Homilies on the Song of Songs, Homily II

1God the Creator of the universe made all the motions of the soul for good; yet it often happens, by our use of them, that things good by nature, when we misuse them, lead us into sins. One of the soul’s motions is love: we use it well for loving when we love wisdom and truth; but when our love falls toward what is worse, we love flesh and blood. You then, as a spiritual person, hear spiritually these amorous words being sung, and learn to transfer the motion of your soul and the fire of natural love toward better things, according to that saying: Love her, and she will keep you; embrace her, and she will exalt you. Husbands, love your wives, says the Apostle — yet he did not stop at what he had said: Husbands, love your wives. Knowing that love of wives can become even among wives themselves something unseemly, he taught how husbands ought to love their wives, adding: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. And this we have said by way of preface to what must be treated afterward.

2But because the Bridegroom’s friends, while the king is on his couch — for resting he slept like a lion and like a lion’s cub — had promised the Bride that until he rose they would make likenesses of gold and silver, not having gold as the Bridegroom has, and because in a certain way the Bridegroom’s passion was preached in other words, the Bride answers these things not unreasonably. Understanding herself a certain dispensation of the passion in what she had heard — We will make likenesses of gold for you with stamps of silver, until the king is on his couch — she says: My nard gave its fragrance. My brother is a bundle of myrrh to me; he shall linger between my breasts. How then shall we fit to what went before — until the king is on his couch — what follows: My nard gave its fragrance?

The Gospel says that a woman came having an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly — not that sinner, but the holy woman of whom my speech is now. I know that Luke spoke of a sinner, but Matthew and John and Mark did not speak of a sinner. So there came not that sinner, but a holy woman, whose name also John inserts — for it was Mary — and having an alabaster flask of costly pure ointment she poured it on Jesus’ head. Then, when not all the disciples were indignant over this, but Judas alone, saying: It could have been sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor, our Master and Savior answered: You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. If then you too take an alabaster flask of ointment of pure costly nard and pour a sweet fragrance over the head of the Lord Jesus, you may boldly say: My nard gave its fragrance. If you are righteous, your works are nard. But if you sin, your sins stink with a foul odor.

3A bundle of myrrh — that is, of drop or droplet — is my brother to me. We read in Exodus of drop, onycha, cassia, galbanum compounded into incense by God’s command. But let us know that stacte is a precious ointment. She calls her brother a bundle of myrrh, because the whole Christ, the whole Word of God, is ointment and fragrance. He shall linger between my breasts: in the breast and in the ruling part of the heart let Christ’s meaning and memory rest.

4Again the Bridegroom’s speech is directed to her, and he says: Behold, you are fair, my neighbor; behold, you are fair; your eyes are doves. She says to the Bridegroom: Behold, you are fair, my brother, and graceful. Our couch is shaded; the beams of our houses are cedar, our paneling cypress. We must consider how both Bridegroom and Bride are called fair. The Bridegroom is fair according to divinity; the Bride fair according to way of life and virtues. Her eyes are called doves’ because the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and those who see spiritually look with dove-like eyes. The shaded couch: a soul strewn with flowers of virtues receives Christ. Cedar and cypress: incorruptible woods, because faith and hope and love do not rot.

5The beams of our houses are cedar. These are words of the many. They seem to me to be spoken by the men who are with the Bridegroom, of whom speech was made above. Our house — that is, the church — is upheld by cedar beams, because cedar is incorruptible, and the teaching of apostles and prophets holds the church without decay.

6After this the Bridegroom speaks: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. For my sake, who was in the valley, he came down into the valley and became a lily of the valleys. As a lily among thorns, so is my neighbor among the daughters. I indeed am the flower of the field; but you, church, are a lily among thorns — among those who prick and afflict. Christ is the flower of the field, who appeared openly in the world; the lily of the valleys, because he offered himself to the lowly.

7Bring me into the house of wine. The Bridegroom stood outside and was received by the Bride; for he rested in the midst of her breasts. Many young women are not of such sort that they alone may bring him in; therefore it is said: Bring me into the house of wine — speaking to many. The house of wine is the church, in which the cup of the New Testament is drunk. Order love in me: not only love, but order love.

8Order love in me. He has spoken elegantly: order; for with many, love is disordered. What they ought to love in the first place, they love in the second; what in the second, in the first. God is first to be loved with the whole heart; then the neighbor. Whoever loves children more than Christ loves with disordered love. Whoever loves parents more than the Word loves out of order. Whoever loves a wife more than the Bridegroom of the soul loves with disturbed order. Therefore order love in me: first God, then the things that are God’s.

9His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. The Word of God has both a left hand and a right. Wisdom, when she offers herself according to the variety of understanding, is called now left, now right. The left is care for temporal and bodily things; the right is the gift of eternal and spiritual things. The left under the head: lest the mind wander about temporal things, but be subject. The right embraces: it clasps and keeps eternal things.

10I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my brother, what will you tell him? That I am sick with love. The voice of my brother; behold, he comes leaping on the mountains, springing over the hills. The church still speaks, exhorting the daughters of Jerusalem. Love becomes a sickness when desire for the Bridegroom delays. Then she hears the voice: Behold, he comes leaping on the mountains — swiftly, powerfully, running through prophets and apostles as through mountains and hills.

11My brother is like a gazelle and like a young stag on the mountains of Bethel. These two animals are named rather often in the Scriptures, and the more they are to be wondered at, the more they signify the Lord. The gazelle sees most sharply; the young stag crosses the mountains with a swift leap. Christ both sees hidden things sharply and, with a swift leap, came down from heaven to earth and ascended from earth to heaven. The mountains of Bethel — Bethel is interpreted house of God — understand as the prophets and apostles, in whom God dwells.

12My brother is like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of the house of God. For Bethel is interpreted house of God. Not all mountains are the house of God; there are proud and sheer mountains, of which it is said: Why do you contend, you curdled mountains?. But the mountains of the Lord are the prophets and apostles. The gazelle and young stag move among these mountains, because Christ is known in the prophets and apostles. Arise, make haste, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove. For now the winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers have appeared in the land; the time of pruning has come; the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree has put forth its green figs; the flowering vines have given their fragrance. Arise, make haste, my neighbor. Why arise? Because the winter of the passion is past, because the rain of temptations is gone, because the flowers of the resurrection have appeared, because the voice of the Holy Spirit — the turtledove — has been heard in the church.

13Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove! Show me your face; let your voice sound in my ears. For your voice is sweet, and your face is fair. The dove signifies a soul that is simple and fitted to the Holy Spirit. Show your face: make contemplation plain. Let your voice sound: preach and confess. A sweet voice and a fair face: sweet teaching and a beautiful way of life. These things are said by the Bridegroom to the Bride at the end of the second Homily, so that the church may be called to seeing and hearing and preaching — to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.