In Cantica Canticorum Salomonis Explicatio Mystica

S. JUSTUS OF URGELL, MYSTICAL EXPLANATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS OF SOLOMON.

CHAPTER ONE. — No. 1. Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. This is the voice of the Church coming to Christ for a kiss; desiring that the offense which men had contracted by sinning against God be dissolved, and longing to find the peace in which, while we were enemies to God the Father, we are reconciled through his own Son; for which reason the prophet says to God: Give us your peace, O Lord, and you have restored all things to us (Isa. 26). In the Gospel too (Luke 15) the father kissed the son returning from a far country. For then in a manner he gave a kiss to those coming to him, when he willed his only Son to be born in man, through whom he also granted that we cleave to him in the bond of peace. Finally the angels also, at the birth of Christ, cried out with harmonious voice: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2), for this reason, because by saying such things they plainly taught that he who is our peace was indeed [given] to us.

No. 2. Because your breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the best ointments. By the breasts of Christ we not unfittingly understand the apostles and evangelists; for through them we are nourished in faith and refreshed with spiritual food. And for this reason they are proved better than wine, because the gospel doctrine is discerned to be more excellent than the law once given. For there was the figure, here the truth; there the austerity, as it were, of wine showed that only the neighbor was to be loved and the enemy hated; here the sweetness of grace admonishes that prayer is to be made for enemies and that those who hate us are to be loved. He also declares that the very breasts of Christ, that is, the apostles, are fragrant with the best ointments, because they shone with such great virtues and such great miracles that the odor of their righteousness, spread far and wide, then delighted those who beheld them, and even to this day refreshes all who hear them, as one of them proclaims, saying: But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ Jesus, and manifests the odor of his knowledge in every place for us (1 Cor. 2).

No. 3. Your name is ointment poured out, therefore the maidens have loved you. Him whom God anointed, that is, Christ, with the oil of gladness above his fellows (Ps. 44). His name also, as it were, is ointment poured out; for all who are called Christians from Christ and are anointed with the chrism, and are baptized in his name and filled with the Holy Spirit, so that the ointment which descends from the head onto the beard of Aaron (Ps. 132); which declares him true, perfect, and most strong; that is, the Holy Spirit, who was poured out from God upon Christ, descends also onto the hem of his garment, and fills the whole Church even to the end; which, by cleaving to him, is without doubt his garment. For in the transfiguration of his face it shone like the sun, as we read in the Gospel, and his garments became white as snow (Matt. 17; Luke 9), which no fuller on earth could make such. For none of the teachers ever led his disciples to such brightness as he did; or makes those who believe in him clean from stains, white like snow. Therefore the maidens, whether the young or the incorrupt souls of the Church, have loved him; who also, filled with fragrant ointment, say with the Apostle: The love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Rom. 5).

4. Draw me after you, we will run in the fragrance of your ointments. The Lord says in the Gospel: No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6). For he is drawn to Christ who believes in Christ; but those run after him who imitate him, or who by his gift advance in following him.

5. The king brought me into his storerooms. Christ brought the Church into his storerooms when he revealed to her the hidden mysteries of the Scriptures, as the Apostle says, that he might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of his grace in his goodness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2). Or then the saints are led wholly into Christ's storerooms, when at the end it shall be said to them: Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Matt. 25).

6. We will exult and rejoice in you, mindful of your breasts above wine. The saints exult and rejoice in the Lord when they remember how they were nourished with spiritual milk through the breasts of Christ, that is, the teachings of the apostles. And when they behold this teaching of Christ as clearer than the precepts of the old law, contemplating Christ in it or from it, they understand those to whom he himself says in the Gospel: Blessed are your eyes which see, and your ears which hear; amen I say to you, many prophets and kings sought to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it (Matt. 13; Luke 10).

7. The upright love you. For the crooked cannot love righteousness; for those are upright and love God who are not held captive by the love of a creature, but, as befits the upright, excelling in a precious gift, they have clung to God, the author of all things, with the most fervent love. But those also are shown to love God rightly who, placed not only in his benefits but also in his scourges, give thanks alike, as he also said: I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be in my mouth (Psalm 33): that is, both when I receive joy from a gift taken up, and when I receive pain (when he himself corrects me). As another also, shaken by a most violent passion, rotten in the flesh but sincere in heart, spoke: If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure evil things? The Lord gave, the Lord took away; as it pleased the Lord, so it was done; blessed be the name, etc.

8. I am black but beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem, like the tents of Cedar. Black by the confession of sins, beautiful by the grace of the sacrament, daughter of Jerusalem. For from that Church of the firstfruits, which first believed in Jerusalem, was born through the Gospel she who is above, or certainly, as the Apostle says: That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother (Galatians 4). Rightly, because she likens herself to the tents of Cedar; which is interpreted, of darkness; to whose children the Apostle says: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Ephesians 5).

She can also be called black when she is handed over to sufferings, reproaches, insults, and contempt. Consider her black and beautiful: in Paul: In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are perplexed, but not forsaken; we are cast down, but we do not perish (II Cor. IV). Like the tents of Cedar; we have been made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all; and like the skin of Solomon, always carrying about the mortification of Jesus Christ in our flesh, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

9. Do not consider me that I am dark, because the sun has discolored me. That is: do not despise me when I am set in persecution; for I have endured the heat of tribulations, and I have, as it were, lost the beauty of temporal delight: for through many tribulations I must enter into the kingdom of God (Act. XIV). For in those things I am among those of whom it is written: Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted: and you indeed shall have sorrow, but the world shall rejoice, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy (Matth. V; Joan. XVI).

By a nod. 10. The sons of my mother fought against me. That is, the sons of the Synagogue, who stoned the martyr Stephen as he taught and rebuked them: And there arose a great persecution in the Church which was at Jerusalem, and all the brothers were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria (Acts 8). Or those also fought against the Church who persecuted Paul as he preached among the Gentiles through individual cities. Likewise also those who thought that the burdens of the law should be imposed on those who had believed from among the Gentiles, which blessed James with the other apostles decreed should be healthfully removed (Acts 15). For those also who persuaded the Galatians who believed in Christ to be circumcised, disturbing the evangelical tradition, are shown to have fought against the Church, of whom the apostle Paul says: For neither do those who are circumcised keep the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may glory in your flesh (Galatians 6). Concerning them he also said: Would that those who disturb you were cut off (Ibid.).

11. They set me as a keeper in the vineyards. These vineyards too are those of the Synagogue: for Saul had received authority and letters from the chief priests, to hand over into custody, to be punished, whatever men and women he found believing in Christ (Acts 9 and 22); so that while he perpetrated these things, he was as it were keeping the vineyard of the Synagogue. And there follows: My vineyard I have not kept. For when Saul had become Paul, a preacher instead of a persecutor, while he preached the word of God to the Jews who contradicted it and it was utterly rejected, he said to those same unbelievers: It was indeed necessary that the word of God be preached to you, but since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of so great a salvation, we turn to the Gentiles, for so the Lord commanded us through Scripture: I have given you as a light to the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts 13; Isa. 49). Or, as he himself wrote to the Galatians: You have heard of my manner of life in Judaism, that I persecuted the Church of God and fought against it, and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers (Gal. 1). And again: But the things that were gain to me, these I counted as loss (Phil. 3), as if saying under a figure: They set me as a keeper in the vineyards, for my own vineyard I have not kept.

12. Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture, where you lie down at midday. We read in the Gospel: If they say, Behold, here is Christ, behold, there, do not go out. For here and there, it is known, there are pastures; but Christ, lying down in the Catholic Church as at midday, has flooded the whole world with his brightness, and rests in those who are fervent in spirit, and from that charity by which he illuminates the whole world he daily feeds the peoples who believe in him.

13. Lest I begin to wander among the flocks of your companions: that is, if in that brightness in which the whole company of your faithful consists I fail to recognize you dwelling there, through the flocks of companions, that is, through the congregations of heretics, I shall begin to stray. For heretics may in some part be called companions of Christ, because they profess his birth, passion, and resurrection; but because the Apostle says of them: Having a form of godliness but denying its power, we are shown to be not companions but adversaries.

Numbers 14. If you do not know yourself, O most beautiful among women, go out and go after the footsteps. It is the voice of Christ to the Church: If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women; if you do not understand that you are she to whom it is said in the psalm: Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, because the king has desired your beauty (Psalm 44). For you alone have received the comeliness of the incorruptible sacrament. And well does he say, among women, that is, glorious among heresies; for fittingly they are called by the name of women, because they have lost the virginity that is in Christ. Therefore do not wander astray, seeking me in any way elsewhere outside yourself; for in you, where until now you were not seeking me, I rest as at midday. Now understand where I am pasturing and guiding, and seek me yourself, lest in the night, as it were, the pretense of any persons lead you away; because only in you does sure sincerity endure while I reign in you; know that I am in those to whom after my resurrection I truly promised: Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age (Matthew 28). But if in some way you waver through doubt of certain of my promises, and you recognize neither my presence nor your own beauty: go out, and go after the footsteps of your flocks. For deservedly will she go after the footsteps of the flocks, because she has abandoned the presence of the shepherd.

And feed your kids beside the tents of the shepherds: pleasing unjust men by the traditions or conventicles of heretics. For by these rebukes they are to be reproved repeatedly, who do not recognize Christ in the catholic Church, or that they themselves are the catholic Church.

For 15. To my company in the chariots of Pharaoh. The prophet Habakkuk says: Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord, or was your fury with the rivers, or your indignation with the sea, you who ascend upon your horses, and your chariots are salvation (Hab. 3)? Which horses we understand as the apostles and evangelists. Therefore Christ speaks to the Church: Then I compared you to my company in the chariots of Pharaoh, when I converted the wise of the world to be called to my faith, so that, setting aside the swelling of the world, they may advance by running under me (who am true salvation); and by carrying me about in pious preachings, they may make me manifest to the eyes of the faith of believers. And just as the prince of this world, who has now been cast out, used false philosophers as though bright chariots for destruction, so I, with my wisdom filling the apostles, will instruct believers for salvation.

Num. 16. Your cheeks are beautiful like the turtledove's. He praised chastity as the companion of modesty. For the kind of turtledoves is said, when their bodily mate is lost, to go about solitary, nor to seek carnal union any further. And so the bride of Christ has surpassing beauty, whenever she keeps chastity with modesty.

Num. 17. Your neck like necklaces. On the neck are set those who cease not to meditate on the law of God by day and by night, and who also, like clean animals, give back saving doctrine by continually ruminating it. These, because they are the distinguished ornaments of the Church, are described as the bride's necklaces.

Num. 18. We will make you chains of gold. This is the voice of the teachers, who then arrange the ornaments of the Church, mingled with gold and silver, when they set forth spiritual understandings with the splendor of eloquence. But the chains, flowing down from the head, are customarily fitted to adorn the neck; and therefore those teachings are distinguished which, proceeding from the head, that is, from Christ, minister in such a spiritual office as to teach that our neck is to be subjected to the yoke of Christ, so that to such men it is said by the Apostle: Not high-minded (Rom. 11), etc.

19. While the king was at his table, the Gospels tell (Mark 14; John 12) that two days before the Passover, while the Lord was reclining at table, a woman having an alabaster jar of precious spikenard ointment poured it over his head, and here the prophecy says: While the king was at his table, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance. Therefore both this and that are known to have been said or done figuratively, because when our King was in his resting place (either on the cross, where with bowed head he gave up his spirit, or in the tomb, where laid in the body he rested), the Church anointed him with the fragrant ointment of pious confession, so that she might not cease to proclaim that he suffered willingly and rose from the dead on the third day by his own power, for the salvation of believers.

20. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved. The kind of myrrh is recognized as suited for embalming the bodies of the dead. So the bundle of myrrh is Christ who suffered and died and was buried. He shall abide between my breasts. Those who are proven to be the breasts of the Church are the learned, overflowing with spiritual milk, who nourish the peoples newborn in faith, who never cease in every way to proclaim the Lord's death, as it has been commanded, until he comes.

20. My beloved is a cluster of Cyprus. The cluster in Cyprus is Christ hung upon the wood of the cross, which kind of wood is always fragrant and incorrupt; for we mark the sign of the cross with the fragrance of chrism on the forehead. Well then does she say: A cluster of Cyprus, my beloved is to me, because the sweetness of this cluster was granted not to those who crucified him, but to those who have believed in the crucified one. In the vineyards of Engaddi; in the peoples of the Synagogue, where the Lord's passion was accomplished. Engaddi is interpreted as the eye of my temptation. Read the Gospel, and you will find that the Pharisees and Sadducees intended nothing else by their questionings than to tempt the Lord in each particular and to find grounds for accusing him, with whom he himself says: Why do you tempt me, hypocrites (Matt. 22)? But so great a good of Christ's passion was accomplished indeed for them, but stands as granted to us who have believed.

22. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Christ proclaims the Church, whom he made golden by the kiss of his peace, beautiful twice over, whom the Apostle taught to be holy in body and spirit (1 Cor. 7), adding, your eyes are doves'. Nothing adorns the face in the body more than the arrangement of the eyes, through which we fittingly understand the holy apostles, who were also able to foresee future things; designating whose privileges the blessed Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: You are the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12).

And in another place: Some indeed God placed in the Church first apostles (Eph. 4), etc. Now when he says, your eyes are as of doves, he plainly shows them to be the apostles themselves, to whom it was commanded that they be both wise as serpents and simple as doves (Matt. 10): by the likeness of this bird he shows that the same men were also filled with the Holy Spirit.

Num. 23. Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved. Christ, whom the Church at this place recalls as beautiful and comely, the Psalmist thus declares, saying: You are beautiful in form above the sons of men, grace is poured out on your lips (Ps. 44). But this beauty of yours is from this, that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word; and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1). Adding moreover, our bed is flowery, he shows the Lord's own body, in which the Godhead rested, pure and fragrant, born of the Virgin.

Num. 24. The tents of our houses. Those houses in which Christ dwells are the saints, as the prophet says: For I will dwell in them (Lev. 26; 2 Cor. 6). But the roofs and paneled ceilings of these houses are of cedar and cypress, which are known to be incorruptible and fragrant; this shows the love of God and of neighbor, which has been granted from above through the Holy Spirit (that is, that the saints may be so within themselves).

CAP. II. — Num. 25. I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. I am the glory of the world, from the virginity of the humble.

Num. 26. As the lily among thorns. To man when he was driven out of Paradise it is said: Cursed is the earth in your works; it shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you (Gen. 3); and that earth is understood to be human flesh, which is accustomed to produce the stings of lusts and the thorns of desires. Wherefore what he says: As the lily in the midst of thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters: he calls the daughters of heresies, who, as it were reborn through baptism, are called by the name of daughters; but, compared to thorns, they are shown to be corrupting and corruptible. This corruption the Church does not know, for she, compared to the purity of lilies, breathes fragrance and shines brightly near and far.

27. As the apple tree among the trees of the woods. The Psalmist says: For who in the clouds shall be equal to the Lord, or who shall be like God among the sons of God (Ps. 88)? There it is by adoption, here it is by nature that he is a son; and therefore no one among the saints, or in the whole race of men, however much he may be reckoned under the name of son, is found to be like Christ, who by the sweetness and refreshment of his fruit surpasses the elect in incomparable beauty.

28. Under his shadow whom I had desired. With the same one protecting me whom I always sought to be present, I remained humble and secure.

29. And his fruit is sweet to my throat. The Lord says in the Gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing (John 15). Although, then, the fruit arises on the branch, it is nevertheless to be attributed to the vine, from whose root the branch has come forth with its fruit; and therefore whatever the righteous bring forth as fruit in good works is all to be referred to Christ. In whose fruits an incomparable sweetness is perceived. Those saints, too, who by the figure of the throat were accustomed to ruminate what they had tasted, that is, to meditate on the things of Christ, themselves also receive exceeding sweetness from his fruit.

28. He brought me into the wine cellar. About to ascend into the heavens, the Lord instructed the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, saying to them: Rejoice, because I have overcome the world, and I go to the Father; but you sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. And as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount which is called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, having the distance of a sabbath journey. And when they had entered the upper room, they went up where Peter and John were staying. And after a few things: These all were gathered together with one accord with the women, and with Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers; and the crowd of people was about one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:12) established in this place; and when the Holy Spirit came upon them they were filled; and when they had begun to speak in various tongues, they were thought by the people to be full of new wine. Then therefore the Church is brought into the wine cellar, when this apostolic congregation, remaining in unity, is filled with the Holy Spirit, as also the Apostle says: In one Spirit we have all been baptized, whether slaves or free, and we have all drunk in one Spirit (1 Cor. 12). But because charity is poured into the heart of the pious through the Holy Spirit, he immediately added: He set charity in order in me. For this is ordered charity, that a man love his neighbor as himself; and indeed so love God, that he even deny himself for his sake.

But even in evil people, what is loved is not the iniquity that they themselves commit, but the creature in which the good things formed by God exist. And that ordered charity also [teaches] that servants should not regard the Lord as evildoers do, nor should the wanton love themselves with an accursed love, but even where it is necessary they should correct one another, with superstition cast out, in freedom, according to that saying: Better are the wounds of one who loves than the deceitful kisses of one who flatters (Prov. 27); and again: Those who rebuke shall be praised, and blessing shall come upon them (Prov. 24).

31. Sustain me with flowers, surround me with apples. She who languishes with pious and chaste love desires to be joined to or surrounded by the assemblies of the saints; for this languor is not that of sickness, but of ineffable desire, according to that saying: My soul has fainted in your salvation, and in your word I have hoped exceedingly; my eyes have fainted for your eloquence, saying: When will you console me (Ps. 118)? Happy are those who advance by such progress: for in a certain manner, one who desires much languishes and faints until he finds what he has longed for or sought.

Num. 32. His left hand under my head. Solomon himself says in Proverbs: Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and abounds in prudence; length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory. And so the elect Church of Christ, having the left hand under her head, describes temporal things as subject to herself; and she has taught that she embraces with her right hand, while she desires eternal things.

Num. 33. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles. He calls the daughters of Jerusalem the holy and peaceable souls of teachers; these, by clean and swift animals that do not cease to ruminate and are nourished in the fields of the holy Scriptures, he adjures not to make her arise until she herself wills: which we know the apostle Paul did, when to virgins concerning the preserving of chastity he gave not a precept but a counsel (1 Cor. 7); and in the Gospel it is said to the rich man: If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor (Matt. 19). And in another place where eunuchs are praised, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven; and immediately it is added, let him who can receive it receive it. And again the Apostle, when he exhorts to continence: This I say for your advantage (he says), not that I may cast a snare upon you, but I exhort you to what is honorable, and what affords the opportunity to beseech God without hindrance (1 Cor. 7). And again to Philemon: But without your counsel I wished to do nothing, so that your good deed might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.

For then he is awakened in whatever way he wishes by no one, when the vows of the saints are offered to the Lord by their own spontaneous will.

Num. 34. The voice of my beloved. This voice of Christ, which is commemorated so often in this prophecy, is not unwisely understood as that voice by which the race of dead men is raised in the Gospel, as he himself declares, saying: Amen, amen I say to you, that the hour will come in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and those who have done good will come forth unto the resurrection of life (John 5). And in the Apocalypse it is said: Blessed is he who has a part in the first resurrection (Rev. 20). He finds a part in the first resurrection who, snatched from evil habit, rises again as from death by the life-giving Christ.

Num. 35. Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains. Christ comes leaping upon the mountains, when he appeared more perfectly to the perfect; leaping over the hills, when he surpassed all the height of the saints by the excellence of his majesty.

Num. 56. My beloved is like a gazelle. He is like a gazelle because he appeared to us in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8); he is like a young stag also because, according to the flesh, he took his origin from the saints who overcame the serpent.

Num. 37. Behold, he stands behind the wall. He stands behind our wall when he is clothed in the veil of our body.

Num. 38. Looking through the windows. When he concealed something of himself but revealed something, he looked out through the windows and the lattice. For he did not show himself wholly and especially as God, he who said to Philip, who desired to see the Father: So long a time have I been with you, and you have not known me; and in another place: He who loves me keeps my commandments, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (John 14). Or then he looked out through the windows and the lattice, when he taught the people in parables. It can also be understood that he looked out through the windows then, when in his passion, his side pierced by the lance, blood and water flowing out, he brought forth the sacraments of redemption and of washing.

59. My beloved speaks to me. The beloved is often described in this book: for who is so beloved of the Church as he for whom the martyrs laid down their souls? Arise, make haste and come: arise, believe; make haste, and when the course of pious labor is completed, receive the reward. My friend, reconciled to me through death; my beautiful one, made clean through the washing.

40. For now the winter has passed. Because temporal tribulation has received its end.

41. The rain has gone away and departed. Frequent and manifold temptation, or the persecution of the pagans, has ceased.

42. The flowers have appeared on the earth. The saints have abounded in the world, springing up in the month of the New [grain], when the Passover is celebrated; of whom the Apostle says: If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth (Col. 3).

43. The time of pruning has come. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord, with the pruning-hook of discipline applied, purified from all superstition, are prepared for the fruits to come.

44. The voice of the turtle-dove has been heard in the land. The soul: in the Gospel, the most chaste widow of eighty-four years, not departing from the temple, in fastings and prayers recognized Christ, and spoke of him to all who were awaiting the redemption of Israel (Luke 2). He also commanded that the pairing of these birds be offered in sacrifice, who offer nothing at all as splendid in the offering of God, except when the faithful are offered to the Lord sanctified in body and spirit.

45. The fig tree has put forth its green figs. At last the Synagogue also brought forth Israelites believing in Christ, as the Apostle also says: I do not wish you to be ignorant of this mystery, that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should enter in, and so all Israel should be saved (Rom. 11).

46. The flourishing vines have given their fragrance. The assemblies of clerics, of monks also and of virgins, are put forth in the Church, and have become known through good report and conduct.

47. Arise, my love, and my fair one. By these names the Church is always urged to leave behind temporal things and sigh for eternal things.

48. My dove in the clefts of the rock. The Church is called a dove for no other reason than that she is without guile and is filled with the Holy Spirit; she dwells in the clefts of the rock because she always has a refuge in those wounds of Christ by which she was healed. She is received also into the cavern of the rock when she is refreshed by holy consolation from the Scriptures, or when she is protected on every side by the merits and prayers of the saints who have gone before. In these clefts of the rock, the apostle Thomas, like a dove, found protection when, after the resurrection, having touched the places of Christ's wounds and with all doubt removed, he faithfully cried out, "My God and my Lord" (John 20).

49. Show me your face, O Zion. Zion is interpreted as contemplation, which is rightly understood to be in those who say with the Apostle: "But we, beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." And again: "While we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen" (2 Cor. 4). For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. She is therefore invited to stand always before God, like Elijah, who said: "As the Lord lives, in whose sight I stand today" (4 Kings 3); and let her not be among those whom the prophet marks out, saying: "They have turned their back to me and not their face" (Jer.).

and your voice, he says, in my ears; and the righteous cried out, and the Lord heard them and delivered them from all their tribulations.

50. For your voice is sweet. The prayers of the saints are always acceptable to the Lord and present to his grace, because they received from the light of Christ, so that they might remain in the beauty of righteousness.

51. Catch for us the little foxes. The Lord says in a parable in the Gospel that when the grass had grown and brought forth fruit, then the weeds appeared: that is, as the Church grew numerous, heresies also arose, or men were found who, while remaining in that faith, thought wickedly. So too that Samson, whose name means "sun," after catching three hundred foxes, set fire to their tails and kindled the crops of his enemies. For heretics are always, in their beginnings, conspicuous as if by a feigned religion, but in their ends they drag fire, being destined to the fire of hell. And therefore: Catch for us the foxes: convict the heretics, and shut in their cunning with the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures. He calls them little foxes because by understanding nothing great according to the right faith they contain; for whatever they know, they display; being small, they destroy the vineyards, they subvert the peoples, corrupting them with depraved traditions. Our vineyard has flourished. The catholic Church advances with unceasing increase.

52. My beloved is mine, and I am his. The Apostle says: They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph. 5). For of him the same Church says: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance (Ps. 15). And again the Father says to the Son: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps. 2). Christ therefore has the Church in his body, and the Church has Christ as its head; and because this union cannot be dissolved, rightly did she say: My beloved is mine.

53. Who feeds among the lilies. Christ feeds among the lilies when his body, which is the Church, is adorned with the companies of the saints and virgins.

54. Until the day breathes and the shadows decline. Until the evangelical tradition advances into clearer light, and the figures of the Old Testament, which went before like shadows in the ritual of sacrifices through typical observances, are driven away.

55. Return, be like, my beloved. When she signifies that the beloved returns, and says he is like a gazelle and a young stag, she shows the ascension of Christ into the heavens, to be compared to clean and swift animals. For these, by leaping, leap over the higher parts of the mountains; but Christ has surpassed all things that seem high, because the Apostle says of him: For this reason God has exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2). But Bethel is interpreted as the house of God; therefore he is above the mountains of Bethel, because he proclaims Christ more powerful than all the saints who are in heaven and on earth.

Chapter III. — 56. In my bed by night I sought. Among those who slumber in the faith and are blotted out in the darkness of ignorance, the Church sought Christ, whom she loves; but see what follows: I sought him, and I did not find him. The Lord says to Adam: In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread (Gen. 3). For those who are dissolved by some fault or by the sluggish sleep of idleness do not quickly arrive at the eating of that bread which came down from heaven, but those who have kept watch in holy labors, they themselves find him.

57. I will rise and go about the city. I considered all the glory of the present age, I inspected the assemblies of the unbelievers and the various sects of the philosophers; but not even there did I find him whom my soul loves.

58. The watchmen found me. The wise men of the age and the worshippers of idols argued against me, searching many things in vain, and producing more books of trifles, to whom I said: Why do you trouble yourselves with useless effort to no purpose? Why do you wear out your minds so vehemently in vain? Have you seen him whom my soul loves? Since you boast of the glory of wisdom under a false name, God has made your wisdom foolish, because you were in no way able to find Christ there.

59. A little while after I had passed by. When I had passed by men of this sort who are thought famous in the world for vain knowledge, and had resisted their superstitious inventions, and had judged their wisdom foolish, I found him whom my soul loves. Hence it is that the Apostle says of such men: We speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory.

II): And because that very Wisdom which is Christ is not found among such men, it follows: whom none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory: as it is written, that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (Ibid.). But because among spiritual men the bride has found him whom she loves, hear what follows: But God has revealed it to us through his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God (Ibid.).

Num. 60. I held him, and I will not let him go. For so shall I cling to Christ, I shall persevere in his faith, until I bring him into the chamber of my mother, preaching him among the peoples of the Synagogue as in the house of my mother: so that the Jews, who until now denied him with their mouth, may receive him in their heart; and with the eyes of their mind enlightened, I may at some time find him, who was once revealed to us, abiding in the chamber, in the secret of the holy Scriptures. Or then is Christ brought into the house of his mother, when the Christian people, who are his body, are joined to the heavenly Jerusalem. Where is that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, etc.

61. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem. He has already established this sentence in the earlier passages, and, insofar as God has heard, we remember having treated it with the testimonies adduced. But for this reason I think it has been repeated again in this book: so that no one of the teachers should either entice with gifts or deter with threats those who are going to believe, but should preach only the things that are holy, and should lead those who are going to believe—or are to be converted—to faith or religion of their own free will.

62. Who is this that ascends through the desert. The Church ascends through the desert when the people of the nations, occupying by faith the multitude of believers, makes progress. For of her it is sung in the Psalms: He turned the desert into pools of water, and the waterless land into springs of water (Psalm 106 and 113). The shoots of smoke from the aromatics: he means the prayers that ascend to the Lord from the saints out of compunction of heart. For smoke is accustomed to stir up tears. Myrrh and frankincense, and all the powdered spices, signify the marks of mortification, or the various gifts of graces that overflow in the elect.

63. Behold the bed of Solomon. The bed of Solomon is the rest of Christ; and this rest is fittingly understood as the Church, which we read was chosen under [this] number in the Psalms: "For," he says, "the Lord has chosen Sion, he has chosen it for his dwelling place. This is my rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it" (Ps. 131). Moreover, in the number sixty, because sixty is complete in all its parts and rises through the number ten, those who are described as among the mightiest of Israel are deservedly appointed, in the presence of the Lord, to guard the Churches. To her also it is said through the prophet: "Upon your walls, Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all day and all night they shall not be silent. All who hold swords, most skilled in wars. And each one's sword upon his thigh" (Isa. 62). For to them the Apostle says: "Stand therefore, having your loins girded in truth, and put on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod in preparation for the Gospel of peace, in all things taking up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6). They, therefore, are most skilled in wars who know how to fight against the desires of their own flesh; and he carries his sword upon his thigh usefully, who puts to death carnal fluxes and lusts by spiritual food. Whoever, then, are found to be of this kind in the Church, these are known to be the mighty among the mightiest of Israel, by contemplating God.

64. The king Solomon made himself a carriage. Where the serving of food is written, there [is signified] the faith of believers, through which Christ is turned toward. For when the Lord spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, and she, returning, announced his majesty to the rest of those dwelling in the city, his disciples came upon him and asked him, saying: Rabbi, eat. But he said to them: I have food to eat which you do not know. And a little later: many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him (John 4). He showed that their faith would be food for him, when shortly before he foretold to the disciples that he would eat what they did not know. But in this place, as the following words teach, the name "carriage" indicates rather the instrument in which something is carried, or, as another edition has it, a litter, than the food itself. Of the woods of Lebanon: of the foremost saints in the Church.

65. He made its columns of silver. He prepared supports for the Church from his learned men or apostles, as Paul, the vessel of election, wrote to the Galatians: When they had known, he says, the grace of God, James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be columns, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship (Galatians 2).

66. A golden couch. Christ, about to dine well, finds a couch in those who, endowed with sincere understanding, shine like gold in the holy congregation.

67. A purple ascent. The purple ascent teaches the surpassing perfection of the martyrs in the shedding of blood.

68. Built up in the midst of charity. To build up all these ornaments of the Church, there is no other cause except that he loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor (Eph. 5).

69. Go forth and see, daughters of Zion. Always keep before your eyes, holy souls, our peaceful King Solomon, who is Christ, and how he endured his passion (Mark 15; John 19), that he might free the human race from destruction; look upon him in the diadem with which his mother crowned him: in that crown of thorns which the Synagogue placed upon his head on the day of his espousal. For then he espoused the whole Church to himself, when, ascending the gibbet of the cross, from that same cross he taught all who believe in him the sign upon their foreheads, as he himself says: I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself (John 12). That day of his passion was also a day of the joy of his heart; for as Christ bestowed good things through his possession upon the faithful, in generations and through many ages.

CHAPTER IV. — No. 70. How beautiful you are, my love. The repetition of the phrase commends the beauty that it praises; or it forewarns that those kinds of holy people whom it introduces under the figure of similitudes are to be considered. No. 71. Eyes of doves without that. The simplicity of spiritual people is greatly to be revered, because they do not know how to exalt themselves, and, conscious of their purity, they strive to please God rather than men.

No. 72. Your hair is like flocks of goats. The Apostle teaches that hair was given to the woman for adornment (1 Cor. 11); and therefore the Church holds in the greatest adornment those peoples who were the firstfruits to believe from the circumcision, who, having sold their possessions and extended them to the use of the poor, had one heart and one soul (Acts 4). These have ascended from Mount Gilead: Gilead is interpreted as a heap of testimony, as if their ascent, that is, their progress, proceeded from the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, when there they understood Christ in whom they afterwards believed.

No. 73. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn sheep. By teeth he means the preachers, who bring what they have received to be healthfully broken down and passed into the body of Christ. These are compared to flocks of shorn sheep because, having put off the old man, they have gone forth in the newness of the Spirit. They have also come up from the bath, when, having received the remission of sins through baptism, they have advanced in Christ.

No. 74. All with twin offspring. All are filled with love of Christ and of neighbor, and because they are quick to mercy, therefore none among them is barren.

No. 75. Your lips are like a scarlet villa. That harlot Rahab, who deserved to be saved and joined to the Israelite people, hung a scarlet cord from the window of her house as a sign of salvation. Wherefore the lips of the Bride are beautiful, because they preach the passion, and through his blood they proclaim the redemption that has been given; and they rejoice together that they have found nothing sweeter to speak of, as the Apostle says: I judged myself to know nothing among you except Christ Jesus, and him crucified.

No. 76. Like the fragments of a pomegranate. Those who, with modesty accompanying them, observe chastity, make beauty in the face of the Church; or the holy martyrs, who, imitating the passion of Christ, were suffused with the rosy beauty of their blood—apart from what lies hidden within, beyond the merit of chastity and martyrdom. There are many other good things of the saints as well, which he knows who granted them in their heart.

No. 77. Your neck is like the tower of David. The tower is called the perfection or the teaching of the saints, which was built not by itself but by Christ, with bulwarks, with the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, by which unbelievers or heretics are defeated.

No. 78. A thousand shields hang. This tower can fittingly be understood as the canonical Scripture of the Old and New Testament, which through the Holy Spirit has been constructed like a lofty tower. A thousand shields hang from it. This number is taken for the fullness of the whole, as in the Psalm: The word which he commanded in a thousand generations (Psalm 104), as if to say, in all generations. And so in this holy Scripture is found every armor of the strong, from which one fights bravely either against the devil or against his ministers. For even the Lord himself, when he was tempted by the devil in the desert (Matthew 4), brought forth arms from this tower, when he utterly confounded him by testimonies brought out from sacred Scripture.

No. 79. Your two breasts are like two young roes of copper. The two breasts of the Church are the two Testaments, fitted to two twin kids of the goat, that is, to the two peoples who are nourished from you—namely, of circumcision and of the foreskin—born from the transmission of sin; yet these are fed among the lilies, while they advance together by the examples and teachings of the saints.

No. 80. Until the day breathes and the shadows incline. Until, as the Apostle says, what is mortal is swallowed up (2 Cor 5).

No. 81. I will go to the mountain of myrrh. I will be joined to those who have grown by putting themselves to death for God's sake, and who do not cease to offer him the fragrance of grace by offering themselves.

No. 82. You are entirely beautiful, my friend. As the Apostle says, that he might present to himself the Church without spot or wrinkle (Eph 5). Nor is it without purpose that he says, You are entirely beautiful—in all, that is, both the little and the great. But it is so not only in martyrs, confessors, and learned virgins, but also in the continent, the almsgivers, and the penitent.

No. 83. Come from Lebanon, my bride, come. Lebanon is interpreted as brightness; for unless one has received brightness through holy baptism, whereby remission of sins is given, he cannot come to Christ.

No. 84. You shall be crowned from the head of Amana. Senir is interpreted as lamp; Hermon as consecration: all of which are referred to Christ, who consecrates those whom he enlightens, and crowns those whom, enlightening them, he has consecrated.

No. 85. From the lairs of lions. The Church is called forth from the lairs of lions and the mountains of leopards, when, having abandoned proud arrogance or the tradition of diverse sects, simple and humble, she comes to Christ.

No. 86. You have wounded my heart, my love. That wound of the heart is love. By so great a love, then, in that one eye, the Church has pleased Christ; because she looked not to temporal things but to eternal. And so already in one lock of the neck; because she has striven to be adorned not with things visible but with things to come; or perhaps the one eye and the lock of the neck is the people of the believing Church, whom Christ so loved that he laid down his soul for it.

87. How beautiful are your breasts. How admirable are those teachers who nourish men as they are born in the faith, and who, like devoted nurses, endure the vexations of the babbling carnal crowds, until those whom they have reared on spiritual milk they bring to perfection.

88. Your breasts are more beautiful than wine. We have already said above that these breasts are the apostles, or apostolic men, whose teaching overflows with wine—that is, the tradition and precept of the old law. And the odor of your ointments is above all spices. The distribution of graces granted through the Holy Spirit, which the Apostle declares when he says: to one is given the word of wisdom, to another knowledge (1 Cor 12), and so forth, excels so greatly that it surpasses all the vanities of the world.

89. Your lips, bride, are a dripping honeycomb. Your lips are a dripping honeycomb—the exposition of the sacred Scriptures, honey and milk in your teaching, under your tongue, because you nourish the little ones with milk, and in honey you take away the corruptions of various wounds or sins.

90. And the scent of your garments. He speaks through the prophet to Jerusalem concerning the saints: As I live, says the Lord, you shall be clothed with all these as with an ornament, and you shall wrap them around you like a bride. Accordingly, the garments of the Church—namely, all the saints, distinguished in words and deeds—give forth a sweetness of scent.

91. An enclosed garden is my sister, my bride. For this bride, who is enclosed like a garden—that is, by the grace of Christ—is surrounded with material so indissoluble that the prophet Isaiah said of her: No uncircumcised and unclean person shall pass through you any more (Isa. 52). The enclosed garden and the sealed fountain can also be understood as the very mother of the Lord, Saint Mary, who, conceiving as a virgin and giving birth as a virgin, displayed in herself the undefiled beauty of the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain.

92. Your shoots are a paradise of apple trees. Your offspring, the assembly of the holy martyrs, together with the fruits of apple trees; together with the remaining multitude of the faithful, which is adorned with the sweetness of righteousness.

93. With nard, nard and crocus. The incorruption and strength of the martyrs' virtue, teaching, and good repute are found among all peoples reborn in Christ through baptism.

94. Myrrh and aloe with all things. The marks of Christ's death together with the chief gifts of the Holy Spirit.

95. A fountain of gardens, a well of waters. The fountain is the open teaching of the peoples; the well, the depth of doctrines; these, which flow with force from Lebanon, are sent forth from Christ with the fervor of the Spirit.

96. Arise, O North, and come, O South. There is one Spirit, that is, because North and South are different names, he intimates the gifts of the one Holy Spirit—the North when it provides cool refreshment to those burning, the South when it softens the hard to believe or to do good. But the Psalmist teaches that the North is set in a good sense: The sides of the North, the city of the great King (Ps. XLVII). And again the prophet Ezekiel: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and I saw, and behold, a bright Spirit was coming from the North (Ezek. I). And because in the two one is perceived, he did not say, Blow, but Blow upon my garden, and let its spices flow: breathe into the believing people, and let their good works overflow.

CHAPTER V. — 97. Let my beloved come into his garden. Let him enter into his Church and take delight in the works of his saints; or, let him be fed by the faithful in the poor, about to repay with an eternal kingdom for temporal things.

98. I have come into my garden, my sister. Hasten to my kingdom, people enriched by my name: my sister, by my blood; my bride in my faith, as also the prophet Hosea says: I will betroth you to me in faith (Hos. 2).

99. I have harvested my myrrh with my spices. Receive those who have suffered or died for my sake, together with their merits, my martyrs.

100. I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey. Receive into my body those who have been instructed in the tender or the more vehement doctrine of the Old and New Testament.

101. Eat, friends, and drink. The Lord says in the Gospel to the apostles: I no longer call you servants, but friends (John 15). And to the apostle Peter, in that vessel let down from heaven in which diverse kinds of animals were shown to him, it was said: Peter, kill and eat (Acts 10): that is, put to death; make what they are, and what you yourself are. Therefore eat, friends, and drink. Let there be joy for you from the conduct of the peoples passing over into your unity.

102. I sleep, and my heart keeps watch. I am ready to die for Christ, but after death I believe that I shall reign with him. I also rest from temporal delights, my senses being in some manner lulled to sleep; but I desire the things that are to come and I seek after things eternal.

105. The voice of my beloved knocking. The Lord himself says in the Apocalypse: Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me (Apoc. III). The Lord knocks when he either teaches good things by doctrine, or by hidden inspiration stirs the hearts of the saints to do good. Or this is the voice of the one knocking in the Gospel: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matt. XI).

104. Open to me, my sister, my friend. Christ asks to be opened to, either by the obedience of the unbelieving, or in the faith of the Gentiles who are called; for then the door is opened to him, when the things he has commanded are fulfilled, or when entry is unlocked in those who have believed in him through faith. The Church is Christ's sister by his blood; his friend, because reconciled through his death; his dove, from the Holy Spirit; immaculate, by the sacrament of baptism.

105. Because my head is full. Those who seem to stand out in the Church with the chief honor are regarded, as it were, as the head in the body of Christ; and those who administer the visible sacraments in the very congregation of the faithful are described, as it were, as locks of hair. But because mortal men are very often stained by vices or works of darkness: these, then, weighed down as if by the drops of the night, seem to cling to Christ as to the head. But of certain men the Apostle says: They do not preach Christ sincerely (Phil. 1). Therefore the voice of the bride follows, as if groaning on behalf of such men.

106. I have stripped off my tunic. Coming to the faith, I put off the old man according to my former manner of life, and put on the new, which is created according to God (Eph. 4). If any contagion also came to my feet while I walk among earthly things, it has been washed away by Christ washing me; and then I do not allow without grief that the ministers of the sacraments, through whom I ought to be adorned, are infected with carnal vices. And therefore, because I perceive that I am darkened in the transgression of certain men by the evils I had renounced, I have stripped off my tunic, how shall I be clothed with it? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? With a mournful heart I declare, as if speaking more openly: Is it fitting that I be clothed again in the garments of sins, which by believing I stripped off? Or that I suffer myself to be defiled again by evil living with the filth from which I have been washed?

Or if it must be that by evil turning back I go backward from progress to decline, or from the brightness of righteousness to the blackness of sins?

107. My beloved sent his hand. He sent his hand through the opening when he taught me thoroughly to pass through the anguish of sufferings; and my belly was troubled at his touch, when, with persecution threatening, my weaker members were troubled and trembled at the bitterness of the punishments that were inflicted on me by his permission. But that touch is understood as the torment of the blow that comes, according to that saying in Job, when Satan says to the Lord: Otherwise touch his bones and his flesh, if he has not blessed you to your face (Job 1).

108. I arose to open to my beloved. Waking in heart, I confessed Christ, and, not deterred by bodily punishments in my sufferings and in my works, the mortification of confessors appeared also in the elect: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints (Psalm 115).

109. I opened the bolt of my mouth. With all doubt removed, I believed in Christ, and I loved him with ineffable love, and with a clear voice I preached him among the nations, and I invoked him that he might be present to me in tribulations.

110. But he had turned aside. In this he, as it were, turned away and passed by, when he handed me over to those who persecuted me and to the wicked, and he himself permitted them to rage against my body.

111. My soul melted. Hearing his promises, I burned with desire, when I learned from the same one promising that those are blessed who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5).

112. I sought and did not find him. Thus in the trampling of the malignant I was left as if there were no helper, and as if he who would defend me from enemies could not come to my aid, just as blessed Job also said when placed in suffering: I cry to you and you do not hear me, and you do not look upon me; you have been changed to me into a cruel one, and in the fury of your hand you are adverse to me.

113. They found me, the guards. The powers of the world seized me, who are known as it were to rule the commonwealth.

114. They struck me, they wounded me with blows. And they raged against my body with tortures; and loading me with chains, they shut me in prisons. Prolonging my life with exquisite torments and not swiftly bringing death, so that I could not easily be stripped of the punishments inflicted.

115. They took away my cloak. For when they demolished the churches to the ground, and burned the altars together with the Gospels and the other canonical books with fire; when they shut up the priests condemned to the mines; when neither a place of sacrificing, nor freedom of baptizing, nor license of communicating was granted; when the persecutors did all these things, then in a certain manner they took away, as it were, a kind of cloak from the bride of Christ, that is, the Church.

116. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem. He adjures all the saints that through these tribulations, having despised the life of the world, they may reach him: that they may portray the Church established in these persecutions, burning with ineffable love toward God, and in no way growing cold amid such great and so dreadful straits.

117. What is your beloved? The voice of the elect who ask, and who seek the faith of the Church from his answer. What is your beloved from a beloved? That is, what is God from God, or the Son from the Father? In the likeness of all, declaring the equality of the persons. For they are not distinguished in the one being of nature, and they are believed to remain in the same glory of majesty.

118. My beloved is white and ruddy. White, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God (John 1). Ruddy, because born of the Virgin, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. White in virginity, ruddy in passion: as the prophet also says of the same: Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah (Isa. 63)? Edom is interpreted as blood; and therefore he is ruddy from the shedding of blood. Beautiful in his robe, marching in the multitude of his strength. Chosen from thousands. He is the one of whom it is said in the Psalms: Who shall be like God among the sons of God (Ps. 88)? and again, Fair in form above the sons of men, grace is poured out on your lips.

119. His head is the finest gold. We read in the Apostle: The head of the man is Christ; but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God (1 Cor 11). And therefore, just as among metals nothing is like gold, so among creatures nothing will be compared to the Creator. Now the head of Christ is God, according to what we recalled a little earlier from the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, etc.

120. His locks are like the lofty palms. These are indeed known to cling to their head, that is, to Christ—those who, in the likeness of the raven, acknowledge themselves sinners; of whom is that one who says: If I wished to make myself righteous before you, my own mouth would condemn me (Job 9). And again another: For I acknowledge my iniquity (Ps 50). And with harmonious voice John declares together with the elect: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, faithful and just is he who forgives us our sins and cleanses us from all iniquity (1 John 1). Similarly also Paul: Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first (1 Tim 1). And because, according to the Gospel, everyone who humbles himself will be exalted (Matt 23; Luke 14, 18): those who cast themselves down by the confession of sin are not undeservedly compared to the height of the palms, according to what is written in this book.

121. His eyes are like doves, filled with the Holy Spirit; his elect remain without any gall of bitterness, and they imbue the people with the streams of the Scriptures.

122. Those that are washed with milk. Hence made purer, because they believe with undoubting faith that Christ was born in the flesh; and recognizing themselves as reborn, washed, and nourished by the visible sacrament, they settle beside the fullest streams, that is, amid the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

123. His cheeks are like beds of spices. For just as in the eyes of doves we rightly understand the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, so also in the cheeks, which are near the eyes, we understand those Churches that believed through the apostles, which, like beds of spices, produce a most sweet odor from their holy conduct: planted by the perfumers, that is, by the pious preachers, to whom the Apostle says: But you, when you were a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree (Rom 11).

124. His lips are distilling myrrh. His teachers, by the Spirit or even by the flesh of the Virgin, preach his passion in this, so that for him who died for us they do not refuse death.

125. His hands are turned, golden. In the hands of Christ are reckoned those who do not cease to do the things that are good. Therefore turned, golden, because they are always ready for every good work; full of hyacinths, according to that saying of the Apostle: Rich in good works, readily giving, and laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of true life (1 Tim. 6).

126. His belly is ivory. In his belly are reckoned those who give birth to believers in faith; and that belly is also ivory, and it is not unfittingly taken as the fount of baptism, from which we are reborn; and because the beautiful and incorruptible bones of a dead living creature are known to be ivory, therefore it is said to us by the Apostle: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? For we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ rose through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Rom. 6). Set apart with sapphires; you are adorned with those most renowned saints, begotten and in confession.

127. His legs are marble columns. The legs that bear up the whole body are the saints themselves, who are described as the house of the Church and as marble columns founded upon golden bases. For these are the righteous who support the rest in charity and uphold them with the consolations of the Scriptures, as the Apostle says: We who are stronger ought to bear the weakness of the weak, and not please ourselves. And a little later, he indicates the holy Scriptures as golden bases, saying: Whatever things were written were written for our instruction, that through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope (Rom. 15).

128. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. All the saints who gave forth a most sweet odor from good conduct and persevere in incorruption of integrity have, with God as their author, received the grace of such great goods.

129. His throat is most sweet. Those who expound his mysteries and meditate daily in his law administer a most sweet savor in sacred doctrine. And he is wholly desirable. Here that will be fulfilled which blessed John says in his Epistle: Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when it appears we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is (1 John 3).

130. Such is my beloved. To these varieties of graces, and to these ornaments of mysteries, he persuades the righteous to attend, when he insinuates that the beauty of the bridegroom is to be contemplated in his members.

131. Where has your beloved gone? As if they were searching and saying: Because you have set forth such great beauty of his, that our heart was made burning to seek him, now show where he has gone, or where he has turned aside. And well is the Church called a virgin, most beautiful among women, because Paul speaks thus of her to the faithful: I have espoused you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor 11). And fittingly they say to him: Where has your beloved gone, where has he turned aside? For he turned aside, in a manner, when, being in the form of God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man; he humbled himself even to death, death on a cross (Phil 2). Therefore whoever seeks him as exalted in the form of God will not find him unless he believes in the form of a servant; in which form he humbled himself for this reason, that he might raise us up as we lay low.

CHAPTER VI.—132. My beloved has gone down to his garden. He has gone down to his garden when he visited his people Israel at his coming, as he himself says: I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15). But the bed of spices we understand to mean the Virgin St. Mary herself; for from her the Lord Jesus Christ, the order of righteousness, arose for us.

133. That he may feed in the gardens and gather lilies. That he may reign among the nations, or take delight in the Churches: that from them he may take up virgins and any of the saints.

134. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. I am Christ's kingdom and he is my king; I am his body and he is my head. He feeds among the lilies when he rests in the heart of virgins, or when there, through the grace that he himself bestows, he is daily increased and makes progress.

135. You are beautiful, my love, you are beautiful, etc. Beautiful through righteousness; sweet and loving, because always peaceful, comely as Jerusalem. The Lord says in the Gospel: In the resurrection they will not marry nor be given in marriage, but they will be like the angels in heaven (Matt. 32; Luke 20). Rightly, then, is the Church described as comely like Jerusalem, to which the likeness of the angels is granted forever by the Lord.

136. Terrible as an army with banners. How many tyrants and persecutors, together with their author the devil, attempted to break the Church's strength and could in no way prevail against it. For the holy Church has an ordered army with banners, since when Christ is at hand, neither persecution conquers the martyrs, nor carnal delight the virgins, nor greed the merciful, nor the ambition of temporal glory the humble.

137. Turn your eyes away from me, for. Do not always require me to be seen in the body, whom you see better in spirit through faith. For this reason indeed I ascended into the heavens, that I might not always appear to you as local, who so fill all things (by the presence of my divinity) that I am everywhere present, and contain all things, and am contained by no place.

138. Your hair like flocks of goats, your teeth; like a flock of sheep which all bear twins, and the barren one, etc. Like the rind of a pomegranate. These four verses are shown to be described in this place, which by God's gift we have already treated in the earlier place: in which nevertheless he foretold that the peoples of the Jews and the Gentiles would be converted with the fruit of twofold love, and declared the glory of the martyrs together with their merits.

139. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines. In the number sixty, which is completed by six ascending through ten, we recognize all the perfection of good things that is brought to fulfillment by the precepts of the law. But how the number six itself consists of all its parts, observe briefly: for its sixth part is one, its third part two, and its half three. And who does not know that one, two, and three make six? This is found difficult to be fulfilled in another number, with its parts distributed and reduced to one. Therefore the queens are the perfect souls of the saints, who are not handmaids of sins, as it is written: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But the concubines, who, like Hagar, are born into servitude, are rightly assigned to those who, having received the seed of the word of God, savor not spiritual but carnal things. But the young maidens, whose number is not given, are the multitude of those who are always ready to hear what is holy, yet do not strive to fulfill by works what they hear, of whom the Apostle says: Always learning, and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth. And although these are the kinds of people who are joined to Christ as it were through his teaching, yet because in the elect not diversity but unity is commended, hear what follows.

140. One is my dove, perfect. A dove, because she is simple and savors spiritual things; perfect, because, leaving the world behind, she loves me more than temporal things or herself, according to that saying: If you wish to be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come and follow me (Matthew 19).

141. One is she who is chosen by her mother. By her heavenly mother Jerusalem, of whom the Apostle says: But that Jerusalem which is above is our mother (Galatians 4). She is therefore one to him, because in the future blessedness she alone will be joined to him.

142. The daughters saw her, and proclaimed her most blessed. For what holy souls are there who do not extol the Church with wondrous praises, when even the concubines, that is, the carnal, are not silent in her proclamation, when they marvel at her as unconquered in the martyrs and victorious in the virgins?

143. Who is this that comes forth like... She rises like the dawn, when, having spurned the works of darkness, she lives chastely and soberly among the married; beautiful as the moon, when she shines with bright splendor among those who are continent; chosen as the sun, when she gleams with the beauty of perfection among the virgins, like that good earth in the Gospel which, having received in itself the seed of the word of God, brought forth fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold; terrible as an army set in array. Is she not terrible, who has overthrown the rites of the nations and the worship of idols, and herself, persevering in the faith of Christ, could not be overcome by the nations?

He is also very terrible in this, when in Peter that power is given to him where it is said: Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matthew 16 and 18).

144. I went down to the garden of nuts, to see. The garden of nuts designates the canon of the Old and New Testament; for the appearance of nuts shows one thing in the shell and keeps another in the kernel. But if anyone has not distinguished this in the holy Scriptures, and has not, as it were, sought the inner things within the shells of the nut, he cannot arrive at the birth of spiritual understanding. But what he says, To see the fruits of the valley: to see the fruit of the most humble people in the Church, as it is sung in the Psalms: For you will save the humble people, and you will bring down the eyes of the proud (Psalm 17).

145. To inspect whether the vines had flowered. To test whether the Church had advanced so far that those who attained to the perfection of martyrdom might sprout in her; and that they might be beautiful, ruddy on account of the shedding of the blood of her Christ.

I did not know, my soul troubled me. What did Christ not know, except sin? He did not know those either who say in the Gospel: Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name perform many mighty works? And then (he says) I will say to them: Amen I say to you, that I do not know you (Matth. 7): not that he did not know what sort they were, but because he knew nothing good to be from them. My soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab. This Aminadab too we find in Christ according to the genealogy. Hence we also know that these chariots are to be taken in a good sense: in which we not unfittingly understand the evangelists. Furthermore, what he says, My soul troubled me, this troubling is not contrary to tranquility, but is found to accord with solicitude, according to that which is said to Martha in the Gospel: Why are you solicitous and troubled (Luc. 10) about many things? And in the Psalms: You have moved the earth, and troubled it; heal its contritions, because it is moved (Psal. 59). But from where do all the narratives of the Gospels tell, except through the Holy Spirit, according to that of the prophet Ezekiel: Wherever the Spirit went, there the wheels also were carried along together (Ezech. 3 and 10).

147. Return, return, O Shunammite. Twice do we find this Shunammite woman established in a praiseworthy place in the book of Kings: that is, both her who ministered to King David in his old age and remained a most beautiful virgin in his embrace (/// Reg. I), and also her whose son, born by promise to Elisha, he afterward raised up when he had died (IV Reg. IV). Wherefore, who would doubt that under this name the holy Church is to be understood? Often, indeed, "return" is said to her who once, in that younger son, departing into a far country (Luc. v), had turned away; for then she returned, when she was converted to God from the heart. Or for this reason "return" is said to her so frequently, so that even if, having been converted, she has sinned, she may not fall into despair, but by the indulgence of hope may recover from the habit of sinning. This utterance is assuredly proved to be addressed to the saints, who desire to behold the beauty of her who has been converted.

CHAPTER VII. — 148. What will you see in the Shunammite, except. What is to be contemplated in the Church, except the disposition of those who, always ready as if stationed in a camp, cease not to do battle against the devil — for this reason certainly, that the faithful may not lose the faith; that the religious may not become lifted-up apostates; that the merciful may not be hardened by avarice; that the penitent may not return to their vomit; that virgins may not lack the beauty of integrity; that the continent may not lose the splendor of chastity? These are in the Church the choirs of camps, continually set in the contest, and, with God defending them, always unconquered.

149. How beautiful are your steps! How admirable are the advances in those who proclaim the word of God in the Church of Christ! As the Apostle recalls it written in the prophet: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings! (Rom. X.) And again he himself: Feet shod in preparation for the Gospel of peace (Eph. VI).

150. The joining of your thighs. By the joining of your thighs we understand the fellowship of peoples coming from circumcision and from the foreskin; and thereby both those who were propagated from the thigh of Abraham according to the flesh, and those who have been counted worthy in his seed, that is, in Christ, when they are joined together into the unity of faith, are described as ornaments that have been fashioned by the hand of the craftsman. For what craftsman, like ornaments, joined these peoples together in faith, except he of whom the Apostle says: He himself is our peace, who has made both one (Eph. 2)?

151. Your navel is a turned bowl. Those who are changed not in the outermost but in the middle body of the Church are called the navel. A turned bowl—vessels useful in it, turned, because prepared for obedience and for every good work (Tit. 3), they never lack cups because they are always filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

152. Your belly is like a heap of wheat. Those who always receive the holy nourishment of the Scriptures, and gather within themselves the things that are salutary, are reckoned in the likeness of the belly, and these are rightly proclaimed as a heap of wheat gathered together, because from sound doctrine, with which they are daily filled, they refresh many abundantly; which doctrine advances so far that by pious persuasions it leads many even to the observance of virginity.

153. Your two breasts like two young hinds. The two testaments are fitted to the two young hinds of the goat, that is, to the peoples coming from the transmission of sin. For they are nourished by these works, who, subject to original sin, are reborn in Christ like young hinds.

154. Your neck like a tower of ivory. The knowledge of the Scriptures, which is acquired by frequent meditation, is designated as a tower of ivory in the beauty of the neck. Therefore it is a tower of ivory because those who stand by the word of God advance daily through the brightness of justice to higher things.

155. Your eyes like pools in Heshbon. Your spiritual teachers, established at the gate, are in Christ like irrigating waters for instructing the peoples. For therefore they are pools, because they are filled with the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. In another book Solomon himself also says: I made pools of waters, that I might water the forests of budding trees (Ecclesiastes 2).

156. Your nose like the tower of Lebanon. The nose of the Church is those who, perceiving the odor of righteousness which is in Christ, cast themselves into the inner depths of the heart. These, who stand in great virtue, are set forth as the tower of Lebanon. But we have already said above that Lebanon is whiteness; the whiteness of these men's stature looks toward Damascus, because their wisdom, which is from God, enlightens the world.

157. Your head like Carmel, and your hair. On Mount Carmel, the saints Elijah and Elisha often had a dwelling place (1 Kings 2). Wherefore in the head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he is more exalted (as on Mount Carmel), both the righteous find a dwelling place, and the multitude of peoples, like the diversity of animals, receive the nourishment of wisdom. The hairs of this head are like the purple of the king joined to the channels; for the more eminent saints, namely the blessed martyrs of Christ, are understood to be made like royal ornaments through the purple, and always joined to saving teachings.

158. Your stature has been made like the palm tree. Your perfection has reached the prize, and your teachers have been made sweet through the Holy Spirit.

159. I said, I will ascend the palm tree. Those ascend the palm tree who make progress in the cross of Christ, of whom the Apostle says: those who are in Christ have crucified their flesh with its vices and desires. But they themselves obtain the fruits of this palm tree (the holy cross) as their prize, who say with the same Apostle: if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him (Rom. 8).

160. And your breasts shall be like clusters of the vine. For no others are found who nourish those being born in the faith, except the teachers of the Church.

161. And your odors like those of apples. And the sweetness of your instruction shall be spread abroad through those who, by living soberly and justly, do not cease to offer the odor of good conduct.

162. Your throat like the best wine. In the throat can also be understood those saints through whom the law and the prophets and the gospel doctrine were proclaimed: which holy Scripture, endowed with surpassing savor, gives forth fragrance and shines like the best wine, and inebriates those who drink through the Holy Spirit.

163. Worthy of my beloved to drink. Christians, who are members of Christ himself, drink of Christ from the sacred Scripture, when they are satisfied from it in wondrous ways and with incomparable sweetness.

164. And with his lips and teeth for chewing. The lips and teeth of Christ are the teachers of the Church: these do not cease to chew what is holy, when the things that have been written for our instruction are daily chewed over.

165. I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me. To this beloved, it is said by the voice of the Church: My soul has clung to you, your right hand has received me (Ps. 62). Let us see also elsewhere how she speaks to her beloved: But we are your people, and the sheep of your pasture (Ps. 99). And, how his turning is toward me, the prophet says: And it shall be that before they cry, I will hear; while they are still speaking, I will hear (Isa. 65), says the Lord. But no turning of Christ toward the Church is so evident as when the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1).

165. Come, my beloved, let us go forth. Christ goes forth with the Church into the field, when with the holy ones aforesaid he visits the world, as it is written in the Gospel: He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world. Let us dwell in the villages; among the believing peoples scattered all around, in whom Christ dwells through faith—not without the Church, since, reckoning those same people among his members, he makes them his Church.

167. Let us arise and go to the vineyards. So that souls which have already deserved to be cultivated through faith may know that Christ has risen in the morning, and may no longer doubt concerning the resurrection of their own body.

168. Let us see if the vine has flowered. Let it appear whether the faithful proclaim with the mouth what they have believed in the heart, as the Apostle says: With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; or whether the flowers already bring forth fruit, if in them the works of piety have come forth through holy desires.

169. If the pomegranates have blossomed. If those who have believed in Christ advance in such great love that they delight in every way to be killed for him. If you wish to see the pomegranate, hear the apostle Paul in the Acts of the Apostles: I, he says, am ready not only to be judged in Jerusalem, but even to die for Christ (Acts 21).

170. There I will give you my breasts. In this holy confession my teachers will be joined to you, made fit to suffer for you, who also will reign with you without end.

171. The mandrakes have given forth their fragrance. Those who are founded upon a deep root of faith, and are known to flourish with a certain austerity of discipline or restraint, have instructed the peoples by public preachings, offering the fragrance of sweetness from their most holy conduct.

172. All gifts new and old. Since both in the patriarchs and prophets and in the apostles and martyrs I myself have kept for you new and old things; because those foretold and believed that you would come, these do not cease to preach that you were born of the Virgin and suffered for the salvation of all, and after the resurrection were taken up into heaven.

CHAPTER VIII—173. Who will give me you, my brother. Christ sucks the breasts of his mother when the Christian people is refreshed by the mysteries of the old law, or when the teachers are refreshed by spiritual sacraments and by most devout exposition, as if by a true touch.

174. That I may find you outside and kiss you. That you, he says, whom the figures of the Old Testament were covering, I may find in truth through the Gospel. And he says well: I will find you outside, because to that younger son returning from a far country, the father went out to meet him (Luke 15): that I may kiss you, he says, that I may deserve to be reconciled to you; and now let no one drive me away; namely, that it not be said to Peter, on behalf of Cornelius whom the grace of the Holy Spirit had preceded: Why did you go in to men who have the foreskin, and eat with them? But let Peter himself declare: In truth I have come to understand that there is no acceptance of persons with God, but in every place and among every people, he who fears him and works justice is acceptable to him (Acts).

175. I will take hold of you, and lead you. For when I have taken hold of you and cling to you through these same things, it remains that I lead you into the house of my mother—that is, into the assembly of Jerusalem. There indeed I will lead you in, when, together with all the good things I have obtained through your grace, I myself also deserve to be led there, that is, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

176. There you will teach me, and I will give you a cup. There you will teach me, so that now I may see no longer in a riddle through a mirror, but face to face; and not in part as now, but then I shall know even as I am known (1 Cor 13), as he says: And I will give you a cup of choice wine, and must of pomegranates: when I have brought forth the finest and sweetest fruits of the holy martyrs, and the sons of men who hope in the shadow of your wings shall be inebriated with the richness of your house, and you shall give them to drink from the torrent of your delights (Ps 35).

177. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem. These things which are written in this place have already been foretold above, and are found expounded, with Christ enlightening. But for this reason I judge they were written a second time in this book, that they may sink more deeply into the heart; and, being instilled twice, may be renewed in a more vivid memory.

These things command temporal goods to be spurned; and they teach that things placed beneath us are, as it were, the left hand placed under the head; and they admonish that heavenly glory, which embraces us from above, as it were the right hand, is to be awaited; or else that we, who are to serve the Lord, should perform what is holy willingly, not unwillingly, according to what the apostle Peter teaches: Feed the flock of God which is among you, not by constraint, but willingly (1 Peter 5).

178. Who is this that ascends from the desert? She is well described as ascending from the desert, to whom the prophet says: Because you were forsaken and hated, and there was no one who passed through (Isaiah 60), etc. Of whose children also it is sung in the Psalms: They wandered in the wilderness, in dryness, they found not the way of a city of habitation. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them, and they cried to the Lord when they were troubled, and he delivered them from their necessities; he led them by the right way, that they might go into a city of habitation (Psalm 106). Therefore it follows.

179. Abounding in delights. Hence also the people of Israel, coming out of the desert, enters the land of promise flowing with milk and honey; and that son who, longing to be filled with the husks of swine, could not be satisfied, is brought in to be refreshed at the banquet which the father prepared from the fatted calf that had been killed. These delights, coming from the desert, the Church finds manifold in Christ; and, resting upon her beloved, she is described, because the same beloved says to her through the prophet: I made, I will bear, I will save (Isa. 46).

180. I raised you up under the apple tree. On the fragrant gibbet of the cross, where I lay down my life, there I raised you up from the destruction of sins, when I commanded you, believing, to be marked beforehand with the sign of the cross.

181. There your mother was corrupted. Where you deserved to be raised up through my death, there the Synagogue, captured through her own wickedness, was destroyed when she cried out, Crucify him; and, His blood be upon us and upon our children (Luke 23), she answered to Pilate as he judged.

182. Set me as a seal. So that with the Psalmist I may say, The light of thy countenance is signed upon us, O Lord; thou hast given gladness in my heart (Psalm 4). For whatever things are sealed cannot easily be violated; so receive my faith, that thou mayest keep it whole and unblemished, and fear not that the treasure of righteousness which thou hast received through the seal of the cross, which I have deposited in thee, shall be touched by anyone in any way.

183. Set me as a seal. First upon the heart, then upon the arm, understand the seal to be placed: that is, so that as much in thought as in deed thou mayest run to my sign; and by this show that thou art mine, not another's; and while I look upon thee, thou mayest persevere whole.

184. For thy love is strong as death. I have loved thee so much that I wished to die for thee; and this was the strength of love, the bitterness of death. But jealousy is hard as hell; so that the saints, on the contrary, may not fear to be slain for Christ, whom they know without doubt to have undergone death for their salvation.

185. His lamps, lamps of fire. The vessels in which chastity dwells are always shining and fervent with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

186. Many waters could not quench charity, nor shall rivers overwhelm it, nor tribulations; no persecutions, however violent, can disturb or overcome the love that is from God, or that is toward God, according to what the Apostle says: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or the sword, or danger? For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things exalted, nor things deep, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8).

187. If a man should give all his substance. As if he were to say: And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13). For nothing is more precious than this, as John the Apostle says: Because God is charity; and he who abides in charity abides in God.

188. Our sister is little, and has no breasts. The Church coming from the Gentiles, still rude in believing, and not yet furnished with men skilled to teach, according to what the Apostle says: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not yet able, but neither indeed are you yet able, for you are still carnal (1 Cor 3). And elsewhere: If you have secular judgments, set those who are contemptible in the Church to judge. I say this to your shame: is there not among you any wise man who can judge between his brother (1 Cor 6)? While he reproves them for such great faint-heartedness, he shows that the people are still little in faith, and not yet fit for spiritual nourishment.

189. What shall we do for our sister? How shall we arrange for the Church at the time when she is to be called to the faith?

190. If she is a wall, let us build upon her. Those who have begun to grow in faith and to be so established that by their strength they may admonish the weak, having received the privilege of honor, are appointed to teach the rest, according to what Paul says to Timothy: These things commend to faithful men who will be fit to teach others also (2 Tim. 2). And again to Titus: For this cause I left you in Crete, that you should correct the things that are lacking, and appoint presbyters in every city, as I have arranged for you. While these things are thus arranged in the Church, they are added to the walls like silver bulwarks.

191. If she is a door, let us fit it together. The Prophet says in the Psalms: Set, O Lord, a guard upon my mouth, and a door of restraint upon my lips (Ps. 141). And so if anyone is fit for speaking, and like a door that is opened and shut, understands the time to speak and the time to be silent, let us fit together such a door with planks of cedar, so that, having received the fragrant wood into itself, it may be able to say with Paul: Far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. 6).

192. I am a wall, and my breasts are like a tower. This is the voice of the Church, advancing as much in faith as for faith: I am a wall, because he who fights most mightily for me has himself built me. And my breasts are like a tower. As God builds, they have grown through the maturity of righteousness, and they nourish in me the little ones who are in Christ; and until they come to the food of perfection, they do not cease to train them, until the voice of wisdom says to them: Leave infancy behind, and come walk in the ways of prudence.

193. From the time that I was made before him. From the time I found peace in Christ, from that time I received both the defenses of walls and the bulwarks of towers with beauty, when by him who created me I was found worthy to be a city, having strongholds in the saints and retaining beauty among the elect.

194. There was a vineyard for the peaceful one. Assiduous cultivation was applied by Christ in the Church, which has those peoples of whom we sing in the Psalms: Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. He handed it over to keepers. He entrusted it to be governed by the apostles or by their successors the bishops. To this vineyard, under the name of Jerusalem, the Lord says through the prophet: Over you and over your walls I have set your watchmen; all day and night until the end they shall not be silent.

195. A man brings its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. Christ, of whom the prophet says: Behold the man, the Orient is his name (Zech. 6). He repays the kingdom of heaven for holy labors or alms, according to what is said in the Gospel: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world, because I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you covered me; sick and in prison, and you came to me (Matt. 25). In a thousand pieces of silver, moreover, the fullness of all recompense is shown, and the consummate reward of the just.

196. My vineyard is before me. According to what is sung in the Psalms: The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their prayers. For the Apostle says: Because the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a command and with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, who remain, shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4). Therefore, because after the resurrection the saints are always with the Lord, for that reason the Lord says, My vineyard is before me.

197. Your peaceable ones are a thousand, and two hundred for these. For if twelve be multiplied by the number one hundred, they make one thousand two hundred; and this number surely befits the apostolic men, who from them are spiritually begotten in Christ through the Gospel, who, established in the highest perfection, like that best of lands, answer to their author with the hundredfold fruit. Those peaceable ones also, that is, the disciples of Christ, are deservedly described thus, both because they themselves guard the fruits of the Church, and by the voice of their teaching drive off the wicked outside, and by their prayers cease not to defend from wicked dogs and the bites of beasts the Church which Christ planted.

198. You who dwell in the gardens. You who abound among the peoples established under the cultivation of righteousness, or ever watered by the water of spiritual teaching.

199. My friend, listen, let me hear. The Lord says in the Gospel to his disciples: I will no longer call you servants, but friends (John 15); and again: He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice (John 3). Let me hear your voice: that voice, surely, which you speak to the faithful who are to be rewarded: Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt. 25).

200. Flee, my beloved, be like the gazelle and the young stag upon the mountains of spices. You who have dwelt with us on earth, return swiftly to the things above. And so, ascending on high, you who now appear to the eyes of the flesh, be always present to the eyes of the heart, that we may hold you in faith whom we do not behold in sight. Be like the gazelle and the young stag, because you are he who took on the flesh of mortals, and with swift leap transcended all the heights of the hills. Upon the mountains of spices, being higher than all the glory of the angels.