Caput VII.
With the divine Spirit invoked, it begins to reveal the mysteries that were concealed under the adultery of David and Bathsheba, as well as under the birth itself.
35. And since we do not receive David as needing to be defended by my own help, but rather to be excused or rather to be preached; lest I may waver in such a deep mystery, it is just that I use his mouth, whose history I use. Therefore, I will use the prophetic response, saying: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10). For no one can behold such divine mysteries without the infusion of the Holy Spirit. For if that great prophet, the Holy Spirit, seeks the gift to be poured out upon himself, what should the weak person do? Especially since even the holy Apostle believes that he is also helped by the prayers of the people, that the door may be opened to him to speak the mystery of the word. Oh, if Christ would deign to open that door for me! Let us knock, however; for he is accustomed to hear those who knock, for he himself said: Knock, and it will be opened to you (Luke 11:9). Oh, if he would open himself to me, for Christ is the door: he is within, he is outside, he is the way that leads, he is the life to which we strive to attain.
36. Come therefore, Lord Jesus, and open to us your fountains, so that we may drink from the water that whoever drinks it, may not thirst forever (John 4:13). Or if we are not yet able to draw from your fountain, deign to grant us at least to draw from the well, from which you promise to the Samaritan woman who was still doubting. And indeed, you promise to everyone from your fountain, but to those who doubt, like that Samaritan woman, your fountain is still a deep well. Let us drink the water of heavenly secrets. And since we have merited to come to your fountain, let us at least be allowed to see the image of celestial mysteries.
So, unless I am mistaken, by the Prophet we understand the Holy Spirit; by the adulteress, however, we may think of various fornications of the Synagogue. And therefore, long before, we see revealed from the Holy Spirit and from the family of the Jews (whose fathers, and from whom Christ according to the flesh), that the Lord Jesus is to be born (Gen. 49:10), who indeed was born as it were a Jew from an adulterous family, but as it were immaculate from a Virgin. He was under the Law, he was like a member of the Jewish family; the observance of the Law had to be abolished, so that truth and grace could be substituted.
We have one mystery: take another; yet in such a way that you remember that from the first conception Bathsheba gave birth to a child who died, and then she gave birth to Solomon: the former child from a secret conception; the latter Solomon already from the profession of marriage. Therefore it is clear that by David the prophet is understood, by the Prophet the prophetic people, from whom and from the Synagogue that first one who was born (because he had degenerated from his ancestors and was formed through crimes, and the Jewish people had become consolidated through vices) could not attain to the eternity of the resurrection, nor grow into a perfect man; but in a smallness of senses, and in a kind of infancy of virtue, he lacked. But indeed, that people who was afterwards conceived from the lawful union, the Christian people, that wise and peaceful people, is unfolded by this interpretation of Solomon, to the white-haired age of eternal resurrection, and reaches that heavenly kingdom. Through that people, the Law was dissolved, through this one, grace was reformed.
39. Also receive the third mystery. Which the Hebrews call David lofty, but the Latins interpret as humbled. But who is truly humbled if not the one who does not consider being equal to God a robbery: But taking the form of a servant, he humbled himself, being obedient unto death (Philippians 2:6 et seq.)? Therefore, this is he who is signified by David, lofty by nature, but humbled by mercy: sublime in divinity, but gentle in body. So where there is humility, there is obedience. For obedience is born from humility and ends in it. For when one is called obedient, it means they were obedient even unto death (which was not the death of divinity, but of the body); that obedience was not of divinity, but of the body; and that humility was not of majesty, but of the flesh. Therefore, as for the acceptance of the body, the apostolic reading has revealed in what respect there was humility in Christ; but as for the nature of divinity, it has been revealed in the Gospel reading: which you have followed with pious agreement, when you heard it said in the Law by the Son of God: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30). For indeed God the Father and the Son are one in divinity, but they are not one in the sacrament of the body and the eternity of divinity. Yet not only the Apostle said that the Lord is humble, but he also mentioned himself as being humble, saying: Take my yoke upon you, for it is light; for I am meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29). And yet it is not only by interpretation, but also by designation, that it is marked; for it is written: I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him (Psalm 88:21). And below he says, 'You are my Father' (Ibid. 27); and, 'I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son.' Therefore, we have found David, whom we were looking for: a slave in appearance, but the Lord in truth.
Caput VIII.
What does the royal house, in which David walks, signify? What does the nudity and bathing of Bathsheba signify? And what does it signify that she is immediately loved when seen naked?
40. So David walked within his own house. Which indeed is the house of Christ, unless it is the one of which He says: 'In my Father's house there are many mansions' (John 14:2)? Therefore, in that royal house, He saw human nature stripped bare and pitied it, and loved it. For it was still naked of virtues, because through the serpent's ambush it had been deprived of its natural clothing. For it does not seem likely that a woman would be undressed before the house of the king, nor that a woman would wash herself before the house of the king: as if another place could not exist with a suitable bath. It does not fit, it does not agree, it does not accord with truth: it is far from the truth, it is repugnant to reason. A king could loathe such a person, so insolent, so shameless, not love them. Could she, if she were not ashamed in the presence of a true man, not even be afraid of the royal gaze? Could her ministers not have kept her away before the king saw her?
So if this cannot agree with faith, let us inquire what this naked condition is, namely, the human condition, stripped of all the vestments of nature, lacking the clothing of immortality, and robbed of the covering of innocence. For he is naked who is stripped of sin and guilt. Finally, that first sinner of our kind, and would that he were the only one, before he sinned, did not feel that he was naked, but after he sinned, he saw that he was naked; and therefore, he thought he should be covered with leaves, because he knew himself to be naked. So he became naked to himself, after he became guilty of the crime. In that state, the entire human condition was revealed, through the succession of nature; not only subject to guilt, but also to suffering. Therefore, he felt and saw himself naked: thus is our entire condition, that whoever thinks themselves naked, sees and feels themselves naked. Indeed, whoever desires wealth is naked: whoever despises it, is wealthy. Each person's own sense is a suffering, and each person's own virtue is devoid of injury. Therefore, Christ first claimed the human condition for himself through the Law, which he later rejected. Hence he said: 'Which of you is free from the bill of divorce that I have given to your mother?' (Isaiah 50:1). Therefore, in this way, Christ saw his family naked and loved them: for Christ loves the holy soul. In conclusion, Jesus loved Lazarus and Mary: Christ loved his Church, even though she was naked and not yet clothed with the adornment of virtues.
Finally, so that we may understand the sequence of the proposed discussion of the Scriptures, let us learn about the clean Church, let us learn about the one seeking, hurrying, and washing herself before the house of Christ, when John was baptizing in the Jordan, saying: I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (Matthew 3:11). Therefore, when the people were being baptized for repentance, they were certainly seeking Christ, who was already seeking their house nearby, in order to attain grace. Thus, the Church sought Christ from John, saying: 'Tell me who my soul loves' (Song of Songs 1:6); she recalled that he is the cause of her desire, the cause of her cleansing, as you have: 'I am dark but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon' (Ibid., 1:4). You have the reason why he longs to cleanse himself, because he recalls that he is dark. For when John, as if questioning, asked in what way the common people, who were flocking together, might be eager to be baptized, she replied: I am dusky and fair, the daughter of Jerusalem. Because she is dusky, she desires to be washed; because she is fair, she is not afraid to appear naked. Do not, she said, look at me because I am dim, because the sun does not look at me. Therefore, let us be dusky when we are not seen by Christ; but when we are seen, we grow white. Therefore, he who sees her, to whom all things are naked, and the hidden things of the heart cannot be concealed; because he is the searcher of hearts and reins: nothing is hidden from him, nothing is covered. He saw his church naked, and he saw, and he loved. He saw his beloved naked, and he loved her like a son of charity.
See how he sees, see how he calls. These are not the reproaches of adultery, but the mysteries of chastity. You are completely beautiful, my friend, my closest one, and there is no blame in you. Come here from Lebanon, my bride, come here from Lebanon, you will pass through and pass by from the beginning of faith (Song of Songs 4:7 and 8). And blessed from the beginning of faith. Therefore, when you have faith, you should not fear adultery; faith is the bond of marriage, deceit is adultery. But in order to be present from Lebanon, he sent a message beforehand, saying: Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove, my perfect one (Song of Songs 2:10). My neighbor, certainly with a desire for faith; my beautiful one, with the beauty of virtue; my dove, with spiritual grace. For the silver wings of a dove can signify that eternal power; and the flight of a dove has declared the presence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christ calls her to himself, that she may come; because she was already coming with spiritual rewards: For lo, he says, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared on the earth (ibid., 11 and 12). See how the holy Church invites. Winter, it says, has departed from itself, so that it does not fear a naked winter, not the season's winter, but the winter of weakness, which strips the fertile field of the soul of all its flowers. For it is not the winter of the earthly sun, it is the winter of the mind, when coldness creeps into the soul, when the steam of the mind evaporates, when the strength of the senses dissolves, when excessive moisture overflows and weighs down the mind, when the inner vision is darkened. And so the Lord says: Take heed that your flight not be in winter or on the Sabbath (Matth. XXIV, 20). For it is good that the day of judgment or death should come when there is a gentle tempering of the soul, when the heavenly mystery shines forth in clear light, when our hearts burn within us. For then Christ is present, as testified in the Gospel by Ammaon and Cleophas, saying: Was not our heart burning within us while he was opening the scriptures to us (Luc. XXIV, 32)? But the soul is revived when even a flower is seen on earth. Who is this flower of sweet fragrance, if not the one who said: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys (Song of Songs 2:1)? Concerning whom it is also written in Isaiah: And there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit (Isaiah 11:1). The root is indeed the family of the Jews, the branch is Mary, the flower is Christ of Mary, who when he shines forth in our land and delights the field of the soul, or blossoms in his Church, we cannot fear the cold, nor dread the rain, but await the day of judgment.
44. And therefore the Church, in order to see this flower, hastened with every effort, as she herself testifies, saying: In my bed, in the nights I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him, and did not find him: I called him, and he did not hear me. Therefore I will rise, and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares, and seek him whom my soul loves (Song of Songs, 3:1-2). I sought, and did not find him... The watchmen who go about the city found me, they struck me, and took away my cloak from me (Song of Songs, 5:7). You see how he seeks whom he desires to find, so that he may not fear being wounded. But these wounds are not to be feared, but to be desired; because the wounds are wounds of love; as she herself says: I am wounded by love (Ibid. 8). The wounds of love are good. In fact, the wounds of a friend are more useful than the voluntary kisses of an enemy.
Caput IX.
He continues the same subject, and shows that the Church of Christ, which he has rejected as a veiled Synagogue, was pleasing to Him when it was naked; then he describes the ardor of the Church in seeking Him; and finally he explains the fulfillment of the Law foreshadowed in the murder of Uriah.
45. She is naked, therefore, by merit, because she has lost her cloak: or perhaps she is naked for this reason, because sometimes it is the virtue of the heart not to have it covered, the heart not to have it veiled. In conclusion, Christ has despised and rejected that veiled Synagogue (II Cor. III, 13 et seq.), which had a veil in the reading of the Old Testament, which is now revealed, because it is annulled in Christ; I say, veiled, Christ despised and rejected the Synagogue, which is why today the veil is placed upon the hearts of the Jews. But truly, that which turns the whole mind to the Lord is naked and clear. For when someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, so that we may see, beholding the glory of God. Moreover, elsewhere it is a sign of virtue to be naked, for it is written: 'I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?' (Cant. V, 3)
Therefore, let us reveal from the Scriptures if we can, how one should take off and put on this tunic. For there is a certain bodily tunic, and there are certain woven coverings of desires; and therefore, sometimes it is better to be naked in body than veiled in heart. Hence, even Paul admonishes us to strip off, saying elsewhere: Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge, according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:9-10). Therefore, she who is stripped and has washed feet, and hence she who has bathed, does not know how they can become dirty again. For she forgets through grace what she had drawn through nature. Therefore, great is the righteous love of the woman before David, washing himself in the royal house.
But she not only washes, but also calls; as we have learned from the same book, with the Holy Church saying: 'Come, my brother, let us go out into the field, let us rest in the castles, let us rise early in the vineyards, let us see if the vine has flourished' (Song of Solomon 7:11-12). Therefore, she not only washes, but also provokes and invites Christ to come to her, saying: 'To you I will give my breasts' (Ibid.). And not only her own, but also the new and the old, as you have: 'I have kept new and old for you, my brother' (Ibid. 13). And, as if impatient of love, he seeks the support of someone by whom Christ may be asked to come. See him burning, see him longing: 'Who,' he says, 'will give you, O my brother, to suck the breasts of my mother?' (Song of Solomon 8:1). And he shows by what means he seeks, and by what grace he invites, and how he can hold on: how he waits for the one who is staying outside; and he implores that he may enter his house, saying: 'Finding you outside I will kiss you, I will take hold of you, and will bring you to the house of my mother, and into the secret place of her who conceived me' (ibid. 2). You see how exposed it is, which cannot have a hidden shelter of undefiled nature, a hidden shelter of intimate conscience, not designated by any audacity of vice. For the closed garden is the holy Church, and immaculate virginity, which, for this reason, merits this grace from Christ, because it sought, desired, and found the Word of God, vigilantly watching before the gates of wisdom, as it itself says: Blessed is the man who hears me and the person who keeps my ways, vigilantly watching at my gates daily, guarding the entrances to my doors. My end, the ends of life. (Prov. VIII, 34).
48. Thus Christ desired and prepared himself to take as his wife the appearance of his Church. But since he sought her under the Law (for under the Law Peter, John, and the other apostolic men), he thought that first the bonds of bodily observance should be relaxed for us. For though the religious Law, the just Law, summoned the person of Uriah, who was so religious and chaste that, upon returning from war, he did not recognize his wife nor enter into her; yet because Uriah, through David, that is, through the humble man, perceived the union of the Church, departing from the union of the Synagogue, he prepared a place for future nuptials. And so John also received the type of the Law, who, although he was from the Fathers, announced the preparation of the ways of the Lord and prophesied the joining of the Church; and therefore he is portrayed as being killed, in order to demonstrate the failure of legitimate observance. For the Law and the prophets were until John. Therefore, now Uriah was killed in the type of the Law, so that the Synagogue of the Law would be freed from its snares, because a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. Therefore, while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress if she is joined to another man; but if her husband is dead, she is freed from the law of her husband, so that she is not an adulteress if she is with another man. Therefore, she is not an adulteress in the human condition, although she may have been under the Law, yet she has been freed in a sense from the observance of the Law, and is vindicated by grace.
However, Christ did not abolish the observance of the law. Therefore, Uriah was not killed by David, but he suffered being killed by warriors: that is, the ritual observance coming from the Law was profaned by the invasion of barbarians and the captivity of the Jews, Christ suffered. Finally, Uriah is called my light. And what is the light of Christ except the Law and the Gospel? For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. Because the light of Christ preceded in the Law, which afterwards in the grace of the Gospel, as if in a sevenfold spirit, filled all the world of this age. Therefore, he took away the flesh from the Law or the Church and joined it to himself: the hostile people diminished the light of the Law when they violated the sacred Law. Therefore, the light of God is diminished in the people of the Jews; blindness has partly befallen Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles enters, and thus all Israel shall be saved.
Caput X.
With renewed attention, it explores the deeper mystery hidden in the adulterous affair of David, namely the union of the divine Word with human nature.
50. There remains a fourth mystery, which, I implore you, you may receive with calm ears and not weigh our minds by words; for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Adultery is committed, and murder is committed. This is what was spoken to the Prophet: Take for yourself a rod of nutwood (Jerem. I, 11). And elsewhere we read of a rod of nutwood, through which we understand a certain law and the summit of prophecy, which is bitter outside like a nut shell; hard in the middle, like the shell; but soft and fruitful within. Therefore, even though you have heard bitter things in history, you have recognized harshness in the example, nevertheless hope for fruitful things in the mystery. Adultery, I say, was done in the example of salvation; for not all adultery is to be condemned. Finally, it is said to the Prophet: Go, take for yourself a prostitute as a wife (Hosea 1:2). The Lord commands this, that there may be marriage with her who has committed adultery, of which marriage, as we said above (above, chapter 9 of this book), Christ is the offspring. For the son who was born from fornication, the name Jezrahel was given by the Lord, which is a divine generation. So if that pious union of fornication is indeed a pious union of adulterous society. But that is of the Jews. However, I dare not name the divine ones as pious adultery, although it is pious, lest the sound of the word offend anyone, although the sense of reverence is evident; however, it can be said more cautiously, although not more explicitly, that a pious connection was made from disparate unions when the Word became flesh. For there is no legitimate union of divinity and flesh; and just as the flesh and soul are joined in a certain agreement of nature, so also the divinity and flesh of the righteous observe, in a certain way, the law of marriage. God took on flesh, assumed a soul, and through an unprecedented and illegitimate incarnation, made the union to be legitimate, so that God may be all in all.
51. Finally, so that you may know that it is a mystery, interpret the words. For you receive David as a type of Christ, Bathsheba is indeed called daughter of the Sabbath, or daughter full, or the well of an oath. What, then, could be more explicit than the fact that the daughter of the Sabbath is the flesh of Christ; for God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law? She is also called full, because in His passion there is the fullness of the Law, or because she is full of the grace of the Holy Spirit. For Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. Likewise, the well of the oath, that is, of religion and faith. And it is a good well, because living waters flow from its womb. Therefore, God the Word, taking this upon Himself, made it a legitimate bond; a mystery which those nuptials in the Song of Songs signify, in which the Church is joined to Christ and the flesh to the Spirit. And thus, the wounded, the naked, the adulteress in all things, though immaculate in Christ, the miserable flesh sought a redeemer.