I have likened you to my cavalry; cheeks, neck; the couch and likenesses of gold
I have likened you to my cavalry among Pharaoh’s chariots. If you wish to understand, O Bride, how you ought to know yourself, learn to whom I have compared you, and then you will see that you are such as ought not to be disfigured, once you recognize your own beauty. What then is this: I have likened you to my cavalry among Pharaoh’s chariots? I know the Bridegroom as a rider, the prophet saying: And his riding is salvation. You have been likened, then, to my cavalry among Pharaoh’s chariots. As far as my cavalry differs — I who am the Lord, his horses and his chariots — as far, I say, as my cavalry differs from Pharaoh’s horses, so far are you better than all daughters, you the Bride, you the churchly soul, better than all souls that are not churchly. Therefore if you are a churchly soul, you are better than all souls. Then he describes the Bride’s beauty with spiritual love: Your cheeks are like a turtledove’s. Your neck is like necklaces.
After this the Bridegroom is on his couch. For he rested and slept like a lion and like a lion’s cub, that afterward it might be asked: Who will raise him up?. While he sleeps, the Bridegroom’s companions — the angels — appear to the Bride and comfort her with these words: We cannot make you ornaments of gold; we are not so rich as your Bridegroom, who bestows on you a golden necklace; we will make likenesses of gold, for we have no gold. And even this is cause for joy, if we make likenesses of gold, if we fashion stamps of silver. We will make likenesses of gold for you with stamps of silver, yet not for every time, but until your Bridegroom rises from his couch. For if he has risen, he himself will make gold for you, he himself will make silver, he himself will adorn your mind and sense, and you will be truly rich in the Bridegroom’s house as a perfect Bride — to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Latin
Equitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis assimilavi te. Si vis intellegere, o sponsa, quomodo scire te debeas, cognosce, cui te comparaverim, et tunc videbis talem te esse, quae turpari non debeas, cum tuam speciem recognoveris. Quid est igitur: Equitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis assimilavi te? Scio ego equitem sponsum propheta dicente: Et equitatio eius salus. Assimilata es ergo equitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis. Quanto differt equitatus meus, qui sum Dominus — equos eius et currus eius — quanto, inquam, differt equitatus meus ab equis Pharaonis, tanto tu melior es omnibus filiabus, tu sponsa, tu ecclesiastica anima, omnibus animabus, quae non sunt ecclesiasticae. Igitur si ecclesiastica anima es, omnibus animabus es melior. Deinde pulchritudinem sponsae spiritali amore describit: Genae tuae sicut turturis. Collum tuum sicut monilia. Post haec fit sponsus in recubitu. Requievit quippe ut leo et ut catulus leonis obdormivit, ut deinceps possit audire: Quis suscitabit eum? Quo interim dormiente apparent sponsae sponsi sodales angeli et his eam sermonibus consolantur: Nos tibi aurea ornamenta facere non possumus; non sumus tam divites ut sponsus tuus, qui aureum tibi monile largitur; nos similitudines auri faciemus, non habemus aurum. Et hoc quoque laetandum est, si similitudines auri, si stigmata faciamus argenti. Similitudines auri faciemus tibi cum stigmatibus argenti, verum non omni tempore, sed donec sponsus tuus consurgat a cubitu. Si enim ille surrexerit, ipse tibi aurum, ipse faciet argentum, ipse tuam mentem sensumque decorabit, et eris vere dives in sponsi domo sponsa perfecta — cui gloria in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
About this text
Origen’s Homilia I on the Song of Songs (Jerome’s Latin). Complete on this page: §§1–10.
English follows Baehrens, Origenes Werke VIII (GCS 33, 1925), Jerome’s Latin of Homilia I. Lawson ACW 26 was not used as wording. This page is Homilia I §§1–10 (closeout).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Baehrens, Origenes Werke VIII = GCS 33 (1925) (Latin · Homilia I §§1–10)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.