Cornelius a Lapide

Verse 3. Draw me: we will run after you, to the odor of your ointments.

Up to this point was the voice of the Synagogue desiring the kiss of Christ, that is, his incarnation; now begins the voice of the Church, which, once Christ is already born, allured by the fragrance of his most sweet gifts, asks to be drawn after him, that she may imitate his most holy life, which he lived on earth, his passion and cross. For she knows herself weak and powerless to follow Christ, much more to the kiss, unless she be impelled to it by the grace of Christ, nay, drawn, according to that word of Christ: «No one can come to me, unless the Father, who sent me, has drawn him,» John 6:44. So Cassiodorus, Bede, Haymo and others; especially because the cross of Christ is lofty, and therefore difficult and steep to climb; whence he himself says: «If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself,» John 12:32. Draw me, then, from vices to virtues, from ignorance to faith and the knowledge of you, from the flesh to the spirit, from sluggishness to fervor, from the beginning to progress, from small and level things to great and arduous ones, from earthly things to heavenly, from fear to love, from pleasure to the cross and mortification.

For משכני (moschkeni), that is, "draw me," the Septuagint, reading it with other points as משכוני (meschachuni), translate "they have drawn me." Moreover, the codices of the Septuagint vary remarkably here. For the Roman edition, Nyssen, Theodoret, and others read: "therefore the maidens have loved you, they have drawn you"; St. Ambrose, in Book I On Virginity, "they have drawn you to themselves." The same author, in the book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 6, first has "and they have drawn you to themselves"; then, "draw us after you"; the Complutensian edition, "they have drawn me"; Origen, "they have drawn you after themselves." The true reading is, "draw me: we will run after you." For thus have the Hebrew, the Latin, Aquila, Symmachus, and the Chaldean. Yet all the readings come back to the same thing, and mean the same, as if to say: So great is your fragrance, O Christ, and so sweet is the oil poured out from you, that the maidens eagerly desire to draw you to themselves, and in turn wish themselves to be drawn to you along with me; nay, they themselves have drawn me to you, that they might be joined with me intimately to you, and might not merely walk after you, but run; wherefore I, with them and on their behalf, say and beseech: «Draw me: we will run after you, to the odor of your ointments.» Where Theodoret rightly notes that the maidens were first drawn by Christ and by love of Christ, and then, through him, strive in turn to draw Christ to themselves, that they may love him more ardently and enjoy him more intimately.

Again, the Hebrew has only, "draw me: we will run after you"; but the Septuagint, and our Latin, following them, add, "to the odor of your ointments"; for the discourse about this had preceded.

Moreover, the soul, drawing God to itself through prayer as though by a rope, does not so much draw God to itself as it is itself drawn to God: just as one who casts a rope from a ship toward a rock and pulls seems to be drawing the rock to himself, but in reality does not draw the rock, but along with the ship is drawn to the rock. And just as one who climbs to the roof of a house by a rope drawn by his hands does not pull the roof down to himself, but is himself drawn up to the roof and ascends. St. Dionysius gives both these examples, On the Divine Names, chapter 3.

Note: the phrase "after you" can, first, be referred to what precedes: "draw me"; for the bride desires to be drawn to the bridegroom, that she may follow him in all things. So Aponius, Justus of Urgell, the Chaldean, St. Bernard, and others. Second, and better, you may refer it to "we will run," which follows, as if to say: Draw me, that I, with the maidens, may run after you. So the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Latin, the Roman edition, and the ancients generally. Whence Origen, Nyssen, Anselm, and St. Basil, on Isaiah chapter 3, verse 24, note that the bride here speaks in a person not so much her own as that of the maidens. For the bride grasps the right hand of the bridegroom and walks with him step for step; but the maidens, like handmaids and attendants, follow both of them from behind; whence they desire to be drawn after both, and say: «We will run after you, to the odor of your ointments.»

Note secondly: the phrase "draw me" signifies, first, the weakness of the bride, in that she cannot follow the bridegroom unless she is drawn by him; second, her slowness in following the bridegroom and advancing on the way of virtue; third, the resistance of desire, which resists charity and the following of the bridegroom, and therefore must be drawn to him: for being drawn implies force, since it is the unwilling and reluctant who are usually drawn, according to the saying:

The fates lead the willing; the unwilling, they drag.

For the desire innate in us, resisting reason and virtue, brings it about that we must, as it were unwilling, be drawn to it by efficacious grace, according to that word of the Apostle: «I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and holding me captive in the law of sin which is in my members,» Rom. 7:23; and verse 14: «The law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do, I do not understand: for I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, that I do.» The bride desires, therefore, to be drawn by the grace of Christ, that through it the obstacle to following the bridegroom, namely the resistance of desire, may be removed or overcome, as if to say: I would wish to follow you, O bridegroom, but with desire resisting I am not able. Remove, then, or overcome its struggle through your grace, which, poured into me, may effectually draw me to you, and may make me not only walk after you, but even run. So St. Bernard, sermon 21: «Draw, he says, me after you, because it is better for me that you draw me, that is, that you inflict on me some kind of force, either by terrifying me with threats or by exercising the scourge, than that, sparing me, you should leave me wretchedly secure in my sluggishness. Draw me, in a sense, unwilling, that you may make me willing; draw me sluggish, that you may render me running.» For first by fear, then by love instilled, God draws the soul to himself, as he drew St. Paul, Acts 9:6, says Aponius. Whence the Arabic translates, "draw me from behind you," that is, draw me from your back to your face, that I who was behind you may become before you, and may enjoy your company and your face.

Third, she desires to be drawn not by chains or whips, as oxen and asses are drawn, but by the force of love, as men are drawn, according to that word of Hosea 11:4: «I will draw them with the cords of Adam, with the bonds of charity.» Whence St. Gregory and Anselm say that we are drawn through the Holy Spirit. Hear St. Augustine, sermon 1 On the Words of the Apostle, who, citing that word of Christ, John 6: No one comes to me unless the Father, who sent me, has drawn him: «He did not say, he says, has led him. Let that violence be to the heart, not to the flesh. Why then do you marvel? Believe, and you come; love, and you are drawn. Do not think this a harsh and burdensome violence; it is sweet, it is pleasant: its very sweetness draws you. Is not a sheep drawn, when grass is shown to it while hungry? and I think it is not driven by the body, but drawn together by desire. So you too, come to Christ. Do not think of long journeys; where you believe, there you come: for to him who is everywhere, one comes by loving, not by sailing.» The same, tract 26 on John: «How, he says, do I believe by will, if I am drawn? I say: it is little that you are drawn by will; you are drawn even by delight. What is it to be drawn by delight? Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart. There is a certain delight of the heart, to which that heavenly bread is sweet. Moreover, if it was permitted to the Poet to say, Virgil, Eclogue 2:

His own delight draws each man:

not necessity but delight, not obligation but pleasure; how much more forcefully ought we to say that man is drawn to Christ, who delights in truth, delights in blessedness, delights in justice, delights in eternal life, which Christ wholly is? Or do the senses of the body have their pleasures, and is the mind abandoned by its own pleasures? If the mind has no pleasures of its own, whence is it said: The children of men shall hope under the covert of your wings: they shall be inebriated with the abundance of your house, and you shall give them drink of the torrent of your pleasure; for with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light? Give me one who loves, and he feels what I say; give one who desires, give one who hungers, give one journeying in this solitude and thirsting, and sighing for the fountain of the eternal homeland; give such a one, and he knows what I mean: but if I speak to a cold man, he does not know what I am saying.»

Fourth, the sinful soul, forestalled by the grace of the bridegroom, desires to be drawn out from the deep mire of sins, and drawn to penitence and justice; but the soul already justified desires by that same grace to be drawn to increase of justice, to good works, to heroic virtues, such as renouncing the world, and being free, with Magdalene, for contemplation and divine love.

Tropologically, St. Bernard turns these words against those who seek after dignities: «The bride, he says, does not presume to enter the chamber or the bedroom without the king introducing her, but you rush in irreverently, neither called nor introduced. Draw me after you, she says. But now each man's own pleasure draws him, and those pursuing gain, following the scent of shameful profit, esteem it piety — men whose damnation is certain.»

Further, the Chaldean, in its own manner referring these words to the Jews going into the Promised Land under the guidance of the pillar, translates thus: «When the people of the house of Israel went out from Egypt, the majesty of the Ruler of the world was their leader in a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. The righteous of that generation said: Ruler of the whole world, draw us after you, and we will run after the way of your goodness.» This sense is Jewish, and as it were grammatical; whence it underlies and serves the Christian and genuine sense: for the pillar of fire and cloud, drawing and leading the Jews through the desert into Canaan, was a type of the Holy Spirit and his grace, which leads Christians through the temptations and delays of this life, nay, draws them into heaven.

Further, the soul immersed in flesh, and therefore heavy and sluggish, in order to run to heaven, that is, to Christ, needs wings of great eagerness, which the divine consolations supply to it. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 21: «For this reason I need to be drawn, because the fire of your love has grown cold in us for a little while, and we are not able, in the face of this cold, to run now as we did yesterday and the day before. But we shall run afterward, when you have restored to us the joy of your salvation, when a better temperateness of grace has returned, when the sun of justice has grown warm again, and the cloud of temptation has passed by, which is seen to cover it for a time, and when, at the light breath of a gentler breeze, the ointments have as usual begun to melt, and the spices to flow, and give forth their fragrance. Then we shall run, in that fragrance we shall run, with the ointments breathing, I say, we shall run, because the sluggishness that now is will depart, and devotion will return, and there will no longer be need for us to be drawn, since, roused by the fragrance, we shall run of our own accord. But now, meanwhile, draw me after you.»

This is what the Psalmist did, saying, Psal. 118:32: «I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart:» for love, enlarging the heart, enlarges also the feet and the steps, which sluggishness had constricted. Whence the same, Psal. 54:7: «Who, he says, will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly, and be at rest?» After many things interposed, St. Bernard then adds: «And what wonder if she needs to be drawn, who runs after a giant, who strives to overtake him who leaps upon the mountains, bounds over the hills? Swiftly, he says, his word runs. She is not able to run on equal terms, she cannot contend with him in equal speed, who exults like a giant to run the way; she cannot by her own strength, and therefore asks to be drawn. I am weary (she says), I fail, do not forsake me, but draw me after you, lest I begin to wander after other lovers, and run as it were at random. I shall not run alone, even though I have asked to be drawn alone: the maidens too will run with me. We shall run together, we shall run at the same time, I by the fragrance of your ointments, they roused by my example and encouragement, and through this all of us will run to the odor of your ointments. The bride has her imitators, just as she herself is Christ's. And therefore she does not say in the singular I shall run, but we shall run.»

St. Bernard then asks why the bride says in the singular "draw me," not in the plural "draw us"; but in running says in the plural "we shall run," not "I shall run" in the singular; and he answers: «We are drawn, when we are exercised by temptations and tribulations; we run, when visited by inward consolations and inspirations, as it were breathing amid sweet-smelling ointments: therefore what seems austere and hard, I keep for myself as one strong, as one sound, as one perfect, and I say in the singular: Draw me. What is sweet and pleasant, I share with you as with one weak, and I say: We shall run. I know that the maidens are delicate and tender, and less fit to bear temptations, and for this reason I wish them to run with me, but not to be drawn with me; I wish to have companions of consolation, but not of labor. Why? Because they are weak, and I fear lest they fail, lest they succumb. Chastise me, she says, O bridegroom, exercise me, test me, draw me after you: for I am ready for the scourges, and able to endure them. But let us run together; let me be drawn alone, but let us run together. We shall run, we shall run, but in the odor of your ointments, not in confidence in our own merits: nor do we trust to run in the greatness of our own strength, but in the abundance of your mercies. For even if at any time we have run and have been willing, it was not of one who wills, nor of one who runs, but of God who has mercy.»

Otherwise, St. Gregory: Draw, he says, me after you, that I may love you as God alone, yet in such a way that my faithful may at the same time run with me to the mutual love and help of neighbors.

Bede answers more plainly and more fully, that the bride, that is, the Church, speaks of herself now in the singular, because she is one through the aggregation of many faithful; now in the plural, because in her are many faithful, and many orders and ranks of the faithful — beginners, those making progress, the perfect, pastors, subjects, etc. She says, then, of herself, that is, of her prelates and pastors, who direct the maidens: «Draw me,» that is, my pastors, that they themselves may draw the maidens, that is, the people subject to them, and run with them to the odor of your ointments. Therefore the Church, in the apostles and apostolic men, who are the highest heads of the Church, is the perfect bride of Christ, and walks with the bridegroom at, as it were, an equal pace, according to that word: «The queen stood at your right hand,» Psal. 44:10; the same, in her pastors, follows Christ most closely, and leads after her the maidens, namely the weaker and less perfect souls, and with them says: «We shall run to the odor of your ointments.»

With a similar phrase and gradation, Cicero, Book II to Atticus, letter 23, calling Pomponius to himself, that he come at once, says: «If you sleep, he says, wake up; if you stand, walk; if you walk, run; if you run, fly.»

Further, Rupert applies these words to the Blessed Virgin visiting Elizabeth: «The woman of desires, he says, was drawn after the Lord; she was drawn and ran in the fragrance of such ointments and benefits, and her very running, that is, going into the hill country with haste, was to say: Draw me after you. For whoever truly loves is both drawn and desires to be drawn.» But he interprets God's ointments as benefits: «Precious, he says, was the ointment: great was the benefit which the Lord had given, the conception, to a barren woman, of so great a man, who in the spirit and power of Elijah was to go before the Lord, and than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women. She had perceived the fragrance of so great and such an ointment: the report, or rather the message, of so great and such a benefit she had received from the Angel himself.»

Thus the Blessed Virgin, drawn by Christ before all others, ran after him her whole life, imitating his most holy manners above all, and representing them in her own acts, so that she herself was a living image of Christ, and to the apostles and the rest of the faithful a most pure mirror of the Christian and perfect life — so much so that certain heretics judged her to be a goddess, and worshipped her as a goddess. Indeed St. Dionysius: Unless, he says, I knew that God is one, I would have believed her to be a goddess, as I have cited elsewhere.

To the odor of your ointments.

Thus it is to be read with the Greeks and the Latins. It is strange, then, that St. Ambrose reads "of your garments" in place of "of your ointments," and refers this to the resurrection, of which baptism is the type and anagoge; for thus he says, in the book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 6: «How many souls, renewed today (through baptism), have loved you, Lord Jesus, saying: Draw us after you; we will run to the odor of your garments, that they might drink in the odor of the resurrection.» Origen presses the point: "to the odor," as if to say: If the fragrance of the bridegroom so entices to following and running after him, how much more will his sight, voice, taste, and touch entice, and how much will his very substance entice? «I think, he says, that if they should ever attain to this, they would no longer walk, nor run, but, bound by certain chains of his charity, would cling to him, so that no further place for any movement would remain in them, but they would be one spirit with him, and there would be fulfilled in them that which is written: As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us,» John 17:21. O how powerful the fragrance, how pleasant and delightful the running, when the soul, having perceived the drawing fragrance of Christ's virtues, forgetful of all other things, even of itself, runs with immense delight to poverty, to contempt, to labors, to insults, to death, to the cross!

By "ointments" understand Christ's graces and gifts, says St. Augustine, Confessions IX, chapter 7. See St. Bernard, sermon 22. Now the faithful receive these gifts of Christ in baptism, by which they are anointed as Christians; and in confirmation, by which they are anointed as soldiers and athletes of Christ; but especially priests, pastors and prelates, who in the sacrament of order are anointed and consecrated as leaders and teachers of the faithful, who therefore ought, before others, to run after Christ, and to imitate his life and manners to the greatest degree, and to express them in living action: for thus, by the fragrance of their own virtues, they will draw all after them to Christ; just as keepers of doves catch doves by releasing a dove smeared with fragrant scent, which entices the rest, allured by this scent, to itself, and leads them with itself to the dovecote, says St. Basil, letter 175 to Juliet.

Anagogically, the Church, and the holy soul contemplating Christ ascending into heaven, cries out: «Draw me after you,» that with you I may ascend from the valley of tears into the mountains of eternity and eternal delight. So Cassiodorus and St. Bernard. Hear St. Augustine on Psal. 90: «Let us love and imitate, let us run after his ointments; for he came and gave forth fragrance, and his fragrance filled the whole world. Whence the fragrance? From heaven: follow, then, to heaven, if you do not falsely answer what is said — lift up the heart, lift up the thought, lift up the love, lift up the hope.» So St. Jerome, in the letter to Eustochium, On Guarding Virginity, writes of himself while living in the desert of Syria: «After many tears, he says, after eyes fixed on heaven, I sometimes seemed to myself to be present among the ranks of angels, and joyful and rejoicing I sang: We will run after you, to the odor of your ointments.» And St. Augustine, Confessions XIII, chapter 8: «Give, he says, yourself to me. My God, restore yourself to me. Behold, I love; and if it is too little, may I love more strongly. I cannot measure it, so as to know how much love is lacking to me for that which is enough, that my life may run into your embrace, and may not turn away until it is hidden in the hiding place of your face. This only I know, that it is ill with me apart from you, not only outside myself, but also within myself, and every abundance which is not my God is poverty to me.» To this pertains that word of Isaiah, chapter 40, last verse: «But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings like eagles, they shall run and not labor, they shall walk and not faint.» See what is said there.

The King has brought me into his storerooms: we will exult and rejoice in you, mindful of your breasts above wine: the upright love you.

First, Full Sense, Concerning Christ and the Church.

In the grammatical, or dramatic, sense, the bride, running with her companion maidens after the bridegroom, was brought by him into the storerooms, but alone, the maidens remaining outside; whence, having gone out, and turning to them, she tells where she has been, saying: «The king has brought me into his storerooms;» to which the maidens, congratulating and applauding, reply: «We will exult and rejoice in you;» Symmachus, in place of "has brought," translates "may he bring," in the future, or rather the optative: for it is a prophecy of the future bringing-in of the Church through Christ who was to be born. Thus "has brought" could be taken for "will bring"; for since the bride had said to the bridegroom, "Draw me after you," as though already having obtained this very thing from her beloved, she says: "He has brought," that is, soon and certainly he will bring me into his innermost storerooms; for those who love are full of good hope, so that they seem to themselves to possess what they hope for: for love enlarges the heart, the imagination, and the mind. Whence that saying:

And the lover fashions dreams for himself.

She calls the bridegroom, namely Christ incarnate, now king, because he, as man, is King of kings and Lord of lords, Apoc. 19:16; now shepherd, because in former times kings and princes were shepherds of sheep and flocks: such indeed were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. And so the word "king" signifies that these storerooms, into which the bride was brought, were royal, opulent, and filled with all goods and treasures, says Origen.

STOREROOMS. — The Hebrew חדריו (chadarav) signifies inner chambers or innermost recesses, such as are private rooms and bedchambers, in which the master himself dwells in secret, and stores away his wealth and treasures. Whence the Syriac translates, "he has brought me into the bridal chamber"; the Arabic, "into a secret chamber, private and particular." The Greek ταμεῖον means the same, as the Septuagint translates, and the Latin "cellaria." For "cella" or "cellarium" is said from "celare" [to hide], because in it are hidden the things we wish to be concealed, says Servius. Hence "cella" signifies a storehouse of grain, wine, oil. Whence Donatus: «Cella, he says, and cellarium are so called from the storing away and concealing of things to eat and drink.» And Cicero, On Old Age: «Always, he says, the wine-cellar, oil-cellar, honey-cellar, and bread-cellar of a good and diligent master is full.» Hence "cella" signifies a secret chamber, and likewise the more secret part of a temple, into which it was not lawful to enter: whence Gellius writes that Scipio came into the Capitol, and ordered the cella of Jupiter to be opened, and remained there alone. Hence the cell was dear and precious to St. Bernard as if it were heaven, in that in it, free from the noise of the world, he dwelt alone with God alone.

It alludes to the storerooms which Solomon built in the temple, in which the treasures and wealth of the temple were stored, 1 Paral. 28:11.

You will ask, first, what these storerooms of the bridegroom are, into which he himself brought the bride? The Chaldean takes it as the secret chamber of the divinity and of divine wisdom, from which the law came forth, whence he translates thus: "And bring us to the roots of Mount Sinai, and give us your law from your treasury, which is in the firmament, and we shall delight and exult." This is Jewish, but it serves the Christian sense: for the storerooms here signify the secrets of the divinity, in which the bridegroom shows the bride his hidden mysteries, as well as the goods and gifts stored away, which are great and manifold; wherefore the bride hints that her prayers have been heard, in which she had desired: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth"; for the bridegroom has granted them, and in these storerooms has given her a kiss, so St. Ambrose, whose words I shall soon recite; there too she tasted the breasts of the bridegroom; for concerning these she soon adds: «We will exult and rejoice in you, mindful of your breasts.» For in cells or storerooms are stored wealth, delights, jewels, treasures, and all precious things. Therefore the bride here signifies, first, that she was brought by the bridegroom into the storerooms, that is, into the chamber and innermost recess, where she might converse most familiarly with the bridegroom; second, that she was made a partaker of his secrets; third, that she was made an observer of his treasures and riches, and made a sharer in them, and therefore enjoys wondrous delight and the highest pleasures.

You will ask, second, what in particular these storerooms are? I answer that they are various and manifold.

First, Theodoret, St. Gregory, Justus of Urgell, and St. Jerome, letter 142 to Damasus, understand by the storerooms Holy Scripture, or Moses and the prophets, as though the bride had received from the bridegroom the knowledge of the mysteries hidden in Holy Scripture, and especially the knowledge of the Godhead and of the Most Holy Trinity, that is, of God one in essence and threefold in persons. For this the Church received through Christ and the apostles. Whence Christ, Apoc. 5:5, unsealed the book sealed with seven seals, and gave the apostles understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, Luke 24:32 and 45.

Second, St. Ambrose, sermon 1 on Psal. 118, at verses 7 and 8, understands by these storerooms the secrets or mysteries of the incarnation, passion, cross, death, and resurrection of Christ, into which the bride was brought when she received the knowledge and faith of them through the preaching of the apostles: «When, he says, the king brought her into his chamber, the piercing of his side declares the time of the passion, the shedding of blood, the ointment of burial, the mystery of the resurrection, so that as a bride she received a kiss; etc. and the Church was brought into the chamber of Christ: no longer as merely betrothed, but as married; nor did she only enter the bridal chamber, but also obtained the lawful keys of the union.» And after a few words: «For the king brought her into all the inward mysteries, gave her the keys that she might open for herself the treasures of the knowledge of the sacraments, might throw open the doors formerly closed, might know the grace of the one at rest, the sleep of the one dead, the power of the one rising.»

To this Philo of Carpathia adds: The storeroom, he says, or store-chamber of Christ is first that body, in which he fashioned for himself a dwelling. For the Word dwelt in the flesh as though in a cell, according to that word: «The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,» John 1:14. Whence the Apostle, explaining these storerooms of Christ, Coloss. 2:2: «Instructed, he says, in charity, and unto all the riches of the fullness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.» So Philo.

Third, others understand by the storerooms the secret counsels and judgments of God, which God reveals to the saints, among which one and chief is that crosses and tribulations are prepared for the saints, that they may be purged and more sanctified, and therefore that those who suffer patiently are blessed, because the cross is the straight way to glory, according to that word: «Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,» Matth. 5:10: so Philo of Carpathia.

Fourth, others understand by the storerooms or cells heaven, in which there are many cells and mansions according to the diversity of merits, John 14:2; as though the bride here had received a revelation of the goods and joys of heaven, which God has prepared for those who fear and love him. So Cassiodorus, Aponius, Anselm, and Bede, whom hear expressing the sentiments of the bride: «Therefore I beseech the bridegroom, that, as we run after him, giving his hand, he himself may help us not to fail, because I have already tasted beforehand the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom: I have already tasted and seen that the Lord is sweet: I have already come to know, by his own revealing, the good things that are prepared for me in heaven. And soon, turning to him, giving him thanks: We will exult, she says, and rejoice in you; as if she said: In no way are we ourselves puffed up over the gifts received, but in everything in which we live well, we exult; nay, we will exult and rejoice in your mercy.» Again, others understand by the storerooms the earthly paradise, into which Adam, brought in by God, received all the delights of the world, all knowledge, all faith and hope; but he was expelled from it, along with his descendants, on account of his transgression: wherefore Christ led him back, and restored men to the primeval justice, grace, and glory.

Fifth, St. Ambrose, in the book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 3, understands by the storerooms the secrets of God, namely revelations, visions, consolations, raptures, loves, heavenly joys, into which the soul is caught up through contemplation or ecstasy, as St. Paul was caught up into the third heaven, where he heard secret words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter, II Cor. 12:2 and 4. Hear St. Ambrose: «Blessed is the soul that enters the inner chambers of God: for rising up out of the body it becomes more removed from all things, and within itself searches and seeks that divine thing, if in some way it can attain to it: and when it has been able to grasp those things which are intelligible, having risen above, it is confirmed in that, and is fed by it. Such was Paul, who knew that he had been caught up into paradise, but whether caught up outside the body, or in the body, he did not know.» And after some words: «For indeed, being devoted to perfection, it aims only at that good of the divinity, and thinks nothing else need be sought, because it holds what is highest, and abounds to itself alone, because it alone is sufficient for itself. Nor is it ever alone, to which the Lord is present as guide. Finally, brought into that secret place of the divine: Let us exult, he says, and rejoice in you. For it exults not in riches of gold and treasures of silver, not in the fruits of possessions, not in powers, not in banquets, but in God alone.»

Sixth, fittingly the same St. Ambrose, Book V On the Sacraments, chapter 2, understands by the storerooms the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in which, under the small round of bread and the appearance of wine, as though under a bread-cellar and wine-cellar, Christ dwells, feeding us with his flesh, and giving us to drink with his blood. «Where there are good libations, says St. Ambrose, the fragrances of good wine, where sweet honey, where various fruits, where varied feasts, where your banquet is seasoned with very many dishes.»

Second, Partial Sense, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.

The storerooms of God, into which Christ brings the soul, and fills and inebriates with all good things, are the attributes of God, among which the chief are twelve, namely, God's infinity, immensity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, holiness, love, dominion, providence, mercy, justice, which our Lessius treats learnedly and devoutly, in the book On the Divine Perfections. For each of these is infinite and immense on every side, and accordingly, while the soul is brought by Christ into them through meditation, contemplation, rapture, and ecstasy, it swims, as it were, in an abyss of all good things, nay, is submerged, and is wholly carried away into love and admiration of the divinity, so that it cannot think, tell, or love anything else. For there, as the Psalmist says, «they shall be inebriated with the abundance of your house: and you shall give them drink of the torrent of your pleasure,» Psalm 35:9. There the saints exult and rejoice in God, there they are suckled from the breasts of divine sweetness. Having entered these storerooms of the Godhead, St. Paul, astonished, exclaims, Rom. 11:33: «O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God: how incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!» And St. Peter, at the transfiguration of Christ, through the shadow of the glorious body, not so much beholding as conjecturing the glory of the divinity, as though drunk with joy: «Lord, he says, it is good for us to be here: if you will, let us make here three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,» Matth. 17:4. And St. John, First Epistle, chapter 1, verse 1: «That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life, etc., we announce to you.» These storerooms "the woman pierced with compunction (Magdalene) found beside the feet" of the Lord Jesus, says St. Bernard; «Thomas in the side, John on the breast, Peter in the bosom of the Father, Paul in the third heaven, have attained the grace of this secret. Which of us is sufficient to distinguish worthily these truths of merits, or rather of rewards? Yet, lest we seem to have altogether passed over what we ourselves know: the first woman spread her couch in the mire of humility, the second on the throne of hope, Thomas on the throne of faith, John in the breadth of charity, Paul in the inmost of wisdom, Peter in the light of truth.»

Into all these storerooms, before all others, the Blessed Virgin was led. Whence Rupert refers these words to the Blessed Virgin visiting Elizabeth, and saying to her: «My soul magnifies the Lord, etc., because he who is mighty has done great things to me,» Luke 1:46; to whom Elizabeth would have answered: «We will exult and rejoice in you.» For at the voice and greeting of Mary, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the infant exulted in her womb. To this pertains that saying: «But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart,» Luke 2:19.

We will exult and rejoice in you.

These are the words of the maidens rejoicing together with the bride that she has been brought into storerooms so rich, or at least desiring that they themselves be brought into them; and therefore they turn to the bridegroom, and say to him: Let us exult and let us rejoice in you, as the Septuagint translates; Symmachus, "and we shall rejoice," that is, let us be cheerful, let us be glad, let us breathe ourselves out in you. This latter reading is held by Origen, Nyssen, Theodoret, Bernard, and St. Anselm, whom hear: «Because you, Lord, have already brought your bride into your secret places, therefore we too will make ourselves fit, that we may be brought in with her. For we will exult, namely, working well in the body with exultation, and we will rejoice in soul, because with gladness we will think good thoughts; or we will rejoice, if we have done good, not under compulsion, but willingly, and this in you, attributing all things to you as the first cause.»

Second, more coherently and plainly (lest the change of persons be so sudden), you may attribute these words to the bride, who, having gone out from the storerooms, tells the maidens of the delights she drank in there, and says: «The king has brought me into his storerooms, filled with all riches and delights, which he has prepared not for me alone, but also for you, when you have grown up in virtue. Come then, O companions, rejoice with me as much as with yourselves, and give thanks to the bridegroom, and with me say continually, shouting for joy: O good Jesus, we will exult and rejoice in you. Come, then, let us exult to the Lord, let us shout for joy to God our salvation, let us come before his face with thanksgiving, and let us shout for joy to him in psalms. We will exult, I say, mindful of "your breasts," that is, your most sweet benevolence and beneficence, which you have shared with me, your bride, and will in due time share with my maidens.» So Hortolanus.

Further, she mentions the breasts of the bridegroom, so that from Christ pastors and prelates may learn to show themselves as mothers to their subjects, and to suckle them at the breasts. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 23: «Let prelates hear this, who always wish to be a terror to those committed to them, and rarely of use. Be instructed, you who judge the earth. Learn that you ought to be mothers of your subjects, not masters; strive rather to be loved than feared, and if severity is sometimes needed, let it be fatherly, not tyrannical. Show yourselves mothers by cherishing, fathers by correcting. Grow gentle, lay aside fierceness; withhold blows, bring forth breasts; let breasts grow rich with milk, not swell with pride. Why do you make your yoke heavy upon those whose burdens you ought rather to carry? Why does the little one, bitten by the serpent, flee the conscience of the priest, to whom he ought rather to have run back as to the bosom of a mother? If you are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one considering himself, lest he too be tempted. Otherwise he will die in his sin, but his blood (he says) I will require at your hand.»

Mystically, Bartholomew of the Martyrs, Archbishop of Braga, in the Compendium of Spiritual Doctrine, Truly Divine, chapter 15, at the end, assigns seven degrees by which we can ascend to these storerooms of Christ, that is, to contemplation and unitive love; which are: taste, desires, satiety, inebriation, security, tranquility; and he says that the name of the seventh is known to God alone. The first, then, is rightly called taste, because it consists in a change of tastes: for to sinners, who have known only carnal tastes, it is said, Psalm 33:9: «Taste and see that the Lord is sweet;» change your tastes, and do not think that heavenly flavors can come from anywhere other than from God. Therefore the Lord is accustomed to bestow spiritual consolations on beginners, because he knows that the weak and fragile soul can scarcely fly up to divine things unless a foretaste comes first. In this first degree let the soul be free for compunctions, mortifications, meditations on the four last things, and on the passion of Christ, especially for the mortification and rooting out of evil thoughts and habits, that it may be able to pass freely into God, which is not done without the greatest effort: «For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away,» Matth. 11:12; but not the faint-hearted and the pampered.

The second: because divine things, the more they are tasted, are the more usually desired, therefore desires of enjoying God more and more follow upon taste, since it rejects with distaste the savor of all external things. And from these desires arises the zeal not only of meditating, but also of imitating the life of Christ, and the ardor of walking by him who said, John 14:6: «I am the way.» The steps, moreover, by which you must walk, are these: humility, meekness, patience, charity, prayer, his cross and patience, labors.

The third, satiety; when the soul comes to the point that it abhors and inwardly hates the things of the world, it soon also comes to rest, and is satisfied with divine love alone; for it experiences in the very reality that it can be fully satisfied nowhere except in God.

The fourth, inebriation, which is a certain ecstasy, and an excess of mind proceeding from the aforesaid satiety of divine love, which is mixed with no water of imaginations and phantasms, from which we are most difficultly drawn away, unless the Lord himself lead the soul by the hand, and admit and receive it into his secret chamber, that is, into himself, the senses being dismissed outward and their functions suspended.

The fifth, security excluding fear: for once the perfection of divine charity has been tasted, the soul remains altogether resigned to the divine good pleasure, so that it is prepared to bear hell perpetually, if it should so please God. It experiences, moreover, in itself a certain most close bond of divine friendship, so firm that it judges itself never able to be separated from it.

The sixth, tranquility, namely such an abundance of peace and jubilation, that the soul is believed to live as though reclining in silence and sleep upon the breast of the Lord.

Mindful of your breasts above wine: the upright love you.

In Hebrew it is נזכירה (nazkira), which first means "we will be mindful"; whence the Syriac translates, "let us remember your love more than wine"; the Septuagint, "we will love." Second, "we will commemorate, we will celebrate"; whence Vatablus translates, "we will proclaim your loves as more excellent than wine, because she is joined to you most intimately." Third, some translate, "we will smell your breasts (or your loves)," because, as she said in verse 2: "They are fragrant above the best ointments."

It alludes to what she said in verse 1: «Your breasts are better than wine.» Whence it is gathered that these breasts are the bridegroom's, not the bride's, denoting the bridegroom's sweetness, beneficence, and nursing, as I said in that same place. Again, from this it is clear that "better" is here to be understood, as if to say: We will be mindful of your breasts, which are better and sweeter than wine, that is, than all delights and worldly pleasures; for among these wine holds first place. Further, those who take these here as the bride's breasts, not the bridegroom's, understand by breasts loves, as though the maidens here congratulate the bride on her marriage and on the loves of the bridegroom, namely, that so fortunate a lot, so happy a love, so noble a marriage with Christ has fallen to her, that they resolve to remember, commemorate, and celebrate it forever. So Sanchez. Whence Nyssen and Theodoret explain it thus, as though the maidens and any Christian whatever say to the Church: Because you have loved the breasts of Christ above the wine of worldly pleasure and wisdom, hence we likewise will love both your breasts and your teaching, and will suck so securely, because rectitude, that is, Christ, has loved you: in this sense Nyssen applies this to St. John, who reclined upon the breast of Christ at the supper.

The upright love you.

First, in Hebrew it is מישרים (mescharim), that is, rectitudes, equities; whence the Septuagint translates, "equity has loved you"; the Arabic, "rectitude has loved you"; but the Syriac, "more than the upright, I have loved you." These are the words of the bride to the bridegroom, as I said, as if to say: We will exult in you, O Christ, mindful of your breasts, that is, of your loves and sweetnesses, which are sweeter than wine, that is, than any delights of the body, because your love is not carnal and impure, but spiritual, most pure, and most holy. For "rectitudes have loved you," that is, all rectitudes, that is, all virtues and graces have embraced you, so that you may seem to be a son of virtues and graces; and indeed you are such, because you are the Son of God, whom all divine endowments, all beauties, all gifts surround, adorn, and crown. So Origen.

Second, others translate "mescharim" in the ablative, "in rectitudes," as if to say: The virgins love you with rectitudes, that is, with a love entirely upright in every part, that is, chaste and pure, because in love of you there is the highest rectitude, the highest equity, the highest honesty, the highest beauty.

Third, R. Abraham refers "mescharim," that is, rectitudes, to the wine, as if to say: We will be mindful of your breasts, that is, of your loves, which are better than the wine of rectitudes, that is, than sincere, pure, and most excellent wine. But this seems obscure, flat, and forced.

Finally, our translator best translates "mescharim" as "the upright," whether because "mescharim" signifies both the upright and rectitudes, or because, by metonymy, the abstract is put for the concrete, namely rectitudes for the upright. The sense is, as if to say: We will exult continually, and shout for joy, and rejoice in you, O good Jesus, bridegroom of our soul: because we will remember that the breasts of your sweetness and mercy are better than wine, that is, than all the delights of the whole world: hence the upright, namely those who have a taste of the mind right and sincere, not depraved by the disease of desire, who measure all things by right reason, not by wicked desire, love you, because the breasts, that is, your sweetnesses, are most upright, that is, most just, most equitable, and altogether conformed to reason, law, virtue, and God. Whence Symmachus translates, "the upright are those who love you, because they are led by right reason, law, and virtue."

For rectitude he requires two things: first, that the life and action be in itself right, that is, honorable and just; second, that it be done with right intention. Hence St. Thomas interprets, as if to say: The upright, that is, those who have a right intention, namely, who strive to please God alone, and set him before themselves as the end of their whole life and works; these, I say, love you. Origen judges that here the maidens are tacitly touched upon by the bride, as if to say: Those who are plainly upright in mind and love, so that they have all their affections upright, these love Christ fully; but my maidens, because they have not yet made their affections plainly upright, but still love the wine of pleasures, and some vicious desire still remains in them, hence do not fully love Christ; but they will grow up and gradually purify their loves, that they may come forth wholly upright, and then they will be brides of Christ, and will love him with their whole heart and with all the strength of their soul. Gather from this: if you wish to love Christ, set right your mind, and your loves and manners. For none but the upright love Christ. So St. Ambrose on Psal. 118, sermon 2, at verse 1: «Equity, he says, has loved you, that is, they do not follow winding paths to you; only the path of justice can arrive at you. For he who loves justice does not turn himself away from Christ.» Again, gather from this that the rectitude of life and manners is charity and the love of Christ. For this love is most upright, and sets right all that is crooked; wherefore what is conformed to this love is upright; what is not conformed to it is bent and crooked. So Cassiodorus, Justus of Urgell, Bede, and others. Charity is the rectitude of the soul and of all its powers and faculties.

Moreover, the body, upright and given by God, most upright, above the rest of the animals, reminds the soul of this rectitude. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 24: «For what is more unbecoming than to bear a crooked soul in an upright body? It is a perverse and foul thing, that a vessel of clay, which is the body made of earth, should have its eyes upward, should freely gaze upon the heavens, and delight its sight with the lights of the heavens; while the spiritual and heavenly creature, on the contrary, drags its own eyes, that is, its inward senses and affections, down into the earth, and, though it ought to be nourished among saffron flowers, clings to the mire, like one of the swine, and embraces dung. Blush, my soul, that you have exchanged the divine likeness for that of a beast; blush to wallow in the mire, you who are from heaven. Blush, O soul, says the body, in the consideration of me. Created upright, like to your creator, you received me too as a helper like to you, namely according to the lines of the rectitude of the body.»

Tropologically, the upright prelate, says St. Bernard, and the apostolic man, who suckles others at the breasts of his teaching, often suffers persecutions and calumnies from the impious and wicked; but let him console himself, that the upright love him, and above all God, who is the most upright of the upright, according to that word: «The Lord our God is upright: and there is no iniquity in him,» Psal. 91:16; wherefore, relying on this, and glad in the testimony of conscience, let him despise the judgments of the impious, and say with the Psalmist: «My soul shall be praised in the Lord: let the meek hear, and rejoice,» Psal. 33:3. Again, St. Gregory takes these words as concerning the remembrance of the passion of Christ, which kindles in us the love of Christ: «The holy soul, he says, the bride of Christ, exults in the delights of her bridegroom, while she rejects bodily things, and hides herself in spiritual things; and she makes that same bridegroom her delight, in regard to whom she cares nothing for worldly things. But she does this in the memory of the breasts; because while she recalls with how great a charity Christ has loved her, who, dying on the cross, redeemed her with his own blood, and daily nourishes her, in the bosom of the Church her mother, with the milk of that same blood, without doubt she strains more and more toward the love of him. And this milk is well said to be sweet above wine, because through the blood of Christ we are mercifully brought up, we who were before severely constrained by the letter of the law. Through which love is fulfilled what is said: The upright love you: for only the upright indeed love Christ, because whoever still run, out of desire, through the crooked paths of vices, since they continually stumble against the line of rectitude, cannot altogether love Christ, the very author of justice.» Finally, the Chaldean translates: "And we will delight, and we will exult, and we will remember them, and we will love your deity, and we will withdraw from the idols of the peoples; and all the just, who do what is right before you, will fear you, and will love your commandments."