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 thy 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 thy good ointments thy name [is as] ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

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 thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers; we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

"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.

Now, the fourth seal consists in this, that the soul perceives an incomprehensible consolation that grows so much within it that it is unable both to comprehend it and to explain it to others. The Canticle says of this: "Eat, friends; drink!

I [am] black, but comely, O ye 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.

In the Song of Songs the bride cries aloud, "I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem"—"black" in the sense of deceived, besmirched by the stench of wild beasts, and "beautiful" in the sense of awaiting for your arrival from heaven as Lord for the sake of my salvation. He suggested at the same time both the gloom of impiety and the charm given by divine grace.

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 hath 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.

Hence holy Church rightly says of her weakening members: They made me a keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept. For our vineyards are the deeds which we cultivate through the habit of daily labor.

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 thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest [thy flock] to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy 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 to lie down at noon." But another voice, that of Job, says: "Tell me why you judge me like this?" This man does not complain of the judgment, he merely queries its cause, seeking to gain knowledge from his afflictions rather than be destroyed by them.

If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women, go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds tents.

Among the many other remarkable sayings, this one is reported to belong to Chilon alone—one of the seven whom fame among the Greeks celebrates as having been singular in wisdom—in which he says: "Know yourself," or "Come to know yourself." Yet Solomon, whom in our preface we showed to have preceded all of these in time and in wisdom and in the knowledge of things, says this to…

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.

In Which Humility and Patience Are Treated 1. "If you do not know yourself, O beautiful one among women, go forth, and go after the flocks of your companions, and pasture your kids beside the tents of the shepherds" (Song 1:7).

I have compared thee, 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.

Thy cheeks are comely with rows [of jewels], thy neck with chains [of gold].

Your cheeks are as those of a turtledove. He praises her face, and is kindled by the blush of her cheeks. For the beauty of women is said to be greatest in the cheeks. So let us too understand the beauty of the soul to be in its cheeks. But her lips and her tongue let us proclaim to be her understanding. Your neck is as a necklace.

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 for thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

We said above that this little book, arranged in the manner of a drama, is woven together by a change of speakers; and so now these words seem to be spoken to the bride by the friends or companions of the bridegroom, who, according to the mystical understanding — and, as we have already said above — can be understood either as angels, or even as the prophets, or as the patriarc…

Logically they said "golden ornaments" and not gold itself, since the bridegroom's presents are greater, and his servants' do not have equal splendor. Hence we show the divine Gospels greater respect, though we also respect the law and the prophets and the writings of the holy apostles.

2. There follows: "We will make you chains of gold, studded with silver." If he had said, "I will make," in the singular, and not in the plural, "we will make," I would have pronounced absolutely and without doubt that the Bridegroom also spoke this.

While the king [sitteth] at his table, my spikenard sendeth 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 well beloved to me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

A little bundle of stacte — that is, of a drop, or a droplet — is my kinsman to me. A drop of ointment, cassia, galbanum, we read in Exodus, by the Lord's command, compounded into the incense, that is, into the priestly anointing.

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 camphor in the vineyards of En-gedi.

As far as concerns the explanation of the letter itself, there is something ambiguous in what it says: "A cluster of henna is to me as a kinsman"; for a flowering vine is also called henna, since it too bears a certain flowering fruit put forth in the manner of a blossoming grape.

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.

Behold, thou [art] fair, my love; behold, thou [art] fair; thou [hast] 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"?

Behold, you are beautiful, my friend, etc. Behold, you are beautiful in pure works, by which you conduct yourself soberly, justly, and piously in this age. Behold, you are beautiful in the simplicity of heart, because for the sake of the intention of eternity, you persist in good deeds, awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God.

"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.

Behold, thou [art] 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