Sermon 67 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Wondrous Affection of the Love of the Bride, Which She Pours Forth on Account of Her Love for Christ the Bridegroom.
1. "My beloved to me, and I to him" (Song 2:16). Thus far the words of the Bridegroom. May he himself be present, so that worthily, to his own glory and for the salvation of ourselves, we may be able to search out the words of his Bride. For they are not such as can be considered and examined by us, as would be worthy, unless he himself shall have been the guide of the word. For they are as sweet in grace as they are fruitful in meaning, and indeed as profound in mysteries. To what shall I liken them? To some one dish of a feast, which excels with a certain threefold grace: delicious in flavor, solid in nourishment, efficacious as medicine. So, I say, so each and every word of the Bride: both from the fact that it sounds sweetly, it soothes the affection; and from the richness of its meanings it fattens and nourishes the mind; and from the depth of its mysteries, while it exercises the understanding more, it terrifies it more, and in a wondrous way heals the swelling of inflating knowledge. For if any one of those who seem to themselves to be learned shall have given himself rather curiously to the scrutiny of these words, when he has seen the powers of his intellect succumb and has perceived every understanding reduced to captivity, will he not, humbled, be compelled to that utterance, so that he says: "Your knowledge has become wonderful beyond me; it is strengthened, and I cannot attain to it" (Ps 138:6)? And now indeed, what a mark of sweetness does the beginning of her words set forth! For see what a beginning she has given. "My beloved," she says, "to me, and I to him." The utterance seems simple, since it sounds sweetly; but about this more will be seen later.
2. Now indeed she begins from love, she continues about the beloved, indicating that she knows nothing else except the beloved. It is clear whom the discourse concerns; but with whom, not so. For it is not permitted to feel as though it were with him, since he himself is no longer present. Nor is this doubtful: for soon she seems to call him back, and as if to cry out after him from behind: "Return," she says, "my beloved." Whence we are led to conjecture nothing other than that, his words being finished, he has again in his manner absented himself, and she has remained speaking nonetheless about him, who is never absent from her. So it is: she retained on her lips him who did not depart from her heart, not even when he was departing. For what goes out from the mouth comes from the heart, and from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Lk 6:45). Therefore she speaks of the beloved, as one truly beloved and truly worthy of being loved, because she loves much. We ask with whom she speaks: for about whom, we know. And no one occurs to us, unless perhaps the young maidens, who cannot be absent from their mother when the Bridegroom has departed. But it is better, as I think, to understand her as having spoken rather with herself and not with another, especially since the speech itself is found to be broken and not fully connected, plainly insufficient for giving understanding to a hearer, on account of which we especially speak with one another. "My beloved to me," she says, "and I to him." Nothing more? The discourse hangs; nay, it does not hang, but it fails. The hearer is held in suspense, not instructed, but raised up.
3. What is this that she says, "He to me, and I to him"? We do not know what she is saying, because we do not feel what she feels. O holy soul, what is he, your beloved, to you, and what are you to him? What, I ask, is this exhibition and return of favor, running back and forth between you so familiarly and so favorably? He to you, and you in turn to him. But what? Are you the same thing to him that he is to you, or something different? If you speak to us, if you speak to our understanding, declare plainly what you feel. How long do you hold our souls in suspense? Or according to the prophet, is your secret yours alone? (Is 24:16.) So it is: affection has spoken, not understanding, and therefore not for the understanding. For what then? For nothing, except that, having been wonderfully delighted and vehemently moved by the desired words, when he had made an end, she could neither be altogether silent nor yet express what she felt. For she did not speak thus in order to express it, but lest she should be silent. From the abundance of the heart the mouth has spoken, but not in proportion to the abundance. Affections have their own voices, through which they betray themselves even when they are unwilling: fear, for example, has timid voices; grief, voices of groaning; love, joyful voices. Surely the lamentations of those who are grieving, or the sobs and sighs of those who are sorrowful, the sudden and wild cries of those who are struck or of those who are frightened, or even the belching of those who are sated -- does custom create these, or reason excite them, or deliberation order them, or premeditation form them? It is certain that things of this kind go forth not by a nod of the mind, but burst forth by an impulse. So a burning and vehement love, especially a divine one, when it cannot contain itself within itself, does not attend to the order, the rule, or the sequence or fewness of words in which it may boil over, provided that from this it feels no detriment to itself. Sometimes it does not require words, sometimes it requires no voices at all, content with sighs alone for this. Hence it is that the Bride, burning with holy love, and that in an incredible manner, indeed for the sake of catching any slight evaporation of the ardor that she suffers, does not consider what or how she may speak: but whatever has come to her mouth, with love pressing, she does not enunciate but belches forth. And why should she not belch, so refreshed and so replenished?
4. Go over the text of this nuptial song from its very beginning up to this point, and see if so great an abundance of his presence was ever indulged to her as on this occasion in all the visitations and addresses of the Bridegroom; and if she has ever received from his mouth not only so many but also so delightful discourses. She, then, who had filled her desire with good things, what wonder if she made a belch rather than a word? And if it seems to you that she has made a word, consider it belched forth and not prepared or preordained. For the Bride does not consider it robbery to apply to herself the saying of the Prophet: "My heart has belched forth a word" (Ps 44:2), being filled indeed with the same Spirit. "My beloved to me, and I to him." It has no logical sequence; the sentence is lacking. What of it? It is a belch. What do you seek in a belch -- the junctures of sentences, the proprieties of diction? What rules or regulations do you impose upon your own belch? It does not receive your moderation, it does not await composition from you, it does not require convenience, it does not seek opportunity. By itself from the inmost parts, not only when you do not will it, but even when you do not know it, it bursts forth, torn out rather than sent forth. Nevertheless, a belch carries an odor, sometimes good, sometimes bad, according to the contrary qualities of the vessels from which it ascends. Finally, "a good man from a good treasure brings forth good, and an evil man evil" (Mt 12:35). The Bride of my Lord is a good vessel, and good is the odor from her.
5. I give thanks to you, Lord Jesus, who have deigned to admit me at least to the smelling. Yes, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters (Mt 15:27). To me, I confess, the belch of your beloved smells good, and from her fullness, however small a portion, I receive gratefully. She belches forth for me the memory of the abundance of your sweetness, and I have caught the scent of something ineffable of your condescension and love in this utterance: "My beloved to me, and I to him." Let her, as is worthy, feast and exult in your sight, and delight in gladness: yet so let her exceed for you, that she may be sober for us. Let her, then, be filled with the good things of your house, and let her be given to drink from the torrent of your pleasure: but, I ask, let at least a thin odor reach me, a poor man, as she belches forth, when she has been sated. Moses belched well for me, and the odor in his belch was good, the odor of creating power: "In the beginning," he says, "God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1). Isaiah belched well: for he gave the most sweet odor of redeeming mercy, belching thus: "He delivered his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors, and he himself bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Is 53:12), that they might not perish. What equally smells of mercy? Good also was the belch from the mouth of Jeremiah; good from David, who says: "My heart has belched forth a good word." They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and belching they filled all things with goodness. You ask for the belch of Jeremiah? I have not forgotten; I was just now preparing it. "It is good to wait with silence for the salvation of the Lord" (Lam 3:26). It is his, if I am not mistaken; bring it to your nostrils; the sweetness of rewarding justice, which it carries, surpasses balsam. He wants me, patient for the sake of justice, to await the reward in the future, not to receive it in the present, because the reward of justice, salvation, is not of the world but of the Lord. "If he makes a delay," he says, "wait for him" (Hab 2:3); and do not murmur, because it is good to wait with silence. Therefore I will do what he exhorts; I will wait for the Lord my Savior.
6. But I am a sinner, and still a great journey remains for me, because salvation is far from sinners. I will not murmur, however: in the odor I will meanwhile console myself. "The just man shall rejoice in the Lord," experiencing by taste what I perceive by smell. What the just man beholds, the sinner awaits; and the awaiting is the smelling. For "the expectation of the creature," he says, "awaits the revelation of the sons of God" (Rom 8:19). Moreover, to behold is to taste and to see that the Lord is sweet. Or rather, is the just man blessed who awaits and who already holds? For "the expectation of the just is gladness" (Prov 10:28). For the sinner awaits nothing. And he is a sinner on this account: that, not only detained but also content with present goods, he awaits nothing for the future, deaf to that voice: "Wait for me, says the Lord, in the day of my resurrection in the future" (Zeph 3:8). And therefore Simeon was just, because he was waiting for and already smelling Christ in the spirit, whom he did not yet adore in the flesh. And he was blessed in his expectation, because through the odor of expectation he arrived at the taste of contemplation. Finally he says: "And my eyes have seen your salvation" (Lk 2:25). Just also was Abraham, who himself awaited to see the day of the Lord, and was not confounded by his expectation; for he saw and rejoiced (Jn 8:56). Just were the apostles when they heard: "And you yourselves be like men waiting for their master" (Lk 12:36, 30).
7. Why should David not also be just, when he was saying: "Waiting I waited for the Lord"? (Ps 39:2.) He is the fourth among the number of my aforementioned belchers, whom I had almost passed over. It is not fitting indeed. He opened his mouth and drew in the spirit (Ps 118:131), and being sated he not only belched but also sang. Good Jesus! How great a sweetness this one poured into my nostrils and ears in his belch and song, of the oil of gladness with which God, your God, anointed you above your companions: of myrrh and stacte and cassia from your garments, from ivory palaces, from which the daughters of kings have delighted you in your honor! (Ps 44:8-10.) Would that you might deign to meet me with so great a prophet and friend of yours on a day of solemnity and gladness, when he shall go forth from your bridal chamber, singing his nuptial song on a joyful psaltery with the harp, abounding in delights, sprinkled and sprinkling all things with the aromatic dust of this kind! On that day, or rather in that hour: for it is an hour if it ever is, and perhaps not even an hour, but half an hour, according to that Scripture: "There was silence in heaven for about half an hour" (Rev 8:1): therefore in that hour my mouth will be filled with joy, and my tongue with exultation, while I feel that each -- I do not say each psalm, but each verse -- is a belch, and indeed more fragrant than all spices. What is more fragrant than the belch of John, which smells to me of the eternity, generation, and divinity of the Word? What shall I say of the belches of Paul, with how great a sweetness they have filled the world? For "he was the good odor of Christ in every place" (2 Cor 2:14-15). The ineffable words, even if he does not bring them forth for me to hear, he nevertheless offers them so that I may desire, and it may be pleasing to smell what it is not permitted to hear (2 Cor 12:4). For I know not by what means, the more they lie hidden, the more they please, and the more eagerly we gape after what is denied. But now observe in the Bride a similar thing: how, in the likeness of Paul, in the present chapter, she neither opens the secret nor passes over it untouched, granting something as it were to our sense of smell, which she may have judged not to be fitting for the taste at this time, either on account of our unworthiness, or on account of our incapacity.
8. "My beloved to me, and I to him." What is not in doubt is that in this place the mutual love of two burns; but in the love, the supreme happiness is assuredly of the one, the wondrous condescension of the other. For this agreement or embrace is not between equals. Moreover, as to what she may glory in from this prerogative of love -- what has been bestowed upon her and what has been repaid in turn by her -- who presumes that he clearly knows, unless one who by an extraordinary purity of mind and sanctity of body shall have merited to experience something of this kind in himself? The thing lies in the affections; nor is it reached by reason, but by conformity. How few indeed are those who say: "But we, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor 3:18).
9. But so that what is read may be reduced to some form of understanding, however humble: with the Bride's own singular secret being reserved, to which for now it is not given to approach, especially for such as we are; something must indeed be set forth for us, all the more fitted to the common sense as it is more familiar, which may give both consequence to the words and understanding to little ones. And to me indeed it seems sufficient for our rough and in some way popular understanding, if in saying "My beloved to me," we supply the word "attends"; so that the sense may be: "My beloved attends to me, and I to him." Although even so I was neither the only one to have perceived this, nor the first, since the Prophet before me had said: "Waiting I waited for the Lord, and he attended to me." You have clearly the attention of the Lord to the Prophet: you have also the Prophet's to the Lord in the fact that he says: "Waiting I waited." For he who waits attends, and to wait is to attend. The meaning is altogether the same, nearly the same words, in the Prophet as in the Bride; but by the Prophet they are transposed. For he placed first what she placed last, and conversely.
10. Moreover, the Bride has spoken more rightly, and not putting forward merit but setting forth the benefit first, and confessing that she has been preceded by the grace of the beloved. Rightly indeed. For "who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him?" (Rom 11:35.) Finally, hear John, what he perceived in his Epistle on this matter. "In this is love," he says, "not as though we have loved God, but that he first loved us" (1 Jn 4:10). The Prophet, however, even if he was silent about the anticipation of grace, did not deny the following thereof: plainly he was not silent. But receive in another place his more certain confession concerning this matter. "And your mercy," he says (he was speaking to the Lord), "will follow me all the days of my life" (Ps 22:6). Hear also concerning the anticipation, his no less certain and manifest knowledge. "My God," he says, "his mercy will anticipate me" (Ps 58:11); likewise to the Lord: "Quickly," he says, "let your mercies anticipate us, for we have become exceedingly poor" (Ps 78:8). Beautifully the Bride later, if I am not mistaken, places these same words not in the same order, but she too follows the order of the Prophet, speaking in this manner: "I to my beloved, and my beloved to me." Why so? Surely so that she may then prove herself the more full of grace, when she shall have given all to grace, and ascribed to it, of course, both the first and the last parts. Otherwise, how full of grace, if she has anything that is not from grace? There is no place for grace to enter where merit has already occupied. Therefore the full confession of grace marks the fullness of grace itself in the soul of the one confessing. For if anything of one's own is present, to that extent grace must yield to it. Whatever you assign to merits is lacking to grace. I do not want the merit that excludes grace. I shudder at whatever is of my own, insofar as it makes me my own, except that perhaps that is more mine which makes me mine. Grace returns me to myself, justified freely, and so freed from the servitude of sin. For where the Spirit is, there is liberty.
11. O foolish Bride, the Synagogue, who despising the justice of God, that is, the grace of her Bridegroom, and wishing to establish her own, has not been subject to the justice of God! On this account the wretched one has been repudiated, and is no longer the Bride; but the Church, to whom it is said: "I have betrothed you to myself in faith; I have betrothed you to myself in judgment and justice; I have betrothed you to myself in mercy and in compassions" (Hos 2:19-20). "Nor did you choose me, but I chose you"; nor did I find your merits in order to choose you, but I anticipated them. Therefore in faith I betrothed you to myself, and not in the works of the law; and I betrothed you in justice, but the justice which is from faith, not from the law. It remains that you judge a right judgment between me and you, the judgment in which I betrothed you, where it is established that not your merit but my good pleasure intervened. But this is the judgment: that you do not exalt your merits, do not put forward the works of the law, do not boast of the burden of the day and the heat, you who are known to have been betrothed rather in faith and in the justice which is from faith, and no less in mercy and in compassions.
12. She who is truly the Bride recognizes these things and confesses both graces: first indeed, that which is first, by which she was also anticipated; and afterward, the subsequent one as well. And so she says now: "My beloved to me, and I to him"; assigning the beginning to the beloved. In what follows: "I," she says, "to my beloved, and my beloved to me"; granting the consummation to him equally. Now let us see what she says: "My beloved to me." For if this is accepted so that we supply "attends," as we have already said, and as the Prophet says: "Waiting I waited for the Lord, and he attended to me": I perceive in this word something not at all small, and of no ordinary prerogative. But a matter worthy of all eagerness is not to be thrust upon wearied ears and minds. If it is not burdensome, let it be deferred, and not for long; let tomorrow's sermon begin from there. Only pray that from rushing occupations the grace and mercy of the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God over all things blessed forever, may meanwhile guard us. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.