Sermon 48 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Reciprocal Praise Which Takes Place Between the Bridegroom and the Bride, and How by the Shadow of Christ His Body and His Faith Are Understood.
1. "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters" (Song 2:2). Not good daughters who prick. Observe the most wretched offspring of that land of ours which was cursed. "When," he says, "you shall have cultivated it, it will bring forth thorns and thistles for you" (Gen 3:18). Therefore, as long as the soul is in the flesh, it dwells indeed among thorns; and it is necessary that it suffer the restlessness of temptations and the stings of tribulations. But if it is itself a lily according to the word of the Bridegroom, let it see how watchful and solicitous it ought to be over the guarding of itself, surrounded on all sides by thorns, extending their stings from every direction. For the tenderness of the flower in no way endures even the slightest prick of a thorn, but as soon as it is pressed even slightly, it is pierced. You perceive how rightly and necessarily the prophet exhorts us to serve the Lord in fear (Ps 2:11); and likewise the Apostle, to work out our own salvation with fear and no less trembling (Phil 2:12). They held assuredly by their own experience the truth of this judgment, inasmuch as they were friends of the Bridegroom, who in no way at all doubted that the words pertained to their own souls: "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." Finally one of them says: "I was turned in my affliction, while the thorn was fastened in me" (Ps 31:4). Well fastened, he who was thereby turned. Well are you pricked, if you are pricked with compunction. Many, when they feel the punishment, correct the fault; and such a one can say: "I was turned in my affliction, while the thorn was fastened in me." A thorn is fault, a thorn is punishment, a thorn is a false brother, a thorn is an evil neighbor.
2. "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." O gleaming lily! O tender and delicate flower! Unbelievers and subverters are with you: see how cautiously you walk among thorns. The world is full of thorns: they are in the earth, they are in the air, they are in your flesh. To dwell among these and not be harmed in the least belongs to divine power, not to your own virtue. "But be confident," he says, "because I have overcome the world" (Jn 6:33). Even if, therefore, you perceive the stings of tribulations, as of thistles, directed at you from every side, let not your heart be troubled nor let it fear, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience works proving, proving works hope, and hope does not confound (Rom 5:3-5). Consider the lilies of the field, how they flourish and shine among thorns. If God so guards the grass which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven (Mt 6:28-30), how much more his beloved and most dear bride? Finally, "the Lord guards all who love him" (Ps 144:20). "As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters." It is no small title of virtue indeed, to live as a good person among the depraved, and to retain the brightness of innocence and the gentleness of conduct among the malicious: and all the more if you show yourself peaceful to those who hate peace, and a friend to enemies themselves. This indeed will rightly claim for you the likeness given of the lily, by a certain right of special property, because it does not cease to illuminate and adorn with its own brightness the very thorns that prick it. Does not the lily seem to you thereby to fulfill in a certain way the perfection of the Gospel, by which we are commanded to pray for those who calumniate and persecute us, and to do good to those who hate us? (Lk 6:27-28.) Therefore do you likewise, and your soul will be a beloved of the Lord, and he will praise you concerning yourself, saying that "as the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters."
3. There follows: "As the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." The bride returns the exchange of praise to the Bridegroom who commends her, from whom to be praised is to be made praiseworthy, and to praise whom is to understand and admire the praiseworthy one. And just as her praise was figured by the Bridegroom from an eminent flower, so in return she too demonstrates his singular glory and eminence from an excellent tree. Yet it moves me concerning this tree, that it does not seem to be of so great an excellence as some of the others: and therefore less worthily taken up for the purpose of the similitude, inasmuch as it would not suffice to fulfill the exchange of praise. "As the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." Indeed the bride herself does not seem to have esteemed it highly, she who took care to exalt it only among the trees of forests, that is, among sterile trees bearing no fruits suitable for human food. Why therefore, with better and nobler trees passed over, was the mediocrity of this tree brought forward to form the Bridegroom's praise? Was he who did not receive the Spirit by measure to receive praise by measure? For this similitude given from that tree makes it seem that he who has no equal has a superior. What shall we say to these things? I confess, it is a small praise, because it is the praise of the small one. For it is not in this place that the "great Lord and exceedingly to be praised" (Ps 144:3) is proclaimed, but the small Lord and exceedingly to be loved, the little one indeed "who has been born for us" (Isa 9:6).
4. Therefore it is not majesty that is extolled here, but humility that is commended; and worthily and reasonably that which is weak and foolish of God is preferred to the strength and wisdom of men. For they themselves are the wild and fruitless trees of the forest, because, according to the Prophet, "all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one" (Ps 13:3). "As the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." Alone among the trees of the forest the Lord Jesus is a tree bearing fruit, according to his humanity assuredly, even if set above men, yet "made lower than the angels" (Ps 8:6). For in a wondrous manner, having been made flesh, he both subjected himself to the angels, and remaining God, he retained the angels subject to himself. Finally: "You shall see," he says, "the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (Jn 1:51): because in one and the same man Christ Jesus they both tend his weakness and stand in awe of his majesty. Because therefore to the bride that which he diminished of himself tastes sweeter, she more willingly extols his grace, sets forth his mercy, stands amazed at his condescension. It therefore pleased her to admire the man among men, not God among angels, as the apple tree excels among the trees of the forest, and not indeed among the plantings of gardens. Nor does she think that his praises are diminished, where the goodness of piety is exalted from the consideration of weakness. For in the measure that she tempers her praises in one respect, in that same measure she praises the more in another respect, pursuing less the glory of his dignity, so that the grace of his condescension may stand out. As therefore the Apostle says that what is foolish and weak of God is wiser and stronger than men (1 Cor 1:25), but not than angels; and as the Prophet proclaims him beautiful in form "above the sons of men" (Ps 44:3), and not above the angels; so she certainly, speaking in the same spirit, wished in this place under the type of a fruit-bearing tree and the trees of the forest to exalt the God-Man above all the grace of men, but not above the excellence of the angels.
5. "As the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." And rightly "among the sons"; because, though he was the only-begotten of his Father, he was zealous to acquire for him many sons without envy, whom "he is not ashamed to call brothers," that he might be himself "the firstborn among many brothers." Rightly, however, is he who is Son by nature set before all those adopted through grace. "As the apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons." Deservedly as the apple tree, who, after the manner of a fruit-bearing tree, both has the shade of refreshment and bears the best fruit. Is it not truly a fruit-bearing tree, "whose flowers are the fruit of honor and of virtue?" (Sir 24:23.) Finally, "it is a tree of life to those who lay hold of it" (Prov 3:18). All the trees of the forest shall not be compared to it, because, even if there are trees beautiful and great which seem to offer help by praying, by ministering, by teaching, by aiding with examples, nevertheless Christ, the Wisdom of God, alone is the tree of life, alone the "living bread that descended from heaven and gives life to the world" (Jn 6:41, 33).
6. Therefore she says: "I sat under the shadow of him whom I had desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate" (Song 2:3). She had rightly desired his shadow, from whom she was about to receive both refreshment and nourishment alike. For the other trees of the forest indeed have the shade of solace, but not the nourishment of life, not the perpetual fruits of salvation. For there is one author of life, "one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5), who says to his bride: "I am your salvation" (Ps 34:3). "Not Moses," he says, "gave you this bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven" (Jn 6:32). Therefore she had desired the shadow of Christ above all, because he alone is the one who not only cools from the heat of vices, but also fills with the delight of virtues. "I sat under the shadow of him whom I had desired." His shadow is his flesh; his shadow is faith. The flesh of her own Son overshadowed Mary; the faith of the Lord overshadows me. Although, how does his flesh not overshadow me also, who eat it in the sacrament? And the holy Virgin likewise experienced the shadow of faith herself, to whom it was said: "And blessed is she who believed" (Lk 1:45). "I sat under the shadow of him whom I had desired." And the prophet says: "The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord; in his shadow we shall live among the nations" (Lam 4:20). In the shadow among the nations, in the light with the angels. We are in the shadow, as long as we walk by faith and not by sight; and therefore the just man is in the shadow, who lives by faith. But he who lives by understanding is blessed; because he is no longer in the shadow, but in the light. David was just, and he lived by faith, when he was saying to God: "Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments, and may live" (Ps 118:73, 144); knowing that understanding would succeed faith, and that the light of life would be revealed to the understanding, and the life of the light. It comes first to arrive at the shadow, and so to pass through to that of which it is the shadow, because, "unless you shall have believed," he says, "you shall not understand" (Isa 7:9, according to the LXX).
7. You see that faith is both life and the shadow of life. For on the contrary, the life that is spent in pleasures, because it is not of faith, is both death and the shadow of death. For "she who is a widow," he says, "living in pleasures, is dead while she lives" (1 Tim 5:6). Finally, "the wisdom of the flesh is death" (Rom 8:6). But it is also the shadow of death, namely of that death which torments for eternity. We too once sat in darkness and the shadow of death, living carnally and not living by faith; dead indeed already to justice, but very nearly about to be swallowed up by the second death. For as much as a shadow is near to the body whose shadow it is, so much assuredly did that life of ours draw near to hell. Finally: "Unless the Lord had helped me," he says, "my soul would have very nearly dwelt in hell" (Ps 93:17). But now we have passed from the shadow of death to the shadow of life; or rather "we have been translated from death to life" (1 Jn 3:14), living in the shadow of Christ, if indeed living, and not dead. For I do not think that as soon as anyone is in his shadow, he thereby lives in it, because plainly not everyone who has faith lives by faith. For faith without works is dead; nor can it give life, which it itself does not possess. Therefore the prophet, when he had said: "The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord," was not content to follow and say: "We are in his shadow"; but: "In his shadow," he says, "we live among the nations." Therefore do you also see to it that you live, by the example of the prophet, in his shadow, so that at some time you may also reign in his light. For he does not have only a shadow; he has light also. He himself through his flesh is the shadow of faith; he himself is the light of understanding through the Spirit. For he is both flesh and spirit. Flesh, for those remaining in the flesh; spirit, before our face, that is, in the future; if indeed, forgetting those things which are behind and stretching ourselves forward to those things which are before, we may arrive at that point and experience concerning the Word what he said: "The flesh profits nothing, it is the Spirit that gives life" (Jn 6:64). Nor am I unaware that someone still remaining in the flesh said: "And if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer" (2 Cor 5:16). But that was for him: for us indeed, who have not yet merited to be caught up to paradise, not yet to the third heaven, let us meanwhile feed on the flesh of Christ, let us venerate his mysteries, follow his examples, preserve the faith; and we live indeed in the shadow.
8. "I sat under the shadow of him whom I had desired." Perhaps she glories in having experienced something more blessed in this, that she says she is in the shadow: not, as the prophet, living, but sitting. For to sit is to rest. But it is more to rest in the shadow than to live in it, just as to live is more than merely to be in it. Therefore the prophet, assuming to himself what is common to many, says: "In his shadow we live"; but the bride, having the prerogative, glories also in this, that she alone sat under it. For not as he says in the plural, "We live," does she likewise say, "We sat"; but in the singular, "I sat," that you may recognize the prerogative. Where, therefore, we live with labor, we who, conscious of our sins, serve under fear, there this devoted and loving one sweetly reposes. Finally, fear has punishment, but love has sweetness. Whence she says: "And his fruit was sweet to my palate"; signifying the taste of contemplation, which she had obtained, having been sweetly lifted up through love. But this is in the shadow, because through a mirror and in a riddle. There will come a time when the shadows shall recede as the light increases, or rather shall utterly vanish, and there shall enter a vision as clear as it is perpetual; and there shall be not only sweetness to the palate, but also fullness to the belly; yet without weariness. "I sat under the shadow of him whom I had desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate." Let us also, where the bride pauses, pause likewise, glorifying the master of the household for the taste we have received, who has invited us to such a feast, the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is over all things God blessed forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.