Homilies on the Song of Songs 12

Homily 12 (Song 5:5–7)

"[I rose to open to my beloved; my hands] dripped myrrh, my fingers full of myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. I opened [to my beloved; my beloved had passed by]; my soul went out at his word. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. The watchmen who go about in the city found me; they struck me, [they wounded me; the watchmen of the walls took my veil from me]."

Those who set out on a voyage overseas in the hope of wealth, when they have already cast the merchant ship off from the harbour and the man who sits at the tiller has turned the prow toward the open sea by the steering oars, make a prayer the beginning of the voyage, asking God, they say, to become their guide to a good passage. The chief point of their prayer is that a gentle and favourable wind may fall on the sail, standing astern, toward the helmsman's goal. When it blows on them as they wish, the sea becomes pleasant with quiet waves, and the breadths of the open sea are painless as the ship flies easily over them and glides on the waters; and the wealth hoped for from the trading is already before their eyes, the good passage being known even before the trial. To the more apt of the hearers the aim of this preface is surely plain. A great sea lies before our discourse, the contemplation of the divine words. Much wealth of knowledge is hoped for from this voyage; and this living ship, the church, in all its company, looks on, eager, toward the wealth of the interpretation. But the helmsman, the word, does not take hold of the tiller before a prayer is made in common by the ship's company, that the power of the Holy Spirit may blow on us, stir the waves of thoughts, and through them bring the discourse on its straight course with a fair wind; so that, having put out to sea in contemplation, we may trade for the wealth of knowledge, if through your prayers the Holy Spirit should come upon the discourse and fill [its sails].

Let the beginning of the discourse be the recalling of the God-inspired words, which run word for word thus: "I rose to open to my beloved. My hands dripped myrrh, my fingers [full of myrrh]." That the living Word, I mean the pure and unblemished bridegroom, who unites the soul to himself through incorruption and holiness, cannot come to be in us in any other way unless someone, by putting to death the members that are on earth, removes the curtain of the flesh and so opens the door to the Word, through which he comes to dwell in the soul, is plain not only from the divine teachings of the apostle but also from what the bride has now said. "For I rose," she says, "to open to my beloved," by making my hands fountains of myrrh, flowing with the spice of themselves, and showing myrrh as the fullness of my fingers. For she tells through these words the manner by which the door is opened to the bridegroom: "Because I was buried with him through baptism into death, I rose." For the resurrection would not have taken effect without the voluntary deadness going before. And the drop of myrrh that flows from her hands, and her fingers being filled with this spice, [show] the voluntariness. For she does not say that the myrrh came to her hand from elsewhere; for then what is shown by the myrrh might have been thought to have befallen her by circumstance and against her will. But she says that her hands themselves (by the hands she signifies the active movements of the soul) dripped the myrrh of themselves, the putting to death of bodily things that comes from within, from free choice, signifying by this the [deadness] filling all her fingers. By the name "fingers" she interprets the particular kinds of what is pursued separately through virtue, so that the whole sense of what is said is this: "I received the power of resurrection by putting to death my members that are on earth, the putting to death of such members having been worked voluntarily by me; the myrrh was not put into my hands by another, but flows from my own free choice; so that such a disposition is seen without lack in all the practices of virtue, which she has named fingers."

For in those who pursue virtue one may see that they are dead to one passion but alive in others. So we see some putting to death in themselves, as it may be, licentiousness, while carefully nourishing conceit, or some other passion that harms the soul, such as love of money, or anger, or love of glory, or some other such thing. While this lives wickedly in the soul, it is not possible to show the fingers full of myrrh; for the putting to death of evil and estrangement from it does not appear through all the practices. But when all such fingers have been filled with the myrrh we have understood, the soul both rises and opens the entrance to the bridegroom.

For this reason perhaps the great Paul too, having understood well the Master's word that says the ear cannot grow unless the grain is first dissolved by death, proclaims this teaching to the church: that death must lead the way for life, since it is not possible for life to come to be in man otherwise unless it takes its passage through death. For since the nature in us is double, the one fine, intellectual, and light, the other coarse, material, and heavy, the impulse in each of these must be incompatible with the other and its own. For the intellectual and light has as its own the movement upward; the heavy and material always inclines and is carried downward. Since, then, their movement is by nature in opposite directions, the one cannot prosper unless the other grows slack in its natural course. And standing midway between the two, our self-determining power and free choice of itself produces strength in the one that flags and slackness in the one that prevails; for whichever part it [sides with], to that it gives the prize of victory over the other. So in the gospel the faithful and wise steward is praised; this, in my judgment, is the free choice that presides well over what is in us. For he is praised because he feeds the Master's household through putting their opposites to death; for the destruction of those is the food and good condition of the better. But that wicked slave is accused who, by keeping company with drunkards, maltreats God's household with blows. For the prosperity of vice is truly a blow against the virtues.

It is well, then, for those who have emulated the prophetic word to make a morning for themselves by killing all the sinners of the land, so as to destroy from the city of the Lord (and the city is the soul) all the thoughts that work lawlessness, whose destruction becomes the life of the better ones. So we live through death, when, of what is in us, as the prophet says, the Word who said, "I will kill, and I will make alive," kills the one and makes the other alive. So Paul too lived though dying, was strong though weak, ran his course though bound, made rich though poor, and possessed all things having nothing, always carrying about in his body the dying of Jesus.

But let us return to what was set before us: that through death the soul rises from death. For unless it dies, it remains dead for ever and incapable of receiving life; but by dying it comes to be in life, having laid aside all deadness. And this teaching is confirmed for us by the text before us, since the bride says, "I rose to open to my beloved. My hands dripped myrrh, my [fingers] full of myrrh." No one familiar with the divine Scriptures would doubt that myrrh is a symbol of death. But how death raises us from death, I think some seek to have the account of this made more clearly distinct. We shall speak, then, as far as we can, giving the discourse some order in sequence.

The account of the making of the world testifies that all that God made was very good. Among the very good things was man; or rather, he was adorned with beauty more than the good things. For what else could be so good as the likeness of the undefiled beauty? If all things were very good, and among all, or rather before all, was man, then death was certainly not in man. For man would not have been anything good if he had in himself the gloomy stamp of the dejection of death. But being an image and likeness of the eternal life, he was truly good, and very good, adorned with the bright stamp of life. He also had the divine paradise, gushing with life through the fruitfulness of its trees; and God's commandment was a law of life, that he should not die. Now, in the middle of the planting of paradise was the tree that gushes with life (whatever that tree must be understood to be whose fruit is life); and the death-bearing tree, whose fruit he declares to be both good and evil, was also in the middle of paradise. Yet it is impossible for there to be room for both trees at the very centre. For whichever of the two we grant occupies the centre, the other is necessarily excluded from the place of the centre. For the exact position of the centre is grasped in relation to what surrounds it, when it stands at equal distances from the edge on every side. Since, then, the centre of the circle is exactly one, there could be no way, the same circle remaining, of finding two centres in the middle. For if someone sets another centre beside the first, the circle is necessarily moved with it, and the first falls outside the middle, the circumference of the circle being drawn around the second centre. Yet it says that both this and that are in the middle of paradise, although they are opposed to each other in power, I mean the life-giving tree and the one whose fruit was death, which Paul named sin, saying, "The fruit of sin is death."

We should understand, then, through the philosophy of these words, this teaching: that the very centre of God's planting is life, but death is unplanted and rootless, having no place of its own anywhere; it is planted by the privation of life, when participation in the better grows idle in the living. Since, then, life is in the middle of the divine plants, and the nature of death comes to subsist in falling away from it, therefore the one who set out this teaching in philosophy through riddles says that the death-bearing tree too is in the middle of paradise, whose fruit he said has a power mixed of opposites. For he defined the same thing as both good and evil, hinting, I think, at the nature of sin by this. Since some pleasure certainly leads the way in everything done through vice, and no sin can be found separated from pleasure, whatever passions come through anger and whatever through desire, the fruit is therefore named good according to the mistaken judgment of the good, seeming such to those who place the good in pleasure; but afterwards it is found evil, in the bitter digestion of what was eaten, according to the proverbial saying that honey drips from the lips of vice, which for a moment smooths the throat, but afterwards is found more bitter than gall by those wickedly sweetened.

Since, then, man, having turned away from the abundance of goods, filled himself through disobedience with the corrupting fruit (and the name of this fruit is death-dealing sin), at once [he died to the] better life, [and exchanged it for] the irrational and bestial life of [mortality; and since] death [was mingled] with nature, deadness passed through the successions of those born. So a dead life took us over, our very life having in a way died. For our life is simply dead, deprived of immortality. For this reason the one who is known to be in the middle of the two lives mediates between these two lives, so that by the destruction of the worse he may give the prize of victory to the undefiled one. As, then, by dying to the true life man fell into this dead life, so when he dies to this dead and bestial life he is changed over to the life that always lives. [So it is] beyond doubt that one cannot come to be in the blessed life without having become dead to sin. For this reason the word set out in philosophy that each of the two trees is in the same place, in the middle, since the one is there by nature, and the other comes upon what exists through privation. For from the same to the same, through participation and privation, the exchange of life and death takes place; since whoever has been put to death to the good lives to evil, and whoever has become dead in vice has come back to life for virtue.

Fittingly, then, the bride shows her hands full of myrrh, rising through deadness to all vice in order to open to the Word the entrance into herself. And the Word whom she brings in to dwell with her is life. Yet the soul that looks to God, lifted to such greatness through what we have contemplated, has not yet known, as Paul says, as one ought to know, nor does she reckon in herself that she has laid hold, but she still runs to what lies beyond, [straining forward] to what is ahead. For the sequence of the next words suggests that we understand this of her: "On the handles of the bolt I opened to my beloved." And she added: "My beloved had passed by; my soul went out at his word." She teaches us by this that in the case of the power that surpasses every mind there is one way of grasping: never to stop at what has been grasped, but for the one always seeking not to halt at the more that has been grasped. For she who has become full of myrrh, marking in all the practices of life (which she figuratively names fingers) the putting to death toward evil, and showing the voluntariness of her virtue by the myrrh dripping from her hands from within, says that her hands touched the bolt: that is, she says her works drew near to the narrow and hard entrance, whose bolt the Word entrusts to those like Peter. So she opens for herself the door of the kingdom by both: by the hands, by which works are shown, and by the bolt of faith. For through both of these, I mean works and faith, the key of the kingdom is prepared in us by the Word.

When, then, she hoped, as Moses did, that the face of the King would be manifested to her knowably, then the one she longed for passed beyond her grasp. For she says, "My beloved had passed by," not leaving the soul that follows him, but drawing her to himself. "For my soul went out at his word." O blessed that going out, which the soul that follows the Word goes out on! "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in," says the prophet. This is truly the going out and coming in that is kept by God for the worthy. For the going out from where we are becomes the coming in to the goods that lie beyond. This, then, is the going out on which the soul went out, using as guide the Word who said, "I am the door," and "the way," and "If anyone enters by me, he will go in and go out," never ceasing from going in nor stopping from going out; rather, he [never] stops, going in by advance to what lies beyond and always coming to be outside what has been grasped.

So then that longed-for face of the Lord passed by Moses too; and so the soul of the lawgiver was always coming to be outside the place where it was, following the Word as he went forward. For who does not know those ascents of Moses, who was always becoming great and never stopped growing toward the greater? He grew at the beginning, when he counted the reproach of Christ higher than the kingdom of the Egyptians, choosing rather to suffer ill with the people of God than to have the passing enjoyment of sin. He grew again when, as the Egyptian was oppressing the Hebrew, he killed the foreigner, fighting for the Israelite. You surely understand the manner of growth in these things, if you change the history into figurative contemplation. Again he became greater than himself, keeping his life free from the din for a long time through philosophy in the desert. Then he is illumined by the fire in the bush. Besides this, he bares his feet of their dead covering; with his rod he consumes the serpents of the Egyptians; he delivers his kinsmen from Pharaoh's tyranny; he is guided by a cloud; he divides the sea; he sinks the tyranny under the water; he sweetens Marah; he makes the rock flow; he is filled with the food of angels; he hears the trumpets; he ventures onto the burning mountain; he touches the summit; he goes under the cloud; he comes to be within the darkness in which God was; he receives the covenant; he becomes a sun unapproachable to those who draw near, flashing light from his face. And how could anyone in words go through all his ascents and his varied manifestations of God? Yet this man, so great and of such a kind, who had come to be in so many such things, and through being lifted so high toward God, still has an insatiable desire for more, and becomes a suppliant to see God face to face. And yet the word had already testified that he had been granted face-to-face converse with him. Yet neither speaking with him as with a friend, nor his mouth-to-mouth converse with God, halts his desire for higher things. But "If I have found favour in your sight," he says, "show yourself to me knowably." And he who promised to give the favour asked, who said, "I know you above all," passes by him at the divine place, on the rock, covered by the divine hand, so that after his passing he barely saw his back. By this, I think, the word teaches that the one who desires to see God sees what he longs for in always following him, and the contemplation of his face is the unceasing journey toward him, achieved by following the Word from behind.

So now too the soul, when she rose through death, when she was filled with myrrh, when she brought her hands to the bolt through her works and hoped to bring the one she longs for to dwell with her, then he passes by, and she goes out, no longer remaining in what she was in, but following as the Word goes forward ahead. The next word confirms our earlier understanding more, that the greatness of the divine nature is not known in being [grasped], but in passing beyond every grasping imagination and power. For the soul that has already gone out of [its own] nature, so as [to use] none of its accustomed [means] for the knowledge of things invisible, neither stops seeking what is not found nor ceases calling what cannot be uttered. For she says, "I sought him and did not find him." For how could that be found which shows nothing of what is known: no form, no colour, no outline, no quantity, no place, no shape, no conjecture, no likeness, no analogy, but, being always found outside every approach that grasps, wholly escapes the hold of those who seek? For this reason she says: "I sought him through the soul's powers of discovery, in reasonings and thoughts and [concepts], and he was wholly outside, escaping the approach of the mind." And how could he, who is always found outside every distinguishing mark, be comprehended by some meaning of a name? For this reason she devises every power of names for signifying the unspeakable good, but every power of speech is defeated and shown to fall short of the truth. So she says: "I called as I could, devising words to indicate the unspeakable blessedness; but he was greater than the indication of what is signified."

So the great David does too, often calling the Divine by countless names and confessing that he falls short of the truth. "For you, O God," he says, "are compassionate and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and true," and "strength," and "firmament," "refuge," and "power," and "helper," and "protector," and "horn of salvation," and the like. And again he confesses that his name is not known in all the earth, but is marvelled at: "How wonderful," he says, "is your name in all the earth!" So too the one who gave the oracle to Manoah about his child, when asked about his name, says that it is wonderful and too great to be held by human hearing. For this reason the soul calls the Word as she can; but she cannot as she wishes. For she wishes more than she can; yet she will not even wish as much as he is, but as much as free choice can wish. Since, then, the one called is beyond the reach of the caller's impulse, she therefore says: "I called him, and he did not hear me."

What the bride adds to what has been said, even if on the surface it gives a gloomier indication, seems to me to look to the same aim and to hold to the ascent to higher things. For she says: "The watchmen who go about in the city found me; [they struck me, they wounded me; they took my] veil from me, the watchmen of the walls." To some these may seem the words of one lamenting rather than rejoicing, "they struck" and "they wounded"; but to one who has examined the sense of what is said, they are the cries of one boasting of the finest things. What is said may become plain to us thus. A little before, in what went earlier, the word testifies that she is pure of all [covering], where it says in the person of the bride, "I have taken off my tunic; how shall I put it on?" But here again she says that her veil was taken from her. [The veil is put] over the head and covers the face, as the history says about Rebekah. How, then, does she who was stripped of every covering still have the veil, which the watchmen now take from her? Is it not plain from these words how far she has climbed by advance from that point to what is higher? For having put off the old tunic and [put away every covering, she] becomes purer, so that, by comparison with the purity that has now come to her, she seems not to have put it off; but after that stripping she finds again something about her to lay aside. So the ascent toward the Divine shows that something coarse is always found about her. For this reason, by comparison with her purity, that stripping of the tunic described before is taken off again, as a covering, by those who find her. These are the watchmen who go about the city; and the city is the soul; and they took away her veil by striking and wounding her, those whose work is to guard the walls of the city.

That the removal of the veil is something good, so that the eye, freed of its covering, may gaze unhindered at the beauty it longs for, no one would [doubt] who looks to the apostle, who ascribes the removal of the veil to the power of the Spirit, saying: "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed; and the Lord is the Spirit." And that whatever produces the good is itself certainly good, no one would doubt who knows how to look to the sequence of reasoning. If, then, the removal of the veil is good, the blow and the wound by which the removal is achieved would certainly be good too. But since, by the obvious sense, some unpleasantness appears in these words (for the words "they struck me" and "they wounded me" indicate pain), it would be well first to observe the use of such words in holy Scripture, where it has mentioned them in a better sense, and then so to contemplate the force of what is said here. How does wisdom deliver the soul of the young man from death? Let us hear wisdom itself, what it counsels to do so that the young man may not die. "If you strike him with a rod," it says, "he will not die. For you will strike him with a rod, and deliver his soul from death." So the word "they struck" seems to interpret immortality, as the word says, "If you strike with a rod, he will not die," and that the soul cannot otherwise be delivered from death unless it is struck with the rod. So being struck has been shown by these words to be good, since it is truly good that the soul be delivered from death. The prophet says that God too acts so, giving life by killing and healing by striking: "For I," he says, "will kill, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal." For this reason the great David too said that not a blow, but comfort comes from such a rod, saying: "Your rod and your staff, they have comforted me." From them come also the preparation of the divine table and everything the psalm contains in sequence: the oil on the head, and the unmixed wine of the cup that works the sober drunkenness, and the mercy that well pursues him, and the length of days in the house of God. If, then, that sweet blow provides these things, both according to the teaching of Proverbs and according to the prophet's word, it is good to be struck with the rod from which comes the abundance of such goods.

But rather, let us examine what was passed over before these words. The Word passed by the bride, becoming beyond the reach of her who longs for him; but he passed not so as to leave her whom he ran past, but rather so as to draw her to himself. For she says, "My soul went out at his word." So the soul goes out from where it was, and so is found by those who guard the city. "For the watchmen," she says, "who go about the city found me." If the dangers of Hades had found her, or she said that robbers found her, it would be grievous for her to become the find of such. For the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But if the watchmen who go about in the city find her, she is surely to be called blessed for such a finding. For one found by the watchman cannot be stolen by robbers. Who, then, are the watchmen? Who else but the servants of the one who guards Israel? Of the one who keeps the right hand by his guarding? Of the one entrusted with keeping the soul from all evil? He is guardian of the going in and the going out; he is the guardian of the city, of whom [the psalm] says: "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman has kept awake in vain." So by the watchmen who go about the city the word shows the ministering spirits, sent for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. And the soul, as has been said, is God's dwelling place.

By these, then, the soul was found, she says, as the sheep was once found by the good shepherd, at which all the choirs of the flocks were moved to gladness, according to the Lord's word. So too the coin was once found by the lamp, at which all the friends and neighbours rejoice. Such a find David too becomes, the servant of the Lord, as the psalm says in the person of God: "I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him." Since he became the possession of the one who found him, let us hear what he is granted: "My hand," it says, "will help him, and my arm will strengthen him; and I will cut down his enemies before him, and put to flight those who hate him," and all the rest the list of blessing contains. So it is good for the soul to be found by the angels who go about the city. For the great [David] suggests that we understand it so, saying: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and will deliver them." So she who said, "The watchmen struck me," was boasting that some addition had come to her advance upward. And if she says she has also been wounded, she presents in words the mark [of the blow] that has gone deep into her through the divine rod. For she does not receive the working of the spiritual rod superficially, so that the place where she received the rod cannot be recognized; but the blow is shown to be distinct through the wound, and the bride boasts of it.

What is said is this. That divine rod and comforting staff, which works healing by striking, is the Spirit, whose fruit is all the goods that Paul counted, and among the others self-control, the tutor of the virtuous way of life. So too Paul, branded with such blows, exulting in these wounds, said: "I bear the marks of Christ in my body," showing [by them] his weakness in every evil, through which the power according to Christ is made perfect in virtue. So the wound too has been shown by these words to be good, through which the removal of the veil has come to her, so that the beauty of the soul is uncovered for her, no longer darkened [by the veil].

[Let us go over] the sense of what has been said. The soul that looks to God, and takes up that good longing for incorruptible beauty, always has a fresh desire for what lies beyond, never blunting her longing by satiety. For this reason she never ceases straining forward to what lies ahead, going out from where she is and entering into what is further within, where she has not yet been; and what at any time appears to her wonderful and great she makes lower than what follows, since what is always found is altogether more beautiful than what was grasped before. So Paul too died every day, since he was always passing to some new life, always becoming dead to what had gone by and forgetting what lay behind. For this reason the bride too, running to the bridegroom, finds no halt to her advance toward the greater. She makes paradises of pomegranates through her mouth, flowing with spices. She prepares food for the Master of creation, welcoming him with her own fruits. She makes gardens well up. She becomes a well of living water. She is shown to be all fair and unblemished, according to the Word's testimony. Having come again beyond these, she perceives more magnificently, as the Word goes forward, filled on his head with dew and with the drops of the night that form in his locks. She washes her feet, takes off her tunic, drips myrrh from her hands. She brings her hands to the bolt, opens the entrance, seeks the one who is not grasped, calls the one beyond reach. She is found by the watchmen. She receives on herself the striking rod. She imitates the rock, of which the prophet says, "He struck the rock, and waters gushed out." Do you see to what height the bride has run up? Struck for this reason, like the flint by Moses, so that in its likeness she too may well up for the thirsty with the Word, pouring from the fountain. Then, besides this, [she lays bare] the beauty of her face, [when] the veil [is taken off] by the watchmen.

These are the things we have been able to grasp in this place. There is no grudging if a contemplation more profitable to the soul comes to anyone in these texts from the one who reveals hidden mysteries. Perhaps someone will say that Isaiah's vision too has some fellowship with the texts before us. I mean that vision when, after the death of the leprous king, he says he saw the one seated in majesty on the high and lifted-up throne, whose form, size, and appearance he could not see. For he would surely have told it, if he had been able, as he did with the other things he saw, counting the wings and describing their standing and flight. But he says he heard only a voice, when the lintel was lifted by the hymn of the seraphim, and the house was filled with smoke, and by one of the seraphim a burning coal was put to the prophet's mouth; when this was done, not only his lips but also his hearing was cleansed to receive the word. For as here the bride says she was struck and wounded by the watchmen and so stripped of the covering of the veil, so there, instead of the veil, the lintel is lifted, so that the contemplation of what is in the sanctuary may be unhindered for him; instead of the watchmen the seraphim are named; instead of the rod, the coal; instead of the blow, the burning. The end is common to the bride and to the prophet's soul: purity. As, then, the prophet is not pained when burned by the coal but glorified when made bright, so here too the bride does not complain of pain from the blow, but boasts of the increase of her boldness, [which the] word has named [a wound].

One may also find in the words before us another sense, in no way out of tune with what has been contemplated. For the soul that went out at his word, seeking the one who is not found and calling the one beyond the reach of the meaning of names, is taught by the watchmen that she loves the unreachable and longs for the incomprehensible. By this she is in a way struck and wounded by despair of what she longs for, thinking her desire unfulfilled and without enjoyment of [the beautiful]. But the veil of grief is taken away by learning that always advancing in seeking and never ceasing from the ascent is the true enjoyment of what is longed for, since desire, ever filled, begets another desire for what lies beyond. When, then, the veil of despair was taken off and she saw the beauty of the beloved, beyond hope and uncircumscribed, always found greater through the whole eternity of the ages, she is stretched out in more vehement longing, and through the daughters of Jerusalem she makes known to the beloved the disposition of her heart: that, having received in herself God's chosen arrow, she has been struck in the heart by the point of faith, having received the shot of love in a vital place. And love is God, according to John's word, to whom glory and power are fitting for ever and ever. Amen.