Homilies on the Song of Songs 6

"On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. I will rise now and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. 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: Have you seen him whom my soul loved? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, that you do not rouse or awaken love until it pleases. Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders of the perfumer? Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel. All of them hold swords, trained in war; each man has his sword on his thigh because of fear [in the nights]."

Again through the present reading we are taught the great and lofty doctrines of the Song of Songs. For the bride's narrative, in which she relates what concerns herself, is philosophy, teaching how lovers of the transcendent beauty must be disposed toward the divine. [The doctrine taught] through the oracles before us is this; for I think we must first set out the sense contained in the words, and then fit the God-inspired words to what has been contemplated. To put it briefly, then, the doctrine that appears through what is said is something like this. The nature of beings is divided in two in the highest division. One part is perceptible and material, the other intelligible and immaterial. We call perceptible whatever is grasped by sense perception, [and intelligible what escapes sense and falls under] the understanding of the mind. Of these the intelligible is infinite and unbounded, while the other is enclosed in every way by limits. For since all matter is circumscribed by quantity and quality, what is seen about it in bulk and form and surface and shape becomes the limit of the understanding of it, so that the one who investigates matter can grasp nothing in imagination beyond these. But the intelligible and immaterial, free of such circumscription, escapes boundary, limited by nothing. Again, the intelligible nature too is divided: one part is uncreated and makes the things that are, always being what it is and always remaining the same, above all addition and diminution, not receptive of goods [as from outside]; the other, brought into being by creation, always looks to the first cause and is preserved in the good continually by participation in what surpasses it, and in a way is always being created, being changed for the greater through increase in good things, so that no limit is seen in it either, nor is its growth toward the better circumscribed by any boundary; but the good that is present at any time, however great and perfect it seems, is always the beginning of what lies above and is greater. So in this too the apostle's word is true, by the straining forward to what lies ahead, what has been traversed being forgotten. For what is always found greater and surpassingly good, holding the disposition of those who participate around itself, does not let them look to what is past, pushing aside the memory of what is inferior by the enjoyment of what is more precious. This, then, is what we take to be the thought set forth as doctrine in the philosophy of the bridal narrative.

It would be time first to recall the very wording of the God-inspired oracles, and then to fit the sense contained in the words to what has been contemplated. "On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved; I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not [hear] me. I will rise now and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him. The watchmen [who go about in the city] found me: [Have you seen him whom] my soul [loved]? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of [her who conceived me]." How, then, do we find in what is said the thoughts we contemplated beforehand? [The bride's progress] came about in the preceding ascents in proportion to the growth that took place each time. For, always being changed for the better and never standing still at the good she had grasped, now she is compared to the mare that overthrew the Egyptian tyrant, then she is likened to necklaces and turtledoves in the ornament round her neck. Then, as if not content with these, she advances still higher. For through the sweet nard she recognizes the divine fragrance; and she does not stay even in this, but again she hangs the one she longs for himself, like a fragrant spice, between her spiritual breasts, from which the divine teachings gush, clothing herself with him in the capacity of her heart. After this she makes the farmer her own fruit, calling him a cluster, fragrant with something sweet and gentle through its flower. And having grown in this way through such ascents she is called beautiful, and becomes close, and the beauty in her eyes is likened to doves. Then again she goes on to the greater. For, having become more clear-sighted, she learns the Word's loveliness, and marvels how he comes down shaded to the bed of the life below, overshadowed by the material nature of the human body. Besides these she describes the house of virtue, whose roofing material is cedar and cypress, not receptive of rot and decay, by which she expresses the permanence and unchangeableness of her relation to the good. Besides these her difference toward the better is shown by comparison, … and she seems a lily among thorns; and again the bridegroom's difference from others is seen by her. For he is named an apple tree among a fruitless forest, made beautiful by the good colour of its fruit; coming under its shade she is in the house, and is strengthened with ointments, and heaped with the fruits of the apple tree, and, receiving the chosen arrow in her heart through the sweet wound, she in turn becomes herself an arrow in the hands of the archer, the left hand aiming her head at the target above, the right drawing the arrow to itself. After this, as if she had already reached perfection, she sets forth for the others too by her word the eagerness for the one she longs for, rousing their love by a kind of adjuring. Who, then, would not say that the soul raised so high had come to the highest limit of perfection? But nevertheless the end of what she has traversed becomes the beginning of guidance toward what lies above. For all those things were thought to be the sound of a voice, the soul turning to the contemplation of the mystical things through hearing; and she begins to see the one she longs for, appearing to her eyes in another form. For he is likened to a gazelle and compared to a young stag; and what appears does not stand still, either before our sight or in its place, but leaps upon the mountains, bounding from the peaks to the summits of the hills. And again the bride comes to a greater state, when a second voice comes to her, by which she is urged to leave the shadow of the wall and come into the open air, and to rest in the shelter of the rock close by the outer wall, and to delight in the spring season, plucking the flowers of the season, in their prime and lovely and fit for cutting, and whatever else the season grants for enjoyment to those who delight in it, among the voices of the musical birds. Through these the bride, becoming again more perfect, asks to see openly the face of the one who speaks, and to receive the word from him, no longer speaking through others. Again it is reasonable at this point to call the soul blessed, having reached through her lofty ascent the summit of what she longed for. For what greater blessedness could one imagine than to see God? But this too is the end of what has been traversed and becomes the beginning of the hope of what lies above. For again she hears the voice commanding the hunters, for the safety of the spiritual vineyards, to hunt the beasts that harm the fruits, those little foxes; and when this has been done, the two pass over into one another, God coming to be in the soul and the soul in turn moving to dwell in God. For she says, "My beloved is mine, and I am his," who pastures among the lilies and has transferred human life from shadowy appearances to the truth of what is. Do you see to what height she has gone up, she who, according to the prophetic word, goes from power to power, so that she seems to have reached the summit of the hope of good things? For what is higher than to be in the one longed for himself, and to receive the one longed for in oneself? But nevertheless, having come to this, she laments again as one in need of the good, and, as one who does not yet have what is set before her desire, she is at a loss and distressed; and she makes public in her narrative such distress of soul, and describes in her word how she found what she sought.

We learn all these things through the contemplation of the words set before us, by which we are clearly taught that the greatness of the divine nature is bounded by no limit, and that no measure of knowledge becomes a boundary of the understanding of what is sought, after which the [seeker] of lofty things must stop his forward movement; but the mind that runs upward through the understanding of what lies above is so disposed that every perfection of knowledge attainable by human nature becomes the beginning of the desire for higher things. And consider exactly, I pray, the word set before our contemplation, having first understood this: that the bodily sketch of the word is a bridal chamber and a wedding arrangement, which gives material to the contemplation, whose philosophy, transferring the meanings of the thoughts to the pure and immaterial, carries the doctrines forward through what is done in them, using the riddles of events for the clarity of what is shown. Since, then, the word has posited the soul as bride, and God, loved by her with all her heart and soul and strength, is named bridegroom, consistently, having come, as she thought, to the summit of what is hoped for, and supposing that she was already mingled with the one she longed for, she names the more perfect participation in the good a bed, and calls the time of darkness night; and by the name of night she shows the contemplation of invisible things, like Moses, who came into the darkness in which God was, who, as the prophet says, "made darkness his hiding place round about him." [Having come] to stand [there], she is then taught that she is as far from having reached perfection as those who have not even begun. "For already," she says, "as one counted worthy of perfect things, resting myself as on a bed in the comprehension of what I had known, when I came within the invisible, leaving the senses behind, when I was enfolded by the divine night, seeking him who is hidden in the darkness, then I had love for the one I longed for, but the beloved himself flew out of the grasp of my thoughts. For I sought him on my bed in the nights, so as to know what his being is, where he begins, where he ends, and in what he has his existence. But I did not find him. I called him by name, as far as I was able to find a name for the one who cannot be named. But there was no meaning of a name that reached the one sought. For how could the one who is above every name be found by being called by a name?" That is why she says, "I called him, and he did not hear me." "Then I knew that there is no limit to his majesty, his glory, his holiness."

That is why she raises herself up again and goes about in her mind through the intelligible and supra-cosmic nature, which she calls a city, in which are the principalities and dominions and the thrones appointed to the authorities, and the assembly of the heavenly beings, which she calls a market, and the multitude that number cannot comprehend, which she signifies by the name of broad street, to see whether the beloved might be found among these. So she went round searching the whole angelic order, and when she did not see the one sought among the goods she found, she reasoned thus with herself: "Is what I love perhaps comprehensible to them?" And she says to them, "Have you seen him whom my soul loved?" When they were silent at such a question, and by their silence showed that what she sought was incomprehensible to them too, when she had gone through all that supra-cosmic city with the busy searching of her mind and did not know the one she longed for even among the intelligible and incorporeal beings, then, leaving behind all that she found, she recognized what she sought in this alone: that it is not known what it is, that it is, whose every comprehending mark becomes a hindrance to those who search for it. That is why she says, "Scarcely had I passed from them," letting go of the whole creation, and passing by everything understood in creation, and leaving behind every approach of comprehension, "I found the beloved by faith; and I will not let go, holding fast to what I have found with the grip of faith, until he comes into my chamber." And the chamber is surely the heart, which then becomes receptive of the divine indwelling, when it returns to that state in which it was at the beginning, when it was formed by the one who conceived it. And one who understands the mother to be the first cause of our constitution [will not be mistaken].

It would be time again to set out the divine words in their very wording, so that the words may be fitted to what has been contemplated. "On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. I will rise and go about in the city, in the markets and in the broad streets, and I will seek him whom my soul loved. I sought him and did not find him. [The watchmen who go about in the] city [found me]: Have you seen him whom my soul loved? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loved. I held him and would not let him go, until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me." After this she again, out of love for others, converses with the daughters of Jerusalem, whom earlier, in comparison with the bride's beauty likened to the lily, she named thorns; and through the oath by the powers in the world she raises them to an equal measure of love, so that the will of the bridegroom may become effective in them too. It has been said in what went before what the world is in which the strengths and the powers are, and what is the will of the one loved with all the heart and soul, so that there is no need to go over the word again …, since the sense of the words contemplated before makes sufficiently clear what is understood in this place.

But let us go on to what follows in the text, if it should be possible for us too to go up with the perfect dove as she flies up to the height, and to hear the voice of the friends of the bridegroom, who marvel at her ascent from the wilderness. This increases the astonishment of the onlookers the more, if the wilderness produces such a one as to imitate the beauty of trees, the trees in the wilderness cultivated by the vapours of incense. The incense was myrrh and frankincense; and from these, [together with] the vapour, a kind of powder was raised up from the finely ground spices and went up with it, so that instead of dust there was the fine diffusion of the spices mingled with the air, through which the powder rose upright and hung aloft. The wording runs thus: "Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders [of the perfumer]?" If one attends exactly with the mind to [what is said], he will find the truth of the doctrine we understood before. For just as in the processions of the theatres, even if those who act out the story put before them are the same, yet they seem to appear as different people, changing their appearance by the difference of masks, and the one who now appears as a slave and a private person is seen a little later as a hero and a soldier, and again, leaving the subordinate role, takes on the appearance of a general, or puts on the form of a king: so too in the advances of virtue, those who are being transformed from glory to glory through the desire of higher things do not always remain with the same character, but in proportion to the perfection of good things achieved by each at any time, a particular character shines in their life, becoming different from what it was, through the increase of good things. That is why the friends of the bridegroom seem to me to be astonished at what appears: they had known her before as beautiful, but beautiful as among women; after that by the likeness of gold with studs [of silver] …; [now], seeing about her none of the earlier marks, but characterizing her from loftier ones, they marvel not only at her ascent but also at where she ran up from. For this is what intensifies their astonishment: the one who comes up is seen as one, and what appears is compared to a grove of trees; for she is thought to be seen as tree-trunks rising up to a height and growing. And what nourishes these trunks is not some rich and well-watered land, but a dry, thirsty and desert one. In what, then, are these trunks rooted, and from where do they grow? Their root is the powder of the spices; their watering is the vapour of the incense, bedewing this grove with its fragrance. How much praise the word contains for [the bride] testified to in such things! For their questioning one another about the one who has been seen, as shown in another form and not according to her former shape, is the most perfect praise of progress in virtue, bearing much witness to her change and transformation toward the better. For the voice is that of people astonished, marvelling at her appearance as being beyond the usual form: "This one from the wilderness, who was seen by us as black before, how did she wash off her dark form? How does her face flash like snow? The wilderness, it seems, is the cause of these things, which made her height spring up like a shoot and changed her into such beauty." For this running up to the height did not come about by some chance coincidence, nor by some arbitrary allotment, but she acquired the beauty from her own labours through self-control and care. So once the prophet's soul too became thirsty for the divine spring, since his flesh, having become desert, trackless and waterless, received the divine thirst in itself. Her coming up from the wilderness, then, contains testimony that she ran up through attention and self-control to so great and so high a height that she became a wonder even to the friends of the bridegroom, who express her beauty by many likenesses, since it was not possible to include it all in one.

First they liken her loveliness to trunks, and not to one of them, but the likeness of the wonders in her is led to a multitude of trees, so that the many forms and variety of the virtues may be shown through the sketch of the grove. Then smoke from incense is taken up into the image of her beauty, and this not simple, but blended of myrrh and frankincense, so that from both vapours one grace comes to be, by which the beauty of the bride is described. Another praise of her is the mixture of these spices. Myrrh is suited to the burial of bodies; frankincense, for a certain reason, is consecrated to the honour of God. The one, then, who is about to dedicate himself to the service of God will not otherwise be frankincense burned to God unless he first becomes myrrh, that is, unless he puts to death his members that are on earth, buried with the one who took our death upon himself, and receiving in his own flesh, by putting to death his members, that myrrh which was used at the Lord's burial. When these things have come about, every kind of spice of virtue in the circle of life, ground fine as in a mortar, produces that sweet powder, [breathing] which one becomes fragrant, being filled with the perfumed spirit.

After the testimony to her beauty, the friends of the bridegroom, the preparers of the chaste bridal chamber and matchmakers of the pure bride, show her the beauty of the royal bed, so that they may lead the bride the more into desire of the divine and undefiled [union] with him. And the description of the king's bed is this, which they bring before her eyes with a word that points, through what they relate. For they say, "Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, trained in war; each man has his sword on his thigh because of fear in the nights." That the account of the bed is not from the history would be clear to everyone from what is narrated bodily about Solomon. The word described his palace and his table and the rest of his manner of life in the kingdom with all exactness; but it said nothing new or unusual about his bed; so that it is altogether necessary not to keep the explanation to the letter, but to take the word over by some understanding, removing our mind from the material meaning to spiritual contemplation. For what adornment of a bridal bed could come from sixty armed men, whose lessons are the fearful ones of war, whose ornament is the sword held out before the body, and around whom is a nocturnal terror? For by the word "fear" the text shows the fearful alarm that arises from certain night terrors, which it says are present to these armed men. So by every means we must seek some sense through these words that follows from what has been contemplated before.

What, then, is the sense? The divine beauty seems to have its loveliness in what is fearful, shown by what is contrary to bodily beauty. For here what is gentle and soothing to the sight is a provocation to desire, and … But that undefiled beauty is also undaunted courage. For since the passionate and soiled desire of bodies, seated in the members of the flesh, lies in wait for the mind like a band of robbers and often seizes it and leads it captive to its own will; and what happens is hostile to God, as the apostle says, that the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God; for this reason it follows that divine love comes about from what is contrary to bodily desire: so that, if slackness and relaxation and soft dissipation lead the way in the one, in the other a fearful and undaunted courage becomes the material of divine love. For when manly spiritedness has frightened off and put to flight the account of pleasure, so the pure beauty of the soul appears, defiled by no passion of bodily desire. Necessarily, then, the bridal bed of the king is surrounded by the armed men, whose experience of war and readiness of the sword on the thigh produce fear and alarm in the darkened thoughts, which [shoot] in the nights and in the moonless dark at the upright in heart. That the arming of those who surround the bed destroys filthy pleasures becomes clear from the description of the text, which says, "All of them trained in war, each man with his sword on his thigh." For truly [it belongs to those] who know how one must campaign against flesh and blood to have the sword fitted on the thigh. And whoever is not inexperienced in the thoughts and riddles of Scripture surely understands what is signified by the mention of the thigh, and that the sword is the word. The one, then, who is girded with the fearful weapon, I mean the sword of self-control, is the one who is lovely to the incorruptible bed, one of the mighty men of Israel and worthy of the list of the sixty.

That this number has some mystical meaning [is not doubtful], but it is clear only to those to whom the grace of the Spirit reveals hidden mysteries. We, however, say that it is well, having been filled with the readily available thoughts of the text, as Moses legislated for the Passover, [to leave the marrow] hidden in the bones of obscurity of what appears. But if anyone desires the hidden marrow of the text, let him seek it from the one who reveals hidden things to the worthy. But so that we may not seem to run past the text without exercise, nor to be negligent of the divine command which bids us search the divine Scriptures, let us examine the account of the sixty in this way. Twelve rods, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, are taken by Moses at the divine command, but one of them all was preferred, the only one that sprouted beside the others. Again, stones equal in number to the tribes of Israel are taken by Jesus son of Nave out of the Jordan, none of which is rejected, all alike [serving] as testimony of the [crossing] of the Jordan. And there is much sequence in what is narrated. For the word shows a certain progress of the people toward the more perfect: so that at the beginning of the legislation [one rod was chosen,] and the rest were rejected as dry and fruitless. But when more time had passed and the commands of the law had come to a more exact understanding among them, so that they also conceived and received the second [circumcision], the stone knife cutting off all that was unclean in them (and the attentive hearer surely understands what is signified by the stone and the knife), it was reasonable, the lawful and virtuous life having been confirmed in them, that none of the stones taken in the name of the tribes of the Israelites should be found rejected. But since we must always seek the increase of good things, when time went on and the power of Israel became greater [than the] cutting brought on them by Jesus and [the] circumcision, [then] … For so the word says in the words set before us, "of the mighty men of Israel": then no longer one stone or one rod from each tribe is taken, but instead of rods or stones five warriors from each tribe, trained in war, of the mighty men of Israel, bearing swords, surrounding the divine bed. For this reason none of them is rejected, because the five are the first-fruits of every tribe, whose number, summed up twelve times, makes the full count of sixty. Five from each tribe, then, must become fearful armed guards of the king's bed, so that if one is lacking from the number of five, the rest too is unacceptable.

May we, then, now dare the conclusion of the reasoning? How are the five from each tribe armed, so as to become guards of the royal bed? How does each of these five become fearful to those drawn up against him by his arming, holding out the sword from his thigh? Or is it clear that the one stone is [one man], and these five armed men are [his five senses], each sense holding out its own fitting sword for the destruction of the opponents? The eye's [sword] is always to look to the Lord, and to see rightly, and to be defiled by no filthy sight. The hearing's weapon likewise is listening to divine teachings and never receiving a vain word into itself. So one can arm also taste and touch and smell with the sword of self-control, [fitting it] to each of the senses. [So comes about the] alarm for the dark thoughts, whose time for plotting against souls is night and darkness. For in it, the prophet said, the beasts of the field contrive wicked food for themselves from the flocks of God. "For you made darkness," he says, "and it became night; in it all the beasts of the forest will pass through, lions' whelps roaring to seize [prey]." Since, then, everyone who is saved becomes Israel (for not all who are of Israel are Israel, but those who see God are properly named by this title from the activity), and it is proper to one who sees God to look toward sin with none of the senses (for no one can look to two masters, but one must be hated if the other is to be loved), for this reason all that is saved becomes one bed of the king. For all who have become pure in heart will see God, and those who have seen God become and are properly named Israel; and this name is divided into twelve tribes for some secret reason; so the fullness of those being saved is rightly summed up by the number sixty, one being taken from each part, and this one being [multiplied] into five according to the number of the senses. So all who have put on the divine armour surround one bed of the king, all having become Israel; and through the twelve tribes, the valour understood everywhere, the whole fullness of the champions being summed up into the number sixty, all will become one line of battle and one army, and one bed, that is, one church, and one people, and one bride, under one commander and head of the assembly and bridegroom, so that those who are saved are joined into one body. And we are taught this from God's voice too, which says to the one who knocks shamelessly at night, "The door is already shut, and my children are with me in bed." The word rightly names children those who through the weapons of righteousness have achieved freedom from passion, teaching us through this that the good that comes to us from care is nothing other than what was laid in nature from the beginning. For when one who has girded on the sword has cast off passion through attention to the life of virtue, then he [becomes] like an infant in age, insensible of such passion. For the unripeness of age does not have room for passion. It is the same thing, then, to learn that there are armed men around the bed and that there are infants resting on the bed. For freedom from passion is one in both: in those who have not received passion and in those who have thrust it away. For the one have not yet known it; the others have brought themselves back to the first state, turning and becoming children by divine freedom from passion. How blessed it is to be found among these, having become either a child or an armed man or a true Israelite: as an Israelite, seeing God with a pure heart; as an armed man, guarding the king's bed, that is, one's own heart, in freedom from passion and purity; as a child, resting on the blessed bed, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory to the ages of ages. Amen.