shall embrace. Of this verse there has been fuller and more abundant discussion above.

« Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights? » But of this too we have already discoursed; yet because repetition of verses is, as we have often said, a token of steadfastness, let us now touch on it briefly. It is the voice of the Synagogue, or of the prophet, marvelling how the Church had come up so suddenly out of the desert of heathenism into the embraces of the bridegroom: 624Dto whom it is said by the prophet: « For that thou wast forsaken and hated (Isa. LX), » etc. And in the psalm: « They wandered in the wilderness, in a place without water (Psalm. CVI). » Flowing with delights, that is, with the beauty of all gifts. « Leaning upon my beloved. » [Vulg. innixa super dilectum suum, "upon her beloved"] Because all that she has she refers to his grace, being established in him by faith, hope, and charity — whom they believed was to be committed to me alone. « I raised thee up under the apple tree. » The bride answered on behalf of the Synagogue. I, the bridegroom himself, under the tree of the cross freed thee from perpetual death, as I freed the apostles and the rest of the elect out of Judaea. « There was thy mother corrupted, there was she defiled that bore thee. » That is, the greater part of the people, by denying Christ and choosing Barabbas, was reprobated at the cross.

625A« Put me as a seal upon thy heart, and as a seal upon thy arm. » A seal we bind upon the arm or the finger for the remembrance of some matter. By « heart » thought is designated, and by « arm » working. That is: If thou wilt have me as bridegroom, let there be within charity with faith unfeigned, and without devout working; and so shalt thou receive my faith, that thou mayest keep it unspotted. And because through my cross thou hast received a seal, fear not that the treasure of justice which I have conferred upon thee be carried off by any thief, so that both in thought and also in working thou mayest run back to that sign; and as I have so loved thee that I was willing to die for thee, so, on the other hand, let thy saints not refuse death for me. « For love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell. » Strong 625Beven unto death is my love toward thee, O Synagogue; but thy jealousy toward me was hard as hell: yet turn thy jealousy into love, and thou shalt be to me bride, and sister, and love. « The lamps thereof are lamps of fire and of flames. » The lamps of love are the hearts of the faithful, in which charity dwells, ever bright and clean with the brightness of charity, and burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and shining forth with the orb of the flames of good working.

« Many waters cannot quench charity, neither shall the floods drown it. » By many waters and floods he means the onsets of temptations, which visibly or invisibly assail the souls of the faithful, to which charity does not yield. « If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, they shall despise it as 625Cnothing. » But even as those giving the riches of their whole substance for the greatness of the love of Christ despised it as nothing, that is, the world. But in another manner the sense of the sentence hangs upon what goes before. For when he had said, « many waters » or floods « could not quench charity, » he subjoined: « If he shall give all the substance of his house, » etc., so that there may be understood what the Apostle says: « And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body so that I burn, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing (I Cor. XI). »

« My sister is very little, and she hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to? » [Vulg. Soror nostra parva, "Our sister is little"] It designates the first times of the Church newly born out of the nations, since as yet she was both small in number 625Dand less fit to preach the word, as the Apostle says: « I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal; as unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat (I Cor. III). » As it were the voice of the bridegroom, or of the apostles, had said of her to the Synagogue: « What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to? » As if he plainly said: The Church of the nations is indeed small, nor is she sufficient to undergo the mystery of the word of God. What then seems to thee, O Synagogue, must be done concerning our sister, when she is to be spoken to, that is, to be led into the faith through the mystery of the word? The Synagogue keeping silence, the bridegroom himself, or the apostles, answered what ought to be done.

« If she be a wall, let us build upon her bulwarks 626Aof silver. » As if he said: If she has in her any strong in faith, or notable in talent, or instructed in philosophy, let us add to them bulwarks of silver, that is the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, that they may be able the more easily to protect the weak and the unlearned. « If she be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar. » That is, if they be simple, yet gaping with zeal for being taught, and, like a door which is opened and shut, understand « a time to keep silence or to speak »: let us set before them the examples of the just of former times, whereby they may the more surely and effectually fulfil the office of teaching. The cedars designate the virtues of the saints, and the boards the breadth of charity. And that they may be able to say with the Apostle: « But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 626Bthe world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. VI). » For to these things the Church herself answered:

« I am a wall, and my breasts are as a tower, since I am become in thy presence as one finding peace. » [Vulg. coram eo, "in his presence"] I am compacted of living stones, and made one by the glue of charity, and built upon an immovable foundation; and my doctors are most strong, as a tower, who both know how to nourish little ones and to drive out all evil things; and it has befallen me, from that time in which Christ reconciled me, that peace is found through him.

« The peaceable had a vineyard in that which hath the people; he delivered it to keepers. » [Vulg. quae habet populos, "which hath peoples"] Whereof the Apostle says: « He is our peace, who hath made both one (Ephes. II). » And whereof the prophet: « His empire shall be multiplied, 626Cand of peace there shall be no end (Isa. IX). » The vineyard, that is the Catholic Church, abounding in the fruit of faith, belonged to the peaceable, that is to Christ, who pacified all things in heaven and on earth, in that congregation wherein he possesses many peoples out of the whole world, not in Judaea alone; he delivered it to keepers, but also to prophets or apostles, or to evangelical teachings, or to angelic dignities. « A man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver. » That is, Christ weighing out the kingdom of heaven for its holy labors or alms. It may also be understood otherwise: « A man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver, » that is, for an eternal recompense. The man of this vineyard brings a thousand pieces of silver, that is, for the acquiring of the heavenly kingdom, which is the fruit of the violet, all the things which he left to the worlds. The number of a thousand is taken for the perfection of him who left all things. Whence also the pieces of silver are taken for all 626Dmoney.

« My vineyard is before me. » It is the voice of the bridegroom, because after the resurrection to come all the saints shall be always with the Lord, as he himself says: « I will, Father, that where I am, they also may be with me (Joan. I). » Otherwise, as if the bridegroom said: Truly, even though I commend thee to other keepers, yet I have thee always in my presence, seeing and rewarding in all things the devotion of thy labor. « A thousand are thine, O peaceable one. » « A thousand are thine » — pieces of silver is to be understood. As though he had said: Let him who for love of me lets go all his own know that he has them kept in peace; signifying the simpler sort in the Church, who lose for the charity of God all their substance, marked with the number of a thousand: « And two hundred to them they keep the fruits 627Athereof. » [Vulg. et ducenti his qui custodiunt fructus ejus, "and two hundred to them that keep the fruits thereof"; the printed lemma lacks qui] That is. the pieces of silver to those who keep the fruits thereof, who are the holy doctors, who let go all the things of the world and cease not to labor in the word of preaching; these are granted with me a twofold reward, which is designated by the number of a hundred. It may also be understood otherwise: For twelve, if they be multiplied by the number of a hundred, make a thousand two hundred. Which number surely befits the apostles or apostolic men. These are rightly called peaceable, that is, the disciples of Christ, by whom holy Church is ruled:

« Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken to thee, make me hear thy voice. » For in the gardens dwells the Church, who is already filled with the greenness of hope and of good works. As if he plainly said: Since the discourse must be ended, holding this last farewell heard from me, dwell thou ever 627Bin the gates of the virtues, and know that the friends, that is the angelic spirits and the separated souls of the saints, are considering thee, and rejoice at thy progress. Likewise the friends hearken, because all the elect, that they may come alive again unto the heavenly fatherland, desire to hear the words of life: « Make me hear thy voice, » that is, let the word of preaching and the voice of praise be always heard from thee by me, as far as thou art able. To these things the bride answered:

« Flee away, my beloved, and be like to the roe and the young hart upon the mountain of spices. » [Vulg. super montes aromatum, "upon the mountains of spices" — the plural, which the gloss below itself prints] As if she plainly said: Since, appearing in the flesh and bringing to me the precepts and the gifts of life, now, these being accomplished, return into the bosom of the Father: O my beloved, « be like to the roe and the young hart upon the mountains of spices, » that is: and let this be my solace, that since by continual vision 627CI cannot behold thee, remember at least to console me by frequent visitation. Christ is like the roe, because of the likeness of sinful flesh, who was as it were outwardly begotten of the stock of the patriarchs. He is called a young hart because of the variety of the virtues, who, with the flesh wherewith he ascended into the heavens, with that same dwelt upon earth. By the mountains of spices are understood the angels, above whom the man assumed has been exalted, as the Psalmist says: « God is ascended with jubilation, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet (Psal. XLVI). » [Vulg. in jubilo] Hence he says truly: « Christ ascending on high led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men (Ephes. IV). » Hence Luke says: « And the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God (Marc. XVI). » [Vulg. Mark 16:19 assumptus est in caelum, "was taken up into heaven"]

For now at length, God favoring us, the book demands its 627Dend — the book which, down to the very heel, by his own support, with an investigation upright, as we believe, and true according to the mind of the doctors and to the frailty of our own understanding, we have carried through; and, O Caesar Augustus, we have striven, though fearfully, to obey the imperial and Augustan decrees. And, a suppliant, by supplicating I supplicate it of the summit of your excellency, that it may not irk your nobility to survey it with subtle investigation, and that your skill may with the utmost zeal study to read through likewise the little works of the holy doctors. For if the emperor Theodosius, born and reared in empire, stood forth in such excellence that he obtained the sole monarchy of the whole world, and took care to write out the book of Priscian the grammarian, the ornament of Roman eloquence, 628Amost eloquent with wondrous eloquence, down to the very heel, with tender little fingers and with his own joints, and out of its price and the trafficking of its sale was ever wont to live, despising imperial banquets, and flourished with such zeal that by continual meditation and by his own copying he wrote out the Roman law by divine gift, and, as it were with the sword's point of the law, corrected the distorted morals of the Romans to the rule of rectitude, and restrained them from their hardness — so much so that, when the rest was finished, an angelic trumpet thundered upon him from heaven in a nocturnal vision, and through the vision of a dream, in congratulation, lifted up its voice, saying: Let the book, he says, of the law not depart from thy mouth; meditate therein day and night — how much more, O most gentle prince, [must you] with your own studies run through the authority of the Holy Scriptures with continual meditation, 628Band seek the height of the divine law as it were a mountain, that, instructed in spiritual doctrine, you may be able both sagaciously to advance yourself to the higher things of the virtues, and to summon others to the path of rectitude. Which assuredly you will not be able more fully to penetrate, and in a manner to climb the mountain of Holy Scripture, save by diligent zeal and purity of heart and chastity of body. For Holy Scripture, as the aforesaid expositor often says, is a mountain from which the Lord comes into our hearts. Whereof the prophet says: « God will come from Libanus, and the Holy One from the shady and thick mountain. » [Vet. Lat./LXX at Hab. 3:3; Vulg. Deus ab austro veniet, et Sanctus de monte Pharan, "God will come from the south, and the Holy One from mount Pharan"] That mountain is thick through its sentences, and shady through its allegories. But it must be known that, when the voice sounds upon the mountain, we are commanded to wash our garments, and to cleanse them from every defilement of the flesh, if we would hasten to approach the mountain. 628CFor it is written: « That if a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned (Hebr. XII). » A beast touches the mountain when anyone given over to wantonness or to irrational motions draws near to the loftiness of Holy Scripture, and understands it not according to what it ought to be, but irrationally bends it to the understanding of his own pleasure. But such a one, absurd or sluggish of sense, if he be seen about this mountain, is slain by most terrible sentences, as it were by stones. For this mountain burns, because Holy Scripture kindles with the fire of love him whom it spiritually fills. Whence it is said through Moses: « In his right hand a fiery law (Deut. XXXII). » Because in the minds of the elect, who are to be set at the right hand of the judge, the divine precepts burn, and are kindled with the ardor of charity: therefore, O ornament of Augustus and glory 628Dof the Frankish nation, study with reasonable minds and with chastities of body to climb this mountain, and, kindled with the fervor of charity, to penetrate it by reading; that, according to the merit of your understanding, and of the others whom your sagacious prudence shall have striven to correct, you may indeed deserve at length, the Lord favoring you, to approach the mountains of spices, that is the heights of the angels, and by the suffrages of their prayers to be placed at the right hand of the judge with the holy emperors and consuls, and likewise to hear from the Lord: « Well done, good servant, faithful, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many; enter into the joy of thy Lord (Matth. XXV). » Amen.