Sermon 9 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Breasts of the Bridegroom, that is Christ, of which one is the Longsuffering of Waiting for Sinners, the other the Kindness or Readiness of Receiving Them
1. Let us come now to the book, and give an account of the reason and sequence of the bride's words. For they hang suspended, and totter precipitously without a beginning. And therefore we must set forth what they may fittingly cohere with. Let us suppose, then, that those whom we have called the companions of the bridegroom had come now also to the bride, for the sake of visiting and greeting her, as yesterday and the day before; and that they found her murmuring and weary, wondered at the cause, and addressed her, as it were, in this manner: What new thing has happened? Why do we see you sadder than usual? What is the cause of this unexpected murmuring? Surely when you went, turned away and estranged, after your lovers, with whom it went badly for you, compelled at last to return to your former husband, did you not press with many prayers and tears that you might at least deserve to touch his feet? I recall it, she says. What then? Having obtained that, and at the same time having received in the kiss of the feet pardon for your offenses, did you not again grow impatient, and by no means content with so great a condescension, but desirous of greater familiarity, petition and obtain a second grace as well, with the same urgency as before, so that in the kiss of the hand you gained not a few and not small virtues? I do not deny it, she says. And they: Indeed, are you not the one who used to swear and protest that if ever it were given you to attain to the kiss of the hand, it would be enough for you; that you would ask for nothing further? I am. What then? Perhaps you will allege that something of those things you had received has been taken away? Nothing. Or do you fear that what you had presumed upon, the pardon granted to you regarding your former evil manner of life, will be demanded back? No.
2. Come then, tell us how we might satisfy you. I will not rest, she says, unless he kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. Thanks for the kiss of the feet, thanks also for the kiss of the hand; but if he has any care for me, let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth (Song 1:1). I am not ungrateful, but I love. I have received, I confess, things greater than my merits, but certainly less than my desires. I am carried by desire, not by reason. Do not, I ask, accuse me of presumption, where affection urges. Modesty indeed protests; but love overcomes. Nor am I unaware that the honor of the king loves judgment (Ps 98:4); but headlong love neither waits for judgment, nor is tempered by counsel, nor is bridled by modesty, nor is subject to reason. I ask, I entreat, I demand: let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. Behold, by his own grace, for many years now I take care to live chastely and soberly, I devote myself to reading, I resist vices, I apply myself frequently to prayer; I keep watch against temptations, I recall my years in the bitterness of my soul. I consider myself to live without complaint, as far as it is in me, among the brethren; I am subject to the higher powers, going out and coming in at the command of my elder. I do not covet what belongs to others; rather I have given both my goods and myself. In the sweat of my face I eat my bread: yet what is in all these things stands entirely upon habit, of sweetness there is nothing. What am I but, according to the prophet, a heifer of Ephraim taught to love the threshing? (Hos 10:11). Finally, in the Gospel, he who does only what he ought to do is reckoned an unprofitable servant (Lk 17:10). Perhaps I fulfill the commandments in some fashion; but my soul is like a land without water in them. Therefore, that my holocaust may be made fat: let him kiss me, I pray, with the kiss of his mouth.
3. Very many of you also, as I recall, are accustomed to complain to me in your private confessions about this kind of languor of an arid spirit and dullness of a stolid mind, that they are unable, namely, to penetrate the high and subtle things of God, that they perceive nothing, or very little, of the sweetness of the spirit. What do these do, but sigh for the kiss? They sigh indeed, and yearn for the spirit of wisdom and understanding: of understanding, certainly, by which they may reach those things; of wisdom, that they may taste what they have apprehended by understanding. I believe the holy Prophet prayed in this very affection when he said: Let my soul be filled as with fat and richness, and my mouth shall praise with lips of exultation (Ps 62:6). He was altogether seeking a kiss, and that kiss at whose touch, his lips having been suffused with the richness of a special [or, spiritual] grace, there would follow what the same man prays for elsewhere: Let my mouth be filled with praise, that I may sing your glory, all the day your greatness (Ps 70:8). Finally he also poured forth when he had tasted: How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you (Ps 30:20). This kiss has detained us long enough, and I do not yet trust, to tell the truth, that I have expressed it worthily enough. But let us pass on to the remaining things; because it becomes known better when impressed than when expressed.
4. There follows: For your breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the finest ointments (Song 1:1-2). And whose words these are, the author does not say, leaving us free to comment on which person they most fittingly belong to. For my part, I do not lack grounds for assigning them congruently either to the bride, or to the bridegroom, or even to the companions of the bridegroom. And first I shall indicate how they fit the bride. Meanwhile, as she and they were conversing together, he himself, of whom the conversation was, arrived. Certainly he gladly draws near to those speaking of him. This is his custom. Thus to those going to Emmaus, and conferring among themselves, he offered himself a pleasant and eloquent companion (Lk 24:15). For this is what he promises in the Gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them (Mt 18:20); and through the prophet: Before they cry, he says, I will hear them; and while they are yet speaking I will say: Behold, I am here (Isa 65:24). So therefore now also, uncalled, he was present, and delighted by the words, he anticipated the prayers. I think that sometimes he does not even wait for words, but is called by thoughts alone. Finally, the man who was found according to the heart of God says: The Lord has heard the desire of the poor; the preparation of their heart your ear has heard (Ps 9:17). Attend also, you yourselves, to yourselves in every place, knowing that God who searches hearts and reins knows all your things, he who formed your hearts one by one and understands all your works. The bride, therefore, perceiving that the bridegroom was present, stopped (for she is ashamed of the presumption in which she understands herself to have been caught, for she had thought it more modest to arrange the matter through intermediaries); and straightway turning to him, she tries to excuse her boldness as best she can: For your breasts are better than wine, she says, fragrant with the finest ointments. As if to say: If I seem to think lofty things, you have caused it, O bridegroom, who by the sweetness of your breasts have nourished me with so great a condescension, that with all fear driven out by your love, not by my boldness, I dare perhaps more than is fitting. I dare indeed, mindful of your tenderness, unmindful of your majesty. Let these things be said for the sake of the sequence of the words.
5. Now let us see what this commendation of the bridegroom's breasts is like. The two breasts of the bridegroom are the two proofs of his innate gentleness: that he both patiently waits for the one who sins, and mercifully receives the one who repents. A twofold sweetness of tenderness, I say, overflows from the breast of the Lord Jesus: longsuffering in waiting and readiness in giving. And hear that this is not my invention. You read indeed concerning longsuffering: Do you despise the riches of his goodness, and patience, and longsuffering? And again: Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (Rom 2:4). For to this end he long suspends the sentence of vengeance from the one who scorns, so that he may at some time bestow the grace of remission upon the penitent. For he does not will the death of the sinner, but that he be converted, and live. Let us set forth examples of the other breast as well, which was said to be the readiness of forgiving. You read also of this: In whatever hour the sinner shall groan, his sin shall be forgiven him (Ezek 33:11-12); you read: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he is abundant in pardoning (Isa 55:7). David beautifully comprehended both in few words, saying: Longsuffering and abundant in mercy (Ps 102:10). The bride, therefore, confesses that by the experience of this twofold goodness she has grown into such confidence that she dared to ask for the kiss. What wonder, she says, if I thus presume of you, O bridegroom, I who have experienced from your breasts so great an abundance of sweetness? Therefore, the sweetness of your breasts provokes me to daring, not the confidence of my own merits.
6. But when she says: Your breasts are better than wine, this is the meaning: The richness of grace which flows from your breasts is more efficacious for my spiritual progress than the biting reproof of prelates. And not only are they better than wine, but also fragrant with the finest ointments; because not only do you nourish those present with the milk of inward sweetness, but you also sprinkle the absent with the pleasing fragrance of a good reputation, having a good testimony both from those within and from those without. You have, I say, milk within and ointments without; since indeed there would be none whom you might refresh with milk, if you did not first attract them by the fragrance. But concerning these ointments, if they contain anything worthy of consideration, it will be seen hereafter, when we come to that place where she says in what follows: We will run in the fragrance of your ointments (Song 1:3). Now, according to our promise, let us see whether these same words, which have been given to the bride, may also fit the bridegroom.
7. While the bride was speaking of the bridegroom, suddenly, as I had said, he is present; he assents to her desire, gives her the kiss, and fulfills in her the word that is written: You have granted him the desire of his heart, and have not withheld the request of his lips (Ps 20:3). And this he proves from the filling of her breasts. For so great is the efficacy of the holy kiss that, from the moment the bride receives it, she conceives, her breasts swelling and, as it were, growing fat with milk, in testimony. Those of you who make it your practice to pray frequently have experienced what I say. Often we approach the altar with a tepid and dry heart, and apply ourselves to prayer. But for those who persist, grace is suddenly infused, the breast grows fat, an inundation of devotion fills the inward parts; and if there be one to press, they will not delay in abundantly pouring forth the milk of the sweetness conceived. Let him say, therefore: You have, O bride, what you sought, and this is your sign, that your breasts have become better than wine. By this, namely, you shall know yourself to have received the kiss: that you perceive yourself to have conceived. Whence your breasts have swollen, having become in the abundance of milk better than the wine of worldly knowledge, which indeed intoxicates, but with curiosity, not with charity; filling, not nourishing; puffing up, not building up; gorging, not strengthening.
8. But let us grant these words also to the companions to utter. Unjustly, they say, do you murmur against the bridegroom; for what he has already given is worth more than what you ask. For what you seek indeed delights you; but the breasts with which you nourish the little ones, whom you also bear, are better, that is more necessary, than the wine of contemplation. For it is one thing that gladdens the heart of one man, and another that builds up many. For even if Rachel is more beautiful, yet Leah is more fruitful. Do not, therefore, insist too much upon the kisses of contemplation; for the breasts of preaching are better.
9. There occurs also another sense, which indeed I had not proposed, but I will by no means pass over. For why should we not say that these words belong rather to those very ones over whom she presides in her care, as little ones to their mother or nurse? For the young and still tender souls do not bear with equanimity that she should be free for rest, whose teaching they desire to be more fully instructed by, and by whose examples they desire to be formed. Is not, in fact, the restlessness of such ones checked in what follows, where under a solemn adjuration they are forbidden to arouse the beloved until she herself wills it? (Song 2:7). These therefore, perceiving that the bride yearns for kisses, seeks privacy for herself, flees from public life, avoids crowds, and prefers her own rest to the care of them: Do not, they say, do not; for there is greater fruit in breasts than in embraces. For through them you deliver us from carnal desires, which war against the soul; you snatch us from the world and win us for God. This therefore is what they say: For your breasts are better than wine. The carnal pleasure, they say, by which a little before, as by wine, we were held intoxicated, is overcome by these spiritual delights which your breasts distill for us.
10. And beautifully do they compare carnal affection to wine. For as a grape, once pressed, no longer has anything more to pour forth, but is condemned to perpetual dryness, so the flesh in the pressure of death is utterly dried up from all its delight, nor does it ever again grow green for lusts. Whence the prophet: All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen (Isa 40:6-7); and the Apostle: He who sows in the flesh, from the flesh shall also reap corruption (Gal 6:8); and again: Food is for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both the one and the other (1 Cor 6:13). But see whether not only to the flesh, but also perhaps to the world this comparison may apply. For the world itself also passes away, and the desire of it: and since all things that are in the world have an end, the end of them will not be the end. But the breasts are not so. For when they have been emptied, they draw again from the fountain of the maternal breast what they may offer to those who suck. Rightly therefore are the breasts of the bride declared better than the love of the flesh or of the world, because no number of nurslings ever dries them up, but they always abound from the bowels of charity, to flow again. For rivers flow from her belly, and there springs up in her a fountain of living water leaping unto eternal life (Jn 7:38; 4:14). Then the praise of the breasts is heaped further with the fragrance of ointments: that they not only feed by the savor of their words, but are also sweet-smelling by the reputation of their deeds. Now what the breasts are, with what milk they swell, with what ointments they are anointed, we shall show under another beginning of discourse, with the help of Christ: who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all the ages of ages. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.