Sermon 71 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Spiritual Lilies, That Is, Good Works, Whose Odor Is a Right Conscience and Whose Color Is Reputation: and How the Bridegroom Both Feeds Us and Is Fed by Us. Likewise on the Unity of God the Father with the Son, and of the Holy Soul with God.
1. The end of the preceding sermon is the beginning of this one. The Bridegroom, then, is a lily, but not a lily among thorns, since he has no thorns who committed no sin. Indeed he declared the bride to be a lily among thorns; since even she, if she should say that she has no thorns, deceives herself, and the truth is not in her. But he professed himself indeed a flower and a lily, yet not among thorns. Rather he says: "I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys" (Song 2:1-2). And there is no mention of thorns, because he alone among men has no need to say: "I was turned in my affliction, while the thorn was fastened in me" (Ps 31:4). Therefore he is never without lilies, who is always without vices; because he is wholly and always radiant, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 44:3). You therefore who hear or read these things, take care to have lilies in your possession, if you wish to have this dweller among lilies dwelling in you. Let your work, your pursuit, your desire: let a certain moral radiance and fragrance of the things themselves declare them to be lilies. Customs too have their colors, and they have their odors. For in spiritual things color and odor are not the same thing, no more than in bodily things. Therefore let conscience be consulted regarding the color, and reputation regarding the odor. "You have made our odor to stink before Pharaoh and his servants," say those men (Ex 5:21), speaking of opinion. Moreover, the intention of the heart and the judgment of conscience give color to your work. Vices are black, virtue is radiant. Between the one and the other, conscience, when consulted, discerns. The sentence of the Lord stands concerning the evil eye and the bright one (Mt 6:22-23), because he fixed certain boundaries between bright and black, and divided the light from the darkness. Therefore what proceeds from a pure heart and a good conscience is radiant, and is virtue; but if a good reputation has also followed, then it is a lily, since it lacks neither the radiance of a lily nor its fragrance.
2. Moreover virtue, even if not made greater on that account, is nevertheless made more beautiful and more illustrious. But if there is a blemish in the conscience, neither will that which proceeds from it be free from blemish. For if the root is in vice, so also is the branch. And accordingly, whatever it may be that a vitiated root produces from itself not without the transmission of vice — for example, a word, an action, a prayer — even if reputation seems to applaud, it is not something that ought to be called a lily; because even if the fragrance seems to agree, the color does not. For how can there be a lily with a blemish of impurity? Nor indeed will reputation be able to vindicate for virtue what conscience has convicted of being vice. Virtue will indeed be content with the radiance of conscience, where the fragrance of reputation cannot follow: but the fragrance of reputation will not suffice even to excuse the vice of a discolored conscience. Yet the man of virtue will always provide, so far as it lies in him, for good things, not only before God, but also before men (Rom 12:17), that he may truly be a lily.
3. But there is also a radiance of the soul that comes from the forgiveness of God, as he himself says through the prophet: "If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow; and if they be red as a little worm, they shall be as white wool" (Isa 1:18). And there is a radiance which he puts on who shows mercy with cheerfulness. For if you look upon that man whom the Prophet depicts as a joyful man, who shows mercy and lends (Ps 111:5), does he not seem to you to have imparted from that very joyfulness of mind a certain radiance to the face, and equally to the work, of his compassion? Just as, on the other hand, if someone gives out of sadness and as if out of necessity, he displays in hand and countenance not a radiant but a gloomy color. And therefore God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7). Does he love a sad one? Surely he who looked upon Abel on account of the radiance of his eagerness, turned his face from Cain, because his countenance [or, face] had fallen (Gen 4:4-5), namely from sadness and envy. Consider what kind of color sadness or envy has, which turns the gaze of God away from itself. Beautifully and elegantly, in coloring a good deed, the radiance of joyfulness was praised in that saying of the poet: "Above all things, kind looks were added" (Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII). And not only the cheerful giver, but also he who gives in simplicity (Rom 12:8), is loved by God. And simplicity is a radiance. We prove it from the contrary: for duplicity is a blemish. I have said too little: it is a stain. What is duplicity but deceit? But indeed he who has acted deceitfully in the sight of God, his iniquity has been found unto hatred (Ps 35:3). And therefore blessed is he to whom the Lord will not impute sin, nor is there deceit in his spirit (Ps 31:2). Beautifully the Lord marked both stains, deceit and sadness, in few words: "Do not become," he said, "like the hypocrites, sad" (Mt 6:16). The Bridegroom, therefore, since he is virtue, takes delight in virtues; and since he is a lily, he willingly dwells among lilies; and since he is radiance, he is delighted by radiant things.
4. And perhaps this is what is meant by being fed among the lilies: to be delighted by the radiance and fragrance of virtues. And indeed he was fed of old in bodily fashion at the home of Mary and Martha, reclining also in body among lilies (I speak of those women, for they were lilies), while no less he refreshed his spirit with the devotion and virtues of the women. And if at that hour a prophet had entered, or an angel, or any other spiritual being who was not unaware of what majesty was reclining there; would he not, astonished at the condescension and familiarity which he would perceive him to have with pure souls and chaste bodies, yet earthly and of the weaker sex, rightly have testified: "I have seen him not only dwelling, but also feeding among lilies"? So then according to both, I mean flesh and spirit, the Bridegroom was found to be fed among lilies. But I think that he in turn likewise fed them, but in the spirit. By this very fact that he was fed, how was he feeding? How, I ask, was he strengthening the timidity of the women, gladdening their humility, enriching their devotion? But if you have seen that for him to be fed is to feed; see now also, whether perhaps conversely to feed is for him to be fed. "Lord, who feeds me from my youth," says the holy patriarch Jacob (Gen 48:15). A good head of household, who takes care of his own domestics, especially in evil days, so that he may nourish them in famine, feeding them with the bread of life and understanding, and so nurturing them unto eternal life. But while he feeds, I believe, he is himself no less fed, and indeed with foods on which he gladly feasts — our progress. For the joy of the Lord is our strength.
5. So then both when he feeds he is fed, and when he is fed he feeds, at once refreshing us with his spiritual joy, and equally rejoicing in our spiritual progress. My repentance is his food, my salvation is his food, I myself am his food. Does he not eat ashes like bread? But I, because I am a sinner, am ashes, that I may be eaten by him. I am chewed when I am reproved, swallowed when I am instructed, cooked when I am changed, digested when I am transformed, made one when I am conformed. Do not marvel at this: he eats us, and is eaten by us, so that we may be more tightly bound to him. For we are not otherwise perfectly united to him. For if I eat and am not eaten, he will seem to be in me, but I am not yet in him. And if I am indeed eaten, but do not eat, he will seem to have me in himself, but not also to be in me; and there will not be perfect union in either one of these alone. But let him eat me, that he may have me in himself; and let him in turn be eaten by me, that he may be in me: so that the connection may be whole and firm, since I shall be in him and he will be no less in me.
6. Do you wish me to show you by a likeness what is being said? Raise your eyes now to a certain higher correspondence, yet similar to this one. If the Bridegroom himself were so in the Father that the Father was nevertheless not in him; or if the Father were so in him that he himself were not in the Father; I dare to say that even their unity would remain short of perfection, if indeed it would still be unity. But now since both he is in the Father and the Father is in him, there is no way for their unity to limp, but truly and perfectly he and the Father are one. So then let the soul, for whom it is good to cling to God (Ps 72:28), not consider itself perfectly united to him, unless it has perceived both him remaining in it and itself remaining in him. Not that even then it would be called one with God, in the way that the Father and the Son are one: although he who clings to God is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). I have read this, but that other I have not read. I do not speak of myself, who am nothing, but plainly no one, unless he be mad, whether from earth or from heaven, will claim for himself that saying of the Only-Begotten: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). And yet I, though dust and ashes, relying indeed on the authority of Scripture, would by no means be afraid to say this, that I am one spirit with God — if ever, however, I shall have been persuaded by certain experiences that I cling to God after the manner of one of those who remain in charity, and through this remain in God, and God in them, eating God and eaten by God. For of such clinging I think it was said: "He who clings to God is one spirit." What then? The Son says: "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (Jn 14:11), and "we are one" (Jn 10:30); man says: "I am in God, and God is in me," and "we are one spirit."
7. But do the Father and the Son, in order to be in each other and accordingly one, eat each other, as God and man pass into each other by a certain mutual eating, being through this, even if not one thing, certainly one spirit? [Or, "may they be."] Far from it! For those two are not in each other in one and the same way as these, nor is the unity of both pairs one and the same. "One spirit" and "one thing": since neither can "one spirit" be fitting to the Father and the Son, nor can "one thing" be fitting to man and God. You, if you are wise, having taken this occasion, will be wiser, prudently observing that there indeed through "one thing" a unity of substance or nature is signified; but here through "one spirit" equally a unity, but therefore a far different one, because between the substances and natures of man and God, each has its own nature and its own substance, whereas it is established that the nature and substance of the Father and the Son is entirely one. You see that the former is not even a unity, if indeed it is compared to this singular and supreme unity. For how can there be unity where there is a plurality of natures, a diversity of substances? And yet the soul clinging to God is said to be, and is, one spirit with God; nor does the plurality of things prejudice this unity, which is made not by a confusion of natures but by a harmony of wills. On account of this also, many hearts are called one, and many souls one, as it is written: "The multitude of believers had one heart and one soul" (Acts 4:32). And this, then, is also a unity.
8. But what is it compared to that unity which does not consist in a uniting, but subsists in eternity? Plainly that unity is not produced by any mutual eating, as in this case, because it is not produced at all. For it simply is. Nor is it a conjunction, or a kind of composition, or anything of the sort, which does not belong to what is one. But the Father and the Son have a nature, essence, and will that is not only one but one thing. For their being is nothing other than their being their nature; their willing is nothing other than their being, or their being their nature. It is not, therefore, that the unity by which the Father and Son are one should be said to be made from natures or essences or wills, because there are not multiple ones; nor is it something that should be said even to come into being, because it simply is. For it is not fabricated, but native. The Father and the Son are in each other, not only in an ineffable but also in an incomprehensible manner, capable and containing each other; but so capable as to be not divisible, so containing as not to be participatory [or, partitioned]. For as the Church sings in a hymn: "In the Father the whole Son, and the whole Father in the Word" (Hymn for Monday at Matins). The Father is in the Son, in whom he has always been well pleased; and the Son is in the Father, from whom, as he was never not begotten, so he was never separated. Moreover, through charity man is in God and God is in man, as John says: "He who remains in charity remains in God, and God in him" (1 Jn 4:16). "One spirit" and "one thing": the difference between the two unities is also indicated; since indeed neither can "one spirit" be fitting to the Father and the Son, nor "one thing" to man and God. The Father and the Son cannot be called "one spirit," because the one is the Father and the other is the Son: yet they are called and are "one thing," because their substance is entirely one, and not each his own. On the contrary, man and God, because they are not of one substance or nature, cannot indeed be called "one thing," yet they are called "one spirit" in certain and absolute truth, if they cling to each other with the glue of love. Which unity indeed is made not so much by a coherence of essences, as by an agreement of wills.
9. It is clear, unless I am mistaken, not only the diversity but also the disparity of the two unities, the one existing in one essence, the other in diverse essences. What is so distant from itself as the unity of many and the unity of one? So between the two unities, as I have said, "one spirit" and "one thing" mark the distinction, because through "one thing" indeed in the Father and the Son a unity of essence is designated, but through "one spirit" between God and man not this, but a certain concordant piety of affections. Yet with an addition, the Father and the Son are most rightly called "one" as well; for instance, one God, one Lord, and whatever else is said of each in himself and not in relation to the other [or, to one another]. For their divinity or majesty is not different, no more than their substance, or essence, or nature. For all these very things, if you consider piously, are not different or divided in them, but are one. I have said too little: they are one also with them. What of that unity by which many hearts are read as one, and many souls as one? It ought not, I think, to be reckoned worthy of the name of unity, when compared to this one, which does not unite many things, but singularly designates one. Therefore that unity is singular and supreme which does not consist in a uniting, but subsists in eternity. Nor does the aforementioned spiritual eating produce it, because it is not produced. It simply is. Much less should it be thought that any conjunction of essences or consensus of wills produces it, because there are not multiple ones. For theirs, as has been said, is one essence and one will; but for what is one there is no consensus, no composition, no coupling, or anything of the sort. There must be at least two wills for there to be consensus; and likewise two essences for there to be a conjunction or union through consensus. None of these exist in the Father and the Son, since they have neither two essences nor two wills. Each of these two things is one for them; or rather, as I recall having said above, these two things are one in them, one also with them; and through this they, as incomprehensibly so also immutably [or, incomparably] remaining in each other, are truly and singularly one. If, however, someone should say that there is a consensus between the Father and the Son, I do not contend, provided he understands not a union of wills, but a unity of will.
10. But God and man, because they stand and are distant in their own proper wills and substances, we sense to remain in each other in a far different manner, that is, not confused in substances, but concordant in wills. And this union is itself a communion of wills and a consensus in charity. Happy union, if you experience it; nothing at all, if you compare it. The voice of one who has experienced it: "But for me, to cling to God is good" (Ps 72:28). Good indeed, if you have clung in every respect. Who is he who perfectly clings to God, unless he who, remaining in God, as one beloved by God, has no less drawn God into himself by loving in return? Therefore when man and God cling to each other on every side (and they cling on every side when they are bound to each other by intimate and mutual love), through this I would unhesitatingly say that God is in man and man is in God. But man indeed has been in God from eternity, as one loved from eternity, if at least he is one of those who say that he loved and graced us in his beloved Son before the constitution of the world (Eph 1:4, 6); but God is in man from the time he is loved by man. And if this is so, man indeed is in God even when God is not yet in man; but God is not in a man who is not in God. For he cannot remain in love, even if perhaps he loves for a time without being loved; but one who is loved can also not yet love. Otherwise how will it stand that he himself first loved us? (1 Jn 4:10). Moreover, when he who was loved before now also loves, both man is in God and God is in man. But he who never loves, it is certain that he was never loved; and accordingly neither is he himself in God, nor God in him. Let these things be said to give the difference between that connection by which the Father and the Son are one, and that by which the soul clinging to God is one spirit, lest perhaps because it is read of man remaining in charity that he remains in God and God in him, and likewise of the Son that he is no less in the Father and the Father in him, the prerogative of the adopted and of the Only-Begotten should be thought equal.
11. Having settled these matters, then, we must return to him who is fed among the lilies, because the digression was made from there to this point: whether it was made idly, you will judge. And indeed I had already set down two meanings of the passage itself: either that he is fed by the virtues of the radiant ones, he who is virtue and radiance; or that he receives sinners to repentance in his body, which is the Church, for whom, in order to incorporate them into himself, he made himself sin, he who committed no sin, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, to which sinners had once been united, and that they might be justice in him, justified freely.
12. I set down yet a third interpretation which presents itself [in other manuscripts: "I add a third one which presents itself"]; and I think it will suffice not only for the explanation of the passage, but also for the conclusion of the sermon. The Word of God is truth, and he is the Bridegroom. You know this; hear the rest. When he is heard and not at all obeyed, he remains in the meantime empty and hungry in a certain way, altogether sad and complaining that he was put forth in vain. But if he has been obeyed, does not the word seem to you to have grown into a certain fullness, because to the word a work has been added, as if it were nourished by certain fruits of obedience, by the harvests of justice? Hence it is that he says in the Apocalypse: "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door to me, I will enter in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with me" (Rev 3:20). This sense seems to be confirmed also by the sentence of the Lord in the prophet, where he says that his word will not return to him empty, but will prosper and will accomplish that for which he sent it (Isa 55:11). It will not return to me empty or hungry, he says, but as if prospering in all things, it will be sated by the good deeds of those who acquiesce in it with love. Indeed in common usage a word is said to be fulfilled when it has been consigned to effect: that is, it is for so long empty and lean, and in a certain way famished, until it is completed by a work.
13. But hear him say with what food he is nourished. "My food," he says, "is to do the will of my Father" (Jn 4:34). This is the word of the Word openly indicating that his food is a good deed — if, however, he has found it among lilies, that is, among virtues. Otherwise, if he has found it outside, even if the food seems good in itself, he who is fed among lilies will not touch it. For instance, he does not accept an alms from the hand of a plunderer or a usurer; but neither indeed from a hypocrite, who when he gives alms, has a trumpet sounded before him, so that he may be glorified by men. Nor will he in any way hear the prayer of him who loves to pray on the corners of the streets, so that he may be seen by men (Mt 6:2, 5). For the prayer of a sinner shall be execrable (Prov 28:9). In vain also does he offer his gift at the altar, who is conscious that his brother has something against him (Mt 5:23-24). Indeed he did not look upon the offerings of Cain (Gen 4:5), for the reason that he did not walk rightly with his brother. By the testimony of the holy prophet, he also abominated the sabbaths, and new moons, and sacrifices of the Jews, so that he openly declared that his soul hated them, and he said: "When you came before my face, who required these things from your hands?" I believe those hands did not smell of lilies, and therefore he who is accustomed to be fed among lilies, and not among thorns, rejected the gift from them. Why would they not have thorny hands, to whom he said: "Your hands are full of blood" (Isa 1:13-15)? And the hands of Esau were hairy, similar to thorny ones; and therefore they were not admitted to minister to the Holy One.
14. I fear that even among us there may be some whose gifts the Bridegroom does not accept, because they do not smell of lilies. For if on the day of my fasting my own will is found, the Bridegroom has not chosen such a fast, nor does my fasting please him which savors not of the lily of obedience but of the vice of self-will. And I say this not only of fasting, but of silence, of vigils, of prayer, of reading, of manual labor, and lastly of every observance of a monk: wherever his own will is found in it, and not the obedience of his master, I hold the same view. By no means at all would I consider those observances, even though good in themselves, to be reckoned among the lilies, that is, among the virtues; but he who is of this sort will hear from the prophet: "Is such the service that I have chosen, says the Lord?" And he will add: "On the day of your good works your own wills are found" (Isa 58:3-5). Self-will is a great evil, by which it comes about that your good things are not good for you. It is necessary, therefore, that such things as these become lilies, because he who is fed among lilies will taste absolutely nothing that has been contaminated by self-will. He is Wisdom, reaching everywhere on account of his purity, and nothing defiled enters into him (Wis 7:24-25). So then the Bridegroom loves to be fed among lilies, that is, in clean and bright hearts. But for how long? "Until the day breathes and the shadows decline." This is a shadowy and dense place: let us not enter this forest of a profound sacrament except in the clear light of day. For already as I have been discoursing too long, the day has declined; and we are unwillingly torn away from these lilies. Nor have I been overcome by the length [or, "I have not feared the length"], from which the fragrance of the flowers was removing all weariness. A little bit seems to remain of the present chapter. But that little bit is too hidden, just as are all the other things of this canticle. But he who reveals mysteries will be present, as I trust, when we begin to knock: and he will not close the mouths of those who speak of him, he whose custom it is rather to open what is closed — the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God blessed above all things forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.