Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.61–0.73

This little book is an epithalamium, that is, a wedding song, and it seems to me that Solomon wrote it in the manner of a drama. He sang it in the person of a bride who is being married and who burns with heavenly love for her bridegroom, who is the Word of God. For she has loved him deeply, whether she is the soul made in his image or the church. But this same scripture also teaches us what words that magnificent and perfect bridegroom used to the soul, or the church, joined to him. From the same book, which is entitled the Song of Songs, we also learn what the bride's companions, the young maidens placed with the bride, said, and what the friends and companions of the bridegroom said. For even the bridegroom's friends were given the opportunity to say something, though only what they had heard from the bridegroom himself, as they rejoiced at his union with the bride. So the bride speaks not only to the bridegroom but also to the young maidens, and again the bridegroom's words are directed not only to the bride but also to the bridegroom's friends. This is what we said above: that the wedding song was written in the manner of a drama. For a drama is what we call the kind of story usually acted on the stage, where different characters are brought on, and as some come on and others go off, the course of the story is completed by different speakers to different hearers. This scripture contains each of these things in its own order, and its whole body is formed of mystical speech.

But first we must know that just as the age of childhood is not moved to passionate love, so the little and infant age of the inner person is not admitted to take in these words either; I mean those who are fed with milk in Christ, not with solid food, and who are only now beginning to long for the reasonable milk without guile. For in the words of the Song of Songs is that food of which the Apostle says: "Solid food belongs to the perfect"; and it requires hearers who, according to their capacity for receiving it, have senses trained to distinguish good and evil. Now if the little ones we have spoken of come to these passages, it may be that they gain nothing from this scripture, yet are not greatly harmed either, whether by reading what is written or by going over what must be said to explain it. But if someone comes to it who is a man only according to the flesh, no small danger and peril will arise for him from this scripture. For not knowing how to hear the names of love purely and with chaste ears, he will turn all his hearing away from the inner person to the outer and carnal man; he will be turned from the spirit to the flesh and will nourish fleshly desires in himself, and it will seem that he is being moved and incited by divine scripture to the lust of the flesh. For this reason I warn and advise everyone who is not yet free of the troubles of flesh and blood and has not withdrawn from the feeling of material nature to abstain entirely from reading this little book and what will be said about it. For they say that among the Hebrews too it is observed that unless someone has come to a full and mature age, he is not even permitted to hold this book in his hands. We have also received from them that this is kept: since it is their custom that all the scriptures, together with those they call deuteroseis, are handed down to boys by the teachers and the wise, four passages are observed until last: the beginning of Genesis, where the creation of the world is described; the beginning of the prophet Ezekiel, where the cherubim are spoken of; the end of the same, which contains the building of the temple; and this book, the Song of Songs. It therefore seems necessary to me, before we come to discuss what is written in this little book, first to say a few things about love itself, which is the chief subject of this scripture; and after that about the order of Solomon's books, in which this book seems to stand third; then also about the title of the little book itself, why it is headed the Song of Songs; and further, how it seems to be composed in the manner of a drama, like a story usually acted on the stage with a change of characters.

Among the Greeks, many learned men, wishing to search out the truth, published many and various writings on the nature of love, some even in the form of dialogues. They tried to show that the power of love is nothing other than what leads the soul from earth to the lofty heights of heaven, and that the highest blessedness cannot be reached except under the urging of the desire of love. Questions about it are also reported as being put forward at banquets, among people, I think, who held a banquet not of food but of words. Others left writings on certain arts by which this love might seem to be begotten or increased in the soul. But carnal men dragged these arts into vicious desires and the mysteries of a culpable love. So it should be no wonder if among us too, where the simpler people seem the more numerous and so the more unskilled, we have called a discussion of the nature of love difficult and close to danger. For even among the Greeks, who are reputed learned and wise, there were some who did not take these things as they were written, but on the occasion of what had been said about love fell headlong into the lapses of the flesh and the precipices of unchastity, either taking certain prompts and incitements from what had been written, as we mentioned above, or holding up the writings of the ancients as a veil for their own incontinence. So that we too may not fall into something of the kind, taking in a vicious and carnal sense what the ancients wrote well and spiritually, let us stretch out the palms of both body and soul to God, so that the Lord, who gave the word to those who preach the good news with great power, may give us too, by his power, a word by which we may show, from what is written, a sound understanding, fit to build up chastity, both of the name and of the nature of love. At the beginning of the words of Moses, where the making of the world is described, we find that two men are said to have been created: the first made in the image and likeness of God, the second formed from the mud of the earth.

The apostle Paul knew this well and was clearly taught in these matters, and in his letters he wrote more openly and plainly that there are two men in each single person. For he said: "Though our outer man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day"; and again: "For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man"; and how many similar things he writes! Therefore I think no one ought now to doubt that Moses wrote of the making or fashioning of two men at the beginning of Genesis, since he sees that Paul, who certainly understood better than we do what Moses wrote, says that there are two men in each person. Of these he records that one, the inner, is renewed day by day, while the other, the outer, he declares to be wasting away and weakened in certain saints such as Paul was. If anyone still thinks there is some doubt about this, it will be better explained in its proper places. Now let us pursue the reason why we mentioned the inner and the outer man. For we want to show from this that in the divine scriptures, by homonyms, that is, by similar designations, or rather by the very same words, both the members of the outer man and the parts and dispositions of the inner man are named, and that they are compared with each other not only in their words but in the things themselves. For example, someone is a boy in age according to the outer man; he can grow, be brought to the age of a youth, and then by further growth come to be a perfect man and become a father. We have chosen to use these names so as to put terms in harmony with divine scripture, namely with what was written by John. For he says: "I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father; I have written to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning; I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one."

It is obvious, and I think no one at all doubts it, that John here calls them children or youths or young men or fathers according to the age of the soul, not of the body. Paul too says in one place: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal people, as to little ones in Christ; I gave you milk to drink." A little one in Christ is without doubt so named according to the age of the soul, not of the flesh. Then the same Paul says in another place: "When I was a little one, I spoke as a little one, I thought as a little one, I reasoned as a little one. But when I became a man, I put away the things of the little one." And again elsewhere he says: "Until we all come to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ." For he knows that all who believe will come to the perfect man and to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ. So just as these names of ages that we have mentioned are applied in the same words both to the outer and to the inner man, so you will also find the names of bodily members transferred to the members of the soul, or rather these should be called the faculties and dispositions of the soul. Thus it is said in Ecclesiastes: "The eyes of the wise man are in his head." Again in the Gospel: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." In the prophets too: "The word of the Lord which came by the hand of the prophet Jeremiah," or of any other. Similar is what someone says: "But your foot has not stumbled"; and again: "But my feet were almost moved." The belly of the soul too is plainly indicated where it is said: "Lord, from fear of you we have conceived in the womb." And who would doubt it, when it is said: "Their throat is an open grave"? And again: "Cast them down, Lord, and divide their tongues." And also what is written: "You have broken the teeth of sinners"; and again: "Break the arm of the sinner and the evil man."

But why should I collect more of these, when the divine scriptures are filled with the most abundant testimonies? From them it is plainly shown that these names of members can in no way be fitted to the visible body, but must be referred to the part and powers of the invisible soul. For they have similar words, but openly and without any ambiguity they carry the meanings not of the outer but of the inner man. So this material man, who is also called outer, has food and drink akin to his nature, namely this bodily and earthly kind. Likewise the spiritual man himself, who is called inner, has his own food, such as that living bread which came down from heaven. His drink too is from that water which Jesus promises when he says: "Whoever drinks of this water which I give him will never thirst." So throughout, the likeness of the words is kept for both men, while the proper reality of each is kept distinct: corruptible things are offered to the corruptible, and incorruptible things are set before the incorruptible. Hence it happened that certain simpler people, not knowing how to distinguish and separate what in the divine scriptures is to be assigned to the inner man and what to the outer, were deceived by the likeness of the words and gave themselves to foolish fables and empty fictions, so that they believed that even after the resurrection bodily food is to be used and drink taken, not only from that true vine that lives forever, but also from these vines and the fruits of the tree. But of these things we shall see elsewhere. Now then, as we distinguished in the preceding observation, according to the inner man one person is childless and barren, another is rich in children. In this sense we take the saying: "The barren has borne seven, and she who was rich in children has been weakened"; and as it says in the blessings: "There shall not be among you one childless and barren." If these things are so, then just as there is said to be a certain carnal love, which the poets have also called Cupid, according to which the lover sows in the flesh, so there is also a certain spiritual love, according to which the inner man, loving, sows in the spirit.

To put it more plainly: if anyone still bears the image of the earthly according to the outer man, he is driven by earthly desire and love; but whoever bears the image of the heavenly according to the inner man is driven by heavenly desire and love. And the soul is driven by heavenly love and desire when, having beheld the beauty and comeliness of the Word of God, it has fallen in love with his loveliness and has received from him a dart and wound of love. For this Word is the image and splendour of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible. So if anyone has been able with a capacious mind to grasp and consider the comeliness and loveliness of all the things created in him, struck by the very beauty of things and pierced by the magnificence of their splendour as by a chosen arrow, as the prophet says, he will receive from him a saving wound and will burn with the blessed fire of his love. We must also know that, just as an unlawful love against the law can befall the outer man, for example that he loves not his betrothed or his wife but a prostitute or an adulteress, so too a love can befall the inner man, that is, the soul, directed not to the lawful bridegroom, whom we have said to be the Word of God, but to some adulterer and corrupter. The prophet Ezekiel plainly declares this under the same figure where he brings in Oholah and Oholibah under the figure of Samaria and Jerusalem, corrupted by adulterous love, as the passage of prophetic scripture itself shows to those who wish to know more fully. This spiritual love of the soul is set on fire sometimes, as we have shown, toward certain spirits of wickedness, and sometimes toward the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, who is called the faithful bridegroom and husband of the instructed soul, and whose bride the soul is chiefly called in this scripture which we have in hand, as, the Lord granting, we shall show more fully when we begin to explain the words of the book itself.

It seems to me that divine scripture, wishing to take care that no fall should arise for readers under the name of love, for the sake of the weaker ones gave the more honourable name of charity or affection to what the wise of this world call desire or love. For example, when it says of Isaac: "And he took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her." And again scripture says similarly of Jacob and Rachel: "But Rachel was lovely to the eyes and beautiful in face, and Jacob loved Rachel and said: I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter." The changed use of this word appears still more plainly in Amnon, who fell in love with his sister Tamar. For it is written: "And it came to pass after this that Absalom the son of David had a sister very beautiful in appearance, and her name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her." It put "loved" for "fell in love with." "And Amnon was distressed," it says, "so that he became ill because of Tamar his sister, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard in Amnon's eyes to do anything to her." And shortly after, about the violence Amnon did to his sister Tamar, scripture says: "And Amnon would not listen to her voice, but overpowered her and humbled her and lay with her. And Amnon hated her with a very great hatred, for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her." So in these and in many other places you will find that divine scripture has avoided the word "love" (amor) and put "charity" and "affection" instead. Sometimes, though rarely, it does call love by its own name and invites and urges souls to it, as when it says in Proverbs of wisdom: "Love her, and she will keep you; encircle her, and she will exalt you; honour her, and she will embrace you." And in the book called the Wisdom of Solomon it is written of wisdom herself: "I became a lover of her beauty."

I think that where no occasion for a fall appeared, there alone did it insert the name of love. For what passion or what indecency could anyone notice in the love of wisdom, or in one who professes himself a lover of wisdom? But if it had said that Isaac fell in love with Rebecca, or Jacob with Rachel, some indecent passion might have been understood by these words in holy men of God, especially by those who do not know how to rise from the letter to the spirit. Yet most openly in this very book we have in hand the name of love has been exchanged for the word charity, where it said: "I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my kinsman, tell him that I am wounded by charity," in place, that is, of saying: I am pierced by the dart of his love. So it makes no difference in the divine scriptures whether one says charity, or love, or affection, except that the name of charity is so exalted that even God himself is called charity, as John says: "Beloved, let us love one another, for charity is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; but whoever does not love does not know God, for God is charity." And although it belongs to another time to say something about what we have brought forward from John's epistle as an example, it did not seem absurd to touch briefly on some of it. "Let us love one another," he says, "for charity is from God"; and shortly after: "God is charity." In this he shows both that God himself is charity and again that he who is from God is charity. And who is from God but he who says: "I came forth from God and came into this world"? But if God the Father is charity, and the Son is charity, and the charity of the Father and the charity of the Son are one thing, not one person, then it follows that the Father and the Son are rightly said to be one. And therefore Christ is fittingly called charity, just as he is called wisdom, power, righteousness, word and truth. And therefore scripture says that if charity abides in us, God abides in us; and God, that is, the Father and the Son, who also come to him who is perfect in charity, according to the word of our Lord and Saviour who says: "I and the Father will come to him and make our dwelling with him."

We must know, then, that this charity which is God, when it is in anyone, loves nothing earthly, nothing material, nothing corruptible. For it is against its nature to love anything corruptible, since it is itself the fountain of incorruption. For it alone has immortality, since God, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, is charity. And what else is immortality but eternal life, which God promises to give to those who believe in him, the only true God, and in Jesus Christ his Son whom he sent? Therefore first and before all else this is said to be lovable and pleasing to God: that one love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength. And since God is charity, and the Son who is from God is charity, he requires in us something like himself, so that through this charity which is in Christ Jesus, who is charity, we may be joined to him by a kind of kinship through the name of charity; as he too who was already joined to him said: "Who shall separate us from the charity of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" This charity loves every person as a neighbour. For this reason the Saviour rebuked a certain man who thought that a righteous soul does not keep the rights of kinship toward one involved in iniquities, and for this reason he wove that parable which says that a certain man fell among robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he blames the priest and the Levite, who saw him half dead and passed by, but embraces the Samaritan who showed mercy. And he confirmed by the questioner's own answer that this man had been his neighbour, and said to him: "Go and do likewise." For by nature we are all neighbours to one another; but by the works of charity he becomes a neighbour who is able to do good to one who is not able. Hence our Saviour too became our neighbour and did not pass us by when we lay half dead from the robbers' wounds. So we must know that the charity of God always tends toward God, from whom it took its origin, and looks toward the neighbour, with whom it has entered into fellowship, as one likewise created in incorruption. So whatever has been written about charity, take it as said about love, not troubling about the names; for the same power is shown in both. But if someone says that we are said to love money and a prostitute and other such evils with the same word that seems to be derived from charity, we must know that charity is named in these not properly but by misuse. So too, for example, the name God belongs principally to him from whom are all things, through whom are all things, and in whom are all things, which plainly declares the power and nature of the threefold unity.

In the second place, and so to speak by misuse, scripture also calls gods those to whom the word of God came, as the Saviour confirms in the Gospels. The heavenly powers too seem to be called by this name, when it is said: "God stood in the assembly of the gods, and in the midst he judges the gods." In the third place, no longer by misuse but falsely, the gods of the nations, who are demons, are so called, when scripture says: "All the gods of the nations are demons." So too the first use of the name charity is in God, which is why we are commanded to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength, since it is from him that we have this very power to love. In him, without doubt, it is already included that we should love wisdom, righteousness, piety, truth and all the virtues alike; for to love God and to love good things are one and the same. In the second place, with a name used by extension and derived from that, we are also commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves. The third is what is falsely named under the title of charity: to love money, or pleasures, or anything that belongs to corruption and error. So it makes no difference whether God is said to be loved (amari) or held dear (diligi); nor do I think anyone could be blamed if he called God love, just as John called him charity. Indeed, I remember that one of the saints, Ignatius by name, said of Christ: "My love has been crucified"; and I do not judge him worthy of reproach for this.

We must know, however, that everyone who loves money or the things in the world that are of corruptible matter is drawing the power of charity, which is from God, down to earthly and perishable things, and is misusing the things of God for what God does not will. For God gave men the use of these things, not the love of them. We have discussed these matters somewhat at length because we wanted to distinguish more clearly and carefully the nature of charity and of love, lest, since scripture says that God is charity, everything that is loved, even if it is corruptible, should be thought to be from God and to be charity and affection. But it is shown that charity is indeed a thing of God and his gift, yet it is not always taken up by men for the things of God and for the work that God wills. And we must know this too, that it is impossible for human nature not always to love something. For everyone who has come to the age called puberty loves something, either less rightly, when he loves what he ought not, or rightly and profitably, when he loves what he ought. But some draw this disposition of love, which has been implanted in the rational soul by the kindness of the Creator, either to the love of money and the pursuit of avarice; or to the hunting of glory, and they become greedy for vainglory; or to the pursuit of harlots, and they are found captives of unchastity and lust; or they pour out the power of so great a good on other things like these. And even when this love is directed to various arts carried out by hand, or to pursuits of the present life that are merely necessary, for instance, to the art of wrestling or the exercises of running, or even when it is brought to bear on geometry or music or arithmetic, and on other disciplines of this kind, not even so does its use seem to me commendable. For if what is good is also commendable, and the good is understood properly not in bodily pursuits but first in God and in the virtues of the soul, it follows that the love that is commendable is the one fitted to God and to the virtues of the soul.

That this is so is shown by the Saviour's own definition, when he was asked by someone which was the greatest and first commandment of all in the law, and answered: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself." And he added: "On these two commandments hangs the whole law and the prophets," showing that just and lawful love consists in these two, and that the whole law and the prophets hang on them. And the saying "You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness," and any other commandment, is summed up in this word in which it says: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." This will be more easily explained in this way. Suppose, for example, a woman burning with love for some man and longing to be taken into partnership with him: will she not do everything, and so regulate all her movements as she knows will please the one she loves, lest perhaps, if she acts in any way against his will, that excellent man should refuse and spurn her company? Could this woman, who burns with love for that man with all her heart, all her soul and all her strength, commit adultery, when she knows he loves chastity? Or murder, when she knows he is gentle? Or theft, when she knows generosity pleases him? Or covet what belongs to others, when she has all her desires occupied with love for that man? So in the perfection of charity every commandment is said to be summed up, and the force of the law and the prophets to hang on it. Because of this good of charity or love the saints are not distressed in tribulation, nor despair when perplexed, nor perish when cast down, but what is momentary and light in their tribulation works for them beyond measure an eternal weight of glory. For it is not to all, but to Paul and those like him, that this present tribulation is called momentary and light, because they have the perfect charity of God in Christ Jesus poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit. So too his love for Rachel did not let the patriarch Jacob, set to labour for seven continuous years, feel the burning of the heat by day and the cold by night.