Sermon 51 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
How the Bride Asks That the Fruits of Good Works Be Heaped Up for Her Together with the Flowers and Fragrances of Faith; Likewise on Hope and Fear.
1. "Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, because I languish with love" (Song 2:5). Love has grown, because more incentives of love than usual have come forth. For you see how great on this occasion was the abundance not only of seeing, but also of conversing. The vision itself appears granted with a more serene countenance, and the speech was more pleasant, and the conversation longer and more drawn out. Nor was she only delighted by the conversation, but she also gloried in his praise. Besides this, she was refreshed by the shadow of him whom she had desired, fed with his fruit, given drink from his cup. For she is not to be thought to have gone out thirsty from the wine cellar, into which she just now most recently glories that she was brought; nay rather she was thirsty, because "he who drinks me," he says, "will thirst yet again" (Sir 24:29). After all these things, with the Bridegroom withdrawing in his customary manner, she declares that she languishes with love, that is, on account of love. For the more gracious she had experienced his presence, the more burdensome she afterward felt his absence. For the withdrawal of the thing you love is the increase of desire; and what you desire more ardently, you lack more painfully. She asks therefore to be sustained in the meantime by the fragrances of flowers and fruits, until he returns again, whose delay she endures most grievously. And this is the order of the words.
2. Now let us attempt, with the Spirit of truth as guide, to draw out the spiritual fruit that is in them. And if it is the common Church of the saints that is received here as speaking, we are designated in the flowers and fruits; but also all who have been converted from the world in the whole world. In the flowers indeed the new and still tender manner of life of beginners is shown; in the fruits, however, the strength of those advancing and the maturity of the perfect. Surrounded by these, the mother, on pilgrimage and bearing fruit, for whom to live is Christ, and to die is gain, surely bears more equably the burden of her delay, since, according to Scripture, she is given of the fruit of her hands, as from the firstfruits of the spirit, and her works praise her in the gates (Prov 31:31). But if according to the moral sense you wish both of these to be assigned to you in a single soul, both flowers and fruits; understand faith as the flower, and the deed as the fruit. Nor unfittingly, as I think, will this seem to you, if you consider how, in the likeness of a flower necessarily preceding the fruit, a good work too must be preceded by faith. Otherwise, without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6), as Paul attests, or rather as he himself equally teaches: "Everything that is not from faith is also sin" (Rom 14:23). And so neither fruit without flower, nor good work without faith. But also faith without works is dead (Jas 2:20); just as a flower also appears uselessly where fruit does not follow. "Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, because I languish with love." Therefore from good works rooted in unfeigned faith, the mind accustomed to rest receives consolation, as often as the light of contemplation is withdrawn from it, as is its wont. For who, I do not say continuously, but even for any length of time, while remaining in this body, enjoys the light of contemplation? But as often as, as I have said, one falls from the contemplative life, so often does one retreat into the active life, from there assuredly about to return more familiarly into the same, as from a nearby place; since these two are mutual companions, and they dwell together equally; for Martha is the sister of Mary. For even if one falls from the light of contemplation, one does not however in any way suffer oneself to fall into the darkness of sin, or the sluggishness of idleness, retaining oneself surely in the light of good works. And that you may know that even works are light: "Let your light shine," he says, "before men" (Mt 5:16): which without doubt was said concerning works, which men were able to behold.
3. "Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, because I languish with love." When what is loved is at hand, love is vigorous; it languishes when it is absent. Which is nothing other than a certain weariness of impatient desire, by which the mind of one who loves vehemently is necessarily affected in the absence of the one it loves, while wholly in expectation, it reckons any haste, however great, as tardiness. And therefore she asks that the fruits of good works be heaped up for her together with the fragrances of faith, in which, while the Bridegroom delays, she may rest in the meantime. I speak to you of my own experience, which I have experienced. If ever I found that some of you had made progress from my admonitions, then it did not trouble me, I confess, to have preferred the care of preaching to my own leisure and quiet. For when, for example, after a sermon someone who was wrathful is found changed into a gentle person, a proud one into a humble one, a fainthearted one into a strong one: furthermore when a gentle, humble, and strong person is recognized to have grown in his own grace and to have become better than himself; but also when those who perhaps had grown lukewarm and languished, torpid and drowsy around spiritual study, are seen to have been re-kindled and awakened by the fiery word of the Lord; and those who, having forsaken the fountain of wisdom, had dug for themselves cisterns of their own will, unable to hold water, and therefore murmured at every command laid upon them, with parched heart, having no moisture of devotion in themselves: these, I say, when from the dew of the word, and the willing rain which God set apart for his inheritance, they are proved to have reflowered into works of obedience, made willing and devout in all things; there is no cause, I tell you, for sadness to steal upon the mind, as if for the interrupted pursuit of delightful contemplation, when I shall have been surrounded by such flowers and fruits of piety. Patiently am I torn from the embraces of the barren Rachel, so that from Leah the fruits of your progress may abound for me. Not at all shall it trouble me to have interrupted my rest [or, to have had my rest disturbed] for the care of preaching, when I shall see my seed germinate in you, and from it the increase of the fruits of your justice grow. For charity, which does not seek the things that are its own (1 Cor 13:5), has long since easily persuaded me of this, namely that none of my desirable things should be preferred to your benefits. To pray, to read, to write, to meditate, and whatever other gains of spiritual study there are, I have counted these as losses for your sake.
4. "Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples, because I languish with love." This therefore the bride spoke to the young maidens in the absence of the Bridegroom, urging them to advance in faith and good works until he should come, perceiving that in this there would be both the good pleasure of the Bridegroom, and the salvation of the daughters, and her own consolation. I know that I have explained this passage more fully in the book On the Love of God, and under a different interpretation: whether a superior or inferior one, let the reader judge, if it should please anyone to see both. Surely I shall not be judged by a prudent person for the diversity of senses, provided that truth be our patron in both cases; and let charity, which the Scriptures ought to serve, edify the more, the more true meanings it has drawn out from them for its own work. For why should this be displeasing in the senses of the Scriptures, which we constantly experience in the uses of things? Into how many uses, for example, does water alone serve for our bodies? So any single divine word will not be out of place, if it begets diverse meanings, to be applied to the diverse needs and uses of souls.
5. There follows: "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me." And moreover this too I recall having discussed more abundantly in the aforesaid little work; but let us mark the order of the discourse. It is clear that the Bridegroom is present again, I believe, so that by his presence he may raise up the one who languishes. For how would she not regain strength in his presence, whom his absence had cast down? Therefore he does not endure the distress of his beloved: he is present, nor indeed can he delay, summoned by such great desires. And because he had found her, while he was absent, faithful to works and solicitous for gains, in the fact, namely, that she had commanded flowers and fruits to be gathered for her; he has also returned this time with a more generous recompense of grace. And so with one of his arms he supports the head of the one lying down, preparing the other for an embrace, that he might warm her in his bosom. Happy the soul that reclines upon the breast of Christ, and rests between the arms of the Word. "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me." She does not say, "embraces"; but, "shall embrace me," so that you may know her to be so far from ungrateful for the first grace, that she has anticipated the second with thanksgiving.
6. Learn not to be slow or sluggish in returning thanks; learn to give thanks for each individual gift. "Consider carefully," he says, "what is set before you" (Prov 23:1), so that, namely, no gifts of God may be defrauded of their due thanksgiving; not great ones, not moderate ones, not small ones. For we are commanded to gather up the fragments lest they perish (Jn 6:12); that is, not to forget even the smallest benefits. Does not that which is given to an ungrateful person perish? Ingratitude is the enemy of the soul, the emptying of merits, the scattering of virtues, the loss of benefits. Ingratitude is a burning wind, drying up for itself the fountain of piety, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace. For this reason, then, the bride, as soon as she felt the grace from the left hand, gave thanks, not waiting for the fullness that is in the right hand. For indeed, where she has mentioned that the left hand was already under her head, she did not follow this by saying that she was likewise embraced by the right; but, "shall embrace me," she said.
7. But what do we think the left hand and the right hand are to the Word, the Bridegroom? Does that which is called the word of man have in itself bodily parts of this kind, divided and with distinct lineaments, distinguishing between left and right? How much more does he, who is both of God and is God, the Word, admit of absolutely no variety, but is who he is (Exod 3:14), in his nature indeed so simple that he has no parts, so one that he has no numbers. For he is the wisdom of God, of which it is written: "And of his wisdom there is no number" (Ps 146:5). But if what is invariable is necessarily also incomprehensible, and therefore also ineffable; where, I ask, will you find words with which you may either worthily describe that majesty, or properly express it, or fittingly define it? Yet let us speak as best we can of what we perceive as best we can of it, the Holy Spirit revealing it. We are taught by the authority of the Fathers and the custom of the Scriptures that it is permitted to borrow fitting likenesses from known things; but also not to invent new words, but to borrow [or, transfer] known ones, with which those same likenesses may be clothed worthily and fittingly. Otherwise you will ridiculously attempt to teach unknown things through unknown things.
8. Therefore because by right and left, adversity and prosperity are usually designated: it seems to me that in this place one may understand the left hand of the Word as the threat of punishment; the right hand, however, as the promise of the kingdom. But there are times when our mind is pressed down in servile fashion by the dread of punishment: and then the left hand is by no means to be said to be under the head, but over the head; nor can a soul so affected say at all that "his left hand is under my head." But truly if one advancing from this spirit of servitude shall have passed into a certain more worthy disposition of willing service, so that one is provoked by rewards rather than constrained by punishments, or rather if one is moved by love of the good itself; then one will undoubtedly be able to say that "his left hand is under my head": inasmuch as one has overcome that servile fear, which is on the left, by a better and more excellent disposition of soul, and by worthy desires has also drawn near to the right hand itself, in which are all the promises, as the Prophet says to the Lord: "Delights in your right hand forevermore" (Ps 15:11). Whence also, having conceived a sure hope, one speaks with confidence: "And his right hand shall embrace me."
9. You now consider with me, whether it is fitting for a soul so disposed and having attained this place of such great sweetness, to borrow also that verse from the psalm, so that she too may say: "In peace, in the selfsame, I will sleep and I will rest"; especially since the reason that follows supplies it: "Because you, O Lord, have singularly established me in hope" (Ps 4:9-10). Which is indeed of this nature. As long as one is pressed by the spirit of servitude, and has little of hope and very much of fear; there is no peace or rest for that one, the conscience indeed fluctuating between hope and fear, and especially because it is tormented more abundantly by the exceeding fear: for fear has punishment. And therefore it is not for that one to say: "In peace, in the selfsame, I will sleep and I will rest," since one cannot yet say that one has been singularly established in hope. But if gradually, through the increase of grace, fear begins to diminish, and hope to advance; when at length it has come to this, that charity rising with all its strength to the aid of hope casts out fear: will not a soul of this kind seem to be singularly established in hope, and therefore also to sleep and rest in peace, in the selfsame?
10. "If you sleep between the midst of the lots, the wings of the dove are silvered" (Ps 67:14). Which I think was said for this reason: that there is a place between fear and security, as between the left and the right, namely the middle place of hope, in which the mind and conscience, with the soft bedding of charity laid beneath, rests most sweetly. And perhaps in what follows in this very canticle, this place will have been designated, where in the description of the litter of Solomon among other things you have: "The middle he spread with charity on account of the daughters of Jerusalem" (Song 3:10). For he who feels himself singularly established in hope no longer serves in fear, but rests in charity. And so the bride rests and sleeps, on whose behalf it is said: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the deer of the fields, that you do not rouse or cause to awaken the beloved, until she herself wills." Great and astonishing is the condescension, that he makes the contemplating soul rest in his bosom, and moreover guards her from troublesome cares, and protects her from the disturbances of actions and the annoyances of business; nor does he allow her to be awakened at all, except indeed at her own will. But this is not to be undertaken in the constraints of a sermon that must now be concluded; rather let another be begun from this point, so that this delightful passage may not be defrauded of due diligence in its treatment. Not that even then we shall be sufficient to think anything from ourselves as from ourselves, especially in so worthy, so excellent, and altogether surpassing a subject; but our sufficiency is from God, 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.