Commentary on the Song of Songs 8.1–8.14

1–2. "Who would give you, my kinsman, [to be as a brother to me, nursing at] my mother's breasts? Finding you outside, I would kiss you, and they would not despise me. 2. I will take you, I will bring you into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me. You will teach me; I will give you to drink of the spiced wine and of the juice of my pomegranates." For according to his humanity he too received all the grace of the Spirit: "For the child Jesus," it says, "grew and became strong in the Spirit, and the grace of God was upon him." So the bride, amazed at his unspeakable love for mankind, says: You too nursed at my mother's breasts. And so that we may keep both the sequence of the words and their harmony, let us begin a little further back and go through the sense in summary. I received, she says, not only new things but also old from my mother, and I will keep them for you. [But you,] out of great love for mankind, took my nature yourself and nursed at the same breasts as I, so that in this too you might show your brotherhood. You nursed not because you needed it, but to teach me how I ought to nurse and through what nipple to draw grace. That is why you came to baptism, not to wash off the filth of sins, for you committed no sin, nor was deceit found in your mouth; nor indeed to receive the grace of the all-holy Spirit, for you were full of it; but to show me what the gifts of baptism are and in what manner I can draw the grace of the Spirit. That is why the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, not to give you what you did not have, for you were full of his graces, but so that you might show me what the gift of baptism is. That is why, in amazement, [I say: "Who would give you … at] my mother's breasts?" Drawn by this love of yours for mankind, "finding you outside, I would kiss you, and they would not despise me; I will take you, I will bring you into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me; I will give you to drink of the spiced wine and of the juice of my pomegranates." For, drunk with love for you, [I would kiss you] not only in the chamber and in the bridal room but also in the market and …; and those who see me would not blame me for doing this, knowing the flame of my love. And taking you from there, "I will bring you into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me." And what is the house of the all-holy Spirit (for it is he who bore the bride) but the divine temple, which imitates the Jerusalem above, where those who enter converse with the bridegroom with boldness, having received the dignity of the bride? "And there," she says, "I will give you to drink of the spiced wine and of the juice of my pomegranates." Spiced wine she calls the teaching seasoned with divine grace, perfumed as it were and fragrant; and "the juice of pomegranates" she calls the benefit that springs from the fruits of love. Having said these things to the bridegroom, the bride also converses with the maidens, and says:

3. "His left hand is upon my head, and his right hand will embrace me." For I am above the threat of punishment, and I gather the blessings of the right hand; that is why he puts his left hand upon my head, and with his right hand [embraces] me …

4. "I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, if you rouse and awaken love, until it please." For you must continually kindle it and rouse it, so that you may long for him warmly and attain perfection as he wishes. When she had said these things, [the maidens], seeing her …

5. "Who is this coming up … upon her kinsman?" And they say … for she was black. Of the bridegroom the bride says, "My kinsman is white," and she did not say "made white"; for he was not such. But she, having been blackened (for the sun had looked askance at her), was made white and has received a share of the bridegroom's whiteness. And as he, being light, made her light and called her so, and being holy made her holy, and being the resurrection counted her worthy of resurrection, so too he gave her a share of his own whiteness. That is why … the maidens who see her [say]: "Who is this coming up …?" … your mother; there she who bore you travailed with you"; and wishing [to show] who the mother is, he recalled the birth. After … to the bride: "Under the apple tree I roused you; there [your mother] travailed with you": the repetition is not set down idly. For he urges her to show these things, saying: 6. "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy hard as Hades; its sparks are sparks of fire, its flames." … coals, instead of "sparks of fire" … "its sparks, sparks of fire" … flames of fire.

The bridegroom, then, says to the pious souls, which the divine Scripture calls bride: "Set me as a seal upon your heart and upon your arm," naming the contemplative part of the soul the heart, and the practical part the arm; that is why for the priests the right arm and the breast were set apart from the people. So our Saviour wishes us to have him as a seal, both when we speak and when we reason, and to stamp with his character both what is said and what is done; for so we shall be royal coins, not counterfeit but bearing the royal image. This is easy for you to do, he says, if you acquire love for me. "For it is strong as death." And as death, after the divine sentence, ruled over all, so love too rules over all, and is stronger even than death itself. Acquire jealousy too; for if you acquire it, you will not bear that another should appear more honoured than you, so that you should be without boldness and she should share my communion. "For jealousy is hard," and as difficult to overcome as Hades; he named death Hades according to the prevailing opinion, giving death this name too. And love is so strong because, first, it is winged, and about its wings it has a flame of fire and sparks … What could be more powerful than one so kindled? And its fire is not of the …

7. "For much water," he says, "will not be able to quench love, and rivers will not drown it." All the saints who were distinguished in the Old and in the New bear witness to this. For [Abraham's] love for God neither life in a foreign land, nor the pressure of famine, nor the seizure of his wife, nor the offering of his son, nor the fight over the wells could quench; nor … the continual labours and lifelong pains. What is more severe than the trials of Joseph? He was sold by his brothers, deprived of his mother and of a loving father, of his ancestral home, of freedom and prosperity; he served as a slave beyond his worth, and for [his chastity] … was sent to prison and endured countless terrors; yet love for God proved stronger than them all. And what need is there to speak of the great Moses, and of Joshua the general, and of the great prophets Samuel and David and Elijah and Elisha? What was more frenzied than the Babylonians? What more fearful than the furnace they kindled? Yet not even that quenched the flame of love of those three youths, but rather fanned and roused it. What was more terrifying than those lions to which the great Daniel was handed over? But love for God proved more powerful than they … to pass over the other saints for the present, … the blessed Paul alone suffices to teach its strength, since he more than all had experience of it. "For who will separate us," he says, "from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written: For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for slaughter. But in all these things," he says, "we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us." These words are enough to show the victory of love, but what follows proclaims it more clearly. For he adds: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And to show that it is more powerful than all things, both the seen and the unseen, he forms in words a creation that does not exist, sets that too beside it, and shows that love for God is stronger than it. Fittingly, then, the bridegroom says: "Much water will not be able to quench love, and rivers will not drown it. If a man gives all his living for love, they will utterly despise him." Those who are deprived and stripped of love will despise the one who gives all his living for love. That is why the blessed Paul said: "Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; [being slandered, we entreat; we have become like the refuse of the world,] the offscouring of all, until now." And indeed this is what happens to the dizzy: those who are not steady themselves think that everything is spinning round. So too those deprived of love reviled the nurslings of love as senseless and foolish. Yet not even this harmed love, but made it warmer. When reviled, the apostles blessed; when slandered, they entreated; and having become as it were the refuse of the world, they said they were the offscouring of all, until now.

8–9. "Our sister is little, and has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? 9. If she is a wall, let us build on her battlements of silver; if she is a door, let us carve on her a panel [of cedar]." I think that the holy prophets who were distinguished in the Old [Covenant], seeing the small spiritual stature of the bride and her breasts still undeveloped and hidden, said these things among themselves, as matchmakers and heralds of the marriage: The king is now about to take the bride, our sister; but she is little and lacks breasts; for she does not yet have fruitfulness, nor can she supply the milk of teaching, nor hold out the perfect food to those who need it. We must therefore consider what is to be done. And since she is about to be joined to the great king, and to be as it were the wall of his house, keeping the house and guarding what is within, and to have the figure of a door guarding what is stored up, let us build upon her, as upon a wall, "battlements of silver," that is, battlements of words, shining in speech. "For the words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried in the fire, proved in the earth"; so that standing upon them she may strike the enemies and pursue those who plot against her. And as upon a door let us set …

To this the bride answers, confident in the bridegroom's munificence and wealth: 10. "I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers; I was in his eyes as one who finds peace." For he foreknew me and predestined me, and knowing that I would seek peace and pursue it, and having pursued it would lay hold of it, he called me peaceable, and Shulammite, and made me an unbreakable wall, fearsome to the enemies; and my breasts, that is, my moral and theological teaching, he raised to a height and made like a tower, so that fighting from there I might [overthrow] the bridegroom's foes … I will loose. And not only am I a wall, as I said, but also a vineyard. 11. "For Solomon had a vineyard in Beelhamon; he gave his vineyard to keepers; each man will bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver." Symmachus [renders] "in Beelhamon" …, and Aquila "in one that has a multitude." This vineyard God long ago entrusted to Israel. But since Israel not only stoned and killed the servants sent to demand the fruits but also crucified the heir himself, the vineyard was taken from them, according to the Master's word, and given to a nation producing its fruit. That is why the bride says that "Solomon," that is, the peaceable one, "had a vineyard in Beelhamon," that is, in … of a people, or in one that has a multitude, and "gave it to keepers." By the vineyard she means the people who have come to godliness; and by those who keep, cultivate and guard it, those honoured with the priesthood and commanded to supply both the watering of spiritual teaching and protection. And she says: "A man will bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver." The number signifies … the unit of the right hand; and this indicates the salvation of the one who bears fruit; for the one who planted the vineyard receives from it no other fruit than the salvation of what was planted and bears fruit. That is why the bride says this:

12. "My vineyard, mine, is before me; the thousand are Solomon's." What she says is this (for one must make what is unclear as clear as possible): The vineyard is mine, she says, and the fruit is mine. For the thousand pieces of silver that are thought to be given to my peaceable bridegroom, that is, to Solomon, are before me; for he will give them back to me. Now he demands fruit, longing for my salvation, and he wishes to see me saved. "My vineyard, mine, is before me; the thousand are Solomon's, and the two hundred are for those who keep its fruit." The keepers receive a wage for the vineyard, and a fixed wage. And since they guard the five senses of the vineyard, sight and taste and smell and hearing and touch, they necessarily [receive] the two hundred, which are a fifth of the thousand; for those who guard the divine vineyard are worthy to obtain rewards from the one who planted it. That is why not only the bridegroom but the bride herself will give them their recompense. And the blessed Paul says: "If anyone's work that he has built on it remains, he will receive a wage." And to those who worked in the vineyard, [the master ordered] in the evening [a dena]rius to be given. It is clear, then, that nothing goes unrewarded with God; for if one who offers a cup of cold water to one of the least will not lose his reward, much more will one who guards the vineyard enjoy the rewards from the vineyard. And the vineyard itself will render obedience through the five senses and will make up the two hundred, who, becoming five times as many, are the distributors among those who guard them in act. For the number thousand shows forth the perfection in Christ, being a self-sufficient unit, since it bears in itself the principle of the unit not only in potency but also in act: it begins from the unit, is denoted by the unit, and produces the unit; for the thousand and the ten thousand are known by the letter of the unit. And the number two hundred, again, indicates the restoration of our nature to itself through the working of the commandments, since it multiplies by ten, according to the decade of the commandments, the number made up of four times five, and thereby shows the number twenty, compounded of the matter and form of our nature. Besides these words, the bride also sets out the following to the bridegroom, out of extreme modesty and intense longing for the good things to come:

13. "You who sit in the gardens, companions are attending to your voice; let me hear it." That is: O my bridegroom, you who rest upon both the intelligible and the sensible creation, planted by your will like gardens; there are others besides us who gaze at you without turning away, since they are not divided by the bond of a body, namely the immaterial and angelic orders; but I, being subject to such a bond, fear change, and therefore make me hear that longed-for voice of yours: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you." And so:

14. "Flee, my kinsman, and be like the gazelle or the fawn of deer upon the mountains of spices." For when you call the righteous to your kingdom, prepared for them from the foundation of the world, you withdraw altogether from your providence over us through the things of sense, drawing the worthy up to the heights of the spiritual graces that make them fragrant through deification; in which, like a gazelle or a fawn of deer that destroys venomous beasts, you put to death the spirits of wickedness that rage against us, bringing their war against us to an end. May it be granted to us too to escape the bites of the serpents; and if we should be bitten, to look upon the one who was lifted up for us, and [to obtain] healing …