Sermon 72 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
What the Aspirating Day and the Declining Shadows Are. Then the Various Days of Men Are Set Forth. And That a Brighter Day Awaits the Just, as Those Living in Light; but Eternal Night the Impious, Occupied in Works of Darkness.
1. "My beloved is mine, and I am his, who feeds among the lilies: until the day breathes, and the shadows decline" (Song 2:16-17). Only the last part of this chapter remains to be treated, and I hesitate at the very entrance as to which of the two preceding parts I should most fittingly join it to: for I can indifferently assign it to either. For whether you say: "My beloved is mine, and I am his until the day breathes, and the shadows decline," with only "who feeds among the lilies" interposed; or following the order of the text, "who feeds among the lilies, until the day breathes, and the shadows decline": you assign it not unfittingly to either. This indeed matters, that if you join "until" to the first, you must understand it as inclusive; if to the middle part, you must take it as exclusive. Suppose, for example, that the Bridegroom indicates that he will then feed among the lilies when the day has breathed: will he likewise also cease to attend to the bride, or she to him? Far from it! They will persevere with each other forever, except that then more happily, because more intensely; then more intensely, because more freely. Let this "until," therefore, be of the same kind as that one in Matthew, where it is narrated that Joseph did not know Mary until she bore her firstborn son (Mt 1:25): for neither did he know her afterward. Or certainly of the same kind as that in the psalm: "Our eyes are toward the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us" (Ps 122:2): for they will not be turned away when he begins to have mercy. Or like that saying of the Lord to the apostles: "Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the age" (Mt 28:20): for neither will he afterward not be with them. But this holds true only if you refer "until" to "my beloved is mine, and I am his." If, however, you prefer it to look to "who feeds among the lilies," it will have to be taken in another sense. Moreover, it will be shown with more labor how the beloved then ceases to feed when the day has breathed. For indeed if that day is the day of the resurrection, why would it not all the more delight him to feed among lilies there, where there will be a far greater abundance of them? And let these things be said for the sake of fitting the sequence of the text.
2. Now attend with me: although the whole kingdom is gleaming with lilies, and the Bridegroom is in their midst and delighting, nevertheless there is no reason to say that he also feeds, at least not in the way he was accustomed to before. For where now are the sinners whom Christ might incorporate into himself, chewed and bitten, as it were, by certain teeth of more austere discipline, namely by affliction of the flesh and contrition of the heart? But neither will the Word the Bridegroom any longer demand food for himself from any deeds or works of obedience, where all business is leisure, and the whole matter will consist solely in contemplation and love. And indeed his food is to do the will of his Father; but here, not there. For what would he do with what is already done? And it is established that it will then be perfect. For then at last it is for all the saints to prove what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God. And certainly after what is perfect, nothing remains to be done. It remains henceforth to enjoy, not to be made; to experience, not to labor; to live by it, not to be exercised in it. Is this not the very thing which, taught indeed by the Lord, we ask with the most urgent prayer to be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10), so that the fruit of it may now delight, and the doing of it not weary? Therefore there will be no food of work for the Bridegroom the Word, because every work must necessarily cease where wisdom is more fully perceived by all. For those who are lessened in action perceive it (Sir 38:25).
3. But let us see now whether what we say can stand also according to that interpretation by which to feed among the lilies is taken by some to mean to be delighted by the radiance of virtues; for we too did not pass over that interpretation among the others. Shall we say either that virtues will not exist then, or that they will not please the Bridegroom? To hold either of these is madness. But see whether perhaps he may be delighted by them in another way; for it is certain that he is delighted, but perhaps by drink rather than by food. Indeed in this time and in this body, no virtue of ours will be so purified to clarity, none so sweet and pure, as to be fit for the Bridegroom to drink. But he who wills all men to be saved overlooks much, and what he cannot meanwhile swallow with the ease of drinking, he takes care to extract from it at least something savory, as if by a certain art and labor of chewing. The time will come when virtue will be drinkable, and it will not be crushed by the tooth, nor will it be wearied by the one chewing — or rather, it will not weary the one chewing — for it will delight the one drinking without any labor, just as a drink, not as food. For in the Gospel you have him pledging: "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine," he says, "until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father" (Mt 26:29). And of food there is no mention. But also in the Prophet it is read: "Like a mighty man intoxicated with wine" (Ps 77:65); but of food nothing at all is found there. The bride, therefore, conscious of this mystery, having perceived and testified that the beloved feeds among the lilies, set a term for how long he would deign to do so — or rather, she recognized and testified to the term already set, saying: "Until the day breathes, and the shadows decline." For she knew that he would afterward be given the virtues to drink rather than to eat. The custom also seems to agree [or, to converge], by which after food drink is usually taken. Therefore he who eats here will drink there, and then the more sweetly as the more securely, about to swallow even those very things which he now more scrupulously, and in a certain way more laboriously, liquefies as if by chewing.
4. Now let us apply ourselves to consider that day and its shadows: what it is, what they are; by what reason it breathes, and in what power they may be made to decline. It was said altogether pointedly, "until the day breathes" — indeed singularly. For in this place alone, unless I am mistaken, you will find a day that breathes. For breezes, not times, are said to breathe. Man breathes, the other animals breathe, for whom air unceasingly exchanged sustains life. And what is this but wind? The Holy Spirit also breathes, and from this he is called "spirit." In what manner, then, is a day breathing, which is neither wind, nor spirit, nor animal? Although indeed it is said not merely "breathing," but, what sounds more pointedly, "aspirating." No less unusually said is "and the shadows decline." For at the rising of this bodily and visible light, shadows are not made to decline, but are annihilated. Therefore these things must be sought outside of bodies. And if indeed we find a spiritual day and spiritual shadows, then perhaps the declining of the latter and the breathing of the former will more easily become clear. He who supposes that day of which the Prophet says, "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand" (Ps 83:11), to be corporeal, I know not what he would not suppose to be corporeal. There is also a day in a bad sense, which the prophets cursed (Job 3:3; Jer 20:14). But far be it that this should be one of those visible days which the Lord made! And so it is spiritual.
5. Now who would doubt that the shadow is spiritual by which Mary was overshadowed when she conceived (Lk 1:35); and likewise that one which is thus recalled in the prophet: "Christ the Lord is the spirit before our face, under his shadow we shall live among the nations" (Lam 4:20)? Yet by the name of shadows in this place I think rather the contrary powers are designated, which are called by the Apostle not only shadows or darkness, but also princes of these darknesses (Eph 6:12), and together with them those of our race who cling to them, children indeed of night and not of light, nor of the day. For these shadows, when the day has breathed, will not plainly return to nothing, as we see bodily shadows before the face of this bodily light not merely disappear but also utterly perish. And so they will by no means be reduced beyond nothing, yet they will be more wretched than nothing. They will exist, but declined and subjected. For: "He shall bow down," it says, "and shall fall" (no doubt the prince of shadows), "when he has had dominion over the poor" (Ps 9:10). Therefore nature will not be destroyed, but power will be withdrawn; substance will not perish, but the hour and power of darkness will pass away. They are taken away, lest they see the glory of God; they are not annihilated, so that they may burn forever. Why would the shadows not be made to decline, when the mighty are cast down from their seat, and made a footstool for feet? (Rom 13:12.) Which indeed must come to pass quickly. It is the last hour; the night has preceded, but the day has drawn near. The day will breathe, and the night will expire. The night is the devil, the night is the angel of Satan, even if he transforms himself into an angel of light. The night is also the Antichrist, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the brightness of his coming (2 Thess 2:8). Is not the Lord the day? A day indeed illuminating and breathing, who by the breath of his mouth puts the shadows to flight, and destroys phantoms by the brightness of his coming. Or if you prefer to take the word "declining" simply, and to suppose that to decline is nothing other than to be annihilated: lest we fail even this sense, we say that the shadows are the figures and enigmas of the Scriptures, and also the sophistical expressions and cavils of words and the entanglements of arguments, all of which meanwhile cast shadow upon the light of truth. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the day breathes, the shadows will decline, because with the fullness of light occupying all things, no part of darkness will be able to remain. For when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be made void (1 Cor 13:9-10).
6. Up to this point enough might have sufficed, if that day had been said to be breathing and not aspirating. But now, on account of that small addition, I think something more must be added, namely for the sake of investigating the reason for this difference. For I, to confess the truth, have long since persuaded myself that in the text of the sacred and precious utterance not even the slightest particle is empty of meaning. Now we are accustomed to use this word when we vehemently desire something; as, for example, when we say: "That man aspires to that honor, or to that dignity." Therefore by this word is designated a wondrous future abundance and vehemence of the spirit on that day, when not only hearts but also bodies will in their own kind be spiritual; and those who are found worthy will be inebriated by the abundance of the house of the Lord, and will be given to drink from the torrent of his pleasure.
7. Or in another way. Already for the holy angels a sanctified day has shone, breathing upon them with the unceasing rush of perpetual flow the honeyed secrets of the eternal divinity. For: "The rush of the river makes glad the city of God" (Ps 45:5); but the city to which it is said: "The dwelling of all who rejoice is in you" (Ps 86:7). But when it has begun to breathe upon us also who inhabit the earth, it will be not merely breathing but aspirating, because with widened bosom it will admit us also. Or (to repeat from a little higher, and to discuss more broadly) when man had been formed from the mud of the earth, the Creator, as the truthful history narrates, breathed into his face the breath of life (Gen 2:7), having become thereby for him a day inspiring: and behold, the envious night craftily collided with this day, under a simulated light indeed. For while it promised, as it were, a more splendid light of knowledge, it poured the darkness of evil counsel upon the unsuspecting new light, and brought a foul darkness of ruinous transgression upon the beginnings of our origin. Woe, woe! They knew not, nor understood; they walk in darkness, not knowing, putting darkness for light, and light for darkness. For the woman ate from the tree which the serpent had given her, and God had forbidden; and she gave to her husband, and it began to dawn for them as if anew. For immediately the eyes of both were opened, and a day conspiring was made, thrusting out the day inspiring and substituting the day expiring. For they conspired and came together as one against the Lord and against his Christ: the cunning of the serpent, the blandishments of the woman, the weakness of the man. Whence the Lord and his Christ also spoke to one another: "Behold, Adam has become as one of us" (Gen 3), because to the injury of both he had acquiesced to the sinners who enticed him.
8. In this day we are all born. For we all bear stamped upon us the brand of the ancient conspiracy; Eve indeed living in our flesh, through whose hereditary concupiscence the serpent labors with sedulous care to claim our consent for his faction. For this reason, as I said, the saints cursed this day, desiring it to be brief and quickly turned into darkness (Job 3:3; Jer 20:14), because it is a day of contention and contradiction, since in it the flesh does not cease to desire against the spirit, and a contrary law in the members with untiring rebellion continually contradicts the law of the mind. And so a day expiring was made. For from that time and henceforth, who is the man who shall live and not see death? (Ps 88:49.) Let someone say this on account of wrath: I would think it no less on account of mercy, so that the troublesome contradiction, by which even the elect themselves are led captive in the law of sin which is in their members, might not long weary those for whose sake all things come to pass. For they shudder at and most painfully bear the shameful captivity and the sorrowful contention.
9. Let us hasten, therefore, to catch our breath from the ancient and wicked conspiracy, for the days of man are short (Job 14:5). May a day of breathing again receive us before a night of sighing swallow us up, to be wrapped in the exterior darkness of eternal gloom. You ask wherein this breathing again consists? In this: if the spirit begins in turn to desire against the flesh. If you fight against this, you are breathing again; if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you have breathed again; if you crucify this flesh with its vices and concupiscences, you have breathed again. "I chastise my body," he says, "and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate" (1 Cor 9:27). This is the voice of one breathing again — indeed of one who had already breathed again. "Go, and do thou likewise" (Lk 10:37), that you may prove yourself to have breathed again, that you may know that a day of inspiring has dawned for you anew. Nor will the night of death prevail against this revived day; rather it shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. So far am I from thinking that this light of life yields even when life departs, that I judge that voice to be assigned to no one more fittingly than to the one who has thus died: "And the night is my illumination in my delights" (Ps 138:11). Why would he not see more clearly, having been freed from the cloud — or rather, the dregs — of the body? Without doubt, released from the chains of the body, he will be free among the dead, and seeing among the blind. For just as of old, when every eye grew dim throughout all Egypt, the people that sees God — that is, the people Israel — alone saw clearly in the midst of darkness, Scripture saying that wherever Israel was, there was light (Ex 10:23): so among the children of darkness, in the foul gloom of death, the just will shine and see, and indeed all the more clearly as they are stripped of the shadows of bodies. For those who did not breathe again beforehand — for neither did they seek the light of the inspiring day, and the sun of justice did not rise for them — these, I say, will go from darkness into thicker darkness, so that those who are in darkness may grow still darker, and those who see may see the more.
10. Here that word of the Lord may perhaps not unfittingly be adduced which he spoke: "To him who has, it shall be given, and he shall abound; but from him who has not, even what he seems to have shall be taken away" (Lk 19:26). So it is: to those who see, more is added in death, and from those who do not see, more is taken away. For in the degree that the latter see less and less, the former see more and more, until the night of sighing receives the one group, and the day of aspiring receives the other; which are the final states of both, namely ultimate blindness and supreme clarity. From this point onward there is nothing that may be taken away from those who are wholly empty, nothing that may be added to those who are full, except that the latter presume that they will receive some I-know-not-what beyond fullness, according to the promise made to them. And the word of the promise is this: "Good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall they give into your bosom" (Lk 6:38). Does not that which runs over seem to you to be in some way more than full? Moreover, you will calmly hear of "full" and "fuller," if you remember having read: "Forever and beyond" (Ex 15:18). Therefore that heaping up will belong to the aspirating day. That day itself, I say, will add to the measure of the inspired fullness, to the abundance of the inspiring day, working above measure a sublime weight of glory, so that the superabounding addition of glorification may overflow even into the bodies. For this reason indeed it was called not breathing but aspirating, because it adds to the inspiring day, the Holy Spirit signifying this through the added preposition "ad-"; because those whom the inspiring day illuminates within, the aspirating day adorns without, and clothes them with the robe of glory.
11. And let this suffice for giving an account of the word "aspirating." And if you wish to know, the aspirating day is the Savior himself whom we await, who will reform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of his glory (Phil 3:20-21). For the inspiring day is likewise none other than he himself, according to the operation by which he first makes us breathe again in the light which he inspires, so that we too may be a day breathing again in him, according as our inner man is renewed from day to day, and is renewed in the spirit of his mind after the image of him who created him, and made thereby day from day and light from light. When, therefore, two days precede in us — one indeed inspiring for the life of the body, the other breathing again in the grace of sanctification — and moreover a third remains, aspirating in the glory of the resurrection: it is clear that what went before in the head will at some time be fulfilled in the body, a great indeed sacrament of piety, and the testimony of the prophet who says: "He will revive us after two days, on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight; we shall know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord" (Hos 6:3). He it is into whom the angels desire to look, 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.