Sermon 45 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Twofold Beauty of the Soul; and How the Soul Speaks to God-the-Word, and the Word to the Soul: and What Their Tongues Are
1. "Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful; your eyes are as doves" (Song 1:14). Beautifully, most excellently, from love, the presumption of the bride; from love, the indignation of the bridegroom. The outcome of the matter proves this. For presumption was followed by correction, correction by amendment, amendment by reward. The beloved is present, the master is removed, the king disappears, dignity is laid aside, reverence is set down. For haughtiness yields where affection grows strong. And just as once Moses spoke as a friend to a friend (Ex 33:11), and the Lord responded: so also now between the Word and the soul, as if between two neighbors, a most familiar conversation is carried on. Nor is this surprising. From one fountain of love there flows to both the loving of one another, the cherishing of each other equally. Therefore words sweeter than honey fly back and forth, mutual glances full of all sweetness are exchanged between them, holy signs of love. And so he calls her his love, pronounces her beautiful, repeats that she is beautiful, receiving the same in return from her. Nor is the repetition idle, for it is a confirmation of love, and perhaps it hints at something to be inquired into.
2. Let us seek the twofold beauty of the soul: for this is what it seems to me to hint at. The beauty of the soul is humility. I do not say this of myself, since the prophet said before me: "You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed" (Ps 50:9); by a humble herb that purges the breast signifying humility. With this the king and prophet trusts to be washed after his grievous fall, and so to recover a certain snow-white brightness of innocence. But in one who has gravely sinned, humility, even if it is to be loved, is nevertheless not to be admired. But if someone retains innocence, and nonetheless joins humility to it, does he not seem to you to possess a twofold beauty of soul? Holy Mary did not lose her holiness, and she did not lack humility: and therefore the King desired her beauty, because she joined humility to innocence; and so: "He has regarded," she says, "the humility of his handmaid" (Lk 1:48). Therefore blessed are they who keep their garments clean, namely those of simplicity and innocence, if yet they also add the putting on of the beauty of humility. Assuredly she who is found to be of this kind will hear: "Behold you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful." Would that you would say even once to my soul, Lord Jesus: "Behold you are beautiful." Would that you would keep humility for me! for I have kept the first garment badly. I am your servant. For I do not dare to profess myself a friend, I who do not hear the testimony of my beauty with a repetition. It suffices me if I hear it once. But what if even this is in question? I know what I will do: as a servant I will venerate his love, I, a deformed little man, will admire the abundant beauty in her; I will rejoice at the voice of the bridegroom, who is himself admiring so great a beauty. Who knows if at least from this I may find grace in the eyes of his love, so that by her grace I too may be found among the friends? And so the friend of the bridegroom stands, and rejoices with joy because of the voice of the bridegroom. Behold his voice is in the ears of the beloved: let us hear and let us rejoice. They are present to one another, they speak together; let us stand likewise: let no care of this world, no enticement of the body, withdraw us from this conversation.
3. "Behold," he says, "you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful." "Behold" is a word of admiration, the rest is of praise. Rightly to be admired, she for whom lost holiness did not bring humility, but rather preserved holiness admitted it. Rightly she is found beautiful, from whom neither beauty was absent. A rare bird upon the earth, either not to lose holiness, or for holiness not to exclude humility: and therefore blessed is she who retained both. And so it has been proved: she is conscious of nothing against herself, and she does not refuse correction. We, even when we sin greatly, scarcely bear to be reproved; but she with an equal mind hears bitter things spoken against her, having sinned in nothing. For, if she desires to see the brightness of the bridegroom, what evil is there? Rather it is even praiseworthy. And yet when rebuked she does penance, and says: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, between my breasts he shall abide" (Song 1:12): that is: It suffices me, I wish to know nothing now except Jesus, and him crucified. Great humility! Innocent in deed she takes up the disposition of a penitent; and she who has nothing to repent of, has nevertheless the spirit to repent. Why then, you say, was she rebuked, if she did nothing wrong? But hear now the dispensation and prudence of the bridegroom. Just as Abraham's obedience was once soundly tested, so also now the humility of the bride. And just as he, when his obedience was fulfilled, then heard: "Now I know that you fear God" (Gen 22:12): so also to her now it is said as it were in other words: "Now I know that you are humble"; for this is what he means when he says: "Behold you are beautiful." And therefore he repeats the praise, to mark that the beauty of humility has been added to the glory of holiness. "Behold you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful." "Now I know that you are beautiful, not only from my love, but also from your humility." I do not now call you beautiful among women, nor beautiful in your cheeks, nor in your neck, as I was saying before: but I confess you beautiful simply, not indeed beautiful by comparison, not with distinction, not in part.
4. And he adds: "Your eyes are as doves." Still openly humility is commended. For this refers to the fact that she, when reproved for her lofty inquiry, immediately did not hesitate to descend to simpler things, so as to say: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me." Much indeed is the distance between the face of glory and a bundle of myrrh: and therefore it is a great mark of humility, to consent to be called back from there to here. Therefore "your eyes are as doves." Now, he says, you do not walk in great things, nor in wonders above you: but in the manner of the most simple bird you are content with simpler things, nesting in the clefts of the rock, dwelling upon my wounds, and willingly beholding with a dove-like eye those things which pertain to me as incarnate and having suffered.
5. Or certainly, because in the form of this bird the Holy Spirit appeared (Mt 3:16), a spiritual rather than a simple gaze is commended in her by the name of the dove. And if this interpretation pleases, you must refer the present passage to what a little earlier the companions promised to make for her, golden earrings (Song 1:10), intending, as I then taught, not to adorn the ears of the body, but to form the hearing of the heart (cf. above, Sermon 41, nn. 2-4). It could therefore have happened that, by faith which comes from hearing, with the heart more thoroughly cleansed, she was rendered more instructed to see what she could not before. And since from the earrings she received she seemed to have advanced in keener vision toward spiritual understanding, it pleased the bridegroom, to whom it is always more pleasing, as far as lies in him, to be seen in spirit; and counting this too among her praises, he says: "Your eyes are as doves." Now, he says, behold me in spirit, because "Christ the Lord is a spirit before your face" (Lam 4:20). And you have the means by which you can do this, because your eyes are as doves. Before you did not have this, and therefore you had to be restrained: but now have the abundance of seeing, because your eyes are as doves, that is, spiritual. Not indeed the abundance that you were seeking: for not even now are you yet able to attain to that, but an abundance that can meanwhile suffice. Indeed you are to be led from brightness to brightness: and therefore see, as you can, now; and when you can do more, you will see more.
6. I do not think, brothers, I do not think this vision is a mediocre one, nor common to all, even though it be inferior to that by which he is to be seen in the future. For notice from what follows. For it continues: "Behold you are beautiful, my beloved, behold you are beautiful." You see how high she stands, and to what sublime peak of mind she has raised herself, who claims the Lord of all things as her own beloved by a certain special right. For notice how she does not simply say, "Beloved"; but, "my beloved," she says, so as to designate him as her own. A great vision indeed, from which she has grown to such confidence and authority, that she knows the Lord of all not as lord, but as beloved. For I judge that on this occasion there were by no means brought to her senses the images of the flesh, or of the cross, or any other likenesses of bodily infirmities. For in these, according to the prophet, "there was in him no form nor beauty" (Isa 53:2). But she, having beheld him, now pronounces him beautiful and comely, signifying that he appeared to her in a better vision. For mouth to mouth, as once with holy Moses (Ex 33:11), he speaks with the bride; and openly, not through riddles and figures, she sees God. And so she pronounces with her mouth such as she beholds with her mind, in a vision plainly sublime and sweet. Her eyes saw the king in his beauty, yet not as king, but as beloved. Let someone indeed have seen him upon a throne high and elevated; and let another testify that he appeared to him face to face: yet it seems to me that the preeminence in this matter lies with the bride, because there the one seen is read to be the Lord, here, the beloved. For thus you have it: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated" (Isa 6:1); and likewise: "I saw the Lord face to face, and my soul was saved" (Gen 32:30). "But if I am Lord," he says, "where is my fear?" (Mal 1:6). But if to them the revelation was made with fear; because where there is the Lord, there is fear: I for my part, if the choice were given, would so much more willingly, so much more dearly embrace the vision of the bride, inasmuch as I perceive it was made in the better affection, which is love. For fear has punishment, but perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18). Much indeed it matters whether one appears terrible in his counsels over the sons of men (Ps 65:15), or appears beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 44:5). "Behold you are beautiful, my beloved, and comely." These words plainly resound with love, not with fear.
7. But perhaps thoughts ascend in your heart, and you ask doubtfully within yourself, saying: By what reasoning are words of the Word spoken to the soul referred to, and again of the soul to the Word, so that she heard the voice of him speaking to her, and testifying that she is beautiful, and in turn immediately returned the same praise to her praiser? How can these things be? For we speak by a word, the word does not speak. Likewise the soul has no means by which to speak, unless the mouth of the body forms words for her to speak. You ask well: but consider that a spirit speaks, and what is said must be understood spiritually. Whenever therefore you hear or read that the Word and the soul converse together, and behold one another; do not imagine that bodily voices pass between them, just as neither do bodily images of the speakers appear. Hear rather what you are to think in matters of this kind. The Word is a spirit, and the soul is a spirit, and they have their tongues, by which they address one another and indicate their presence. And the tongue of the Word indeed is the favor of his condescension: but that of the soul, the fervor of devotion. The soul that does not have this is tongueless and speechless, and there can be no conversation at all between her and the Word. Therefore when the Word moves his tongue of this kind, wishing to speak to the soul, the soul cannot fail to perceive it. For the word of God is living and efficacious, and more penetrating than any two-edged sword, reaching to the division of soul and spirit (Heb 4:12). And again when the soul moves her own tongue, the Word will be far less able to be hidden from it; not only because he is present everywhere, but rather because of this, that unless he himself prompts it, the tongue of devotion is by no means moved to speak.
8. Therefore, for the Word to say to the soul, "you are beautiful," and to call her his love, is to infuse that by which she both loves and presumes herself to be loved. And for her in turn to name the Word beloved, and to confess him beautiful; is to ascribe to him without pretense and without deceit that he loves and that he is loved, and to marvel at his condescension, and to be astonished at his grace. For his beauty is his love of her; and therefore it is the greater, because it is prevenient. From the marrow of the heart therefore, and with the voices of the inmost affections, she cries out all the more greatly and ardently that he is to be loved by her, inasmuch as she perceived him loving before he was loved. And so the speech of the Word is an infusion of a gift, the response of the soul is admiration with the giving of thanks. And therefore she loves the more, because she perceives herself surpassed in loving: and therefore she marvels the more, because she recognizes herself anticipated. Whence she is not content to say "beautiful" once, but repeats "and comely," designating the eminence of his beauty by that repetition.
9. Or certainly in both substances of Christ she has expressed a beauty worthy of all admiration, in the one of nature, in the other of grace. How beautiful you are to your angels, Lord Jesus, in the form of God, in the day of your eternity, in the splendors of the saints, begotten before the morning star, the brightness and the figure of the substance of the Father, and indeed the perpetual and in no way counterfeit radiance of eternal life! How comely you are to me, my Lord, in this very setting aside of your beauty! For indeed where you emptied yourself, where you stripped the unfailing light of its natural rays; there your mercy shone forth the more, there your love shone forth the more, there grace radiated the more. How brightly you rise for me, O Star out of Jacob (Num 24:17), how luminous you come forth, O Flower from the root of Jesse (Isa 11:1), how pleasant a light in darkness you have visited me, O Dayspring from on high! (Lk 1:78). How glorious and wondrous even to the heavenly Powers in your conception from the Spirit, in your birth from the Virgin, in the innocence of your life, in the streams of your teaching, in the flashing of your miracles, in the revelations of your mysteries! How at last, gleaming after your setting, O Sun of justice, you rise again from the heart of the earth! How beautiful in your robe at last (Isa 63:1), O King of glory, you ascend into the heights of heaven! How shall not for all these things all my bones say: Lord, who is like unto you? (Ps 34:10).
10. These things therefore, and things like them, consider that the bride perceived as she beheld her beloved, when she said: "Behold you are beautiful, my beloved, and comely." And not these alone, but in addition something beyond doubt of the beauty of his higher nature, which altogether flies past our gaze and escapes our experience. Therefore the repetition designated the beauty of both substances. Hear next how she exults at the sight and speech of the beloved, and before him, rejoicing, sings a nuptial song of the things of love. For it follows: "Our bed is flowery, the beams of our houses are of cedar, our paneling is of cypress." But let us reserve the canticle of the bride for a fresher beginning, so that we too, made more alert from rest, may more freely exult and rejoice in it, to the praise and glory of her bridegroom himself, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is over all things God blessed for ever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.