Sermon 60 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Unbelief of the Jews, by Which They Filled Up the Measure of Their Fathers in Killing Christ.
1. "The fig tree has put forth its green figs" (Song 2:13). The present passage depends on what preceded. For he had said that the time of pruning had come, asserting this both from the flowers that were already appearing and from the voice of the turtledove that had been heard. He affirms the same thing still further from the production of green figs; because the evidence of the season is taken not only from the flowers and the voice of the turtledove, but is taken also from the fig tree. For the air is not other than more clement when the fig tree has put forth its green figs. The fig tree has no flowers, but in place of flowers it sends forth green figs at the time when the other trees bloom. And just as flowers appear and pass away, useful for nothing except that they are certain forerunners of the fruit to follow, so also the green figs. They arise, but they fall prematurely, and give place to the fruits that are to ripen, being themselves in no way fit for eating. And from this therefore, as I said, the Bridegroom takes the evidence of the season, and the argument of his persuasion, that the bride should not be slow to go to the vineyards, because the labor is not lost that comes in due season. And the letter indeed is thus.
2. But what does the spirit say? That plainly in this place we may look not upon a fig tree, but upon a people: for God has care for men, not for trees. Truly a fig tree is the people, fragile in flesh, small in understanding, humble in spirit, whose first fruits, that we may meanwhile play upon the name, are certainly gross and earthly. For it is not the pursuit of the common people to seek first the kingdom of God and his justice (Mt 6:33); but, as the Apostle says, to think about the things of the world, how they may please their wives, or they their husbands. "Those of this kind will have tribulation of the flesh" (1 Cor 7:33, 28); but in the last things we do not deny that they will attain the fruits of faith, if they have had a good final confession, and especially if they have redeemed the works of the flesh with almsgiving. Therefore the first fruits of the common people are no more fruits than the green figs of fig trees. Finally, if they shall afterward have brought forth worthy fruits of repentance (for "that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is natural" [1 Cor 15:46]), it shall be said to them: "What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed?" (Rom 6:21).
3. Yet in this place I do not think it free to interpret this of just any people: one is pointedly expressed. For he did not say "they put forth," as if speaking of many; but as if of one, he says, "the fig tree put forth its green figs"; and, as I understand it, she who is the people of the Jews. How much does the Savior seem to speak parabolically against this people in the Gospel? As is that saying: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard" (Lk 13:6) etc.; likewise: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees" (Lk 21:29); and to Nathanael it was said: "When you were under the fig tree, I saw you" (Jn 1:48). And again he curses the fig tree, because he did not find fruit on it (Mk 11:13-14). Rightly a fig tree, which, although it came forth from the good root of the patriarchs, nevertheless never wished to grow up on high, never to lift itself from the ground, never to correspond to its root in the loftiness of its branches, the nobility of its flowers, the fruitfulness of its fruits. Badly indeed do you agree with your root, O tree small, twisted, and knotted. For the root is holy. What appears in your branches that is worthy of it? "The fig tree," he says, "has put forth its green figs." You did not draw these from your noble root, O wicked seed. What is in it is from the Holy Spirit; and therefore is altogether subtle and sweet. From where do you have these green figs? And truly what was not gross in that nation? Neither its deeds, certainly, nor its affections, nor its understanding, and not even the rite it had in worshipping God. For its deeds were entirely in wars, its affections entirely in profits, its understanding in the thickness of the letter, its worship in the blood of cattle and herds.
4. But someone says: since that nation never at any time ceased to put forth green figs of this kind, therefore there was never a time when the time of pruning did not exist, because one and the same time is declared to exist for both things. It is not so. We say that women have brought forth children, not when they are in labor, but when they have already given birth. We also say that trees have put forth their flowers, not when they have begun to bloom, but rather when they have ceased. So here also it is said that the fig tree has put forth its green figs, not when it produced some of them, but when it produced them all, that is, when the production reached its end. You ask at what time such a completion befell that people? When it killed Christ, then its malice was completed, according to what he himself had foretold to them: "Fill up the measure of your fathers" (Mt 23:32). Whence on the cross, about to deliver up his spirit, he said: "It is finished" (Jn 19:30). O what a consummation this accursed fig tree gave to its green figs, and was thereupon condemned with eternal barrenness! O how the last things are worse than the first! Beginning from useless things, it arrived at things pernicious and poisonous. O gross and viperous affection, to hate the man who heals the bodies of men and saves their souls! O understanding no less gross and certainly bovine, who did not recognize God even in the works of God!
5. Perhaps the Jew may complain that I am too much given to reviling him, since I call his understanding bovine. But let him read in Isaiah, and he will hear it is worse than bovine. "The ox," he says, "has known its owner, and the ass the manger of its lord: Israel has not known me; my people has not understood" (Is 1:3). You see me, O Jew, more mild toward you than your own prophet. I have compared you to beasts; he sets you beneath them. Although the prophet did not say this in his own person, but in the person of God, who proclaims himself God even by his very works: "Even if you do not believe me," he says, "believe the works: if I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe" (Jn 10:38, 37); and not even so do they rouse themselves to understanding. Not the flight of demons, not the obedience of the elements, not the life of the dead, was able to drive away from them this bestial, and more than bestial, dullness: from which no less wondrous than wretched blindness it came about that they rushed into that so horrible and so enormously gross crime, laying sacrilegious hands upon the Lord of majesty. From that time therefore it could be said that the fig tree had put forth its green figs, when now the lawful things of that people began to be, as it were, at their departure upon the summit: so that, according to the ancient prophecy, as new things came upon them, the old things might be cast away (Lev 26:10). Not otherwise, surely, than as green figs fall and yield to the good figs arising after them. "So long," he says, "as the fig tree did not cease producing its green figs, I did not call you, O bride, knowing that the best figs could not come forth at the same time. But now, when those that had first to be produced have been produced, I invite you not now untimely, since good and salutary fruits are known to be near at hand, about to replace the useless ones."
6. "For the vines in flower have given their fragrance"; which is likewise a sign of approaching fruit. This fragrance puts serpents to flight. They say that when the vines are in flower, every poisonous creeping thing yields its place, and can in no way bear the fragrance of the new flowers. I wish our novices to attend to this, and to act with confidence, considering what manner of spirit they have received, whose first-fruits the demons cannot endure. If such is the fervor of a novice, what will be the accomplished perfection? Let the fruit be estimated from the flower, and the virtue of the savor from the force of the fragrance. "The vines in flower have given their fragrance." And indeed in the beginning it was so. Upon the preaching of the new grace there followed a newness of life in those who had believed, who had their manner of life good among the nations. They "were the good odor of Christ in every place" (2 Cor 2:14-15). A good odor, a good testimony. This fragrance proceeds from a good work as from a flower. And since with such a flower and such a fragrance in the beginnings of the nascent faith, faithful souls, as certain spiritual vineyards, appeared filled, having good testimony also from those who were outside; not unfittingly, as I think, we understand it to be said of them that "the vines in flower have given their fragrance." To what end? So that those who had not yet believed, provoked by that fragrance, considering them from their good works, might themselves also glorify God, and so that fragrance might begin to be for them "an odor of life unto life." Therefore they are not without cause reported to have given their fragrance, who sought not their own glory, but the salvation of others from their good reputation. Otherwise they might, in the manner of certain ones, "esteem godliness as gain," for example, of display, of reward. But that would be not to give the fragrance, but to sell it. But now, because they did all their things in charity, they plainly did not sell the fragrance, but gave it.
7. Moreover, if the vines are souls, the flower is the work, the fragrance is the reputation: what is the fruit? Martyrdom. And truly the fruit of the vine is the blood of the martyr. "When he has given sleep to his beloved, behold, the inheritance of the Lord is children, the reward is the fruit of the womb" (Ps 126:2-3). I had nearly said, the fruit of the vine. Why should I not call it the most pure blood of the grape, the blood of the innocent, the blood of the just? Why not the ruddy must, proven, precious, plainly from the vineyard of Sorech [or, Soreth], pressed out in the winepress of the passion? Finally, "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Ps 115:5). This is said on account of the statement that the vines in flower have given their fragrance.
8. Thus, if we prefer to refer this passage to the times of grace, or if it is more pleasing that it be referred to the Fathers (for "the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel" [Is 5:7]), the meaning will be: the prophets and patriarchs caught the scent of Christ, who was to be born and to die in the flesh, but they did not then give forth this same fragrance of theirs, because they did not exhibit in the flesh him whom they perceived in the spirit. They did not give their fragrance, nor did they make public their secret, waiting for it to be revealed in its own time. Who indeed would then have grasped the wisdom hidden in mystery, not yet exhibited in the body? And so the vines at that time did not give their fragrance. But they gave it afterward, when through the successions of generations they brought forth Christ born from them according to the flesh by a virginal birth into the ages. Then plainly, I say, those spiritual vines gave their fragrance, when "the kindness and the humanity of God our Savior appeared" (Tit 3:4); and the world began to have present him whom few had yet perceived while absent. That man, for example, who touching Jacob and sensing Christ, said: "Behold, the odor of my son is as the odor of a full field, which the Lord has blessed" (Gen 27:27); when he said this, he kept his delights to himself and communicated them to no one. But when the fullness of time came, "in which God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law" (Gal 4:4-5); then altogether the fragrance that was in him spread itself everywhere, so that the Church, sensing it from the ends of the earth, cried out: "Your name is oil poured out"; and "the young maidens ran in the odor of this oil" (Song 1:2, 3). So this vine gave its fragrance, and at that time the others also gave theirs, in whom this same odor of life had existed. Why should they not have given it, they from whom is Christ according to the flesh? It is said therefore that the vines have given their fragrance, either because faithful souls spread a good reputation of themselves everywhere; or because the oracles and revelations of the Fathers were made manifest to the world, and into all the earth went forth their fragrance, the Apostle saying: "Confessedly great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the nations, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory" (1 Tim 3:16).
9. It would be strange indeed if neither the fig trees nor these vines have anything that edifies our conduct. I judge this passage to be a moral one as well. I say moreover, by the grace of God which is in us, that we have both fig trees and vines. Fig trees indeed are those who are sweeter in their ways; but vines, those who are more fervent in spirit. Everyone who among us acts in a common and sociable manner, and not only lives without complaint among the brethren, but also with much sweetness offers himself to all for their enjoyment in every office of charity, why should I not most fittingly say that he takes the place of a fig tree? Who nevertheless must first put forth and cast away his green figs, namely the fear of judgment, which perfect charity casts out; and the bitterness of sins, which must yield to true confession and the infusion of grace and the frequent shedding of tears, and other such things which, in the manner of green figs, precede the sweetness of the fruits: which things you also can think of by yourselves.
10. That I may nevertheless still add something of this kind that occurs to me, consider whether perhaps even these may be reckoned among the green figs: knowledge, prophecy, tongues, and the like. For these, in the manner of green figs, are destined to fail and to yield to better things, the Apostle saying that "knowledge will be destroyed, and prophecies will be emptied, and tongues will cease." Faith itself too understanding will exclude, and it is necessary that vision succeed hope. For what one sees, why does he hope for it? "Charity alone never falls away" (1 Cor 13:8), but that by which God is loved with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole strength (Lk 10:27). Therefore I would by no means number this among the green figs, nor would I say it pertains to the fig tree, but to the vines. Now those who are vines show themselves to us as more severe than sweet, acting in a vehement spirit, zealous for discipline, most sharply rebuking vices, fitting to themselves most congruently that voice: "Did I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and waste away over your enemies?" (Ps 138:21). Likewise: "The zeal of your house has consumed me" (Ps 68:10). And to me indeed the former seem to excel in the love of neighbor, while the latter excel in the love of God. But it is pleasing to rest under this vine and under this fig tree, where the love of God and of neighbor gives its shade. I hold both when I love you, Lord Jesus Christ, who are my neighbor, because you are man, and have shown mercy to me; and who are no less God blessed above all things forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.