Song of Solomon 1 · The Lantern

The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.

And where is all this rich knowledge? and where are these mysteries? and where are the books? For the only ones extant are Proverbs, and Wisdom, and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. What then? Does the Scripture speak falsely? God forbid.

Another Solomon is signified here: one who is also descended from the seed of David according to the flesh, one whose name means peace, the true king of Israel and builder of God's temple. This other Solomon comprehends the knowledge of all things. His wisdom is infinite and his very essence is wisdom, truth, as well as every exalted, divine name and thought.

SERMON 1 ON THE TITLE OF THE BOOK The instructions that I address to you, my brothers, will differ from those I should deliver to people in the world, at least the manner will be different.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for your love is better than wine.

When it says "your breasts are better than wine," it signifies that the commandments of Christ delight the heart like wine. For, as infants suck upon breasts in order to extract some milk, so also all who suck on the law and the gospel obtain the commandments as eternal food.

What would any one say concerning the angers, the griefs, the various oaths, the repentances, the curses, the revenges, the manifold and dubious excuses for the failure of promises, the battle of giants in Genesis, during which He is said to scheme against those powerful and great men, and this when they were contriving the building, not with a view to injustice towards other p…

The third hierarchizing is that of grace above nature and diligence. When the soul is lifted higher than itself, and, having emptied itself out, receives divine illuminations, it looks above itself to what has been given to it. And out of this, it rises, or is lifted up, to divine concerns.

Because of the savor of your good ointments your name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love you.

Your name is ointment poured out. As ointment, which by its outpouring scatters its fragrance far and wide, so the name of Christ has been poured out. Over all the earth Christ is named, in all the world the Lord is proclaimed. For his name is ointment poured out. Now the name of Moses is heard, which before was shut up only within the narrow bounds of Judea.

"Ointment poured forth" is divinity incarnate. For if ointment is in a vessel, it gives off less scent, but if it is poured out, the fragrance of the poured ointment spreads far and wide.

First there is the ointment of piety upon the head; afterwards it descends upon all others who draw near to the head. First there ought to be piety in prelates and superiors, and afterwards in the common people. Concerning this oil of piety it is said in the fourth book of Kings that a certain woman came to Elisha and said that her creditors wished to take her children.

Draw me, we will run after you: the king has brought me into his rooms: we will be glad and rejoice in you, we will remember your love more than wine: the upright love you.

"The king introduced me to his treasures." Who is this king, if not Christ himself? And what are these treasures, if not his chambers? This is the people who say, "We will rejoice and delight in you," for he calls everyone.

She is admitted to the inner chamber, the quarters and rooms of the bridegroom, and boastfully says to her own retinue, "The king introduced me into his chamber," that is, he revealed to me his hidden purposes, the plan concealed from ages and generations he made known to me, the treasuries obscure, hidden, and unseen he opened to me, in keeping with the prophecy of Isaiah.

By which most fervent desire, in the manner of fire, our spirit is not only made agile for ascent, but also by a certain learned ignorance is rapt above itself into darkness and ecstasy, so that not only does it say with the bride: We will run in the fragrance of your ointments, but also sings with the Prophet: And the night is my illumination in my delights.

I am black, but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

"I am black and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem." I am a sinner, but even more, I am beautiful, because Christ loved me. "I am black and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem." All nations, come and gather and look at me, the beloved.

The bride is saying this no longer to the young girls but to those taking pride in the law, glorying and boasting, and reproaching her not only for her foreign origins but also for her former superstition and the black color coming from it.

The vegetation of the earth symbolizing Sacred Scripture is lovely. Even exterior roughness that gives nature a reputation of malformation is yet what makes it most beautiful. Hence the bride says: "I am as dark — but lovely." That is, lovely because dark.

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

The sons of my mother fought against me. It must be considered how the bride says, The sons of my mother fought against me, and when a fight of her brothers rose up against her. Look at Paul, the persecutor of the Church, and you will understand how a son of her mother fought against her.

He was regarding the sinful woman, that part which had believed in Christ. But let her say: Do not consider me because I am dark, for the sun has discolored me. The sun itself is the Lord; he himself coming discolored me. By his precepts he showed that I was not beautiful under the precepts of the Law.

SERMON 29: ON DISCORD IN THE CHURCH AND IN COMMUNITIES 1. "My mother's sons turned their anger to me." Annas and Caiaphas, and Judas Iscariot, were sons of the Synagogue; and from the Church's very origin these fought with great bitterness against her, daughter of the Synagogue though she was, and hanged Jesus, her Founder, on a tree.

Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of your companions?

Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down at noon. I do not ask for other times — when you feed in the evening, when at dawn, when at the sun's setting: I seek that time when, in the full-flowering day, in full light, you dwell in the splendor of your majesty. Tell me, you whom my soul has loved, where you feed, where you lie down at noon.

It is logical for the bride to enquire at the time of midday where the bridegroom takes his rest because when the light of knowledge became stronger, heresies developed which, while bearing the name of Christians, were nevertheless devoid of truth.

"Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon?" The Word, who is the Bridegroom, often makes himself known under more than one form to those who are fervent. Why so? Doubtless because he cannot be seen yet as he is.

If you know not, O fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, go forth in the tracks of the flocks, and feed your goats in the tents of the shepherds. In the tracks, he says, of the shepherds you will become the last; not among the sheep, but among your goats, dwelling with whom you cannot be with me, that is, with the good shepherd.

Every soul ought to care for nothing more than to know itself. For he who knows himself, recognizes that he was made in the image of God, and ought not to follow the likeness of beasts, nor dissolve himself either in luxury or in present appetite.

Ignorance of God Leads to Despair; the Beauty of the Bride 1. To what then does ignorance of God lead? We must begin here, for this is where, as you will recall, we finished yesterday. What does it lead to? I have already told you: despair. Now I shall explain how.

I have compared you, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.

The historical sense, indeed, seems to show this. As, he says, then in Egypt, when Pharaoh in pursuit of the people of Israel advanced with chariots and cavalry, my cavalry — that is, the cavalry of my Lord the bridegroom — far surpassed the chariots of Pharaoh, and was more excellent, seeing that it overcame them and sank them in the sea; so also you, my beloved bride, surpass…

I have likened you, my friend, to my horse-drawn chariots of Pharaoh. For indeed, He calls His cavalry the army of the children of Israel, whom He freed from Egyptian bondage, leading them across the Red Sea into the desert, and brought into the land of the inheritance promised long ago, while the chariots of Pharaoh, which pursued them and wanted to drag them back to servitude…

"To my company of horsemen amid Pharaoh's chariots have I likened you, O my love." For a start we are free to infer from these words that the Fathers prefigured the Church, and that the mysteries of our salvation were foreshown to them.

Your cheeks are beautiful with rows of jewels, your neck with chains of gold.

The sequence of the drama seems to have this consequence: that after the bridegroom had employed a rather severe threat toward the bride, warning her that unless she came to know herself she would go forth in the tracks of the flocks and would pasture not sheep but kids, she blushed over the severity of the command; and the redness of shame, spreading over her face, made her ch…

Your neck is like jewels, etc. Through the neck, we transfer food into the body to be nourished, and we utter words to reveal the secrets of our hearts to others.

God's wisdom appears most beautifully in the mysteries of Scripture, even more than in the first manner. For if, so to speak, I wish to praise the bride in that she is pretty and truthful: if I simply say that she is pretty and truthful, my heart is not affected very deeply.

We will make you borders of gold with studs of silver.

While the king sits at his table, my spikenard sends forth its smell.

In the manner of a drama, this appears to be shown: that after these words the bride entered in to the bridegroom and anointed him with her ointments, and, in some wondrous fashion, as though the nard which before had given no odor while it was with the bride, then gave forth its odor when it touched the body of the bridegroom—so that he seems not so much to have taken odor fro…

The king then entered his couch, when our Lord Jesus Christ bodily penetrated the interior of heaven. While he rested there, the nard of the bride gave forth its fragrance; because the virtue of the holy Church spread the sweet fame of its goodness far and wide.

SERMON 42 — FRATERNAL CORRECTION: TWO KINDS OF HUMILITY "While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance." These are the bride's words that we have left until today. This is the answer she gave when rebuked by the Bridegroom, not to the Bridegroom however but to his companions, as can easily be gathered from the words themselves.

A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall lie all night between my breasts.

These, as it seems, are still the words of the bride speaking to the young maidens. Earlier she had said that her nard had given its fragrance to the bridegroom, and that through the ointment with which she had anointed him she had received back the fragrance of its scent; but now she says: My kinsman is fragrant to me with a drop, and this drop not diffused nor scattered at ra…

For this reason it ought to be clear to your minds that the fig tree was an image of the law, just as it is certain that the cluster of grapes prefigured the Savior, as the church declares in the Canticle of Canticles: "My brother is for me a cluster of henna." Christ, indeed, cannot exist without the law or the law without Christ, for we have said that the law is evidence of t…

1. "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall abide between my breasts" (Song 1:12). Before he was king, now he is beloved; before on the royal couch, now between the breasts of the bride. Great is the power of humility, to which even the majesty of the Godhead so easily inclines itself.

My beloved is to me as a cluster of henna in the vineyards of En-gedi.

A cluster of cypress is my kinsman to me. The beginning is of the word, in the Word; and the beginning of cypress, that is, of flowering, is in the bud, whence she says: A cluster of cypress — that is, of flowering — is my kinsman to me. The cluster of cypress is not for all, but for those who are worthy of its flower.

Cyprus is an island in which more abundant vineyards grow than elsewhere. Therefore by Cyprus the universal Church is designated, which nourishes many vineyards, since divided into many churches, it produces the wine that gladdens the heart of man. Engaddi is interpreted as "fountain of the kid." Now the kid was anciently sacrificed for sins.

1. "My beloved is to me a cluster of Cyprus in the vineyards of Engaddi" (Song 1:13). If the beloved is in myrrh, how much more in the sweetness of the cluster. Therefore my Lord Jesus, as myrrh to me in death, as a cluster in the resurrection, has tempered himself for me as a most wholesome drink, in tears in due measure.

Look, you are fair, my love; look, you are fair; you have doves’ eyes.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves'. She says thus to the bridegroom: Behold, my kinsman is beautiful — she does not add, "and my love." But he, when he speaks to her, Behold, you are beautiful, adds, "and my love." But why does she not say, "Behold, he is beautiful, and near to me," but only, "Behold, he is beautiful"?

Since the image of a dove is placed before us by God so that we may learn the simplicity favored, let us look diligently at its nature, so that from each one of its examples of innocence we may take the principles of a more correct life. [The dove] is a stranger to malice. May all bitterness, anger and indignation be taken away from us, together with all malice.

"Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold you are beautiful; your eyes are as doves" (Song 1:15). Beautifully, most excellently, from love, the presumption of the bride; from love, the indignation of the bridegroom. The outcome of the matter proves this. For presumption was followed by correction, correction by amendment, amendment by reward.

Look, you are fair, my beloved, yes, pleasant: also our bed is green.

The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.

The beams of our houses are cedars. These are the words of the multitude. And they seem to me to be spoken by the men who are with the bridegroom, of whom the discourse spoke above — houses woven with beams of cedar, and roofed with cypresses. For instead of the thorn there shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle there shall come up the myrtle.

The beams of our houses are of cedar, etc. Indeed, he calls his houses the various assemblies of the faithful throughout the world, from all of which the universal Church consists.

"Our little bed is flowering, the beams of our houses are of cedar, our paneled ceilings are of cypress" (Song 1:16-17). She sings a wedding hymn, describing the couch and the chambers in beautiful speech. She invites the Bridegroom to rest. For this is better: to rest and to be with Christ.

Song of Solomon1