Homilies on the Song of Songs 8

Homily 8 (Song 4:8–9)

"Come from Lebanon, bride, come from Lebanon; you will come and you will pass through from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. You have given us heart, our sister bride; you have given us heart with one of your eyes, with one ornament of your neck."

The great apostle, who passed through the great visions, testifies to the Corinthians about himself (whether what he was then was body or mind, he alone knew) at the time of his initiation into the mysteries in paradise. He says that he does not yet reckon that he has laid hold, but that he is still straining forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what is already behind. It is plain that even after the third heaven, which he alone came to know (for Moses told nothing about it in his account of the making of the world), and even after hearing the unspeakable mysteries of paradise, he still presses on to what is higher, and never stops climbing, never making the good he has grasped the limit of his desire. By this, I think, he teaches us that in that blessed nature of the good, however much is found at any time, what lies beyond what is grasped is always infinitely greater; and this is so for the one who shares in it without end, through the whole eternity of the ages, since the increase comes to those who share in it through ever greater goods. For the one who is pure in heart, according to the Master's truthful voice, sees God, always receiving understanding in the measure of his capacity, as much as he can hold. Yet the boundless and incomprehensible character of the Godhead remains beyond all comprehension. For that whose magnificence and glory have no limit, as the prophet testifies, is always the same, contemplated always at the same height. And so the great David, who set fair ascents in his heart and went ever from strength to strength, cried out to God: "But you, Lord, are most high for ever." By this saying, I think, he signifies this: in the whole eternity of the endless age, the one who runs toward you always becomes greater and higher than himself, always growing in proportion through the increase of goods; but you are the same, most high, abiding for ever, never able to appear lower to those who climb, because you are always equally higher and loftier than the power of those who are lifted up.

This, then, is what we have taken the apostle to teach about the nature of the unspeakable goods when he says that eye has not known that good, even though it always sees. For it does not see as much as it is, but as much as the eye is able to receive. And ear has not heard it as far as what is revealed extends, even though it always receives the word by hearing. And it has not entered the heart of man, even though the pure in heart always sees as much as he can. For what is always grasped is greater than everything grasped before, yet it does not set the limit of what is sought in itself; rather, the end of what has been found becomes, for those who climb, the beginning of the discovery of higher things. And neither does the one who climbs ever stand still, receiving beginning after beginning, nor is the beginning of ever greater things completed in itself. For the desire of the one who climbs never comes to rest in what is known; but through another, greater desire the soul climbs in turn toward another that lies beyond it, and so, always through higher things, journeys toward the boundless.

With these points distinguished in this way, it would be time to add the contemplation of the divine words. "Come from Lebanon, bride, come from Lebanon; you will come and pass through from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards." What, then, have we understood in these words? The fountain of goods always draws the thirsty to itself, as the fountain says in the gospel: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." In these words he set no limit to the thirst, nor to the eagerness toward him, nor to the enjoyment in drinking; by the continuous form of the command he makes the exhortation to thirst and to drink and to be eager for him last for ever. For those who have already tasted, and learned by experience that the Lord is good, the taste becomes, as it were, an exhortation to share in more. For this reason the summons toward him, which always draws toward what is greater, never fails the one who climbs. Let us recall the urging that the Word has already given the bride many times in what has gone before: "[Arise, come], my close one," he says; and again, "Come, my dove"; and "Come, [you, in the shelter] of the rock." The Word has spoken other such words to the soul, which urge and draw it toward desire for greater things; and he has already testified to the soul climbing toward him that it is blameless in every way, saying, "[You are all fair, my close one,] and there is no blemish in you." So that she may not grow slack at this testimony and be hindered in the ascent to greater things, he bids her once more, by this word of exhortation, to climb to the desire for what lies beyond, saying, "Come from [Lebanon]."

What is said is something like this: "You have followed well," he says, "in what has gone before; you came with me to the mountain of myrrh. For you were buried with me through baptism into death. You came with me also to the hill of frankincense. For you rose with me and were lifted up into the fellowship of the Godhead; [and] from these, [go up] to other mountains also, advancing and being lifted up through active knowledge. Come, then, … For it is not possible for one to live with me who has not been changed through the myrrh of death toward the frankincense of the Godhead. Since you have now come to this height, do not stop climbing, as though by these steps you had already reached perfection. For this frankincense, in which you shared through the resurrection, becomes for you the beginning of faith, and the beginning also of the journey to the higher goods. From this beginning, then, which is faith, you will come and you will pass through; that is, you will come now, and you will be for ever passing through such ascents, not … ."

The wording runs thus: "You will come and pass through, from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Hermon." By this it hints at the mystery of the birth from above. For it says that from there the springs of the Jordan come forth, above which lies this mountain, divided into two ridges, which bear these names, Sanir and Hermon. Since, then, the stream from these springs has become for us the beginning of our transformation toward the divine, she therefore hears him calling her to himself. He says: "Come from Lebanon, and from the beginning of faith, and from the head of these mountains, from which the springs of the mystery have come to you." And he fittingly adds the mention of lions and leopards, so that by setting painful things alongside he might make the enjoyment of what gladdens sweeter. For when man once put off the divine form, he became a wild beast, in the likeness of the irrational nature, becoming a leopard and a lion through evil practices. For the one who is dragged by the lion lying in ambush in its den, as the prophet says, and humbled in its snare, is transformed into its nature, since the beast has overpowered his nature. "May those who make them become like them," it says, "and all who trust in them." In the same way, the one who has branded his soul with the spots of his life becomes a leopard. Since, then, there was a time when the human race was in such conditions, led astray by idolatry and Jewish deceit and the many-coloured wickedness of sinners, and since after this, through the Jordan and the myrrh and the frankincense, it was lifted so high that it now journeys aloft with God, the word therefore increases its gladness in the present goods by setting beside them the troubles that once were, recalling the state in which the soul was before the frankincense and the beginning of faith, and before the mysteries made known to us at the Jordan. For as a life of peace becomes sweeter after war, seasoned by grim stories; and as the good of health delights the senses of our body more when nature returns to itself from the misery of some illness, in the same way the good bridegroom, arranging some heightening and increase of gladness in goods for the soul that climbs toward him, not only shows the bride his own beauty, but also reminds her in his word of the most fearful form of beasts, so that she may delight the more in the fair things present, learning by the comparison what she has received in exchange for what.

Perhaps some other good is also prepared for the bride by this, with forethought. For the Word wishes that we who are changeable by nature should not flow away toward evil through change, but should have change as a fellow worker toward the ascent to higher things through constant growth toward the better, so that through the changeability of our nature unchangeableness toward evil may be achieved. For this reason the Word brought forward the memory of the beasts that once overpowered us, as a kind of tutor and guard for our estrangement from evil, so that by turning from the worse we may achieve steadiness and firmness in goods, neither halting in change toward the better nor being altered toward evil. That is why he bids the bride come from Lebanon, and reminds her of the den of lions where she used to lodge, and brings up in his word the mountains of leopards, on which she spent her time when she lived among beasts.

But since the voice of the Word is always a voice of power, and as at the creation the light appeared together with the command, and again the firmament with the commanding word, and all the rest of creation in the same way together with the creating Word, so now too, when the Word bids the soul, which has become better, to come to him, she is empowered by the command without delay and becomes such as the bridegroom wished, transformed toward what is more divine, and changed by the good alteration from the glory in which she was to the higher glory. So she becomes a wonder to the chorus of angels around the bridegroom, and all of them, praising her, utter to her their cry of wonder: "You have given us heart, our sister bride." For the stamp of freedom from passion, shining on her and on the angels alike, leads her into kinship and sisterhood with the bodiless ones, since she has achieved passionlessness in the flesh. For this reason they say to her, "You have given us heart, our sister bride," and she is honoured properly by each of the two names: our sister, because of the kinship of freedom from passion; bride, because of her union with the Word. We think that "you have given us heart" means something like "you have given us soul," as though they said to her, "You have put heart into us."

For clarity, so that what is said may become plainer to us, we shall take the divine apostle as interpreter of these mysteries. He says somewhere in his writings, writing to the Ephesians, when he described to us the great economy of God's appearing in the flesh, that not only was human nature instructed in the divine mysteries through this grace, but also to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God was made known, revealed through the economy in Christ among men. The wording runs thus: "So that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church, according to the purpose of the ages which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him." For in truth the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the powers above the world through the church, the wisdom which by opposites has worked great wonders. For how has life come through death, and righteousness through sin, and blessing through a curse, and glory through dishonour, and power through weakness? In the times before this the powers above the world knew only the simple and uniform wisdom of God, working wonders in keeping with nature; and there was nothing manifold in what was seen, since the divine nature, having power, made all creation by authority, bringing the nature of things into being by the mere impulse of its will, and making all things very good, welling up from the fountain of the good. But this manifold form of wisdom, made up of the interweaving of opposites, has now been clearly shown through the church: how the Word becomes flesh, how life is mingled with death, how by his own bruise he heals our wound, how by the weakness of the cross he wrestles down the power of the adversary, how the invisible is manifested in flesh, how he ransoms the captives, being himself both the buyer and the price (for he gave himself as a ransom for us to death), how he comes to be in death and does not depart from life, how he mingles with slavery and remains in the kingdom. All these and such works of wisdom are manifold and not simple; and the friends [of the bridegroom], learning them through the church, were given heart, perceiving in the mystery another stamp of the divine wisdom. And if it is not too bold to say it, perhaps they too, seeing the beauty of the bridegroom through the bride, marvelled at what is invisible and incomprehensible to all beings. For he whom no one has ever seen, as John says, nor can anyone see, as Paul testifies, made the church his own body, and by the addition of those who are saved builds it up in love, until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. If, then, the church is the body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the body, shaping the face of the church with his own stamp, perhaps the friends of the bridegroom, looking at this, were given heart, because they see the invisible more clearly in her. Just as those who cannot look at the disc of the sun itself see it by looking into the gleam of water, so they too, gazing as in a pure mirror at the face of the church, see the sun of righteousness, who is perceived through what appears.

For this reason the friends say to the bride not once only, "You have given us heart," which means, "You have produced in us through yourself a soul and a mind for perceiving the light"; but they say the same word again, adding credibility to what is said by the repetition. For they say, "You have given us heart with one of your eyes." It is this above all that produced in the friends their wondering disposition toward the bride. For the soul's power of sight is double, one seeing the truth, the other wandering among vain things. Since the bride's pure eye is opened only to the nature of the good, and the other lies wholly idle, the friends therefore give their praise to the one eye, through which alone she contemplates the One alone: I mean the One alone who is perceived in the unchangeable and eternal nature, the true Father, the only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit. For that alone truly is one which is contemplated in one nature, the difference of the hypostases producing no separation or estrangement. For there are some who with differing eyes look keenly, to their harm, at what has no existence, dividing the One into many natures in the imaginings of distorted eyes. These are those called "many-seeing," who by seeing many things see nothing; and all who now look toward God but then again wander among material imaginings are unworthy of the praise of the angels, … [but the one who,] looking keenly toward the Divine alone, [is not distracted] by the imaginings of things that do not exist, is blind to everything else that the eyes of the many look at. For this reason the bride makes the friends marvel by one of her eyes. So the many-eyed one, who looks at vain things with many eyes, is blind; but sharp-sighted and clear-seeing is the one who with the one eye of the soul [looks] toward the good alone.

What that one is, and what the ornament of the bride's neck is, would not be hard to work out from what has been examined, even if the wording seems somewhat unclear in its construction. For the word says: "You have given us heart with one of your eyes, with one, with an ornament of your neck." So "with one" agrees with "one of your eyes," if we understand by ellipsis "with one soul." For in each of the uninstructed many souls arise: in them the passions, by gaining the upper hand, take the place of the soul by turns, and the character of the soul changes to grief and pleasure, anger and fear, cowardice and rashness. But the soul that looks toward the Word is attested to live with one soul by the uniformity of the life of virtue. So the sentence should be divided thus: "with one" is joined in sense to what was said before, if we understand either "with one soul" or "with one condition"; while what follows, "with an ornament of your neck," has another meaning. As if someone, recasting the whole more clearly, should say: "Your eye is one, in looking toward the One; and your soul is one, because it is not divided among different dispositions; and the setting of your neck has its perfection, since it has taken the divine yoke upon itself. Since, then, we see the yoke of Christ in the ornament of your neck, and one eye and one soul in your disposition toward what is truly good, we therefore confess that you have given us heart by your wonders, showing one eye and one soul in the ornament of your neck." And the ornament of the bride's neck is the yoke, as has been said.

This, then, is the praise of the angels, which they have spoken over the bride's beauty; for we have understood these to be the friends of the bridegroom. So that their praise may not seem undiscerning and mistaken, the Word confirms the friends' judgment of the bride's beauty by adding his vote, and himself adds the greater wonders to the testimony of her beauty, describing in his word the loveliness that shows in her very members. This we shall set out in what follows, God granting, if some power for understanding the mysteries should come to us from the alliance from above, both for the knowledge of the beauty of the church and for the praise of the glory of his grace in Christ Jesus, to whom all glory is fitting for ever. Amen.