Catena in Canticum canticorum

For from here, he says, are the springs of the Jordan, over which this mountain lies, divided into two ridges, upon which these names are placed; and the phrase "from lions and leopards" means from diabolical prisons and manifold sins, by which the soul is spotted. And he reminded her of sorrows through these beasts, making the things that gladden more pleasant; and so that, delighting more in the present good things, learning through the comparison what she has exchanged for what, and at the same time by the turning away from the worse she might achieve the unwavering and unswerving in good things. {Of Nilus.} Again someone calls the Bride; but the one who called has fallen silent; whether it is the Bridegroom himself, or the friends of the Bridegroom, they call her either from the earthly region or from the Gentile manner of life; for knowing Lebanon to be a dwelling-place of lions and leopards, they advise her to leave it; and as it seems, having seen her beginning to withdraw and advancing with all eagerness, guessing her progress from her zeal, they say: Truly you will come and pass through; for the beginning of faith, and the zeal in the first steps, signifies the speed of the coming passage, suggesting much hope of arrival at the goal earnestly pursued. You will come, then, from Lebanon, the place of beasts; and you will pass through the beasts themselves unharmed. For beginning to journey from the head of faith, and from the head of Sanir, which is interpreted "way of a lamp," and Hermon, which is translated "cedar" or "dew," reasonably she passes through all things that tempt; and she passes by the ambushes of the opposing powers, illuminated by the way of the lamp.

and making the plots of the schemers downward-sloping, and soothing with dew the toil of the journey; therefore also, having passed by the folds of the lions that plot against the practical life, and the mountains of the leopards that oppose contemplation, she caused astonishment to those who call upon her by her swiftness; and perhaps he calls lions and leopards the former habits of the Gentiles, and mountains their wandering worship of idolatry on the high places; and folds, the law-abiding character of nature, from which, being moved naturally, they recognized the good; for a fold is a courtyard of sheep being pastured, not a den of wild beasts; but lions and leopards are solitary and not gregarious; therefore through these he indicates the nations, pursuing impious worship through error; but perhaps they had a manner of life, if not of rational beings, yet at any rate of sheep, orderly and consistent, not with the conduct of Jews, but with that of Christians; therefore the Bride, having begun to journey from faith toward the Bridegroom, and having journeyed through the things said, presented many with herself to the betrothed, bringing her gifts and dowry to Christ. 9. You have heartened us, my sister, my bride; you have heartened us with one of your eyes, with one ornament of your neck. {Of Cyril.} That is, you have led us into longing for yourself, by one word of confession; which you had, seeing rightly with your inner eyes; for having been subjected by the ornament of your neck, you made the confession. {Of Gregory.} These things are said to her by the friends of the Bridegroom, I mean the angelic Powers:

For since the faculty of sight is twofold, and one part of it sees the truth while the other wanders among vain things, inasmuch as the pure eye of the Bride has been opened only toward the nature of the good, and the other eye lies idle, for this reason the friends bring their praise to one of her eyes, calling her a sister through impassibility of kinship, and Bride through her union with the Word. Since, then, he says, your eye is one in looking toward the One, and your soul is one because it is not divided among various dispositions; and the placing of your neck holds the divine yoke perfectly, having taken it upon itself (for this is the meaning of "an ornament upon your neck," that is, the yoke of the Lord); for this reason we confess that you have won our hearts by your wonders, which means that you have wrought in us a certain soul and mind for the understanding of the light through yourself; for in you we behold the Sun of righteousness as in a mirror; and by the repetition they set forth the credibility of what is said. {Of Nilus.} The Bridegroom says these things in the person of the whole choir, bringing amazement upon all, and the familiarity of the

Of the Bride, saying "My sister, my bride," to him alone and not to us. For even if the angels differ from the soul in essence, they are inferior in dignity to her who has been joined to Christ, and who has been so from the beginning of our own lump of clay; and who has been deemed worthy of the seat above every principality and authority and power; and for this reason she is called the sister of the Bridegroom; and she who became of the same blood as he according to the economy of the flesh, and of the same womb. But he has heartened them by one of his eyes, as one that contemplates divine things. For of the eyes, the left one attends to bodily things, which also heartened the others of the Bridegroom, ordering these things well; but the other gazes upon intelligible things and attends to things to come, which also heartened the others of the Bridegroom, having passed by with circumspection and much vigilance the leopards that ravage contemplation, and having preserved her own beauty; and in one ornament of the Bride's neck they were heartened; which the others have rendered as "In one necklace is your neck." Perhaps, then, in the passage above, saying "Your neck is as necklaces," he was praising the humility that is upon all the virtues; now he is struck with wonder at her for one necklace of the neck, because even having become the bride of the king, she preserves the same disposition of humility. {Of Origen.} The "ornament" is spoken of from being set in and fastened upon the neck of the Bride, etc. 10. How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride! How beautiful are your breasts from wine! And the scent of your garments is above all perfumes.

Of Gregory. The Bridegroom sets his seal upon the Bride's praise spoken by the friends, praising her at the springs of good teachings, which pour forth wine but no longer milk; through this comes gladness to the more perfect hearts. And the fragrance of the virtues, he says, has conquered every aromatic spice of the Law, being compounded with the Gospel commandments. And the Bridegroom's words are like those spoken at the beginning by the Bride to him: "For your breasts are good beyond wine, and the scent of your ointments beyond all spices." For such is the divine work, if we show ourselves like him through our free choice. Therefore now the Bride receives a like answer, having been changed to the better; whence he also calls her sister, because she pours forth wine like him. Of Nilus. He describes the improvement and progress of the Bride's breasts: formerly, when the two twin fawns of a gazelle grazed among the lilies—perhaps the condition of the sheep pastured by the Lord and encamped in a place of green grass; but now, when they have been made beautiful by wine, having come to enjoy the table prepared for rational beings and the cup that makes drunk. For milk and wine are not the same; the one is food for infants, the other for the perfect. Since, then, milk is likened to the foods of the mother, and nourishes those who are nursed with fitting richness, at that time the Bride's breasts are made beautiful by wine, when they teach those instructed in the word a perfect teaching unto spiritual gladness, tuning the senses of those who know by the mystic blood unto the knowledge of what is profitable.

The scent of your garments—the practical virtues of the Bride, giving forth a sweet fragrance through works of virtue; for garments are the ethical virtues, as Paul also says: "Put on goodness, humility." For practice directed toward salvation is more suited to contemplation. XI. Your lips drip a honeycomb, O Bride; honey and milk are under your tongue. {Of Philo.} Honey is the Gospel, milk is the Law. {Of Gregory.} Your heart, he says, has been filled with the honeycombs of every kind of instruction; hence you offer from the good treasure of your heart the honey-sweet drops of your words, so that the word becomes honey mingled together with milk; for you do not provide benefit of a single kind to your hearers, but in a manner suited to the capacity of those who receive it, so as to be fitting both for the more perfect and for those still infants—honey for the more perfect, but milk for those still infants. {Of Nilus.} Since the teaching that exists as a state of habit, beneficial for every condition, is called honey and milk for the Bride, that which is in actual operation is called a honeycomb; for this drips forth to all, being made manifest in the utterance of the word; while that other lies hidden under the tongue, concealed from all the rest except the Bridegroom who shares it; for the quality of the mouth is judged in a kiss, the honey under the tongue being brought to light; the fellowship of another tongue and the disposition of the heart are apprehended by the knowledge of him who tests hidden things; and since "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," one may infer the beauty of the Bride's thoughts from the honeycomb that drips from her lips.

The scent of her garments was a little before above all spices, but now not above frankincense, but as the scent of frankincense—instead of the superlative, it is indicated by a comparative term. Again he compared the virtue of the practical [virtues] to the scent of incense, because it is directed toward God, having called the fragrance of works the scent of frankincense. And the scent of your garments is as the scent of frankincense. {Of Gregory.} That is, you have been adorned with garments breathing forth theology; since the conduct according to virtue is not of one form nor of one manner, but just as in the making of woven fabrics the weaving art makes the garment through many threads, so also in the life of virtue many things must run together, through which the well-ordered life is woven; which the divine Apostle also enumerates: "joy, peace, patience," and the like. For this reason he accepts the adornment of the Bride in her garment, as being likened in scent to frankincense; and he says: that for you, O Bride, the covering of the virtues imitates the divine blessedness, being made like to the unapproachable nature through purity and impassibility; for such is the scent of the garments, as to be similar to frankincense, which is set apart for the honor of God. 12. A garden enclosed, my sister Bride; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed. {Of Apollinaris.} The Bride is in another sense a garden enclosed, because she has more in her thought than what appears. {Of Cyril.} She has been closed to the world, but opened to the heavenly Bridegroom; and the fountain has been sealed by the Holy Spirit with which we are anointed after baptism.

Through these words we learn again how one may become a sister and yokefellow of the Lord. For she becomes a bride by being joined to the Lord, and a sister by working out his will. Let such a one become a flourishing garden, possessing in herself the beauty and fruit of all the plants; let her be put forth by the Spirit, and enclosed against the enemies by the fence of the commandments, so as to give not even one passage against herself to the thief and the beasts. But this garden also has need of a spring, so that its beauty may remain flourishing by the water, being fattened continually. For this reason he joined the spring to the garden in his praises. And this would be the intellectual power of our soul, which gushes and springs up all kinds of thoughts within us. But the spring becomes ours according to the saying, "Let the spring of water be your own"—that is, the movement of our mind, when it is moved toward what is beneficial to us, providing every cooperation for the acquisition of good things, and not pouring itself out toward alien and evil thoughts, from which thorns grow. And since the seal also signifies inviolability, it seems to testify to the Bride the highest virtue: that her mind remains untouched by the enemies, kept in purity and impassibility for its own Master; or else it exhorts her not to be occupied with bodily things, but to take care for the soul through virtue. Often vegetables are preferred to meats, especially when these are [matters] of ecclesiastical condescension, a fitting exhortation for the weak.

The meats are the raw and uncooked fare of heretical teaching. After these things the Bride is a garden of fruits of every kind of virtue; and of these vegetables too she is a garden, even if they are a consolation for the weak, yet they are also set forth for friendship and grace; for it was fitting that the paradise of the Bride should have vegetables too, so that, while infants have milk, and the perfect are fed with bread and wine, and those who revel in words sweeten themselves with honey, only the sick should not be deprived of the fitting delight. And this garden is closed because of those who pass by and because of the boar from the thicket that ravages what is unfenced; and it is a sealed fountain, so that it may not be readily available to the unworthy who attempt to draw from it. For wishing the Bride to be untouchable by the eyes of heretics and opposing powers, he calls her a sealed fountain, signifying by the seal that she is not plotted against. {Of Origen.} Secondly, “a garden enclosed,” etc. 13, 15. “Shoots of a paradise of pomegranates with the fruit of choice trees; cypresses with nards; nard, and crocus, and calamus, and cinnamon, with all the trees of Lebanon; myrrh, aloe, with all the chief perfumes; a fountain of gardens, a well of living water, and rushing from Lebanon.” {Of Gregory.} Observe the ascent; for she was raised so high in her growth toward the greater, that a paradise sprouts from her mouth; for thus the Hebrew has, instead of “Your shoots,” “From your mouth, a paradise of pomegranates.” He says, then, that your word, sent forth through your mouth, is a paradise of pomegranates.

The pomegranates produce a certain abundance of all kinds of fruits; the fruits are henna and nard and the rest. And what is the word, or the word of faith? It becomes a paradise in those who receive it, implanted in their hearts through hearing. He says they are full of pomegranates, since the righteous man bears fruit especially in the bitter circumstances of life, and in them has what is sweet and nourishing, like the pomegranate, which has the edible part inside the sour. For this reason, then, the word sent by the Bride, like a paradise of pomegranates, works in the souls of those who hear, so that we may learn from what is said not to grow soft through some relaxation and luxury in the present life, but to choose the life that has been hardened through self-control. For in this way the fruit of virtue would become inaccessible to thieves, fenced in by the sour enclosure of self-control. And the paradise of the soul must bear every fragrance, through the manifold nature of the aromatics found among the fruits: first, henna with nards, having warmth and fragrance, so that it may become boiling with the Holy Spirit; then crocus, which soothes pains, having a middle measure of both cold and heat—for thus the virtues hold the middle between excess and deficiency—or through this he hints at the word of faith, the confession in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, because of the threefold nature found in these flowers, and the three are one both in good color and in good breath; then reed and cinnamon, the fruits borne from the pomegranates of paradise.

But the reed exceeds so much in fragrance that it is received by the law for the priestly incense; and cinnamon promises a varied activity through some natural power; for when cast into hot places it cools them; the word showing that whenever someone is boiling with desire or set ablaze with anger, one must extinguish the passions by reason; and in another way it is itself also a part of the oil of anointing; and he who has reached this measure of life shows in himself through all things the divine characters; which is what the phrase means, "from all the trees of Lebanon"; for the tree of Lebanon from which frankincense flows is not of one kind, but there is a certain difference among the trees, the form of the aroma changing together with the species of the tree; he, then, who marks out in what he does the beauty of the trees of Lebanon, this man is one in whom the divine form is characterized; but no one becomes a partaker of the divine glory unless he has first been made conformable to the likeness of his death; therefore myrrh and aloe are added, indicating the burial; but first, he says, the myrrh that is unmixed with all huckstering

revealing also the purity of the doctrines; and the spring is ready for drinking to everyone who asks for the word; and the well declares the depth of the riches; and where the spring and the life-giving well are from Lebanon, that is, from God, it draws the stream swiftly to itself. {Of Cyril.} For the virtues are signified through the spices; and the woods of Lebanon, he means the prophets; and through the myrrh and the aloes, that Christ, having been buried, shared with the saints who came before; for having descended into Hades he brought them up. {Of Nilus.} Christ names the bride's gifts a paradise, because she has all things that are honored among men; and this paradise has pomegranates, those who hide the edible fruit of virtue under a more austere life, perhaps those who have chosen the monastic and continent manner; and fruits of nut-trees, those who pride themselves on the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace—having along with the virtuous also the gentle; for those likened to the pomegranate have the unyielding and dry, looking sullen; but those resembling the nut-trees have the affable toward all; for love and joy and peace are the fruit of these, than which nothing is more kindly, receiving those they meet with a cheerful disposition; and it has also henna with spikenards, those who possess the heat and fervor of zeal in the prime of godliness; and spikenard and saffron and calamus and cinnamon, since when combined they make the holy incense according to the law, are those who persevere in prayer; and first the myrs, those who have received the knowledge concerning the Trinity; and myrrh and aloes, those who have put to death their members and been buried with Christ;

A spring of gardens: the word that waters the weaker; and a well of living water: the one who hands over the deeper mysteries, unseen by the many. He called her a spring or a well rushing from Lebanon, because the teachers of the Church take their origin from the Jewish race; for Lebanon signifies these, and Paul shows the rushing of the spring when he addresses the Athenians and checks rivers of words by the proper stream of his word. These things the word called a paradise, being gifts of the Bride; which he brought or sent to himself before the marriage, preserving in this too the dignity of the virginal state; for the sendings signify this: that remaining at home and in the bridal chamber, she modestly brought the gifts through which she was worthy to the Bridegroom. 10. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind; blow upon my garden, and let my spices flow. {Of Gregory.} And the Bride imitates the Bridegroom who was awakened and rebuked the winds, and she does not command them to be temperate for days, but orders them to withdraw and flee, so that the south wind may flow without hindrance, with not even one contrary breath impeding its course. But what would she mean by the north? Either the ruler of the authority of darkness, the worker of the desolation of the intellectual winter, who in Proverbs is called harsh, because he petrifies the naturally tender nature of souls, like water, by freezing and makes it hard. And why is he likened to this name? Because that place is without light and remains forever frozen.

neither lit by the sun's rays nor warmed by them, because the sun makes its motion in the southern region toward the west; this one, then, having risen up against the passions and the power of the adversary with dominion, drives away the cold spirit by the authority of her own rule; and she calls upon the southern and warm one, which he names the south wind; through which the torrent of delight flows, so that by its violent breath, as upon the disciples in the upper room, falling upon the living plants, it might stir the planting of God to the bearing of aromas; and might prepare the fragrant prophecy and the saving doctrines of the faith to flow through the mouth; for such a river of aromas was the great Paul, flowing from the garden of the Church through the Spirit; whose stream was the fragrance of Christ; such another was John, Luke, and the rest. {Of Nilus.} Wishing to display the noble and approved nature of the plants previously mentioned, the Bride calls upon the spirits of the temptations; and she sends away the north wind as defeated; and she calls upon the south wind to contend; or she calls them all at once, confident in the power that is present with her from exercise and the cooperation of God; for otherwise the approved quality of the virtues does not appear, unless a multitude of temptations, assailing it with endurance, brings the things of patience forth in abundance into the open, like a stream, and makes them manifest to all and renders them renowned; after this, then, she invites the Bridegroom to descend into the garden, to receive the scent of the aromas, and to eat the fruit of the trees;

For the true food of the Bridegroom is love, joy, peace; and those who feed the poor prepare food for Christ. But all who overlook the needy are a fruitless and withered fig tree. {Origen.} The Bride seems to rebuke the north wind, etc. CHAPTER 5. 1. Let my beloved come down into his garden and eat the fruit of his choice trees. {Gregory.} With a voice full of boldness, the Bride sets before all things a table—the life that flows from its own source—a garden planted with living trees; and we are the trees, since we too have set before him as food the salvation of our souls, according to the saying, "My food is that I may do the will of my Father"; and our fruit is our free choice. Since it is not possible for us to be taken up to the Most High in any other way, unless the Lord who takes up the meek be called down to what is lower, she says wishfully, "Let him come down," displaying to God the abundance of the choice fruits of virtue. I entered into my garden, my sister Bride; I gathered my myrrh with my spices; I ate my bread; I drank my wine with my milk; eat, my neighbors, and drink and be drunken, my beloved ones. {Gregory.} The saying has now fit as well: "While you are still speaking, behold, I am present." For having come at once into the garden, he was filled with the choice fruits of virtue; and he makes the feast a narrative; and whatever good is from himself, he also prepares the blessed gardens to bear such plants.

For the one who revels in the fragrance, he becomes myrrh with spices, through the deadness of earthly members, providing for the pure and fragrant life of the perfumer, the life blended from the varied and diverse spices of virtue. But for the one seeking more perfect food, he becomes bread, no longer eaten with bitter herbs, but making honey his relish, when in its own season the fruit of virtue sweetens the senses of the soul. And for the one who thirsts, he becomes a mixing bowl full of wine and milk. And we are certainly not unaware how Paul was a myrrh-bearing tree, putting to death his members day by day, and through impassibility spreading a fragrance of life to those being saved. And how does he make bread for God from the living plants of the garden? According to the saying, "I was hungry, and you gave me to eat." And the bread of gladness is beneficence, sweetened by the honey of the commandment. And how again does he pour wine for the fair plants of the garden? To this he says, "I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink," having mixed the wine with milk, with the nourishment of human nature, which is truly pure and simple and childlike and guileless and cleansed from every evil cause. But the mixing of water with wine belongs to hucksters. And what he here commanded his friends in word, this he did in the Gospels through deeds, through that divine eating and drinking. He says therefore to those who have become near through virtue, setting before them the mysteries of the Gospel: "Eat, my neighbors, and drink, and be drunk," saying this of such eating and drinking, by which drunkenness one is transported out of himself toward things more divine.

He calls them brothers, because the one who does his will has been named brother and brother and sister and mother. {Of Nilus.} The Bridegroom heard the entreaty; for such was she who entreated that she could not be disregarded, and he says: I entered into my garden, and the rest. For she entreated him to come down, either out of humility, or rather looking to the worth and the height of the Bridegroom; but he says that he has not come down but entered in, honoring the descent with the name of equality of honor, because of his disposition and love toward her. And she, in her humility, calls her own garden a paradise; for it would not have had fruit trees if it happened to be a garden; for fruit trees belong to a paradise and a garden. But he himself calls it a garden, reasonably, being God, and judging the things that seem great among them to be lowly by his own measure. And it is well that it is not "into your garden" but "into my garden," making her paradise his garden; for human affairs, even if measured by themselves they shine, yet when compared with divine and intelligible things, are dulled. And through the myrrh and the spices he signifies the passion and the death and the resurrection; for the myrrh is the death; and the spices are the energy of the divinity, which worked the fragrance of the resurrection. And the words "I ate bread," and the rest, show the pleasure of the passion and the childlike gentleness, with which he bore the scourges and the mockery when he was made a laughingstock; for he says, "With desire I desired to eat the Passover"; and because of the cross, "I ate bread with my honey," he signifies.

But the striking, the mocking, the being gently struck with a reed, "I drank my wine with my milk; Eat, my neighbors, and the rest"—perhaps he is speaking of the disciples, when he called them to the participation in the mysteries, saying, "Eat my body, and drink my blood." 2. "I sleep, but my heart is awake." {Of Gregory.} Sleep follows drunkenness in sequence, so that through digestion the strength may be distributed to the feasters for good condition; for this reason, after that great banquet, the Bride falls into sleep. But this sleep is strange and alien to natural habit; for when the mind rejoices in the contemplation of the Existent alone, disturbed by none of the senses, the nature of the body is, as it were, relaxed in sleep, all fleshly motion having been put to rest. For since pleasure is twofold for us—the one in the soul through impassibility, the other through impassibility in the body—whichever the will chooses, this holds sway over the other. Therefore the soul, when it rejoices in the contemplation of the truly Existent alone, keeps watch over none of the things that are enacted pleasurably through sense perception; but having put to rest every bodily motion, with naked and pure understanding of divine wakefulness, it receives the manifestation of God. He says that the one who is in bodily temptations "sleeps"; for just as the one who has been plunged into sleep cannot keep his heart awake, so the one who has sunk deep into bodily occupations does not perceive the voice of the Bridegroom. For the voice of God does not reach a soul full of many cares; but she slept in such a way as to perceive the voice of the Bridegroom.

For it reveals to itself the superficial and necessary character of bodily occupation; for the remembrance of God makes one sober, and moderate is the care of necessities. And the Word speaks when some thought falls upon the soul like an uncorrected echo; and he knocks at the door when the perplexity announces its solution; and he enters when the thing questioned is clearly contemplated, and the thought receives the type distinctly. {Of Cyril and Philo.} He says, on the cross, taking up death on behalf of men; and the heart keeps watch, inasmuch as as God he despoiled Hades. The voice of my beloved knocks at the door. {Of Gregory.} She who has been testified to as much as the Word praised in what has gone before, and who has often already known the Bridegroom, is disposed as though he were now appearing to her for the first time. For even if I have known as much as has been comprehended, yet what has not yet been comprehended is infinitely more; for just as if someone should come near a spring, he would marvel at the boundless water, yet would not say that he had seen the whole of the water—for how could he, when it is hidden in the hollows of the earth?—so that even if he remains long by the gushing source, he is always at the beginning of the contemplation of the water; for the water does not cease, ever flowing and ever beginning to gush. Thus he who looks upon that divine and unbounded beauty, since what is found from every side is ever newer

and altogether more paradoxical than what has already been grasped, it marvels at what continually appears before it, yet never ceases from its desire to see, because what is hoped for is altogether more magnificent than what has been seen; whence, even if it has appeared, as though not yet manifested, it announces its manifestation by its own voice. Accordingly, as one who speaks and knocks, it rouses itself to obedience. And having given heed with its ears in stillness, it hears the word that sounded through the voice, when he rose and stood among the disciples with the doors shut. Open to me, my sister, my near one, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. {Of Philo.} To the great Moses God appeared first through light in the bush; then he converses with him through a cloud; then, having become already more exalted, he sees God in the darkness. What we learn through these things is as follows. The first withdrawal from false and erroneous opinions about God is the passage from darkness to light; the closer understanding of hidden things, which leads the soul by the hand through things that appear to the invisible nature, becomes like a kind of cloud, overshadowing all that appears and leading the soul by the hand to look toward what is hidden; and the soul that journeys upward through these things, as far as is attainable by human nature, having left behind, comes to be within the innermost sanctuaries of the knowledge of God, encompassed on every side by the divine darkness, in which, with all that appears and is comprehended left outside, only the invisible and incomprehensible remains for the soul's contemplation, in which God is.

So the Bride too was once black in unenlightened doctrines, but desiring to bring her mouth to the fount of light through the mystical kiss, she becomes beautiful, and she washed away the blackness of ignorance with water. Then, running like a horse and flying like a dove, she first rests with desire in the shadow of the apple, calling the thing that overshadows her an apple instead of a cloud. But now at last she is encompassed by the divine night, in which the Bridegroom comes near but is not seen; yet he gives the soul some perception of his presence. And the Word touches the bodily understanding of the virtuous; for this is the door through which the sought-for one is brought in; but he escapes the understanding that is at the beginning, hidden by the invisibility of his nature. Therefore the truth, standing outside our nature, through knowledge in part, as the Apostle says, in certain conjectures and riddles, knocks at the understanding, saying, Open; and along with the exhortation, suggesting the manner in which the door ought to be opened, as it were offering certain keys—these fair names—by which what is closed is opened; for the very expressions of the names are keys that open up the hidden things. Sister and near and perfect dove: for if you wish, he says, that the door be opened, and the gates of your soul be lifted up so that the King of glory may also enter, you must become my sister in doing my will. And you must also draw near and become close, and possess perfection in the nature of the dove; and this means to be without defect and filled full of every evil—

Of guilelessness] and purity; and having become these things, it will be a gain to you from receiving: the dew from my head, with which I am full, which is healing, according to the Prophet; and the drops of the night; since it is not possible for one who has come within the innermost shrines to encounter some shower of knowledge; but it is a beloved thing if, by certain subtle and faint thoughts, the truth sprinkles knowledge upon him, as the rational drop flows down; for he says that the locks of his head hang down—prophets, apostles, evangelists; who, as far as they had capacity, drawing from the dark and hidden and unseen treasures, become for us rivers full of waters, but in relation to the truth itself they are dewy drops. {Of Nilus.} Dew and drops of the night, perhaps he calls the things coming upon him from Jewish ignorance. For even if

dew is praised in the Scripture, yet with the addition of "from man"; with which the Bridegroom, having filled his own head, seeks to wipe it off when he has come into the house of the Bride; and the house of the Bride is either the governing principle of each of the poems, or the Church herself; but if anyone wishes to see how the Bride wipes off the drops from the head of the Bridegroom from Jewish harm, let him look at the robber, how after the reproaches of the chief priests and scribes he cries out, "Remember me"; for this glory is healing of that blasphemy. {Of Origen.} Necessarily the addition of "to me," etc. 3. I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?

Of Gregory. She rightly heard the one who commanded her to become a sister and a neighbor and perfect and a dove, so that through these things the truth might be settled in the soul. For she did what she heard, having stripped off the leathern tunic which she put on after sin; and having washed away from her feet the earthy matter in which she had been wrapped, having returned to the earth from the way of life in paradise, through these things she opened the entrance to the Word upon the soul. Therefore the one who has stripped off the old man, which is sin and death, and through baptism has removed the veil of the heart, and has shut out the filth of the soul's foundations, opened the entrance to the Word, whom, having come within, he puts on; and Jesus is the garment. And the confession concerning no longer taking back again the tunic that was cast off, that is, not turning back to the former things of the Bride, opens the door to the Bridegroom for the entrance of sanctification; and that she has not even two tunics, but is content with one, according to the law given to the disciples, which, having been renewed through the birth from above, she has put on as a new garment; and that she in no way puts on over it the tunic of sin. For what fellowship has the dark garment with the light-bearing and immaterial? Nor, having washed her feet, does she again admit defilement from the earth through her step. For not even Moses, in setting foot on the holy land, having cast off the leathern deadness of his feet, is recorded to have taken it up again; for neither did he, having elaborately wrought the sacred vesture according to the pattern shown on the mountain, contrive any ornament for his feet; but the nakedness of the priestly foot has become an ornament.

For the priest must always walk upon the holy ground, which it is not lawful to tread upon with dead skins. For this reason the Lord also forbids shoes to the disciples, since he commands them not to go in the way of the Gentiles, but to proceed along the holy way. And you are certainly not ignorant of the holy way, along which the disciples are commanded to run, having learned it from the one who said, "I am the way," which it is not possible to touch without first unloosing the garment of the dead. Since, then, the Bride has come to be in this way, in which the Lord washes the feet of those who walk through it with water, and wipes them with the towel with which he was girded—and the Lord's girding is a purifying power. For this reason, having been cleansed as to her feet, she keeps herself on the royal road, not turning aside to the right or to the left, lest, carried off the road to one side or the other, she defile her foot with the mud. And you surely understand what is signified by these words: that once, through baptism, she has unloosed her shoes (for it is the proper work of the one who baptizes to loose the thongs of the shoes, which John testified he could not do even for the Lord alone; for how could he have loosed them, when he was not bound at all by the thong of sin?), she washed her feet, casting off with her shoes every earthly filth. She therefore keeps her step undefiled on the road that had gone astray. Of Nilus. She does not refuse to open according to the ethical sense, but she considers the toil which she endured in order to put off the garment of worldly care.

and so that the soul may put off the defilement that has accrued to the word from walking upon earthly things; and she shrinks from being defiled again, willing to open, but not consenting to defile the feet that have once withdrawn from the earth. Nevertheless, the delay in opening is not without danger, as what follows makes clear; for even if

the good thing is done, yet since it is done with postponement, it is not free from blame; the judgment reckons the hesitation as condemnation, since he did not act earnestly. 4. My beloved sent his hand from the opening; and my belly was troubled at him. {Of Philo.} He would say "from the opening," since he was saying to Thomas, "Put your finger into the marks of the nails"; fingers full of myrrh; I knew that the body that was buried, the same also rose. 1681 {Of Gregory.} Again the purified soul attains to a higher ascent; no longer does the voice knock at the heart's door, but the divine hand itself steals in to the inner parts; she opens the door, having removed the veil of the heart; the curtain of the flesh has split the doors; the whole gate of the soul was opened, so that the King of glory might enter; but the spaciousness of the soul proved to be a certain small opening, through which not the Bridegroom himself, but his hand barely found room; so that through it he might come to the inner parts, and touch her who longed to see the Bridegroom; or she gained only this much, to know that it was the hand; and let us consider it thus.

The human soul, being a boundary between two natures—of which the one is incorporeal and intellectual, and the other bodily and material and irrational—as soon as it has been cleansed through virtue from its attachment to the coarse and earthly life, and looks up toward what is akin to it and more divine, does not cease searching out and seeking the principle of beings. And examining all things so as to enjoy what it seeks, it makes the limit of its comprehension of God to be the activity that descends even to us, of which we are aware through our life; for example, it sees the beauty of heaven, the variety of the stars, the manifold natures of animals, the forms of plants, and all the rest—not to speak of each in turn—through which the activity of God is shown. Seeing these things, then, through the wonder of things that appear, it reasons in its mind to the one understood through his works; for perhaps in the age to come we shall know the nature of the good in another way, and shall comprehend more clearly the form of incorruptible blessedness; but for now what is beloved to the soul is the activity that is manifest in beings; which is figuratively interpreted as the hand which he sent through the hole; for human poverty could not contain within itself the invisible and incomprehensible nature to receive it; but its whole intellectual power, which is the belly, was stirred, being moved to wonder at the things wrought through the divine hand; the understanding of which, being beyond human power, interprets through itself the incomprehensibility of the nature of the one who works.

For the entire possession of existing things is the work of that hand, according to the saying, "My hand made all these things." If, then, it cannot comprehend the works of that activity, how will it comprehend the nature that transcends them? And perhaps this also indicates that the creative hand of all things, having appeared to us through flesh, produced a trembling and a strange astonishment in souls: how is God in flesh? How is the Word flesh? How is there a birth in virginity? And the rest. For when the Lord appeared on earth and conversed with men, then we came to know the pure and immaterial beauty of the Bridegroom through the hand of his activities, that is, the power of his wonders. These things she suffers because she did not readily obey the word, so that it might be shown that even one precious to God, pursuing ease and reclining, is despised and receives a taste of punishment. For he sent, it says, the hand that would discipline the disobedient, and it set them on fire, so that from the agony the belly was thrown into trembling. Therefore also, more earnestly after the perception of discipline, I arose to open; and because I did this not from free choice but from necessity, my hands dripped myrrh—the dead activity, so to speak; for everything that happens without free choice is dead and devoid of a life-giving will. For it is possible for one who is prospering to despise the commandments, but when he has a taste of discipline, he immediately seeks God. But he who attends not to the things that happen but to the disposition that produces them passed by and turned aside out of regret, being present in intention; therefore he welcomed as all

having gone about it; and because she was left behind, she was wounded by the powers that guard the city, and was stripped of the veil of virginal modesty, which he calls a theristron. 5. I arose to open to my beloved; my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with full myrrh. {Of Gregory.} I received, he says, the power of resurrection by putting to death my members that are on the earth, the putting to death of the members having been worked in me willingly; for my hands dripped myrrh, which are the active movements of the soul, having received the myrrh dripping from themselves and not from elsewhere, but from my own free choice; so that in all virtuous pursuits, which he called fingers, such a disposition is seen to be without deficiency; so as not to have died to licentiousness perhaps, but to live in pride or anger or love of money or some such thing; for one who lives badly in this way cannot show his fingers full of myrrh. For the putting to death of evil is not manifest through all pursuits; for since life in us is twofold, the one coarse and material and heavy, the other intelligible and light, our free choice stands in the middle of both, and in whichever part it comes to be, to that part it gives the victory over the other; and in whichever it lives, it certainly dies to the other. Upon the handles of the lock I opened to my beloved. {Of Gregory.} Having been raised to such greatness, she did not yet know as she ought to know; nor does she reckon that she has grasped it for herself, but still runs toward what lies above, stretching herself out to the things that are before.

For she who has become full of myrrh, indicating to all the pursuits of life the mortification that is toward evil; and the voluntary nature of virtue, because from within she let myrrh drip from her hands; "I touched," she says, "my hands to the latch," that is, her works drew near to the narrow and constricted way, whose latch the word hands over to those according to Peter. She opens for herself, then, the door of the kingdom, both through her hands, which signify works, and through the latch of faith; for by both of these the key of the kingdom of the word is fashioned in us. My beloved passed by; my soul went out at his word. {Gregory.} When she hoped, according to Moses, to see the beloved one knowingly, then the one sought passed beyond her comprehension; and he passed by, not abandoning the soul that follows him, but drawing it on all the more; for the departure from that in which we are becomes an entrance into the good things that lie above. So the soul went out in that departure, having as guide the word that said, "I am the door and the way; and that through me, if anyone enters, he shall pass through and shall go out." {Origen.} When the Bride reached the latch, etc. I sought him, and did not find him; I called him, and he did not answer me. {Origen.} Continually the soul, etc. {Gregory.} When she arose through death, when she was filled with myrrh, when she brought her hands to the latch through her works, and hoped to take in the beloved, then he passes by, and she goes out, no longer remaining in the things in which she was.

For the greatness of the divine nature is not known by being comprehended, but by passing beyond every apprehensive imagination and power; for the soul that has already gone beyond nature, so that it is hindered by none of the customary things in the knowledge of things invisible, neither stops seeking what is not found, nor ceases calling upon the unutterable; for how could that be found which none of the things found makes known? It is not place, not shape, not color, not quantity, not circumscription, but is more exterior than every apprehensive approach. I sought him, then, through the soul's powers of discovery; in reasonings and thoughts, and he was more exterior than all things, eluding the approach of the mind; and I called with all my power, devising voices indicative of the ineffable blessedness; but he was mightier than the indication of the things signified. 7. The watchmen who go about in the city found me; they struck me, they wounded me, the watchmen of the walls took away my veil. {Of Gregory.} These things will perhaps seem to some to be rather the words of one lamenting,

The words are not those of one rejoicing, but rather of one boasting. For if the dangers of Hades had found her, or he says that she had been found by robbers, it would be a grievous thing for her to become the discovery of such as these; but if the guards who encircle the city found her, she is blessed in that finding; for the soul found by the guards—which are ministering spirits who keep watch over the city, that is, the soul, the dwelling-place of God—cannot be stolen by robbers. And the divine rod that works healing through striking is the Spirit, whose fruit is also the discipline of the virtuous conduct that is self-controlled. Since Paul too, boasting in such wounds, said: "I bear in my body the marks of Christ," showing his weakness in every evil; therefore he could also say: "For my power according to Christ is made perfect in weakness"—whether then in virtue, through such a wound, the removal of the veil has come about for her; which would be understood as every wavering and trembling mind, so that the beauty of the soul might be revealed, with the covering no longer darkening it, but it looks clearly toward the truth. But whence comes the veil to her who has already cast off the old garment, from those who watch over the passages of the human soul? Clearly from her progress. For she was purified to such an extent that before this it seemed she had not thus put off the old garment; for what ascends according to God is always before what is coarser. And the veil is a bridal covering, concealing her head and face; for this is also recorded concerning Rebekah.

And what follows from its being taken away, Paul showed when he said: "But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed." And the sheep is a good thing, even under the good shepherd; and the drachma on the lamp, over which all the friends and neighbors rejoice. And one might also say thus, that she who seeks what she has not found and calls upon the ineffable is taught through the guards that she loves the unattainable; through whom she is struck and wounded by the hopelessness of the beloved. But the veil of grief is taken away by learning that she always advances through seeking; and never to cease from the ascent—this is the true enjoyment of the beloved. When, therefore, she had taken away the veil of hopelessness, and saw the boundless and uncircumscribed beauty of the beloved, always found greater in all the eternity of men, she comes to a more vehement longing and makes known to the beloved through the daughters of Jerusalem the disposition of her heart, and says: I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field: if you find my beloved, what will you report to him? That I am wounded with love. {Of Gregory.} That this is not other than what was said in the Gospels—"Do not swear at all," but "Yes, yes," and "No, no"—would be clear from these things; for in another edition it was found: "I adjure you by the gazelles and the deer"; and we are taught through these things in what the strength and power of this world consist; which things have been taken for the confirmation of the truth through an oath. Two things, then, make us belong to God: right faith and a manner of life.

For the gazelle sees without wandering, and the deer is destructive of venomous creatures; the Bride therefore suggests to the maidens purity and truth; for thus the oath that also guarantees the truth confirms for us the unchangeable, in which everyone who swears is praised according to the prophet's voice. For truly the one who in these two things has achieved what is secure in himself—both in the word of faith, when he looks without wandering toward the truth, and in the manner of life, when he is pure from every defilement that comes from wickedness—this one swears to the Lord not to go up to the bed of his couch, not to give sleep to his eyes, until he finds a place for the Lord, having become dwellings for the one who dwells in him. Let us therefore also learn from the bride, if we are children of Jerusalem, how the beloved may be seen; for if we make as our oath both the practical and the contemplative life, we shall see clearly the Bridegroom of love as an archer; who sinks his own arrow into the depths—I mean the communion of the Godhead with the soul, coming about through the sting of faith. {Of Nilus.} She saw her own error, and recognized the indignation of the beloved from her great turning away, and she seeks in whatever way she might be known to him, longing and unable to bear the pain of separation; therefore, taking hold of them, she begs them to intercede with the Bridegroom and to make known her concerns to him; she who a little before was proud in their company because of her rank, saying: The king brought me into his chamber, showing how great is a conscience that has boldness, and how again humility is the removal of boldness.

{From Philo.} The holy Church speaks boldly among her own children, the martyrs, through whom she was wounded; and she says these things to the apostles and prophets. 9. What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fair among women? {From Nilus.} The maidens, having been put under oath, are at a loss as to who and of what sort the beloved might be, since they were sworn by such an oath; hence the Bride, seeing them thus stirred up, describes the one they seek, separating his beauty from the fellowship of others, so that he is not reckoned as one of the many saints, showing the difference between her own beloved and the beloveds of the maidens. {From Cyril.} That is, what has your beloved done, or what do you have from your beloved? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you have thus put us under oath? {From Gregory.} The daughters of Jerusalem who were put under oath inquire what is the character of the Bridegroom, as if they might encounter him and recognize him from the signs that will be given concerning him. Therefore she also delivers a description; not what he was in the beginning—for the ineffable cannot be made manifest by the power of words—but she leads the virgins by the hand toward the appearance through the flesh, just as John also did: "What was from the beginning," he passed over in silence; but "What we have seen and heard, and our hands have handled concerning the Word of life," this he recounted with care. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. {From Philo.} White, because of his sinlessness; ruddy, because of the blood shed for the Church. {From Origen.} Or white, since God is true, and ruddy because of the incarnation.

{From Gregory.} The perfect soul outlines for the virgin souls the distinguishing marks of the one desired and sought, through the things that were revealed to us for salvation; and having desired the whole Church as one body of the Bridegroom, she displays a particular meaning through each of the members in the outline of beauty; through which the beauty of the body as a whole is jointly represented from the parts viewed individually. She begins, then, from the body of the catechesis, just as Matthew also has done. But so that no one, hearing of the generation according to the flesh, might slip down in his mind to the passions of nature, for this reason she says that the one who shared in flesh and blood is white and ruddy, hinting at the nature of the body through both; yet his birth is not of the same manner as common childbirth; for he has as an exception the fact that he was not born from a marriage bed; for this is "born out of wedlock." But from the myriads of those from whom men have come, and into which the nature flows through the birth of those who come after. For in the case of the one who knows no marriage, the name of childbirth cannot be spoken properly; for where conception is without union, and delivery undefiled, and travail without pain, and the bridal chamber is the power of the Most High, overshadowing her virginity like a cloud; and the wedding torch is the illumination of the Holy Spirit; and the couch is impassibility, and the marriage is incorruption; apart from this, generation is without childbirth, just as the constitution is without marriage; for nature did not cooperate with him for his coming to be, but served; yet indeed the generation from water also did not admit the passion of childbirth.

And the regeneration from the dead, and the firstborn status of this divine creation, but in all these things the birth is pure of the childbed. {From Nilus.} Above, he wrote beforehand the members of the Bride, which have been applied to the various orders of the Church; but now he sketches in outline the things of the Bridegroom, which have great security. If, then, God the Word is depicted in these things, they will certainly be divine powers characterized in those members; for the incorporeal is not shaped by a composition of members; but by intelligible activities, as it were a body, the thing that is made, because human sense is not naturally able otherwise to receive the things concerning God. For eyes, what else would one understand of God than the overseeing power? And a belly which he says gives birth, the genuineness of travail? Feet and a conspicuous walk, the providential activity; as in traces clearly seen in the things that providentially happen to each one according to the economy of the superior; similarly in the rest; but if the Lord's man is signified, there would be a head likened to the golden Cephas, which is interpreted "rock," the most eminent of the apostles, Peter; and he prepared the building of the Church to be built on the confession of faith; a belly, Paul, who travails for those being formed in Christ; marble pillars, concerning which Paul says, "Those who seem to be pillars;" and each according to the difference of the other gifts; one holds the place of cheeks producing perfumes, another of lips likened to lilies dripping full myrrh; who advise what is needful and continent to their subjects, and put to death the members that are upon the earth.

And the locks would be those that bear the reproach of Christ's sufferings; and again the eyes are those that keep watch over the gift of baptism, and sit unsleeping upon the fullness of the waters; and they are infant-like, a childlike age. For they have been washed in milk and sit upon the fullness of waters; and they possess the purity of the dove and the guilelessness of the age that is fed on milk. And he is white because of the God Logos who in the beginning is called the light of the world; and ruddy because of the man he took up, who was molded from ruddy earth; and he shows his form, and makes the fragrance of knowledge manifest to the apostles by the marks of the nails and the wound of the spear; and he is choice as the cedar; concerning which things he said: "The righteous shall flourish as the palm tree, he shall be multiplied as the cedar in Lebanon." For he has a throat that is sweetness, not made sweet but making sweet; for it is not made, but is itself a quality; and above all he is wholly desire, not partaking of a state but being himself a state. These things the Bride says, in order to show that she loves him justly, offering as a defense of her passion the beauty of the beloved. 11. His head is fine gold; his locks are firs, black as a raven. {From Gregory.} The head of the body of the Church, Christ, the firstfruits of our whole nature, is the pure gold and unmixed with any evil; for this is the fine gold; and the locks are those once dark as ravens, whose work it is to pluck out the eyes, as the Proverbs say.

These are the firs, having become the tall and heaven-reaching trees, through running up from the earth to the heavenly height, they become an addition of beauty to the divine head of the Bridegroom, having attached themselves to it, and being thus spun around by the Spirit; through which I think the apostles are indicated, some of whom were dark in the things they did—the tax collector, the robber, the persecutor—according to the black and flesh-devouring [nature]; and destructive of the eyes, the ruler of the authority of darkness. {Of Origen.} The locks, because of their density, etc. 12. His eyes are like doves upon the fullness of waters, washed in milk, seated upon the fullness of waters. {Of Gregory.} The eyes would be those who lead the Church; and the praise of such eyes is also their guilelessness, which they achieve, no longer being defiled by the fleshly life, but living and walking in the Spirit. For the spiritual and immaterial life is characterized by the form of the dove, because the Holy Spirit was seen in the form of a dove in the Jordan. It is necessary, therefore, that the one appointed by God as an eye for the body of the Church, if he is to oversee purely and look upon all the defilement from evil

To wash with water; and he says that there are many fullnesses of cleansing waters. For as many as are the virtues, so many are the springs of cleansing waters, always making the eyes purer; for example, a spring of cleansing waters is chastity; another spring is that of humility, truth and righteousness and courage, and the like, which are waters, from one spring indeed, but from different streams gathered into one fullness; through which the cleansing means for the eyes come from all passionate grief. But the eyes are upon the fullnesses of the waters, through sincerity and guilelessness, made like doves; and he says that their milk is a bath, because this alone among moist things is incapable of receiving any image and likeness. For the Church does not sketch in herself anything vain and wandering and without substance contrary to the truth; but what is brought in is law to those who understand, concerning what things it is necessary to keep the eyes. For the constant assiduity of attention to learning, the sitting upon fullnesses of waters, makes clear; according to the likeness of the tree planted by the passages of waters; for thus both the fruit will be put forth in its own season, and the branch will be kept ever-green; such the word wishes those to be who see and observe; whose safety in divine doctrines must be put forward, and covered with humility, as with a garment, the pure and shining thing of the conduct; lest the beam of conceit falling into the pure of the pupil become a hindrance to sight.

If the Church is the body of Christ, each member of it would be his, each order of those in the Church; and first indeed the patriarchs, from whom Christ came according to the flesh, being likened, because of the strength of their faith, to a certain strong gold; for Cephas is interpreted as a rock. Then the apostles, calling them firs and dark ones, signifying their endurance of hardship; and the seven-eyed power of the Holy Spirit overseeing the Church is called his eyes; and the fullnesses of these waters are love; or that he may show the fullness of the bath of regeneration also in the whiteness of evil, the priests sitting upon the fullnesses of the Churches. 13. His cheeks are as bowls of spice, producing perfumes. Following the eyes, the cheeks are praised; whose work is to refine the divine Scripture; through which the strength of the body of the Church is preserved; so that all things are transparent and clear even to infants, and without any deceitful hollow. For this is what the bowl hints at; neither its shape being too deeply sunk, nor bulging out in a straight line; so that it seems neither exactly hollow nor flat. If, then, the bowls of the word are such, they will clearly not be composed of earthy matter, but the nature of that which is above all spices will be from its aroma, just as the Bride says in the prologue. The cheeks of Christ must be understood as those who minister by the word of God and spiritual food, etc. His lips, lilies dropping myrrh.

After the cheeks, the lips are praised, through which the word comes forth perfumed. And by the double example he bears witness to two virtues at once in the word: for the truth of some things is more brilliant and luminous, contemplated in what is said like a lily; and of others, that only the intelligible and immaterial life is shown forth beforehand by the teaching, through the contemplation of intelligible things, the lower life being put to death, the life that is worked out through flesh and blood. For the myrrh that flows from the mouth, and fills the soul that receives it, signifies the mortification of the body. Therefore the perfect and pure eye, the one that makes the cheek a bowl that fountains the myrrh from itself, this one blooms the lilies of the words through the mouth, of those adorned with divine splendor; for thus the word names those who are rich through virtue; from whom comes the drop of myrrh, filling without fail the mind of those who receive it—

which is the contempt of material things, through the desire of the goods that lie above, when they have become inactive and dead. He means the lips that drip myrrh, the lips that confess death. He himself, like a lily, flourishes, but to us he introduces the transfer through death to life. 14. His hands are turned, golden, filled with tharsis. Turned: the hands that have been pierced through; golden: because of sinlessness; filled with the conversion of the nations; for Tharsis is a conversion of joy.

That the grace of the eye is incomplete in the body of the Church when separated from the service of the hands, we have clearly learned from the Apostle, who says: The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. For then especially is the activity of the eyes shown, when works bear witness to the sharpness of sight for the eye, signifying guidance through zeal for what is good. Therefore, for those whose form of the head is praised, through the same things the hands are praised too. And we have understood the head to be Christ, named gold by the Word, because he is outside all sin. So the hands are golden too, through which he shows forth what is pure and sinless, and unmixed with and unreceptive of every evil. And we understand the hand to be, in every way, that which administers the common affairs of the Church into the hands of the commandments; whose praise is to be likened to the nature of the head in purity and sinlessness. The hand becomes pure when, through carving, it scrapes away everything that hinders its beauty: such as people-pleasing, self-love, love of gain, and the like. And the word Tharseis, sometimes taken in a bad sense, as in: He will crush the ships of Tharseis; and sometimes in a blessed and good sense, as in Isaiah [Ezekiel] and in: His form, as the form of Tharseis; he has used it in the signification of the better, the word indicating what is colorless and intelligible and incorporeal.

Then the hands become golden, full of Tarshish, when they have precisely chiseled away from themselves all that is superfluous and bodily by their own choice, and pass over to the divine and intelligible, shaking off all material and heavy attachment to things. His belly is a tablet of ivory, upon a stone of sapphire. {Of Gregory.} The belly is the thinking and reasoning part of the soul, in which the divine oracles are deposited, since it is pure and smooth and gleaming, like the ivory tablet, so that the writing of the divine oracles may be impressed upon it clearly and without confusion. The sapphire, which is like heaven, is a symbol that our heart, having received these teachings, sets its mind on things above, where it stores up its treasure, and there rests its eyes in hope, so as not to grow weary in attending to the divine commandments, since heavenly hope gives rest to the vision of the eyes of the soul, just as they say this stone, by its dark-blue color, gives rest to the weary eye. {Of Origen.} The belly of the Word are those who can contain the mysteries, etc. {Of Cyril.} These might also be the bases; for those who are built up are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. 15. His legs are marble pillars, founded upon golden bases. In sequence after the belly he praises the legs, which he says are marble pillars founded upon golden bases; and the pillars of the Church are, for instance, Peter and John, who are called golden because Christ is their foundation; and marble, which Paul called the ground:

Because of their steadfastness and immovability, and by their radiant life and sound doctrine, they bear the common body of the Church; and to love God with the whole heart and one's neighbor as oneself is, as it were, through marble columns, to bear the common body of the Church. For the one who has been perfected in these two commandments is made a pillar and foundation of the Church; so that by these two achievements the whole body of the Church, as if supported by certain legs of the golden foundation of the faith-based foundation, is kept unswerving and unchangeable; and he who is firm in every good thing produces this in their thoughts. 10. His appearance is like Lebanon, chosen, like cedars; his throat is sweetness, and he is wholly desirable; this is my beloved, and this is my neighbor, daughters of Jerusalem. {Of Gregory.} After the praises in detail, as if summing up the whole beauty of the Bridegroom, she says these things, indicating, as I think, that the praise concerns the visible beauty of the Bridegroom—that visible beauty, I mean, which the Apostle embodies through each of the members who make up the Church. For he says that his one appearance is the myriads of cedars with which Lebanon is everywhere interspersed; indicating by these words that nothing lowly and earthly contributes to the beauty of the body, unless it be something lofty like the cedar and hastening upward by virtue. And Lebanon is a conspicuous and wooded mountain; and since the devil too is often called Lebanon, and the cedars demons, as in the passage:

And the Lord will shatter the cedars of Lebanon. Now the Bride has likened the form of the Bridegroom to the chosen Lebanon, taking the name in a better sense; as in the verse, The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, and like a cedar in Lebanon shall he be multiplied. But why is Lebanon sometimes taken in a good sense together with the cedars, and sometimes in the opposite sense? Because evil naturally stands beside virtue and is made to resemble it; whence also it says, As a chosen Lebanon; and choice surely comes about through the juxtaposition of its opposite; therefore the good is homonymous, both in the case of that which truly is such, and in the case of that which exists but is counterfeited through deceit and seems to be what it is not. The one, then, who does not err in the judgment of the beautiful has chosen the good that is chosen out, instead of the one that is deceived. Since, therefore, the body of Christ is filled up through the individual members, and the many members become one body according to the Apostle, for this reason he called the whole beauty of the Bridegroom the chosen Lebanon, having marked out by the chosen the difference from the rejected; and since the honeycombs of honey are the good words, and the generation of the voice is from the throat, in which the spirit falling in from the windpipe resounds; and through this he seems to indicate the servants of the word, in whom God speaks, pouring forth the honey, that which is smooth, through their own throat; and having characterized the Beloved by the means he could, then he says demonstratively, This is he who, by becoming a brother from Judah, rose for us and came near. 17. Where has your brother gone, you fair among women? Where has your brother looked?

And we will seek him with you. {From Gregory.} First the virgin souls discoursed on what he is, which they were taught by the things he inscribed. Therefore now they inquire where he is, so that having learned where he is, they may worship toward the place where his feet stood; and where he looked, they may station themselves so that his glory may also be seen by them—his appearing being the salvation of those who behold it. She therefore leads them on to the apprehension of the one sought, just as Philip once did to Nathanael: "Come and see"—instead of, See, she points out the place in which the one sought is, and where he looks. {From Nilus.} By expounding the beauty of the Bridegroom she persuaded them, and disposed them as she wished; whence they too have joined their vote to the Bride's love, and by their deeds confirm their longing; and suffering together with the loving woman, and having themselves experienced something of love toward him from the narrative. For such are the things that are truly beautiful: when seen they captivate toward longing, and when heard they draw toward affection; therefore they now hasten to seek him with her. {From Apollinarius.} Everywhere the Bridegroom Word is present; but he performs his activities in relation to what is fitting, as formerly in Israel, and now in the Church the whole presence of the Savior, and especially in the saints. Here, then, through the symbols she shows him dwelling; having hinted at the time in which he said he was struck and wounded and stripped of his garment. Chapter 10.

1. My beloved has gone down to his garden; he shepherds among the gardens into bowls of aromatic spice, to gather lilies. {From Gregory.} This is the significant guidance of the word to the young women, through which they learn both where he is and where he looks; and through these things we learn the gospel mystery. For she calls him "my beloved" because he is the beloved of both the peoples from the Gentiles and those from the Jews; and "he has gone down" refers to the one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers. For he went down from the ineffable blessedness, revealed in the flesh, to make the desert a garden again, adorned with the planting of virtues. For the true husbandman replants his own field—we, the human race. For we are his field; and the bowls of aromatic spice, in the description of beauty, were introduced for the praise of the cheeks; but here the Word indicates that this is the place and dwelling of the Bridegroom, as we learn that the Bridegroom Word does not lodge in a soul that is a desert of virtues; but if anyone becomes a bowl of aromatic spice, growing perfumer's plants, such a one, having become a mixing bowl of wisdom, receives within himself the divine undefiled wine, through which joy comes to the one who receives it. And the Bridegroom's flock grazes not on thorns in the deserts, nor on grassy herbage, but on the aromatics and lilies from the gardens—which are all things that are honorable, all things that are just, all things that are lovely, all things that are of good report; if there is any virtue and if there is any praise—these the good Shepherd gathers for its food.

For the lilies are a riddle of the bright and pure quality of the mind, and the fragrance through the spices means to be estranged from every foul odor of sins. {From Nilus.} How great a jealousy the literal text has for its wording! For it drives away those who wish to seek after him, saying that he has gone away where it is difficult or impossible for them to descend. But the meaning shows that the Bridegroom has gone down into a garden that bears vegetables, which are the food of the weak and the fare of the little-faithful; perhaps he would not have gone down, if the garden happened to be a paradise. For he enters into the more perfect things, as one who walks evenly on level ground among those of equal honor; but he goes down to the inferior things, naming the economy of condescension a "descent." And "to shepherd among the gardens" shows his condescension toward those who are shepherded—those who were unable to advance, through weakness, to the mountains of the natural and ancient easy-going pasture, until the shepherd should go down to them, having come there through love for humanity, where they themselves fell through negligence—shepherding the weaker in the gardens of condescension, wherever he may find lilies beginning to bloom, the flower of trust in God, and casting the care of bodily necessity upon him. And he gathers these, transplanting them into a more suitable place and rank altogether; for he judges the sojourn in gardens suitable for them, lest, while the nation draws them back to the ancient condition, and much fellowship with such people provokes them to a zeal of imitation, they be brought down to the old custom. {From Philo.} He went down to the souls of the righteous in Hades.

For these are bowls of fragrance; for first the patriarchs breathed forth faith in Christ, and after the resurrection, to shepherd the churches in each place; and to gather lilies—the good men, or the word of their confession. 2. I am my beloved's; my beloved is mine, who shepherds among the lilies. {From Gregory.} This is the canon and boundary of perfection according to virtue. For through these things we learn that the purified soul must have nothing except God, nor look to anything else, but so cleanse itself of every material thing and thought as to be wholly and entirely transferred to the intelligible and immaterial, and to render itself the most vivid image of the archetypal beauty. The Bride, then—the deliberate and living mirror—utters this voice: that since with my whole circle I behold the face of my beloved, through the whole of his form the beauty is seen in me; such a one was Paul who said, "For to me to live is Christ." For none of the material and human disciplines lives in him—not grief, not anger, not fear, not cowardice, not vanity, not rashness, not love of glory, nor anything else of the things that stain the soul through some disposition; but he alone is mine, who is none of these things, but rather sanctification and incorruption, and light, and truth, and such things as shepherd a soul, not in meadows or enclosures, but in the splendors of the saints. And just as in the case of a glass vessel, whatever is put into it becomes transparent, so the soul is nourished by the lilies—that is, by the virtues.

Having been filled with these things of good conduct, he makes evident through his life the form of each virtue, displaying it through his character. {Of Nilus.} The phrase has been shaped with zeal; for lest they should think it common to all, and not yet worthy of the love of such things, he assigns it to one alone, to himself alone. But how does he now shepherd among the lilies? Shepherding in gardens previously, before all the shepherded had advanced. Just as "the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord," so also the Bride is for the Lord; and conversely: if there is any beautiful flower in human souls, gathering that as worthy for his own shepherds of pastoral care. {Of Philo.} That is, I give him the works, and he gives me the reward. {Of Apollinaris.} So that no one should think that her garden is separated from the Bridegroom's dwelling there, she shows that she herself is the one pastured by him, and that she herself is the lilies. When she had said these things, the Bridegroom appears, speaking praises of her and his good pleasure in her, according to "I love those who love me." {Of Cyril.} I give him faith, and he gives me the kingdom; and he shepherds in the purity of the Scriptures and of the holy doctrines. 3. You are beautiful, my neighbor, as good pleasure; comely, as Jerusalem; a wonder, as ordered ranks. {Of Gregory.} Having dedicated herself to the beloved, and having received the beauty of the loved one in her own form, of what things is she deemed worthy by him? And what is it that he says? The word shows that through the accomplished ascent the soul is lifted up to that point, so as to incline herself to the wonders of the Master.

For if the one who is in the bosom of the Father became man for the sake of our good pleasure, so that peace might come upon the earth, it is clear that she, having likened her own beauty to his good pleasure and imitating Christ through her right actions, becomes for others what Christ has become for human nature. And she is called Jerusalem, the city of the great God, for a dwelling and a walking-place: having contained the uncontainable, and being adorned with the beauty of the one who dwells in her, and doing all things decently and in order in imitation of the powers above, which have been appointed by God, with no single vice overturning their good order—so that on her own she holds the wonder and the astonishment as things shared. For this is what the amazement means: such a thing as exists among the ordered ranks. {Of Origen.} As much as she draws near to the Bridegroom, etc. 4. Turn your eyes away from me, for they have given me wings. {Of Gregory.} Some say that these things were spoken by the Master to the pure soul, but I think that this was spoken by the Bride. For since ineffably the Scripture has said that there are wings about the divine nature, according to the verse, In the shadow of your wings you will cover me; and, spreading out his wings, he received them; and man came to be according to the image and likeness of God—it follows that the nature of man too is said to be winged, in whom the according-to-the-image was preserved. But wickedness stripped him of such wings—of power, I mean, and blessedness, and incorruption, these being understood. But Christ appeared so that through holiness and righteousness we might again grow wings.

For at the same time God knows us with eyes of loving-kindness, and according to our ancient nature we have taken wing. When, then, your eyes look upon me, they are turned away from the adversary; for they will see nothing in me of the things that oppose the taking up of dove's wings through the

virtues, and flying and coming to rest. 1712 {Of Origen.} The Church, by her beauty, etc. {Of Nilus.} He shows the great boldness of the Bride, from her gazing fearlessly upon the Bridegroom. But if the Word is the Bridegroom, he himself takes wing and rises further to the height of contemplation, going forward whenever he finds a contemplative soul able to follow with the understanding, so to speak, to gaze shamelessly upon all things contemplated. But he exhorts with fatherly care that such an eye should not always be fixed intently; but that sometimes one should turn it away and close it; lest, when the contemplated object has been much winged, it gaze intently toward the ascent together and, desiring things beyond nature, it become dimmer of sight also toward the remaining thoughts. {Of Philo.} That is, let the eyes that have been turned back keep my ways; for this works in me your longing. {Of Cyril.} From those who disobey you turn away your eyes, and incline them to me; for these, he says, stirred up your love. 5. Your hair is like flocks of goats that have come up from Gilead; your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins, and none is barren among them. {Of Gregory.} The hairs of the body alone are devoid of sensation; which Paul said are an ornament to women, adorning the head.

He teaches, then, that those who are seen around the head of the Bride, through whom the Church is glorified, must be superior to the senses, hiding the senses through wisdom, according to Proverbs: "For the wise hide sense"; for whom neither sight is the criterion of the beautiful, nor is the good tested by taste, nor by smell, nor by touch. For having put to death, he says, the senses, they touch through the soul alone, reaching out after the good things perceived by thought; and thus they glorify the Church as a woman, neither puffed up by honors, nor contracted by small-mindedness toward sorrowful things, but in the experience of the hairs feigning insensibility. He has taken the goats as a parable, either because of their naturally shaggy nature, or because the animal, treading upon the heights, does not slip off the rocks—which is fittingly applied to those who successfully traverse the rough road of virtues—or because being taken up in many things of the legal priesthood contributes to the praise of the head; and in Proverbs also, among the four that walk well, the he-goat is numbered, leading the flock. One must say, then, that just as a discovered practice, running through many things in succession, is referred back to the discoverer—as bronze-working to Tubal, and shepherding to Abel, and farming to Cain, and vine-dressing to Noah—so, since Elijah especially led the way in divine zeal, as many as followed in his footsteps after him, imitating his life, have become a flock of the one who led such a life.

These become the glory and praise of the Church, having descended into the adornment of the hairs, from which the sensory life has been separated and estranged; and through these same things he also praises the teeth that nourish the body of the Church, which he wishes to be always clean as from a bath, and to have the hairs without excess as from a fresh shearing; and, in the bearing of the virtues, doubling, to become fathers of a double purity—that which is contemplated according to the soul and that according to the body—and to have nothing barren in the better part. {Of Origen.} These things are said a second time to the Bride, etc. 9. Your lips are like a scarlet cord, and your speech is beautiful; your cheek is like the rind of a pomegranate, apart from your silence. {Of Gregory.} The cord is the name of a measure; it signifies the measured ministry of the word, which the psalmist called the guard and door of enclosure; and the word especially attains its measure when it has been furnished with the blood of the Savior. Therefore the one who has Christ speaking within himself has the geometrical cord upon his body, adorned with the blood of the Redeemer; and he calls the scarlet cord beautiful speech, through which again he signifies what is pure and measured; for that which is precisely beautiful in its own season

Being offered in its prime, it is neither unseasonable nor out of season; and by adorning the apple of the cheek with the husk of the pomegranate, he testifies to a great perfection in good things in the Bride; for he signifies that the treasure has not been prepared for her in something else, but that she herself is a treasure to herself, containing in herself the provision of every good thing. For just as the edible part is contained by the husk of the pomegranate, so it is shown that by the visible beauty of her life the treasure within her is contained. This, then, is the hidden treasure of hopes, the soul's own fruit, held fast by the virtuous life as by a kind of pomegranate husk; and what is outside your silence is of this sort, that the praise is not so much from things that appear as is made known by word, but rather as much as is hidden by silence, escaping the declaration of word. For just as what is outside word is understood as silence, so also what is outside silence you will understand as word. For we are silent about that which we are unable to proclaim through words. He says, then, that those things which can appear by word are beautiful and great—that is what is outside silence; but the things outside word, the things covered by silence, the ineffable and unutterable, are altogether greater and more wonderful than those that are revealed. 7, 8. There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and maidens without number. One is my dove, my perfect one; one is she to her mother; she is chosen to her who bore her. The daughters saw her and will call her blessed; queens and concubines, and they will praise her.

{From Gregory.} This is a doctrine of the more elegant sort in these words; he sets forth philosophy through the praises of the Bride: that things which exist are not created and re-created with the same order and sequence. For when in the beginning creation was brought forth by divine power, in the case of each existing thing the end was joined inseparably to the beginning; for all things that came to be out of non-being into being, perfection shone forth together with the beginning at once; and one of the things created, human nature too, was fashioned together with perfection from its first existence. For man was made in the image and likeness of God, the word showing the highest and most perfect; for what is higher than likeness to God? In the first creation, then, the end appeared inseparably together with the beginning, and the nature began to be from perfection; but when through wickedness it was handed over to death, it does not again recover perfection all at once, but advances toward the greater by a certain way and order, gradually stripping off its attachment to things contrary, scraping away the inborn union with the worse through a more refined manner of life; whence we have learned that there are many mansions with the Father, in proportion to each one's relation to the good and his departure from the worse, the recompense being prepared for all. For one man is at the beginning of a better life, having just now, as it were, swum up from some deep of the life of wickedness toward participation in the truth; for another there has already come, through diligence, an addition of the better; another has been increased further through desire for good things.

But the one who is in the middle of the ascent of lofty things is another, and he has not yet run past. And there are some who have surpassed even these; others have passed by those as well; and others beyond these strain toward the upward course; and in general, according to the varied difference of their choices, God receives each one in his own rank, rendering to each his proper recompense. These things we supposed the discourse to philosophize through the aforementioned utterances, having set forth in what we have said the difference of the souls who look toward the Bridegroom. For some, just now coming out, as it were, from some womb of deception lying in the depths, being newly born, and not yet having received the word distinctly articulated within themselves, behold in an infinite multitude by the more irrational assent of faith—having believed that the word of the mystery is salvific, yet not possessing the truth within themselves established by any knowledge and by the full assurance that comes through reason. These are the ones named maidens, because they still lead a young spiritual age; begotten indeed by the word of faith, but not yet through the fitting growth having become such as to come forth to the prime of marriage, and to reach a perfect man, to the measure of the marriageable age, so as to be able by the fear of the Lord to conceive and to beget children of the Spirit of salvation. Nevertheless even these are among those being saved. But of those who have grown in understanding through the fitting care, and have already left infancy behind, we are taught by the Word a twofold difference. For the souls become consubstantial with the Word, both these and those;

But the erotic ones cleave to him by a certain disposition; and these, having been mingled through the more perfect disposition with the purity of God, are called queens, because of their communion with the kingdom; such was the one of David who said, "But for me, to cleave to God is good;" and the one of Paul: "No one will separate us from the love of Christ." But those who by fear of punishment flee adulterous experiences, remaining themselves also in incorruption and sanctification, but being disciplined by fear rather than by longing, these are named concubines by the word; for not yet is any of them a mother of a king, and able to be a partaker of the dignity; because they have not taken up the masterless and self-ruling character of virtuous thought; but the difference in number of the distinction of the two orders seems to me to have this meaning. {Of Gregory.} There are six commandments through which the kingdom is named for those on the right. Let us reckon each of these, that the master's talent is; it is fitting that it be multiplied tenfold by the faithful servant through his labor. If, then, through these six commandments communion with the kingdom comes to the soul, and the perfection of the work in each is to multiply the commandment tenfold, just as that good servant says, "Behold, your one talent has made ten talents," we find from what follows the one queen broadened into sixty; the one received into communion of the kingdom through the tenfold multiplication of the sixty commandments; so that the one is many, having been divided by the manifold character of the commandments, and having been formed individually in each of the right actions.

Correspondingly, we say that through the eighty the mystery of the eighth is also indicated; looking to this, those who are trained by fear are kept away from communion with evils. For so we have learned in the psalmody, in which the eighth is placed first through the inscription. For the voices of those being scourged, bending the hearing to oil through fear of the things hoped for, say plainly to the judge—the one who looks to the eighth: "O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath; have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak." There will therefore be, also in this matter, in proportion to the commandment, the increase to tenfold, there having become eighty concubines, holding the second rank after the queen; who approach the good by servile fear and not by bridal love. Except if love casts out fear completely, and fear, being transformed, becomes love, then the saved one is found to be a unity, in the coalescence with the only good; all things having been united to one another through the perfection according to the dove; so that, as he says in the Gospels, "they may be one, as we are one." And the unifying bond of this unity is the Holy Spirit. Therefore the one who has run up from infant to perfect man through growth, and has reached the measure of the spiritual stature, and from slave and concubine has received the worth of the royal, and has become receptive of the glory of the Spirit through good disposition and purity—this one is the perfect dove. And he says that his mother is that dove which flew down from heaven at the Jordan.

For in the child, the nature of the one who begot it is entirely observed. This soul the maidens will call blessed; this soul the concubines and queens praise. For the course toward such blessedness is common to all souls in every rank. And it is nature for all to strain their desire toward what is blessed and praiseworthy, so that if the daughters call the dove blessed, they surely desire to become doves themselves; and to be praised by the concubines and queens is a proof that they too have zeal toward the one who is praised, until, when all who look toward the same goal of desire have become one, and not even one trace of evil is left in anyone, God becomes all in all in those who through unity are mingled in the communion of the good. {Of Nilus.} Sixty queens: perhaps he means those in Judaism. For they were once a royal priesthood and a holy nation. And eighty concubines: those numbered by the decade of eight on account of the mystery of the resurrection, but signified by the name of concubines because they do not have a genuine union with him—the heresies. And maidens: those whom he did not deem worthy of number—the nations alienated from God and strangers to the covenants of the father. For he who numbers the multitude of the stars did not fail to number them because of their multitude, but because they were unworthy of number. For he deems worthy of numbering as many as have an order that is reasonable and trustworthy.

He calls the Church one dove, which because it has slept among the lots has become a perfect dove, having its wings silvered over and its back in the greenness of gold; because of the perfection of its disposition in virtue it has been made like the perfect Father in the heavens, and is chosen by its mother, the wisdom that bore it in the doctrines of truth, which now the king's daughters and concubines saw but did not understand, nor comprehend the mystery dispensed concerning it; but they will praise it in the time of recompense, when the union with Christ is attained. For the one belongs to the past; but the other—they will call it blessed and praise it—belongs to the future. {Of Philo.} Or, the sixty queens are the souls from the twelve tribes together with the five pure senses. And the dove is the guileless Church of Christ; and it is one with its mother, the heavenly wisdom, which is chosen in the flesh of Christ, in its being born again; which the daughters will call blessed: "For many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it." {Of Apollinaris.} And otherwise: its most perfect state is made clear in its intimacy with God, when the perfect Church is compared both with the most illustrious of the former calling and with those now second after it. And the calling of the former people is worldly, and paired with the six, the world-begotten number; but this one is governing and set for kingship.

The royal dignity is preserved for the Israelite race by Christ according to the prophecies, which promise the throne of David and Christ as the one who sets it right, according to what is in the Gospels: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And the number eighty shows the things of the New Testament. {Of Isidore.} What is this, "There are sixty queens," and the rest? Hear: let the blameless and virgin Church, which holds the first place in right faith concerning the divine, have this, and let she be called a perfect dove, surpassing the worth of all the orders. But if it must also be understood in relation to actions, let these things too be said: "There are sixty queens"—the souls that do well for the sake of the kingdom; and "eighty concubines"—those who abstain from evil out of fear of punishment; and "young women without number"—those who are temperate for certain worldly reasons and pursue what is just; through whom they do what is due neither out of longing for the kingdom nor out of fear of judgment, but so that they may not be deprived of wealth or glory or something else. One is the perfect dove—the one that does the good, the assembly of the highest saints, the one that does what is due neither for reward, nor for punishment, nor for any worldly reason, but because it is dear to God. {Of Origen.} The young women who have no number, etc. Therefore be the cause of the exultation; therefore be the cause of his running to you; for he wishes you

to greet beforehand, she wishes to anticipate. 9. Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, choice as the sun, awesome as ordered hosts? Understand that the Bride has withdrawn from the Bridegroom, out of reverence for the many praises; and the Bridegroom, setting her alongside the souls of the others who have come near, marvels at the perfection of her who is absent, in that the daughters who behold her beauty call her blessed; and the concubines and queens praise her as a daughter; and in these things let the Bride appear as though on a stage, most radiant; and to the others let the Bridegroom speak the things set before us concerning her. For the soul that comes forth from darkness is first likened to the dawn, because it is illumined at the very beginning of days; but having looked forth from the world and the things in it, it becomes like the choice moon—that is, the full moon—having in itself no unilluminated part of the Sun of righteousness. But since the moon is appointed for the beginnings of the night, yet the things of the blameless and spotless Church do not stand still, according to the example of the moon; for this reason, according to what is in Isaiah, the moon shall be as the sun; and its light is so astounding that those of lower rank are amazed; the multitude of the contemplations in it and of the works that come from these is able to equal the whole multitude of those ordered in the universe. And perhaps, from having understood the order in the words and having taken up the account of all things, the types that arise in it make it to be like the powers ordered in the universe.

Of Nilus. The friends of the Bridegroom, struck with wonder at her heavenly citizenship, were amazed, and they acknowledge their astonishment, seeing the light of her deeds shining before men; so that doing all things decently and in order, she is ordered in her disposition, having nothing disorderly or confused. And she is fair as the moon, and choice as the sun; since she enlightens both the things of night and of day, adapting herself fittingly to each disposition of those who are benefited; and as the dawn she looks forth from her own state in condescension; not showing her whole self to those unable to see the whole, but looking forth in part according to the proportion of the power of those who see; and looking forth as the dawn, not as midday nor as the light of day; on the one hand because they are still without taste of the enjoyment, though able straightway to partake of the sun's ray; and on the other because the murky state has passed, needing the early and gentler light; so that the eye that is in darkness, being flooded by the sudden splendor of the sun's ray, might not be harmed. Of Apollinarius. And according to different powers, she is likened to different things; for she has the gentleness of the moon, and the purity of the sun. Of Philo. For since she appeared for a little while to death as the moon, and is renewed by the resurrection as the sun through the brightness of virtue, she is worthy of wonder, as having become a companion of angels. 10, 11. I went down into a garden of nuts to see among the offspring of the brook; to see if the vine had blossomed, if the pomegranates had blossomed. There I will give my breasts to you; my soul did not know.

He set me as chariots of Aminadab. {Of Origen.} According to a certain pattern, the righteous, etc. {Of Nilus.} The Bride relates how, having gone down into a garden of nuts to those being disciplined for sins, not with any ordinary rod, but with a nut-bearing one, having much bitterness and toil, she saw the fruit of the discipline, to see what kind of produce they cultivate. Those left in the winter-torrent of temptations either bear the terrors of discipline thankfully, or are impatient and return the fruits of blasphemy to the one who disciplines medicinally and not punitively; to see whether the vine has blossomed, or the pomegranate; those who from great achievements through a little slackness have easily been caught by sin; and whether these have blossomed who have passed by the irresistible water of the torrent, not swept away toward a blasphemous thought. Then she says, There I will give my breasts to you; those who still have the milk of infancy, so that they may be improved by the wine of your teaching. And since

she was improved swiftly, wishing to show the speed of the change: My soul did not know, she says, how I became chariots of Aminadab, which is interpreted as ruler of my people. For when the childish state had been dissolved and passed away, she became a vehicle of the ruler of my people, who is Christ; running thereafter the wagon-road and horse-road of truth, marked by the chariot-tracks with the symbols of good conduct, and leaving footprints for those who travel through life, desiring a life fit for the worship of God. {Of Philo.} He says that the Synagogue was called a garden of nuts by the Bridegroom; where the nut-bearing rod of Aaron is.

And "I went down in the time of the passion," to see whether the vine of the Jews had blossomed, whether the pomegranates had blossomed—the disciplines brought upon it in various ways, because of the outward astringency and the inward peaceful and ordered fruit. {Of the same.} Then the Bride says, "There I will give my breasts to you"—the two Testaments, fulfilled in deed and word, I will bring before you. "My soul did not know"—in ignorance, he says, I was formerly, until the good pleasure of the Father set me as chariots. For thus Aminadab is interpreted; for Habakkuk says, "For you will mount upon your horses, and your horsemanship is salvation." 12. "Return, return, the Shulammite; return, return, and we will look upon you." CHAPTER 7. 1. "What will you look upon in the Shulammite?" She who comes as companies of camps; for she has come up from the bath, like the angelic orders. {Of Philo.} Another writing has Odolomitis, that is, the heavenly one; and we will look upon Christ who says, "I will dwell in them, and walk among them." {Of Origen.} Aquila and the fifth edition, etc. "How beautiful are your steps in your sandals, daughter of Aminadab?" He receives the Bride's advancements, which he calls steps; and by sandals he means the royal decrees; and he called the steps descents, as also the Apostle [says], helps, governings; and condescending to those of lower rank, he says that her steps are shod, appearing to them in a more bodily manner. And Aminadab is interpreted as ruler, that is, leader, or one made willing; whose daughter is the Bride. And the ruler would be he who says, "Hear, daughter"; and the same one is made willing; for all things are willing to God.

Of Nilus. They remind her of the gain that came from her condescension toward those who needed her; at the same time they also hint at the hesitation when she said, "I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?" Her steps would not have been made beautiful in sandals, unless she had loosed that untimely hesitation, which she held on the pretext of a useful consideration, and had gone outside her own condition for the benefit of those in need. For what is said to her is as follows: Since, he says, standing in a holy place, and having taken off your sandal for the help of those who need you, you again put it on, consenting to defile your pure feet; and now you return, appearing to stoop down to those who are advancing; for this reason your steps have been made beautiful, as of one who leads those who proclaim peace. 15. The rhythms of your thighs are like pendants, the work of a craftsman's hands; your navel is a turned bowl, not lacking mixed drink; your belly is a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies; your two breasts are like two twin fawns of a gazelle; your neck is like a tower of ivory; your eyes are like pools in Heshbon, at the gates of the daughter of many; your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward the face of Damascus; your head upon you is like Carmel, and the braid of your head is like purple, a king bound in the running streams. Of Philo. He calls the rhythms of the thighs the well-ordered movement of those who are advancing; and they are like pendants, the work of a craftsman's hands; for she did not associate with those who were advancing with a mind elated by pride, but with a humble one, and one compounded after the manner of a pendant; and because she did this knowledgeably, it is said to be the work of a craftsman's hands.

And the rational faculty, always filled with perfect thoughts well-blended, is directed toward the aptitude of those who learn. And every thought that is debased and shameful—the navel is carved, not lacking in blending. And the belly that receives divine foods, possessing the flourishing beauty of nourishment, is called a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. And perhaps even the untroubled mind, asking for the royal form, is a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. And the neck, when it was praised for humility, was called a necklace; but when it was inaccessible to enemies, a tower of David; but now it is called a tower of ivory, being smooth and having not even one handhold, and inaccessible to all birds and reptiles, accessible to the sun alone. For such is the pious mind, not bent by passions, not yielding to heretical doctrines, but devoted to Christ alone. And the contemplative faculty, improved by much learning, is compared to the floods of the pious, which pour out the water of virtuous reasonings. For Essebon is interpreted as reasonings in the gates of the daughter of many. For as many prophets and apostles as there are, of so many is the Bride the daughter. And his nose is like the tower of Lebanon, looking toward the face of Damascus, which is interpreted as drinking blood. Therefore the one who is both lofty in conduct and has set foot upon awakened doctrines, and foreknows the assaults of the passions and the attacks of the opposing powers, and easily perceives their foul odor, is the nose of the Bride; he himself looks toward the face of Damascus, and guards against the attack as the head of the serpent.

He compared the head to Carmel, since Christ is the head of the Church. And Carmel was a dwelling-place of the prophets who bore witness concerning the head, and by the braiding of the royal words binding the one who hastens to run past; for when someone, mocking the sufferings of Christ, runs past the doctrine as foolish and worthy of mockery, then, by whatever prophetic utterance he finds each thing that he has not suffered testified, as if bound with a cord, he abides in the divine word, not having the rank of a private man, but of a king who has obtained an eternal kingdom of the heavens and of the unravaged city, the Jerusalem above. And the words of Christ, teaching heavenly things, bind the one who runs past as if with a braid. {Of Origen.} In many places Scripture places the thighs in Genesis, etc. {Of Cyril.} And Christ names the Creator a craftsman; for as he became obedient, so the Church. {Of Philo.} And it makes clear the ordered and fitted and indissoluble nature of virginity, in which the craftsman wrought the temple for himself. {Of Cyril.} And he speaks also of her chastity and of the submission of the soul, this soul being subjected to faith, and of the body to chastity. {Of Origen.} And to the navel, the mixing-bowl, wisdom summons, saying, etc. {Of Cyril.} And he makes clear also her priesthood, saying: Not lacking in mixture, that is, the blood of Christ; for this is in the hands of the priests. {Of Philo.} But also the gathering of the multitude, which comes from concord, is fenced about with lilies—the fragrant oracles of God.

{Of Origen.} And the lilies would be the flowers of the grace of God, which he gathered from the midst of the life of thorns. {Of Cyril.} And her neck, he says, means the deacons of Christ, who for Christ's sake bear the head of the Church; for they bear his holy body with a pure conscience, confessing his mysteries; therefore he has called it ivory, such as Paul says deacons are: "Reverent, not given to much wine." {Of Origen.} And they were called towers, etc. {Of Philo.} But also that her understanding, he says, has been filled with pious reasonings; for Essebon is interpreted as reasonings. And he likens the spiritual eyes to pools; for rivers gush forth from the belly of those who receive the word. {Of Origen.} And he who has a pure breath, etc. 9, 7. How beautiful you have become and how sweet, love, in your delights! In this your greatness you have been likened to the palm tree, and your breasts to the clusters of grapes. {Of Philo.} And the braiding of the head signifies the many-flowered multitude of the Church, woven by love into the adornment of the Bride. And the braiding is called as it were purple, because of the

...that the multitude had been dipped in the blood of Christ; and that this, as it were, had been wrapped about as a royal garment—that is, the adornment of the multitude, dyed in the holy blood, so that by victory he triumphed, having stripped off the principalities. {Of Cyril.} Or otherwise, he says that the bond of the love of the peoples is led into a royal priesthood. {Of Origen.} Because the Bridegroom says these things, marveling at her change for the better, etc. {Of Nilus.} Perhaps a name is assigned to him—love—saying that she is made beautiful in her luxuries. For luxury in the divine words both shows the beauty more brightly and makes the fellowship sweeter; and perhaps he marvels at her blessed beauty; and in her luxuries, he says, love is increased. And through what follows he makes clear the height of the virtues established in her by bodily words; and necessarily her breasts also are likened to clusters of grapes, bound together by the love according to God; meanwhile he says that the breasts have changed from milky richness into honeyed pleasure. For a little later he will bear witness to something greater of her—for those who have advanced from this state to the greater. {Of Cyril.} Or also "in your luxury, in your love," because some even of the righteous are so regarded; and the breasts are likened to clusters of grapes—to those who have the spiritual gladness. {Of Origen.} That is, he says, your thoughts are both food and drink, and in no way unripe. {Of Philo.} Or they are likened to the clusters of palms for their fragrance and abundance. 8, 9. Then I will go up in the palm tree; I will take hold of its heights.

And your breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of your nose as apples; and your throat as good wine, going to my beloved in uprightness, speaking through my lips, teeth. {Of Philo.} Understood from the person of the Bridegroom, it declares: that if the Lord grasps the righteous, their heights remain unshaken; and as clusters pressed pour out, as it were, gladness, so in afflictions the righteous gladden Christ; and her nose, having become the Apostle, is a sweet-smelling odor to Christ as an apple, providing food and drink of the mysteries of Christ. {Of Origen.} Having been likened to a palm, etc. Since the Bridegroom said questioningly: why have you become beautiful and why have you become sweet, and your stature has been likened to the palm, she states the reason why she has stretched herself out toward the height: since, she says, you the Bridegroom are a palm, and I too have been planted beside you the palm, ascending by your height, I am reasonably exalted, desiring to draw near to your height, that I may grasp your height and become an imitator of you, which you are by the impassibility of your nature; for this reason you descended that I might ascend and see your breasts, as clusters of the true vine, which, if crushed, give drink of gladness to those who have their senses exercised; for they have reached this from infancy, advancing little by little, and have perceived the smell of your nostrils as of apples, understanding the fragrance of the divinity in the man; which the song of the Old and New Scripture sends up, hidden, through the nose. And your throat, he says, as good wine: the word that guides to you those who have revolted from you.

Sufficient in lips and teeth, providing sufficiency not only in taste but also in use; for the lips signify taste, and the teeth the abundant enjoyment. But if the Bridegroom says these things to the Bride, most of them have been spoken similarly; but the phrase "I said, I will go up," and what follows, is of this sort: as the Lord Christ conquering all human zeal by his graces—not for the sake of conquering, but for the sake of touching or grasping; and to go up again and look over and surpass is understood in terms of height. For however far human power may be stretched, striving to be saved by requitals, by the great gift, and by labors to repay with things accomplished the graces previously bestowed, it will be utterly defeated, conquered by the surpassing benefactions of God. 10. I am my beloved's; his turning is toward me. {Of Nilus.} In the third place, then, she says the same thing, adding "his turning is toward me"; instead of: since I have dedicated myself to him, I am persuaded that even if he is drawn aside a little to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he will turn back to me. {Of Cyril.} Or: since I bring the confession, "his turning is toward me"—either at the second coming, or also from the people of the Jews. {Of Philo.} Or he calls the world a field, and the Churches villages, and the fruitful souls vineyards; and "let us rise early" means let us drive away ignorance; and that the vine blossoms means the preaching, and the "cyprus" means those made white in baptism; and toward the Churches or the souls of the faithful—even if she appears confident for fruit-bearing, she does not grant herself the right to judge.

{Origen.} The word has been fulfilled, that nowhere will he find rest of every kind, wherever he turns himself, as with me. 11, 12. Come, my brother, let us go out into the field; let us lodge in the villages; let us rise early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has blossomed, if the blossom has appeared, if the pomegranates have blossomed. {Origen.} The Bride entreats concerning the lesser things, etc. {Nilus.} From the bodily hour he depicts the spiritual: the field and the villages and the early-morning going out to the vineyards, which she proposes to the Bridegroom. The field, then, he calls the world; villages, however, can be said to be the Churches and the souls capable of receiving the word; for these are called vines, and the pomegranates blossoming are the various virtues of this soul, which through afflictions become the wine of the vine; and those which secure hope through endurance are pomegranates. There again he promises to give the breasts, which will be changed to perfection, and from milkiness to wine-richness; he says also that the mandrakes have given forth their fragrance; perhaps those who from imitation of Christ breathe the sweet savor of good works; for the mandrake imitates the shape and the fragrance of the apple. Such was Paul, as a mandrake, in both respects imitating Christ the apple. You might say also that those who have risen with Christ are mandrakes, from the root being manlike, through which is signified the state of death; and the fruits being at the doors, reasonably and consequently she proclaims the good news, saying that she has kept new things alongside old; for truly at the doors and near at hand are the good things of the fruits of the gospel way of life.

She says therefore, "In addition to the guard of the new commandments, I have also kept the old commandments. There I will give my breasts to you." For to the faithful the depths of the two Testaments are revealed; she promises therefore to dedicate the meanings in them to the Bridegroom. 13. The mandrakes gave a fragrance. The mandrakes beneath the earth have roots shaped like heaven. Those therefore who have put themselves to death for Christ gave the sweet fragrance of good works; or those dead who perceive the presence of Christ have given the fragrance of the resurrection. And at our doors are all the choice fruits; new beside old, my brother, I have kept for you. She speaks of those already bearing fruit at the doors; and she indicates those flourishing under the Old and the New. {Philo.} That is, he says, the virtues and vices lie in our senses; and that the New Testament seals the Old. CHAPTER 8. 1. Who will give you, my brother, as one nursing at my mother's breasts? Of the Jerusalem above, she says, of which the one lying on earth is a symbol, flowing with milk and honey, in which she wishes to feast with the Bridegroom; and milk now means the guileless and delicate food. {Cyril.} The food of the Bride is therefore sanctified, when Christ feasts with her; that is, the Church prays that the visit of the Savior to Judea may come to pass, by the providence of him who gives him to men, so that she may nurse the God-bearer. {Philo.} For Christ, being formed in those newly born by the Spirit, nurses wisdom through them. {Nil.} The Bride seems to desire his coming in the flesh.

In which, condescending because of his human affection, he will be easy for her to grasp, and having been found outside his own proper state, while remaining what he was, he will establish her with boldness, to enjoy genuine words that stir a divine pleasure. For in these kisses he is not despised; they have praise, not condemnation. But she will receive him, since his own people did not receive him; and she will bring him into the house of her mother and into the inner chamber of her who conceived her—that is, of human wisdom. For it was necessary that he, having become man, share all things with her, and give back the things of grace, and receive the things of nature. For entering into the house of her mother signifies the assumption of human passions without sin; and "I will receive" signifies the eagerness of faith and the clear-sightedness of the pure contemplation of the mystery. And as it were perfumed oil and the juice of pomegranates, he calls the natural and ethical words of those outside, which do not have their fragrance from nature, but are prepared by artificial compounding; from which he promises to give her drink in the manner of perfumers, the sweetness having been taken on by human inventions. For the wine of the Bridegroom has its gladness by natural use and not brought in from outside. 2. Having found him outside, I will kiss you; and indeed they will not despise me; I will receive you; I will bring you into the house of my mother, and into the inner chamber of her who conceived me; I will give you drink from the perfumed wine, from the juice of my pomegranates. {Of Origen.} For finding him having gone out from the height above, she embraced him. {Of Cyril.} That is, outside Jerusalem, where he was crucified.

Of Philo. But the phrase, They shall not despise me, refers to those who know the blamelessness of spiritual friendship; or that I shall no longer be, as before, easily captured by enemies. But I shall bring him into the house of my mother, that is, the earth and the flesh that comes from it; and her storehouse is Hades, where the souls of the saints were laid away. And the spiced wine is the cup mixed with the Spirit, which he drinks through those who believe. 3. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. Of Cyril. Or he speaks of the burial which Joseph and Nicodemus brought about; and he calls the saints pomegranates. Or the spiced wine is a word of spiritual gladness, seasoned from all kinds of thoughts in the divine Scriptures; and from the streams of pomegranates, of deeds that are ordered and fulfilled in their proper time. The law supports the ruling faculty, but the Gospel is comprehensive of the whole; or the left hand is the first coming, and the right hand the second; or the left hand is the present age, which, taking us up for the age to come, leads us into the dwellings above. 4. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, why would you stir up and awaken love until it wishes? Of Origen. Now for the second time he has adjured, and so on. He adjures the souls of the saints to intercede on behalf of sinners, until God takes us up. 5. Who is this who comes up, made white, leaning upon her brother? The saints say this, marveling at the purification of the Bride.

Of Nileus. Those of the synagogue are struck with amazement, seeing her ascending from the bridal bath, comparing her present whiteness with her former blackness; but they marvel all the more that she ascends while being firmly supported upon her beloved. For truly her course becomes without stumbling, and the progress of a soul that uses reason as its guide is led by the hand. The ascent of the Bride is foretold to the blessed mansions, since she has wholly put off the darkness of wickedness and taken up the brightness of virtue, following the Word; whence the powers above marvel at so great a transformation of human beings. Under the apple tree I awakened you. This plant, being smooth and pleasant in smell and sight and food and touch, is beautiful; so then, one well nourished through the senses might be called an apple; beside this apple tree the Jerusalem above travails and brings forth the children of freedom; therefore Joel says: "The pomegranate and the palm and the apple and all the trees of the wood shall give their fruit." Of Philo. The apple, having awakened you under the mystical table, I have placed you; for it produces food and drink. We called the apple the economy, since the divinity is encompassed by the humanity; under which he awakened the Bride, either sleeping or sitting, from the

having roused her mind from earthly things to heavenly ones. And there, he says, she was in travail and was born of her mother, under the apple tree, clearly indicating the regeneration through baptism; and he calls the Spirit the mother, who gives birth to those who are baptized. But as for her being in travail twice, I think one travail is said to be that by which the image is impressed upon the soul born to such a birth through the word of teaching; and the other is that by which, through good conduct, the likeness is formed in her. For "mother" indicates the relation, and "she who gave birth" makes clear the activity of the relation. There your mother was in travail with you; there she who bore you was in travail with you. The flesh of Christ, in the pangs of the cross, gave birth to the Church, by the blood and water that flowed from it. 5. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy hard as Hades. {Of Origen.} The Bridegroom exhorts her, etc. {Of Nileus.} The soul beloved from baptism, Christ wishes to seal as his own both in her thoughts and in her deeds, and to have her keep the memory of him alone and of nothing else, declaring the fervor of his love and the hardness and burning heat of his jealousy. For, he says, I love intensely while being intensely loved, and I am jealous more intensely while being more intensely sought; for my jealousy is hotter than fire and harder than Hades; and love is stronger than death, having the flames of fire for its impulses. 7. Its flashes are flashes of fire; coals of fire, its flames; many waters will not be able to quench love.

And rivers shall not overwhelm her. Her buildings are of the most subtle and purest of all elements, so that just as God makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire—such as he who appeared to Moses from the bush in a flame of fire—so in his love he will make a flame of fire, in likeness to his own ministers; and his saints will partake of his own divinity, inasmuch as he is a consuming fire; for thus all things will be consumed for them. Or also the winged creatures of the Church, the New and the Old; and here tongues of fire, there a bush of fire. {Of Cyril.} The walls, he says, of the Church are fire. And otherwise: according to the saying, "I will be to her a wall of fire round about, says the Lord"; therefore temptations shall not overwhelm the flames of love. Such also is the saying, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" {Of Nilus.} The love which the Lord has toward us, nothing is able to quench it, neither much water of the opposing power, nor rivers of temptations borne along with a seething stream. Therefore even if one gives his whole life in love, he will be counted as nothing, since they are unable to show anything worthy of the Master's love. Again, since our God is a consuming fire, and love is also according to God, love is a consuming fire; whose impulses are also flames of fire; the power of which those who are boiling in spirit perceive. And water now means the energies opposed to those who have received it; for it endures all things, and never fails. And concerning the rivers that do not overwhelm it, it is said, "For I am persuaded that neither death," and the rest.

If a man should give all his life in love, they will utterly despise it. Who else are these but those who are strangers to love? At any rate, Paul, who gave himself over to love, says: "Being reviled, we bless; being slandered, we entreat," and what follows. And every life—more simply, when someone has forsaken it in order to gain Christ and follow him perfectly; that is, the things he provides to the poor; but more deeply, the whole rational life—which the one who has put away the things of a child, doing all things in love, dedicates as his life; or, since nothing among men is done that is worthy of love, even if someone should spend his whole life in love, he will be despised as having done nothing worthy. 8. Our sister is little, and she has no breasts. The maidens, displaying the bride's eagerness and her inner disposition, magnify her zeal in word; but not knowing her condition, and thinking that she does not yet have the hour for union with a man, they are at a loss as to what should be done; and while the bridegroom presses his haste for the marriage, they see also what they supposed to be the bride's infancy; and they say such things to one another: None of the things the bride lacks depends on our zeal and cooperation, but to add to her an advance of stature is not in our power. For if she were a wall lacking battlements, nothing would prevent us from surpassing what is needed by our zeal, and setting silver battlements on the wall instead of stone; for the lavishness of our eagerness would become a proof, and our care a testimony beyond dispute through our disposition.

To add perfection to infancy, and to arouse to full size breasts that nature has not yet moved to this, is beyond human power. For they did not know its hidden perfection, being young women and attending to the sequence of nature. For the condition of a soul escapes every human eye, especially in those who know how to conceal their good deeds. {Of Philo.} This is directed at those who have faith but not yet knowledge of the two covenants, because they are newly formed and cannot yet feed others. {Of Origen.} That the soul of man is small, etc. 9. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build upon her battlements of silver; and if she is a door, we will adorn her with a plank of cedar. When the words of the betrothal are ratified, they wish to supply to the sister what is lacking in her for perfection. For if, they say, the Church is a wall, as a pillar and ground of the truth, let us fill up in her the rational perfections—which they have also called battlements; and a door of firmness, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; and as on a door, they say, also a plank, shaped for the perfection of doors; and the cedar plank signifies the incorruptible covering of the Spirit, for this binds together human weakness. The saints, then, ask concerning the newly illumined, and they receive an answer. If she has become a solid rock and firm in faith, let us set before her the divine oracles.

But if she is a door easily turned, and she has believed from the synagogue, let us sketch for her the incorruptible way of life of the patriarchs, and let us enclose her with the battlements of towers. 10. I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers; I was in their eyes as one finding peace. You think that I have no breasts, and so on; but I, perceiving the great grace of the Bridegroom toward me and my betrothal, came to need greatness, procuring it also for others for safety and for abundance of contemplations, so as to be likened to twin towers—these indicating the account concerning sensible things and the knowledge concerning intelligible things. And since I sought the one spoken of and pursued her, such was I in the eyes of the Bridegroom; having learned this also from the Spirit, that those who rightly sought him found peace, which is Christ. This resolves the doubt, not enduring to be thought to fall short unawares. He says, you reasonably overlook the advantages pertaining to the soul; but I have been perfected in the eyes of the Bridegroom; for if I am in his eyes finding peace, and those who rightly seek him find peace. I am a wall hard to overcome, for the sake of which peace I do not fear an assault of war; and having heard myself called both a wall and a door, I accepted the one; but at being called a door I declined through silence, reserving such an appellation for the Bridegroom; for he alone is the entrance of the Father's knowledge. 11. Solomon had a vineyard in Baalamon; he gave his vineyard to those who keep it; a man shall bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.

Of Nilus. The vineyard also became a horn for the beloved, that is, Christ. And it is in Beelamon, that is, in multitudes, and the vineyard in multitudes is the all-fruitful assembly of the Church. He therefore gave this vineyard to those who keep it, to the leaders of the Church, whom he also called farmers and innkeepers. Whoever then is found among these as a man will bear fruit for him a thousand pieces of silver, the perfect progress of those subject to him in the fruit-bearing of godliness. Of Cyril. To the spiritual Solomon a vineyard became; and he means the Church; and “in Beelamon” is interpreted as “among those who have believed.” And who have believed, if not those who received his commandments? Christ is the one called Solomon, who dissolved the middle wall of the partition, making peace in his flesh, putting an end to enmity. Let no one therefore seek outside Beelamon, that is, outside the one having a multitude of gathering, the fruit-bearing vineyard of the Word and Christ, gathered in the name of Jesus Christ; which he also handed over to be guarded, so that the boar from the thicket might not harm it, nor the wild solitary beast devour it, nor those who pass along the road strip it; and such is the vineyard, so as to bear its fruit, by a man who has brought to naught the things of the infant; and to be worthy of a thousand pieces of silver. For of a precious and greatly worthy and wondrous word, which is called silver, the vineyard is a worthy fruit; and the number of a thousand has a kinship to the unit, for which reason it has also been taken up. And the guardians of the vineyard are the angels. 12. My vineyard is mine, before me; the thousand belong to Solomon, and the two hundred to those who keep its fruit.

These things, whether they belong to the Church or to the soul of the bride of the Word, are understood in either case as a fruitful vineyard; and wine that gladdens the heart of man; and indeed also of the Savior, who is truly peaceable. So then in Judges the vine says to the trees: Having left my wine, the gladness of God and of men, shall I go to rule over the trees? It follows, then, that Christ also receives from the fruit of such a vineyard—this is made clear by the words, The thousand of Solomon. It is likely also that the guardian angels partake of the vineyard of the bride, whenever she is present, through the words, And the two hundred to those who keep its fruit; for is it not only one who plants, but also one who keeps a vineyard, and will not eat its fruit? The doctrines concerning God, then, are the thousand, which are akin to the monad, dedicated to Solomon; while those concerning matter and things perceptible to the senses belong to the two hundred who minister in matter, which have an affinity to the dyad; concerning which is the saying, For the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it; for vanity is matter and bodily things. And the fruits of the vineyard, from which the thousand and the two hundred are given, are the psalms for the winepresses, when the fruits of the vineyard, being pressed out, shall make the God who gladdens both God and men, and those who keep the wine. Of Apollinaris. In the beginning, then, they said: Our vineyards are in bloom; but at the end of the book he brought in the perfect fruit; and to the king of the earth great honor from the wine, and to the keepers; when the Master is glorified at his coming, as Paul says:

When he comes to be glorified in his saints"; and again the keeper says of the vineyard: "We are a boast unto the day of Christ." But since the whole is accomplished by the grace of Christ, the perfection belongs more to him; yet much also belongs to the servants, inasmuch as he spoke in parables concerning the one who doubled the mina and the one who multiplied it fivefold—those who, having been set over cities, are counted in by their manifold increase. And in general Matthew says: "Over all that he has, he will appoint the good and faithful servant as steward"; but if there is no difference between the two, the thousand is distributed among the servants, because they receive the Lord's things at two hundred each, divided five ways; because the Lord also likens the five virgins to those of the saints who will go out to meet him. Mine, then, is the consecrated vineyard, and its fruitfulness is shared equally among the perfect, according to my participation, into five ranks: apostles, prophets, teachers, those being taught, martyrs—even if the same are both branches and vinedressers and overseers; for the same are indicated in many ways. The voice of the true Solomon is the whole matter of the guarding of the vineyard, testifying to himself. For knowing the things of men concerning him, he secures what is slippery with respect to conceit; especially

of those who lead, easily puffed up by the dignity of their office, so as not to arrogate to themselves, through vanity and folly, the excellences that belong to God, inscribing the guarding of the vineyard to their own zeal. For since, he says, my vineyard is before me, and my eyes continually look upon it, for this reason the zeal of those who keep it is also strong; and the plotters flee my name, shuddering as they fix their gaze intently on the vineyard. And by the phrase "two hundred to those who keep," he says that they do not share the vineyard, but receive greater recompense than what they brought. 13, 14. "O you who sit in the gardens, companions attend to your voice; let me hear it; flee, my beloved, and be like the gazelle, or the fawn of the deer upon the mountains of spices." It is the voice of one calling, the phrase "O you who sit in the gardens," and signifying the idleness of the one who sits. For what is said is of this sort: The one who sits in gardens, he says, and is weak, lingering over food, over vegetables, does not guard the vineyard; for companions are those who attend to this one, who themselves also stand at all times with intense zeal, and guard not gardens or vegetables, but the perfect fruit of the vineyard. For sitting indicates the negligence of the guard; and the garden signifies the weakness of those who are guarded. Perhaps also because the guard sits, those who are guarded have become a garden. And the phrase "Let me hear your voice" is spoken by the Bridegroom to the Bride, wishing to know from her voice the disposition of the soul, whether it can also know the mysteries of the ascension, having learned them beforehand through Scriptural prophecies.

Therefore she answers readily, saying: "Flee, and what follows." For first you were made like these living creatures upon the mountains of Bethel, having become man, leaping upon the mountains of the house of God. Second, you were made like the very souls in Hades, descending to proclaim the freedom that comes from there; now upon the mountains of the valleys, since it is time for your magnificence to be raised above the heavens, and to sit at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Flee and be made like them again upon the mountains of spices; the mountains of spices, he means the saints who are in the Jerusalem above, who possess through their being in safety a steadfast fragrance of their good deeds, which they acquired in this life by fighting against the passions and striving for the calling above. And having been in three regions—the earthly, the subterranean, the heavenly—he is likened to a gazelle and a young deer, dwelling upon the mountains, among the saints in each region, so that every knee should bow to him, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth. {Of Philo.} For the Lord sits upon the Churches, overseeing these things; and the ministers subject to the high priest attend to the Church, teaching it; then the Lord and the Church say to every believer: "Flee, my brother's child"; for the man according to God sees keenly and flees from sin; and the mountains of spices are, perhaps, Joseph exalted in chastity, and David, to whom one must flee. Flee, then, from earthly and worldly things to virtuous men; guided by these, you will become a partaker of the kingdom of heaven.

Of Cyril. He who sits in the gardens oversees the Churches, but the companions attend and do not judge, for the Son does all judgment. And the Bride desires to hear, "Enter into the joy of your Lord"; and she asks him also to cast out the wicked, saying, "Flee," and to come upon the saints. Of Origen. The Bride saw the Bridegroom, etc. By her voice she urges him to prepare what is worthy of his hearing, and the last things from the Bride, namely "Flee," so as to follow, and she who is able for the same because of perfection. And "Flee" indicated the sudden ascent, and the withdrawal into the boundless, calling them mountains; to which hinds and gazelles flee and become uncatchable by the eyes of the pursuers, the spices revealing the fragrant and pure nature of heavenly things.