Sermon 75 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
God Is to Be Sought at the Due Time, in the Due Manner, and in the Due Place. And That Now Is the Acceptable Time, in Which Each One Can Find God for Himself through Good Works, and Work Out His Own Salvation.
1. "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves" (Song 3:1). The Bridegroom has not returned at the voice and wish of her who called him back. Why? So that desire might grow, so that affection might be tested, so that the business of love might be exercised. It is therefore indeed a dissimulation, not an indignation. But it remains that he must be sought, if perchance the one sought may be found, who did not come when called, since the Lord says: "Everyone who seeks, finds" (Mt 7:8). Moreover the word of recall is this: "Return; be like, my beloved, a gazelle or a young stag" (Song 2:17). When he did not return at this voice, certainly for those reasons which have been stated, then she who loves, having been made more eager, soon gave herself over with all avidity to seeking him. And first indeed she seeks him in the bed, but by no means finds him. She rises from there, goes about the city, goes and returns through the streets and lanes, and he does not appear nor show himself. Those who happen to be encountered are asked, and nothing certain is reported. Nor is this a search and a frustration of one time only or one night only, since she says that "I sought by nights." What desire and ardor is this, that rising by night she does not blush at the public way, runs through the city, inquires openly and everywhere about the beloved, and can be turned from tracking his paths by no reasoning, impeded by no difficulty, held back neither by love of timely rest, nor by a bride's modesty, nor even by fear of the night? And yet in all these things she has been frustrated up to this point from her desire. Ask what this pertinacious and prolonged defrauding means — this nurse of weariness, fuel of suspicions, torch of impatience, stepmother of love, mother of desperation. If this is still dissimulation, it is excessively burdensome.
2. Granted that the dissimulation was piously and usefully maintained for a time, as long as the matter was still only one of calling or calling back. But now when he is sought, and sought so earnestly, what further can dissimulation accomplish? If the question is about carnal bridegrooms and shameful loves, as the literal surface seems to have prefigured — and if such things can happen among them — it is not my concern; let them see to it themselves. But if it is fitting for me to respond and satisfy, according to whatever small ability I have, the minds and affections of souls seeking the Lord, then something vital must surely be drawn forth from Holy Scripture, in which they trust that they have life — something vital, and indeed spiritual — so that the poor may eat and be satisfied, and their hearts may live. And what is so much the life of hearts as my Lord Jesus Christ, of whom he who lived by him said: "When Christ, your life, shall appear, then you also shall appear with him in glory" (Col 3:4)? Let him therefore come into our midst, so that it may be truly said to us as well: "But in the midst of you stands one whom you do not know" (Jn 1:26). Although I do not know how the Bridegroom, who is Spirit, would not be known by spiritual persons, who have indeed so advanced in the spirit that they can say with the prophet: "Christ the Lord is a Spirit before our face" (Lam 4:20); and with the Apostle: "And if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer" (2 Cor 5:16). Is this not the one whom the bride was seeking? He truly is the Bridegroom, both loving and lovable. He, I say, is truly the Bridegroom; just as his flesh is truly food, and his blood is truly drink (Jn 6:56): and everything that is of him truly is, since he himself is nothing other, assuredly, than Truth itself.
3. But this Bridegroom — why is he not found when sought, since he is sought so diligently and tirelessly, now indeed in the bed, now in the city, or even in the streets and lanes; while he himself says: "Seek, and you shall find," and "He who seeks, finds" (Mt 7:7-8)? Let the prophet also speak to him: "You are good, O Lord, to the soul that seeks you" (Lam 3:25); and likewise the holy Isaiah: "Seek the Lord while he can be found" (Isa 55:6). How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled? For the one who is here introduced as seeking is not one of those to whom he says: "You will seek me, and you will not find me" (Jn 7:34). But observe that there are three causes which meanwhile present themselves and are accustomed to frustrate those who seek: namely, when they seek not at the right time, or not as they ought, or not where they ought. For if every time is suitable for seeking, why then does the prophet say, as I already recalled: "Seek the Lord while he can be found"? Without doubt there will be a time when he cannot be found; and therefore he adds that he should be called upon while he is near, because in the future he will no longer be near. For by whom will he not then be sought? "To me," he says, "every knee shall bow" (Isa 45:24), etc. Yet he will not be found by the impious, whom avenging angels will certainly drive away and remove so that they may not see the glory of God. The foolish virgins also will cry out in vain; by no means at all will he come out to them now, the door being shut (Mt 25:10). Let those therefore consider it said to them: "You will seek me, and you will not find me."
4. But now is the acceptable time, now are the days of salvation (2 Cor 6:2); a time plainly both for seeking and for calling upon him, when very often, even before he is called upon, he is felt to be present. Hear, then, what he promises. "Before you call upon me," he says, "I will say: Behold, I am here" (Isa 65:24). Nor was this benignity and easiness of the present time hidden from him who speaks in the psalm: "The Lord has heard the desire of the poor; the preparation of their heart, your ear has heard" (Ps 9:17). But if God is sought through good works, then while we have time, let us do good to all (Gal 6:10): especially because the Lord openly forewarns that the night is coming, when no one can work (Jn 9:4). Do you think you will find for yourself some other time for seeking God, for working what is good, in the ages to come, beyond this one which God has appointed for you, in which he may be mindful of you? And therefore these are days of salvation, because in them God himself, our king before the ages, has worked salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps 73:12).
5. Go then, you, and in the midst of Gehenna await the salvation which has already been accomplished in the midst of the earth. What opportunity for meriting pardon do you dream will come to you amid everlasting fires, when the time for showing mercy has already passed? No sacrifice for sins remains for you who have died in your sins. The Son of God is not crucified again; he died once, he dies no more (Rom 6:9). The blood which was poured out upon the earth does not descend to the underworld. All the sinners of the earth have drunk of it: there is nothing from it that the demons can claim for themselves to extinguish their fires; nor can the men who are companions of demons. Once he descended there — not the blood, but the soul — and this was the portion of those who were in prison. That one visitation which was then made through the presence of the soul, while the lifeless body hung upon the earth. The blood watered the dry land, the blood soaked the earth and made it drunk; the blood pacified the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven, but not also those in the underworld — except that once, as I said, his soul went down there and wrought a partial redemption, lest even at that moment it should be idle from the work of charity; but beyond that it will not go again. Therefore now is the acceptable time, fit for seeking, in which plainly he who seeks finds — if, however, he seeks where and as he ought. And this is one cause that can prevent the Bridegroom from being found by those seeking him: when they do not seek at the opportune time. But that cause does not hinder the bride, who is plainly calling and seeking at the opportune time. Nor indeed does she seek him tepidly or negligently or perfunctorily: for she seeks with a burning heart and with altogether untiring effort, plainly as is fitting.
6. It remains for us to consider the third cause, namely whether she seeks where it is not fitting. "In my bed I sought him whom my soul loves." Is it perhaps the case that he was not to be sought in a small bed, but in a great bed — he for whom the world is too narrow? But I do not shrink from the small bed, I who know the little one. For "a little one has been born for us" (Isa 9:6). Exult and praise, O habitation of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel (Isa 12:6). But the same Lord who is great in Zion was found to be little among us, weak among us; from the one he has the condition of lying down, and from the other of lying down even in a small bed. Is not the tomb a small bed? Is not the manger a small bed? Is not the womb of the Virgin a small bed? For the womb of the great Father is not a small bed, but a great bed, of which it is said to the Son: "From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you" (Ps 109:3). Although perhaps not even a bed should properly be considered a fitting designation for that womb, which is the place of one who rules, rather than of one who lies down. For remaining in the Father, he rules all things with the Father. Indeed, it is not to lie down but to sit at the right hand of the Father that undoubted faith attributes to the Son; and he himself declares that heaven is his seat, not his bed (Isa 66:1): so that you may know that he has in his own domain — that is, in the heavens — not the comforts of weakness, but the insignia of power.
7. Rightly, therefore, the bride, in naming a small bed, calls it her own, because everything that is weak in God manifestly belongs to him not from his own nature, but from ours. From us he assumed what he endured for us: to be born, to be nursed, to die, to be buried. Mine is the mortality of the one born, mine the weakness of the little one, mine the last breath of the one crucified, mine the sleep of the one buried. These earlier things have passed away, and behold all things are new. "In my bed I sought by nights him whom my soul loves." What? Were you seeking in your bed him who had already taken himself back to his own domain? Had you not seen the Son of Man ascending where he was before? Already he has exchanged the tomb and the stable for heaven, and you still seek him in your small bed? "He has risen, he is not here." Why do you seek in a small bed the strong one, in a small bed the great one, the one glorified in a stable? He has entered into the powers of the Lord, he has put on beauty and strength: and behold he sits upon the cherubim, who lay beneath a stone. From now on he no longer lies down, but sits; and you prepare aids for him as though he were lying down? Or, that the truth may be more plainly stated, he either sits judging, or stands helping.
8. So you, O good women, for whom, I ask, do you keep watch? For whom do you procure spices, prepare ointments? If you knew how great he is, and how free among the dead is this dead man whom you proceed to anoint, you perhaps would have asked rather to be anointed by him. Is not this the one whom his God anointed with the oil of gladness beyond his companions? (Ps 44:8). Blessed will you be if you can glory as you return, and say: "From his fullness we also have received" (Jn 1:16). And indeed it was so. For in truth they return anointed who had come to anoint. Why would they not be anointed by so joyful a message of the new and fragrant resurrection? "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings of peace, who bring good tidings of good things!" (Rom 10:15). Sent by the angel, they do the work of evangelists; and made apostles of the apostles, while they hasten to announce the mercy of the Lord in the morning, they say: "In the fragrance of your ointments we run." From that time on, therefore, and henceforth, the Bridegroom was sought in vain in the small bed; because even if the Church had known him according to the flesh, that is, according to the weakness of the flesh, yet now she knows him so no longer. Indeed he was afterward sought by Peter and John likewise in the tomb, but was by no means found. Consider for yourself whether each of these could then aptly and fittingly have said: "In my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, and I did not find him." For the flesh that was going to the Father — the flesh that was not from the Father — first through the glory of the resurrection put off all that was weak in it, girded itself with power, clothed itself with light as with a garment: in such glory and adornment, assuredly, it was fitting for it to be presented to the eyes of the Father.
9. Beautifully indeed the bride says: Not "him whom I love," but "him whom my soul loves": because that love truly and properly belongs to the soul alone by which something is loved spiritually — for example, God, an angel, a soul. But also to love justice, truth, piety, wisdom, and other virtues is of this kind. For when the soul loves, or rather desires, something according to the flesh — for example, food, clothing, dominion, and whatever things of this sort are corporeal or earthly — it ought to be called love of the flesh rather than of the soul. And this is said on account of the fact that the bride, in an unusual but no less proper manner, says that her soul loves the Bridegroom, thereby showing that the Bridegroom is spirit, and that he is loved by her not with carnal but with spiritual love. And rightly she says that she sought him "by nights." For if according to Paul, those who sleep, sleep by night, and those who are drunk, are drunk by night (1 Thess 5:7), so not absurdly, as I think, it can be said that those who are ignorant, are ignorant by night; and through this, those who seek, seek by night. For who would seek what he plainly has? Moreover, the day makes plain what the night hides, so that you may find by day what you had sought in the night. It is night, therefore, as long as the Bridegroom is sought; since if it were day, he would be in the open and would by no means be sought. And enough about this — unless perhaps this multiplicity of nights signifies something still to be investigated, since she said not "night" but "nights."
10. And it seems to me, if you have nothing better, that the following explanation can be given. This world has its nights, and not a few. What am I saying, that the world has nights, when it is almost entirely night itself, and always revolves in darkness? The Jewish perfidy is a night, the ignorance of the pagans is a night, heretical depravity is a night, and also the carnal or animal manner of life of Catholics is a night. Is it not night where the things that are of the Spirit of God are not perceived? But also among heretics and schismatics, as many sects, so many nights. In vain through these nights do you seek the sun of justice and the light of truth, that is, the Bridegroom; because there is no fellowship of light with darkness. But someone says that the bride is not so foolish, nor so blind, as to seek the light in darkness, to seek the beloved among the ignorant and those who do not love him. As if she were saying that she is now seeking through nights, and not rather that she had sought — she does not say "I seek," but "I sought by nights him whom my soul loves." And the meaning is that when she was little, she had understanding as a little one, and she thought as a little one, and she was seeking the truth where it was not, erring and not finding, according to that verse in the psalm: "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost" (Ps 118:176). Indeed she recalls that she was then still in her bed, as one feeble in age and little in understanding.
11. If however you construe it thus: "In my bed" — supply "being" or "lying" — "I sought him whom my soul loves"; not "I sought in the bed," but "being in the bed I sought" — that is: While I was still weak and feeble, and altogether insufficiently fit to follow the Bridegroom wherever he went, to follow to the steep and lofty heights of his sublimity, I fell in with many who, recognizing my desire, said to me: "Behold, here is Christ, behold, there he is" (Mk 13:21): and he was neither here nor there. But I fell in with them, and not to my folly. For the closer I drew near and the more diligently I investigated, the more swiftly and certainly I recognized that the truth was by no means among them. For I sought and did not find; and I detected that those who pretended to be days were in fact nights.
12. And I said: "I will rise and go about the city; through the lanes and streets I will seek him whom my soul loves." Observe even now that she is lying down who says: "I will rise." This is entirely fitting. Why would she not rise, having learned of the resurrection of the beloved? Moreover, O blessed one, if you have risen with Christ, you ought to have understanding of the things that are above; and you must seek Christ not below but above, where he sits at the right hand of the Father (Col 3:1-2). But "I will go about," you say, "the city." To what end? "The impious walk in a circle." Leave that to the Jews, for whom their own prophet prophesied this, that "they will suffer hunger like dogs, and will go about the city" (Ps 58:7). And if you enter the city, according to another prophet, "behold, those wasted with hunger" (Jer 14:18): which certainly would not be the case if the bread of life were in it. He rose from the heart of the earth, but he did not remain upon the earth. He ascended to where he was before. For he who descended is the same one who ascended, the living bread which came down from heaven, the very 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.