Cornelius a Lapide

Verse 4. I am black, but beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the skins of Solomon.

I AM BLACK, BUT BEAUTIFUL (in Hebrew שחורה schechora, that is, I am somewhat black and swarthy, as St. Ambrose reads it in his Apology for David — namely in the skin of my hands and face, as is usual with those who tend sheep in the fields — but in a noble face, and comely features, and in all the members of my body I am beautiful and lovely), DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM, AS THE TENTS (the Arabic has: as the dwellings) OF CEDAR, AS THE SKINS (Aquila and Symmachus: tents, which are made from skins) OF Solomon. — This second comparison is to be joined to the first respectively and separately, in this manner: I am black as the tents of Cedar, that is, of the Arabs (for Cedar was the son of Ishmael, and the father of the Arabs, or nomads, dwelling in tents in the wilderness of the Saracens), but beautiful as the skins of Solomon. So Origen, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Rupert, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, and others; although

Nyssen and Aponius refer both comparisons — namely of the tents of Cedar and of the skins of Solomon — both to the blackness and to the beauty of the bride. This is an anticipation of an objection; for someone will say: How is it, O shepherd bride and rustic one, who, like the Cedarenes, dwell continually in tents in order to feed your flocks, and are there scorched and blackened by the heat of the sun, that you dare aspire to marriage with a king, and say: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth"? She meets the objection and responds: Granted that I am outwardly black, like the Cedarene skins and tents, yet inwardly I am beautiful, like the skins and skin-covered tents of Solomon, who, as in everything else, so also in his tents (which he used when journeying) was most refined and costly; wherefore he adorned them with gold and gems, and with precious paintings. So Pliny of Nero: "To whom," he says, "there were figured tents and gilded pavilions." Again, these words cohere with what immediately precedes, as if to say: "The upright love you," O Bridegroom Christ, equally as they love me, who am your bride; but many perverse men hate and persecute both me and you. I am black, then, through the darkness of hardships and the affliction of persecutions, but beautiful through patience, constancy, and the victory by which I have overcome my persecutors, indeed subdued them, converted them, and made them subject to myself and to you. The blackness of tribulations, then, has not disgraced me, but has honored and illumined me.

He alludes to the Ethiopian wife of Moses, on account of whom his sister Miriam, murmuring against Moses, was struck with leprosy by God, Num. 12:1 and 10; for she was a type of the Church gathered to Christ from the Gentiles, black with unbelief, on account of which the murmuring Jews were themselves reproved. So Origen.

Moreover, many easterners and southerners are swarthy, such as the Mauritanians, the Egyptians, and the neighboring Jews, Arabs, and Ethiopians; such was Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus their king; of whom Ovid says:

Gephean Andromeda pleased Perseus,
dark in the color of her homeland.

Indeed

among them the swarthy are considered handsome, the white deformed.

Indeed, among them the swarthy are considered handsome, the white deformed. Whence the Ethiopians paint Judas and the demons white; but St. Peter and the angels they paint black. Add that swarthy is a mixed and middle color between white and black, and therefore has its own elegance. Hence the dawn is called in Hebrew schachar, that is, somewhat black, because it is the border of night and day, or of darkness and light; yet it is beautiful, on account of the rays of the sun shining and radiating beautifully amid the darkness. Whence the bride is compared to it, chapter 6, verse 9: "Who is this," he says, "that comes forth like the rising dawn, fair as the moon, chosen as the sun?"

By the daughters of Jerusalem, some, first, along with Aponius, understand the angels, who are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, as if to say: Do not wonder, O angels, that I am not as bright as you are, but black; for although black, I am nevertheless beautiful, as you are. Second, others understand the Jews, who persecuted Christ and the Christians, especially the Gentiles, because they had been black through unbelief. So Theodoret and St. Athanasius in the Synopsis. Third, and more plainly, others take them as young maidens, that is, souls newly come to the faith of Christ; for these are called daughters of Jerusalem, by a fitting allusion to the bride, who was the wife of Solomon, who was king of Jerusalem.

You will ask, how can the Church be black and beautiful at the same time? First, Nyssen, St. Gregory, Philo Carpathius, St. Jerome on chapter 2 of Sophonias, St. Chrysostom, homily 1 On Virtue, and others everywhere hold that the Church of the Gentiles is called black on account of the preceding idolatry and crimes, by which in paganism she served sin and the devil; but beautiful, through the conversion and grace of Christ, by which she washed away the blackness of her crimes in baptism, and made herself white in the blood of the Lamb. Whence St. Ambrose, sermon 2 on Psalm 118: "Swarthy," he says, "through fault, comely through grace; swarthy through vice, comely through the washing. I am swarthy, because I have sinned; comely, because Christ now loves me." The same, in the book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 7: "Black," he says, "because from sinners; comely, by the sacrament of faith." Hear St. Bernard, sermon 25: "But hear why she called herself black, and why beautiful. Is it because of the foul manner of life which she formerly had under the prince of this world, still bearing the image of the earthly man; but beautiful from the heavenly likeness, which she afterward put on, walking now in newness of life? But if this is so, why does she not rather say of the past: I was black, and I am not black now? Yet if this sense pleases anyone, what follows — As the tents of Cedar, as the skins of Solomon — must be understood in this way, that she spoke of Cedar as her old manner of life, and of Solomon's tent as her new one. For that the Prophet shows the skins to be the same as the tent, saying: Suddenly my tents are laid waste, suddenly my skins." The sense, then, is as if she said, say Origen and Nyssen: I, the Church of the Gentiles, was formerly black through unbelief, and accordingly was the tent of Cedar, that is, of darkness, in which the prince of darkness, the devil, dwelt; but now, washed by baptism, and sanctified by the grace of Christ, I have become beautiful like the skins, that is, the tent of Solomon, because I have been made the temple of Christ, who is the true Solomon, and peaceful king.

To this may be added the Chaldee, who in his own manner refers this to the Jews worshiping the golden calf: "When," he says, "the house of Israel made the calf, their faces were blackened like the faces of the sons of Ethiopia, who dwell in the tents of Cedar; and when they did penance, and their sin was forgiven, the splendor of their faces was multiplied, like the faces of angels, because they made the curtains of the tabernacle, and the majesty of the Lord rested in their midst. But Moses their teacher ascended to the heavens." For in like manner the Church passes from the tents of Cedar to the skins, that is, to the tents of Solomon, when she has migrated from error to true faith, from the darkness of falsehood to the light of truth, from bloodstained wrath to the tranquility of peace, from the defense of idols to the defense of the true religion of God, says Aponius.

Second, the Church is called black and beautiful, in that she consists of sinners and of the just: so Bede and St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 3, chapter 32. Or because she consists of the Gentiles, once uncircumcised, foul and black in their paganism; and of the Jews, who from of old were circumcised, faithful, and the people of God: so Theodoret and Philo Carpathius.

Third, St. Augustine, sermon 201, On the Time, says that the Church and the faithful soul are black through nature corrupted by sin, that is, through concupiscence, but beautiful through grace: "Whence," he says, "is the Church black and beautiful? Black through nature, beautiful through grace. Whence black? Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother bore me. Whence beautiful? You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: you shall wash me, and I shall be made white above snow, Ps. 50:9. Whence black? The Apostle says: I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin, Rom. 7:23. Whence beautiful? Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, v. 24. Truly the Church of the Gentiles was like ravens, when she despised the living Lord, and, before receiving grace, ministered to idols as to dead carcasses." And St. Ambrose, book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 7: "She is black," he says, "through the frailty of the human condition, comely through grace." And Aponius: "From a captive," he says, "made free; from a stranger, a citizen; from the vilest, made queen and bride, by the kindness of the Creator, the Word of God, Christ."

Fourth, and very fittingly, the Church is black through the storms of persecutions and sufferings, beautiful through the unconquered patience and constancy of soul. This sense is required by what follows: "Do not consider that I am swarthy, because the sun has discolored me. The sons of my mother have fought against me:" she is black, then, because of hardships; beautiful, first, because of the glory of fortitude and humility, and of the other virtues which she acquires and increases by suffering and fighting; second, because of the most beautiful crowns which she merits for herself in heaven; third, because of the manifold orders of saints by which she is adorned, says Aponius. And St. Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit, chapter 11: "She is black," he says, "with the dust of her own exertion, while she does battle; comely, while she is crowned with the insignia of her victory." And on Psalm 118, sermon 18: "He put the black before, that he might increase the comely." So too Cassiodorus: Cedar, he says, that is, the Saracens, Arabs, enemies of Israel, denote the persecutors of the Church, who strive to blacken her; but she is beautiful, because she herself is the tent (which is made of skins) of Solomon, that is, of Christ, and therefore worthy of his visitation and consolation; especially because she assiduously devotes herself to mortification, of which the skins are the symbol, being the spoils of dead animals. So too Bede, who adds that the Church is likened to Cedar, the son of Ishmael, of whom it is said: "His hand against all, and the hands of all against him," Gen. 16:12. For in like manner Christ foretold to the apostles and the Church: "You will be hated by all for my name's sake," Matt. 10:22. Justus of Urgell gives St. Paul as an example: Consider, he says, black and beautiful in Paul: "In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed: we are perplexed, but not destitute: we are cast down, but we do not perish," 2 Cor. 4:8. The tents of Cedar are present when he says: "We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all," 1 Cor. 4:13. But the skins of Solomon, when he says: "Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies," 2 Cor. 4:10. Thus far Justus.

Second Partial Sense, On Christ and the Holy Soul.

First, the sinning and repentant soul is black through fault, but beautiful through repentance; black through sluggishness, beautiful through fervor. "For conversion bestows beauty on her," says Origen, "when she begins from lowly things to ascend to the heights, and it is said of her: Who is this that ascends, made white?" To this may be added Nyssen, teaching that the soul blackened by sin becomes beautiful, because Christ loved her, according to what precedes: "Uprightness has loved you." Hear Nyssen: "Do not wonder (O young maidens) that uprightness has loved me, but rather that, though I was black with sin, and through my deeds akin to and joined with darkness, it made me beautiful through love, exchanging its own beauty for my ugliness: for, the filth of my sins having been transferred to itself, it imparts to me its own purity." He brings forward the comparison of night and dawn: for night makes all things dark and black; but the dawn, once the black darkness has been put to flight, brings a bright and beautiful light to all things. Christ does the same, when by his bright grace he makes beautiful the soul darkened by error and sins. St. Gregory, however, refers these words to the holy soul, but one repentant with Magdalene, who, mindful of her past sins, calls herself black, but beautiful, through the present grace and justice of Christ. "The holy soul, indeed," he says, "calls herself both black and beautiful, because she always beholds the ugliness of her sins, and yet in her outward acts skillfully bears with herself the form of that justice which she sees within. She is rightly called black like the tents of Cedar, and beautiful like the skins of Solomon, because, insofar as she bears the darkness of mortality, she is defiled with the blackness of corruption. For Cedar is interpreted as darkness; but Solomon, who signifies Christ, is called peaceful. She calls herself beautiful, then, like the skins of Solomon; because, while she does not neglect to imitate any of the saints who mortify themselves in imitation of Christ, she joins herself, by resemblance, to their beauty." Wherefore let the penitent, who strives to guard against future sins and to establish himself in the grace of God, continually turn over in his mind, with St. Magdalene, the sins he has committed, and mourn and weep for them; for this humility, contrition, and compunction will win for him the grace of God, which will grant him the gift of perseverance.

Second, the just soul is black outwardly, on account of the defects and venial faults into which she often falls; but beautiful inwardly, through grace, charity, and the other virtues. Again, she is black on account of the dangers of sinning mortally, of damnation and of hell: for these dangers are suggested to her by the daily temptations of the devil, the world, and the flesh, on account of which she works out her salvation in humility with fear and trembling, and is therefore beautiful; for humility and holy fear make her beautiful, which accordingly strengthen her to resist temptations bravely, and so, as it were, assure her of victory and salvation, as St. Bernard teaches.

Third, you may take these words of the soul struggling with concupiscences and passions, as if to say: I am black through the foul movements of anger, gluttony, lust, and every concupiscence; but beautiful, because I fight against them assiduously and bravely and conquer, and so through war I obtain true peace, through the grace of Solomon, that is, of Christ the peaceful king, in which peace the harmony and beauty of the soul consist. So St. Ambrose, On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, chapter 7; the same, in the Exhortation to Virgins, applying this to any virgin: Black, he says, through the flesh, comely through virginity, like the skins, that is, the tents of Solomon made from skins, but interwoven with gold and gems, and worked in Phrygian and Babylonian work.

Fourth, you may take these words of the holy soul who endures the slanders of her rivals, persecutions, and the other hardships of this life: for she is black through hardships, but beautiful through patience; wherefore the blackness of her hardships increases the beauty of her patience. "Happy blackness," says St. Bernard, sermon 25, "which brings forth brightness of mind, the light of knowledge, purity of conscience." And further below he cites the example of Paul, 2 Cor. 12:5: "Gladly," he says, "will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. A weakness to be desired, which is compensated by the power of Christ. Who will grant me not only to be weak, but to be utterly destitute and to fail wholly from myself, that I may be established by the power of the Lord of powers? For power is perfected in weakness. Finally he says: When I am weak, then I am strong and powerful. Since this is so, the bride beautifully turns to her own glory what is cast at her as a reproach by her rivals, glorying that she is not only beautiful, but black as well. For she is not ashamed of the blackness, which she knows preceded also in the Bridegroom, to be made like to whom is how great a glory? She therefore thinks nothing more glorious for herself than to bear the reproach of Christ. Whence that utterance, wholly of exultation and salvation: God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. The ignominy of the cross is pleasing to one who is not ungrateful to the Crucified. It is blackness, but it is the form and likeness of the Lord."

Moreover, Theodoret, by the skins of Solomon, understands the precious skins with which Solomon was clothed, as if to say: I am the bride of the true Solomon, that is, of Christ, and therefore I am beautiful, because I walk clothed in him and in his garments. Finally, hear Paul describing the skins of the saints, Heb. 11:37: "They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they died by the slaying of the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth."

Third Principal Sense, On Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

First, the Blessed Virgin was black not in herself, but in her father Adam, who sinned and by his sin infected his whole posterity (except the Blessed Virgin). She is therefore black through an extrinsic dominion, because a daughter of a sinner; in herself, however, she is beautiful through the fullness of grace. Whence St. Ambrose, sermon 2 on Psalm 118: The sinning flesh, he says, which he had banished in Eve, he recovered from the Virgin, he took up from Mary his original purity and beauty.

Second, Rupert: The Blessed Virgin, he says, appeared black, when she was found by Joseph to be with child, on account of which he wished to put her away secretly; but she was beautiful in truth, because she conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Again, she was black through the humility with which she outwardly conducted herself like other mothers, who, conceiving and bearing by a man, are defiled, and are therefore purified on the fortieth day. For thus the Blessed Virgin also was purified; but inwardly she was most beautiful and most fair, and so great a humility won for her a new glory and a new beauty.

Third, she was vile and despised to the Jews and the rest of the unbelievers, like the tents of Cedar; but to the faithful, indeed to the angels and to God, beautiful like the skins, that is, the tabernacle (for the tabernacle of Moses was covered outside with skins, but inside with gold, silver, etc.), and the temple of Solomon, because she herself was a temple, indeed a heaven not made with hands, which the Wisdom of God, that is, Christ, built for himself, Prov. 9:1. So Hailgrinus, whom hear: "I am black in appearance, and despised as the mother of a leper; but beautiful in the reality of truth, and glorious as the mother of the true God. I am black as the tents of Cedar, because I am not accounted the tent of the King of justice, but like other mothers, whose wombs are tents of the sons of sorrow and darkness; I have been accounted among the tents of Cedar, which is interpreted darkness or sorrow. Nevertheless I am beautiful like the skins, that is, the tabernacle of Solomon, because it was a temple, indeed a heaven not made with hands, which the Wisdom of God, that is, Christ, built for himself. I am black in appearance, and despised as the mother of a leper; but beautiful in the reality of truth, and glorious as the mother of the true God — skins, however, dedicated to Solomon Christ, the true peacemaker. For as those skins contained the typical ark, so I within my womb contained the true ark, namely Christ, whose flesh is signified by the ark, whose soul is designated by the golden urn which was in the ark, and whose deity is designated in the manna; and as the skins protected the whole tabernacle, so under the shadow of my protection I defend the whole Church. I indeed am like the reddened skin, because through compassion for his suffering I was dyed in the passion of my Son. I am also like the hyacinth-colored skin, through contemplation of heavenly things and love."

Fourth, William Parvus and Hailgrinus best refer this to the time of the Passion, when the sorrowful mother stood by her dying Son, and when the sun was darkened, the splendor and beauty which this fairer moon drew from her sun was darkened also. For they hold that by the Holy Spirit the person of the Virgin Mother is here presented to us, as it were contemplating, in dark garb, the most bitter torments of her Son, as if to say: As the Son, dying not miserably but mercifully, disdained that this unworthy and unbecoming mourning be spent upon him: so too the most blessed Mother, dying together with her Son out of affection, and in a certain manner dying in him, because he is bone of her bones and flesh of her flesh: Why, she says, do you weep over me, as over a wretched woman, and the mother of a wretched man? I am now black, because it is fitting that I, with my despised Son, be despised, and, with him accounted a leper, be accounted a leper. He, according to the Prophet, my sun, now become as it were a sackcloth of hair in your eyes, and one who has no comeliness nor beauty; it is fitting also for me to be conformed to him, and to be made like, in dark and black attire, to the guilty: as the tents of Cedar, as though I were one of the sinful women, says Honorius.

Finally, the Church and the faithful soul, while militant, is black like the camp-tents of Cedar, through the struggles and wounds which she gives or receives, while she continually fights with her enemies. But the same, when triumphant, is beautiful, in Hebrew נָאוָה nava, that is, desirable, lovable, like the skins of Solomon; because she enjoys heavenly peace, honor, glory, and every good. Whence the Psalmist, aspiring to her, groans: "Woe is me," he says, "that my sojourning is prolonged: I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar: my soul has been long a sojourner," Ps. 119:5-6. The Church, therefore, says to the daughters of Jerusalem, that is, to the souls and angels triumphant in heaven: See that you do not despise me, militant and blackened with dust, because through these struggles, fighting bravely, I press on toward your triumphs.

Tropologically, the faithful and the saints appear outwardly abject, base, sallow, black; but inwardly they are beautiful with virtues and wisdom. "Often," says he, "a philosopher lies hidden beneath a mean cloak." Wherefore Ecclesiasticus wisely warns, chapter 11:2: "Praise not a man for his beauty, neither despise a man for his look;" he proves it by an example: "Small (μικρά, that is, little) among flying things is the bee, and the fruit of it has the beginning (Greek ἀρχήν, that is, the primacy) of sweetness," namely the honey, which the bee makes. See what is said there.

Anagogically, the soul is black, while she dwells in this wretched body as in the mean and black tent of Cedar; but she will be beautiful, when she migrates to the skins of Solomon, that is, to heaven: for God "stretches out the heavens like a skin," Ps. 103:2. For as skins are marked out by their engravings, so the heavens are marked out by the stars and the angels, so St. Bernard. Wherefore the soul, continually aspiring to the blessed life, is beautiful, because she is like heaven, says Origen. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 27: "Nor does she without reason claim a likeness from that whence she draws her origin. But by what reasoning does she compare her form to the heavens in this way? Is it because she adores and worships one God? As do the angels; loves Christ above all things? As do the angels; is chaste as the angels are, and this in sinful flesh and a fragile body, which the angels are not; finally seeks and savors the things that are with them, not the things upon the earth. What clearer mark of heavenly origin is there, than to retain an inborn likeness even in the region of unlikeness; for the glory of a celibate life to be claimed on earth, and by an exile; and finally for an angel to live in an almost bestial body? These things are of heavenly power, not of earthly."

Symbolically, the Church and the faithful soul is black through the labors, distractions, and impurities of the active life, such as the Cedarenes, that is, the Arabs, led and lead, who accordingly never rest, nor have a fixed abode; but dwell continually in movable tents, which, soiled by heat, rain, and dust, grow black, and wander from region to region, as the nomads do. The same is beautiful, and, as St. Ambrose reads in his Apology for David, comely through the beauty and quiet of the contemplative life, which the skins represent, that is, the tent of Solomon, that is, of the peaceful king.