Song of Solomon 2

Song of Solomon 2:1

Ambrose of Milan: He says himself, “I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys, as a lily among brambles.” Consider, then, another place in which the Lord likes to reside, and not only one place but many. He says, “I am a flower of the field,” because he often visits the open simplicity of a pure mind;“and the lily of the valleys,” for Christ is the bloom of lowliness, not of luxury, voluptuousness, of lasciviousness, but the flower of simplicity and lowliness. “A lily among brambles” as the flower of a good odor is sure to grow in the midst of hard labors and heartfelt sorrow (since God is pleased with a contrite heart). — Concerning Virginity 9:51

Hippolytus of Rome: The justified here begins to praise herself and says, “I am the flower of the field” because she was not spread abroad throughout the earth. For, behold, I am a flower to all men through faith in you. — TREATISE ON THE SONG OF SONGS 17:1

Jerome: The earth has given its fruit. First it gave a flower. He says in the Song of Songs: “I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys.” This flower, then, has been made fruit, that we might eat him, that we might feed on his flesh. Do you wish to know what this fruit is? A virgin from a virgin, the Lord from a handmaid, God from man, a son from a mother, fruit from the earth. See what this fruit himself says. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bear much fruit.” The earth has given its fruit, it has given the grain of wheat: which grain of wheat fell into the earth and died, and therefore brings forth much fruit. — HOMILIES ON THE Psalms 6 (Psalms 66)

Jerome: [Christ] himself says in the Song of Songs, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley.” Our rose is the destruction of death, and [that rose] died that death itself might die in his dying. — LETTER 75.1

Nilus of Sinai: It is necessary to understand that the valleys where the bride is a lily, as she is called, are comparable to these ravines. For in distinguishing herself in the midst of that which is called “hollow” by reason of actions or thoughts that are base, she who is adorned magnificently stands resplendent among them as a lily. It is also because at the age to come she is going to pass judgment on such souls by comparison with the perfection of her own deeds even though by nature she holds no advantage over them, just as the inhabitants of Nineveh and the Queen of the South pass judgment upon a generation that is faithless. Besides the fact that she became as a lily in the valleys where nothing was possible before, these valleys may have begun to bear fruit out of envy for the beauty of her flower, receiving seeds from the sower who went out to sow, … like a land rich and good that causes the seed to multiply. …If the valleys, because they are low, fallow and many in number, designate the Gentiles who have come to knowledge after being in the depths of impiety, then the field may designate Israel made level by the teachings of the prophets and the law in order to be ready for cultivation.… For the plow of the cross has not yet opened up the earth: that plow to which the Savior has yoked the apostles like oxen in sending them out to cultivate two-by-two. Nor has the land yet been moistened by the blood of the Savior, being sterile and infertile. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 39-40

Origen of Alexandria: He who is the Bridegroom and the Word and Wisdom seems to be speaking of himself and of the Bride to his friends and companions. But according to the order of the exposition we have set forth, Christ is to be understood as speaking these things about the Church, and to be saying that he himself is the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. A field is the term for a level stretch of earth, to which cultivation is applied and which is tilled by farmers. The valleys, on the other hand, indicate places that are rather rocky and untilled. But we can also understand that field to be the people that was cultivated through the prophets and the law, and the rocky and untilled valley to be the place of the Gentiles. This Bridegroom, then, was a flower among the people of the Jews; but since the law brought no one to perfection, for that reason the Word of God could not in that people advance to flower and arrive at the perfection of its fruits. Yet in that valley of the Gentiles he became a lily. But what kind of lily? Such, without doubt, as he himself in the Gospels says the heavenly Father clothes. And: “Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these.” So the Bridegroom becomes a lily in this valley, in that the heavenly Father clothed him with such a garment of flesh as not even Solomon in all his glory could possess. For Solomon did not have flesh that was immaculate and in no way whatever subject to sin, apart from the desire of a man and the embrace of a woman. But he also seems to show the reason why he who had been a flower in the field willed to be a lily in the valleys. For although he had been a flower in the field for a long time, he says that no flower came forth from that field itself in imitation and likeness of himself. But once he had become a lily in the valleys, straightway by his near imitation there is likewise made a lily; so that it was worth the effort, since he himself became a lily, that also what is near to him — that is, each soul that draws near to him and follows his example and imitation — should become a lily. Therefore, when he says, “As a lily in the midst of thorns, so is my beloved in the midst of the daughters,” we shall take it as said of the Church of the Gentiles, either because she has emerged, as it were from thorns, out of the midst of the unfaithful and unbelieving, or because she is said to be set in the midst of thorns on account of the bitings of heretics clamoring around her. And this will seem the more likely from the fact that he says: “So is my beloved in the midst of the daughters.” For he would not have called those souls “daughters” who had never at all come to believe. All heretics, therefore, first come to belief, and after this they turn aside from the way of faith and from the truth of the doctrines. Just as the apostle John also says in his Epistle: “They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.” But we can also refer this to each individual soul, and say that for the soul which, on account of its simplicity and its levelness or evenness, can be called a field, the Word of God becomes a flower and teaches the beginnings of good works. But for those who now seek deeper things and search out things more profound, as it were in the valleys, he becomes a lily, whether on account of the brightness of chastity or the splendor of wisdom, so that they too may become lilies bursting forth from the midst of thorns — that is, fleeing the thoughts and worldly cares that in the Gospel are compared to thorns. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. For my sake, who was in the valley, he descended into the valley; and coming into the valley, he becomes a lily. Instead of the tree of life, which was planted in the paradise of God, he became the flower of the whole field, that is, of the whole world and of the entire earth. For what can so be the flower of the world as the name of Christ? His name is ointment poured out. Otherwise: by himself it is said, I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. And these things indeed of himself. Then, praising the bride, he says: As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the lily cannot be compared to the thorns among which it always springs up, in the same way my love, above all the daughters, is a lily among thorns. Hearing this, the bride renders a return to the bridegroom, and, perceiving his sweetness too, she breaks forth into the voice of one who praises. For the fragrance of ointments, though it breathe sweetly and soothe the sense with its odor, is nevertheless not of such a kind as to be sweet to eat. But there is something which is of the best both in savor and in fragrance — that is, which delights the throat with sweetness and soothes the spirit with its scent. Such is the apple; its nature is such that it possesses both in itself. Therefore, wishing to praise not only the graciousness of the bridegroom’s word, but also its sweetness, the bride says: — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Theodoret of Cyrus: I was “a flower of the countryside,” that is, I assumed an earthly body and sprang from the earth, being eternal and exalted or, rather, immeasurable. I became “a lily” not of mountains or hills, or simply of the countryside, but of “valleys”: I brought not only the good news of salvation to the living but also resurrection to the dead, descending to the lower parts of the earth to fill everything. This is the reason he calls himself “a flower of the countryside, a lily of the valleys,” that is, the dead: to them he both promised and brought into effect a return to life. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2

Song of Solomon 2:2

Ambrose of Milan: “I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys, as a lily among thorns.” This is a plain declaration that virtues are surrounded by the thorns of spiritual wickedness, so that no one can gather the fruit who does not approach with caution. — Concerning Virginity 1.8.43

Augustine of Hippo: But would you like to know what is said to this lady somewhere else, in the Song of Songs? “Like a lily in the midst of thorns, so is my darling in the midst of the daughters.” An extraordinary saying—he called the same people both thorns and daughters. And do those thorns do mightily? They do indeed. Can’t you see how these heresies too pray, fast, give alms, praise Christ? — SERMON 37:27

Augustine of Hippo: So also strange daughters: daughters, because of the form of godliness; strange, because of their loss of virtue. Be the lily there; let it receive the mercy of God: hold fast the root of a good flower, be not ungrateful for soft rain coming from heaven. Be thorns ungrateful, let them grow by the showers: for the fire they grow, not for the garner. — EXPLANATIONS OF THE Psalms 48:8

Braulio of Zaragoza: It is written of the church: “As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among women.” — LETTER 42

Gregory the Dialogist: For he was not good who refused to tolerate the evil. For hence it is that blessed Job asserts of himself, saying: I was a brother of dragons, and a companion of ostriches. Hence through Solomon it is said in the voice of the bridegroom to holy Church: As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. — Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 38

Song of Solomon 2:3

Ambrose of Milan: The Church, following this ever-flourishing greenness of grace in Christ, says: “In his shadow I desired, and I sat.” The Apostles also received this privilege of the evergreen gift, not a leaf of theirs could ever fall, so that even their shadow could heal the sick. For the weaknesses of the body overshadow the faith of the mind, and the flourishing merits of virtues. — The Six Days of Creation

Ambrose of Milan: “As an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among young men.” And seeing this, the church is glad and rejoices, saying with great delight, “I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” — Concerning Virginity 9:52

Bede: “As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, etc.” This is what the Psalmist speaks of, “For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord? Or who is like God among the sons of God?” (Psalms 88). Just as the apple tree, which is pleasing to sight, smell, and taste, tends to surpass the wild trees, so does the man God rightfully surpass all who are pure men among the saints; and the merit of those who are sons of God by grace transcends the power of him who is the son by nature. Hence John says, “And we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1). Hence Apostle Paul says, “And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken: but Christ as a son over his own house.” (Hebrews 3:5-6). Let the cedar shine therefore; let the cypress lift itself in height; let the other trees of the forests display the miracles of their beauty, fragrance, and worth. The apple tree surpasses them all, which, besides the sweetness of its smell and appearance, also contains the power for nourishment. Let the righteous shine with their virtues: he who, born of a Virgin, provides us with the supports of eternal life, surpasses all. Whence it is well added: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: Under the shadow of him whom I desired, I sat, etc. As if it were openly said, Therefore I judge my beloved to be preferred before all others, because in the sole protection of his piety, for whose desire I always burned, I find refreshment from the heat of tribulations, because I feel the most pleasant fruit of his gifts, by which I trust I am to be continually refreshed. But the holy Church desired to breathe a little under the shadow of the Author, when she complained that she was darkened by the excessive sun of persecutions, because the sons of her mother fought against her, when, imploring the help of his presence, she anxiously cried: Tell me, whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you rest at noon; when, not only worn out by the weariness of pressures but enticed by the memory of his beauty and comeliness, she said: Our bed is flowery. She showed that she had attained the desire, when she said: Under the shadow of him whom I desired, I sat, and his fruit was sweet to my throat. And it should be noted that above she proclaimed that the beams of her houses were cedar and the panelling cypress, yet she did not consider this protection sufficient for her, nor did she confess herself content with the contemplation of their loftiness and beauty; but she diligently sought the tree of life alone, in whose shadow she might rest, whose fruit might refresh her; because although some saints are able to propose for us sublime examples of their virtues, to show us the path of heavenly life by preaching, to bring the support of their intercession with the Lord, yet to none of them, but to our beloved Savior alone, must we say, But the sons of men will put their trust under the cover of your wings; they will be satiated with the fatness of your house (Psalms 35). Whence it is deservedly said that as an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons. Rightly then is the only Son preferred to all the sons of God, who protects us like a shady tree from the heat of the pursuing world, refreshes us with heavenly sweetness like an unfading apple. How great the refreshment of his sweetness, how great its virtue, is subsequently shown, when it is said: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Origen of Alexandria: It was fitting indeed that the bridegroom should speak also of himself, of what he was in the field, and also of what he was in the valleys; and of the bride, of who she was and of what sort she was held to be among the other daughters. But it was not fitting that the bride, in answering these things, should say anything of herself, but rather that she should be wholly moved toward admiration of the bridegroom and should cling to his praises. She therefore compares him to an apple tree. But lest, from the resemblance of the word, some of the simpler folk should think the apple tree (arbor mali) to be an evil tree and named from evil (malitia), let us say “the tree of meli,” using indeed a Greek word, but one better known to any of the simpler Latin speakers than “mali.” For it is better that we offend the grammarians than that we place some stumbling-block before the readers in the explanation of the truth. She compares him, then, to a meli tree, and his companions to the rest of the trees of the wood. But she says the bridegroom is so like this meli tree that she even says she longed to sit beneath his shadow, and she declares that his fruit has been made sweet to her in her throat. And she seems to speak these things to the young maidens, just as the bridegroom too spoke earlier to his companions. But let us now consider, according to the mystery, whom the bride calls “sons,” among whom she asserts that the bridegroom excels, like a meli tree, the rest of the trees of the wood; and see whether we can, according to the things we expounded in a twofold way above concerning the daughters and the thorns, so here too understand that the “sons” are said to be either those who once were and are not, or the multitude of the heavenly ministers. For to all men in the beginning belongs that which is written: “I said: You are gods and all of you sons of the Most High.” But a difference intervened through this which he says: “But you shall die as men, and shall fall like one of the princes.” And this too has regard to that matter: “For who among the clouds shall be equal to the Lord? or who shall be likened to him among the sons of God?” As therefore the meli tree is among the rest of the trees of the wood, so is the bridegroom among the sons, having a fruit which excels all not only in taste but also in fragrance, and which refreshes two senses of the soul alike, that is, both taste and smell together. For with varied provisions Wisdom prepares her table for us. On it she not only sets the bread of life, but also sacrifices the flesh of the Word; and she not only mixes wine in her bowl, but also applies apples fragrant enough and sweet, which render sweetness not only in the mouth and on the lips, but, delivered to the inner throat, preserve their sweetness. And we can take the trees of the wood to be those angels who have been seen to have arisen as the authors and abettors of each heresy, so that the Church seems, comparing the sweetness of the doctrine of Christ to the harshness of the heretical dogmas and their barren and unfruitful teaching, to say: that the ecclesiastical dogmas, which are proclaimed in the Church of Christ, are indeed pleasant and sweet apples; but that the trees of the wood are those things which are affirmed by the various heretics. And of these unfruitful trees of the wood it will seem to be said, what is written in the Gospel: “Behold, now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” The bride’s kinsman, then, is like a meli tree in the Church of Christ; but the other heresiarchs, like the unfruitful trees of the wood, are by the divine judgment, as by an axe, to be cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore in the shadow of this meli tree the bride longs to abide — or the Church, as we said, in the protection of the Son of God, or the soul fleeing all the remaining doctrines and clinging to the one Word of God alone, whose sweet fruit she also has in her throat, that is, by meditating unceasingly on the law of God, and by always ruminating upon it like a clean animal. But concerning the naming of this shadow, beneath which the Church says she longed to sit, I do not think it absurd, if we bring forward into the midst those things which we can find in the divine Scriptures, so that it may be recognized more worthily and more divinely what the shadow of this meli tree is. Jeremiah says in the Lamentations: “The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, was taken in our corruptions, to whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations.” You see, then, how the prophet, moved by the Holy Spirit, says that life is furnished to the nations from the shadow of Christ; and how should his shadow not furnish us with life, when even at the conception of his body it was said to Mary: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.” If therefore there was an overshadowing of the Most High at the conception of his body, deservedly shall his shadow give life to the nations. And deservedly does his bride, the Church, long to sit beneath the shadow of the meli tree, without doubt that she may become a partaker of the life which is in his shadow. But the shadow of the remaining trees of the wood is such that whoever sits beneath it seems to sit in the region of the shadow of death. But still, that the passage which we have in hand may be rendered more and more plain, let us inquire how the Apostle too says that the law has a shadow of the good things to come, and mentions that all the things which were written either concerning the feast days, or the sabbaths, or the new moons, are a shadow of the good things to come — namely in those things which were performed according to the letter; and how he declares that all the worship of the ancients is an example and shadow of the heavenly things. And if this is indeed so, all those whoever were under the law are shown to have sat beneath the shadow of the law, and to have had rather a shadow of the true law. But we are strangers to their shadow, since we are not under the law, but under grace. Yet although we are not under that shadow which the letter of the law made, we are nevertheless under a better shadow. For in the shadow of Christ we live among the nations. And there is a certain advancement to come from the shadow of the law to the shadow of Christ; so that, because Christ is life, and truth, and the way, we may be made first in the shadow of the way, and in the shadow of life, and in the shadow of truth, that we may comprehend in part, and in a mirror and in an enigma, so that after these things, if we walk along this way, which is Christ, we may be able to arrive at this, that we may comprehend face to face those things which before we had seen as though in a shadow and in an enigma. For no one will be able to arrive at those things which are true and perfect, unless he has first desired and longed to abide in this shadow. But Job too says that all the life of men is a shadow upon the earth; I believe because of the fact that the soul in this life is overshadowed by the veil of this dense body. All those, then, who are in this life must of necessity be in a certain shadow. But some indeed are sitting in the region of the shadow of death — those assuredly who do not believe in Christ. But the Church says with confidence: “In the shadow of the bridegroom I longed to be and I sat down”; although certainly there was a time when one, abiding beneath the shadow of the law, could be defended from the harshness of the burning and heat. But that time has passed; one must now come to the shadow of the meli tree; and although one may make use of a different shadow, nevertheless every soul, so long as it is in the present life, seems to have a shadow necessary for it, because of that burning of the sun, I believe, which, when it has risen, straightway the seed that is not sunk with a deep root withers and perishes. But the shadow of the law wards off this burning only slightly, whereas the shadow of Christ, in which we now live among the nations — that is, the faith in his incarnation — will turn it away utterly and extinguish it. For he who scorched those walking beneath the shadow of the law was seen, at the time of Christ’s passion, to have fallen like lightning from heaven; although even the time of his shadow will be completed at the end of the age, because, as we said, after the consummation of the age we shall no longer see the truth through a mirror, nor in an enigma, but face to face. I think that also similar is that which is written: “Under the shadow of your wings I shall rejoice.” But also in what follows in this little book the bride says thus: “My kinsman is mine, and I am his, who feeds among the lilies until the day breathes, and the shadows are removed,” teaching through this that a time will come when all shadows will be removed, and the truth alone will remain. And as for what she says: “And his fruit is sweet in my throat,” this is for that soul to say which has nothing dead, nothing insensible in its throat, and is in nothing whatever like those of whom it is said: “Their throat is an open sepulchre.” For whoever bring forth words of death and destruction from their throats, their throats are called sepulchres: such as are all those who either speak against the true faith, or bring forth something against the discipline of chastity, and justice, and sobriety. These, then, are they whose throats are sepulchres and places of death, from which words of death are brought forth. But the just man says: “How sweet are your words to my throat!” And another, who taught the words of life, says thus: “Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.” And another too, who opened his mouth to the Word of God, says: “I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit.” — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons. All woods, all trees, in comparison with the word of God, are reckoned barren thickets. Compared to Christ, everything you may name is a wild wood; and all things are unfruitful. For what things, compared to him, can be called fruitful? Even the trees which seemed to be bowed down with fruits, in comparison with his coming, are shown to be unfruitful. Therefore, as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons. Under his shadow I desired, and I sat. How beautifully she says, not “under his shadow I desire,” but “under his shadow I desired”; and not “I sit,” but “I sat.” For in the beginning we cannot hold proper converse with him; but in the beginning, so to speak, we enjoy a certain shadow of his majesty. Whence also it is read in the Prophets: Christ the Lord is the spirit of our countenance, to whom we said: Under his shadow we shall live among the nations; and we pass over from shadow to another shadow. For to those sitting in the region and shadow of death, a light has arisen for them. And we pass from the shadow of death to the shadow of life. Such are always the advances, that in the beginning one may desire at least to stand in the shadow of the virtues. I think that for this reason the nativity of Jesus too began from a shadow, and was completed not in shadow but in truth. The Holy Spirit, he says, shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. The nativity of Christ took its beginning from a shadow. And not only in Mary did his nativity begin from a shadow, but in you too, if you are worthy, the Word of God is born. See to it, then, that you can receive his shadow, and, when you have been made worthy of the shadow, there may come to you, so to speak, his body, from which the shadow is born. For he who is faithful in little will be faithful also in greater things. Under his shadow I desired, and I sat. You see that she did not always stand in the shadow, but passed thence to better things, saying: And his fruit is sweet in my throat. I, she says, desired to rest under his shadow; but after his shadow protected me, I was also satisfied with his fruit, and I say: And his fruit is sweet to my throat. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:4

Augustine of Hippo: He didn’t abolish love of parents, wife, children, but put them in their right order. He didn’t say, “Whoever loves” but “whoever loves above me.” That’s what the church is saying in the Song of Songs: “He put charity in order for me.” Love your father, but not above your Lord; love the one who begot you, but not above the one who created you. — SERMON 344:2

Augustine of Hippo: What is, “Set in order love in me”? Make the proper degrees, and render to each what is his due. Do not put what should come before, below that which should come after it. Love your parents but prefer God to them. — SERMON 50 (100).2

Bede: We ought to love God in the first place, enemies in the last; and the measure of love that ought to be weighed out to our neighbors will vary according to the diversity of their merits. We know that the patriarch Jacob, although he loved all his sons, nevertheless loved Joseph more than the rest because of his singular innocence, as Scripture bears witness. Hence the church says pleasingly of Christ in the Song of Songs: “He brought me into the wine chamber, he set charity in order in me.” — On the Tabernacle 1:6

Bede: The king brought me into the wine cellar, etc. Just as soon, she says, as the sweetness of His grace touched the throat of my heart, I felt myself so revived in spirit, and translated from the enjoyment of lowly things to heavenly desires, just as if, having been brought into the wine cellar, I were refreshed by the new fragrance and also by a cup. Therefore, rightly, He who gave such goods, converted me to loving Him with unquenchable charity. Typologically, since the grace of the Holy Spirit is often designated by the term wine; the Lord attesting, when He says that new wine is to be put into new wineskins (Matthew IX, Mark II, Luke V), that is, the fervor of spiritual gifts is to be infused into pure hearts. The wine cellar ought to be understood as the Church, in whose unity alone the Holy Spirit is typically given and received. Therefore, the beloved brought his friend into the wine cellar, because the Lord has gathered the Church from the whole world into one house for Himself, which He consecrated with the gift of His Spirit; this fabric, since it stands primarily on the foundation of charity, by His own work, it is rightly added after she said she was brought into the wine cellar, “He ordained charity in me.” He ordained charity in me, she said, that is, He graciously gave to me to have ordered charity, that everyone should love the Lord God with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength; he should love his neighbor as himself, and also tolerate his enemy by loving him. He who either does not know or neglects this order of charity is the one about whom the very ordainer and bestower of charity says, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,” etc. (Matthew X). Although the ordination of charity can rightly be understood as also being for confirmation, because things placed haphazardly are weak; but those placed in order remain firmly, so it is rightly said that the Lord ordained charity in the Church, which He is known to strengthen in the hearts of His faithful with suitable progress. It can also be understood thus what is said, “He ordained charity in me,” as if it were said, He loved me with ordered charity, that is, He united all my members, that is, all the elect, to Himself with pious charity; but He embraces the more eminent with greater affection as is fitting, when it is said, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John XIII). He therefore loved all; and yet a more tender love towards a certain one is intimated when it is said, “That disciple whom Jesus loved” (John XXI). In the Church, according to the distinction of merits, He loves some more than others. Again, “He ordered love in me”: He Himself loved me first, and by loving me, in order that I might learn to return His love, He granted it; hence He says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John XV). Hence also the apostle John says, “This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins” (1 John IV). Again, the Lord ordained love in the Church, because the very love by which He chose her before the ages, through some degrees of progress, He demonstrated in the increments of times; for the Apostle, as a witness, says, “God commends His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans V). And with the increasing revelation of the same love, John says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, and we are” (1 John III). Again, concerning the same perfect love, which no greater can be, and which itself can never diminish, the Lord Himself says: “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and the rest” (John XIV). For when He said with the verb of the present tense, “He who loves me,” which can in no way be done unless one is first loved by Him, and kindled by the grace of His Spirit to love Him, what is it that He immediately subjoined with the verb of the future tense: “He will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him”? unless it is that he who is still now loved by God, so that by believing he may be able to love, will then certainly be loved by God, so that by seeing Him he may love Him more, and with His face revealed, he may love Him more truly with all his strength, as he endures nothing from lesser things that could hinder this love. Therefore, the Lord ordains love in the Church, by which He either loves her Himself or enflames her to hold rightly to love of Him and neighbor. And how much that very love, having perfectly absorbed the mind, raises it from the love of feeble things, He teaches in the following verse, when He says: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cosmas Indicopleustes ((quoting Philon of Carpathus, Commentary on Canticles)): The banqueting-house of the heavenly King, that is, His body which He built up for Himself as His house, and then also the kingdom of heaven. — The Christian Topography, Book 10

John Cassian: Something of this sort too we have in the character of the bride in the Song of Songs, where she says: “Set in order love in me.” For this is true love set in order, which, while it hates no one, yet loves some still more by reason of their deserving it, and which, while it loves all in general, singles out for itself some from those, whom it may embrace with a special affection, and again among those, who are the special and chief objects of its love, singles out some who are preferred to others in affection. — The First Conference of Abbot Joseph, Chapter 14

Nilus of Sinai: Naturally the bride now demands entry into the house of wine. For she alone had believed beforehand in the grape cluster hanging upon the cross, the grape cluster that was counted for nothing by everyone because while still in flower it had not exhibited to everyone the properties of wine. At that time she alone had believed in advance in this grape cluster, although its identity would become clearly manifest only at a later time. She had established in advance an idea so high, even before the wine season itself, which permitted her to anticipate a mental notion of the wine even in the flowering vine. Besides this, it permitted her to bear witness to Deity from on high present within the one who hung upon the cross, and thus to conceive of impassibility within suffering, of resurrection within death. She alone had firmly grasped, as though it had already been spoken, the message of the vine upon the cross that would soon be pressed out. And thus she experienced before the outcome of events that which the majority experienced only after their outcome had been realized. Hence she requests, as an exceptional privilege of such discernment, entry into the house of wine. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 45

Origen of Alexandria: Bring me into the house of wine. The bridegroom stood outside, and was received by the bride; for he rested between her breasts. The neighboring maidens are not such as to deserve to have the bridegroom for a guest. To the multitude he speaks outside, in parables. How I fear that perhaps we many are the maidens! Bring me into the house of wine. Why do I remain so long outside? Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If anyone opens to me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me. Bring me in. And now the divine word says the same: behold, Christ speaks, “Bring me in.” To you catechumens also he speaks, “Bring me in” — not simply into the house, but into the house of wine. Let your soul be filled with the wine of gladness, with the wine of the Holy Spirit. And so bring into your house the bridegroom, the Word, Wisdom, Truth. But it can also be said to those who are not yet perfect: Bring me into the house of wine. Set love in order within me. Elegantly he said, “set in order.” For the love of very many is disordered: what they ought to love in the first place, they love in the second; what in the second, they love in the first; what they ought to love fourth, they love third; and again the third in the fourth place; and in most people the order of love is perverse. But the love of the saints is well-ordered. To bring this to understanding — what is said, “set love in order within me” — I wish to repeat some examples. The divine word wills you to love father, son, daughter; the divine word wills you to love Christ. Nor does it say to you, “Do not love your children, do not be joined in love to your parents.” But what does it say? “Do not have a disordered love; do not love first father or mother, and then me; do not be held by the love of sons and daughters more than by love of me.” He who loves father or mother above me is not worthy of me; he who loves son or daughter above me is not worthy of me. Recall your conscience concerning your affection for father, mother, or brother, and consider what love you have toward the word of God and of Jesus: at once you will detect that you love son and daughter more than the Word, that you love your parents more than Christ. Who, do you think, so advances among us, that he holds the love of the word of God chief and first among all, and puts his children in the second place? In the same way, love your wife. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but loves it as flesh. And the two, he says, shall be in one flesh — and not in one spirit. Love God also; but love him not as flesh and blood, but as spirit. For he who cleaves to God is one spirit. Therefore love is well-ordered in the perfect. And that after God there may be set an order even among ourselves: the first commandment is that we love our parents; the second, that we love our children; the third, that we love our household. But if the son is bad, and the servant good, let the servant be placed in the love due a son. And so it will come about that the love of the saints is well-ordered. Our Master and Lord too, in the Gospel, establishing precepts about love, attached to the love of each one something proper, and gave the understanding of order to those who can hear the Scripture saying, “Set love in order within me.” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself — not the neighbor with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and with all the mind. Again, he says: Love your enemies — and he did not add, “with all the heart.” The divine word is not disordered, nor does it command impossible things, nor say, “Love your enemies as yourselves,” but only, “Love your enemies”; it is enough for them that we love them and do not hold them in hatred. But the neighbor, as yourself. And God, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and with all the strength. If you have understood these things, and, having understood, have fulfilled them, you have done what is enjoined by the bridegroom’s word: Bring me into the house of wine; set love in order within me. Who, do you think, among us is of well-ordered love? Strengthen me with ointments. One of the Translators put οἰνανθῶν [vine-blossoms]. But it is the bride who speaks: Stay me up with apples. With what apples? As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons. Therefore, stay me up with his apples, because I am wounded with love. How beautiful it is, how comely, to receive a wound from love! One has taken the dart of carnal love; another has been wounded by earthly desire: but do you bare your members, and offer yourself to the chosen dart, the beautiful dart — for God is an archer. Hear the Scripture speaking of this same dart; nay, that you may marvel the more, hear the dart itself speak, what it says: He set me as a chosen arrow, and in his quiver he kept me, and said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant. Understand what the arrow says, and how it is chosen by God. How blessed a thing it is to be wounded by this dart! With this arrow had those men been wounded who conferred among themselves, saying: Was not our heart burning within us on the way, when he opened to us the Scriptures? If anyone is wounded by our word, if anyone by the teaching of the divine Scripture, and can say, “I am wounded with love,” perhaps this also follows for him. Why do I say “perhaps”? I set forth a plain sentence: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. The word of God has wisdom both in the left hand and in the right, which, though it be manifold according to the variety of understanding, is in its foundation one. Solomon himself taught of the left and the right hand of wisdom, saying: For length and years of life are in her right hand; but in her left hand riches and glory. Therefore let his left hand be under my head, that it may make me rest, and let the bridegroom’s arm become my pillow, that the ruling part of my soul may recline upon the word of God. His left hand is under my head. It is not profitable for you to have pillows which lamentation follows. In Ezekiel it is written: Woe to those who sew pillows under every elbow of the hand. Do not sew pillows, do not seek rest for your head from elsewhere: you have the bridegroom’s left hand; let it be under your head, and say: His left hand is under my head — and when you have it, all the things which are in the left hand are bestowed upon you. For you say, in his left hand are riches and glory, and his right hand shall embrace me. Let the bridegroom’s right hand embrace you wholly. For length and years of life are in his right hand; and on this account you shall be of long life, and of many days, upon the good land which the Lord your God gives you. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Origen of Alexandria: These are still the words of the bride, but they are directed, as I think, to the friends and intimates of the bridegroom, from whom she seems to ask that they bring her into the house of gladness, where wine is drunk and a banquet is prepared. For she who had already seen the royal chamber now desires also to enter the royal banquet and to enjoy the wine of gladness. We have already said above that the friends of the bridegroom are to be understood as the prophets and all who have ministered the word of God from the beginning of the world, to whom the Church of Christ, or the soul cleaving to the Word of God, may rightly say that they bring her into the house of wine, that is, where wisdom has mingled her wine in the mixing-bowl, and beseeches through her servants everyone foolish and lacking in sense, saying: “Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.” This is the house of wine, and the house of the banquet, in which banquet all who come from the east and the west shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. To this house and to this banquet the prophets lead the souls — those, at least, who hear and understand them. But so also do the holy angels and the heavenly powers who are sent in ministry, on account of those who receive the inheritance of salvation. This is the wine to which are inscribed those psalms which are entitled “for the winepresses.” This is the wine gathered from that vine which says: “I am the true vine”; which the heavenly Father, the husbandman, has pressed out. This is the wine which those branches brought forth, which remained in Jesus not only on earth but also in heaven. For thus do I hear that which is said, that “every branch which does not remain in me cannot bear fruit.” For no one produces the fruit of this wine except him who remains in the word, and in wisdom, and in truth, and in justice, and in peace, and in all the virtues. This is the wine with which even to be inebriated is deemed desirable by the just and by every holy person. This wine, I think, Noah too was even then contemplating in the spirit when he is said to have been inebriated; and David, marveling at the cup of this banquet, says: “And your cup which inebriates, how excellent it is!” To this house of wine, therefore, the Church, or each soul desiring to enter into the things that are perfect, and to enjoy fully the doctrines of wisdom and the mysteries of knowledge, as with the sweetness of a banquet and the gladness of wine. It must indeed be known that, just as there is this wine which, pressed from the doctrines of truth, is mingled in the mixing-bowl of wisdom, so also there is a contrary wine, when sinners are wickedly inebriated, and those who receive the pernicious doctrines of false knowledge. Concerning whom Solomon says in Proverbs: “But these eat the food of impiety, and are inebriated with the wine of iniquity.” Concerning this same wine of iniquity we also read written thus in Deuteronomy: “From the vine of the Sodomites is their vine, and their branch from Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, and their cluster is one of bitterness for them; the fury of dragons is their wine, and the incurable fury of asps.” But that wine which proceeds from the true vine is always new. For always, through the advances of those who learn, the recognition of divine knowledge and wisdom is renewed. And therefore Jesus said to his disciples that “I will drink that new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father.” For the recognition of secret things and the revelation of hidden things is always renewed through the wisdom of God, not only to men, but also to the angels and the heavenly powers. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: These are the words of the same bride to the same persons, except that perhaps the apostles of Christ may also be reckoned among those to whom these things are addressed. Now what she says—“Set charity in order within me”—has this sense. Without doubt all men love something, and there is no one who has come to that age at which he is now able to love and does not love something: as we also showed sufficiently in the preface of this work. But this love, or this charity, in some indeed proceeds fittingly arranged according to its own order, but in very many against order. And charity is said to be against order in someone when either he loves that which he ought not, or he loves that which he ought, but loves it more than is right, or less than is right. In such persons, then, charity is said to be disordered; but in those—whom I judge to be very few, namely those who walk along the way of life and do not turn aside, neither to the right nor to the left—in these alone is charity ordered and keeps its own order. And its order and measure is of this kind, for example: to love God there is no manner, no measure, save this alone, that you offer to Him all that you have. For in Christ Jesus God is to be loved with the whole heart, and the whole soul, and with all one’s strength. In this, then, there is no measure. But to love one’s neighbor is already a certain measure. “You shall love,” it says, “your neighbor as yourself.” If therefore either in the love of God you do something less than you can and than is in your power; or between yourself and your neighbor you do not preserve equity, but have some difference; then charity is not ordered in you, nor does it keep its own order. But since our discourse is about the order of charity, let us inquire more diligently through the particulars, both whom it is fitting to love, and how much it is fitting to love. For if, as the Apostle says, we are members one of another, I think that we ought to have this affection toward our neighbors, that we love them not as bodies foreign to us, but as our own members. According to this, then, that we are members of one another, it will be fitting to have an equal and like love toward all. But according to this, that there are in the body certain members more honorable and more comely, while others are less comely and inferior, I think that again, according to the merits and honor of the members, the measure of love too ought to be weighed. If therefore anyone proposes to do all things reasonably and to temper his acts and affections according to the Word of God, I think that toward each of these he ought both to know and to hold the order of charity. But that what we say may become clearer, let us make use of somewhat more evident indications. If someone, for example, labors in the Word of God and instructs and enlightens our souls, teaches the way of salvation, and hands down the order of living, does he not seem to you to be indeed a neighbor here too, yet much more to be loved than that other neighbor who has done none of these things? For although that other is indeed to be loved, in that we are members of one body and of one substance; yet this one much more, who, though he also has with us the right of a neighbor which other men also have, nevertheless gives this greater cause of charity toward himself, that he shows the way of God, and confers the salvation of the soul by the enlightenments of the divine Word. But if someone should call me back, when erring and set upon the precipice of a womanly sin, to the light of piety, and should snatch me from destruction itself and draw me back to salvation, and rescue me from the very jaws of eternal death, does it not seem to you that he, if it can be, is to be loved with that very fullness of charity with which we love God—after God? And lest you think that we presume thus of ourselves, hear the apostle Paul saying of those who labor in the Word of God: “That you may hold superabundantly in charity those who are such, on account of their work.” Let us see yet another order of charity, that at least which is seen to be held toward neighbors. If there be someone who indeed does not have the grace of teaching or instructing, nor of preaching the word of the Lord, but is nevertheless a man of holy life, innocent, immaculate, and one who walks in the justifications and commandments of God without reproach, does such a man seem to you to be reckoned in the same order of charity as that one who does none of these things?—since either is called a neighbor. Should not this one too, on account of his work and the merit of his life, according to the Apostle’s saying, likewise as that one who labors in the Word of God, be held superabundantly in charity on account of the work of his life? There is still another order of charity. For we are commanded to love even our enemies. But let us see whether even in them there will be one single manner of love, or whether that saying which says, “Set charity in order within me,” will have its place there. I think, then, that in these there is an order of charity, for example: there is a certain enemy of mine, who nevertheless in other respects acts well, is chaste, sober, keeping the commandments of God for the most part, yet erring in some things, as a man. There is another who is indeed likewise an enemy to us, yet is an enemy of his own life and soul, prepared for crimes, headlong into disgraceful deeds, counting nothing holy, nothing religious: does it not seem to you that even among enemies themselves a certain diversity of charity is to be held? I think indeed that from these things it has become sufficiently plain that the force of charity is one, yet it has many causes, and many orders of loving, and that on this account the bride now says, “Set charity in order within me,” that is, teach me the diverse orders of charity. But if it still seems that something is to be added to these, we can also bring forward that which the Apostle says: “Husbands, love your wives as your own bodies, as Christ loved the Church.” What then? Ought husbands indeed to love their wives, but ought they not at all to love other women in all chastity and holiness? Or will not these too seem to be among neighbors? But love is indeed to be bestowed either on a spouse, or on a mother, or on a sister, provided they be faithful, cleaving to God; and toward another woman is no love to be bestowed by us, according to that by which she herself is called a neighbor? But if this seems absurd, and chaste love ought, according to the order of the commandment, to be shown even toward them, then assuredly, among the very persons of women to whom love is to be bestowed, an order in charity and a fitting distinction must certainly be held. And with the greater honor is love to be shown to a mother; but in the next degree, with a certain reverence nonetheless, to sisters also. But with a proper and, from these, a set-apart manner is charity to be shown to spouses. And after these persons, according to merits and causes also, love is to be bestowed on each one in all chastity, as we have said. And according to these things we shall observe also concerning a father, or a brother, and other kinsfolk. But toward the holy ones who have begotten us in Christ, and also pastors and bishops, or the presbyters who preside over the Word of God, or those who minister well in the Church, or those who excel the rest in faith—how shall not, according to the merits of each one, an affection of charity be weighed out far more eminent than can be held toward those who have done either none of these things or not fully? But also between faithful parents and unfaithful, and faithful brothers and unfaithful, and sisters, can it come about that a diverse order of charity is not held toward these individuals? Beholding these diversities, and seeing that concerning all these things the knowledge of these matters seems necessary to the soul tending toward perfection, that it may be able to hold the measures of charity for each place and order, the bride says to the friends of the bridegroom, namely to those who minister the Word of God: “Set charity in order within me,” that is, teach me and hand down to me how through each of these I ought to preserve the order of charity. For all men, as we have already said, according to this that they are like to us, are to be loved alike: nay, every rational creature is to be loved equally by us, inasmuch as we are rational. Yet something is to be added in charity to each one, in respect of this that he is a man, and of this that he is rational; if, for example, either in morals, or in work, or in purpose, or in pursuits he excels the rest; and for each of these, according to each one’s own merit, to the general love there is to be added also something special of charity. But that a greater authority may be had concerning these things, let us take our example from God Himself. For He loves all things that are, equally, so that He hates none of the things He has made; for neither did He make anything that He would hold in hatred: not however for this reason did He love the Egyptians alike as the Hebrews, and Pharaoh as Moses and Aaron. Nor again did He love the rest of the sons of Israel alike as Moses and Aaron and Miriam; nor again did He love Aaron and Miriam alike as Moses, although it be true what is said to Him: “But You spare all, because they are Yours, O Lord, lover of souls; for the spirit of incorruption is in all things”; nevertheless He who disposed all things by measure and number and weight, according to the measure without doubt of each one tempers the balance also of His love. Shall we suppose that Paul was not loved by Him alike when he was persecuting the Church of God, and when he was loved while he himself was bearing persecutions and torments for her, and was saying that there was in him the solicitude of all the Churches? It is much now that among these orders of charity we should insert even the affection of hatred, which seems contrary to this affection of charity; because the Lord also says: “I will be an enemy to your enemies and I will oppose your adversaries.” And again: “If you stand by a sinner, and by him whom the Lord hates, you are his friend.” Which indeed have this same solution as that which was said: “Honor your father and your mother”; and again: “He who does not hate father and mother,” and the rest, in which assuredly the excess of charity toward God seems to generate a contrary affection toward those who are adversaries, since there can be no concord of light with darkness, and of Christ with Belial, nor the same portion for the faithful with the unfaithful. These things, then, concerning the orders of charity having been set forth as we could, it is plain for the understanding what it is that the bride, that is the Church, or the soul tending toward perfection, asks to be granted to her by the friends of the bridegroom; since indeed she had asked to be brought into the house of wine, where without doubt she had understood that, among all those things which she had seen, the grace of charity is preeminent and surpassing, and she had learned that charity itself is the greatest of all, and alone is the charity that never falls: therefore she demands that she may learn its order, lest perchance, doing something disordered, she should receive some wound from it, as is said in the later passages: “I am wounded with charity.” But whether we take these things to be said by angels, from whom she asks to be instructed and fortified, nothing absurd will appear; according to that which is said of the people of God: “Rejoice, O nations, with His people, and let all the angels of God strengthen them.” And as is said elsewhere: “The angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear Him, and will deliver them.” And again elsewhere: “Do not despise one of these least ones who are in the Church, for their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” But also in the Apocalypse of John the Son of God gives testimony to the angel of Thyatira for the charity which the angel himself ordered in the Church committed to him. For thus it is written: “I know your works and your charity, and your faith and ministry, and your patience, and your latter works greater than the former.” But even if we refer these things to the prophets, who ministered the Word of God before the coming of the bridegroom, so that through their teaching the Church may be seen to wish to learn the order of charity, that is, to be instructed by the prophetic volumes, it will not appear absurd. But also all the saints who have departed from this life, still having charity toward those who are in this world—if they be said to bear care for their salvation, and to help them by their prayers, and by their intervention with God—it will not be unfitting. For it is written thus in the books of the Maccabees: “This is Jeremiah the prophet of God, who always prays for the people.” But also that these things are said to the apostles, as I have already said above, will not seem foreign: for through these all the Church of God, or the soul seeking God, is brought into the house of wine, as we said above, and is filled with aromatic spices and odors, and is composed unto the better, as we read in the later passages, and we are taught the order and reason of charity. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Song of Solomon 2:5

Ambrose of Milan: The Word of God inflicts a wound, but it does not produce a sore. There is a wound of righteous love, there are wounds of charity, as she has said, “I am wounded with love.” The one who is perfect is wounded with love. Therefore the wounds of the Word are good, and good are the wounds of the lover. — Concerning Virginity 14:91

Aponius: The love of eternal life sprouts from the love of knowledge, as does the ability to endure persecution from the love of eternal life, and the virtue of fortitude from persecution, and the perfected glory of martyrdom from fortitude. — EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 3:44

Augustine of Hippo: In the Song of Songs it is said, “I am wounded with love”; that is, of being in love, of being inflamed with passion, of sighing for the bridegroom, from whom she received the arrow of the Word. — EXPLANATIONS OF THE Psalms 45:14

Augustine of Hippo: The wound of love is health-giving. The bride of Christ sings in the Song of Songs, “I am wounded with charity.” When is this wound healed? When our desire is sated with good things. It’s called a wound as long as we desire and don’t yet have. Love, you see, in that case, is the same as if it were a pain. When we get there, when we have what we desire, the pain disappears, the love doesn’t cease. — SERMON 298:2

Basil of Caesarea: What reflection is sweeter than the thought of the magnificence of God? What desire of the soul is so poignant and so intolerably keen as that desire implanted by God in a soul purified from all vice and affirming with sincerity, “I languish with love.” Totally ineffable and indescribable are the lightning flashes of divine Beauty. — THE LONG RULES 2

Bede: “Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples,” etc. For the soul languishes with love when it truly tastes the ordered love of its Creator in itself, because when it is kindled to seek the light of eternity, it tires from the love of temporality, so that it cools in its zeal for the passing world as much as it rises more ardent to contemplate the joys of the eternal kingdom. But let us see, soul, who burns with such love, what place it seeks to lie down in, where it may rest when weary. “Sustain me,” it says, “with flowers, surround me with apples.” In the flowers are still tender beginnings of virtues, in the apples perfection is signified. Therefore, the soul languishing with love beseeches the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, those souls who preceded it in heavenly desire, to help its own beginnings with good examples, and to recall to its memory more frequently by what start, by what course, by what end they completed the way of virtues, so that through the sight of these, as if by a most pleasing scent of flowers and apples, it may lie down more softly and sweetly in the love of its Creator. This can equally be understood both from the deeds of the saints which we have before our eyes and from those which we gather from the fields and groves of the Scriptures, as well from the deeds or sayings of the preceding fathers. — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cassiodorus: The church proclaims in the Song of Songs, “I am wounded by love.” So the holy people pray to be pierced by the fear of the Lord, so that by dying they may live, whereas earlier by living they were dying. — EXPOSITION OF THE Psalms 119:120

Gregory the Dialogist: For what do we understand by ‘arrows’ but the words of preachers? For when they are drawn forth by the voice of holy livers, they transfix the hearts of the hearers. With these arrows Holy Church had been struck, who was saying, I am wounded with love. — Morals on the Book of Job, Book 34, Paragraph 21

Gregory the Dialogist: Hence again the Church says in the Song of Songs: “I am wounded with love.” For it is just that she should reach health from the sight of the physician, who bears the wound of love in her breast through the heat of her desire for him. — Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 25

Origen of Alexandria: In the Greek, indeed, it reads: “Strengthen me with myrrhs”; and by naming “myrrh” a certain kind of tree, which the Latins, supposing it to be so called, rendered as “myrrha,” they interpreted it as “perfumes.” The sequence of the discourse, then, is of this sort: after the bride had heard the words from the mouth of the bridegroom himself, and had entered the chamber of the king, and the house of wine and the place of the banquet and of wisdom, and had beheld therein the victims and the mixing-bowl blended with his sacred mysteries, then, as if stupefied in admiration of all these things, and wounded, she nonetheless asks of these same friends and companions of the bridegroom that she be strengthened, and, as though fainting, be supported, leaning a little upon the myrrh-tree or the ash-tree. For, struck by the wound of love, she seeks out the solace of trees and of woodlands. These things according to the letter. But that we may be able to pursue from these the spiritual understanding, we have need of that grace which Solomon himself deserved to obtain from God, who learned the natures of all the roots and trees and shrubs that are God’s, so that we too might know both what the property and what the nature of the myrrh-tree is, from which a spiritual exposition may fittingly be drawn. Now this is the only thing that could reach us concerning the knowledge of this tree: that it has a sweet fragrance only, yet bears no fruit. But the ash-tree is known to all as one that not only bears fruit, but bears fruit most sweet and most agreeable. All men, therefore, are called trees, whether good or evil, and fruitful or unfruitful, as the Lord also says in the Gospel: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad”; and: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” Three distinctions, then, seem to exist among men. There are certain ones who bear no fruit at all, and others who do bear fruit. But among those who bear fruit, the fruits are either bad or good. Here, therefore, the bride, that is, the Church of Christ, asks to be strengthened, and indeed to be made to recline upon a single ash-tree bearing good fruits: and rightly and fittingly. For upon these the Church is strengthened and surrounded, namely upon those who bear fruit and grow in good works. But what does it mean that she wishes to be strengthened among the myrrhs, that is, among unfruitful trees that delight in fragrance alone? I think that those who delight in fragrance alone, and do not yet bear the fruits of faith, are those whom Paul names in writing to the Corinthians, whom he calls: “Those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place of theirs and of ours.” Insofar, then, as they call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, they have within themselves a certain sweetness of fragrance from the very invocation of the name. But insofar as they do not approach the faith with all confidence and freedom, they bear no fruits of faith. In this passage we may understand the catechumens of the Church, upon whom the churches are in some part strengthened. For they too have within themselves no little confidence and very much hope that they also may one day become fruit-bearing trees and be planted in the paradise of God by the Father himself, the husbandman. For it is he who plants trees of this sort in the Church of Christ, which is the paradise of delights: as the Lord also says, “Every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.” The Church, therefore, is surrounded among the ash-trees and rests upon them. And what ash-trees are those souls to be reckoned which are daily renewed unto the image of him who created them. For because through their renewal the sons of God restore the image, deservedly they too are called ash-trees, since their bridegroom himself was also said above to be “as an ash-tree among the trees of the wood.” And do not wonder if this same one is called both the tree of life and various other things, since the same is also named the true bread, and the true vine, and the Lamb of God, and many other things. For the Word of God becomes all these things to each one, according as the measure or the desire of the partaker demands: even as the manna also, though it was a single food, yet rendered to each one the flavor of his own desire. He offers himself, then, not only as bread to the hungry and wine to the thirsty, but also, to those who wish to take delight, he presents himself as fragrant fruits. Therefore the bride, as though now refreshed and well fed, asks to be supported among the ash-trees, knowing that in the Word there is for her not only every food, but also every delight: and among these especially she ranges to and fro, while she feels herself wounded by the darts of love. If there is anywhere anyone who has ever burned with this faithful love of God, if there is anyone who, as the prophet says, has received the sweet wound and the blow of his chosen dart, if there is anyone who has been pierced by the lovely spear of his knowledge, so that he sighs for him with longings by day and by night, is able to speak of nothing else, is unwilling to hear anything else, knows not how to think of anything else, and finds no pleasure in desiring or coveting or hoping for anything besides him: that soul deservedly says, “I am wounded by love”; and I received the wound from him of whom Isaiah says, “And he set me as a chosen dart, and in his quiver he hid me.” With such a wound does it befit God to strike souls, with such darts and spears to transfix them, and to wound them with saving wounds: so that, because God is love, they too may say, “For I am wounded by love.” And indeed in this, as it were, love-drama the bride says that she has received the wounds of love: but likewise a soul fervent toward the wisdom of God can say, “I am wounded by wisdom,” namely that soul which was able to gaze upon the beauty of his wisdom. And another soul, beholding the magnificence of his power and admiring the might of the Word of God, can say, “I am wounded by his power.” Such a one, I believe, was she who said, “The Lord is my light and my savior, whom shall I fear?” But another soul too, fervent toward the love of his justice, and beholding the justice of his dispensations and of his providence, says without doubt, “I am wounded by his justice.” And another, regarding the immensity of his goodness and mercy, speaks likewise. But this wound of love, by which the bride proclaims herself wounded, is the general one of all these. Yet it must be known that, just as there are these darts of God, which inflict upon the soul that has a desire of good things the wound of salvation: so also there are the fiery darts of the evil one, by which the soul that is not protected by the shield of faith is wounded unto death. Of these the prophet says: “Behold, the sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared their arrows in their quiver, to shoot in the dark the upright of heart.” Here he calls the invisible demons “sinners shooting from concealment,” and they are the ones who have certain darts of fornication, others of covetousness and avarice, by which very many are wounded. They also have shafts of boastfulness and vainglory: but these are exceedingly subtle, so that the soul scarcely feels itself transfixed and wounded by them, unless it is clothed with the armor of God and stands watchful and immovable against the wiles of the devil, covering itself on every side with the shield of faith, and leaving absolutely no part of the body bare of faith. But however many weapons the demons may fashion, if they find the mind of a man fortified with faith, even though they be fiery, even though they burn with the flames of lusts and the conflagrations of vices, faith when full extinguishes them all. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Song of Solomon 2:6

Augustine of Hippo: As for the right hand of the Father, it isn’t meant in the manner of the structure of the human body, as though he is on the Son’s left, if the Son in terms of bodily positions and relationships is placed on his right. But the right hand of God means the inexpressible peak of honor and good fortune, as we read it said about wisdom: “His left hand under my head, and his right hand embraces me.” If earthly convenience has been lying underneath, then eternal felicity is embracing from above. — SERMON 214:8

Bede: Surely the left hand of the bridegroom is placed under the head of the bride because the Lord raises up the minds of the faithful with temporal benefits, separating them from earthly pleasures and longings so that they may desire and hope for eternal blessings. And he shall embrace her with his right hand because by revealing the vision of his majesty he glorifies her without end. — On the Tabernacle 1:8

Bede: His left hand under my head, etc. In the left hand of Christ, temporal gifts are signified, and in the right hand, the happiness of eternal life. Therefore it is written elsewhere of him, who is the power and wisdom of God, “Length of days is in his right hand, and in his left hand riches and glory.” Therefore the holy Church shows, the soul perfectly intent on the love of its Redeemer shows, what kind of rest it might find in this life which it so eagerly seeks, how it desires to lie in that flowery bed of virtues with its beloved in this exile of pilgrimage. He says, “His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.” But he calls his head, the principal part of the mind; and the beloved places his left hand under the head of his bride when the Lord confirms the hearts of the faithful still dwelling in this life with the knowledge of his understanding, lifts them up with participation in his sacraments, grants them the pledge of his Spirit, and suggests the comforts of the holy Scriptures. And his right hand shall embrace her when he also promises her the everlasting kingdom of heavenly life after this life. And it is well said that the left hand supports the head, and the right hand embraces her, because we receive temporal gifts as an aid for this pilgrimage, but we shall see heavenly rewards without end. Rightly then does the bride, who earlier languished in love and sought to be supported by flowers and surrounded by apples, now attest to having the hand of her beloved under her head. For even if the lover of the Creator delights in the flowers of virtues, in the progress of neighbors with whom he reaches the vision of His face, and in the remembrance of the examples of ancient saints, whereby he is stirred to love God or his neighbor more ardently, yet there is a singular hope for those who truly desire to rest, which is to be supported by the hand of their Author. And indeed, at first the left hand, so that through this, they may be deemed worthy to reach the embrace of the right hand; for the right hand will not embrace anyone unless the left hand first accepts them to be cherished, that is, no one will sublimely see His glory in the future who has not faithfully inclined to receive the mysteries of His humility in the present. Did not Paul, who showed himself to be the most faithful minister of this bride, saying, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11), take care to place the left hand of the bridegroom under her head to lead to the embrace of the right hand? For he said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2). Again, he urges her to strive for the embrace of the right hand, saying, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God” (Col. 3), and “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory” (ibid.). Therefore, he says, “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me.” As if to say openly: may the temporal blessings of my Lord and Savior, which help me to rest a little from the lusts or disturbances of the world, assist me; but the promise of eternal things, in which I am perpetually rewarded, delights me more. How truly pleasing to the Lord is the rest of such a bride, that is, the Church or any chosen soul, is shown in her subsequent response, when it is said: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: The law is said to be in his left hand, the gospel in his right. Or, the left hand is to be understood as the present life and the right hand as the future life, which will indeed embrace me after it is said to those on the right: “Come, blessed of my Father.” We also read elsewhere: “A long life is in wisdom’s right hand and riches and glory in its left hand.” Thus, his right hand is the knowledge of divine realities, from which comes eternal life, but his left hand is the knowledge of human realities, from which come riches and glory. He is saying, therefore, My mind exceeds human realities and divine knowledge covers me. For, it is said again: “Honor her that she will embrace you.” … Rightly, then, is it said that the right hand embraces and the left hand offers support to the head, for the goods of the present life, however much they are thought to be visible, must be subject to the head of the perfect soul and used only out of necessity, as though they were a pillow for the head. But the goods of the future age, because they exceed human nature, being divine, signify the supernatural through this embrace. Perhaps also, since the hands are symbols of acts, the left hand indicates corporeal deeds, whereas the right hand signifies spiritual work. Because the right hand is more powerful, then, it embraces corporeal necessities. — FRAGMENTS IN THE COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:6

Gregory of Elvira: These two hands are the two covenants of the old law and the gospel. When it refers to his left hand, it indicates the old covenant, but the right hand is the preaching of the gospel. The old covenant is inferior because it is placed beneath the head of the church, who is Christ, whereas the right hand embraced the church, meaning that old sins were covered by the sacraments of the gospel. Whoever goes forth in faith, therefore, and serves Christ with devotion, leaves the old person beneath himself and embraces anew the body of Christ, which is the church. — EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS 3:29

Gregory the Dialogist: But we must note what it means that the angel is seen sitting on the right side. For what is designated by the left except the present life, and what by the right except eternal life? Hence it is written in the Song of Songs: “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.” Since therefore our Redeemer had already passed beyond the corruption of the present life, rightly the angel who had come to announce his eternal life was sitting on the right. — Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 21

Jerome: The hands are here a figure of wedlock. — LETTER 22.19

John Cassian: And of this right and left hand Solomon speaks as follows in the Song of Songs, in the person of the bride: “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.” And while this passage shows that both are useful, yet it puts one under the head, because misfortunes ought to be subject to the control of the heart, since they are only useful for this; viz., to train us for a time and discipline us for our salvation and make us perfect in the matter of patience. But the right hand she hopes will ever cling to her to cherish her and hold her fast in the blessed embrace of the Bridegroom, and unite her to him indissolubly. We shall then be ambidextrous, when neither abundance nor want affects us, and when the former does not entice us to the luxury of a dangerous carelessness, while the latter does not draw us to despair, and complaining; but when, giving thanks to God in either case alike, we gain one and the same advantage out of good and bad fortune. — Conference of Abbot Theodore, Chapter 10

Leander of Seville: He who has joined you to his company will not sadden you. With his left hand, in which is honor and glory, under your head, with his right arm, in which is length of life, he will embrace you. — THE TRAINING OF NUNS, PREFACE

Origen of Alexandria: This is indeed the description of a love-drama hastening toward the marriage of bridegroom and bride, and it runs its course, as it were, in rather more openly bodily terms of the body. But turn yourself more swiftly to the life-giving Spirit, and, fleeing from bodily terms, look closely at what the left hand of the Word of God may be, what the right hand, and also what the head of his bride — that is, of the perfect soul, or of the Church — and do not let a carnal and passible understanding sweep you away. For here this is the right hand and left hand of the bridegroom, which is spoken of concerning Wisdom in the Proverbs, where it says: “For length of life is in her right hand, and in her left hand are riches and glory.” And just as here you will not therefore suppose Wisdom to be some woman because she seems to be called by a feminine name, so neither in this case, because the Word of God as bridegroom is spoken of in the masculine gender, ought you to understand his left hand or his right hand in a bodily way, or to perceive the embraces of the bride according to the feminine gender of the “soul”; but the Word of God — although among the Greeks it is uttered in the masculine, and among us in the neuter gender — is nevertheless to be conceived, in these matters of which we speak, as being above the masculine and neuter and feminine gender, and above absolutely everything that has regard to this: and not only the Word of God, but also his Church, and the perfect soul, which is likewise named the bride. For so also the Apostle says: “For in Christ there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in him.” Now these things are set down, on account of men who cannot hear otherwise except by these words which are in common use, after the manner of human speech in the divine Scripture: so that we may hear them indeed by known and customary words, yet may understand them with that meaning which is worthy of divine and incorporeal realities. For just as he who says that he is a lover of the beauty of wisdom shows this — that he has transferred the natural affection of love which is in him to the pursuits of wisdom — so also here the bride, whether the soul or the Church, demands that her bridegroom, who is the Word of God, may with his left hand support her head, and with his right hand embrace and hold fast all the rest of her body. Now the left hand is that in which Wisdom is said to contain riches and glory. But what riches has the Church, and what glory, except those which she has received from him who, though he was rich, was made poor, that by his poverty the Church might be made rich? And what is the glory? That, without doubt, of which he says: “Father, glorify thy Son” — designating, without doubt, the glory of the Passion. Therefore faith in the Passion of Christ is the glory and riches of the Church, which are contained in his left hand. And the left hand of the Word of God I think ought to be understood in this way: since indeed there are in him certain dispensations enacted before the Incarnation, and there are also some enacted through the Incarnation. That part of the Word of God which was accomplished in the dispensations before the assumption of flesh can be seen as the right hand; but this which was accomplished through the Incarnation may be called the left hand. Whence too the left hand is said to have riches and glory. For through the Incarnation he sought riches and glory — namely, the salvation of all. But in the right hand is said to be length of life: by which, without doubt, is indicated that part of him which in the beginning was with God, God the Word — its everlastingness. This left hand, then, the Church, whose head is Christ, desires to have under her head, and to have her head fortified by faith in his Incarnation; but to be embraced by his right hand — that is, to acknowledge and to be instructed in those things which, even before the time of this dispensation carried out through the flesh, are held in secret and hidden places. For there all things are to be thought of as being the right hand, where nothing is contained of the miseries of sins, nothing of the fall of frailty. But the left hand is where he healed our wounds and bore our sins, being himself made sin and a curse for us. All which things, although they support the head and the faith of the Church, will nevertheless rightly be called the left hand of the Word of God. In which he is also recorded to have endured certain things beyond that nature which is wholly the right hand, and wholly light, splendor, and glory. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Theodoret of Cyrus: “His left hand under my head, and his right hand will embrace me.” Let us be careful once more, however, not to get involved in corporeal ideas on hearing “left hand” and “right hand.” Solomon, in fact, speaks of wisdom, which is a habit and not substance: “Length of life and years of existence are in her right hand, and in her left wealth and glory.” Likewise regarding the “embrace” you can find in the Proverbs the saying, “Love her, and she will keep you safe; ring her about with a rampart, and she will exalt you; honor her, and she will embrace you.” Let us take occasion from this, then, to understand the references spiritually, believing the so-called embrace to be a communion between the divine Word and the pious soul, and the “right and left hands” should be understood in the way taken by us. So as not to leave its deeper meaning undiscerned, however, let us interpret it this way: God is in the habit of bestowing both beneficence and punishment, distributing both to those who deserve them. Let us accordingly understand beneficent grace in the case of the right hand, and punishment in the case of the left, and thus listen to the bride saying, “His left hand under my head,” that is, “I am beyond punishments, I am not subject to them, on account of my closeness to the bridegroom and my attention to his service”; and “His right hand will embrace me,” that is, “He will regale me with his beneficence and fill me with it as though enfolding and embracing me, and satisfying my desire.” — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2

Song of Solomon 2:7

Bede: I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the hinds of the field, etc. The daughters of Jerusalem signify souls burning with the desire for the heavenly homeland. The bridegroom adjures these souls not to awaken the bride resting in His love, neither presume to disturb her happily asleep from human disturbances. For whoever unduly disrupts an elect soul, either speaking to God in devout prayers or meditating on divine commandments or promises in sacred readings, indeed awakens the bride of Christ from blessed slumber before she herself wishes. For the bride herself desires to awaken refreshed by this most blessed sleep since she knows to devote herself to divine duties at the appropriate time and then to return at a fitting time to care for the necessities of human frailty. Therefore, whoever does not fear to impede any of the faithful intent on heavenly studies indeed harms his own virtues, which he believes to possess. Hence, the bridegroom rightly adjures the daughters of Jerusalem by the gazelles and the hinds of the field not to do this. By gazelles and hinds, notably pure animals and enemies of poison, the works of spiritual virtues are figured; which, just as they excel in purity, so they have been accustomed to scorn, even destroy and annihilate the harmful schemes of the ancient enemy. And beautifully referring to the gazelles and hinds, he adds, of the field, to patiently express the simplicity of pure souls and those blooming with sincere faith in which virtues arise and are nurtured. Thus, the bridegroom adjures the daughters of Jerusalem by the gazelles and hinds of the field not to awaken nor rouse the beloved until she herself wishes. As if he openly says: I adjure all the faithful, and by their own virtues, which they desire to nurture with a pure heart, not to disdain the holy studies of the brethren, not to hinder them recklessly, but let each one rejoice in the progress of others just as in their own, and let them fear to inflict losses on the spiritual gain of the brethren as they would fear to inflict on themselves; for he undoubtedly diminishes his own virtues who scorns to spare, rather to assist, the virtues of his neighbor as much as he can. The bride gladly receiving this adjuration of the bridegroom immediately responds: The voice of my beloved. It is understood, This is the one I heard adjuring the daughters of Jerusalem not to wake me resting in His embrace until I myself wish. For surely it is necessary for a soul filled with God to greatly rejoice when amidst the adversities of the world it happens to hear His comforting voice, either through the gift of hidden inspiration or through meditation or hearing of sacred scriptures. For even if we are not yet allowed to behold the face of our beloved, it is already a great gift to be refreshed in the meantime by the sweetness of His words in the holy Scriptures. A great benefit is conferred to those to whom a higher gift is granted that, with a gaze of a pure mind lifted to heavenly things, they may even now taste some of the sweetness of future life. Hence it is fitting, after the bride joyfully says, The voice of my beloved, immediately desiring to also see the same beloved but not yet able… — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Gregory of Nyssa: An oath works in two ways. In the present text, the soul is progressing toward great heights, as we have seen. At the same time she is instructing less advanced souls in the way of perfection. She uses the oath not to assure them of the progress she herself has made but to lead them through their oath to a life of virtue. She adjures them to keep their love alert and watchful until his good will come to fulfillment, that is, until all are saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS 4

Nilus of Sinai: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and the forces of the field, that you arouse and waken love as far as it pleases.” This verse is of great difficulty. However, it is often necessary to let the understanding run towards the point of the text, in imitation of those who in the practice of archery release many arrows at the target but can hardly reach it even one time. Indeed, there is a resemblance to archers on the part of those who apply their craft to the divine Scripture as if aiming an arrow directly at the point of a passage. It is not easy to say to which of the characters should be applied the expression “to awaken love.” To express this in a better way, the act of wakening love is clearly assigned to the “daughters of Jerusalem,” but in whom is love to be awakened? In themselves, in the bridegroom, or in the one who is speaking? This is uncertain. For this reason it is necessary to try to fit the meaning of the passage to each example and whatever one finds in the way of a target that has been hit, whether close to “love” or to “truth,” that must be accepted as a successful explanation. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 49

Origen of Alexandria: The bride still speaks to the young maidens, urging them and exhorting them, indeed even adjuring them by those things which she knows to be dear and lovely to them, so that if perhaps they have begun to lift up love — which lies, as it were, dormant within them — and to rouse it, being still asleep among them, they may lift it up and rouse it up only so far as the bridegroom shall will, and may do nothing in it less than his will allows. For this is the perfection of the loving bride: that she wills that nothing be done by anyone contrary to the mind and will of him whom she loves. And that they may do this neither negligently nor sluggishly, they are adjured by the powers of the field — that is, by the seedlings and shrubs that are in the field — and by its strengths, doubtless by the things that have been sown in it. In such an order and such a composition of words is the text of the historical drama set forth. Now, then, let us seek out what secret it conceals within. Every soul is, above all, a daughter of Jerusalem, one that has a certain field of its own, which has been conferred upon it by a certain secret allotment of merits through Jesus. Such was also that field of Jacob, by whose sweetness the patriarch Isaac, moved, said in mystical utterances: “Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which the Lord has blessed.” Each soul, therefore, as we have said, has its own field; for so also is its manner of life, which is its field. In this field the soul which is loving and zealous for the Word labors much and strives to plant good perceptions, and to cultivate all the virtues of the mind — and not only the virtues of the mind, but also the strengths of works, by which, namely, the ministries of the commandments may be fulfilled. There is therefore, as we have said, to each soul its own field which it cultivates and plants and sows according to those things which we have said. But there is also of all the daughters of Jerusalem together one certain and common field, of which Paul says: “You are God’s husbandry.” Let us take this field to be the common exercise of ecclesiastical faith and manner of life, in which it is certain that there are heavenly powers, the strengths of spiritual graces. For each single soul which is here now called a daughter of Jerusalem, knowing that it has for its mother the heavenly Jerusalem, must needs contribute something toward the cultivation of this field, and desire that it be made worthy of a heavenly possession. In the powers, then, of this field, the Church declares that the love of Christ is lifted up and roused by the young maidens who have the beginnings of faith, and she says to them: If you lift up and rouse love until it please; that is, if you have now come to this, that you begin to be led not by the spirit of fear but by that of adoption, and have so advanced in this that perfect love within you casts out fear, and so that you lift up and exalt love within you and rouse it — then lift it up for so long, and exalt it for so long, as the son of love himself shall will, nay rather, as he himself shall will who is of God, love itself; lest perchance, thinking that the measures of human love suffice, you should do toward God, in the love of God, something less than is worthy. For this alone is the measure of love: that one be loved only as much as he himself wills; but the will of God is always the same, and is never changed. Never, therefore, is any change, or any end, admitted in the love of God. It is indeed to be noted that she did not say, if you receive love, but if you lift it up — as being something that is indeed within you, but lies and is not yet raised up. And she did not say, if you find, but if you rouse love — as being something that is indeed within, but lies and sleeps in them, until it finds one to awaken it. This same love, I believe, Paul too was awakening, then still sleeping in the disciples, when he said: “Rise up, you who sleep, and you shall touch Christ.” — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and the forces of the field. Of what does the bride adjure the daughters of Jerusalem? If you will raise up and awaken love. How long does love sleep in you, O daughters of Jerusalem, O maidens — love which does not sleep in me, because I am wounded with love? But in you, who are many, and maidens, and daughters of Jerusalem, the love of the bridegroom sleeps. I have adjured you, therefore, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you will raise up — and not only raise up, but also awaken — the love that is in you. The Creator of the universe, when he formed you, sowed in your hearts the seeds of love. But now, as it is said elsewhere, Justice slept in her, so love slumbers in you: according to what is also said elsewhere, “The bridegroom rested as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp.” Still, in the unbelieving and in those who are of a doubtful heart, the divine word slumbers; it is awake in the saints. It slumbers in those who are tossed by storms; but it is awakened by the voices of those who, while the bridegroom is awake, desire to be saved. At once, when he is awake, there is calm; at once the masses of the waves grow still, the contrary winds are rebuked, the raging of the billows is silent. When he sleeps, there is tempest, death, and despair. I adjure you, therefore, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and the forces of the field. Of what field? Surely of that field of which it is said: the fragrance of a full field, which the Lord has blessed. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Theodoret of Cyrus: “I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and forces of the field to stir up and awaken love for as long as he wishes,” that is, “Do not allow love for God in us to slumber: stir it up and inflame it, and pour the memory of kindnesses like oil on it lest it be said of us also, ‘They fell into a deep sleep, and found nothing.’ " In other words, if you do not proclaim day in day out his salvation and recall the marvels he worked, and instead you forget his kindnesses, love will be extinguished and die, as it were. We must, on the contrary, continually rekindle it, stir it up and lift the flame itself on high. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2

Song of Solomon 2:8

Ambrose of Milan: For at first, impatient of love and unable to bear the delays of the Word, she prays to be worthy of kisses, and she deserved to see the desired. Secondly, when she was also introduced into the king’s chambers and engaged in mutual conversation, she rested in his shadow, and suddenly the Word departed from the midst of their conversation; however, it was not absent for long, but came forth leaping over the mountains and bounding over the hills. And not long after, like a young deer or a fawn, while addressing his beloved, he leaped forth and departed. — On Isaac and the Soul

Bede: Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, etc. He calls those mountains and hills who, with singular purity of mind, transcend the common conduct of the holy Church, almost like the blooming plain of the fields, and the more they render themselves lighter from the desire of the lowly, the more capable of contemplating the heavenly they become. Of whom Isaiah, when describing the coming in the flesh of the Mediator of God and men, said: “And in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills” (Isaiah II). For rightly that mountain is said to be on the top of the mountains, and to be exalted above the hills, that is, it is remembered as being higher than the high men, because, indeed, in the last days, a man appeared among men, but He existed as God with the Father before the ages. But coming upon these mountains, the Beloved is said to leap, to pass over these hills, because the Lord frequently illuminates the hearts of the sublime with the grace of His visitation. And it is beautifully said that he does not remain on these hills, but leaps or passes over them, because the sweetness of internal contemplation, as high as it is due to the recognition of heavenly things, is equally brief and rare, due to the heaviness of minds still held down by the mass of the flesh. For the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation depresses the mind that thinks on many things (Wisdom IX). Nor should it be thought contrary to this sentiment, that the Beloved Himself also promises His spouse in the Gospel, saying: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew XXVIII). And again, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him” (John XIV). For He always remains, through His faith and love, and through the assistance of His grace, with all the saints; but more excellently, for a short time, He appears to a few of the more sublime, to whom He wills and when He wills: for it is the saying of a few, and of those who, due to the loftiness of their hearts, are compared to mountains and hills, “For whether we are beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we are sober, it is for your cause” (II Corinthians V). But it is said to all the faithful, “Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God” (I John IV). It is for the entire Church to hear with a faithful heart, “Because God is love; and he that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him.” It is only for the perfect to say, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (II Peter I). An evident example of this contemplation is further added… — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: “Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains and jumping across the hills.” … Some things imply that the bridegroom is already present, whereas other things suggest that the bridegroom is being sought by the bride. For we too investigate some problems for which we do not know the solution and some problems, when the bridegroom and Word enlightens our hearts, which we find already solved. Then, in other matters, we doubt again and it is revealed to us anew. This will happen often until we possess the bridegroom fully, when he not only comes to us but also remains within us.… “He comes leaping upon the mountains.” He also comes trampling upon the nets cast by the evil demon, breaking them that we too might trample on them contemptuously. — FRAGMENTS IN THE COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:9

Gregory of Elvira: The mountains are patriarchs, vast with holiness, robust in faith, founded upon a mass of charity, but the hills are prophets, established for seeing. He is said therefore to be raised higher than every mountain, or patriarch, and to leap over every hill, or prophet, because he is Lord over all, with all things being put under his feet. — EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS 4:4

Gregory of Nyssa: The voice of the bridegroom was heard when God spoke through the prophets. After the voice the Word came leaping over the mountains that stood in his way, and by bounding over the hills, he made every rebellious power subject to himself, both the inferior powers and those that are greater. The distinction between mountains and hills signifies that both the superior adversary and the inferior one are trampled and destroyed by the same power and authority. The lion and the dragon, superior beasts, are trampled; so too are the serpent and the scorpion, which are inferior. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS 5

Gregory the Dialogist: Hence in the voice of this same Church it is said through Solomon, “Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills.” For she considered the heights of such great works and said, “Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains.” For in coming for our redemption, He made certain leaps, so to speak. Do you wish, dearest brothers, to recognize His very leaps? From heaven He came into the womb, from the womb He came into the manger, from the manger He came to the cross, from the cross He came into the tomb, from the tomb He returned to heaven. Behold, so that He might make us run after Him, the Truth made manifest through the flesh made certain leaps for us, because “He rejoiced as a giant to run His course,” so that we might say to Him from the heart, “Draw us after You; we will run in the fragrance of Your ointments.” — Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 29

Jerome: We therefore, first let us flee the valleys of Zion, let us come to the plains, from the plains let us come to the hills, from the hills let us come to the mountains, let us follow Christ upon the mountains. For our cousin, like a roe and a fawn of the harts, leaps over the hills, and springs across the mountains. Whence also, according to the truth of the ascension, he did not ascend into the heavens after the resurrection from a valley, but from a mountain. Unless we are mountains in virtues, we cannot ascend to heaven. For there, that is, in the mountains of Zion, in the virtues, in the confession of faith, in the truth of the doctrines, there is the blessing and life for evermore. — HOMILIES ON THE Psalms 45 (Psalms 132)

Origen of Alexandria: It is fitting that we frequently remind ourselves that this little book is woven together in the manner of a drama. For the present little verse that we have set before us indicates something of this kind: that whereas the bride’s speech had been addressed to the young maidens, the daughters of Jerusalem, suddenly, as though from afar, she perceived the voice of the bridegroom speaking with certain others, and, breaking off the speech she was making to the maidens, the bride turned her ear to the sound that had reached her, and said: The voice of my kinsman. Now understand the bridegroom to have been recognized by the bride at first, before he appeared to her eyes, by his voice alone; but after this to have appeared also to her sight, leaping upon certain mountains near to that place in which the bride was staying, and passing over the hills and mountains with certain great strides—or rather not so much strides as bounds—in the manner of a stag or a goat, and thus coming to his bride with all haste. But when he arrived at the house within which the bride was dwelling, understand that he stood for a little while behind the house, in such a way that he was indeed perceived to be present, yet did not yet wish to enter the house openly and evidently, but first, as under the guise of a lover, wished to gaze upon the bride through the windows. Understand further that certain nets and snares had been set near the bride’s house, so that if perchance she herself, or any of her companions among the daughters of Jerusalem, should at some time go out, she might be caught. And it is certain that the bridegroom came to these nets: and since he could not be caught by them, but, being made stronger than they, he tore the nets themselves apart, and, treading upon them, passed over; and after he had accomplished this work, he says: Arise, come, my near one, my bride; and this he says in order that by the very deed he may show her how she ought with confidence to despise the nets which the enemy had stretched out for her, and not to seek out those which she had already seen to be torn asunder by him. And still further, to rouse the bride the more to hasten to him, he says to her: Since all the time that seemed burdensome has passed, and the winter which seemed to have arisen as a cause of trouble for her has departed, and the useless rains have gone away, and now the time of flowering has come, delay not at all to set out upon the journey of coming to me. For behold, the farmers too, because the springtime has now smiled forth, are tending the vines; and the sound now of other birds, now also the pleasing note of the turtledove in springtime, is heard. But the fig tree also, in the sure mildness of spring, has put forth its bud; and the vines indeed so little doubt the calm of the season that they now dare to bring forth their flowers and their fragrance. These things indeed let him say to the bride concerning the calm of the season, that she may dare with greater confidence to seize the journey of proceeding to the bridegroom. But he also describes to her the place in which he wishes her to rest with him; and he says that by the covering of a certain rock which is adjacent to the wall itself, or serves in place of a wall, a most shady place is formed; and to this place he wishes her to come, and, the covering being removed, there to behold her unveiled face, so that face to face she may become known to her bridegroom, and that the bridegroom may not only see her face unveiled and clear, but may there also hear her voice, being now assured both that her face is beautiful and that her voice is sweet and delightful. These things we have joined together by anticipation, lest we should seem to interrupt the order of the drama and the thread of the narrative. But by anticipating a little we have carried forward the order of the story up to that place where he says: For your voice is sweet, your face is comely. Now therefore, taking it up again, let us see first what it is that he says: The voice of my kinsman. By his voice alone Christ is first recognized by his Church. For first he sent forth his voice beforehand through the prophets, and though he was not seen, yet he was heard. And he was heard through those things which were announced concerning him: and for so long the bride, that is, the Church which was being gathered together from the beginning of the age, heard his voice alone, until she should see him with her own eyes, and say: — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: For he was leaping upon the prophetic mountains and the holy hills — those, that is, who in this world bore his image and form. But even if you place him among the apostles, as one already leaping upon the mountains and towering above all men, and upon the hills, it will nonetheless be not unfitting to apply it to those who were chosen and sent by him in the second rank. For among these he is made “like a roe and a fawn of the harts”: like a roe, because his voice excels all sight; and like a hart, because he comes for the destruction of the serpent. But every single soul — if indeed there be any that is bound fast by love of the Word of God — whenever it is set within a debate of discourse, as everyone knows who has experienced how it is when one is brought into a tight place and hemmed in by the straits of propositions and questions; whenever the riddles or the obscure sayings of the Law and the prophets shut it in, then, if perchance the soul should feel him present and receive from afar the sound of his voice, it is at once lifted up; and when he begins more and more to draw near to its senses and to illuminate the things that are obscure, then it sees him leaping upon the mountains and hills — suggesting to it, that is, the lofty and exalted meanings of understanding: so that this soul may with good reason say, “Behold, here he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.” Now we say this not forgetting that already in the preceding passages he has spoken to the bride while set present before her: but because, as we have often said, this little book contains the form of a drama, some things are now said as to one present, and some also as to one absent; and thus the interchange of persons is carried on, so that either order may be seen fittingly to proceed. For although the bridegroom promises and says to his bride — that is, to those who are his chosen disciples — “Behold, I am with you all the days even unto the consummation of the age”; yet again through parables he says that “a householder called his servants, and distributed to each one money for the sake of trading, and set out on a journey.” And again he says, “That he went away to seek for himself a kingdom.” And again it is said as of an absent bridegroom, that “at midnight a cry arose of those who said that the bridegroom cometh.” Thus, therefore, now the bridegroom is present and teaches, now he is said to be absent and is longed for; and each will aptly suit either the Church or the soul. For when the Church is permitted to suffer persecutions and tribulations, he seems to her to be absent. And again, when she advances in peace and is established in faith and good works, he is understood to be present. But the soul too, when it seeks some meaning and desires to recognize the obscure and hidden things, so long as it cannot find them, the Word of God is without doubt absent from it. But when what is sought comes to meet it and appears, who doubts that the Word of God is present, and illuminates the mind and affords it the light of knowledge? And again we feel him withdrawn from us and again present, through each of the several things that are either opened or closed within our senses. And this we endure up to the point at which we are made such that he deigns not only to visit us again, but even to remain with us — according to what he answered when asked by a certain disciple who said: “Lord, how is it that thou beginnest to manifest thyself to us, and not to this world?” The Savior replied: “If any man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him.” If therefore we too wish to see the Word of God and the bridegroom of the soul leaping upon the mountains and exulting over the hills, let us first hear his voice; and when we have heard him in all things, then we shall also be able to see him, according to those things whereby the bride in the present passage is described as having seen him. For she too, although she had also seen him before, had nevertheless not seen him as now, leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills, nor bending down through her windows, nor looking forth through the lattices, but rather it seems that she had seen him before in the time of winter. For now she says to him for the first time, “That the winter is past.” Therefore, as it indicates, he appears to the bride even through the winter — that is, in the time of tribulations and temptations. But there is also that other visitation, in which she is visited a little, and again forsaken, that she may be proved, and again is sought, that her head may be sustained, and that she may be wholly embraced, lest perchance she either waver in faith, or her body be weighed down by the burden of temptations. And therefore it seems to me that that was the time of winter, when she was begging that her head — that is, the summit of faith — be held up by the bridegroom’s left hand, and that his right hand embrace her whole body. But now this vision, which appears from the mountains and hills, designates, I think, the heights and powers of spiritual graces. And that he is said to look forth through the windows seems to me to afford light to the senses. And the nets which he breaks apart and shatters, I think, indicate the diabolical snares, inasmuch as it is now, as it were, when the winter of temptations is over and done. There are shown also the signs of spring and summer, as it is said in the Psalms: “The summer and the spring, thou hast made them.” Thence at last the Church has also brought forth the flowers of the perfect, the temptations being overcome, and the dispensation of pruning being accomplished, as will be shown in its own places when we come to discourse upon these things. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: We have already followed out the historical sense; but now we must consider how Christ, in coming to the Church, leaps upon the mountains and bounds over the hills. For “bounding” rather than “passing over” belongs more properly to the sense of the passage before us. Isaac, indeed, as he walked and advanced, kept growing greater, until he became very great. But Paul made his progress no longer by walking, but by running, when he says: “I have finished the course.” Yet our Savior, the Bridegroom of the Church, is said neither to walk nor to run, but to leap and to bound over these things. For if you consider how in a brief span of time the Word of God ran through a world held captive by false superstitions, and recalled it to the acknowledgment of the true faith, you will understand how he leaps upon the mountains — surmounting, that is, by his leaps whatever great kingdoms there are, and bending them to receive the knowledge of the divine religion; and how he bounds over the hills, when he swiftly subdues even the lesser kingdoms and brings them to the piety of true worship; and thus, passing from place to place, from kingdom to kingdom, from province to province by the illumination of his preaching — through him who said that “from Jerusalem round about even unto Illyricum he had filled up the Gospel of God” — you will understand how he comes leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills. But it can also be understood in another way, as we have already said above, since indeed Moses wrote of him, and the prophets likewise proclaimed him. Yet this proclamation, in the reading of the Old Testament, has a veil laid over it: but where, for the bride — the Church, that is, once she has turned to him — the veil has been removed, she suddenly sees him leaping upon those mountains, namely the volumes of the Law, and upon the hills of the prophetic Scripture, not so much appearing as bounding forth into evident manifestation; as if, for example, unrolling the several pages of the prophetic reading, she were to find Christ bounding forth out of them, and, the veil by which he was before covered being now at last removed, through the several passages of the readings she might behold him bubbling up and emerging and now breaking forth into evident manifestation. For this reason, I believe, Jesus himself, when he came to be transfigured, was not in any plain or valley, but climbed a mountain, where he was also transfigured; that you may know that he always appears on mountains or on hills, and that he may teach you not to seek him anywhere save on the mountains of the Law and the prophets. And that the saints, each of them, are called mountains, you will find indicated in many places of Scripture, as it says in the Psalms: “His foundations are in the holy mountains.” And again: “I have lifted up my eyes unto the mountains, whence help shall come to me.” For in tribulations we take our help from the meanings of the divine Scriptures. We may still further take the mountains upon which the Word of God is said to leap, and, as it were, to be borne along more freely, to be the New Testament; but the hills, from which, as though long pent up and concealed, he bounds forth, to signify the volumes of the Old Testament. Moreover, in Jeremiah too the hunters and fishers who are sent to catch men unto salvation are said to catch them on the mountains and hills; for thus he says: “Behold, I send many fishers, and many hunters, and they shall catch them upon every mountain and upon every hill.” Which I think is rather to be fulfilled in the time to come, at the consummation of the age, so that when the angels have been sent, according to the Gospel parable, at the time of harvest to separate the wheat from the tares, whoever is of a loftier life and of a more eminent conversation may be found either on the mountains or on the hills. He will not be found in low and abject places, lest there he seem to be mingled with the tares: but placed among the loftier meanings, and in the eminence of faith, ever cleaving to the Word of God as it leaps upon the mountains and bounds upon the hills. And this very thing is said, likewise by another parable but with the same meaning, in the Gospel: “He that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of the house.” This most rich saying of the present verse can still suggest yet another sense to us. For it is possible that everyone also who believes in God with full faith may be called either a mountain or a hill, according, that is, to the quality of his life and the greatness of his understanding; and even if he was at some time a valley, as Jesus advances in age, and wisdom, and grace, “every valley shall be filled.” But all the proud and lofty, like mountains and hills, shall be humbled: since “whosoever exalteth himself shall be humbled, and whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted.” For of these it is said: “They that trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion,” and of Jerusalem it is said: “The mountains are round about it.” Whence I think that with good reason our Savior also — since he too is called “a stone cut out of a mountain without hands,” and is said to have become “a great mountain,” even as King of kings and High Priest of high priests — may also be called Mountain of mountains. But that a third exposition too may have its place, let the word be directed to each individual soul. If there be any who are more capable of receiving the word of God, who have drunk of the water given them by Jesus, and it has become in them “a fountain of living water springing up unto life eternal” — in those, namely, in whom the word of God bubbles up with frequent and abundant meanings, as with perennial streams; in these, made worthily mountains and hills of life and knowledge and doctrine, the word of God is most fittingly said to leap and to bound, having become in them, by the affluence of doctrine, “a fountain of living water springing up unto life eternal.” — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: If you will raise up and awaken love, until the voice of my kinsman will. Behold, here he comes, leaping over the mountains. This the Church still speaks, exhorting the maidens to prepare themselves for the coming of the bridegroom — if indeed he will to come, and to grant them his converse. While she is still speaking, therefore, the bridegroom comes, whom she points out with her finger, and says: Behold, here he comes, leaping over the mountains. Understand the bride to be the blessed and perfect soul, who sooner sees, sooner contemplates the coming of the Word, who perceives that wisdom has come to her, that love has come to her, and says to those who do not see: Behold, here he comes. Pray that I too may be able to say: Behold, here he comes. For if I can discourse of the word of God, in a manner I too say, Behold, here he comes. Whither? Surely not where the valley is, not where the lowly places are. Whither does he come? Leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. If you are a mountain, the word of God leaps upon you. If you cannot be a mountain, but are a hill, second to the mountain, he bounds over you. But how beautiful and fitting to the matters are the words. He leaps over the mountains, because they are greater; he bounds over the hills, because they are smaller. He does not bound over the mountains, he does not leap over the hills. Behold, here he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:9

Ambrose of Milan: Be more like him who leaps over mountains and transcends hills, looking through windows, standing above nets. The chains of pleasure are evil. It delights the eyes, soothes the ears, but corrupts the mind: it tells many lies, adds falsehood, subtracts truth, promises money, offers gold; but takes away discipline. — On Cain and Abel, 1.5.15

Ambrose of Milan: But because we must always be anxious, always attentive; and because the Word of God leaps forth like a young goat, or like a fawn, the soul must always be vigilant and strive for what it seeks and desires to hold. — On Isaac and the Soul, 5.38

Ambrose of Milan: Therefore, he comes, and first after the wall is removed, which seemed to be an obstacle to harmony, in order to dissolve the enmities between soul and body. Then he looks through the windows. About what the windows are, hear the prophet saying: The windows are opened from heaven. Certainly, the prophet signifies those through whom the Lord looked upon the human race before he himself descended to the earth. And today, if any soul earnestly seeks him, it will receive much mercy; for the one who seeks much is owed the most. Therefore, if any soul seeks him diligently, it hears his voice from far away: and even though it may seek from others, it hears his voice before those from whom it seeks. It sees him coming towards it, that is, hastening and running, and surpassing those who are unable to grasp his power with a weak heart; finally, it sees him looking through the riddles of the prophets, reading them and understanding their words. It sees him looking, but as through a window, not yet as present. — On Isaac and the Soul, 4.32-33

Bede: My beloved is like a roe or a young deer. And indeed, all who know well how to explore the natures of these animals discover many things in them that most fittingly apply to the beloved of the Church, that is, the Lord and Savior. But in this place, it is especially to be noted that they delight in dwelling in the heights of the mountains and in giving very swift leaps, because of which they are seen by us more rarely than oxen or donkeys or other such animals, which, being domesticated together, we use as often as we please. This is very suitably adapted to the height of supreme contemplation, which is not within the discretion of human speculations but in the grace of God, appearing when it wills. I believe Isaiah, who is indeed an exalted mountain, saw Him seated upon a high and elevated throne not when he chose, but when the Lord willed; he saw and the heavenly hosts singing due praises to Him. Paul, also a mountain, much despising earthly things and touching the stars with his summit, was caught up into paradise and into the third heaven, not when he disposed, but when it pleased God, and heard the secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. It certainly agrees with the humility and truth of the assumed humanity that the Lord is compared not to a stag but to a roe or a young deer—smaller animals, who among men appeared not only as a man but as a humble man. He became a young deer because He took true flesh from the fleshly material of His ancestors; for He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. I). And David himself says, As the deer longs for the water brooks, so my soul longs for you, God (Psalms 42). And again: He has made my feet like hinds’ feet (Psalms 18). But concerning the other deer, His companions in life, he says, The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth (Psalms 29); for He indeed prepares the deer when He bestows the gifts of virtues on the faithful; because that they may direct the course of their minds to higher things, ceaselessly thirst for the fountain of life, drive out and trample upon the serpents of heretical speech with their spiritual scent, ruminate on the word of life, and maintain the measure of salvific discretion in the straight steps of their actions is not in their power but in the divine granting. Therefore the voice of the Lord prepares the deer because His grace places the saints in the height of virtues. From such deer was born the fawn rightfully beloved of the bride, that is, of the Church or of every faithful soul, because Christ according to the flesh is from the fathers, who is over all, God blessed forever. And since the sublimity of the contemplative life is expressed in these verses, it remains, therefore, for the perfection of the active life, which is common to the whole Church, to be demonstrated. It follows: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: Behold, he stands behind our wall, etc. For now the beloved remains in the vicinity of the bride, now leaping upon the hills on high, because the same Lord and Savior of ours, presents Himself to the more perfect at times, when He wills, even if through a glass and in enigma, and He always shows the invisible grace of His presence to all the elect. Concerning the manifestation of His presence, it is now rightly said, Behold, he stands behind our wall, for He indeed remains with us, nay He remains in us, so that He cannot be seen by us, as John attests, who says: No one has ever seen God (1 John 4). If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us (ibid.). But the wall which excludes us from His sight is the very condition of our mortality, which we have earned by sinning, we who were so conditioned in the first parent that if we had never consented to sin, all the elect would endlessly and without any labor see the light of divine contemplation, that now very few of the more perfect, with the greatest labor, reach by purifying their hearts through faith. But in this wall, divine mercy made windows and lattice-work from where He would look upon us, for He opened to our minds, however burdened by the blindness of this age, the grace of His knowledge, and frequently refreshes us with the light of His hidden inspiration. By this sight of His inspiration, because our gracious Creator chiefly acts to draw us from the love of temporal things to attain the joys of heavenly peace, it is aptly added: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Gregory the Dialogist: Hence the holy Church says to Him in the Song of Songs, whom she seeks under the likeness of a young deer: “Show me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you rest at midday.” For the Lord is called a young deer, according to His assumed flesh the son of the ancient fathers. Indeed, a more fervent heat burns at midday, and the young deer seeks a shady place where the fire of heat does not affect it. Therefore, the Lord rests in those hearts which the love of the present age does not inflame, which the desires of the flesh do not burn up, which, set ablaze by their anxieties, do not wither in the lusts of this world. — 40 Homilies on the Gospels, Homily 33

Origen of Alexandria: That the roe and the stag are reckoned among the clean animals is plainly shown by what is written in Deuteronomy, for it is written in this manner: “For these are the animals which you shall eat: the calf, and the lamb from the flocks, and the he-goat from among the goats, the stag and the roe, and the buffalo and the tragelaph, and the ibex, the camel and the leopard.” But that a holy person is also compared to a stag is found in many passages of divine Scripture, as in the Psalm, where it says: “As the stag longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.” Yet in the words which we have taken from Deuteronomy, this too seems worthy of no careless consideration: what dignity of order he observed in enumerating the clean animals, that first he should write of the calf, second the lamb, third the he-goat. But among those which, according to the same Moses, are not offered at the altar, he names first the stag, second the roe; and so after these he describes the remaining animals in order. The reason for these things will become clear and evident to those to whom a more abundant spiritual grace has been granted in the gift of knowledge through the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, since it now falls to us in the exposition of the present verse to speak of the stag and the roe, it seems fitting to gather together, so far as we are able, from the divine Scriptures the things that are related of these animals — of which the same Moses, when he was speaking of the flesh that might be eaten in every desire of the soul, not offered at the altar, said, “like the roe and the stag.” And the twenty-eighth Psalm says something excellent, where, writing in order of the powers and efficacy of the voice of God, it says of the stag in this manner: “The voice of the Lord perfecting the stags,” that is, making the stags perfect, “and he will reveal the thickets.” For just as the voice of the Lord is said to cut through the flame of fire, and to shake the desert, so it is recorded to perfect the stags and to reveal the thickets. But in Job also we find it related thus of the stag, where the Lord, speaking to Job through the whirlwind and the cloud, says: “Or have you observed the bringing forth of the stags, or numbered their months full unto the birth, and loosed their pains, or nourished their young, or will you send forth their offspring without pains? Their young will break away, and be multiplied in birth; they will go out, and not return?” To these must also be joined those things which we read in the Proverbs in this manner: “The stag of friendships, and the foal of graces, speaks to you.” These, for the present, are the things concerning the stag that could come to us as written. Which we have taken up for this purpose, that we may speak not in the teaching of human wisdom, but in the teaching of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And therefore let us call upon God the Father of the Word, that he may manifest to us the mysteries of his Word, and remove our understanding from the teaching of human wisdom, and exalt and lift it up to the teaching of the Spirit, so that we may speak not those things which carnal hearing perceives, but those things which the will of the Holy Spirit contains. Paul the apostle teaches us that the invisible things of God are understood from the visible things, and that those things which are not seen are contemplated by reason and likeness from those things which are seen; showing by this that this visible world teaches concerning the invisible, and that this earthly arrangement contains certain patterns of the heavenly things; so that from these things which are below we may be able to ascend to those which are above, and from those things which we see on earth may perceive and understand those things which are held in the heavens. To some likeness of these, that through them the diversities might more easily be gathered and perceived, the Creator gave a likeness of the creatures which are on earth. And perhaps, just as God made man to his own image and likeness, so also he founded the other creatures by likeness to certain other heavenly images; and perhaps each single thing that is on earth has so much of an image and likeness in the heavenly things, that even the grain of mustard seed, which is least of all seeds, has something of an image and likeness in the heavens; and this — that such a certain alternation of nature is compounded for it, that though it be the least of all seeds, it becomes greater than all herbs, so that the birds of heaven can come and dwell in its branches — bears a likeness not only of some heavenly image, but of the very kingdom of heaven itself. So then it is possible that the other seeds too which are on earth may have something of likeness and reason in the heavenly things. But if the seeds, then without doubt the shrubs too; and if the shrubs, then without doubt the living creatures too, whether of the winged, or the creeping, or the four-footed. But this also can further be understood: that just as the grain of mustard seed holds not one single likeness of the kingdom of heaven and of the dwelling of the birds in its branches, but has also another likeness or image, namely of the perfection of faith — so that if anyone should have faith like a grain of mustard seed, he may say to the mountain, “Remove yourself,” and it will remove — so it is possible that the others too may bear the appearance and image of the heavenly things not in some one respect, but in many. And whereas there are, for example, several powers in the grain of mustard seed which hold images of heavenly things, that is its last and furthest use which is held among men in bodily service. So also may it be understood in the rest, whether seeds, or shrubs, or roots of herbs, or even in living creatures; that they indeed provide bodily service and use to men, but have the forms and images of incorporeal things by which the soul may be taught, and instructed to contemplate those things also which are invisible and heavenly. And this, perhaps, is what that writer of divine wisdom says: “For he himself gave me the true knowledge of the things that are, so that I might know the substance of the world, and the powers of the elements, the beginning, and the end, and the middle of the times, the changes of the vicissitudes, and the conversions of the seasons, and the circles of the year, and the positions of the stars, the natures of animals, and the rages of beasts, the violences of the winds, and the thoughts of men, the differences of shrubs, and the powers of roots; and whatsoever things are hidden and manifest, I have known.” See therefore whether from these words of Scripture we may be able to gather more lucidly and evidently the things which we have proposed to examine. For this writer of divine wisdom, when he had enumerated each single thing, said at the last that he had received the knowledge of the hidden and the manifest things: showing without doubt that each one of those things which are in the manifest is referred to some one of those things which are in the hidden; that is, that each single visible thing has something of likeness and reason to the invisible things. Since therefore it is impossible for a man living in the flesh to know anything of the hidden and invisible things, unless he has conceived some image and likeness from the visible things; for this reason I think that he who made all things in wisdom so created each single kind of visible things on earth, that in them he might place a certain teaching and knowledge of the invisible and heavenly things; whereby through these the human mind might ascend to spiritual understanding, and might seek the causes of things in the heavenly places, so that, taught through the wisdom of God, it might itself also be able to say: “The things that are in the hidden, and the things that are in the manifest, I have known.” According to these things also it knows the substance of the world, not only this visible and corporeal one, which is open to view, but also that incorporeal and invisible one which is in the hidden. It knows also the elements of the world, not only the visible, but also the invisible, and the powers of both. But also the beginning which it speaks of, and the end, and the middle of the times: it speaks indeed of the beginning of the visible world, which Moses designates as no beginning before six full thousands of years; the middle also according to the reckoning of times, and that end which is hoped for when heaven and earth shall pass away. But according to the knowledge of the hidden things, it speaks of that beginning which he understands whom the wisdom of God shall teach, which no times, no ages, can comprehend. And the middle, those things which now are; but the end, those things which are to come, that is, the perfection and consummation of the universe, which nevertheless can be conjectured and understood from these visible things. But also the changes of the vicissitudes, and the conversions of the seasons, the circle of the year — from those things which are seen it refers to the invisible changes and vicissitudes of corporeal things. The circles too of the temporal and present years it refers to certain more ancient and everlasting years, according to him who said: “And I had the eternal years in mind.” But also the positions of the stars he did not hesitate to refer from those things which are openly seen to those things which are in the hidden — of which hidden and manifest things he merited the knowledge; and he says that there is a certain race of holy ones which descends especially from the stock of Abraham, like the stars of heaven. But also he declared that the glory of the future resurrection is stars, according to the knowledge of the hidden things, following him who said: “One is the glory of the sun, and another of the stars. For star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead.” Unless these things were understood according to this, that which he says — “The natures of animals, and the rages of beasts” — the Savior would never have said in the Gospels, “Tell that fox,” nor would John have said of certain men, “Serpents, generation of vipers,” nor again would the prophet say of some that they “became stallion horses,” and likewise another: “Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts of burden, and was made like unto them.” But he too diligently knew the rages of beasts who said: “Their fury is according to the likeness of a serpent, like the deaf asp, and stopping its ears.” This will be the reasoning also concerning that which he says, “the violences of the winds”: speaking visibly indeed of winds, and of the blasts of the air, but invisibly of the violences of unclean spirits, which Paul too named “winds of doctrine.” After these it follows that he should know the thoughts of men: corporeally indeed those which proceed from the human heart, but invisibly he should understand those who cast into men evil and most wicked thoughts, as it is written in the Gospel: “When the devil had put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray the Lord.” And in the Proverbs it is said: “If the spirit of one having power should rise up against you, do not forsake your place, for soundness restrains great sins.” But there is also some author of good thoughts: on account of which I think it is written in the Psalms too: “Blessed is the man whose help is from you, O Lord; he has disposed ascents in his heart.” And again: “The thought of man shall confess to you, and the remnants of thought shall keep a feast day to you.” Thus therefore all things, according to those things which we have said before, can be referred from the visible to the invisible, and from the corporeal to the incorporeal, and from the manifest to the hidden, so that the very creature of the world may be understood to have been founded by a certain dispensation through the divine wisdom, which by the very things and examples may teach us the invisible from the visible, and transfer us from the earthly to the heavenly. But these reckonings are not only held in all creatures, but the divine Scripture too has been written with a certain such art of wisdom. For on account of certain hidden and mystical things, the people is visibly led out of Egypt, and makes its way through the earthly deserts, where there was the biting serpent, and the scorpion, and where there were no waters, and the other things which are related to have been done in these places. All which things, as we have said, hold the forms and images of certain hidden things. And not only in the scriptures of the ancients, but also in the deeds of our Lord and Savior which are related in the Gospels, will you find this. Therefore, if all things which are in the manifest are, according to those things which we have approved above, referred to certain things which are in the hidden, it follows without doubt that this visible stag, or roe, which is written of in the Song of Songs, is, according to the reckoning of its nature which they bear corporeally, referred to certain causes of incorporeal things, so that to those hidden and invisible stags it may seem able to apply what was said: “The voice of the Lord perfecting the stags.” For what perfection comes from the voice of the Lord to these visible stags? Or what teaching ever descended to them from the voice of the Lord? But if we seek spiritual stags, whose form and image that corporeal animal holds, you may find that they can be led to the height of perfection from the voice of the Lord. But also of what stags it was fitting that the Lord should guard the young, and that it was proper for him to stand by, as one providing the offices of healing, to the ones giving birth, until they should bring forth such offspring as would oppose and persecute the race of serpents — as is worthy already of the divine majesty, we ought to observe of what sort of stags it befits God to guard the young, lest they fall into miscarriage; but also to number their months full unto the birth, and to keep their labors and pains, so that their generations may not fall in vain, but that their birth may be perfect, and that they may travail so long until Christ be formed in them. The young of stags of this kind the Lord nourishes — of those, that is, who cast their thought upon the Lord, that he himself may nourish them, and he himself may guard the pains of their birth, when out of the fear of God they have conceived in the womb, and travailed, and brought forth the spirit of salvation. The pains of birth of this kind the Lord himself guards and cares for. But he also sends forth their pains, that going they may go, and weep bearing their seeds, and be in the pains of men and be scourged with men, lest perhaps pride hold them. These same stags also break away, as he says, their young. For those whom they have begotten through the Gospel, they break away from the bonds of sins, and from the snares of the devil, that they may no longer be held bound to their will. These too shall be multiplied, and, as he says, shall not return. For they will not imitate the wife of Lot, they will not go back behind. For they know that he who puts his hand to the plow, if he looks back, will not be fit for the kingdom of heaven; but they always forget the things that are behind, and reach forth to the things that are before them. For such stags the voice of the Lord makes to be perfect. Which voice of the Lord, but that which is held in the law and in the prophets, and reached even unto John, who was the voice of one crying in the desert? For the very voice of John, who said, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God,” made stags perfect, that they might be perfect in the same understanding and in the same knowledge. For he who is such rightly says: “As the stag longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.” And who else will the stag of friendships seem to be but he who slew that serpent which had seduced Eve, and, pouring into her the poisons of sin by the blasts of his speech, had infected all the offspring of posterity with the contagion of transgression: and had come to loose in his own flesh the enmities which the harmful mediator had wrought between God and man? But the foal of graces can be taken as the Holy Spirit, from whom those thirsting and desiring God obtain spiritual graces and heavenly gifts. But all these things have been said by us so that the cause might become more manifest by which the bride seems to compare her brother to the fawn of stags. But if this too must be inquired — why he is compared not, as elsewhere, to a stag, but to the fawn of stags — consider this: that though he was in the form of God, a son was given to us, and a child was born to us, whose power is upon his shoulder. Therefore, then, the fawn of stags, because a little child was born. And perhaps the stags can be taken as all the holy ones, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and Solomon, and all from whose seed Christ descended according to the flesh. Which stags the voice of the Lord makes perfect, and theirs is this fawn, who was born from them according to the flesh as a child. That also moves me which is written in the hundred and third Psalm, where it says: “The high mountains for the stags.” And indeed of the stags we have already said above that all the holy ones are taken, who for this reason came into this world, that they might destroy the poisons of the serpent. But let us see what the high mountains may be, as being those which seem set apart for the stags alone, and to which none unless he be some stag can ascend. I think that he called the persons of the Trinity the high mountains, to whose capacity none ascends unless he be made a stag. But those same which here are called “high mountains” in the plural, are in other places called “a high mountain” in the singular; as Isaiah says: “Ascend upon a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion. Lift up your voice in strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem.” For the same which there is a Trinity on account of the distinction of the persons, is here understood as one God on account of the unity of substance. Let these things suffice concerning the fawn of stags. Now let us see how the brother is also compared to the roe or the little doe. This animal, as far as the Greek words are concerned, has obtained its name from seeing and from looking forth more clearly. And who is there who so sees as Christ sees? For he alone is the one who sees, that is, who knows the Father. For even if those who are pure of heart are said to be about to see God, they will see him, without doubt, by his own revealing, since the roe too has in its nature that it not only itself sees and beholds most keenly, but also provides sight to others. For those who have skill in medicine assert that there is within the entrails of this animal a certain humor which drives away the dimness of the eyes, and sharpens the more dull sights. Rightly therefore is Christ compared to the roe or the little doe, because he not only himself sees the Father, but also makes him to be seen by others, whose sight he himself has cured. But observe, lest hearing that the Father is seen, you should perceive something corporeal, and think God visible. The sight by which God is seen is not of the body, but of the mind, and of the spirit. Which the Savior himself also, distinguishing it in the Gospel by its proper word, said: “No one sees the Father except the Son.” Finally, to those also whom he makes to see God, he gives the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of wisdom, that through that spirit they may see God. And therefore he said to the disciples that “he who sees me, sees the Father also.” And surely we will not be so foolish as to think that whoever saw him according to the body also saw the Father: otherwise the Scribes too, and the Pharisees, and the hypocrites, and Pilate who struck him with scourges, and all the people who cried, “Crucify, crucify him,” seeing Jesus according to the flesh, would also have seen God the Father. Which surely seems to be not only absurd, but also impious. For just as, when the crowds were pressing him as he went with the disciples, none of those who pressed and crushed him is said to have touched him, except that woman alone who came suffering a flow of blood and touched the fringe of his garment, and to her alone he bears testimony, saying, “Someone touched me, for I felt power go forth from me”; so also, when there were many who saw him, none is said to have seen him, except he who knew that he is the Word of God and the Son of God: in whom, surely, the Father is said at once to be known and to be seen. But let this also not escape us, that first he is compared to the roe, and now to the fawn of stags, though surely the stag seems a larger animal than the roe. But consider whether rather this reckoning is to be held in these things: that since the salvation of believers consists in two ways, through the knowledge of faith and the perfection of works, the reckoning of faith — which, as we have said, is compared to the roe on account of the gaze and inspection of contemplation — is held to be the first grade of salvation; but in the second place is recorded the perfection of works, which holds the form of the stag conquering and destroying the poisons of serpents, that is, the diabolical arts. If therefore the bride says that her brother is like a roe, or the fawn of stags, upon the mountains of Bethel — and Bethel is interpreted “house of God” — then the mountains which are in the house of God can be taken as the volumes of the law and the prophets, but also the evangelical and apostolic ones, in which both the faith of God is perfected and contemplated, and the perfection of works is spoken of and fulfilled. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: When I consider the difficulties of investigating the meanings in these words that are set before us in the words of Scripture, I see that I suffer something like what happens to a man who advances to track down his prey with the sharp scent of a keen-nosed hound: where sometimes it is the custom that, when the hunter, intent upon the tracks, has thought himself to be near the quarry hidden in its lurking-places, suddenly he is disappointed of the indications of the tracks, and again, fixing the scent more firmly, he retraces backward the very paths he had opened up, until he finds the place at which the quarry, shaking itself loose more deeply, secretly betook itself to another path; and when the hunter has found this, he pursues it more eagerly, more certain in the hope of the prey, and more secure by the firmness of the track. So therefore we too, when the tracks of the explanation we have set before us have in a manner slipped away from us, retracing the little way we have measured out, and pursuing an order of exposition plainer than it seemed before, we hope that the Lord our God may deliver into our hands the prey which, when we have prepared it, and seasoned it according to the knowledge of our mother Rachel with the salt of the rational word, we may deserve to obtain the blessings from our spiritual father Jacob. On which account it seems necessary, as we have said, briefly to repeat what has been said, and to re-weave the earlier explanation, so that whatever meaning is clearer may be opened up. It seems to me, then, that from the beginning of the drama set before us the bride is to be understood as standing outside at a crossroads, and, on account of her love for the bridegroom, looking this way and that in case perhaps he should come to her, in case perhaps he should appear; and she is unwilling to set out on any road while she does not know from which direction he is more likely to come, and she stands not at home but outside, and is driven by longing for him, and says: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”; but when the bridegroom comes, she says: “Your breasts are better than wine,” and the rest, up to the place where she says: “We will run after you.” After these things, being beloved and receiving from the bridegroom himself a return of love, she is led into his chamber, and says: “The king has brought me into his chamber.” But also the rest of the things that are afterward written, she speaks placed within to the bridegroom, in the presence and attendance of the maidens of the bride and the companions of the bridegroom. Yet the bridegroom is to be understood, inasmuch as he is a man, as not always in the house, nor always sitting beside the bride placed within the house: but he goes out frequently, and she, as if anxious with love for him, seeks him when absent; but at times too he returns to her. On which account, throughout the whole little book, the bridegroom is seen at one time to be sought as though absent, at another time to speak as though present with the bride. But the bride herself, when she had seen through many and magnificent things in the bridegroom’s chamber, asks that she too be brought into the house of wine. And when, having entered there, she had perceived that the bridegroom, inasmuch as he is a man, had not remained in the house, she again, driven about by love for him, went outside, and going around she wanders about the house as she enters, and looks out on every side for when the bridegroom may return to her; and behold, suddenly she sees him coming down to the house in which the bride, anxious with love for him, is aflame, surpassing the ridges of the neighboring mountains with immense leaps. But when the bridegroom reaches the wall of the house, he stands for a little while behind it, considering, as usually happens, something, and turning it over in his mind. But now, he too feeling something of love toward the bride, and using his own height, which reaches up to the windows of the house — which windows have some part of the work that is, as they say, of lattice — and then he leans indeed through the windows, but being taller than the windows, he reaches up to the upper parts of them, which are marked out, as we have said, with lattice-work, and looking out from there he addresses the bride, and says to her: — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Origen of Alexandria: My kinsman is like a roe, or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bethel. These two animals are named more frequently in the Scriptures, and — that you may marvel the more — they are often set down joined together. And these are they, he says, which you shall eat, adding a little after, the roe and the hart. In the present book too the hart and the roe are named together. For in a manner these animals are akin and near to one another. The roe, that is, the dorcas, sees most sharply. The hart is a slayer of serpents. Who, do you think, is worthy among us, who according to the dignity of the place and of the mystery could set forth the full account? Let us pray the Lord to bestow on us understanding for the opening of the Scriptures, and that we may be able to say, How Jesus opened to us the Scriptures. What, then, do we say? That the dorcas — that is, the roe — according to the natural science of those who discourse of the natures of all animals, received its name from a power implanted in it. For from the fact that it sees more sharply — that is, ὀξυδερκέστερον — it is called dorcas. But the hart is the enemy and vanquisher of serpents, so that with the breath of its nostrils it draws them out of their caverns, and, the destructive power of their venom being overcome, delights in feeding upon them. Perhaps my Savior becomes a roe according to contemplation (θεωρία), a hart according to works. And what are these works? He himself slays serpents, when he cuts the throats of the opposing powers. Therefore I will say to him: You have crushed the heads of the dragons upon the water. My kinsman is like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of the house of God. For Bethel is interpreted “house of God.” Not all mountains are the house of God, but those which are the mountains of the Church. For there are found also other mountains, raised up and rising against the knowledge of God — the mountains of the Egyptians, and of the foreigners. Do you wish to know that my kinsman is like a roe, or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bethel? Be a mountain of the Church, a mountain of the house of God, and the bridegroom will come to you, like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel. She perceives that the bridegroom has drawn nearer, who before was moving about upon the mountains and hills; she likens him as bounding and leaping, and, recognizing that after these things he has come to her and to the other maidens, she says: — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Origen of Alexandria: Behold, here he is, behind our wall. If you have built a wall, and have made the building of God, he will come behind your wall, looking through the windows. One window is one sense: through this the bridegroom looks. Another window is another sense: and through this too the bridegroom carefully gazes. For through what senses does the word of God not look? But what it is to look through the windows, and how the bridegroom gazes through them, the following example will teach. Where the bridegroom does not look, there death is found climbing up, as we read in Jeremiah: Behold, death has climbed up through your windows. When you have looked upon a woman to lust after her, already death has climbed up through your windows. Leaning out through the nets. Understand that you walk in the midst of snares, and pass beneath overhanging engines. All things are full of nets; the devil has filled everything with snares. But if the word of God has come to you, and has begun to lean out from the nets, saying: Our soul, like a sparrow, has been snatched from the snare of the hunters; the snare is broken, and we are set free. Blessed are we by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The bridegroom, then, leans out through the nets, making a way for you. Jesus descended to earth, subjected himself to the nets of the world. Seeing a great flock of men entangled in the nets, and [seeing] that it could be cut apart by no other than himself, he came to the nets, taking on a human body, which was held by the snares of the hostile powers; he burst them apart for you, and you shall say: Behold, here he is, behind our wall, looking through the windows, leaning out through the nets. When he has leaned out, he says to you — my kinsman answers, and says: Rise up, come, my love; I have made you a way, I have cut apart the nets: so come to me, my love: — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:10

Ambrose of Milan: He is a fine deer, whose mountain is the house of God, to which he runs with such speed that he surpasses the wishes and desires of his bride. Indeed, when he saw him coming from afar, he suddenly recognized that he was present beside him. Hence he says: Behold, he is here behind our wall, looking through the windows, peering through the lattice. My cousin answered and said to me: Arise, come, my nearest one, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold, winter has passed, the rain has gone, it has departed for itself, flowers have appeared on the earth. Winter is the Synagogue: the rain is the Jewish people, who could not see the sun: the apostles are the flowers. And he added: The harvest of the incision has come, the voice of the turtledove was heard in our land. That harvest is the faith of the Church: the voice of the turtledove is chastity. — Interrogation of Job and David, Book 2, 1.4

Ambrose of Milan: “Arise, come to me, my love,” that is, rise from worldly pleasures, rise from earthly things, and come to me, who are still laboring and burdened, because you are anxious for the things of the world. Come above the world, come to me, for I have conquered the world. Come near to me now, beautiful with the beauty of eternal life, now a dove, that is, gentle and meek, now completely full of spiritual grace. Now winter has passed, that is, Easter has come, indulgence has come, remission of sins has come, temptation has ceased, the rain has gone, the storm has gone, and the shaking. Before the coming of Christ, there is winter, after His coming there are flowers. Hence it says: Flowers are seen on the earth. Where there were thorns before, there are now flowers. It is said that the time for cutting has come. Where there was a desert before, there is now a harvest. The voice of the turtle-dove has been heard in our land. — On Isaac and the Soul, 4.34-35

Bede: Behold, my beloved speaks to me, “Arise,” etc. All things have their season, and all things pass in their own time under heaven (Eccles. III). Therefore, the bride of Christ, namely the Church, or any chosen soul, has a time for resting; likewise, it has a time for rising to work. Finally, as above, he adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken or arouse her until she pleases, and now, with a changed tone, he himself bids her to rise and come quickly to him; no longer does he consent to her entering the flowery bed with celestial studies, but rather he instructs her to go out with him to cultivate the vineyards and drive away harmful beasts from them, as the subsequent song teaches; adding to provoke and inflame her zeal that, with the winter seasons passed, the mild spring now aids the industry of the laborer, and even the arrival and songs of spring birds make the rural places more joyful than the courtly ones, and the bloom of flowers promises future fruit to the farmers. But since we have barely touched the surface of the letters, let us now turn our pen to exploring the depths of the allegorical senses. It was said above, under the figure of a roe or a fawn of the hinds, how the Lord reveals the secrets of heavenly contemplation through internal visions. It was said under the figure of him standing behind our wall and looking through windows and lattice, how he often illuminates the whole Church, though still invisible, with the frequent regard of salutary compunction. It remains now to intimate how he incites the same Church, either to the office of preaching or to the exercise of good works. “Arise,” he says, “hurry, my friend, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. Arise from that bed much beloved by you, in which you delight in caring for yourself through psalms and prayers and other studies of life. Hurry, and come to also devote care to the salvation of others, through the zeal of diligent preaching: for indeed we hurry to the Lord who calls us, by performing works of virtue for His cause.” — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away,” etc. If, according to the Apostle’s exposition, the Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10), what are the clefts of the rock except the wounds which Christ received for our salvation? In these very clefts the dove resides and nests, whether each meek soul or the entire Church, places its sole hope of salvation in the Lord’s passion, relying on the sacrament of his death to protect themselves, as if from the snatching of a hawk by an ancient enemy, and strives to bring forth spiritual offspring—either children or virtues—in the same. Hence well Jeremiah, under the guise of Moab, urging heretics to the unity of ecclesiastical faith, says, “Leave the cities and dwell in the rock, inhabitants of Moab. Be like a dove nesting in the highest mouth of the cleft” (Jeremiah 48). Moreover, the wall which is usually constructed of stones to fortify vineyards (whence it is said in the song of Isaiah, “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill, and he built a wall around it” [Isaiah 5]) signifies the guardianship of heavenly virtues by which the Lord surrounds the Church, his vineyard, lest it be ravaged by the incursions of unclean spirits like those of wicked creatures. Hence, therefore, the Psalmist says, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and delivers them” (Psalms 34). And the Apostle, speaking of angels, says, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1). Thus, in this secure wall, the bride and friend of Christ, like a dove, finds a hole for herself, while the Holy Church has learned to defend itself from the deceptions of the devil through angelic help. Therefore, the Lord exhorts the same Church, He exhorts every soul devoted to Him, to the exercise of holy and fruitful labor; and He says, “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. For behold, the winter is past,” and so on, until He says, “Arise, my love, my bride, and come away; my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff.” As if He openly says, “After the tempest of the Gentile life has been removed by divine mercy, after the flowers of saving conversation have already emerged on earth, after the vines have begun to be pruned by the celestial husbandmen with the sickle of discernment so that the wicked are separated from the just and the vices from the virtues, after the herald of salvation has already widely resounded in the world, after the world itself has been converted to the acknowledgment of the truth, and the most delightful fame of new life has spread among the Gentiles, I beseech you, O greatly beloved company of faithful souls, to whom I have bestowed the gifts of my friendship, whom I have deigned to unite to myself as a bride, to whom I have given the simplicity of the dove-like mind by the infusion of my Spirit, for whose health and life I have taken upon myself wounds and death, to whom I have granted the help of heavenly protection against invisible enemies; I beseech you, I say, who have been made the recipient of such gifts, not to become sluggish in idle ease, but to rather hasten to gird yourself with zealous effort and diligence in the esteemed struggle for eternal rest.” — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: Also in the Song of Songs we find Christ calling to the bride there described, and who represents the person of the church, in these words: “Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful dove. For lo! the winter is past, and the rain is gone; it has passed away. The flowers appear on the ground. The time of the pruning is come.” … A certain spring-like calm was about to arise for those who believe in him. — COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 95

Jerome: Then the bridegroom makes answer to the bride and teaches her that the shadow of the old law has passed away and the truth of the gospel has come. “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away, for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” … “The voice of the turtle [dove] is heard in our land.” The turtle [dove], the most chaste of birds, always dwelling in lofty places, is a type of the Savior. — Against Jovinianus 1.30

Origen of Alexandria: Each one of the blessed will first be obliged to travel the narrow and hard way in winter to show what knowledge he has acquired for guiding his life, so that afterwards there may take place what is said in the Song of Songs to the bride when she has safely passed through the winter. For she says, “My beloved answers and says to me, ‘Arise and come away, my love, my fair one, my dove; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.’ " And you must keep in mind that you cannot hear “the winter is past” any other way than by entering the contest of this present winter with all your strength and might and main. And after the winter is past and the rain is over and gone, the flowers will appear that are planted in the house of the Lord and flourish in the courts of our God. — EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 31

Origen of Alexandria: Rise up, come, my love, my beautiful one, my dove. Why does he say, “Rise up”? Why “make haste”? I for your sake bore the raging of the tempests; I received the billows which were owed to you. My soul was made sorrowful for you, even unto death. I rose from the dead, the stings of death being broken and the bonds of hell dissolved; therefore I say to you: Rise up, come, my love, my beautiful one, my dove: for behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone away, the flowers have appeared in the earth. I, rising from the dead, the tempest being stilled, have restored calm. And because, according to the dispensation of the flesh from the Virgin, and by the will of the Father, I grew, and advanced in wisdom and in age, the flowers have appeared in the earth; the time of pruning is at hand. The pruning is the remission of sins. For every branch, he says, abiding in me and bearing fruit, my Father cleanses, that it may bear greater fruit. Have fruits, and the former things which are unfruitful in you shall be taken away. For the time of pruning is at hand. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Origen of Alexandria: What the sequence of the drama contains we have already described above; but now let us consider what either the Word of God is to be understood as saying to the soul that is worthy of it and suited to it, or what Christ is to be understood as saying to the Church. But meanwhile let the Word of God first speak to this beautiful and comely soul, to whom, through the bodily senses – that is, through the gaze of reading and through the hearing of teaching – he appeared as if through windows, and showed the loftiness of his greatness, so that in the passages above he spoke to her while leaning over, and calling her forth, that she might come outside, and, being now made to be beyond the bodily senses, might cease to be in the flesh, so that she might deservedly hear: “But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.” For the Word of God would not call her his neighbor in such a way unless he joined himself to her and became one spirit with him; nor would he call her beautiful unless he saw his image being renewed in her from day to day; and unless he saw her capable of receiving the Holy Spirit, who descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus in the Jordan, he would not say to her: “My dove.” For she had conceived a love of the Word of God, and desired to come to him in swift flight, saying: “Who will give me wings like a dove, and I shall fly, and be at rest?” I shall fly with the senses, I shall fly with the spiritual understandings, and I shall be at rest when I have laid hold of the treasures of his wisdom and knowledge. For I think that, just as those who receive the death of Christ, and mortify their members upon the earth, become sharers in the likeness of his death, so also those who receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and are sanctified by him, and filled with his gifts – since he himself appeared in the form of a dove – may themselves also become doves, that they may fly up from earthly and bodily places to the heavenly ones, lifted up on the wings of the Holy Spirit. But that this may be the fitting time in which these things can come to be, he consequently added: “For behold,” he says, “the winter has passed, the rain has gone.” For the soul is not joined and united to the Word of God before every winter of disturbances and every storm of vices has departed from her, so that she may no longer be tossed about, and carried around by every wind of doctrine.

When, therefore, all these things have departed from the soul, and the tempest of desires has fled from her, then the flowers of the virtues will begin to bloom in her; then the time of pruning also will come to her mind, and if anything superfluous and less useful has been in her senses or understandings, it will be cut away, and she will be recalled to the buds of spiritual understanding. Then also she will hear the voice of the turtledove – that voice, without doubt, of the wisdom which the dispenser of the word speaks among the perfect, the higher wisdom of God which is hidden in a mystery. For this is what the naming of the turtledove indicates. For this bird passes its life in more secret places, remote from the multitude, either loving the deserts of the mountains or the hidden recesses of the woods, always set far from the multitude, and a stranger to the crowds. But what else is there that befits the opportuneness and the loveliness of this time? “The fig tree,” he says, “has put forth its shoots.” Not yet, indeed, the fruits themselves of the Spirit, which are joy, charity, peace, and the rest, but nevertheless the spirit of man – which in him is singularly named the fig tree – already begins to bring forth their shoots. For just as generally in the Church the various trees are understood to be each of the souls of believers, of which it is said: “Every tree which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.” And again Paul, who says that he is a fellow worker of God in God’s husbandry, himself also says: “I planted, Apollos watered.” But the Lord too in the Gospels: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or the tree bad, and its fruit bad.” Just as, therefore, generally in the Church the several believers are understood as various trees, so also in each soul the various virtues and its various efficacies are understood as various trees. There is, therefore, also in the soul a certain fig tree which puts forth its shoot; there is also a vine which may flower, and give forth its fragrance. The branches of this vine the heavenly Father, the husbandman, prunes, that they may bring forth much fruit. But this vine first, by the sweetness of the fragrance which is given forth from the flower, gladdens the sense of smell; according to him who said: “For we are the good fragrance of Christ to God in every place.” Seeing, therefore, these beginnings of the virtues in the soul, the Word of God calls her to himself, that she may hasten and go forth; and, casting aside all bodily things, may come to him, that she may become a partaker of his perfection.

Therefore, then, to her who as it were still lies prostrate and is bent down upon bodily things, he first says: Rise up; and to her who, as it were, has straightway obeyed and complied with the one calling her, he gives praise and she hears: My neighbor, and my dove. And after this, lest she tremble at the whirlwinds of temptations, he announces to her that the winter has departed, and the rain has passed and gone away for itself. And he has finely signified the nature of vices and sins by uttering one wonderful saying, so that he calls “winter” and “rain” of this kind that which descends from the offense and storm of vices, indicating that it has gone away for itself, and by this that sins have no substance. For the vices that fall away from a man are not gathered together into some other substance of sins, but they go away for themselves, and dissolved into their own selves they vanish, and are reduced to nothing. And therefore he said, “it has gone away for itself.” There comes about, then, a tranquility of the soul when the Word of God appears to it and sin ceases; and thus at last, when the vineyard is in flower, the virtues and the young trees of good works will begin to bring forth fruit.

But now again Christ speaks these things to the Church, and sets the whole span of the present age within the circuit of a year. And by “winter” he indicates that time in which either the hail and whirlwinds and the remaining blows of the ten plagues scourged the Egyptians; or when Israel was enduring diverse wars; or even when it resisted the Savior himself, and, seized by the whirlwind of unbelief, was sunk in the shipwreck of faith. Since, therefore, by their offense salvation has been made for the nations, he now calls the Church to himself, and says to her: Rise up, and come to me, for now the winter which drowned the unbelievers, and was holding you back in ignorance, has withdrawn. But the rain also has passed away, that is, now I will no longer command the clouds—namely the prophets—to rain the rain of the Word upon the lands; but the very voice of the turtledove, that is, the very wisdom of God itself, will speak in the lands, and will say: I who was speaking am myself present. The flowers, therefore, of the believing peoples and of the rising Churches have appeared in the land. But the time of pruning also has come, through faith in my passion and resurrection. For sins are cut off and excised from men, when in baptism the remission of sins is granted. The voice of the turtledove, as we have said, is now heard in the lands not through diverse prophets, but through the mouth of the wisdom of God itself. And the fig tree buds forth, which can be understood in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which now for the first time are opened and shown to the Church; or even in the letter of the law, which before the coming of Christ was closed and constricted, and covered over with a certain garment of carnal understanding. But from his presence and coming there was brought forth from it the bud of spiritual understanding, and the green and living sense which was hidden in it appeared, so that the Church, which was hidden by Christ within the fig tree—that is, within the law—should not appear dry and following the letter that kills, but the flowering and life-giving spirit.

But the vines also are said to flower, and to have given their fragrance. Now the diverse Churches which are held throughout the world can indeed be called flowering vines, or vineyards. For the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and the house of Judah is his beloved young plant. These vineyards, therefore, when they first come to the faith, are said to flower; but when they are adorned through the religion of their works with sweetness, they are said to have given their fragrance; not without reason, I think, that he did not say, “they gave a fragrance,” but “their own fragrance”: so as to show that there is present in each soul the force of possibility and the freedom of will, by which it can do all that is good. But because this good of nature, plucked away by the occasion of transgression, had been bent either to ignominy or to wantonness, when it is repaired through grace, and restored through the teaching of the Word of God, it renders without doubt that fragrance which God the first Creator had implanted in it, but which the fault of sin had taken away. And by “vines” or “vineyards” there can also be understood the heavenly and angelic powers, which bestow upon men their fragrance, that is, the good of teaching and instruction, by which they instruct and imbue souls, until they come to perfection and begin to be made capable of God. Just as the Apostle also, writing to the Hebrews, says: Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth in ministry for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation? And therefore men are said to receive from these, as it were, the first flower and fragrance of good works: but the very fruits of the vine they are to hope for from him who said: I will not drink of the offspring of this vine, until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father. Those perfect flowers and fruits, therefore, are to be hoped for from him: but the beginnings and, so to speak, the sweetness of making progress can be ministered by the heavenly powers, or certainly through those who were saying, as we said above, that we are the good fragrance of Christ to God in every place.

But we can also understand in yet another way these matters that are before us, so that we may say that there seems to be here, as it were, a certain prophecy made to the Church, by which she is called to the promises of things to come — so that, as it were, after the consummation of the age, when the time of the resurrection has arrived, it is said to her: Arise. And because this word at once designates the work of the resurrection — as though, made brighter and more splendid by the resurrection, she is invited to the kingdom — it is said to her: Come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove, for the winter has passed. By “winter” he undoubtedly names the storms and whirlwinds of this present life, by which human life is tossed about with the tempests of temptations. That winter, then, has passed with its rains, and has gone its way. Each one has done for himself in this life everything that he has done. But the flowers are the beginning of the promises to come. Understand as the time of pruning the axe laid to the root of the tree at the consummation of the age, that it may cut down every tree not bearing good fruit. But mark as the voice of the turtledove — which is heard in the writings of the promise, which the meek shall receive in their inheritance — the person of Christ teaching face to face, and no longer through a mirror and in a riddle. And let the fig tree that puts forth its shoot be reckoned the fruit of the whole congregation of the just. But those holy and blessed angelic powers, with whom each of the elect and the blessed shall be joined out of the resurrection — who shall be as the angels of God — these are themselves the vines and the flowering vineyards, which impart their fragrance to each soul, and the grace which it first received from its Creator, and now has recovered again after it had been lost; and by the sweetness of the heavenly fragrance they at last drive away from them the stench of mortality and corruption, once it has been cast off. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 4

Origen of Alexandria: These are the matters which, as we indicated above, seemed to us to present the greatest difficulty both in setting the order straight and in opening up their meaning. And this, I think, our present renewed investigation of the words will have rendered clearer. But the spiritual interpretation in these passages is not held to be so laborious and difficult. For the soul, the bride of the Word, which abides in the royal house — that is, in the Church — is taught by the Word of God, who is her Bridegroom, whatever things have been laid up and stored away within the royal hall and the king’s chamber. In this house, which is the Church of the living God, she learns also the cellars of that wine which has been gathered from the holy winepresses — cellars of wine not only new but also old and sweet, which is the teaching of the law and the prophets. And when she has been sufficiently trained in these, she may receive into herself Him who was in the beginning with God, God the Word — yet He does not always remain with her, for this is not possible for human nature; but at one time she is visited by Him, and at another she is abandoned, so that she may desire Him the more. And when she is visited by the Word of God according to the sense of the verse set before us, He is said to come to her leaping over the mountains — that is, revealing to her the lofty and elevated meanings of heavenly knowledge, so that He arrives even at the building up of the Church, which is the house of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth, and He stands beside the wall, or behind the wall, so that He is neither wholly hidden nor entirely out in the open. For the Word of God, and the discourse of knowledge, does not appear set out in public and openly, nor to be trampled underfoot; but when it has been sought, it is found, and it is found not, as we said, placed in the open, but covered over, and lying hidden as it were behind a wall. But the soul which is said to be in the Church is not understood to be set within buildings of walls, but placed within the defenses of faith and the buildings of wisdom, and covered over by the lofty summits of charity. Therefore a good resolve, and faith in right doctrines, makes the soul to be in the house of the Church; certain members of which house are called either the chamber, or the house of wine, or others of this kind, according, that is, to the grades of graces and the varieties of spiritual gifts. So then the wall too is now a certain part of this house, which can signify the firmness of doctrines; beneath which the Bridegroom is said to stand, and in which He is so great and so lofty that He rises above the whole building, and looks upon the bride, that is, the soul; and not yet indeed does He show Himself open and wholly manifest to her, but, as it were looking through the nets, He urges her on and provokes her not to sit within, sluggish, but to go out to Him without; and to strive so that now she may see Him not through windows and nets, nor through a mirror in a riddle, but going forth outside, face to face. For now, since she cannot yet gaze upon Him thus, He therefore stands not before her, but behind her and behind the wall. And He leans in through the windows, which without doubt lay open for the receiving of light to illuminate the house. Through these, then, the discourse of God, leaning in and looking through, provokes the soul to rise up and to come to Him. But we may understand the windows to be the bodily senses, through which either death or life enters into the soul; for so does it signify when the prophet Jeremiah speaks concerning sinners, saying: “Death has climbed up through your windows.” How does death climb up through the windows? If the eyes of a sinner should look upon a woman, and he should commit adultery with her in his heart, thus death has entered into the soul through the windows of the eyes. But also when someone receives an empty hearing, and especially of the false doctrines of perverse knowledge, then through the windows of the ears death enters into the soul. But if the soul, beholding the adornment of the world, and from the beauty of creatures perceiving God the Maker of all, should marvel at His works, and praise the Creator of the works, then life enters into the soul through the windows of the eyes. And also when it inclines its hearing to the Word of God, and delights in the reasonings of His wisdom and knowledge, to this soul, through the windows of the ears, the light of wisdom enters. Through these windows, then, the Word of God looking through, and directing His gaze toward the soul His bride, exhorts her to rise up and to come to Him — that is, to leave behind bodily and visible things, and to hasten to the incorporeal and invisible and spiritual things. Since the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Thus also the Spirit of God is said to go about, and to seek out worthy souls, which can fittingly and rightly be made into a dwelling-place of wisdom. But that He is said to look through the nets of the windows, this without doubt signifies that, so long as the soul is placed in the house of this body, it cannot grasp the wisdom of God naked and open, but through certain examples and indications and images of visible things it contemplates those things which are invisible and incorporeal; and this is for the Bridegroom to look upon her through the nets of the windows. But if we should expound these things of Christ and the Church, the house in which the Church dwelt is the Scriptures of the law and the prophets. For there is the king’s chamber, filled with all the riches of knowledge and wisdom. There too is the house of wine, that is, the teaching either mystical or moral, which gladdens the heart of man. Coming, then, Christ stood a little while behind the wall of the Old Testament. For He stood behind the wall, when He was not made manifest to the people; but when the time was at hand, and He began to appear through the windows of the law and the prophets — that is, through those things which had been foretold concerning Him — and to show Himself to the Church seated within the house, that is, within the letter of the law, He provokes her to go out from there, and to come outside to Him. For unless she goes out, unless she comes forth, and advances from the letter to the spirit, she cannot be joined to her Bridegroom, nor associated with Christ. He calls her, therefore, and invites her to come from carnal things to spiritual, from visible to invisible, from the law to the Gospels. And therefore He says to her: “Rise up, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove.” And that we may also anticipate some of the things that are to be said afterward, fearing to lose the sense which presents itself in this place: for this reason perhaps He also says that to her, that “the winter too has passed, the rain has gone away,” at the same time indicating also the time of His passion, that, the winter being past and the showers cast down, He Himself suffered; and at the same time signifying also this by spiritual understanding, that up to that time in which Christ suffered, there were showers upon the earth. For the Lord still commanded the showers — that is, the prophets — to rain the rain of the word upon the earth. But since up to John the Baptist the prophetic offices are brought to an end, rightly are the showers said to have gone away and departed. But the prophetic showers ceased not to the harm of believers, but for the greater gains of the Church. For what need is there of showers, where the river of God gladdens the city? where in the heart of each of the believers there becomes a fountain of living water springing up unto life eternal? What need of showers, where now the flowers have appeared in our land, and from the coming of the Lord the fig tree is no longer cut down, which before had brought forth no fruit? For now it has already put forth its unripe figs. But the vines too have given their fragrance. Whence also a certain one from that vineyard said: “For we are the good fragrance of Christ unto God in every place, among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing.” But these things, as we indicated above, we have set forth before we presumed to come to the very passages of Scripture, lest perchance the sense which seemed to present itself at the moment should escape us: now let us take up again how He is said to look through the nets. It is written: “For not in vain are nets stretched out for the birds.” And again: “The just man, if he should fall into sin, is bidden to flee, just as the roe from the snares, and the bird from the nets.” Full, therefore, is the life of mortals of the snares of offenses, full of the nets of deceptions, which he stretches out against the human race who against the Lord is called the giant hunter Nimrod. For who is the true giant other than the devil, who also rebels against God? For the snares of temptations, and the traps of ambushes, are called the nets of the devil. And since the enemy had stretched out these nets everywhere, and had entangled almost all in them, there needed to be someone who should become stronger and more eminent than they, and should crush them, so that He might be able to open a way for those who follow Him. For this reason, therefore, the Savior too, before He came into wedlock and fellowship with the Church, was tempted by the devil, so that overcoming the nets of temptations He might look through them, and through them call her to Himself, showing her without doubt and teaching her that it was not through leisure and delights, but through many tribulations and temptations, that she must come to Christ. There was, therefore, no other who could overcome those nets. For all have sinned, as it is written. And again, as the Scripture says: “There is not a just man upon the earth who will do good, and will not sin.” And again: “No one is clean from filth, not even if his life should be of one day.” He alone, therefore, is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who committed no sin, but the Father made Him to be sin for us, in the likeness of the flesh of sin, that from sin He might condemn sin. He came, therefore, to those nets, but He alone could not be entangled in them: nay rather, having burst and crushed them, He gives to His Church confidence, so that she may now dare to make void the snares, and to pass through the nets, and with all eagerness to say: “Our soul, like a sparrow, has been snatched from the snare of the hunters; the snare has been crushed, and we have been set free.” But who crushed the snares, except He who alone could not be held in them? Although He too was in death voluntarily, and not, as we, by the necessity of sin. For He alone it is who was free among the dead. And because He was free among the dead, therefore, having conquered him who held the dominion of death, He drew away the captivity which was held in death. And He not only raised Himself from the dead, but also those who were held in death He at the same time roused up, and at the same time made to sit in the heavenly places. For ascending on high He led captivity captive, not only leading forth souls, but also raising up their bodies, as the Gospel testifies that many bodies of the saints were raised up, and appeared to many, and entered into the holy city of the living God, Jerusalem. This exposition concerning the nets has been taken up by us in the second place. Let it indeed be the reader’s judgment which of them cannot but be more worthily fitted to mystical utterances. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 3

Theodoret of Cyrus: It makes sense, therefore, for the bridegroom to call the bride, mature in virtue as she is, “dove,” that is, spiritual and filled with the Holy Spirit.…The bridegroom encourages and consoles his church in its struggle with trials, “peeps through the windows and looks in through the netting,” and urges her to stand fast and to fly to him.… He is saying, if you rest in the middle of the two Testaments and draw benefit from both, you will find there the manifold gifts of the Spirit. The bride, accordingly, by accepting the spiritual exhortation and lying between the lots, found the wings coated in silver through which she was bidden fly up to the bridegroom. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2

Song of Solomon 2:11

Bede: For now the winter is past, etc. This is what the Apostle says: The night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light (Rom. XIII). For as the darkness of night is correctly expressed by the harshness of winter and rains, so too is the storm of unbelief, which governed the whole world until the time of the Lord’s incarnation. But when the Sun of righteousness shone upon the world, with the old perfidy of wintry unbelief soon departing and being driven away, flowers appeared on the earth, for the beginnings of the nascent Church shone in the faithful and pious devotion of the saints. The time of pruning has come. That is to say, as the Lord mentions in the Gospel, who, when He declared Himself the true vine and His Father the vinedresser, immediately added and said, Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit (John XV). The duty of pruning can also be properly understood according to what the Apostle says: Putting off the old man with his deeds, put on the new (II Cor. III). Explaining this himself elsewhere, he says: Therefore, putting away all falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor (Eph. IV). And again: Let the one who steals steal no longer, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands (Ibid.). — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Gregory of Elvira: There is thus no doubt that winter has a double meaning, either that harshness and severity belong to it, or that it is a time for sowing with the coming of the rain. When it says winter, therefore, it refers to the present world, where the Word of God is sowed in this age like a seed of righteousness by prophets and apostles, or priests, and is fertilized by assiduous preaching, as though by rains from heaven.…But with the passing of winter, that is, the tribulations of this world, and the cessation of the rains, that is, the preaching of the Word of God, and the subsequent arrival of the joy of Spring (which designates the coming of Christ’s vernal kingdom in great peace), then the bodies of the saints everywhere will emerge from the graves of the earth like flowers—lilies or roses—pure white with holiness and red with passion. — EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS 4:13, 15

Origen of Alexandria: But from the fig tree learn a parable: for when its branch has now become tender and puts forth leaves, know that summer is near; so also you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, at the door. Amen I say to you, that this generation shall not pass away, until all things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

How the comparison of the things that have been said can be understood from the fig tree, we shall expound according to our ability: lest perhaps this whole world and its consummation be likened to a fig tree, and each one of those setting out toward the blessed life, so as to see in himself the glorious and perfect coming of Christ’s word, be held to be like a fig tree. For just as the fig tree in the time of winter indeed has in itself the life-giving power, but has it hidden and not sufficiently manifest, and afterward, when that very life-giving power begins to come forth into manifestation as the winter passes, out of its own vigor the branch is made tender, and it puts forth also leaves;

and just as the tree in that very power has leaves and fruits, and first indeed there is the bud, then little by little it advances, and last of all also by the actual effect: so also the world and each one of those who are saved, at the end before the coming of Christ (as it were in winter) has in himself the life-giving power hidden, but with Christ breathing upon them, those branches which are tender and not hard-hearted, and the things that were hidden in them, advance into leaves as the summer draws on and show forth manifest fruits, which he who beholds them in Christ already sees.

So too it is related in a certain parable of the Shepherd, if it please anyone to read that book also, that “the present age is winter for the just”, who appear like their neighbors by nature, namely like the other dry trees, but in the opportune time appear in their fruits. But if in the first Psalm also there be some such thing, which is said concerning that blessed man, that “he shall be as the tree which is planted beside the running waters, which shall give its fruit in its time, and its leaf shall not fall off, and all things whatsoever he shall do shall prosper”, do you also consider what is written. “The winter has passed, it has gone its way, the flowers have appeared in the land”, as is written in the Song of Songs, from the time that Christ came, who introduced the mild season and made the wintry blasts to cease. And the fig tree, that is, the world, has now indeed made the tender branch, that is, the Church, to put forth leaves, while summer is at hand yet has not yet come; but when summer has come, it will more fully render fruits perfect and ripe for Christ, when according to Jeremiah the good figs are very good, gathered into baskets of good figs, from which Christ wishes to take and, as it were, to eat their sweetness. But far be it from us that, when Jesus comes to us and wishes to eat of the fig tree, no fruit should be found in it. For if no fruit be found in it, he will say to it at his coming, to the tree that has not shown fruits: “Never from you shall anyone eat fruit”. And that fig tree can be understood as the people of the circumcision, to whom the Lord came hungering, and when he had not found “fruit in it” but only the appearance of life, he said: “Never from you shall anyone eat fruit”. Wherefore at his coming “that fig tree was straightway withered”, that is, that people; but that other fig tree, which (as regards the earlier times) was barren, which was already to be cut down because it had had no diligence applied to it by its own digger, when dung has begun to be put around it, will put forth fruits; the tree which had once drained the ground, but now will bring forth more abundant fruits even in return for the time gone by in which it was barren.

And each one of us, after the winters of temptations and after the sorrow of dangers past, hastens to summer, putting forth the tender branch — not that hard but the soft heart for believing God; and our advances put forth leaves meanwhile and the flowers of works, that afterward we may also exhibit the most perfect fruits “when that which is perfect has come”, in Christ. Moreover, those very ones who are saved have in themselves the true vine (him who said: “I am the true vine”) and, according to the reckoning of the vine, also the true fig tree the Holy Spirit offering salutary fruits, where “each one rests” according to the spiritual promise of God “under” his “vine” and “under his fig tree”. And that vine indeed in those who make progress flowers and gives its fragrance, but the fig tree also puts forth its fruits, that after worthy progress their fruits may be made worthy of the heavenly winepresses, and of the baskets of very good figs of that fig tree, which brought forth tender and good fruits before the heat; whose fruits, even when languishing, provided they are not slothful to pray, are healed, as is written concerning King Hezekiah in Isaiah, who was saved through figs, that he might not die;

but also the sun upon him in the degrees showed his day made greater and brighter. Great therefore is the hope in the fig tree, which out of God’s words first indeed made its tender branch, and afterward the leaves being born. For such as these summer is near, and near, at the door, is the glorious coming of Christ in the clouds, and the coming of the glory of the word of God, and “near” for men of this kind is “the kingdom of God”. — COMMENTARY ON Matthew 53

Song of Solomon 2:12

Bede: The voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The voice of the preacher has been heard in the land, which has now begun to be ours, having received the word of faith; of which it is said in the psalm of the first Sabbath, that is the resurrection of the Lord, which has become the first of the Sabbaths; “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Psalms 23). For the voice of the turtledove, which by its sound usually signifies the end of winter and the coming of spring, suits those who know how to say that the darkness has passed away, and the true light now shines (1 John 2). The voice of the turtledove, which humbly resounds with a groan instead of a song, fits those who, mindful of their pilgrimage and the promised homeland, are accustomed to say: “But we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” They also cry out to their listeners, “Be miserable, and mourn; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow.” The bird itself, which is a lover of chastity, and always dwells on mountain peaks and treetops, represents the life of those who declare for themselves and others that it is good for a man not to touch a woman (1 Corinthians 7), and, “Our conversation is in heaven” (Philippians 3). For the fact that it shuns the roofs of men and their company and prefers to live in forests and deserts, signifies those who, although placed in the world in body, are separated from it in mind and desire to see the things above. — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: Such did the Savior of all become toward us, showing the most perfect gentleness, and like a turtle [dove], moreover, soothing the world and filling his own vineyard, even us who believe in him, with the sweet sound of his voice. For it is written in the Song of Songs, “The voice of the turtle[dove] has been heard in our land.” For Christ has spoken to us the divine message of the gospel, which is for the salvation of the whole world. — COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 3

Origen of Alexandria: The voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. Not without cause is a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons, taken in the sacrifices: for they are of equal worth, and it is never said separately, a pair only of pigeons, but a pair of turtledoves, and two young pigeons. The dove is the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit, when he speaks of great and more hidden mysteries, which many cannot receive, is signified by the name of the turtledove — that is, of that bird which dwells always on the ridges of the mountains and on the tops of the trees; but in the valleys, and in the things which reach even to men, the dove is taken. In short, the Savior, because he deigned to take on manhood, and came to earth, and there were then many sinners about the Jordan: therefore the Holy Spirit is not turned into a turtledove, but becomes a dove. Among us, because of the multitude of men, the tamer bird dwells. But the turtledove seems, for instance, to signify Moses and any one you please of the prophets who withdraw into the mountains and deserts, and there receive the words of God. The voice of the turtledove, then, has been heard in our land. The fig tree has put forth its green figs. From the fig tree learn the parable. When its branch has become tender, and has put forth leaves, know that summer is near. The word of God wishes to announce to us that, after the winter, after the storms, the harvest of souls has drawn near, and it says: — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:13

Bede: The fig tree has produced its early fruit. They call the early and immature figs “grossi,” which are unsuitable for eating and fall off even with a light touch if shaken. And when the turtle dove is singing, the fig tree produced its early fruit, for when the apostles were preaching in Judea, the synagogue produced many who had zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; who would rather hold to the still imperfect and as if immature observance of the letter of the law than receive in it the sweetness of spiritual understanding. Apponius explains this verse in such a way that the fig tree produced its early fruit when the synagogue brought forth apostles, who, being generated from it, would minister the sweetest food of doctrine to believers. And since, when the synagogue brought forth either the apostles who preached the Gospel or those who still tried to prefer the ceremonies of the law over the Gospel, nevertheless, at that time, the faith and salvation of the whole world followed… — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: The flowering vines have given forth their fragrance. For through the blossoming of the vines, the beginnings of the multiplying Churches, from that one which was first planted in Jerusalem, through its fragrance diffused far and wide, its fame was expressed. For what is more pleasant than the fragrance of a flowering vine? Since indeed the juice expressed from their flowers makes the kind of cup that is suitable for both health and pleasure. Who would not easily see the comparison with the reputation of good deeds? Therefore, the example of the vines, from which wine is born that gladdens the heart of man, is fitting both for the churches of the faithful in general and for the elect individually, who bring forth spiritual joy and gladness for themselves. According to the Apostle: “This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience” (I Cor. III). And as the Psalmist says, “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within” (Psalm XLV). Saint Jerome explains these verses thus: “the voice of the turtle-dove has been heard in our land: The turtle-dove, the most chaste bird, always dwelling in the heights, is a type of the Savior.” And a little later, “And immediately the turtle-dove says to the turtle-dove: The fig tree has brought forth its green figs, that is, the precepts of the old law have fallen, and from the Gospel, the flowering vines have given forth their fragrance.” — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Jerome: Immediately the turtle says to its fellow, “The fig tree has put forth its green figs,” that is, the commandments of the old law have fallen, and the blossoming vines of the gospel give forth their fragrance.… While you covered your countenance like Moses and the veil of the law remained, I neither saw your face, nor did I condescend to hear your voice. I said, “Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear.” But now, with unveiled face behold my glory, and shelter yourself in the cleft and steep places of the solid rock. — Against Jovinianus 1.30

Origen of Alexandria: The fig tree has put forth its green figs; the vines flower, they have given their fragrance. If the vines already burst into flower, the time will come, and there will be grapes. Rise up, come, my love, my beautiful one, my dove. These things which we have expounded above, the bridegroom speaks not while the maidens hear, but while the bride alone hears. But we wish now to hear his own word too, as he speaks to the bride. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:14

Bede: Show me your face, etc. You who in the hidden recesses of quiet, like a dove in the clefts of the rock, or in the hole of the wall, desire to be concealed, I pray that you come forth into the public sphere of action, and show your faith from your works, and declare to others also outwardly as an example what beauty you have within. For indeed to me, who perceive the inner part of the heart, I consider your face shown when I see your action demonstrating unblemished, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, for the benefit of others. For as long as one does something to the least of these, they do it to Me. Let your voice sound in my ears, namely the voice of praise or preaching, that is, either which praises me in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, or which by proclaiming stirs the mouths and minds of others to my praise. Therefore, the bride shows her face to the Lord in what she does in His sight; she also shows the sound of her voice in what she rightly says before Him. It is also to be considered more attentively what He says, Show me your face. He says, yours, not another’s, that is, holy and unblemished: for such I have made it, cleansing it by the washing of water with the word; such I have perfected by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, signing upon you the light of my face. Let your voice sound in my ears, not another’s, that is, the one which I taught you to have on your wedding day, by which you promised to keep your chastity for me. Again show me your face, let your voice sound in my ears, that is, to me, not to others, show your face. To my ears, not others, remember to give your voice; that is, for the sake of my love, not any other reason, and take care to do good works and speak holy words; for whoever expends their good works or words for human approval shows the beauty of their face or the sweetness of their voice to externals rather than to the Creator. But also according to the letter, women who strive to beautify the face of their body for the deception of fools and to soften their words over oil are transgressors of this Lord’s precept, and therefore remain unworthy of that eminent praise by which the Lord glorifies His bride… — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: Because your voice is sweet, etc. Indeed, the voice of that soul is sweet to the Lord, which knows how either to announce the words of the Lord to neighbors or to resound praises to the Lord Himself sweetly with the prophet, How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth (Psalms 119)! That face seems beautiful to the Lord, which strives to present itself as worthy to behold His face, which is accustomed to say to Him from the innermost heart, I have sought Your face, O Lord; Your face will I seek; do not turn Your face away from me (Psalms 27). However, our diligence in cleanliness will not be sufficient for us, if we do not also correct those who err, as much as we can, if we do not care to defend the weaker ones from their snares… — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: The rock is Christ. He is a wall and a shelter to us who believe and a perfect guardian, which is denoted by the wall. When you arrive, he says, you will be protected with every defense. — FRAGMENTS IN THE COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:14

Origen of Alexandria: According to the order of the drama set forth, the bridegroom, who leaping upon the mountains and bounding over the hills had come to the bride, looking upon her and gazing through the windows, now in the second place says to her: Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove. But now he adds this also, in order to show her the place to which she ought to come, which place is set under the covering and shelter of the rock. And let this same place be not so much beside the wall as beside a certain outwork. Now it is called an “outwork” when, outside the walls that encircle the city, another wall is drawn, and there is a wall before the wall. Then next, as though for the sake of reverence the bride herself is covered over and veiled, the bridegroom himself asks that, coming to that place which he showed above — being, as it were, more secret — she may there, with the veil as it were thrown back, show him her face. And because out of much reverence the bride would be silent, the bridegroom at some point desires also to hear her voice, and to be delighted in her words, and he says that she should make her voice heard by him. It seems, however, that her face is not entirely unknown to him, nor is he ignorant of her voice, but that something has come between, in which he has neither seen her face nor heard her voice. Let this be the text of the drama set forth. To which this also is added, that the season of spring seems to be in progress, since flowers are recorded to have appeared in the earth, and the voice of the turtledove to sound, and the trees to have put forth their shoot. On account of this, as at an opportune time, he calls the bride forth to advance — she who undoubtedly had remained the whole winter within the enclosures of the house. But these things seem to me (so far as pertains to the historical narrative) to confer no benefit upon readers, nor at least to preserve any consequence of the narrative itself, such as we find in the other histories of Scripture. Hence it is necessary to transfer everything to the spiritual understanding.

First, then, understand for me the winter of the soul, when it is still tossed by the waves of the passions, and beaten by the storms of the vices and by the harsh blasts of the malignant spirits. While she is set in these, the Word of God does not exhort her to go outside, but to gather herself within herself, and to be united on every side, and to be sheltered against the destructive blasts of the malignant spirits. Then no flowers of studies in the divine writings are with her, nor do the secrets of deeper wisdom and the hidden mysteries resound as it were through the voice of the turtledove. But neither does her sense of smell receive anything of grace as it were from the flowers of the vineyard, nor is her sight delighted as it were in the shoot of the fig tree; but it is enough that in the tempests of temptations she remain safe and fortified from the fall of sin. But if she obtains this, that she endure unharmed, the winter passes for her, and spring comes to her. For it is spring for her when rest is given to the soul, tranquillity to the mind. Then the Word of God comes to her, then it calls her to itself and exhorts her to go out, not only outside the house, but outside the city: that is, that she may come to be not only outside the vices of the flesh, but outside whatever is bodily and visible contained in the world. For we have already clearly shown above, figuratively in the law, what the city is.

The soul, therefore, is called forth beyond the wall, and is led as far as the outwork, when, casting away and leaving behind those things which are seen and are temporal, she presses on toward those things which are not seen and are eternal. This journey, then, is shown to her as one to be made under the covering of the rock, not under the naked air, nor in such a way that she should suffer the burning of the sun, lest she become dark again, lest she say again, “the sun has looked askance at me”; and for this reason she makes this journey under the covering of the rock. But this covering itself He does not wish to be of leaves or of linen cloths or of skins, but He wills the rock to be her covering — that is, the firm and solid teachings of Christ. For that the rock itself is Christ, Paul declares, saying: “And the rock was Christ.” If, then, the soul is covered and veiled with the doctrine and faith of Christ, she can safely arrive at that hidden place where, with unveiled face, she may contemplate the glory of the Lord. And rightly is this covering of the rock believed to be safe, since Solomon too says of it in the Proverbs that the tracks of the serpent cannot be detected upon the rock. For he says thus: “There are three things which it is impossible for me to understand, and a fourth which I do not know: the tracks of a flying eagle, and the way of a serpent upon a rock, and the paths of a ship on the sea, and the ways of a man in his youth.” The tracks of the serpent, therefore — that is, certain signs of sin — cannot be found in this rock which is Christ, because He alone is the one who did no sin. By the true covering, then, of this rock, the soul arrives safely at the place of the outwork — that is, at the contemplation of things incorporeal and eternal. Of this same rock, under another figure of speech, David says in the thirty-ninth psalm: “And He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps.” And do not wonder if in David this rock is, as it were, the foundation and footing of the soul by which she journeys to God, while in Solomon it is the covering of the soul reaching toward the mystical secrets of wisdom; since Christ Himself is now called the way by which believers walk, and now also the forerunner, as Paul says: “Whither the forerunner Jesus has entered in for us.” Like to this also is that which is said by God through Moses: “Behold, I have set you in a hole of the rock, and you shall see My back parts.” Therefore this rock, which is Christ, is not closed on every side, but has a hole. And the hole of the rock is that which reveals God and makes Him known to men. No one, then, sees the Father except the Son; no one, then, sees the last things of God — that is, the things which come to pass in the last times — except one placed in the hole of the rock, namely when he has learned those things by the revelation of Christ. And here too, under the covering of the rock, the Word of God invites the soul, made near to Himself, to the place of the outwork, as we have already said above, to the contemplation of those things which are not seen and are eternal; and there He says to her: “Show me your face” — assuredly that He may see whether she has upon her countenance anything still of the old veil, or whether she can behold the glory of the Lord with fearless gaze, so that she may say these very words: “And we saw His glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” But also, when she has become worthy that it may be said of her as it was said of Moses, that “Moses spoke, and the Lord answered him,” then is fulfilled in her that which He says: “Make me hear your voice.”

But a great praise of her is shown in what is said: Your voice is sweet. For thus the most wise prophet David spoke: “May my discourse be sweet to him.” And the voice of the soul is sweet when it speaks the word of God, when it expounds concerning faith and the doctrines of truth, when it explains the dispensations of God and his judgments. But if either foolish talk, or scurrility, or vanity proceeds from her mouth, or an idle word, for which an account must be rendered in the day of judgment, that voice is unsweet and unpleasant. From such a voice Christ turns away his hearing. And therefore every perfect soul sets a guard upon her mouth, and a door of restraint about her lips, so that she may always bring forth such speech as, seasoned with salt, may give grace to the hearers, and that the Word of God may say of her, “Your voice is sweet.” “But also your face,” he says, “is beautiful.” If you understand that face of which Paul speaks: “But we all with unveiled face”; and again when he says: “But then face to face”: then you will see what is the face of the soul which is praised by the Word of God and is said to be beautiful. That face, without doubt, which is daily renewed after the image of him who created it, which has in itself no spot, or wrinkle, or anything of this kind, but is holy and immaculate; such as Christ also presented the Church to himself, namely the souls which have come to perfection, which all together make up the body of the Church. Which body will assuredly appear beautiful and comely, if the souls out of which that body is made up remain in every beauty of perfection. For just as, when the soul is in anger, it renders the countenance of the body troubled and fierce; but when it persists in gentleness and tranquillity, it renders the appearance placid and mild: so also the face of the Church is pronounced either comely or foul according to the virtues and morals of believers, according to that which we read written: “The trace of the heart in good things, a cheerful countenance.” And again elsewhere: “The face of a glad heart is flourishing, but of one placed in sorrows the countenance is mournful.” Therefore the heart is glad when it has in itself the Spirit of God: whose first fruit is charity, the second is joy. From these I think certain wise men of the world took up that saying by which one says, that only the wise man is beautiful, but every wicked man is foul. It remains for us to say something also more openly concerning the word “before-the-wall” (promuralis). Which, as we said above, indicates that there is a wall before a wall, which is also said in this manner in Isaiah: “Set a wall, and around the wall.” A wall is the fortification of a city. But another wall before the wall, or around the wall, designates greater and stronger fortifications. By which it is shown that the word of God, calling the soul and leading it away from bodily affairs and corporeal senses, desires to teach it concerning the mysteries of the age to come, and thence to gather fortifications for it, so that, fortified and surrounded by the hope of things to come, it may in no way be either conquered by allurements or wearied by tribulations.

Now let us also see how these words may be spoken by Christ to the Church, who is near to him and beautiful. And beautiful to no one else but to him alone. For this is what he means when he says, my beautiful one. This one, then, Christ rouses up, and to her he announces the Gospel of the resurrection, and therefore he says: Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one. And because he also gave her the wings of a dove, after she slept in the midst of the lots: now the Church was called midway between the two callings of Israel, because first Israel was called, and afterward, when he himself stumbled and fell, the Church of the Gentiles was called; but when the fullness of the Gentiles has entered in, then again all Israel, being called, shall be saved. In the midst, therefore, of these two lots the Church sleeps. And on this account he gave her the silvered wings of a dove, which signifies the rational wings within the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And the hinder parts of her back, either “in the greenness of gold,” as some read, or, as others have it written, “in the paleness of gold.” This can show that that later calling which the Apostle says will come from Israel will not be in the observance of the law, but in the preciousness of faith. For faith, flowering with virtues, bears the appearance of the greenness of gold. But it can also be said that the Church sleeps, or rests, in the midst of those lots, in the midst of the two testaments; and her wings are silvered from the senses of the law. The gold on the hinder parts of her back can be understood as the gift of the evangelical office. To this Church, then, Christ says: Come, my dove, and come in the covering of the rock; teaching her to come covered, lest she suffer anything from the temptations that rush upon her, but let her walk covered under the shadow of the rock, saying: The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord, of whom we said: In his shadow we shall live among the nations. And she walks covered and veiled, because she ought to have power over her head, on account of the angels. But when she has come to the place before the wall, that is, to the state of the age to come, there he says to her: Show me your face, and make your voice heard by me, for your voice is sweet. He wishes the voice of his Church to be made heard, because whoever shall confess him before men, he also will confess him before his Father who is in heaven. For your voice is sweet. And who does not admit that the voice of the catholic Church confessing the true faith is sweet, but that the voice of the heretics is unsweet and unpleasant, who speak not the doctrines of truth, but blasphemies against God, and iniquity against the Most High? So too the face of the Church is beautiful, but that of the heretics base and foul; if, however, there is anyone who well knows how to test the beauty of a countenance, that is, if anyone is spiritual who knows how to examine all things. For among the unskilled and animal men, the sophisms of falsehood seem more beautiful than the doctrines of truth. But concerning the place before the wall we can further add this also, that the place before the wall is the bosom of the Father, in which the only-begotten Son, being placed, sets forth all things and declares to his Church whatsoever things are contained in the secret and hidden bosom of the Father. Whence one who had been taught by him said: No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he himself has declared him. Hither, then, Christ calls his bride, that he may teach her about all the things that are held with the Father, and may say: For I have made known to you all things which I heard from my Father; and that he may say again: Father, I will that where I am, there also may be my minister. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 4

Origen of Alexandria: Rise up, come, my love, my dove; and come, my dove, under the covering of the rock. Moses too is placed under the covering of the rock, that he may see the hinder parts of God under the covering of the outwork. First come to that which is before the wall, and afterward you will be able to enter where the wall of the rock is. Show me your face. Up to the present day like things are said to the bride. For she did not yet have the confidence to contemplate, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord. But because she is now adorned and set in order, it is said to her: Show me your face. For her voice was not yet so sweet that she deserved to have it said to her, Make me hear your voice. When, then, did she learn to speak? Be silent, and hear, O Israel, and you shall know what the Lord speaks. And her voice was made sweet to the bridegroom, according to that prophetic word: Let my petition be sweet to him. Then the bridegroom declares to her: And make me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet. If you open your mouth to the Word of God, the bridegroom will say to you: Your voice is sweet, your aspect beautiful. Wherefore, rising up, let us beseech the Lord that we may be made worthy of the bridegroom’s word, of the wisdom of Christ Jesus, to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen. — HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS, HOMILY 2

Song of Solomon 2:15

Apostolic Constitutions: These are they concerning whom the Lord declared His mind with bitterness and severity, saying that “they are false Christs and false teachers;” who have blasphemed the Spirit of grace, and done despite to the gift they had from Him after the grace of baptism, “to whom forgiveness shall not be granted, neither in this world nor in that which is to come;” who are both more wicked than the Jews and more atheistical than the Gentiles; who blaspheme the God over all, and tread under foot His Son, and do despite to the doctrine of the Spirit; who deny the words of God, or pretend hypocritically to receive them, to the affronting of God, and the deceiving of those that come among them; who abuse the Holy Scriptures, and as for righteousness, they do not so much as know what it is; who spoil the Church of God, as the “little foxes do the vineyard;” whom we exhort you to avoid, lest you lay traps for your own souls. “For he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but he that walketh with the foolish shall be known.” — Constitutions of the Holy Apostles Book 6

Augustine of Hippo: What does “catch” mean? [This means to] come to grips with them, convince, refute them, so that the vineyards of the church may not be spoiled. What else is catching foxes, but overcoming heretics with the authority of the divine law, and so to say binding and tying them up with the cords provided by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures? [Samson] catches foxes, ties their tails together and attaches firebrands. What’s the meaning of the foxes’ tails tied together? What can the foxes’ tails be but the backsides of the heretics, whose fronts are smooth and deceptive, their backsides bound, that is condemned, and dragging fire behind them, to consume the crops and works of those who yield to their seductions? — SERMON 364:4

Bede: This animal, which is very shrewd with respect to deceit and craftiness, represents the Jews, Gentiles and heretics, who are always plotting against the church of God, and, as it were, continuously making a racket with their babbling voices. Concerning them the command is given to the guardians of the church: “Catch for us the tiny foxes which are wrecking the vineyards.” — Commentary on Acts 19:14

Bede: Catch for us the little foxes, etc. Indeed, the foxes that destroy the vineyards are heretics and schismatics, who with the teeth of perverse doctrine are accustomed to tear apart the flourishing vineyards of Christ, that is, the unripe minds of the faithful. If only we did not know how much they tend to damage them! Therefore Christ commanded His bride, with her maidens, whom He usually calls the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, with preachers exalted in holy humility, busily in pious labor to catch the little foxes, that is, as soon as they begin to discern and challenge the tricks of the fraudulent; lest, having grown larger over time, they are driven away from harming His spiritual vineyards with that much more difficulty, as they have already accustomed to graze longer; and beautifully, He who had first spoken of the vineyards in the plural, again used the singular number. For “our vineyard has blossomed”; thus indeed, He calls many vineyards one vineyard, just as He wished to call many churches throughout the world one Church for Himself. For He said the vineyards have blossomed, to show widely germinating populations of the chosen; and rightly, where He admonished to catch the foxes, there soon marked the singular appellation vineyard, to teach that for this reason above all, heretics should be pursued and crushed, lest the infestation tear apart and scatter into parts the faith of the Church, which ought to be one. Moreover, the nature of foxes aptly aligns with the manners and words of heretics, because they are indeed very deceitful animals, which hide in holes or caves, and when they appear, they never run in straight paths, but in winding turns. How these fit with the deceit and fraud of heretics, anyone can easily understand. It should not be overlooked that He did not say, “Catch for yourselves,” when speaking to the children of the Church, or “Your vineyard has blossomed”; but, “Catch for us the little foxes, for our vineyard has blossomed”; so that He might more strongly incite all, who could, to conquer or correct the wickedness of heretics or bad Catholics, showing that they serve Him in this endeavor, and to demonstrate Himself as the defender of the vineyard, which is the rewarder of pious labors. Rightly, therefore, His beloved friend and bride responds immediately with the simplicity of a dove’s heart: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Gregory of Elvira: It calls these foxes “little” because there are also greater ones. Indeed, the ruling powers of the world are greater at raging than the fallacies of the heretics are at seducing. They are both equally evil, but their respective powers to punish are unequal, for the heretic coaxes to destroy, but the Gentile rages to conquer, the former being peacefully deceptive and the latter being cruel in persecution. But the Lord commands that both receive appropriate dispositions from the keepers of the vineyards, that is, from the leaders of the churches. — EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS 4:25

Nilus of Sinai: [Those] who spoil the church of God, as the “little foxes do the vineyard,” we exhort you to avoid, lest you lay traps for your own souls. “For he that walks with wise men shall be wise, but he that walks with the foolish shall be known.” — CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 6:3.18

Origen of Alexandria: According to the order of the drama the speaker has changed, for now the bridegroom no longer speaks to the bride, but to the companions, and to them he says that they should catch the little foxes that lie in wait for the vineyards, where they have first put forth their buds, and do not allow them to reach the flower. He commanded, therefore, that they be caught, taking counsel for the welfare and benefit of the vineyards. But these things, as we have begun to do, must be examined by spiritual exposition. And I think that if you consider these things concerning the soul which joins itself to the Word of God, the foxes ought to be understood as the opposing powers and the wickednesses of demons, which through depraved thoughts and perverse understanding destroy the flower of virtues in the soul and kill the fruit of faith. Therefore the foresight of the Word of God, who is the Lord of hosts, commands his angels who are sent for service, on behalf of those who receive the inheritance of salvation, that they catch from each soul thoughts of this kind sent in by the demons, so that, these being cast out, the souls may be able to bring forth the flower of virtue. And they catch the evil thoughts in this way: when they suggest to the mind that these are not from God, but are from the malignant spirit, and they give to the soul the discernment of spirits, so that it may understand which thought is according to God, and which is from the devil. But that you may know that there are thoughts which the devil sends into the hearts of men, see in the Gospel what is written: “When the devil,” it says, “had put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray him.” There are, therefore, thoughts of this kind which are cast by the demons into the hearts of men. But because divine Providence is not lacking, lest perhaps through importunity of this kind the freedom of the will should be disturbed, and there be no just cause for judgment, therefore the care of men is entrusted to the kindly angels and friendly powers, so that when the deceivers, like foxes, begin to assail a man, they may lift him up with their right-hand helps. And therefore it is said: “Catch us the little foxes.” Fittingly indeed he commands that they be caught and seized while they are still little. For while an evil thought is in its beginnings, it can easily be cast out of the heart. But if it is frequently repeated, and remains for a long time, it without doubt leads the soul to consent; and after consent, once it has been confirmed within the heart, it is certain that it tends toward the disposition of sin. While therefore it is in its beginnings, and is little, it ought to be caught and cast out, lest, if it should become grown and inveterate, it can then no longer be expelled. Finally, Judas too had the beginning of evil in the love of money, and this was for him the little fox. But when the Lord saw the soul of Judas, like a flowering vineyard, being harmed by this too, wishing to catch it and cast it out of him, he entrusted to him the money-bags, so that, possessing what he loved, he might cease from covetousness. But he, inasmuch as he had the freedom of his own will, did not embrace the wisdom of the physician, but gave himself up rather to that counsel by which his soul was being destroyed, than to that by which it was being healed.

But if we understand these things of Christ and the Church, the discourse will seem to be directed to the teachers of the Church, and a charge to be laid upon them concerning the catching of the foxes that lay waste the vineyards. Now by “foxes” we may understand the perverse teachers of heretical doctrines, who by the cunning of their arguments seduce the hearts of the innocent, and lay waste the Lord’s vineyard so that it may not flourish in the right faith. A precept, therefore, is given to the catholic teachers, that while these foxes are still small, and have not yet deceived many souls, but the depraved teaching is only at its beginning, they should make haste to convict and restrain them, and to refute by the word of truth those who contradict, and to catch them by true assertions. For if these foxes remain in their first principles and grow strong, their word creeps like a cancer and becomes incurable; so that many are found who, deceived by them, now begin to fight on their behalf and to defend the authors of the error they have taken up. Thus, then, it is fitting to catch the foxes while they are small, and at the very first beginnings to confute the deceitful sophisms of the heretics with true assertions. But that the assertion of both our expositions may shine forth more clearly, let us gather from the divine volumes wherever mention has been made of this animal. We find, then, in the sixty-second Psalm that it is said of the impious: “But they have sought my soul in vain; they shall go into the lower parts of the earth, they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be portions for foxes.” But also in the Gospel according to Matthew the Savior answered the scribe who said to him, “Master, I will follow you wherever you go”: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests where they may rest, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” And likewise in the Gospel according to Luke, to those who said to the Lord, “Go out, and depart hence, for Herod wishes to kill you,” Jesus answered: “Go and tell that fox: Behold, I cast out demons and accomplish healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall be consummated.” In the book of Judges also, Samson, when the wife who was of the race of the Philistines had been taken from him, said to her father: “I am innocent this time before the Allophyli, for I will do evil to you.” And Samson went, and took three hundred foxes, and took torches, and bound tail to tail, and set one torch between the two tails of the foxes, and kindled fire in the torches, and sent them through the harvests of the Allophyli, and burned all their harvests and their stubble, and their vineyards, and their olive groves. And further, in the second book of Ezra, where Tobiah the Ammonite hindered the building of those who had returned from captivity, that they might build the temple and the wall, he said to the Allophyli: “Will these men sacrifice, or eat things offered in this place? Do not the foxes go up, and will they not destroy the wall of these men which they are building of stones?” These, for the present, are the things that could occur to us from the divine Scriptures, in which the memory of this animal has been made, so that from these every wise reader may prudently conjecture whether we have used a fitting exposition in the things that have been set before us, for explaining that which it says: “Catch us the little foxes.” And although it is laborious to explain each of the things we have taken up by way of example, nevertheless we shall briefly touch upon what we can.

And first, in the sixty-second Psalm, let us see, where, when the impious were persecuting the soul of the just man, he sang, saying: “But they have sought my soul in vain; they shall go into the lower parts of the earth, they shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be portions for foxes.” In which it is surely shown that the depraved teachers, wishing by vain and empty words to deceive the soul of the just man, are said to go into the lower parts of the earth—being wise, as it were, in earthly things, and speaking of the earth, and descending into its lower parts, that is, into the depth of foolishness. For I think that those who live more carnally, because they harm only themselves, are said to be earth and to dwell in the earth. But those who understand the Scriptures with earthly and carnal senses, and by so teaching deceive others—for this very reason, that they contrive certain subtleties and arguments of carnal and earthly wisdom, they are said to enter into the lower parts of the earth: or certainly it is thus, because those who teach earthly things sin more grievously than those who merely so live, a still heavier punishment threatens them; and these same are prophesied to be delivered into the hands of the sword, perhaps of that flaming and turning sword.

But let us also see how they become the portions of foxes. Every soul is either a portion of God, or a portion of whoever has received power over men. For when the Most High divided the nations and scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and the Lord’s portion became Jacob. Since, then, it is established that every single soul is either in the portion of God or in the portion of some other, seeing that through the freedom of the will it is possible for each one to pass over from the portion of another — either to the portion of God, if with his help he chooses the better, or, if more wickedly, to the portion of the demons — hence mention is made of these in the psalm: “Those who have sought the soul of the just in vain shall be the portions of foxes,” as if it said that they shall be the portions of the worst and most wicked demons: so that every malicious and crafty power, through which the deceptions and frauds of a false knowledge have been introduced, is figuratively called foxes; and those who are led into this error, and are unwilling to acquiesce in the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the teaching which is according to godliness, but suffer themselves to be deceived by such, these shall become the portions of foxes of that kind, and shall enter with them into the lower parts of the earth. These same are also those in whom, according to the Gospel, these foxes which we mentioned above are said to have holes, in which the Son of Man has not where to lay his head. Herod too, we must believe, was named a fox for his deceitful cunning. For concerning Samson, who is recorded to have caught three hundred foxes, and to have bound them together by their tails, and to have set burning torches in the midst of the tails, and to have sent them through the harvests of the Philistines, and to have burned them up along with the standing grain and the olive groves and the vineyards, the explanation of this form or figure seems to me exceedingly difficult. Nevertheless let us attempt to knock at some of these things according to our strength, and let us suppose, as our exposition in the foregoing maintains, that the foxes are the deceitful and perverse teachers. These Samson, who holds the image of the true and faithful teacher, catching them by the word of truth, will bind tail to tail — that is, he will confute those who are opposed to him and who think and teach things at variance with one another; and, taking from their own words their premises and conclusions, he will send the fire of his conclusion into the crop of the Philistines, and out of their own arguments will burn up all the fruits and vineyards and olive groves of that most wicked generation. But the very number of the three hundred foxes, which were divergent and dissonant from one another, indicates the threefold form of sins. For every sin is committed either in deed, or in word, or in the consent of the mind. Yet not even that which we said is written in the second book of Ezra is wholly to be passed over: where, when the Holy of Holies was being built — that is, when the faith of Christ and the mysteries of his saints were being founded — the enemies of the truth and the adversaries of the faith, who are the wise of this world, seeing the walls of the Gospel rise up without the art of grammar and without philosophical skill, say, as with a certain mockery, that this can very easily be destroyed by the cleverness of words through cunning fallacies and dialectical arguments. Let these things, meanwhile, said about the examples we have taken up, suffice as far as brevity could allow. Now let us return to our theme.

It seems, then, that in the Song of Songs a command is given by the bridegroom to the virtues that are dear to him, that they should catch and refute the opposing powers which lie in wait for the souls of men, lest these powers exterminate the beginnings of faith and the flower of the virtues under the appearance of some secret and hidden wisdom—hiding themselves, like foxes in their holes, in those men who have offered themselves up to these second matters. And in order that they may the more easily be confuted and refuted, while they are still little foxes and hold only the beginnings of a most wicked persuasion, the command is given that they be caught. For if perchance they should grow and become larger foxes, they can no longer be caught by the enemies of the bridegroom, but perhaps by the bridegroom himself alone. But the holy teachers too, and the masters of the Church, just as they have received power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, so also they receive power even to catch foxes. For thus power has been given to them over every power of the enemy. Without doubt one of the enemy’s powers is the fox, which exterminates the flowering vineyards, and which, while it is still small, is commanded to be caught—just as in the hundred and thirty-seventh psalm he is called blessed who takes and dashes the little ones of Babylon against the rock, and does not permit the Babylonian understanding to grow and increase within himself, but while it is still small in its beginnings dashes it down and holds it against the rock: for then it is easily destroyed. So, then, let the order run thus: “Catch us the little foxes, which foxes exterminate the flowering vineyards.” When it says “us,” this means “me the bridegroom and the bride”; or “me and you who are my companions.” It can also be taken thus: “Catch us the foxes,” and afterward, “the little ones exterminating the vineyards,” so that it refers not so much to the foxes as to the vineyards, so that the little vineyards seem to be the ones that can be exterminated—that is, the small souls, which have only beginnings and are not firm and robust, and can be injured by the opposing powers. As it is said in the Gospel: “If anyone shall scandalize one of these little ones.” In this it is shown that a great and perfect soul cannot be scandalized, but a small and untrained one can, as it is said in the psalm: “Much peace to those who love your name, and there is no scandal for them.” By a similar example, therefore, it can be seen that any little vineyard, a soul that is beginning, can be injured by the foxes—that is, by malignant or depraved teachers—but a perfect and strong one cannot. But if these foxes are caught by good teachers and cast out of the soul, then it will advance in the virtues and flourish in faith. Amen. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS, BOOK 4

Theodoret of Cyrus: “Catch us little foxes that demolish vineyards.” Some commentators actually applied “little” to the “vineyards”; but the sense is no different in either case. By “foxes” he refers to those with a deceitful attitude who harm the Lord’s churches that are just beginning to flourish—hence his saying “our vines blossom.” By “foxes” he is hinting at the heretics warring against people in the church and endeavoring furtively and deceitfully to steal away those not yet made firm in the faith. By persuasiveness in word and by the snares and intricacies of argumentation they lead astray those of simpler disposition and damage the vines. For this reason he bids those exercising the teaching role to hunt them down and ensnare them with the arguments of the truth and rid the blossoming vines of this damage. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2

Song of Solomon 2:16

Ambrose of Milan: Without any loss therefore, he passed by the guardians, and the Word mixed with the daughters of that heavenly city seeks, and by seeking it arouses love in himself, and where it seeks the Word, it recognizes. It knows what waits among the prayers of the saints, and what clings to them, and understands how it feeds his Church, or the souls of his righteous ones among the lilies. The Lord demonstrated this mystery to you in the Gospel when he led his disciples through the fields on the Sabbath. Moses led the people of Judea through the desert: Christ leads through the fields, Christ leads through the lilies; for through his passion the desert blooms like a lily. — On Isaac and the Soul

Bede: My beloved is mine, and I am his, etc. The meaning of this response is as broad as it seems to be briefly concluded. For it may rightly be understood in this way: My beloved is mine, and I am his, we are united by true and sincere love. It may also be understood in this way: My beloved has promised me such words of His divine exhortation, consolation, and promise, and I will always offer Him a clear face of my conduct and a pure voice of my speech and grace. But it can also be very decently accepted that, since pronouns usually have great force, the Church, that is, the multitude of all the elect, says, My beloved is mine, and no other; and again, My beloved is mine, not to anyone else, implying that He grants eternal favor of His love and repays fruitfully; and I am His, not to anyone else; I am His, not any other crowd of people, implying that I am always united with Him in full devotion of humility and obedience. To all these meanings aptly fits what follows: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: Who feeds among the lilies. That is, who is accustomed to rejoice in the most radiant and sweetest fragrance of my virtues, who delights in the most pleasing fruit of the glittering churches throughout the world. Thus indeed the holy universal Church is sometimes described in the plural as lilies, sometimes in the singular as a lily. For as it says, As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters. Similarly, it refers to vineyards in the plural, where it says: Blooming vineyards; and again in the singular as a vineyard, where it adds, For our vineyard has blossomed, it represents the one Church. It is named in the singular because there is one heart and one soul of the multitude of believers (Acts IV); and it is also very aptly named in the plural because that unity of faithful heart and soul is no longer contained in a few, but in a multitude of believers. Noteworthy is also that lilies, even in that they are accustomed to heal limbs burned by fire, correspond to the acts of the saints. If they chance to detect hearts being burned by the flames of vices, they immediately extend the help of brotherly love to heal them, and lest the heat of desire or luxury, arrogance or anger, or other crimes overwhelm them, they provide them with the refreshment of their consolation and exhortation with diligent care. Some interpret the Lord feeding among the lilies as among the purest choirs of virgins, and rightly so, because both their chastity of the flesh shines outwardly and the brilliance of their inviolate hearts shines inwardly. Again, the Lord feeds among the lilies, that is, among the most pleasing virtues or bands of saints, in the very reason that He is born among them; for since He Himself, the Mediator of God and men, willed to be of one nature with His Church, hence the same Church is often called His body and He the head of the body of the Church. He feeds among the lilies when the number of the faithful within the Church is increased through the fountain of regeneration. He feeds among the lilies when the faithful, who are certainly members of Him, advance in the love of the highest by the illustrious examples of previous faithful. And it is noteworthy that here the beloved is said to feed, while above he is said to lead the pastures: the bride saying, Tell me, whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you rest at midday; for he is fed in us, because we are His body, and members from His member; He feeds us because He is our head, in whom we all rightly glory, each saying, But now has He exalted my head above my enemies, implying that He will also later exalt us, and gather us to the head; and since this pasturing of the Lord, which takes place in the progress of His saints, extends to the end of this age (for when they reach His vision, they will have nothing further to advance in), it is rightly added: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Theodoret of Cyrus: They who are blessed by the boons of God and have learned to know these passages and others like them, kindled with warm love for their bountiful Master, constantly carry on their lips this his dearest name and cry in the words of the Song of Songs, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” — LETTER 146

Song of Solomon 2:17

Ambrose of Milan: For thus he says: “I to my brother, and his desire is towards me.” He repeats this meaning in a different way three times in the Song of Songs. In the beginning, he says: “My brother to me, and I to him, who grazes among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows flee away.” Then he says: “I to my brother, and my brother to me, who grazes among the lilies.” In the end, he says: “I to my brother, and his desire is towards me.” First, as a foundational instruction for the soul, he said: “My brother to me.” For with him as my teacher, my soul also took on an attachment to God: which follows, according to progress: thirdly, according to perfection. In the first, the soul still sees shadows as in an instruction, not yet moved by the revelation of the approaching Word, but for this reason the days of the Gospel did not yet shine on it: in the second, it gathers the sweet scents without the confusion of shadows: in the third, it now provides perfect rest in itself with the Word; that it may turn over on it, bend its head, and rest, holding the merit which it could not previously find in its search. — On Isaac and the Soul

Aponius: In this verse, the Lord’s resurrection is taught and foretold. Just as the apostles were afraid without him, terrorized by the treachery of the Jews, so also is the soul, which, in a certain sense, is naked and unarmed without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, terrorized by the treachery of demons. — EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 5:4

Augustine of Hippo: Since, then, there are in the Old Testament precepts that we who belong to the New Testament are not compelled to observe, why do not the Jews realize that they have remained stationary in useless antiquity rather than hurl charges against us who hold fast to the new promises, because we do not observe the old? Just as it is written in the Canticle of Canticles: “The day has broken, let the shadows retire,” the spiritual meaning has already dawned, the natural action has already ceased. “The God of Gods, the Lord has spoken: and he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.” — IN ANSWER TO THE JEWS 6:8

Bede: Until the day breaks, etc. That is, until the eternal light of the future age arises, and the shadows of this present life, that is, of ignorance or error, under which even we faithful now walk, who use the lamp of the word of God, until they pass away. For when that day desired by all nations begins to break forth, the Lord will no longer feed among the lilies, that is, among the assemblies of the saints, whom He will rather refresh with the eternal vision of His glory. “I will be satisfied,” he says, “when your glory is revealed” (Psalms 16); and, “Blessed are those who hunger now, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5). Nor is this, which compares present life to the shadows of night, and future life to the day, contrary to the apostolic saying; which testifies of this life we now live, saying, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand” (Romans 15); for, to speak briefly, the present life of the faithful, who, casting off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light, is indeed day in comparison to the unbelievers, who know or love nothing of true light; but in comparison to the future blessedness, where true light is seen eternally, it is still a very dark night. However, because the holy Church in this world recognizes two spiritual lives, one active and the other contemplative, Divine Scripture customarily speaks now of this, now of that, and now of both together. Above, making mention of the contemplative life, it says of the Lord, “Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.” And then beginning with the active life, it says, “Behold, he stands behind our wall,” and so on, until it says, “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” All these things, well considered, urge us to the duty of good action. Then he adds of both together, “My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feeds among the lilies until the day breaks and the shadows flee away”: for in both lives the beloved feeds among the lilies, because the Lord delights in the pure outward works and the sweet inner contemplation of the eternal ones of his chosen ones, and he is refreshed in his members. And this until the true light of day breaks, for then neither are we troubled by any labor of good work, nor do even the most perfect behold heavenly things through a glass darkly and momentarily, but the whole Church will see the King of Heaven in His beauty forever: of which vision, since any taste, however slight, greatly delights the spouse of Christ, it is aptly added: — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Bede: Return, be like, my beloved, a roe or a young deer, etc. Because, he says, you have stirred and provoked me to cultivate the vineyards, that is, to instruct and multiply the faithful people, who have been ordered to drive away the cunning plots of attackers, like little foxes, from these same vineyards, because you wanted me to show my face to you, although you have not yet promised to reveal your face clearly to me, but making your acquaintance partly known to me, as if you speak to me through windows and lattice work. I beseech you to return more often from general instruction, to illuminate more sublimely the hearts of the more advanced, and just as the gaze, though rare, is with delight seen on the mountains from the roe or the young deer, so may your presence be any kind of traces of your greatness in the exalted minds. I pray that you reveal the sweetness of immortal life, which you promise to all my members in recompense, to be speculated upon even by some along the way, albeit from a distance. Furthermore, the name of the mountains suits the minds of those who have learned to open the eyes of the heart to the contemplation of heavenly things; when it is said, Over the mountains of Bether. For Bether is interpreted as a rising house, or a house of watches; and those who ascend more diligently in mind to the desires of the higher things, who more zealously watch to receive these, deservedly see the heavenly mysteries more excellently than others. But if it is read, as some manuscripts have, Over the mountains of Bethel, that is, the house of God, it has no question at all; for it is clear that the hearts of the righteous are rightly called mountains of the house of God, as opposed to the mountains of Samaria and Esau, and the like, that is, of heretics and all the proud. In another edition, we have seen written instead of this name, Over the mountains of spices and perfumes, which equally fits the minds of the saints, who are not dried up by vain thoughts, but, as with the healthful juices of the aromatic tree, are always refreshed with the internal sweetness and charity: about which juices and perfumes it has been signified often in this volume under the name of incense, myrrh, and aloes, and the like. But because lovers of truth come not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, and from both peoples one Church of the faithful is gathered, it remains in the song of love, after the vocation of Judea and the most sweet dialogue with its Redeemer, also to relate specifically how the Gentiles, in what order, have come to the recognition of salvation, and with what love they have held this found. Thus follows the voice of the beloved Church from the Gentiles. — Commentary on the Song of Songs

Cyril of Alexandria: With the barren synagogue abandoned, she asks the bridegroom to come to those downtrodden and humiliated and formerly idolatrous souls who will be raised with him to heavenly heights. — FRAGMENTS IN THE COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 2:17

Nilus of Sinai: He pastures his flocks among the lilies, therefore, although he does so only until the coming day emerges and the shadows begin to move on. Since the majority of people think that the events which are passing and not stable are fixed and will remain, because their faculty of discernment is obscured by the darkness of ignorance, they have need of the daylight in order to see that the shadows of the things of this world dissipate and have no permanence. For all present realities are shadows, drawing their origin from the good things of the heavens yet subsisting like shadows, only resembling the truth of the things there above. But once the night has passed and the dawn has arisen, the nature of things from on high is clearly seen, as if in sunlight. Then people realize: “Our life on the earth is a shadow.” Then they say, “My days, as the shadow, are in decline,” indicating how feeble and quick to vanish is temporal success. The one who says, “If there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is only one God the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things come and through whom we exist,” can also say, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” for the meaning is identical in each text. For anyone who renounces both gods and lords lays claim to the one God and Lord, from whom he exists and to whom he returns. “For,” it says, “for us there is one God from whom all things come and for whom we exist,” thus declaring clearly that “he is mine, and I am his.” …Regarding the expression “the shadows move on,” it is necessary to consider … that it refers to the abrogation of the works of the law. That is the shadow frequently cited by Paul as “the law having the shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the realities,” and again “These are only a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ,” and again, “They provide a copy and a shadow of the heavenly realities,” meaning the priests that functioned according to the law. Thus it is indicated for certain that, the shadow of the law having moved on, the truth of grace now governs, established upon the rock against which “the gates of hell shall never prevail.” … It should also be remarked that it is everywhere necessary for the Word to rest upon the mountains, or at least upon the hills. And if the Word is ever found in the valleys or chasms, he is found there by reason of his great condescension and with the intention to restore those who are down there to the higher realities, on account of his love for humankind. — COMMENTARY ON THE SONG OF SONGS 64-66