Commentary on the Song of Songs (Commentarium in Canticum Canticorum)

1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are doves, apart from what lies hidden within. Your hair is like flocks of goats, which have gone up from Mount Galaad. 2. Your teeth are like flocks of shorn ewes, which have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and none is barren among them. 3. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon: and your speech is sweet. Like a piece of pomegranate, so are your cheeks, apart from what lies hidden within. 4. Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with battlements: a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty. 5. Your two breasts, like two twin fawns of a roe, which feed among the lilies, 6. until the day breathes, and the shadows incline. I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. 7. You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you. 8. Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come: you shall be crowned from the top of Amana, from the peak of Sanir and Hermon; from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. 9. You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, and with one hair of your neck. 10. How beautiful are your breasts, my sister, my bride! your breasts are more beautiful than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments above all spices. 11. Your lips, my bride, are a dripping honeycomb, honey and milk are under your tongue: and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of frankincense. 12. A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a sealed fountain. 13. Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of apples. Cypress with nard, 14. nard and crocus, cane and cinnamon with all the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloe with all the chief ointments.

15. A fountain of gardens: a well of living waters, which flow with a rush from Lebanon. 16. Arise, north wind, and come, south wind, blow through my garden, and let its spices flow.

The Voice of the Bridegroom.

Verse 1. How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are doves, apart from what lies hidden within.

The Syriac and the Arabic: Behold, you are beautiful, etc. The bridegroom, admiring the beauty of the bride, describes her part by part, and begins from the eyes, which he asserts to be very like doves, that is to say handsome, bright, clear, innocent, simple, placid, lovable, etc., as I explained at chapter 1, verse 45: for he repeats this here because at the end of the preceding chapter the bride had bidden the eyes of her young maidens to look not upon herself, but upon the bridegroom, and upon the bridegroom's diadem, namely the humanity assumed by him, and the crown of thorns: by which thing she had shown how sincere and faithful she was in her eyes, so that her eyes deservedly merited a new beginning of praises.

Apart from what lies hidden within.

In Hebrew, מבעד לצמתך mibbaad letsammatech, which the rabbis, Genebrardus, Pagninus, Clarius, and others translate: within your locks; Marinus: within your hair; Vatablus: outside your hair, namely shining forth, that is to say: Your eyes appear more beautiful, when you walk with your hair let loose as a bride: for thus, flowing within your locks and ringlets, your eyes beautifully shine forth and gleam.

Better do R. Jonah and others translate: your eyes are doves (that is, they are like doves, so much so that they seem to be very doves themselves) within your veil: for virgins already given to a husband were accustomed to cover their head with a veil, and from this they were called nuptae, to signify that they were made subject to the husband, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Corinthians 11:7 and 10. This veil was called the nuptial flammeum, because the Flaminica, that is the wife of the flamen, continually used it, says Festus; whence Martial, book 12, 38: The torches gave light before, the flammeum veiled her face:

In Hebrew it is called צמה tsamma, that is, a binder, or fillet, or veil binding the head; whence Symmachus here at verse 3, and the Septuagint, at Isaiah 47:2, translate it veil, or covering. The sense therefore is, as if he should say: Not only are your eyes, O bride, beautiful from their dove-like sheen, but also from that "which lies hidden within," that is, from the fact that the eyes lie hidden beneath the veil, or nuptial flammeum; for from there they seem to flash forth like beryls, or diamonds, and to assail those who meet them, unwary, as if from an ambush, and to wound them; for the lights of the eyes, thus stored away within and veiled about, have a great glory, and, as if from a certain hidden source of light, seem to cast forth and quiver rays from themselves, like darts, as I said more fully at Isaiah 47:2.

Add that the Hebrew צמת tsammat seems to signify not so much a veil, as a thing veiled, that is, a thing worthy, on account of its beauty or for reverence, of a veil, and covered; this is clear from the fact that our translator here, and at verse 3, and at chapter 66, constantly translates it "what lies hidden within": tsammat therefore signifies a thing lying hidden and stored away beneath a veil; and from the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Arabic, which translate tsammat as taciturnity, or silence, that is, a thing lying hidden, and, on account of its own glory and majesty, to be kept silent and unspoken. By a similar catachresis fields are said to be silent, when they have not yet sprouted; and flowers are called silent, which have not yet opened themselves, but lie hidden, closed within their calyx, and the moon is called silent, that is, hidden, according to that of Virgil, Aeneid 2: Through the friendly silences of the silent moon,

Therefore the phrase apart from what lies hidden within is the same as if he should say: Apart from the inward grace of beauty, which lies hidden concealed in the eyes, that is to say: Your eyes, O bride, are not only like the eyes of doves, in that they are lovely, bright, simple, chaste, modest, lovable; but besides they contain within themselves an extraordinary hidden grace and beauty, which through the pupil and the corners, as though through a veil, shines through faintly and dimly and gleams forth, and therefore does not fill the eyes of those who behold it, but entices and carries them away to gaze more deeply into that which lies hidden, just as in certain rubies and gems, a certain thin, lovely and splendid little cloud lying hidden at the bottom shines through the outer surface, which wonderfully delights the eyes of those who behold it, and, because it does not satisfy, invites them to gaze further, because something rare and precious seems to be concealed beneath it.

For there is in the eyes of men, especially of women, a wondrous hidden grace and charm, which carries away those who behold it into love and admiration of itself: for just as the whole beauty of a woman is, as it were, gathered together in the face, so the whole beauty of the face seems, as it were, to be in the eyes. Wherefore at verse 9 the bridegroom says to the bride: "You have wounded my heart with one of your eyes." Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 60, relates that a certain nun was passionately loved by a young man; when he pursued her everywhere, she asked what pleased him so greatly in her, and when the young man answered: Those eyes, he said, have seduced me; soon after she dug out her own eyes with a knife, lest they should any longer be an occasion of scandal to him, as if to say: Take what you loved, and cease to pursue me; he, stung with remorse, changed his mind and his life for the better. Sabellicus, book 4 of the Examples, chapter 8, writes that St. Lucy sent her own gouged-out eyes to the tyrant who was pursuing her, as pledges and guardians of her virginity. Some think this Lucy to be that celebrated Syracusan martyr, and that this is why she is painted with her eyes displayed on a plate; but she seems to have been another. A certain prelate, upright and wise above others, told me that he had been warned by a certain chaste and grave, and no less prudent, married woman, that

he should restrain the priests and confessors subject to him from the sight and conversation of women: because, she said, there lies in the eyes of women a certain hidden grace and allurement to love, which entices and, as it were, deranges even holy men without their knowing it. And she added: There is no man so devout and holy that I could not persuade him of whatever I wished, if I converse with him for a quarter of an hour, and he fixes his eyes intently upon mine. So great a grace and hidden alluring power lies hidden in the eye of a woman. Wherefore Ecclesiasticus wisely warns, chapter 25:28: "Do not gaze upon the beauty of a woman, and do not desire a woman for her beauty;" and chapter 26:21: "As the sun rising upon the world in the heights of God, so is the beauty of a good woman in the ornament of her house;" and chapter 36:24: "The beauty of a woman gladdens the face of her husband, and draws desire beyond every longing of man."

The reason a priori is, that the eyes are the lights of man, near to the brain, ending in it: wherefore they, as it were, occupy and possess the very soul and mind of man, so that the soul seems to dwell in the eyes, and to transmit and display through the eyes all its own beauty; hence in the embryo the heart first forms the brain, then the eyes, as Aristotle, physicians and anatomists teach.

The same Aristotle, book 2 of the Generation of Animals, chapter 5, teaches that the eyes contribute most of all to generation, as if the whole soul and the whole man were in them: "For the seat of the eyes," he says, "is, of all the places of the head, most seminal, which is clear, since it alone is manifestly altered through venereal intercourse, and through immoderate use of venereal matters the eyes plainly grow languid and sink. The reason is that the nature of the seed is like that of the brain."

Hear Pliny, book 11, chapter 37, who asserts that all the affections and movements of the mind reside and shine forth in the eyes: "Nor," he says, "are there in any part greater indications of the mind in all animals, but this most of all, that is, of self-restraint, mercy, compassion, hatred, love, sadness, joy." Whence he concludes: "Assuredly the mind dwells in the eyes. They burn, they are intent, they grow moist, they wink. Hence those tears of compassion. When we kiss these, we seem to touch the very mind." And shortly after: "We see with the mind, we perceive with the mind; but the eyes, as certain vessels, receive its visible part, and transmit it. Thus a great thought blinds, the sight being withdrawn within: thus in the falling sickness the open eyes perceive nothing, the mind being clouded." The same author, book 8, chapter 16, teaches that the strength and might of lions is in their eyes; and therefore, if anyone is attacked by a lion, the one remedy is to throw a cloak, or something similar, over its eyes: for with its eyes veiled its ferocity subsides, so that it allows itself to be caught, bound and killed: "In a scarcely credible way," he says, "so great a ferocity growing numb, though the head is covered by even a light throw, so that it allows itself to be bound without resisting, evidently all its force consists in the eyes."

Since therefore the whole force, grace and beauty of the soul, both natural and supernatural, lay hidden concealed in the eyes of the bride, and shone forth only faintly through the pupils, hence the bridegroom says: "How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful you are! your eyes are doves, apart from what lies hidden within;" the fifth edition has: and by the multitude of your beauty; the Septuagint: apart from your silence, that is to say: Your beauty carries me away, and all who behold it, into admiration of you, so that, as one stupefied, I cannot speak, but am compelled to be silent, and, silent, to gaze upon and admire your beauty: for many things remain, which could be praised in you, but their greatness is better commended by silence. For in your eyes I see hidden a mind that is wise, virginal, burning with heavenly love, heaped up with every grace and virtue, angelic, and divine; whence Philo Carpathius translates: besides those things which are kept silent about you, or which lie hidden within.

Some explain it thus, as if to say: The grace lying hidden and concealed in your eyes is so great, that it itself, while you are silent, seems to break silence, indeed to speak by its own silence, and to utter and pour forth to all your modesty, your bashfulness, and all your beauty. St. Ambrose indeed, book On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 1, judges that here taciturnity is commended in the virgin: for this adorns and increases the modesty and bashfulness of the eyes, which talkativeness betrays and destroys, talkativeness which sounds rather of something meretricious than of chastity. Whence our Sanchez thinks that the eyes of the bride are here celebrated for their own natural modesty, because, to be sure, they are not free or wandering, such as curious and impudent eyes are wont to be, but downcast and half-closed, such as modest and chaste women have, which Porphyrion, in Horace, Satire 1, calls paetos. So much for the grammatical sense of the bark of the letter; let us now approach the marrow.

First, the Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.

What the dove-like eyes of the Church signify I explained at chapter 1, 45; now the phrase apart from what lies hidden within is to be explained. I say therefore, first, that by it is signified the interior grace and loveliness lying hidden in the mind, which shines through and gleams faintly through the body and outward works; whence, first, the purity, modesty, chastity, humility, and outward amiableness, which are noted by the dove-like eyes, in the Church and the assembly of the faithful, flow from an interior purity, modesty, chastity, humility, amiableness, which is far greater and more beautiful than the outward.

Wherefore St. Gregory explains it thus: "It is very honorable, whatever it works in outward things, that it converses simply among men, that it disdains to desire temporally the things which it sees, and, if yet something pleases in this world, detests to go after its own desires; but it is far more beautiful and honorable, that it strives to keep the desire of the heart untouched, that it retains in the mind the brightness of eternal blessedness, contemplates it upright, that in those things which it sees inwardly, it sweetly rests, and is purified." Nyssen has similar things, homily 7, and Philo Carpathius, who, reading according to the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Arabic, besides your silence or taciturnity, explains the same thing thus: "For besides dove-like innocence and sincerity, another beauty also, and a certain interior loveliness, is signified to be in this bride from her taciturnity: often many of the devout are indeed silent in mouth, but cry out in heart; whence it was said to the silent Moses: Why do you cry out to me?" Thus the Apostle often calls the interior mind, and its virtues and holiness, the interior man; but he calls the exterior man the body, and the outward works of the body.

Indeed Lucian, in the dialogue Images, aptly compares those who pursue the outward beauty of the body while neglecting the inward beauty of the soul, to the temples of the Egyptians, which appeared magnificent on the outside, but to those entering within displayed no other god than an ape, a cat, a dog, or a goat.

Finally, what lies hidden within is the grace which lies hidden in the mind, and which wonderfully adorns it, so much so that it makes it beautiful and pleasing in the eyes of God, and is thence called grace; and this grace is adorned by faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues, and is variously adorned and polished in various people by other gifts and ways.

Second, with dove-like eyes the bride beholds the bridegroom Christ, crowned with the diadem of his humanity and the crown of thorns, but greater and more beautiful is what lies hidden within, namely her interior faith, keenness of mind, and contemplation, by which she beholds the divinity lying hidden beneath the humanity, and believes it, and loves, worships and adores it with her whole heart. Hence the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, reading with the Septuagint, apart from your taciturnity, explain it thus, as if to say: The soul, contemplating the Creator from creatures, venerates him the more with silent silence, thinking that he and his attributes cannot be comprehended by man. "The eyes of the devout soul," they say, "are called doves, because through them it refers all things that have been created to the praise of the Creator. But thus the eyes are spiritual, apart from the soul's own taciturnity concerning God: for this is more spiritual; for in the Holy Spirit it knows concerning God that which surpasses all knowledge, namely that he cannot be comprehended."

To this comes St. Ambrose, book On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 1: "Your eyes are doves," he says, "apart from your taciturnity, because, being wholly spiritual and simple, like a dove (in the likeness of which the Holy Spirit was seen by John to descend), she sees spiritual things, and, having seen them, knows how to keep the mysteries silent. For it is no mean virtue to be silent, Ecclesiastes 3:7. For there is a time for keeping silent, as there is a time for speaking, just as it is written, Isaiah 50:4: The Lord gives me the tongue of the learned, that I may know when it is fitting to speak a word. Modesty, therefore, is a certain dowry of virginity, which is commended by silence."

Furthermore, all these things apply to any of the faithful whatsoever, but most of all to the prophets, who, as the eyes of the Church, foresee and forewarn of things to come, and are therefore called seers; and to bishops, says Hortolanus, to pastors and prelates, who likewise are the eyes, that is, the watchmen and overseers of the Church, that, as shepherds, they may guard her from wolves, and provide for her pasture and other things necessary and useful.

First, the Adequate Sense: Concerning Christ and the Church.

The eyes of doves are exceedingly bright, and clear with a certain innate splendor; they are also simple, which look upon the objects set before them not fiercely or maliciously, but sincerely. To these the eyes of a perfect soul are similar, for they too shine with wisdom, by which they recognize the worthlessness of temporal things; and they are endowed with a lovable sincerity, by which they do not cling to those same things as things to be despised; but through them pass on to God, in whom, as in their own dwelling, they come to rest.

The dove-like eyes, therefore, mark the rightness of the work and of the working; the phrase what lies hidden within marks the rightness of the intention: this is interior and mental, whereas the work is exterior and bodily. Again, if by the dove-like eyes you take the rightness of intention, as I said at chapter 1, 15, by the phrase what lies hidden within take charity, and the pure love of God, which is, as it were, the soul of a right intention, animating and vivifying it spiritually, and as it were deifying it: for if, for example, you give alms to a poor man out of an intention of mercy, unless you join to it inwardly an intention of charity, namely that you wish to give it out of pure love of God, the work of almsgiving is deprived of great beauty, great grace and merit. Wherefore St. Augustine, in the sermon On the Praises of Charity: "He," he says, "holds both what lies hidden and what is open in the divine sayings, who holds charity in his conduct."

A symbol of this thing are the dove-like eyes, through which shines the interior love toward one's mate. Whence in Greek περιστερά, that is, dove, is said to be named ἀπό τοῦ περισσώς ἔραν, that is, because it indulges too much in love, as Apollodorus in his book On the Gods, and the lexicographers, teach; for, as Aristotle says, book 6 of the History of Animals, chapter 4: "Doves bring forth ten times a year, some even eleven times: but Egyptian ones even twelve times. Doves mate within the year, since they begin to know venery at six months; some report that ring-doves and turtle-doves also mate and breed at three months, on the evidence that their supply is abundant." Just as, therefore, the dove loves none but its own mate, and bestows all its love upon it: so the holy soul is intent on God alone, and resigns and hands over to him all its own love: for it desires nothing else than to please God alone supremely; and this is the most excellent act of all the virtues, nor can the human mind rise any higher: so say Justus of Urgel and Aponius, who, taking the eyes of the dove for prelates: These, he says, are the more glorious for this, that whatever they do inwardly, they show to God, fleeing the praise of men and vain glory, and therefore is added apart from what lies hidden within.

Again, the phrase what lies hidden within marks meditation and contemplation, which is the greater and more beautiful in the holy soul, and the more pleasing to God, the more it is covered and veiled by the veil of the senses: for the more one closes the eyes, the ear, the tongue, etc., the higher one lifts the mind to God in praying and contemplating; and unites it intimately with God; whence from him it draws wondrous lights and perceptions, and whatever charisms; which Richard of St. Victor explains feelingly: "For those things," he says, "which you turn over with Christ secretly in the bedchamber of the heart, who could set forth outwardly? that mutual conversation, the boldness of speaking to him, the consolation received from him or the revelation, the unity of souls, the concord of delights, the mutual love, the zeal for justice and for souls, the desire of the vision and enjoyment of God, the weariness of the pilgrimage, the longing to be dissolved, who could understand outwardly, or express in words? Now the sense of such a soul is opened, that it may understand the scriptures; now it is instructed concerning hidden or doubtful things; now it is so united to God, that one spirit is made with him; now it is so absorbed by the spirit, that it does not recall itself to be dwelling in the flesh; now it comes to know certain secrets of divine inspiration, which before it did not know."

He then adds what is highest and most excellent: "But now it is so joined to God, and feels God joined to itself, and so transfers its whole will into God, that it either understands the will of God, or bends this its own will to it. For from that purity of heart by which it agrees with the will of God in all things, it also understands this will, and becomes worthy to bend it to its own pleasure. Now it so joins and draws God to itself through love, that it believes as it were that it has him alone; now it is so expanded into him and passes over into him, that in him, through charity, it comprehends every man, and sees all in the light by which it is illumined, and, because with one and like charity, has compassion on all, and condescends to all."

To this bears the version of the Chaldee, who, taking the eyes of the dove for Moses, the prophets and the doctors, whom God illumines inwardly, translates thus: "And on that day king Solomon offered a thousand holocausts upon the altar, and his offering was accepted with good pleasure before the Lord: a voice rushed down from heaven and said thus: How beautiful you are, assembly of Israel, and how beautiful are the princes of the congregation, and the wise dwellers in council, because they always illumine the people of the house of Israel, and are like the young offspring of the dove!"

Anagogically, St. Gregory, book 9 of the Morals, chapter 6, takes by the phrase what lies hidden within the reward of heavenly glory, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man," 1 Corinthians 2:9: "Its eyes," he says, "are called doves, because they radiate with great light, because they flash with the miracles of great signs. But that concerning interior things is more wonderful, which cannot be seen, of which it is added: apart from what lies hidden within. Great indeed is the glory of an open work, but far incomparable is that of a hidden reward." This is what the Apostle says: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life; then you also shall appear with him in glory," Colossians chapter 3, verse 2. See what is said there. Empedocles, asked "why he lived," replied: That I may look upon the stars; take away the sky, and I shall be nothing. Let the faithful say: I live, that I may obtain heaven, and in it secretly see God with Christ, and, by living, possess every good in him.

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

Rupert, taking by the seven gifts of the dove the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit infused into the Blessed Virgin, takes by the phrase what lies hidden within the interior and ineffable lights and charisms bestowed upon her, which God alone sees. For if Paul, he says, "said that he had been caught up into paradise, or even to the third heaven, so that he did not know whether he was in the body, or outside the body, and had heard secret words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak; how much more you, Queen of heaven, were present at heavenly things very often, seeing that angels also stood around you in place of midwives, singing glory to God, and among these things learned, or attained to something, which lies hidden and ought not to lie hidden?" Rupert therefore holds that the Blessed Virgin was caught up into the third heaven, and saw secret mysteries, which it is not lawful for a man to speak, more perfectly and excellently than Paul. Wherefore many probably think that the Blessed Virgin thereupon saw the divine essence of her Son, as the blessed see it in heaven, especially on the day of the incarnation, nativity and resurrection of Christ, as St. Antoninus, Denis the Carthusian, Gerson, Cassalius, Medina and others, whom Francisco Suárez cites and follows, part 3, question 87, article 4, disputation 19, section 4, and Gabriel Vázquez, part 1, disputation 55 and 56, where he grants this vision of God to the Blessed Virgin alone; but denies it to all the other saints in this life, even to St. Paul and to Moses.

Again, the phrase what lies hidden within was the interior and ineffable humility, virginity, and charity of the Blessed Virgin, which, covered by the outward veil of modesty, simplicity, and poverty, shone forth the more keenly before God: for this drew the Word from the throne of the Father to herself, that in her and from her he might become flesh.

Your hair is like flocks of goats, which have gone up from Mount Galaad.

He takes the comparison from goats after the manner of bucolic poetry, because the bridegroom is here brought in as a shepherd, the bride as a shepherdess. Now a wondrous head of hair, or locks, adorns the bride, and in these three things are observed: first, length together with abundance, or copiousness and thickness; second, sheen and arrangement, namely that they be becomingly combed and parted; third, color, that they be golden or tawny, and therefore splendid, and of a gold color. Whence Virgil, book 4, concerning Dido: Not yet had Proserpina taken from her her golden hair. And Catullus, in the Epithalamium of Julia: "They shake their golden locks." So Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius, when she would allure suitors with her own black hair, would overlay it with gold by dye, as Juvenal witnesses, Satire 6. Hence also Horace, book 1 of the Odes, Ode 5: For whom do you bind back your golden hair. And Virgil, Aeneid 8: Golden locks were theirs, and golden raiment. Ovid, Metamorphoses 15: They make hair like amber, and like gold. Claudian, book 3 of the Rape of Proserpina: Her hair shines, more pleasing than tawny gold. Martial: Who conquered in her hair the fleece of the Baetic flock.

For the Baetis, a river in Spain, gives a tawny color to goats and sheep, as the thing itself declares. Homer assigns a golden, or tawny head of hair to those ancient heroes of old, Menelaus the Spartan, Meleager and Achilles. The emperor Antoninus Verus, says Capitolinus, is said "to have had such care for his golden-growing hair, that he would sprinkle gold filings on his head, so that his hair, illumined, might grow the more golden."

Physicians relate that those who have golden hair are of a very good temperament. Hence, as David and Solomon, so also Christ was of somewhat golden hair, says Nicephorus, book 1, last chapter.

That the hair of the bride was also of this kind, namely long or flowing, thick, glossy, shining, ordered, combed, arranged, and golden or tawny, is clear from chapter 7:5, where it is compared to royal purple; and from verse 9 of this chapter, where the bridegroom says to the bride: "You have wounded my heart, my sister, my bride, you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, and with one hair of your neck."

Add that the hair of the bride is not precisely and immediately compared here to the hair of goats, but to the very flock of goats; yet, by means of the flock, it is compared to its hair, because the flock does not appear except as hairy, as if to say: As she-goats, feeding in flocks and in troops on Galaad, seem, to those looking down from above, to remain long, and that in heaps and in order. Delrio explains "have gone up" as "have departed." For thus our translator renders the Hebrew עלה, that is, "ascended," as "departed," at 2 Kings 2:2, and 4 Kings 12:18.

He alludes to Jacob, who, fleeing from Laban his father-in-law with his goats and flocks, as well as with his wives Rachel and Leah, and their sons, climbed this mountain; and there, making a covenant with Laban, and heaping up a pile of stones as a witness of it, he for that reason called it Galaad, that is, the heap of witness, saying: "This mound shall be a witness between me and you this day," Genesis 31:48. Whence the Chaldee translates: and also the rest of the sons of your congregation, and the people of the land are just, like the sons of Jacob, who gathered stones, and made a heap on Mount Galaad.

Such were the hairs of the goats on Galaad. For Galaad is a rich and fertile mountain, indeed abounding in resin, storax, and spices: wherefore the goats feeding there put on thick, glossy, and golden, or tawny, coats; especially because, from the rubbing of the trees, the fleece of the goats absorbed the resin and the golden and rich liquor dripping from them. It is evidence of this, that at 1 Kings 19:43, Michal, in order to cover David, whose hair was red, with a counterfeit image of him, and to free him from those seeking his slaughter, clothed the image with the hair of goats, as if red. That the hair of the goats was also shorn, and therefore combed and glossy, is clear: for from them, once shorn, were made the sagas, that is, the coverings of the tabernacle, according to that, Exodus 36:14: "Eleven sagas of goats' hair, to cover the roof of the tabernacle." So say Luis of León, Sanchez, and others. Whence, for "which have gone up," in Hebrew it is שגלשו sceggalescu, which R. David translates: which have rubbed themselves, or wiped themselves, or depilated themselves among the shrubs of the forest, and have been made beautiful. Marinus and others: which are hairless, polished, smooth and clean, not lean, such as goats or sheep well fed are; whence from גלש galasch, by metathesis they derive שלג scheleg, that is, snow, because snow, when it falls to the ground, is polished, smooth and clean. St. Jerome, at chapter 6, verse 3, translates: which have appeared; the Septuagint: which have been revealed; R. Jonah: which have arisen early, that is, appeared in the morning: for when the summits of Mount Galaad are lit up by the first splendor of the sun, then the glossy hairs of the goats gleam together, and grow golden from the spice rubbed onto them. The Tigurine version: which have made Mount Galaad bare by grazing it down; Vatablus: which look out upon Mount Galaad, that is, which present themselves to be looked at, or are looked at, or are perceived, as if to say: Your hair adorns you, as a flock of goats adorns Mount Galaad, from which, if they should go down, the mountain appears bare, as if it were made bald. The phrase "have gone up," therefore, does not signify a certain position of climbing (for sheep feeding on a mountain go down just as much as they go up), but only existence and presence, and is the same as "they have existed" or "they have appeared," R. Abraham: which stand out and are seen. He preferred, however, to say "have gone up," because goats are wont, while feeding, to climb mountains up to the summit, and to dwell there.

The hairs of the Church are the weak, simple, unlearned, poor, and lowly-born faithful, that is, the very numerous common Christian people: for these adorn the Church, first, by their multitude and thickness; second, by their sheen, evenness, connection and order; third, by their color, because through faith, hope and charity they are golden and tawny, that is, of a fiery and golden color and beauty, as it were. Whence it is said of the first Christians: "Of the multitude of believers there was one heart, and one soul," Acts 4:32: so say Justus of Urgel and Philo Carpathius. Hear St. Gregory: "The hairs of the bride are said to be like a flock of goats: because the people of the Church, while ruminating on the precepts of the law and contemplating heavenly things by faith, are clean animals and feed on the heights. Galaad, moreover, is interpreted as the heap of witness. But what do we understand by the heap of witness, if not the multitude of martyrs? who, while they held the faith of Christ unconquerably, we know bore witness to the truth even through their death. This flock of goats, therefore, goes up from Mount Galaad, because the people of the Church raise themselves the more by faith to eternal things, the more strongly they have known that the holy martyrs bore witness to that same faith." Philo has almost the same thing word for word: wherefore it seems to have been transcribed from St. Gregory, whose style it recalls, into Philo Carpathius.

Nyssen adds, homily 7, that by the hairs are noted the modesty and chastity of the faithful: for the hair of a woman was given by nature as a covering for modesty. Furthermore, goats, because they are malodorous, signify the just who have been converted from the idolatrous gentiles, says Eucherius, On the Formulas of the Spirit, book 5: for as goats are cleansed by water, so the gentiles are washed and made bright by baptism and penance.

Aponius, however, takes by the hairs the rich, but pious and devout, "who," he says, "covered with delicate garments, shine with gold and jewels, are sprinkled with the most fragrant powders of spices, anointed with ointment, attended by the service of little servants, adorned with the plate of their right faith and mercy, adorn the whole body of the Church. For these, because they delight in bodily things, and cannot follow the apostolic philosophy with gravity, are compared to flocks of goats."

On the other hand, Gregory of Nyssa, homily 7, Justus of Urgel and Anselm here, and St. Ambrose, Paulinus and Eucherius soon to be cited, take by the hairs men who strive after perfection, such as religious. This too is fitting, because religious profess humility and poverty, and in outward appearance and habit seem slight to worldly men, base and abject, and say with the Psalmist: "I have chosen to be lowly in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners," Psalm 83:11; for they trample underfoot all the glory, riches and pomp of the world, and fix their mind in heaven. I now append another, stronger reason.

Cassiodorus, Bede, Richard of St. Victor, Rupert, and the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, and many interpreters, take by the beautiful hairs holy thoughts: first, because just as those hairs arise from the head, that is, from vapors and warm fumes ascending from the head: so these thoughts flow forth from the heart, which is like a head, and from the heat of the heart, that is, from love and affection, say the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret. Second, because these likewise adorn the heart and mind, no differently than hairs adorn the head, foliage a tree, and rays the sun, from which they arise. Third, those hairs are golden and tawny, gold-colored and fiery; so these heavenly thoughts, sent in by the Holy Spirit, inflame the mind with the fire of charity: for the thoughts of the mind stir up affections like themselves in the appetite; whence such as are a man's thoughts, recurring frequently, such likewise are his loves and affections, for each one loves that which he often thinks about, and turns over in his mind. Fourth, just as these hairs are many, thick, combed, ordered and arranged, so also holy thoughts: for they are rightly ordered, thickened and composed by the spirit, because they are directed and ordered toward God and Christ. Fifth, these hairs are of goats, which go up from Galaad: so holy thoughts are of the devout, who arrange ascents in their heart, and go from virtue to virtue, until they see the God of gods in Sion, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 83:8: and therefore they climb daily higher into heaven toward God. So Cassiodorus. Galaad, that is, the heap of witness, signifies Holy Scripture, says Justus of Urgel, and the sayings, deeds and writings of the holy prophets and apostles, says Philo Carpathius, and of Christ himself: for by these holy thoughts are nourished and kindled. Wherefore many understand by Galaad Christ, inasmuch as all the oracles and testimonies of the saints, both of the Old and of the New Testament, conspire toward him: for Christ, by his doctrine, example, inspiration and grace, produces in every holy soul these holy thoughts about himself, and through them forms the likeness and character of himself in the soul, and stamps it as if with an impressed seal, according to that, chapter 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart." Hear St. Paulinus, epistle 4 to Severus: "In these he struck the sacred coin of his own image, imprinting on their hearts and tongues the word of his truth, and establishing these same men as money-changers, that according to his own

form they might coin approved coins for the Lord, and, the figure of Caesar being abolished from us, might stamp the living coinage of the eternal king, that, inscribed with the spirit of redemption, our neck now free from the yoke, and our brow forearmed with the title of salvation, we might sing: The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us," Psalm 4:7. These thoughts, therefore, which smell of Christ, and are dyed by the wounds of Christ, and are, as it were, born from the heart of Christ, imprint the idea of Christ in the holy soul, and therefore make it most like to him, and most pleasing. Such a soul therefore, says Richard of St. Victor, has testimony that Christ abides in it, because it has from him the ascent of these thoughts and meditations.

Again, in Galaad grew resin, and remedies effective for curing whatsoever diseases of the body: so too from Christ flows the resin of penance and grace, which heals all the wounds and sicknesses of the soul, according to that, Jeremiah 8:22: "Is there no resin in Galaad? or is there no physician there? why then has the wound of the daughter of my people not been closed over?" Whence Theodoret understands by the hairs the penitent. The Chaldee, however, translates the passage of Jeremiah thus: "I desired the teaching of Elijah the prophet, who was from Galaad, whose words were medicine:" for Elijah was given by God to the Galaadites, to correct their idolatry, robberies, murders, and other crimes, as indeed he did, both by himself and by his disciples, whom he established as a kind of religious, and everywhere he propagated their assemblies and colleges, who accordingly are called in Scripture sons of the prophets, namely of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah, therefore, seems to be the first founder of monks, both elsewhere, and especially on Mount Carmel, where he dwelt more often; whence the Carmelite religious took their name from him, and profess themselves disciples and followers of Elijah.

Moreover, just as the wool of goats feeding among the shrubs of Galaad appears more elegant, because, entangled with herbs and leaves, they seem to fuse into one thing with them: so these thoughts, joined to the words and deeds of Christ, the apostles and the prophets, appear more beautiful, because, mixed with them, they seem to grow together with them as into one. Hence many take by the hairs holy men devoted to perfection, and given to contemplation. Nyssen, homily 7, Justus, St. Anselm, Rupert here, and St. Ambrose soon to be cited, and St. Paulinus, epistle 4 to Severus: "Let us strive," he says, "to be adorned with those hairs, which God holds numbered, just as he himself says, Luke 12:7: But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. But whose hairs would he deign to number more, than those of him whose head he himself is the crown of? of whom it is said, Canticles chapter 5:15: His head is as the finest gold, Paz, by which name I think some more approved and purer gold is signified, like that from the land of Havilah: for this gold is the form of the saints, who shine like lights on the head of the body, and are the fiery gold of God." And after a few words: "Let us therefore strive with our utmost effort so to arrange ourselves, that we may deserve to be the locks and the gold of the divine head, which for us through the grace of God is Christ: for from this very head sprouts that head of hair, of which it is written: His hair is like flocks of goats," Canticles 6:4.

Religious, therefore, are the hairs, who adorn, cover and protect the head of the Church: for these the ancient Nazirites prefigured, whose religious observance was to nourish their hair, and not to drink wine, Numbers 6:9; whence Nazianzen, oration 20 in praise of St. Basil, calls religious men Nazirites, as does St. Thomas, II-II, question 86, article 6. Hear Origen, homily 6 on Leviticus: "Nazirites do not cut their hair, because the just will prosper in whatever they do, and their leaves will not fall. Hence also the hairs of the head of the disciples of the Lord are said to be numbered, that is, all their acts, all their words, all their thoughts are kept with God, because they are just, because they are holy.

The Nazirite, therefore, that is, the religious, should nourish the hair of his head, that is, should not have a bare mind, but one adorned with divine thoughts and knowledge: for just as hairs arise from the head, so holy thoughts sprout from a holy mind, by which a man is made holier; and these are fostered and nourished by religious, whose work is to think, speak, and do nothing but heavenly things. To these applies that, Lamentations chapter 4:7: "Her Nazirites were whiter than snow, more glowing than milk, more ruddy than ancient ivory, more beautiful than sapphire." See what is said there. Such was Samson, the strongest of men, whose strength consisted in the hairs of his Nazirite vow: "Iron," he himself says to his Delilah, "has never come up over my head, because I am a Nazirite, that is, consecrated to God from my mother's womb: if my head is shaved, my strength will depart from me, and I shall fail, and I shall be like other men," Judges 16:17.

Again, the hairs signify the gifts of religious, that is, humility: for hairs, first, are lowly and slight, so religion is a state and profession of humility; the more humble one is, therefore, the more religious he also is. Second, just as shaggy goats climb the highest peaks of mountains, so it is the part of a religious to climb heavenly things, and to climb continually with the Mother of God into the mountains of the virtues: so Eucherius, On the Formulas of the Spirit, chapter 5: "As goats," he says, "seek pasture on the heights, so the saints desire pasture in the heights above, according to that: Our conversation is in the heavens, Philippians 3:20;" so too St. Ambrose, whose words I will soon quote. Third, just as hairs are thick, knit together and arranged, so in religion there ought to be the utmost union, subordination and arrangement of religious. Fourth, just as hairs cling intimately to the head, so religious cling to Christ. Fifth, just as individual hairs are thin and weak, but joined and plaited make a very strong cord, so individual religious are by themselves weak, but joined in the union of love make an invincible and very strong battle-line, according to that: "A threefold cord is not easily broken," Ecclesiastes 4:12. Sixth, just as hairs are without feeling, because they lack life and sense, says Nyssen, homily 7, so also religious, who have mortified their affections, and, as if dead to the world, are not entangled in earthly business, says Theodoret, seem, as it were, without feeling, and therefore, as it were, do not feel the injuries, slanders, afflictions and hardships of this life, because, as if dead on earth, they live in heaven, according to that, Colossians 3:3: "You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Such was Elijah, who, separated from the crowd on Mount Galaad, led a heavenly life, and there established swarms of religious, which, like hairs, were derived from one head, and occupied the summit of Mount Galaad, and adorned it, as it were, like flowing locks; and therefore he was terrible to king Ahab, Jezebel, and the false prophets, 3 Kings 18:40 and following. Whence Rupert: "And rightly," he says, "are they said to have appeared, because their founder Elijah is so suddenly introduced, that Scripture nowhere before this remembers who he was, or from where he was begotten."

Hear St. Ambrose touching upon most of the things already said elegantly and keenly, sermon 16 on Psalm 118: for thus he reads: "Your head of hair is like a flock of goats, which have been revealed from Mount Galaad;" and he explains it thus: "You see that this flock feeds in high places, bold on the mountain. And so where there are precipices for others, there is no danger for goats; where there is danger for others, there is nourishment for this flock, there sweeter food, there choicer fruit; they are seen by their shepherds hanging from a bushy crag, where the attacks of wolves cannot reach, where fruitful trees supply whole fruit. One may see them swollen with abundant milk, solicitous over their tender young with maternal devotion. Therefore the Holy Spirit chose them, to which he might compare the assembly of the venerable Church. And that you may hear it mystically: The head of hair of the Word is the height, and a certain eminence, of the souls of the just, since the sense of the wise man is in his head." He at once adds the reason: "For in the height of human thought it is certain that wisdom is; and just as goats are shorn, that they may lay aside what is superfluous, so also holy Church has the shorn flock of bitterness, that is, the virtues of many souls, in which flock you can find nothing without feeling, nothing superfluous: since faith has made them wise, and spiritual grace has cleansed them from every stain of what is superfluous. Deservedly, therefore, the souls of the just have been revealed, and revealed from Mount Galaad, that is, from the migration of testimony, because the heavenly testimony migrated from the Synagogue to the Church. On this mountain, therefore, is born incense, resin, and the other perfumes, which those Ishmaelite merchants, as you have it in the first book of the Old Testament, were carrying. These perfumes the Church has, which merchants gathered from the nations by faith and devotion have brought."

The hairs of the Blessed Virgin, that is, all her thoughts, were beautiful, holy, rightly connected and ordered, because they were directed toward the head, that is, toward Christ. Again, just as Elijah, fleeing Jezebel, went away into solitude and to Mount Galaad, according to that, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 37: "They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy: wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth." So the Blessed Virgin suffered great persecutions, afflictions and hardships for the sake of Christ, and, foreknowing the future passion of her Son, endured a long martyrdom in her thoughts, says Rupert, and, fleeing the crowds of the Jews, alone, like a turtledove, dwelt with God and her Christ in Galaad, that is, in the heap of witness, which she had gathered for herself from Holy Scripture and the oracles of the prophets concerning Christ; whence from this mountain she continually gazed upon heaven and heavenly things.

Finally Nicephorus attributes to the Blessed Virgin golden and beautiful hair: for thus he says, book 2 of the History, chapter 23: "She was of a color recalling wheat, with golden hair, keen eyes, having pupils somewhat golden and, as it were, of the color of olive;" and shortly after: "In all her affairs there was a great, divinely-given grace." The same author, book 1, chapter 40, depicting the form of Christ, relates that he was very like his mother: "He had," he says, "an excellent and lively countenance. The stature of his body was fully seven spans. He had somewhat golden hair, etc. From his somewhat golden eyes shone forth a wondrous grace; they were keen, and his nose was rather long; the hair of his beard was golden, and not very long; moreover he wore the hair of his head rather long. For a razor never came up upon his head, nor any hand of man except his mother's, and that only in his tender age. He was, finally, in all things very like his divine and immaculate mother."

VERSE 2. THY TEETH ARE LIKE FLOCKS OF THE SHORN, WHICH CAME UP FROM THE WASHING, ALL WITH TWIN OFFSPRING, AND THERE IS NO BARREN ONE AMONG THEM.

THY TEETH ARE LIKE FLOCKS OF THE SHORN (Vatablus: like a flock of neatly shorn sheep) WHICH CAME UP FROM THE WASHING, ALL WITH TWIN OFFSPRING, AND THERE IS NO BARREN ONE AMONG THEM. Vatablus: all of them bear twins, nor is any among them rendered barren. In Hebrew it stands in the singular, like a flock of the shorn; hence Agathius holds that in the Vulgate one should read, like the flock of the shorn — and it can be so translated from the Hebrew, and Hortolanus and Titelmannus expound the Vulgate this way by antiptosis, holding that here the bride's teeth are compared to the teeth of a flock of shorn sheep, because sheep newly shorn and washed have a greater appetite on account of the cold, and seem to have sharper teeth, with which they more eagerly crop and devour the grasses, especially since they must nourish not only themselves but also the twin offspring they have borne, and give them their milk: so too the bride should have a stomach and teeth sharp and strong for eating, by which is signified that she is sound and robust in body, and capable of begetting twins — that is, of bearing many offspring — and of nourishing them with the milk of her doctrine. It is a metalepsis, for from strong teeth is understood a strong stomach and appetite, from this a strong nature, and from this strong powers for begetting and nourishing children. This sense seems very plain and apt, and connects "all with twin offspring" most excellently with the bride's teeth, namely that they are so sharp and strong in feeding that they sustain, by eating, both the bride and her twin offspring, and render them robust — which fits preachers very well, who are here represented by the teeth. In this sense, then, the Vulgate seems to be taken, or else by antiptosis:

so that "like flocks" be taken for "like the flocks," or rather that "have" be understood, as if to say: Thy teeth, O bride, are such as, or of the kind that flocks of the shorn have — understand flocks of sheep; or, as St. Ambrose, Serm. 16 on Psalm 118, says, of goats, for their teeth are sharp, and handsome in their kind, though not the handsomest. Moreover he mentions the teeth, both because the brightness, order, and beauty of the teeth contribute much to the elegance of a person; and because, as Nyssen says, Hom. 7, through the beauty of the teeth is suggested the sweet laughter of the mouth: for through this, the lips being parted, the beauty of the teeth is opened and displayed. Finally, men have 32 teeth, of which the first four are the cutting teeth, and as many neighboring canines, which cut the food and separate the good from the bad; the middle ones, or jaw-teeth, prepare the food; the last, or grinders, grind the same and thoroughly crush it. So Pliny, Book VII, ch. 16, who also adds: "Teeth are unconquered by flames, but are hollowed by the decay of phlegm. In some, in place of teeth, they are continually produced from bone."

But because all the codices of the Vulgate, as well as the Septuagint, read in the nominative plural, like flocks of the shorn, and elsewhere others explain it in the nominative, I too will append a similar explanation. The bride's teeth, then, are compared to flocks of shorn sheep in abundance, order, equality, whiteness, wholeness, and connection — since, that is, they are many, ordered, equal, white, whole, and joined together, like flocks of shorn sheep: for the shorn, on account of the cold, join and press together, so that the whole flock seems to be one thing, and that a small one.

For first, "like flocks" notes the abundance and order of the teeth: for as in a flock there are many sheep, and these ordered, so in the mouth there are many teeth, namely 32, and these rightly arranged and ordered. As, then, there is a flock of sheep, so too there is a flock of teeth. Second, "of the shorn" notes the equality and close-packing of the teeth: for shorn sheep have no overhanging locks, but are evenly clipped: so no one tooth is longer than another, but all are equal, and cut as if to a level line; again, shorn sheep press close together on account of the cold, so too the teeth are close-set and pressed together. Third, "which came up from the washing" notes the brightness and whiteness of the teeth. Fourth, "all with twin offspring" notes their wholeness and fullness, of which more presently.

QUÆ ASCENDERUNT DE LAVACRO.

For sheep, while being shorn, are wont to be washed, both that they may shine more, and that the sweat, vapors, and filth clinging to the skin may be washed away, lest they breed mange or some scurf: for unwashed sweat clinging to the body breeds mange: so Columella, De Re Rustica, Book VII, ch. 4. In like manner the bride often washes her teeth, and therefore has them more polished and bright, not foul, unclean, or scurfy. Again, as washed sheep grow cold, and therefore come together and press themselves close, that they may be warmed by mutual heat: so too the bride's teeth are close-set, dense and pressed together, not sparse, not hollow, nor is there any empty space between them.

For "twin offspring" in Hebrew is מתאמות matimoth, which Aben-Ezra renders passively as "twinned," as if to say: as twin sheep, that is, born of the same birth, are mutually alike and equal to one another, so too are the bride's teeth; but matimoth is a participle, though active, of the hiphil conjugation, and therefore should be rendered actively as "twinning," that is, bringing forth twin offspring, as our version and the Septuagint render it. Furthermore, R. Solomon reads worse, מתומות methomoth, and renders it "whole and unblemished"; for it should be read matimoth, that is, "twinning offspring."

For "barren" in Hebrew is שכלה schaccula, that is, "bereaved," namely one deprived of her offspring — one, that is, who has lost through death or seizure the offspring she had; whereas "sterile" is the infertile one, who has not borne offspring at all. R. Solomon wrongly renders it, "and there is no blemish in them": thus a jaw is called "sterile" when it produces no tooth; but "bereaved" when it has lost the tooth it produced, whether it fell out of itself, rotten or withered, or was knocked out by force.

Now the Chaldee renders: "How beautiful are the priests and Levites, who offer thy oblations, and eat the sanctified flesh, and the tithes, and the firstfruits, and are clean from all violence and plunder, as clean were the flocks of the sheep of Jacob, at the time when they were shorn, and came up from the torrent of Jacob, in which there was no violence or plunder, and all were alike to one another, and brought forth twins at every season: and there was no barren or bereaved one among them."

You will ask what it contributes to the praise of the bride's teeth, that all these shorn sheep have twin offspring, and there is no barren one among them? Some do not refer this to the praise of the teeth, but of the sheep, as if to say: The sheep to which I compare the bride's teeth I take not as any sheep whatever, but as whole and fruitful ones, which, that is, bear twins. But others generally refer it to the teeth, and this variously: first, some hold that it pertains to the greater, molar teeth, which seem to be cloven and, as it were, twinned; others to the front teeth, which, though sharp, are nevertheless fixed in the jaw by cloven and, as it were, twin roots, and thus explain it, as if to say: As fruitful sheep bear twins and bring forth twin lambs, so thy jaw, O bride, brings forth teeth which in themselves seem twinned, or at least have cloven and, as it were, twin roots.

Second, Gislerius holds that by this comparison only the equality of the teeth is signified — namely, that the teeth are alike to one another, and fully equal, after the manner of twin lambs, which are also equal to one another, and together fill and level with their bodies the empty space that is between the feet of the mothers, so that the whole flock of sheep is packed close and made level on every side, above indeed with the bodies of the ewes, but below with those of the lambs.

Third, Sanchez holds that the front teeth, because they appear when the lips are parted, and therefore seem broader than the rest, are reckoned as it were mothers; while the side and end teeth, because they appear less, and therefore seem less broad, are reckoned as it were lambs, as if to say: As twin lambs accompany their mother — for one accompanies the mother at her side, the other follows her from behind — so, alongside the front teeth, which seem as it were mothers, are attached the side teeth, which, as it were lambs, accompany the mother, and following from behind come the molars, which, because they appear less, seem smaller (though in reality they are larger), and are therefore compared to lambs following the mother.

Fourth, and more fittingly: the order of teeth is twofold, for some are upper, others lower, and each upper tooth corresponds to and rests upon its subject lower tooth so evenly, that it seems to be, as it were, a twin offspring born together with it from the same root of the jaw, as if from a common womb; these teeth, then, are called matimoth, that is, "twinning," that is, imitating twin offspring, and closely resembling them. In like manner the front teeth correspond to the front teeth, and their neighboring canines to the canines, likewise the middle to the middle, and the last to the last — that is, the molars on either side correspond equally to their opposite molars — so much so that they seem plainly to be equal twins. "And there is no barren one among them," as if to say: there is no place in the womb of the teeth, that is, in the jaw, that does not tooth, that is, does not produce its tooth; in Hebrew, "there is no bereaved one among them," as if to say: there is no place in the jaw that has lost the tooth it first produced, and is bereaved of it. It is a poetic metaphor: for the Greek and Latin poets also use similar figures, especially the bucolic poets, as Theocritus and Virgil.

Fifth, and most plainly: the bride's teeth are compared not to the flocks, but to the teeth of the flocks, or of shorn sheep, which nurse twin offspring: because the teeth of these, as I said at the outset, seem sharper and stronger than the rest, inasmuch as with them they must both satisfy their own hunger, which they feel the more on account of the cold of shearing, and moreover sustain and suckle the twin offspring they have borne, as if to say: The bride, being strong, has teeth so strong, that with them she can gather and digest food sufficient not only for herself, but also for her twin offspring. This concerns the bark of the letter; now for the sense of the marrow.

Teeth both digest food and distinguish and articulate voice and speech, "catching the stroke of the tongue with a certain harmony," says Pliny, Book VII, ch. 16. Wherefore they represent the doctors of the Church and the teachers of the faithful, who instruct them in faith and piety: for these, like teeth, divide and chew the doctrine of Christ as food, so as to pass it on into the stomach of the Church: for the first digestion of food happens in the mouth by the teeth, and it is this chewing that makes the second digestion, which happens in the belly and stomach, easy. Wherefore physicians advise, as very useful to health, that food not be swallowed by gulping it down in lumps, as wolves do, but first be well chewed and broken up in the mouth, and so, digested, be passed into the stomach; hence the last teeth are called molars, because they grind and crush the food, like millstones, and reduce it, as it were, to flour. Whence St. Augustine, Book XX On Christian Doctrine, ch. 6, teaches that by the teeth are signified holy and perfect men: "Those," he says, "whose life and character the Church of Christ, cutting them off from whatever superstitions, incorporates in some manner to herself, by the imitation of good men, those who came to her; who, good, faithful, and true servants of God, laying aside the burdens of the world, came, like a flock of the shorn, to the sacred washing of baptism, and rising from it, by the conception of the Holy Spirit give the fruit of a twofold charity, of God and of neighbor."

Second, as mothers or nurses first chew with their teeth the more solid food, thin it, and make it liquid, and so put it into the mouth of the infant who lacks teeth: so the doctors, by explaining them, resolve the more solid mysteries of the faith, and render them plain and liquid, so that the untrained and children may be able to grasp and understand them.

Third, as teeth soften what is hard, sweeten what is bitter, and temper and adjust what is distasteful, so that it seems milky and pleasant: so preachers and teachers of virtue, by their gentle speech, thinning and adorning what is harsh and forbidding in Christianity, render it pleasant and agreeable. What is harsher than the cross, mortification, and martyrdom? And yet the teachers of the faithful, chewing these as it were with their teeth, render the same sweet and desirable to the faithful.

Fourth, these are not canine teeth, nor wolfish, nor even leonine, which breathe an intolerable stench and nausea upon the food they chew, as Aristotle attests, Book VIII, On the History of Animals, ch. 28, but sheep-like and lamb-like, that is, resembling flocks of shorn and washed sheep, because after the manner of these, they have cut off from themselves, by shearing — that is, by mortifying — not only all filth and stain, but also all superfluous wool, that is, they have cast away from themselves gluttony, lust, avarice, and every pursuit of earthly things, and, as if washed by penance, being white and clean, display a heavenly brightness, and breathe and impart it to their disciples. Whence Theodoret: "Thy teeth," that is, thy doctors, he says, O Church, "are so pure, and so clean and whole from all superfluous disputation, and from talkativeness and scurrility, and lying, and obscenity of words, that they seem like those who have recently been judged worthy of saving baptism, like flocks of the shorn which came up from the washing."

Hence, as shorn sheep are to be washed with sea-water, or with rain-water into which salt has been put, as Columella prescribes, Book VII, ch. 4: so let the doctors scrub away from themselves all softness with the salt of harshness and of frequent penance and mortification, and lead an austere life, which may be to the faithful an example of a continent, holy, and austere life.

Fifth, teeth are the weapons of animals, by which, biting, they defend themselves and their own, and provoke enemies and seize prey, and therefore are hard, strong, and bony; whence Aristotle, Book IV, On the Parts of Animals, ch. 11: "The office of the tooth," he says, "is to bite and to cut." Hence also pugnacious animals either have protruding teeth, like boars; or serrated ones set close together like a comb, like lions, panthers, dogs; or else nature exchanges their upper teeth for horns, as it does in oxen, buffaloes, rams, goats; wherefore horned animals lack the upper row of teeth, because God transferred their matter into horns, which are stronger weapons, as Aristotle teaches, Book II, On the History of Animals, ch. 1. So likewise let the preacher bite with his teeth heretics and other wicked men, and let him fear no one, however powerful, but show him his teeth, like a boar, when there is need. Marcus Curtius was born with teeth, and was therefore surnamed Dentatus, says Pliny, Book VII, ch. 16: so let the preacher be toothed when he attacks vices.

Sixth, all teeth cling to the head, and from it receive all their strength: so the doctors cling to Christ, and from him draw all their power of teaching and speaking. Hence teeth, if they be dislocated from the jaw, or become corrupted and rot, infect and destroy not only themselves but also their neighbors, indeed rubbing their stench and rottenness onto the food: so likewise the doctors, if they depart from Christ and the doctrine and law of Christ, fall into errors and evil ways, by which they infect and corrupt themselves and their disciples.

Seventh, the series of teeth is threefold: the front ones are sharp, the middle ones broad, the last broader still; the front ones cut the food, and are therefore called tomici by the Greeks, says Celsus, Book VIII, ch. 1; the middle ones crush it, the last grind it, and turn it, as it were, into the finest flour; whence they are also called molares. So some doctors, in expounding sacred doctrine, cut into it; others, more by explaining it, crush it; a third group grind it thoroughly, as it were, by pounding it.

Eighth, animals that have dense and close-packed teeth are long-lived, and live a long time; but those with sparse and loose teeth are of short age and life, as Aristotle teaches in the Problems, sect. 10, no. 47, who also adds the cause, that sparse teeth are a sign that the bone of the head is dense, and therefore: "The brain," he himself says, "is weak: because it is less suited for respiration, and so putrefies quickly, inasmuch as it is by its own nature moist. For other things too which do not move, nor give off exhalation, are easily corrupted." Dense or sparse teeth, then, are a symbol and cause of long or short age and life: so where there are many preachers, rightly joined and close-packed among themselves in the same faith and charity, there Christian faith and piety lives and flourishes; but where there are few, and not sufficiently joined among themselves, but discordant in doctrine and morals, and opposed to one another, there a sure ruin and destruction of religion is imminent.

Ninth, and chiefly: as strong sheep bring forth twin offspring, and have strong teeth for feeding them, with which they vigorously bite off, crop, and chew the grass, sufficient not only for themselves but also for nourishing their twin offspring: so let excellent preachers abound in a strong power of speaking and teaching, by which they may be able to beget twins for God — that is, many spiritual sons — to suckle them and render them robust: wherefore among them there is none barren, but all are fruitful and fertile.

Moreover, that by the teeth are signified doctors and preachers is taught by Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Justus, Aponius, Philo, Anselm, and St. Augustine, Book II On Doctrine, ch. 6. Hear St. Gregory: "The holy preachers are rightly called teeth, because, while by weighing sacred Scripture they make it clear to their lesser brethren, they chew it, as it were bread for little ones, as mothers do for their children, so that the weak may grow strong on stronger food. These, indeed, are rightly said to be like a flock of the shorn, which came up from the washing, because, while they remember that they have been washed from all sins in baptism, they gladly lay down the burdens of the world, that they may walk, the more freely, the more easily, toward attaining and preaching heavenly things. Of whom it is added: All with twin offspring, and there is no barren one among them. All holy preachers have twin offspring, because, while in the two precepts of charity they surpass other men, they preach a twofold love, and in it never cease to beget two peoples, the Jewish and the Gentile. Among whom none is barren, because indeed he is not to be called a preacher, if he disdains to beget spiritual sons." To this Gregory of Nyssa adds, Hom. 7, who notes that in these mystical teeth, that is, in preachers, four things are required: first, that they be shorn, that is, stripped bare of dependence on earthly things; second, that they be pure and bright by the washing of conscience; third, that they always ascend through progress; fourth, that they be barren in no kind of virtue and exercise, but fruitful and fertile in every one; and the twins which they must bring forth, he says, are impassibility of soul and honesty of bodily life: thus Nyssen. Furthermore, first, by the twin offspring, Bede, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, and St. Augustine on Psalm m understand the love of God and of neighbor: for good preachers ought to beget both in their hearers. Second, Theodoret understands contemplation and action: for if the one

by cutting into it, crush and explain it, so that whatever of good or evil is in it may be discerned. To this add that, as teeth cling to the head, so meditation and deliberation ought to rest upon Christ, and upon the invocation, help, and grace of Christ; again, as teeth are in themselves pure, white, and free of all filth, so deliberation ought to be free of all sinister affection and passion, and look only to the dictate of right reason and the light of God. Moreover, as teeth, coming forth from the soft gum, become bony and hard, so that they cannot even be burned by fire, so prudent deliberation carries a matter from a slight and feeble beginning to such bulk and such strength, that it can be overcome by no force; indeed it produces twin offspring, that is, the fairest and greatest fruits: for nothing in it is barren, nor is any thought without fruit. So the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, Nyssen, Hom. 7, and St. Ambrose, Serm. 16 on Psalm 130.

To this Richard of St. Victor adds, who by the teeth understands the discernment of spirits: "The discernment of spirits," he says, "must be known; for while the devout soul judges and examines all things, it crushes and grinds them, as it were, with certain teeth of discernment. These are the bride's teeth, which are likened to flocks of shorn sheep; the shearings are innocent thoughts cutting away outward things, namely the love of earthly things and the desire to possess the prudence of the world. Furthermore, while discernment, after innocence and the casting off of worldly things, and the mortification of one's own will, is cleansed by the grace of compunction, and is trained to spiritual understanding and discussion, it is rightly said to come up from the washing." He then assigns a twin offspring or fruit of discernment, which I related a little before.

Wherefore St. Bernard, fittingly, Serm. 64 among the minor sermons, understands by the teeth the religious: for these give themselves to prayer and meditation, and consequently to preaching: for the more ardently anyone, through meditation, imbibes in his mind the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, the more effectively he speaks that same thing forth to the people through mouth and teeth, and persuades them of it. Wherefore the religious, devoted to prayer and meditation, turn out to be the best and most effective preachers, as experience teaches.

Hear St. Bernard, who first lists thirteen endowments of the teeth thus: "Teeth are white and strong, they have no flesh, they lack skin, they can suffer nothing within themselves, there is no pain like their pain, they are closed in by the lips, lest they be seen; it is unseemly when they are seen, except in laughing; they chew food for the whole body, yet have no taste of it themselves; they are not easily worn away; they are set in order, some above, others below; and when the lower ones move, the upper ones never do." And then he applies the first five of the list thus to the religious and to monks: "For what is whiter than they, who, avoiding every filth of uncleanness, bewail the sins of their thoughts as of their deeds? What is stronger than they, to whom tribulation is counted for comfort, reproach for glory, want for abundance? These have no flesh, because, forgetful of the flesh while in the flesh, they hear from the Apostle: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, Rom. 8:9. They lack skin, because, having no polish or spreading-out of worldly cares, they sleep and rest in peace, in the very same, Psalm 4:9. They suffer nothing to linger within themselves, because they do not count even a small stumbling-block tolerable, whether within themselves, or in the consciences of individuals." Then, going on next to pursue the following five analogies of the teeth, he adapts them likewise to the religious: "There is no pain like their pain, because nothing is so dreadful and horrible as murmuring and dissension in a community. They are closed in by the lips, lest they be seen: so too we are hedged about by material walls, lest we lie open to the eyes and approach of worldly people. It is unseemly if they appear, except now and then perhaps for laughter, because nothing is baser than a monk running about through cities and towns, unless charity compels it, which covers a multitude of sins: for charity is laughter, because it is cheerful: joyful indeed, yet not dissolute. Teeth chew food for the whole body, because they themselves are appointed to pray for the whole body of the Church, namely for both the living and the dead. They ought to have no taste from it, to assign no glory to themselves, but to say with the Prophet, Psalm 113:1: Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name give glory. They are not easily worn away, because the older they are, the more fervent, and the more swiftly they run, the nearer they draw to the palm." Finally, he assigns to them thus the last three properties of the teeth, regarding their order and position: "They are set in order, for where is anything ordered, if not here, where food and drink, waking and sleeping, working and resting, walking and sitting, and all other things are established in number, and measure, and weight? Wisdom 11:21. They are upper and lower, because among us there are prelates and subjects, and thus the upper are joined to the lower, so that the lower may not be at variance with the upper. But while the inner ones move, the upper ones ought never to move: because even if the subjects are sometimes disturbed, it belongs to the prelates to remain composed in mind. Like a flock of the shorn, he says, because monks are rightly compared to shorn sheep, because they are indeed shorn, to whom neither hearts, nor bodies, nor anything worldly has been left in ownership. Which came up from the washing: the washing is baptism, from which he ascends who strives toward the height of a more perfect life; but he descends, who binds himself over to a dishonorable life. All with twin offspring, because they bring forth both by word and by example. And there is no barren one among them, because none is unfruitful."

All these things now said fit, above all others, the Blessed Virgin, who had the whitest teeth, because she was the teacher of innocence, says Rupert: for she herself was the teacher of the apostles and of the rest of the faithful, and therefore was assiduously given to meditation: in her mind, then, she conceived two twin offspring, namely the divinity and the humanity of her Son, whose works and mysteries, which she heard and beheld with her eyes, she perpetually turned over and ruminated in her mind, according to that: "But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart," Luke 2:19.

Again, the Blessed Virgin led a most religious life in the highest chastity, poverty, and obedience: for she herself, first among mortals, dedicated her virginity to God, and so first raised the standard of virginity, which the rest of the virgins afterward followed, as St. Augustine teaches, Book On Virginity, ch. 4, and St. Bernard, Sermon on that text of the Apocalypse, ch. 12: A great sign. Now her poverty, and the manger, and the two young pigeons, and many other things demonstrate it; while her obedience is shown by her very marriage, which subjected her to her husband, although she herself was so much greater both in holiness and in wisdom, and had no need of her husband for offspring, since this was to be conceived of the Holy Spirit, but only for the exercise of obedience. Wherefore she herself instituted all the religious orders, namely the Carthusians, Premonstratensians, Cistercians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and the Society of Jesus, as our Jerome Platus teaches from the annals of each, Book I, On the Good of the Religious State, ch. 34; and therefore she is the guardian and patroness of all religious, as of her own offspring, as she has declared by very many examples. Wherefore the Blessed Virgin brought forth twin offspring, because by her example and word she taught the keeping both of the precepts and of the evangelical counsels. Thus Rupert.

VERSE 3. LIKE A SCARLET RIBBON, THY LIPS: AND THY SPEECH SWEET.

In Hebrew, מדבריך, nave, that is, beautiful; the Septuagint: like a scarlet cord (St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 18: a scarlet little cord; Aquila: of scarlet) are thy lips, and thy speech comely. The Hebrew חוט, chut, signifies both thread, and cord, and ribbon; whence Vatablus translates, thy lips are like a scarlet thread. By "ribbon," then, understand also the thread which binds the ribbon below, around the neck, and fastens it thereto. By the right order of nature he descends from the praise of the eyes to the praise of the hair, then of the teeth, and next of the cheeks and lips. He compares the mouth and lips of the bride to a ribbon, to indicate that they do not project or stand out too much, but are arched with a modest and becoming roundness, as though encircled by a scarlet thread or cord, that is, a red one, so that they close over the teeth becomingly.

For there are three things that commend the lips: first, their shape, if they are not oblong, thick, protruding, or gaping, but slender, round, and fitted together becomingly after the manner of a ribbon; second, their color, if they are not black, or yellow, or pale, but scarlet, that is, colored like the scarlet worm and suffused with a certain bloody redness joined with dignity, such as are called by the poets purple and rosy: for these represent virginal modesty and beauty; third, their closure, if, after the manner of a ribbon, lest it come undone, they are bound and drawn tight by a cord, lest through some gaping the teeth lie open.

He notes at once silence and grace in speaking, as if to say: The bride has her lips closed, and is a lover of silence; but when she opens her lips, she does so with wondrous grace: wherefore, whether she close her lips or open them, she shows herself most beautiful; "and her speech is sweet," that is, comely: because in speaking she has a wondrous charm, order, discernment, grace, so that she always preserves τὸ πρέπον, which Cicero, indeed St. Augustine, greatly commends in the orator. For this confers upon speech both charm, and weight, and dignity and majesty.

He alludes to the scarlet cord which Rahab the hostess, receiving the spies sent by Joshua into the city of Jericho, hung out from her window, so that by that sign the Hebrews, laying waste the city, might keep her house unharmed, Joshua, chapter 2, 18: so Theodoret, Philo, and Justus. Whence R. Solomon judges that the lips of the bride are compared to the scarlet cord, to signify by it that she is faithful in her promises, so that what she promises she surely performs, just as the safety which Rahab and the spies mutually promised one another, and signified by the scarlet thread, both sides kept exactly.

By the lips, equally as by the teeth (for by both voice and speech are formed), are signified the doctors and preachers of the Church, say Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Aponius, Justus, Philo Carpathius, and Anselm, whose speech ought to be like a ribbon: First, that it be thin, plain and easy, not stuffed with elegance of words, with paint and pomp. Second, that it be bound, joined, and drawn tight, so that it does not rashly blurt out whatever comes to the mouth, which might offend God or one's neighbor, but say only those things which beforehand he has prudently premeditated in his mind as likely to be pleasing to God and useful to men here and now, and has arranged and joined together in right order; but what ought to be kept silent, let him keep silent. Third, just as a scarlet ribbon is both elegant and skillfully woven, so let the preacher's speech have a fitting texture, be well-composed, sweet and pleasing, so that it may soothe and hold the hearers, and not let them depart, says Theodoret, but, like a net and a woven ribbon, draw men to itself as fish, and bind to Christ those plucked out of the sea of concupiscence. Fourth, let the speech of the lips be like the scarlet ribbon, which is of a bloody color, that is, let it be dyed with the blood of Christ, which the preacher draws daily in the sacrifice of the Mass, so that with Paul he may preach not himself, but Christ crucified: so Theodoret, Nyssen,

St. Thomas, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 18, verse 4, who says: "Like a scarlet little cord are thy lips, because in scarlet there glows the appearance of fire, and the blood of the Lord's cross. Scarlet are the lips of the Lord, which spoke of his own passion."

Hear Theodoret, who judges that there is an allusion to the cord of Rahab, as I have said, and speaks thus: "This sign the bridegroom beholds in the mouth of the bride, as though set in a window, saying: Like a scarlet cord are thy lips, as if he should say: Thy mouth has drawn its color from my blood, and it brings forth words of truth, by which the hearers are caught and bound as though by a cord: for thy speech soothes them and holds them, and does not let them depart, but compels them to be subject to thy lips."

To this may be added Aponius, who judges that preachers are likened to the scarlet ribbon: "because," he says, "what they preach, they confirm by the testimony of the martyrs," so that he who does not believe the law, which promises eternal life to those obeying it, may believe the testimony of the martyrs who poured out their blood for it, and thus, as with a ribbon, they bind the unbelieving.

Again, let speech be like a scarlet ribbon, that is, let it be red, indeed let it burn with charity, so that it breathes and exhales nothing but the love of God and of neighbor, so that whatever it speaks with the mouth proceeds from a heart of charity: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus and Bede. Hear St. Gregory: "These same preachers are called the lips of the Church, because through them, doubtless, she speaks to the peoples the precepts of life, and they are rightly called like a ribbon, because while by their preachings they restrain the loose thoughts in the hearts of men, they check them as it were like scattered hair, lest they flow out beyond measure. But what is it that they are compared not merely to a ribbon, but to a scarlet one, except that by the scarlet is understood the flame of charity, by which they themselves burn and by which they set others on fire? Through them the speech of holy Church is made sweet: because, while they do what they say, they set before men their preachings as it were savory food."

Wherefore let the preacher strive to unite those who are at odds and disagree, both among themselves and with God, in mutual love, and to bind them together as with a ribbon: for this is one of the foremost duties of a preacher, so Nyssen, homily 7, who, reading with the Septuagint, "a scarlet cord are thy lips," explains thus: "By the cord is signified concord and charity, so that it is wholly, in the cord, one and the same chain woven from different threads; but by the scarlet is meant the blood of Christ, by which we have been redeemed, inasmuch as it has its confession in the mouth of him who redeemed us by his blood."

Again, the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret judge that by the cord is signified the measure of speech: for it must be measured by its own measure of prudence, just as by a cord we measure out the length of things; and if this is done, the speech will be sweet and comely. On the other hand, Psellus asserts that by the cord, that is, by silence, the mouth is to be closed: "By the cord," he says, "understand the gift of silence; but by comely speech, divine preaching, as if it were said: Thou dost so excel in the grace of taciturnity, that nothing superfluous, nothing absurd falls from thy lips; for if at any time thou wilt speak something, thou speakest those things which pertain to the proclamation of the faith and to doctrine."

AND THY SPEECH SWEET.

"Rightly," says Richard of St. Victor, "is the speech of a devout soul sweet, and it delights, it is pleasing and it edifies, because it proceeds from charity, and flows forth from the fountain of grace: for she tastes that the Lord is sweet; whence she pours forth the sweetness which she experiences, and belches forth the fullness which she enjoys: because the heart is filled with spiritual delights, it belches forth outwardly a good word of sweetness, of consolation, of instruction, of admonition. The storehouses of the heart are full of these riches, belching forth from this gift of grace into that one, from this spiritual meditation into that one."

The lips of a holy soul are like a scarlet ribbon, when they pour out an ardent prayer to God: the scarlet ribbon, then, is prayer, first, because, like scarlet, it is red and burns, both with the blood of Christ, by whose merits it asks to be heard, and with the love and desire of obtaining the thing it seeks: for prayer ought to flow from the innermost heart and from the affection of the heart, and to burst forth from the heart into the mouth and lips.

Second, just as a ribbon covers, adorns, and binds the head, so prayer adorns and protects the mind, and restrains it from earthly thoughts, and binds it to God and to Christ, so that one praying seems, through the lips, as it were to kiss God, and to bind him, and as it were to tie and compel him to grant what he himself asks. For God is fed and delighted by the devotion, humility, love, and effective ardor of those who pray, and he rejoices to be, as it were, bound and compelled. "This force is pleasing to him," says Tertullian, On Prayer; whence to him their speech is sweet, pleasing, and beautiful.

Third, just as the scarlet ribbon is bound below the neck by a scarlet cord, so prayer is bound by charity, so that it asks nothing except what the charity of God, or of one's own soul, or of one's neighbors demands: for charity is, as it were, a cord binding and uniting to itself both all the other virtues, and all other men, and God himself. Whence the Chaldee translates: and the lips of the high priest made supplication in prayer on the day of atonement before the Lord, and his words turned away the sins of Israel, which were like the scarlet ribbon, and made them white as clean wool.

Let the lips, then, of the holy soul, which is the bride of Christ, whether conversing with God, or with her neighbors, be scarlet, that is, red and coral-colored, namely full of charity, so that it may seem that not so much they themselves, as the love within them, and charity itself, speaks through their mouths.

"In thy lips," says Rupert, "is confession and beauty; in thy lips is holiness and magnificence. She was mute toward God, but thou hast magnified the Lord with a most ardent mind, with a most sweet voice, and this is the scarlet ribbon, because charity is fiery, by which, being well bound with it, thou hast so clung to God, that thou art one spirit with him. Hence thy speech is sweet, because indeed the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart, and the speech that overflows outwardly savors of the sweetness that abounds within."

Then, explaining mystically the cord of Rahab, and applying it to the Blessed Virgin, he adds these words: "Behold, Rahab the harlot bound in her window the scarlet ribbon, or scarlet cord, of thy sweet speech, a sign of her faith, that she received and saved the messengers of Joshua, or of Jesus; while the Church, once a sinner and defiled with the harlotry of idolatry, continually sounds forth thy sweet speech, by which thy soul magnified the Lord, as the pledge of her salvation, and preaches with ever whole faith all the evangelical doctrine, in which thy lips, without doubt, confirmed the apostles themselves. And indeed, concerning every soul, whatever they feel differently, she binds them by her preaching to unity, so that all say the same thing, and this she does in charity and unfeigned faith; it is true to say that her lips are like the scarlet ribbon, but in this grace thou art incomparable to all others, after me thy beloved, to whom especially the Spirit says in the Psalm: Grace is poured out on thy lips," Psalm 44:3.

Finally, Nicephorus, following St. Epiphanius, depicts the lips of the Blessed Virgin thus, Ecclesiastical History, book 2, chapter 23: "Lips flowering and full of the sweetness of words." And a little before: "She was in all things honest, grave, speaking very few things and those necessary, easy to listen to, and altogether affable, showing honor and veneration to all, etc., she used a becoming freedom of speech toward all men, without laughter, without disturbance, and above all without anger."

LIKE A PIECE OF POMEGRANATE, SO ARE THY CHEEKS, APART FROM THAT WHICH LIES HIDDEN WITHIN.

For "fragmen" [piece], the Hebrew is פלח, pelach, that is, division, part, fragment, piece: wherefore Aben-Ezra (and the ancient Spanish rabbinic interpretation, says Sanchez) less correctly interprets it not as "piece," but as the flower of the pomegranate, which is exceedingly red, and seems the most beautiful circle of redness: because he reads, in place of pelach, פרח, perach, that is, flower.

The "malum punicum" is the pomegranate: it is called "punicum" because it was brought from the Carthaginians, that is, from Carthage; "granatum," from the multitude of seeds with which it is filled, or because it abounds in the kingdom of Granada; whence Pliny, book 13, chapter 19, says: "Around Carthage, Africa claims for itself the surname of the Punic apple; some call it granatum." The manner in which pomegranates become ruddy is related by Cassius Dio, book 10, chapter 33.

For "genæ" [cheeks], the Hebrew is רקה, racka, which Luysius, Vatablus, Genebrardus, and others translate as "temples," because they are delicate and thin: for the root רק, rac, signifies to be made thin. But our version, the Septuagint, Symmachus, and others better translate "cheeks": for these are soft, thin, and delicate. These, first, are round; second, they swell; third, they are red.

LIKE A PIECE OF POMEGRANATE.

The Septuagint has ὡς λέπυρον, that is, like the rind of the pomegranate, and thus some codices of the Vulgate read, as the Complutensian, and thus all read at chapter 6, verse 6. Whence it is clear that the cheeks are compared not so much to the seeds as to the rind of the pomegranate. Yet he says "piece," both because one part of the pomegranate is red, while another is green; whereas the cheeks are red only, not green; and because a piece, besides its color, also breathes out the sweet odor of the seeds hidden within, says Rupert; and because for "genæ," the Hebrew and the Septuagint have "gena" in the singular; but a single cheek can be compared only to a piece, that is, to half of the pomegranate, or rather the rind itself is called a "piece," because it is divided from the pulp and, as it were, broken off; so the piece of nuts is their very shell: for this must be broken, so that the kernel hidden beneath it may be taken out and eaten. In a similar way, Job 41:15, in the Hebrew פלח תחתית, pelach tachtit, that is, the lower piece, is the name given to the lower millstone, which is called the "meta," because it is divided, and as it were broken off, from the upper stone, which is called the "catillus." Wherefore Philo Carpathius at this place reads, like the skin of an apple is thy apple, on account of that which lies hidden in thee. Hence cheeks are called in Greek μῆλα, that is, apples, because they are like pomegranate-apples, says Nyssen, since they swell out after the manner of a round apple, says Pollux.

For greater is the inward modesty and chastity, than the redness and modesty of the cheeks that proceeds outwardly from it. He said something similar of the eyes at verse 1. See what was said there. For just as the beauty and vigor of the eyes, so too that of the cheeks, flows from the heart and from the mind.

The purple cheeks, like the piece of the pomegranate, signify the modesty, chastity, and virginity of the Church, both literal, such as is in virgins; and mystical, which consists in an undefiled and chaste faith, hope, and charity, such as is in all the faithful, as I shall soon say from St. Augustine: for virgins represent the beauty and glory of the Church, just as the cheeks represent the beauty of the face and of the whole man. Wherefore virginity and celibacy flourished wonderfully in the primitive Church, because the apostles earnestly commended it to the faithful, indeed St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Matthew, St. Clement, and very many other leaders of the Church underwent martyrdom in defending it, as I have said elsewhere. Hence also almost all the Fathers wrote very fully, in whole books, praises of virginity, as St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Athanasius, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen.

The purple cheeks, then, like the pomegranate, signify the modesty of virgins: for this is their purple, since for them no color is more honorable than that which is born of modesty: so Nazianzen, in his oration Against Women Adorning Themselves: "The only color," he says, "lovable in a woman is, without doubt, that redness which modesty produces"; and in oration 2, In Praise of Gorgonia: "The one redness," he says, "that pleased was that which modesty brings; the one fairness, that which abstinence brings: for she left pigments and paints and living portraits (these indeed he calls masks, because a painted woman is a masked one) to actresses and common women, for whom it is a disgrace and a shame to blush." Solomon signified the same thing by another likeness, that of the turtledove, chapter 1, verse 10, saying: "Beautiful are thy cheeks as the turtledove's." See what was said there: for chastity and virginity have always been wonderfully close to the heart and care of the Christian faith and Church, for he who keeps chastity, keeps also the faith; but he who falls short of chastity, easily loses the faith too.

These are those swarms of virgins in the Thebaid, in Egypt, Syria, Rome, Africa, Greece, of whom Palladius, Theodoret, Cassian, Sophronius, and Baronius speak in their Ecclesiastical History. Hear St. Cyprian, On the Dress of Virgins: "That is the flower of the Church's growth, the beauty and ornament of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, a whole and incorrupt work of praise and honor, the image of God answering to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ's flock. Through them the glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices and richly flowers in them, and the more abundant virginity adds to its own number, the more the mother's joy increases." St. Augustine, On Holy Virginity, at the beginning: "Christ," he says, "the son of a virgin, the bridegroom of virgins, born bodily of a virgin womb, joined spiritually in a virginal marriage. Since, then, the whole Church herself is a virgin betrothed to one husband, Christ, as the Apostle says: with how much honor are those members worthy, who keep this even in the flesh itself, which the whole Church keeps in faith, imitating the mother of her husband and Lord! For the Church too is both virgin and mother. For whose integrity do we take care, if she is not a virgin? Or whose offspring do we address, if she is not a mother? Mary bodily bore the head of this body, the Church spiritually bears the members of that head. In each, virginity does not hinder fruitfulness, in each, fruitfulness does not take away virginity. Accordingly

since the whole Church is holy both in body and in spirit, and yet is not wholly a virgin in body, but in spirit, how much holier is she in those members where she is a virgin both in body and in spirit!" The same author, book 2, On the City of God, chapter 26, teaches that the Romans suppliantly worshipped a virgin goddess, namely Vesta. St. Basil, On the Praise of Virginity, assigns her these praises: "A virgin, the living vessel of Christ: a virgin, the image of chastity; virginity is above the law of nature, virginity makes man most like to God, virginity gathers our life from corruption up to glory."

Hear Nazianzen in his poem On the Praise of Virginity, where here and there he gives her these praises: The love of virginity lifts minds to the stars. Virginity is a thing wondrous in every age. Virginity is the renowned portion of great Christ. Virginity (of Daniel) was able to fence in the tawny lions. Virginity is adorned by its bridegroom Christ. First is the Virgin Tritas. A virgin is a second angel. The same, in his Precepts to Virgins: Among men a virgin is what a pearl is among stones, and among the stars of heaven the morning star, in the woods a leafy branch of olive, a lily in grassy fields, and among birds a dove. The same, in his Poem on the Beatitudes: Happy is the virgin choir, which, having cast off the flesh, is not far, pure, from the highest Godhead.

Furthermore, this outward modesty of virgins in the cheeks proceeds from an inward chastity and purity, which lies hidden in the soul, and this is signified by that phrase, "apart from that which lies hidden within." For this, the Septuagint translates, "outside thy silence," or "thine"; others, "within thy veil," whence they translate, "like a piece of pomegranate, so are thy cheeks within thy veil"; Symmachus, "covered with a covering," for virgins, in order to guard their modesty, cover their cheeks and face with a veil; whence Tertullian calls this veil of virginity a wall and a rampart, book On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter 15: "True virginity," he says, "takes refuge in the veiling of the head, as though in a helmet, as though in a shield, which may protect its good against the blows of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions and whisperings, and rivalry, and envy itself"; and chapter 16: "Put on," he says, "the armor of modesty, draw around thee the rampart of shame, build a wall for thy sex, which neither lets out thine own eyes, nor lets in those of others." Hence also Ecclesiasticus, chapter 26, 19: "Grace upon grace," he says, "a holy and modest woman." Again, for virgins, in place of the veil and rampart, are the enclosures of monasteries, which, if exactly kept, render them immune from every temptation and danger to chastity, so that, removed from men like the angels, they may converse continually with God and with Christ their bridegroom in all quiet, holiness, and joy, so that they seem to dwell in paradise. In the cloister, then, the piety, holiness, prayer, charity, virtue, and heavenly life of virgins lies hidden and concealed, but it is open to God and the angels, just as beneath the piece, that is, the rind of the pomegranate, there lies hidden the wine-like sweetness and abundant density of its seeds.

Finally, Nicephorus teaches that the Blessed Virgin veiled her cheeks, book 2, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 23, where, from St. Epiphanius, he describes the garments of the Blessed Virgin thus: "She was content with garments of their natural color, which even now the holy veil of her head shows, and, to say it briefly, in all her affairs there was much grace divinely present." So Justus of Urgell expounds this passage concerning modesty, virginity, and celibacy: "Those," he says, "produce beauty in the face of the Church, who observe chastity with modesty as its companion." And Aponius, who compares virgins to Christ, who at chapter 2 is called an apple, and, as he himself interprets it, a pomegranate: "As a pomegranate," he says, "among the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. Which tree brings forth from itself a fruit most beautiful to the sight and sweetest to the taste, and a remedy quite fitting for the languishing: because he who, for the salvation of men, was shown to the world through a virgin, scattered throughout the whole world the flowers of integrity and chastity. Of whose beauty, a part, that is, a piece, he shows that virginity and continence possess, in which the most beautiful face of the Church, of her unspoiled blood preserved, is demonstrated." And Philo Carpathius: "By the pomegranate," he says, "the Church herself and the faithful soul are designated, because just as in it there are many sweeter seeds, so too in the bosom of the Church many faithful peoples are contained in the unity of the faith; and while many of these bind and give themselves more strongly than the rest to divine service, so that they despise and flee all worldly things, deny their own wills, and thoroughly purge and wash away their vices, and abase themselves, and exalt others, while by their examples they nourish and prepare many for God; these, like pomegranates now ripe and altogether sweet to the taste, open themselves to their neighbors as wholesome food and drink. But there are more and greater things that lie hidden in these than are set forth to the eyes of the faithful, and for this reason he said: Besides that which lies hidden in thee."

Furthermore, as to what the Septuagint translates, "outside thy silence," or "thine," Theodoret, Nyssen, and Psellus judge that silence is commended, which is supremely becoming to virgins: "He has brought forth," says Psellus here, "a twofold praise of beauty: for by the cheeks of her face being praised together for their purple ornament of modesty, he also commends the beauty of her soul, as if to say, to be silent, the ornament of silence is thy single cheek." See what was said at verse 1.

Second, by the cheeks like the piece of pomegranate, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Philo, and Bede understand those who suffer patiently and the martyrs: for these are reddened by their own blood after the manner of the rind of the pomegranate, but when the pomegranate is broken, the inner whiteness of the seeds appears, because after death they shine with miracles. Add that many virgins made their virginity purple with their own blood. So also St. Ambrose, book 3 of the Hexaemeron, verse 13, whom hear: "Pomegranates flower quickly, and cannot bring forth fruit, unless, tended by fitting rains,

they be brought to ripeness; often the inner juice vanishes, while outwardly its fair appearance is displayed. This is not undeservedly compared to the Church, as you have it said in the Song of Songs: As the rind of the pomegranate are thy cheeks; and further on: Flowered has the vine, flowered have the pomegranates: for the Church displays the good splendor of faith and of confession, made beautiful by the blood of so many martyrs, and, what is more, endowed with the blood of Christ, while at the same time preserving within herself very many fruits under the protection of that single apple's rind, embracing the many transactions of the virtues: for wise in spirit she conceals the transactions." Bede presses the point "like a piece": "because," he says, "the more it happens that she (the Church) is broken, the more clearly it is reported that she embraces the seeds of the virtues under the covering of one faith. For while the pomegranate is whole, the seeds cannot be seen, but when it is broken, how innumerable they are becomes clear." True is that saying of Prudentius: "The number of the martyrs has ever grown from every hailstorm." And that saying of Tertullian, at the end of the Apology: "Your cruelty is rather an enticement to the sect; the more we are mown down by you, the more we become; the blood of Christians is seed."

For, as St. Cyprian teaches, book 4, epistle 3: "Martyrs furnish the teaching of morals; Confessors, the beginnings of the virtues." Hence St. Augustine, explaining that verse, Psalm 67:28: "The princes of Judah, their leaders" (that is, the martyrs, he says: for Judah means confession): "for martyrs hold the highest place in the Churches, and excel at the summit of holy dignity."

Third, Cassiodorus and Bede understand by the cheeks the preachers, because, they say, while they announce the passion of Christ, they display, as it were, redness outwardly; but when they show how great a benefit of our redemption has arisen from it, and that man, through the passion of Christ, has deserved not only to be justified from his sins, but also to obtain divine fellowship, this is, as it were, the whiteness that lies hidden within: for indeed, when the pomegranate is broken, redness appears outwardly, but whiteness within; and since these men reverently keep the memory of Christ's passion, and are not ashamed of his cross, according to that counsel of the Apostle, 2 Timothy 1:8: "Be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord" (that is, the cross of Christ), "nor of me his prisoner": for in place of the redness of modesty, which is spread over the cheeks from one's own blood, they themselves are suffused with the redness of their Redeemer. These things they say; so too St. Gregory.

To this may be added the Chaldean version: And the king, it says, who was their prince, was full of precepts like a pomegranate, apart from the officers and princes who approach the king, who are just, in whom there is nothing of evil.

Furthermore, why priests and preachers are called the cheeks of the Church, St. Gregory gives the reason, Morals, book 13, chapter 11, saying: "For those who, being placed in positions of governance, appear first, are the face of holy Church, so that from their appearance may come the honor of the people, even if something deformed lies hidden in the body"; whence he gathers how base it is, if by their own depraved conduct they dishonor the Church, and how much those sin who detract from them and breathe infamy upon them. The honor and beauty of priests, then, just as their disgrace and dishonor, is the beauty or disgrace of the whole Church.

By the cheeks like the piece of pomegranate is signified, first, the modesty, continence, temperance, seriousness, and austerity of the holy soul, first, because, as Nyssen says, homily 7, just as the rind of the pomegranate preserves and nourishes the sweetness of the fruit which is contained within it, so a continent, austere, and rough life is the guardian of the goods of temperance: so too the three Anonymous authors cited by Theodoret, whom hear: "Thy cheeks are like the rind of the pomegranate, as lovers of severity and removed from all dissoluteness, even when thou dost not keep silent. Although pleasantness is wont to be present in meetings and much conversation, thou, on account of thy temperance in them, dost repress what is excessive and dissolute."

Second, St. Anselm understands the saints who suffer persecutions, because, he says, like such a piece, which is red outwardly, but white within, they are outwardly worn down by many persecutions, and are vile to the world, but inwardly, when known, they are found to be white: by those words, "apart from that which lies hidden within," the intention is commended, which is far more beautiful: this is Anselm.

To this may be added Richard of St. Victor, who by the redness of the cheeks understands the soul, which does not refuse to blush for Christ, but willingly bears for him reproaches, disgraces, poverty, and sorrows: because all these are only a piece, a small portion, if compared with the reproaches and sorrows of Christ, for Christ was the whole pomegranate, because he was wholly red in his suffering, nor was there ever sorrow like his sorrow. Such souls, then, according to the precept of Christ, fearlessly offer the other cheek to him who strikes the one, Matthew 5:39.

An illustrious example is found in St. Soteris, a noble virgin and martyr, whom St. Ambrose wonderfully celebrates, book 3, On Virgins: "Soteris," he says, "in the age of persecution, raised even by servile insults to the height of her passion, gave over to the executioner even her own face, which amid the tortures of the whole body was accustomed to be free from injury, and to watch the torments rather than to endure them; and she was so brave and patient that, when she offered her tender cheeks to the punishment, the executioner grew weary of striking sooner than the martyr yielded to the injury. She did not bend her countenance, did not turn her face away; she gave no groan, no tear; finally, when she had overcome the other kinds of punishments, she found the sword which she sought"; and in his Exhortation to Virgins: "But Soteris took no care for her own countenance, who, though she was of a very lovely face, and a noble virgin of ancestral lineage, set aside the consulships and prefectures of her forebears out of sacred faith, and would not consent to sacrifice when commanded. The savage persecutor ordered her to be struck with the palms of the hands, so that the tender virgin might yield either to pain or to shame. But she, when she heard this sentence, uncovered her face, alone unveiled and uncovered for her martyrdom, and, willing, met the injury, offering her face, so that there the sacrifice of martyrdom might take place, where the trial of modesty is wont to be; for she rejoiced that, at the cost of her beauty, the danger to her integrity was taken away. But they were indeed able to furrow her face with the marks of wounds; yet they were by no means able to furrow the face of her virtue, and the grace of her inward beauty."

Third, the same Richard understands by the red cheeks the blushing for sins, which is covered by the rind of humility, not whole, but broken, because even if the penitent tries to conceal it, it nevertheless betrays itself through the cracks and pieces, and bursts forth outwardly.

Finally, St. Chrysostom, homily 8, from various passages on Matthew, thinks that here is signified the almsgiving that is to be done in secret: "Concerning this faithful work of almsgiving," he says, "under the silence of a religious taciturnity, Solomon, praising the Church, once bore witness, saying: Beautiful are thy cheeks as the turtledove's, because of thy taciturnity, namely that taciturnity of which the Lord speaks, Matthew 6:3: Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand does: for the pomegranate is a fitting symbol of charity, whose rind represents outward beneficence, and the pulp of its seeds inward love: of which more below.

Aponius judges that by the two cheeks are signified the two Marys, who were the chief of virgins: the first is Miriam, the sister of Moses, in the Old Testament; the other is the Blessed Virgin in the New; who, he says, were the first to begin to make the cheeks of the bride, the Church, admirable, by keeping their integrity, and the Blessed Virgin, like a rind, contained within herself the noblest fruit, namely Christ: for her virginity was not sterile, but fruitful, as I said at the beginning from St. Augustine.

More fully Rupert: "A piece of pomegranate," he says, "is both red, and smells more than the whole pomegranate: so thou art both singularly modest, and dost profit many through a good reputation by a good example. But what is it to say: Apart from that which lies hidden within, unless it is as if he should say: And that which lies hidden within, in the conscience, is more praiseworthy still? O truly praiseworthy modesty, where both the conscience within is clean, and the face without is modest! For where there is something at which the mind might blush, it is not so praiseworthy, if redness suffuses the face that is seen. Therefore what is thy modesty but the highest religious devotion? And this virtue was without doubt to be likened to a pomegranate, because it is pleasing to the eyes of those who behold it, and sometimes by its silence it edifies no less than the speech of preaching." Rupert adds that this was represented in the vestment of the high priest, in which pomegranates were mixed with little bells, Exodus 28:33: "For the pomegranate in the midst of the little bells is a religious and diligent silence, especially of the female sex in the fellowship of the faith, or of the doctrine of preachers, such as thou wast especially, Virgin of virgins, in her assistance; or even in the governance of the preaching apostles, whose words, even though they are not read or heard where they preached, yet their works or merits are not unknown, no less, indeed greater, than the ringing of the preachers."

VERSE 4. AS THE TOWER OF DAVID IS THY NECK, WHICH IS BUILT WITH BATTLEMENTS: A THOUSAND SHIELDS HANG FROM IT, ALL THE ARMOR OF THE MIGHTY.

The Septuagint: "all the darts of the mighty": for it was once the custom that princes would hang shields and arms from towers, both for ornament and for strength. Solomon deposited the same in the House of the Forest of Lebanon, 3 Kings 10:16; Ezekiel plainly testifies to this, chapter 27:10, where, speaking of the garrison troops of Tyre: "The Persians," he says, "and the Lydians, and the Libyans were in thy army, thy men of war: they hung up the shield and the helmet in thee for thy ornament. The children of Arad were with thy army upon thy walls round about: yea, the Pygmies also, that were in thy towers, hung their quivers on thy walls round about." The Gentiles did the same, as is clear from that verse of Virgil, Aeneid 1: "Or Capys, or the arms of Caicus on the lofty sterns." And Book 10: "To sue for peace with the hand, to hold out arms before the ships," where Servius teaches the very same thing.

The tower of David is either the citadel of Sion, as Rupert holds, which David wrested from the Jebusites and made the seat of his kingdom; or rather, that taller, more beautiful and stronger tower which David built next to the citadel of Sion, so that he might fortify it on the side of Millo, or the Tyropoeon, as well as the city of Jerusalem lying beneath it, as is sufficiently indicated 2 Kings 5:9. Whence Adrichomius, in his Description of Jerusalem, number 170: "The tower of David," he says, "exceedingly fortified and lofty, which stood at the corner of two ravines, on the hill of a steep rock, built by King David of squared stones joined indissolubly with iron and lead, whose singular strength and outstanding beauty is brought forward by Solomon for the commendation of the bride of Christ, which is the Church, when it is said: 'As the tower of David is thy neck.'" Adrichomius then also exhibits the same tower, to be viewed with the eyes, in his picture of Jerusalem, next to the Fish Gate on one side, and on the other next to the Sepulcher of David and of the kings of Judah. So too Brocardus, chapter 7, number 43, and William of Tyre, Book 9 of the History of the Holy War, chapter 3; indeed Esdras too seems to make mention of it, Book 2, chapter 3, verse 25, where he calls it the tower which stands out from the house of the king...

"A thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty;" and these too can be called battlements, as our version renders it.

Sixth, and best, our version renders it "with battlements," for Aquila too renders εἰς ἐπάλξεις, that is, "unto genuine battlements," battlements or parapets; and Symmachus renders εἰς ὕψη, that is, "unto heights," says Theodoret: for the battlements fortify the tower, and present the shape of a mouth. Others, in Pagninus, derive talpiijoth from תל tel, that is, strong, raised, high, and פיות piijoth, that is, "of mouths"; which rightly suits the battlements, between which the middle gaps, or clefts, lie like mouths. Others by "mouths" understand the two ravines between which the tower of David was situated, as I have said from Adrichomius. Nyssen, Homily 7, adds to this, who interprets the Hebrew talpiijoth, which the Septuagint retains, as "battlements," whether these were parapets, or walls, or something else.

For "a thousand shields," as the Hebrew has it, St. Ambrose, on Psalm 121, sermon 4, reads "a thousand doors"; but he seems to have had a faulty manuscript, and to have read θύρεοι, that is, "doors," whereas the Septuagint reads θυρεοί, that is, "shields," which are so called because they are broad and similar to doors. Now the shield is the emblem of warlike strength; whence on the shield of Agamemnon, as Pausanias attests, a lion was engraved with this device:

...Terro — this is of men, and whoever bears it, is Agamemnon.

For "armor," the Hebrew has שלטי scilte, which elsewhere our version and others render "a buckler" or "a shield"; whence too the German schilt is the same as "shield." Yet since "shield" had already preceded here, our version better renders it "armor": for the Septuagint too renders it βολίδες, that is, "darts" or "missiles," for by these the soldiers שלטי schaleta, that is, "lord it over" the enemies; but the Syriac renders it, "all mighty princes": for from שלט schalat, that is, "to rule," are named the "sultans," that is, "princes ruling far and wide."

THE FIRST, FULL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the Church.

Solomon, in chapter 1, verse 10, compared the bride's neck to necklaces; there, by the neck, he noted the obedience of the Church; but here he compares the neck to the tower of David, beautiful as well as fortified: wherefore here by the neck, says Titelmannus, he notes the Church's unconquered strength, fortitude and constancy, by which she most valiantly withstood tyrants, heretics, and all persecutors — indeed overcame and subdued them all: for the strength of oxen, horses, and animals lies in the neck and throat. The neck, therefore, is a symbol of strength, likewise of confidence, boldness, and daring; whence that verse of Psalm 128, 4: "The just Lord hath cut the necks of sinners."

...celsa. Genebrardus adds that this is the tower of which Micah says, chapter 4, verse 8: "And thou, cloudy tower of the flock, O daughter of Sion, even unto thee shall it come" — the Lord: but what that is, I have said in the same place.

To this tower, then, he compares the bride's neck, because it was, after its likeness, tall, round, robust and strong; perhaps, too, this tower resembled the shape of a neck, for it stood beneath the citadel of Sion as a neck beneath the head; while it rose above the city of Jerusalem — which is called the daughter of Sion — as a neck above the other members subject to it; whence St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, octonary 4, verse 7: "David built that tower, and built its heights above the walls, that it might serve at once for defense and for beauty: for defense, because it foresees the enemy and drives him off; for beauty, because it stands out not only among the lowly but even among the lofty." Wherefore less precisely R. Solomon, Luysies, Sotomajor, Delrio and others take the neck to mean the whole erect stature of the bride's body, as if to say: As the tower of David excels the other towers, so thou, O bride, dost surpass other women in tall and beautiful stature.

For "with battlements," the Hebrew is לתלפיות letulpiijoth, which various writers render variously: first, the Septuagint, followed by the Syriac and Arabic, keeping the Hebrew word as though it were the proper name of a place, render it "in Talpioth."

Solomon and Aben-Ezra, deriving talpiijoth from אלף alaph, which in Piel means "to teach," render it "teaching and monuments" — because that tower, like a lighthouse to sailors seeking harbor, showed the way into the city to those passing by; hence the Tigurine version renders it "for the use of directing men," for so the Church shows the faithful the way to heaven, as Vatablus explains; or because, built with notable workmanship and skill, it taught the manner of constructing a tower and citadel, and displayed its plan and form to those who beheld it; or because in it were monuments of those who had accomplished some heroic deed, as Philo attests in his Embassy to Gaius.

Third, Marinus in his Lexicon derives talpiijoth from תל tel and פיות piijoth, that is, "a heap or mass of mouths," orum, which is the plural of os, oris — mouth: it signifies, therefore, very great buildings fashioned out of hewn stones in that manner which is commonly called in Italian fatti a diamanti, that is, "shaped like diamonds" — which is when the stones are squared in such a way that they end in an edge and a point, and so do not lie open to the blows of engines, but turn them aside and repel them sideways; such is the foundation of the Palace of St. Mark in Venice, and the Palace of Cardinal Este at Ferrara.

Fourth, others in Pagninus interpret talpiijoth as "the stones of the tower, hewn to the likeness of a mouth."

...reus thinks talpiijoth is so called, as if from לתלוח ביות lithloth piijoth, that is "for hanging up mouths" — that is, the edges of swords, namely the swords themselves — as though there had been, projecting from the tower, hooks from which swords would hang, according to what follows:

...plicat, concerning the praises of the ancient Roman Church: by the tower, the shields, and the battlements, he judges the victory of the martyrs to be denoted, and the admirable sanctity of the ministers of the Gospel amid persecutions.

Hear St. Gregory, who understands this of preachers: for bishops too are heralds of the Gospel, and preach and spread it everywhere, either by themselves or through the priests ordained and sent by them: "Well is the neck of holy Church said to be like the tower of David, because the holy preachers, watching from afar for the enemies of holy Church, keep watch and resist them strongly if they attempt to harm anything in the Church, and, freely despising earthly things, contemplate the things of heaven. The neck, then, is named for the watching against enemies; the tower, for strength, and for the lofty contemplation of heavenly joys." Then he continues the rest in order thus: "Which tower is rightly said to be David's, because David is interpreted 'strong of hand,' by which Christ is signified, whose it is to work whatever is strong and lofty. Of which it is added: Which is built with battlements: a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty. The tower of David is said to be built with battlements, because the holy preachers, if it be necessary, are armed with miracles against adversaries. But against vices they arm themselves with shields, because, lest they succumb to spiritual enemies, they defend themselves with virtues. On these hangs all the armor of the mighty, because whoever wishes to resist strongly the ranks of enemies sees in them examples, armed with which he is able valiantly to overcome enemies. A thousand, moreover, is here put for perfection, because in the number one thousand all perfect numbers are completed." The apostolic see, therefore, is as it were the lighthouse of the Church, so that those sailing on this sea of life may recognize from it the true Church, which leads its faithful to God and to happiness; its battlements —

...with outstretched neck." And that saying of Horace, Epistle 13: creatures fierce, with neck untamed.

That saying of Cicero, in On the Nature of the Gods: "Thou hast placed upon our necks an everlasting dominion:" so Philo Carpathius, and after him Delrio; The neck, says he, of the Church is the pillar of faith, by which she joins the Church to Christ the head: this is like the tower of David, from which hang very many shields and arms, which adorn and grace it, as chains and necklaces adorn the neck. Hence the Apostle, 2 Timothy 3:15, calls the Church "the pillar and ground of truth:" for a pillar is like a tower — indeed, at times it really is a tower, such as at Rome are the columns of the emperors Trajan and Antoninus: for these are so broad that six men can scarcely embrace them with their arms, and they are hollow within, and so ample that one may climb by a spiral stair and steps, as in a tower, from the bottom to the top.

Again, by the neck and the tower are noted the prelates, doctors, and pontiffs (who are called bishops, that is, watchmen from towers), who are always fighting in the war for the defense of holy Church, says Cassiodorus, and especially the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, because as the neck is the middle between the head and the members, connecting them to the head, and as the head through the neck pours spirit and life into the members, and passes food into the stomach: so the Pontiff is, as it were, the middle between Christ and the rest of the faithful; and Christ, as the head, through the Pontiff as the neck, derives his doctrine, rule, strength and spirit into the faithful, joining them to himself. This is what Christ promised to St. Peter and his successors, Matthew 16:18: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and, Luke 22:32: "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."

Hence also St. Paul, Galatians 2:9, calls Peter, James and John, as apostles and leaders, the pillars of the Church. In them, therefore, is talpiijoth, that is, true doctrine, monuments of the ancient faith, the sublimity of the highest power, and the hanging of mouths, because on them the rest of the faithful depend, and, as with mouth agape, await the spiritual food of the soul.

...onnulli understand by the thousand shields the guard and protection of many angels, who watch over the Pontiff and the Church; likewise all the defenses of divine protection, says Cassiodorus; likewise the examples of the saints; and further, the cross of Christ, says Aponius. Wherefore, as the neck cleaves to the head, and draws all its strength from it, so let the prelate and pontiff cleave to Christ, and be familiar with him through prayer, that from him he may draw prudence and strength for teaching: for as Paul says, Hebrews 5:1: "Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that pertain to God." And Moses, Deuteronomy 5:5: "I was the mediator and stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare unto you his words: for ye feared the fire, and went not up into the mount." Wherefore Moses, in doubtful matters, would go to the tabernacle, and consult God, and be taught by him what was to be done.

Hear St. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, part II, chapter 5: "Let the ruler be near to each in compassion, raised above all in contemplation, so that through the bowels of piety he may transfer into himself the weakness of others, and through the height of contemplation may also, by reaching after invisible things, transcend himself — lest, either seeking the heights, he despise the weaknesses of his neighbors, or, suiting himself to the weak among his neighbors, he abandon the pursuit of the heights." And chapter 6: "Let the ruler, through humility, be a companion to those who do well, and, through zeal for justice, be raised up against the vices of offenders; so that he may in nothing prefer himself to the good, and, when the fault of the wicked demands it, may at once recognize the power of his own headship; so that, his rank set aside, he may reckon himself equal to subjects who live well, and yet not fear to exercise the rights of correction toward the perverse." Thus by the neck and the tower of David, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Philo, Psellus, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, and Richard of St. Victor understand the prelates and doctors of the Church. Hence the Chaldee also renders: "And he who was the head of the school, who was thy master, strong in justice, and a teacher of good works, like David, king of Israel — and by the word of his mouth the world was built up, and in the doctrine of the law, in which he labored, the people of the house of Israel trusted, and he conquered in war, as though they were holding in their hands every kind of weapon of the mighty."

Further, Nyssen gives the example of St. Paul: "Such a neck," says he, "was Paul, who indeed bore the name of the Lord, being made to the Lord a vessel of election, and to whom a head was accurately fitted by God, so that whatever he said, it was no longer he himself speaking, but his head that spoke, as he showed the Corinthians, that it was Christ who spoke in him, and who by the Spirit directed the word of truth. From these divine utterances the fruits became altogether sweet, so that he alone nourished the whole body with those divine teachings."

Symbolically, Justus of Urgell and St. Gregory, Homily 17 on Ezekiel, understand by the tower of David the Holy Scripture, from which is sought the full armor of weapons for warring down all errors and wicked ways.

THE SECOND, PARTIAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.

First, the mystical neck of the holy soul is prayer — so Theodoret and the three Anonymous writers in Theodoret — and fittingly so: first, because as the neck is raised on high, so prayer lifts the mind from earth to God in heaven; in it, therefore, is talpiijoth, that is, the raising up of the mouth and the mind, or the sublimity and elevation of the soul unto God. Second, as through the neck the breath is drawn in to cool and strengthen the inward parts, so through prayer we draw in the Spirit of God, who cools the heat of concupiscence, and animates and strengthens the mind; whence the Psalmist, Psalm 118, verse 131: "I opened my mouth, and drew in the spirit: because I longed for thy commandments."

Third, as a tower fortifies a city, so prayer fortifies the soul; and as a tower is ringed about with battlements, shields, and arms both defensive and offensive, so the battlements of prayer are the virtues, which guard it and inflict a wound on the enemy — such as constancy and fortitude; the shields, indeed, are those which receive and repel the enemy's darts unharmed — such as humility and patience; and finally, in it is all the armor of the mighty, that is, every kind of weapon, namely every species of graces and remedies which God suggests to those who pray, so that, strengthened and made valiant by them, they may not only repel any enemies whatsoever, but also drive them off and overcome them utterly. Wherefore Cassian, Climacus, Sophronius, and others teach, unanimously and constantly, that against all the temptations of the flesh, the world, and demons, prayer is the most effective remedy. Do you want examples? Take them. From this tower of prayer Esther fought against the power and edict of Ahasuerus; from this Judith against Holofernes, the leader of the Assyrians, and from this countless others; from this, finally, Christ went forth armed to the hard contest of death. Fortified by this, the Maccabees, few in number, carried off glorious victories over countless forces of enemies; and when they are not said to have sent this before them, they received a heavy blow from the enemy — first, 1 Maccabees 5:33, from Antiochus Eupator: again in the same book, chapter 13, 18, where Judas Maccabeus was slain. So Sanchez.

Second, St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 4, verse 4, takes the towered neck to mean the constancy and loftiness of the holy soul: "The neck," says he, "erect toward God, and fit for the yoke of Christ, which is bent by no inclination toward the enticements of earth, is, according to the rules of Christ, a tower on which Nebuchadnezzar cannot impose his yoke: for that strong-handed David built that tower, and built its heights above the walls, that it might serve at once for defense and for beauty: for defense, because it foresees the enemy and repels him; for beauty, because it stands out not only among the lowly but even among the lofty. Yet it is for defense or beauty in this way: if it has in itself the doctrines of the Word, like certain trappings and necklaces, and also has the darts of the mighty prophets, which are directed by certain arms of faith against every height that exalts itself." To this Theodoret adds, who takes the towered neck to mean the mind, or reason, which contemplates lofty and heavenly things, whose shields and full armor are the prophets and apostles. And more clearly the three Anonymous writers in Theodoret: "As the tower," they say, "of David is the inner tower of your mind in action, so, in contemplation, is reason, most excellent, which by virtue is built upon the divine commands above the battlements, that is, above the temptations of the adversary; and it is raised up through knowledge to the height of contemplation. For David signifies 'strong of hand, and keen of sight.'" Now, as to what is said: Which is built in talpiijoth; Aquila indeed renders "upon battlements"; but Symmachus, "in the height." Wherefore it is signified that the bride's reason, in action indeed, overcomes the counsels of the enemy, but in contemplation is raised up to the sublimity of true knowledge.

Third, John the Carmelite takes by the neck and the tower charity. For, first, he says, as the neck is lofty, so charity is the loftiest of all the virtues and the most upright toward God. Second, as the neck sustains the head and joins it to the members, so charity unites and binds Christ to the soul, so that Christ is bound to the soul by no bond of the other virtues, but only by the bond of charity alone. Third, as the neck has an artery through which the breath is let into the inward parts and flows in, so charity has grace, through which it draws in and attracts the Spirit from heaven. Fourth, as the neck has a throat through which food is passed into the stomach, so charity opens mystical jaws: for it is always hungry, and refuses no kind of labor, but, like a fierce fire, consumes whatever is arduous, as logs cast upon it. Fifth, the neck stands out above the shoulders, and by them bears burdens; so charity has broad shoulders, by which it bravely sustains and carries the difficult ways of neighbors, injuries, persecutions, tribulations, and all the burdens of this life. In like manner charity is like a tower, or a citadel, both for its height and for its firmness and strength: for those who dwell in this citadel obtain a certain plainly divine power, by which they become most unconquerable, as Paul himself frankly confesses, when he says, Romans 8:35, that neither death, nor life, nor any other of the fiercest enemies of that kind, can tear him away from the charity of God. The battlements are the evangelical counsels, which are most watchfully observed by those who wish the citadel of charity to be safe: for indeed the followers of obedience, chastity and poverty, and of the other counsels, following in the footsteps of the apostles, best guard the Davidic tower, and from these, as from battlements, they very often wound the enemy, and render themselves formidable. The shields of charity are humility and patience, by which it receives and repels every adversity; for these hang from charity, and, as it were, proceed from it. All the armor of the mighty is the battle-line of the other virtues, which, flowing from charity, make a man strong and unconquered, so that he may overcome and transcend all things, and ascend, victor and triumpher, to blessed eternity. For "all the armor," the Hebrew has "all the shields of the mighty," as if to say: manifold and varied patience, which is like shields, is instead of all armor, by which we receive the weapons of all enemies and overcome them. Finally, in charity is talpiijoth, that is, a heap of mouths, because it divides its love into several, as it were, mouths — namely, into the love of God, the love of neighbor, and the love of oneself.

Fourth, Rupert and Gislerius take the towered neck to mean humility and obedience, which is so sublime and lofty that it is conspicuous to all, and draws the eyes of all to itself.

Second, like the neck and the tower, it is round on every side, that is, perfect, continuous, and persevering unto death. Third, it is likewise straight, through the rightness of a holy intention. Fourth, the battlements of obedience are humility, meekness, and faith, by which one believes that he obeys God when he obeys his superior, and through him is ruled and directed by God. For God said, Luke 10:16: "He that heareth you, heareth me." Fifth, the shields and arms of obedience are unconquered, for the obedient man overcomes all difficulties, temptations, scruples, and diffidences: because he rests securely and joyfully in obedience and in the command of his superior, as of an interpreter of God. Sixth, it is called the tower of David, that is, of Christ, because it reflects and imitates the highest obedience of Christ: for Christ "humbled himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," Philippians 2:8. Seventh, the obedient man is in talpiijoth, that is, in the suspension of the mouth, because he hangs wholly upon the mouth of his ruler: wherefore, although he seems blind as a mole, he is in truth as sharp-sighted as an eagle.

THE THIRD, PRINCIPAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

The Blessed Virgin is called and invoked by the Church in the Litany of Loreto the Davidic tower. She is likewise called the neck in the mystical body of the Church: for its head is Christ, its neck the Blessed Virgin, its members the rest of the faithful. "The neck," says Hailgrinus, "is the eminence of her sublimity, and she is like the tower of David, that is, built by Christ, the true David, that she might be a refuge and a defense for sinners. The battlements of this tower are the virtues of grace, and the prerogatives, by which she protects sinners and overcomes the enemy."

Our Father Pinellus, in his Praise of the Blessed Virgin, chapter 16, number 8, gathers together many reasons and analogies of the neck and the Blessed Virgin: The most holy Virgin, says he, is called the neck in the body of the Church, not only because, as in place, so also in dignity, she is nearest to Christ the head, and stands out above the rest of the members, and joins them to the head; but also because all sensitive and motive power is transfused from the head to the body through the neck, and thus the mercy of God is brought down to us through the Virgin; and even better than through a neck, which has no power at all of drawing, but is only the way of those things which are sent through it — whereas the Mother of God, by her merits and prayers, obtains for us the mercy of God, and draws it to us. And just as, if anything is sent from the members to the head, it must be sent through the neck, so also let us offer ourselves to Christ through the most pure hands of the Virgin, saying to her with St. Bernard: "Through thee may we have access to the Son, O blessed finder of grace, mother of life, mother of salvation, that through thee he may receive us, who through thee was given to us;" indeed, the neck is the way of respiration, by which animal life is preserved: it is the way by which the food necessary for the nourishment and growth of the animal is transmitted: in the neck is the throat, one of the chief instruments for speaking: from the neck necklaces and every precious thing are hung: children lay hold of their mother's neck, whether from fear or from affection; all of which it is evident agree most fittingly, in a mystical sense, with the Virgin.

Wherefore St. Bernardine of Siena, tome 1, Conclusion 61, article 2, chapter 10: "The fullness of grace," says he, "was in Christ as in the head that pours it in; but in Mary, as in the neck that transmits it." And Germanus, in his sermon On the Girdle of the Blessed Virgin: "If thou," says he, "shouldst forsake us, what would become of us, O most holy Mother of God, spirit and life of Christians? For as our body has respiration as the sign of its living operation, so too thy most holy name, O most blessed Virgin, which is continually upon the lips of thy servants at every time, place, and manner of life, is not only a sign of joy and help, but also procures and brings it about." And St. Bernard, sermon 3 on the Vigil of the Lord's Nativity: "God willed," he says, "that we should have nothing which did not pass through the hands of Mary:" the same, in his sermon On the Aqueduct, gives the reason, namely, that God so willed the Mother to be honored: "Look more deeply," he says, "with what devotion of affection he willed her to be honored by us, who placed the fullness of every good in Mary, so that accordingly, if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, we know it overflows from her, who ascends abounding in delights." And further on: "Let us venerate this Mary with all our vows, for such is the will of him who willed that we should have everything through Mary."

Further, Rupert takes by the tower the humility of the Blessed Virgin, for this exalted her like a tower reaching to heaven and to God, that she might become the Mother of God: "Thy neck," says he, "was in no way stretched out, but is like the tower of David, that is, like the humility of David, through which he stood strong before God, and unconquerable against men: for he himself, like a most tender worm of wood, who, even when he was the anointed king, said to Saul, when Saul was pursuing him: Whom dost thou pursue, king of Israel, whom dost thou pursue? Thou pursuest a dead dog, and a single flea, 1 Kings 24:15. This tower is built with battlements, and a thousand shields hang from it, all the armor of the mighty — that is, the other virtues have followed upon this her so great humility, and especially fortitude and wisdom: David, sitting in his seat, is most wise, like a most tender worm of wood, who slew eight hundred at one stroke." And after some words: "Add this, which is the greatest thing, that the mystery of the Word, which the humility of thy father David attained to sing of — the substance, I say, of that same Word — thy humility conceived, and, having become incarnate, brought forth, O daughter of David."

Further, Aponius takes by the tower of David, Christ; by the battlements, the examples of virtues which Christ gave forth in his life; by the thousand shields and all

VERSE 5 AND 6. THY TWO BREASTS ARE LIKE TWO TWIN FAWNS OF THE ROE, WHICH FEED AMONG THE LILIES, UNTIL THE DAY BREATHE, AND THE SHADOWS DECLINE. I WILL GO TO THE MOUNTAIN OF MYRRH, AND TO THE HILL OF FRANKINCENSE.

THY TWO BREASTS ARE LIKE TWO TWIN FAWNS OF THE ROE, WHICH FEED AMONG THE LILIES (that is, among the lilies that grow in the fields, such as the lily of the valleys, of which chapter 2, verse 1), UNTIL THE DAY BREATHE, AND THE SHADOWS DECLINE. — For "among the lilies" Symmachus renders "among the flowers": for fawns, or playful and frisking little roebucks, feed among the white lilies of the field, among the flowers.

"Uncorrupted and well-kept maidens," says Hortolanus, "the keen observers of beauty affirm, chiefly consist in this: the loveliness and praise of the breasts, namely, that they be small, round, firm, and not sagging, but drawn in, matched, smooth and full. And from all these marks the breasts of the bride are here praised, through their likeness to the twin fawns of the roe, cropping choice pastures: for the fawns of the roe please by their very smallness, especially when they gather themselves together, and, drawn into a circle, seem as if they would burst out and leap forth; and they please also greatly in this, that they are not lean, scrawny or muddy, but smooth and full. Such indeed are those that in flowery meadows, by no means marshy, crop their pasture among the lilies growing there; and finally they please in being twins, because, born of one birth, they are alike, and most similar."

Add that fawns are of a pleasant color, and no less of a pleasant scent, especially while they feed among the fragrant lilies, and that by their appearance, neatness, agility, and bounding they show themselves cheerful, lovable and graceful — such as are likewise the breasts of the bride. Moreover, our Delrio, Sanchez and Luysius fit this comparison — which at first sight seems far-fetched and ill-matched — so gracefully together, that the bride's breasts are compared to the heads of the fawns, which project above the lilies: for these heads, by their smallness, roundness and whiteness, are like the breasts; and their small, reddish mouths recall the nipple of the breast. No less gracefully a devout and skillful man at Rome suggested to me this adaptation, namely, that what is here compared to the bride's breasts is not so much the heads of the fawns as the hind part of their backs; for this arches roundly and stands out like breasts, since

the fawns feed among the lilies with head bent down; for the lilies cover and hide their heads, while their backs stand out prominently — so that the sense is, as if it were said: Thy two breasts, O bride, are white, small, round, full and comely like two fawns, which, when they feed among the lilies and bend their heads down to the shoots, project and stand out only in their hind part: for this part of them is likewise white, small, round, full and comely.

Finally, some, following Titelmannus, hold this to be a hypallage, and that by it the bride's breasts are compared not so much to the fawns as to the breasts of the roe that the fawns suck; so that the words are thus to be explained and adapted, as if it were said: Thy two breasts are like the two breasts of a roe suckling twin fawns, which feed among the lilies: for the breasts of the roe, no less than of the bride, are full and swollen with milk. Or in this way: Thy two breasts are as if two twin fawns of one roe were suckled at two breasts, which also feed among the lilies. And thus by the two fawns they understand two peoples, namely the Jews and the Gentiles, who, both being as it were twins of one roe, that is, of the Church, reborn in the same font of baptism, are suckled at her breasts — as St. Gregory, Philo, Aponius, Justus and Anselm understand it: for the Hebrews in speaking are simple and terse, and leave certain things to be understood and supplied by the hearer; thus at verse 1 he said: "Thy hair is like flocks of goats," that is, thy hair is like the hair of flocks of goats; and at verse 2: "Thy teeth like flocks of shorn sheep," that is, thy teeth are such as the flocks of shorn sheep have. In just the same way you may here expound: "Thy two breasts are like two twin fawns of the roe," that is, thy two breasts are such as the twin fawns of a roe have and suck in her: for most fittingly are the bride's breasts compared to the breasts of a roe suckling her fawns, since the fawns themselves have no breasts, nor do they suckle, but are suckled; therefore, as the roe suckles her fawns, so the Church suckles Jews and Gentiles.

Further, the rabbis understand by the two breasts and twin fawns Moses and his brother Aaron, who suckled and ruled Israel; whence the Chaldean renders: "Thy two saviors, who shall save thee, are like Moses and Aaron the sons of Jochabed, who are compared to two twin fawns of a roe, and who fed the people of Israel, by their merits, for forty years in the desert, with manna, and fat birds, and the water of the well of Miriam."

R. Solomon, however, takes the two breasts to mean the two tables of the Decalogue, given by God to Moses to teach the people.

Finally, our Alcazar, in his Allusions to the Apocalypse, book III, explains the first verses of this chapter, according to the surface of the letter, in this way: in verse 1, in the eyes, he commends the veiled brightness and the chastity of the same; in the hair, that it be well let down; in verse 2, in the teeth, quickness and eagerness in eating; in verse 3, in the lips, persuasiveness, that is, the grace of persuading that dwells there; in the cheeks, modesty; in verse 4, in the erect neck, the raised trophies of obedience; in verse 5, in the breasts, an unceasing power of nourishing.

The breasts denote the fruitfulness, the power of nourishing, and the beneficence of the Church, as I said at chapter 1, verse 1: for a woman's breasts do not give milk except after childbirth; the breasts therefore denote the Church, made pregnant by the Spirit of God, bearing and nursing many children for Christ. Further, as by the neck are denoted the bishops, so by the breasts placed beneath the neck are denoted priests and deacons, says Hortolanus, subject to the bishops: for priests give milk to the people by celebrating Mass, distributing the Eucharist, hearing confessions, instructing, and exhorting to every good work. Deacons likewise give milk to the people with a twofold breast, namely of temporal and of spiritual goods: for deacons were ordained by the apostles, Acts 6:5, that they might preside over the distribution of alms, and be of service to the apostles and priests; hence the Roman Church was once divided into various deaconries, over each of which a single deacon presided, who distributed alms to the poor of his deaconry, as appears from many letters of St. Gregory. Again, deacons, in the absence of a priest, baptize, administer the Eucharist, and preach the word of God, as did St. Stephen and St. Vincent; and this was established by the Council of Nicaea, chapter 4, and the Second Council of Vaison, chapter 2, and St. Gregory, book IV, letter 88. It likewise belongs to deacons by office to solemnly recite or chant the Gospel, to pray with the bishop, and to see to peace and silence in the Church, as St. Clement says, book II of the Constitutions, chapter 61.

They are like fawns that feed among the lilies, because, flourishing in age and virtue, they excel in purity and chastity, and dwell among virgins and the saints, by whose virtues and examples they are nourished; whence to the diaconate, by the institution of the apostles, is attached continence and celibacy, as the Council of Carthage II, chapter 2, and St. Leo, letter 95, teach: see what was said at Acts 6:1. Wherefore deacons were once, in the Church, most illustrious both in life, and in doctrine, and in martyrdom, and did not yield to the bishops: such were St. Stephen, St. Lawrence, St. Vincent, St. Sisinnius, St. Cyriacus, St. Largus, St. Smaragdus, and very many others, who, like angels, shone before the whole Church by their heavenly manner of life and fervor, and converted very many to the faith of Christ, and fostered and nourished them in it. The breasts of the Church, therefore, like twin fawns, are the deacons, since they think humbly of themselves, says Hortolanus, and draw themselves in, ministers and foster-sons of all, flowing into no excess, gathered and as it were drawn into a circle, yet active, and exceedingly inclined to beneficence, like the offspring of heavenly roes, pleasing greatly by their smallness and their zeal for kindness. Moreover, feeding with the utmost cleanness upon the pure meadows of holy Scripture, flourishing with examples of every purity, and upon my supersubstantial food (the Eucharist), they are filled with heavenly juice; and being alike in faith and in morals, and most like to one another (since theirs is one heart and one soul), they seem twins, brought forth as it were of one birth of faith. They are pleasant to look upon, clever and gracious, on account of the twin

St. Paul, who, burning with zeal for God and the salvation of souls, showed to all a mother's breasts, as it were; whence, writing to the Galatians, he says, chapter 4:19: "My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you"; and to the Corinthians, 1 Epistle 3:1: "As to little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not yet able." Wherefore St. Ambrose, sermon 68, calls Paul the nurse of the Church, and his epistles the breasts of the Church, and asserts, as a symbol of this, that his head, cut off from his neck, poured forth milk instead of blood — which St. Chrysostom also attests, in his oration on the Princes of the Apostles, 3; but hear St. Ambrose: "For what wonder is it, if the nurse of the Church abounds in milk? etc., whose epistles, like breasts, have nourished the peoples of the Churches unto salvation."

Again, the two breasts of charity are temporal almsgiving, which nourishes the body, and spiritual almsgiving, which feeds the soul. Hear Richard of St. Victor: "These breasts are filled with the milk of charity, with which she refreshes the younger and the more tender, and, as it were a mother, gives milk and nourishes. A soul still carnal does not have these breasts, until it grow in grace, and turn the blood of carnality into the milk of devotion. But when it has grown in grace and conceived piety, then it becomes a mother, gives milk to the tender, consoles the desolate; struck with insults, or wronged by injuries, it pours forth the milk of patience and compassion, not the blood of carnal disturbance: for because it is filled with the milk of piety, it shows the sweetness it has received, and has more compassion for the miseries of the one who wounds it, than it is moved by the injury."

He then adds that the carnal and imperfect, when wronged, are moved to anger and revenge; the perfect, to mercy, because these have the breasts of charity, which those lack: "If touch had breasts, that is, if struck by injury, it would pour forth milk." Of such a one it is said at chapter 8:8: "Our sister is little, and has no breasts." After a few things, Richard adds: "The two fawns are the active and the contemplative, who indeed never cease to run to the milk of grace, and desire this, and ever strive toward the perfect, and seek the things above, ever accounting themselves new, ever beginners, and insufficient, because they stretch themselves toward the things within." And presently: "Among themselves they are ever little ones, that is, humble, and therefore they seek the milk of grace, strive toward this, flee that; whence, because they run unceasingly to this milk, they attain it, and are refreshed by it, and are so filled with its sweetness, that its abundance suffices to supply the want of others." And after a few things: "These, moreover, feed among the lilies: by the lilies, which shine and have fragrance, we understand the cleanness of those who live well, and the fragrance of the virtues. Among these these twins feed, because they delight in the cleanness of the good, and in the good odor of those who live among them."

See St. Bernard, sermon 10 on the Canticle, where he teaches that these breasts of charity are filled with milk by God in prayer and frequent meditation.

To this many Fathers add, who by the two breasts understand the Old and New Testament, since it is priests and deacons who devote themselves to reading, citing and explaining these, and who nourish the faithful: the faithful, I say, the twins, that is, Jews and Gentiles: so Aponius, Philo, Justus of Urgel and Anselm, and St. Gregory, book XXIV of the Morals, chapter 10.

Further, St. Gregory, in this passage, and many others besides, attribute all these members of the body recounted thus far to the doctors and preachers of the Church, but for different reasons and respects: namely, that the same are called the eyes of the Church, because they see hidden things; the teeth, because they correct the wicked, and bring into the body of the Church those ground down by the tooth of chastisement; the neck, because they supply to the rest of the body the living spirit of grace and spiritual food; the breasts, because they show the milk to little ones in Christ. Yet others better distribute these things among the various orders, states and ranks of the Church: for all these together make up the beauty and completeness of the Church; whence the Holy Spirit willed to describe them all here. By the hair, then, are represented the religious; by the teeth, the doctors; by the scarlet lips, the preachers and martyrs; by the cheeks, the virgins; by the neck, the bishops; by the breasts, the priests and deacons, as I have said.

Therefore that by the breasts are denoted the doctors (such as, among the people, are the priests and deacons) is held by Cassiodorus, S.

Aponius holds that by the two cheeks are denoted the two Marys, who were the chief of virgins: the first is Mary the sister of Moses in the Old Testament, the other is the Blessed Virgin in the New, who — he says — were the first to make the wondrous cheeks of the bride, the Church, by preserving integrity, and the Blessed Virgin, like a rind, contained within herself the noblest fruit, namely Christ: for her virginity was not barren, but fruitful, as I said at the beginning, from St. Augustine.

Symbolically Psellus: the two breasts, he says, are the blood and the water, which flowed from the side of Christ on the cross, from which the souls of the faithful draw nourishment and salvation.

...its office, granted to thee in place of two most beautiful breasts.

These, then, are thy most beautiful breasts: small, round, drawn in, matched, smooth, and, with which thou dost abundantly nourish thy foster-children, full, and in every measure complete; and this "until the day breathe" of blessed eternity, "and the shadows decline" of this mortality: for even to the end of the world shall this hierarchical order of priests and deacons endure.

The two breasts of the holy soul are the twin charity, namely of God and of neighbor; for by these she both gives milk to, and feeds, herself and others: so Philo Carpathius. Such was

the Blessed Virgin, who nursed with her breasts the DIVINE FAWN, that is, Christ, who is twin, on account of his twofold nature, divine and human; whence that woman in the Gospel cried out, Luke 11:27: "Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts that thou didst suck": for it is the same matter from which the offspring is formed in the womb, and by which it is afterward nourished, once turned into milk, as Aristotle teaches, book IV, On the Generation of Animals, chapter 8. Wherefore, since the Blessed Virgin conceived and brought forth Christ above nature, by the Holy Spirit, it follows that she received milk in her breasts by his same power, wherewith to feed Christ; whence the Church sings on the Feast of the Circumcision: "The Virgin alone gave milk from a breast filled from heaven": for virgins by nature cannot have or give milk.

Further, the infant, such as Christ was, is like a fawn in whiteness, in stature, and in grace; and the Virgin's breasts are compared to a fawn, because Christ, sucking at his mother's breasts, first filled those same breasts with milk and with grace; whence he, though nursing, was rather nursing his mother.

Again, Rupert takes by the two breasts the virginity and the fruitfulness of the Blessed Virgin, for by both she nurses and feeds the Church among the lilies of purity and chastity. He then adds that the seven angelic ornaments of the Blessed Virgin recounted thus far — namely, dove-like eyes, the hair of goats, the teeth of shorn sheep, lips of scarlet ribbon, cheeks of pomegranate, a neck like the tower of David, breasts like fawns — are set against the seven devilish deformities that disfigure the daughters of this age, which are: haughtiness of the eyes, the curling of the hair, the greediness of the teeth, the incontinence of the lips, the irreverence of the cheeks, an excessive raising of the neck, the frequent injury of broken breasts: these, namely, are the seven demons which Christ cast out of Magdalene, Luke 8:2.

Moreover, Richard of St. Victor: "The Blessed Virgin," he says, "has two breasts of twin love, pouring forth milk, because she obtains pardon for the guilty and grace for the just: which breasts are like two fawns of a roe. By these fawns we can understand the angels and the souls of men already translated to the kingdom, who are rightly called fawns, because they have climbed the mountain of the heavenly dwelling, and are refreshed by the sweetness of divine contemplation, just as fawns are wont to seek high places, and are nourished with milk. These twin fawns belong to the roe, that is, to Christ, from whom alike they receive and suck the milk of a twin sweetness, namely of divinity and of humanity: for the roe is Christ, because he leaped upon the mountains and bounded over the hills; and so he made a leap into the womb of the Blessed Virgin, and from that into the world, and from the world into heaven, where he feeds these fawns with heavenly milk. And so, since both angels and holy souls are solicitous for sinners, and come to their aid both by merits and by intercession, it must be believed that the Blessed Virgin

can do as much in this regard as both of these creatures together; indeed, each is judged more powerful, because each is restored through her, and the ruin of the angels was repaired through her, and human nature reconciled." And with much between: "She is compared to the swiftness of the fawns, because her mercy runs more swiftly than it is invoked, and anticipates the causes of the wretched; and she is compared to the fawns, because the sweetness of the goodness which she bestows, she herself sucks from above." Finally, after a few things, he lays open the cause and the fountain: "For just as, wherever the body shall be, there too the eagles are gathered, Matthew 24:28: so wherever there is misery, thither thy mercy both runs and comes to the rescue. Thy breasts are filled by God with pity, so that, touched by the knowledge of any misery, they may pour forth the milk of mercy, nor canst thou know of miseries, and not come to their aid. And what wonder is it, if thou aboundest in mercy, who didst bring forth mercy itself? Christ sucked at thy carnal breasts, that through thee spiritual things might flow to us; for since thou didst give milk to mercy, from that same mercy thou didst receive breasts."

UNTIL THE DAY BREATHE, AND THE SHADOWS DECLINE.

Some, with the rabbis, Psellus and Hortolanus, refer these words to what follows: "I will go to the mountain of myrrh," etc., and that in a favorable sense, as if it were said: Meanwhile, while evening draws on, "I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense," that I may feed and delight myself with their shade as much as with their fragrance; whence the Chaldean, judaizing in his own manner, renders thus: "And at every time when the people of the house of Israel held in their hands the craft of their righteous fathers, the harmful and darker spirits fled, and the demons of morning and of noon, from their midst, because the majesty of the glory of the Lord dwelt in the house of the sanctuary, which was built on Mount Moriah, and all demons and harmful spirits fled from the odor of the incense of the spices."

But all the Fathers better refer this saying to what precedes, as if it were said: The fawns feed among the lilies as long as the day lasts, until evening, when, having fed with their mothers, they return home, according to that of Virgil:

"Go home well-fed, the evening star is come, go, my goats."

Now I have expounded this opinion at chapter 2, the last verse: wherefore I will not add a jot here.

I WILL GO TO THE MOUNTAIN OF MYRRH, AND TO THE HILL OF FRANKINCENSE.

In Hebrew, "I will go for myself," as if to say: I will go alone, for the sake of pleasure and of my own mind: this the bridegroom says, that he may cast into the bride the desire of going with him, and that she may say: I too am willing, my bridegroom, to go with thee: for thy will and thy pleasure are also my will and my pleasure; whence the Syriac renders, "Go," namely, O bride, to the mountain of myrrh; and the Arabic, "I will go with her." These are the words not of the bride, as some would have it, but of the bridegroom, for here, in the very next verse, he returns at once to the praises of the bride, which here he but briefly interrupts, by inviting her

to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense, which it is likely was the garden of Solomon near Jerusalem, planted with the most beautiful and precious shrubs and trees of myrrh, of frankincense, and of other spices, brought from Lebanon, Arabia, and other regions, and which was therefore called the forest of Lebanon, of which 3 Kings 7:2. Hence these mountains are called the mountains of spices, chapter 8, verse 14, and chapter 6, verse 4: "My beloved," she says, "has gone down into his garden, to the bed of spices, that he may feed in the gardens, and gather lilies."

First Christ the bridegroom had praised the Church his bride for the fruitfulness of her breasts, that is, for her zeal for souls; now, lest she attend so much to these as to neglect herself, he calls her back, as it were, to himself, that she may go with him to the mountain of myrrh, which is bitter to the taste, that is, to the pursuit of mortification; and to the hill of frankincense, that is, to the pursuit of prayer, that through these she may the more purify and sanctify herself, unite herself to God, and be filled with his spirit, which she may then pour out more fruitfully upon others. Hence the Hebrew מור (mor), that is, of myrrh, alludes to Mount Moriah, on which Isaac was offered, and Christ was crucified, as if to say: Let us go to Mount Calvary, which is part of Mount Moriah, and there let us contemplate the cross, the nails, the lance, the blows, the sorrows, the wounds, the injuries, the reproaches, which for thee, O Church, O my faithful soul, I have endured, that thou mayest learn from them to suffer the like for me thy bridegroom, and to give thyself to the pursuit of mortification, both active and voluntary, and passive and inflicted by others: for next to this mountain is the hill of frankincense, since the cross and the passion teach a man to pray, and to call upon God in affliction. Moreover, who would refuse the myrrh of the passion, which Christ willingly embraced? For the soul that has right taste seeks Christ; and it does not find him except on Calvary and the cross, that is, in the myrrh of mortification, and the frankincense of prayer. Christ therefore here teaches that the way to holiness is mortification and prayer, and that the one is to be joined to the other; for mortification without prayer is flat and harsh, prayer without mortification is barren and fruitless; let mortification, therefore, be propped up by prayer, and let prayer be seasoned with mortification: mortification tames and puts to death the concupiscences and passions, namely the desire of honor, of pleasures, of riches, of conveniences; but prayer lifts the mortified mind up to God, and from him draws heavenly loves, senses and spirit: wherefore mortification is, as it were, myrrh, and a salt drawing out the corruption of the concupiscences from our flesh and mind, and drying it up, and keeping it from decay; but prayer is like frankincense, offering that mind to God through smoke and fire, presenting and sacrificing it. So Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Philo, Justus of Urgel and others.

The holy soul becomes holier, when she goes to the mountain of myrrh, that is, when she contemplates Christ crucified, and imitates him through mortification and the endurance of sufferings for Christ; and to the hill of frankincense, that is, when she offers to God the incense of prayer, devotion and religion. Hear St. Gregory: "What do we understand by the mountain of myrrh, but the strong height of mortification in deed, and what by the hill of frankincense, but the deep humility in prayer? To the mountain of myrrh, then, and to the hill of frankincense the bridegroom goes, because he familiarly visits those whom he perceives to advance to the heights through the mortification of vices, and to breathe sweetly through pure and humble prayers. By these virtues, indeed, the holy Church, or each single soul, is made clean; because, while by the mortification of pleasures she struggles against vice, and is frequently washed with tears through holy prayers, she washes away her stains, that she may please the bridegroom, to whom she strives to appear beautiful,

and whose effort the bridegroom, through his grace, brings to its effect, and kindly praises his own work in the bride, and says: Thou art all fair, my love; and there is no spot in thee.

Mortification he sets upon the mountain, because it is steep and difficult; prayer upon the hill, because it is easier and more pleasant. Again, he puts myrrh before frankincense, because mortification ought to go before prayer, and so is itself the right way to a sincere, pure and burning prayer, which deserves to be heard by God. Finally, mortification is the merit of the gift of prayer; prayer is the reward of mortification.

Symbolically, St. Anselm takes by the mountain of myrrh the choir of martyrs, by the hill of frankincense, the choir of confessors: for all the saints are either martyrs or confessors. Christ, moreover, says "I will go," when he visits each one by his grace, and rouses him to martyrdom, or to virtues worthy of a confessor, and this "until the day breathe" of blessed eternity, "and the shadows decline" of mortality: for in heaven myrrh and gall shall be turned into sugar and honey; and smoking frankincense into the bright fire of the vision and love of God. So the Blessed Virgin, attended by the choirs of the blessed, appeared to a certain holy virgin, holding by the hand Blessed Hyacinth of Poland, of the Order of Preachers, now departed this life, and, leading him into heaven, sweetly sang: "I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of Lebanon, with Blessed Hyacinth," as Leander Albertus relates in his Life, in Surius, on the 16th or 17th of August. Moreover, on the very feast of her Assumption the Blessed Virgin took him up into heaven.

Secondly, Nyssen, Theodoret, and the three Anonymous authors in him, Psellus and Rupert take by the mountain of myrrh the passion of Christ, by the hill of frankincense the resurrection: indeed Philo takes it as Christ himself, both suffering and rising, for nothing so animates the bride to the love and imitation of the bridegroom as his passion and resurrection. Moreover, these things Christ sets before the bride to be considered, not from afar, but close at hand, namely, that in mind and contemplation she approach that very mountain of Calvary, and there, as if present, gaze with her eyes upon Christ himself, present, crucified for her, just as if she beheld the thing itself, once done, being enacted again before her: for this living and effective contemplation of Christ suffering and rising wondrously arouses love, hope, and every virtue: "Yet if we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together," says Paul, Romans 8:17.

Hear Psellus: "Come, be crucified with me, who am fixed to the cross, that thou mayest also be endowed with great glory from the Father along with me: for of my own accord I am indeed willing to meet death, that I may breathe upon the faithful the day of salvation, and dispel the shadows of ungodliness"; come, then, to the mountain of myrrh, where I put off mortality, that from there thou mayest pass on to the hill of frankincense, where I, rising again, put on immortality and glory. Hear also Theodoret: "Since thou art so beautiful, and wounded by the wound of love for me, I will meet death for thee, and of my own accord will climb the mountain of myrrh; but I will rise again, and return to the hill of frankincense, that by the myrrh he may signify death, and by the frankincense the divine nature." And after a few things: "I will go, he says, for myself (for so the Septuagint have it) to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense; for both I do willingly, by no force, compelled by no necessity. For no one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself, that I may take it again, John 10:17."

Theodoret then asks why he called death a mountain, but the Godhead a hill, since the latter is far greater than the former; and he answers, that for God to die is a thing so lofty and so hidden a mystery, that it cannot be grasped by man in mind and thought.

The three Anonymous authors give the reason: "For myrrh," they say, "is the symbol of mortality, but frankincense of divinity": for dead bodies are embalmed with myrrh, as the body of Christ was embalmed; but frankincense is burned to God, to whom, after the resurrection, Christ returned in heaven. For to God are proper and essential immortality and blessedness, and therefore these are represented by frankincense, which is properly given to God; whence, when it is burned in the fire, it wholly evaporates through the smoke, and rises to heaven, to God. Again, by the resurrection Christ's divinity was acknowledged by the world; whence it believed him to be God, and accordingly offered him frankincense as to the true God, says Rupert.

Mystically Theodoret: myrrh, that is, the passion and death of Christ, is called a mountain; but frankincense, that is, the divinity, is called a hill, because it seems to men a thing more lofty and admirable that God should suffer and die, than that God should exist.

Tropologically, arduous and steep is the way to the mountain of myrrh, that is, of mortification and martyrdom; but from there the ascent is easy to the hill of frankincense, that is, of prayer, devotion and contemplation; and anagogically, to the hill of frankincense, that is, to heaven, where

the blessed forever offer to God the frankincense of thanksgiving and of jubilation. For a martyr is only a single step distant from heaven, for as soon as the soul has gone forth from the body, it is caught up into heaven; whence that saying of St. Augustine: "He does injury to the martyr, who prays for the martyr." It is easiest, then, for the martyr to go to heaven, but difficult to go to martyrdom: therefore, that God might animate the sufferer and martyr generously to climb the mountain of myrrh, he set beside it this most happy hill of frankincense, and one most easy of ascent.

Wherefore that illustrious heroine of the faith among the English in our own age, Margareta Midleton, condemned to a cruel punishment because she had received Catholic priests into her house, and would not betray them, went to the place of execution with a most joyful countenance, saying: "So short is the way that leads to heaven, whether by this or by any other kind of death; after a few hours I shall tread heaven and earth underfoot, and from the lofty summit of the empyrean shall look down, happy and blessed, on this small point of earth, and on all earthly things." Wherefore, laid flat upon the ground, with a huge and indeed very sharp stone placed beneath her back, and a board laden with the weight of a thousand pounds cast upon her body, she was pressed and crushed by degrees, armed with heavenly patience and constancy, and died a glorious death for Christ, and, as is to be hoped, flew from the mountain of myrrh to the hill of frankincense. Her contest is vividly represented in the Theater of Heretical Cruelty, p.

In like manner that noble heroine among the Japanese, named Susanna, who bravely died for the faith at Nagasaki in the year 1626 (in which same year, on the 20th of July, Father Francis Pacheco, provincial of Japan, together with two Fathers and six Brothers of the Society of Jesus, endured there for the faith the glorious agony of a slow fire, arming himself and his companions with the same thought of a brief punishment and eternal rewards), roused herself, her husband and her companions to constancy amid whatsoever torments with this cry: "Let us stand firm, O companions, magnanimous in every torment for the faith of Christ, since a short life and punishment shall be followed by the eternal and boundless glory of paradise." Wherefore she bravely endured, for Christ, both a hard and long imprisonment, and, among the Japanese, the dreadful shame of public nakedness, and hunger, and cold, and the rack, and a cross, both her own and that of her little three-year-old daughter joined to her, and threats of violation, and slavery, and chains of six months such as those of slaves, and finally the sword, and death; indeed she surpassed these, giving thanks to God and rejoicing, as the Japanese letters, printed this year at Rome, bear witness. Worthy indeed is she to be compared with the Susannas, Lucys, Cecilias, Agathas, and Catherines of old, as one who kindled many men to martyrdom by word and deed, like the flaming torches of fire, and who, by enduring the most terrible things with more than manly fortitude, went before them by her example.

So great a deed, done under a woman's leadership, whose honor and glory all the ages of Japan to come shall celebrate.

VERSE 7. THOU ART ALL FAIR, MY FRIEND, AND THERE IS NO BLEMISH IN THEE.

From the beauty of the individual parts, namely the members of the bride enumerated up to now, he concludes to the beauty of the whole body. We have heard these words as to the first half-verse in chapter 1, verse 15, where I explained them. Here only this is added: "And there is no blemish in thee." The Hebrew mum signifies not only a blemish of color, or a mole, but also any fault whatsoever, as the Arabic translates it, or any defect and deformity, as I showed at Leviticus 22:22. Thus the sense is, as if to say: Thou art all fair, O bride, (and, that is, because) in thee there is no deformity, but all is comely and beautiful.

The whole Church is fair: first, with the beauty of the evangelical law, which she professes; for this law is the most beautiful of all that have ever been in the world; and in it there is no blemish, nor any defect — indeed, in it are handed down many evangelical counsels, which contain the highest holiness and perfection, as is evident from Matthew 5 and what follows.

Second, she is fair with the beauty of the knowledge of God, of true faith, of worship and religion, because she worships God not by an external rite in the burnt offerings of beasts, as the Synagogue of the Jews did, but in spirit and in truth, John 4:24; whence she has the noblest sacrifice, namely the Eucharist, in which daily she offers and immolates to God the Father, without bloodshed, Christ crucified, His only-begotten.

Third, she is fair, because she has beautiful ceremonies, rites, adornments of temples, instruments, harmonies, etc.

, and especially the beautiful sacraments, among which baptism cleanses the soul from every fault, so as to make it most radiant; whence Optatus of Milevis, book 5: "Baptism, he says, is the life of virtues, the death of crimes, an immortal birth, the acquisition of the heavenly kingdom, the haven of innocence, the shipwreck of sins."

Fourth, properly and subjectively, the Church is wholly fair through grace, and the righteousness inherent in the faithful who are just and holy, who alone are the chief and most perfect members of the Church, and are therefore here reckoned under the name of the bride, as I said, Canon 17: for in these there is no blemish of graver fault or of deadly sin, which alone renders the bride deformed, that is, displeasing and hateful to God. For although no one is free from venial fault, this is nevertheless lighter, nor is it reckoned a blemish in this place; yet from this too she will be free in the other

life, through love, glory, and the beatific vision; whence Bede, the Nyssene, St. Augustine, Retractations Book I chapter 19, St. Jerome, Book III Against the Pelagians, and others attribute "Thou art all fair" to the Church triumphant in heaven; to the Church militant, however, in the sense I have said. The same is assigned by Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Philo, Anselm, and others.

Finally, three Anonymous writers in Theodoret: "Thou art all fair," they say, "because thou art fair in mind, and soul, and flesh: and indeed in flesh, since thou hast been cleansed from the force and working of the passions, and adorned with the manners of the virtues; in soul, as one freed from every vice of concupiscence, and adorned with the discourses or reasonings of the precepts; in mind, as one freed from base thoughts, and shining, in the Holy Spirit, through grace, with a resplendent deification. And for this reason there is no blemish in thee, who for thy perfection hast been made near to me."

» Ephesians 5:25. See what is said there.

To this purpose serves the Chaldee version: "And at the time when the people of the house of Israel do the will of the Ruler of the age, He praises them in the highest heavens, and says thus: Thou art all fair, congregation of Israel, and there is no blemish in thee." For the beauty of the Church consists in this, that she conform herself to the law and will of God; for this is most just and most holy, and therefore most beautiful.

The holy soul is wholly fair through the robe of grace, of charity, and of all the virtues, which God pours into it, so as to adorn it and make it beautiful; whence, exulting in this beauty of grace, it says, Isaiah 61:10: "Rejoicing I will rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall exult in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, and hath encompassed me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels:" for grace is the highest adornment of the soul; because it makes her the friend, daughter, bride, heir of God, indeed a partaker of the divine nature, as St. Peter says, 2nd Epistle 1:4. Theodoret gives the reason: "The bride," he says, "has become immaculate and fair, because she has been made near to the bridegroom, and thus has taken on all his splendors, and has been made bright from that very light." Hear St. Gregory, who, objecting to himself: "No soul is free from venial sin; how then is it wholly fair?" answers: "While the holy soul cleanses itself from its daily sins through penance, while daily it washes away its small sins with tears, and guards itself from the greater ones, although it sins frequently, yet through continual penance it continually keeps its cleanness; for this is why it is elsewhere commanded, Ecclesiastes 9:8: At all times let thy garments be white. And that saying, Romans 1:17: But the just man lives by faith: for although as soon as he sins he departs from righteousness, yet since he always believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, and continually under this faith bewails his sins, through continual washings he retains his righteousness." Further, St. Ambrose, Book I On Virgins, applying this especially to them: "Who," he says, "can reckon a greater beauty than the comeliness of her who is loved by the King, approved by the Judge, dedicated to the Lord, consecrated to God? Ever a bride, ever unwed, so that love may have no end, nor modesty any loss. This indeed is true beauty, to which nothing is lacking, which alone deserves to hear from the Lord: Thou art all beautiful, my nearest one, and there is no reproach in thee."

Finally, three Anonymous writers in Theodoret: "Thou art all fair," they say, "because thou art fair in mind, and soul, and flesh: and indeed in flesh, since thou hast been cleansed from the force and working of the passions, and adorned with the manners of the virtues; in soul, as one freed from every vice of concupiscence, and adorned with the discourses or reasonings of the precepts; in mind, as one freed from base thoughts, and shining, in the Holy Spirit, through grace, with a resplendent deification. And for this reason there is no blemish in thee, who for thy perfection hast been made near to me."

The Blessed Virgin is wholly fair, indeed the most beautiful not only of all men, but even of the angels, and in her there is no blemish of fault or of penalty, whether original, or mortal, or even venial, as the whole Church feels and agrees, on the witness of the Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 22. Whence St. Augustine, On Nature and Grace, chapter 36, when he had said that all men, even the just, are subject to venial sin, adds: "Except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, out of honor for the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question when sins are discussed: for from this we know that more grace was conferred upon her for overcoming sin in every part, since she deserved to conceive and bear Him who, it is agreed, had no sin whatsoever.

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Whence these words of the Canticle: "Thou art all fair, and there is no blemish in thee," Rupert, Psellus, both the Hugos — namely the Cardinal and the one of St. Victor — St. Thomas, Galatinus, and St. Ildefonsus, On the Praises of the Blessed Virgin, apply to the Blessed Virgin alone.

VERSE 8. COME FROM LEBANON, MY BRIDE, COME FROM LEBANON, COME: YOU SHALL BE CROWNED FROM THE HEAD OF AMANA, FROM THE PEAK OF SANIR AND HERMON, FROM THE DENS OF THE LIONS, FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF THE LEOPARDS.

The Hebrew itti (אתי), that is, "with me" — "with me from Lebanon, O bride, you shall come with me from Lebanon." But our Vulgate, like the Septuagint, for itti (אתי), that is "with me," read with a different pointing את, that is "come"; though the sense comes to the same thing, for if you read itti, that is "with me from Lebanon, O bride," you must understand "come" or "you shall come," which follows. For coronaberis the Hebrew is תשורי tascuri, which Vatablus and others render "you shall look" — as if to say: You shall look out from the peak of Amana, Sanir, and Hermon upon the valleys and fields lying below, green and flourishing with trees, flowers, herbs, and fruits. Following this, Lyranus refers this to the Hebrews in the time of Joshua, whom he asserts to have gazed from these mountains upon the land of Canaan promised to them, so as to sharpen in themselves the desire of entering it. Others render tascuri, "you shall sing for pleasure and joy," for שיר scir means "song." Others, "you shall go," or "you shall proceed"; whence the Septuagint says "you shall pass over," from the peak of faith. For Amana in Hebrew signifies truth and faith; hence the Syriac and the Arabic likewise render "you shall come and you shall pass over"; others render tascuri "you shall be directed," or "you shall be set straight," or "you shall come out right," from the root ישר iaschar, that is, "he directed," "he made straight"; our Vulgate, instead of tascuri with שין schin, read tasuri with שׂ sin: for שׂור sur signifies "to rule, to govern, to command"; tasuri therefore means "you shall rule, you shall command, and as a queen you shall be crowned."

Lebanon is known as a very great mountain, bordering Judea; it is called Lebanon either from the whiteness of the snows with which it abounds — for לבן laban means "white" and "shining" — or from the frankincense of which it is productive, for libanon in Hebrew signifies "frankincense"; whence Philo Carpathius explains "come from Lebanon" thus, as if to say: Come from the incense of idolatry which you have offered to idols, to the true worship of God in the temple of Zion. Amana is a very high mountain beyond the Jordan, situated near the mountains of Lebanon, Hermon, and Sanir; the Gloss, however, takes Amana to mean Mount Amanus, which divides Cilicia from Syria. Sanir is a part or offshoot of Mount Hermon, as appears from Deuteronomy 3:9. Adrichomius, in his Description of the Holy Land, p. 93, no. 83, holds that Sanir is the same mountain as Seir, for this lies next to Mount Hermon. Seir is named from its inhabitant Esau, who was called Seir, that is, "hairy," because he was shaggy. Sanir, then, is a lofty mountain situated beyond the Jordan toward the eastern region of the land of Hus, joined on the north to Mount Hermon and on the south to Mount Gilead; from the cities of Capernaum and Chorazin, toward the summer rising of the sun, it lies at a distance of some four, in other places six or more, miles.

ns is lofty, situated beyond the Jordan in the region of the city of Paneas, which it faces from the east; on the south it is joined to Mount Seir, and turning toward the north, where it encircles the region of Trachonitis, it links up with Lebanon near Damascus; whence in Sacred Scripture we frequently read that the land of the children of Israel beyond the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, extends from the torrent Arnon as far as Mount Hermon. There is also another Hermon this side of the Jordan, near Tabor; and a third in the tribe of Asher, so high that it perpetually holds snow.

Some, by the mountains Lebanon, Amana, Sanir, and Hermon, understand Jerusalem and Judea, and hold that from her the apostles and the faithful are here called forth by Christ, so that they might go out from the Jews — who as unbelievers raged cruelly against Christians like lions and leopards — to the nations, and preach the Gospel to them; for thus by Lebanon is signified Jerusalem, Zechariah 11:1; Ezekiel 17:3, and elsewhere.

Better, others take the mountains Lebanon, Amana, Sanir, and Hermon — as being situated outside Judea, in Phoenicia — to mean the Phoenicians, that is, the gentiles; whence St. Athanasius, in the Synopsis of Sacred Scripture on the Canticle, holds that by these mountains the Church of the gentiles is designated: for the nations are here called forth from idolatry and paganism to the faith and to Christianity, that they may be engrafted into the Church of Christ; so too Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, ch. 11; somewhat differently Theodoret, who holds that by Lebanon, that is "whitening," the calling of the nations is noted, who, black with unbelief, were washed and whitened by baptism. And that by Hermon, meaning "dewy," and Sanir, that is "the way of lamps," is signified the calling of the Jews, who received the light and dew of the Law from Moses; again, that by the lions the bold Jews are noted, and by the leopards the wise men and sophists of the gentiles. So Theodoret.

The sense, then, is as if to say: You, O Church of the gentiles, who were predestined by me, Christ, from eternity, and who in the appointed time are to be called to Christianity so as to become my bride, come from the rough and wooded mountains — from Lebanon, I say, Amana, Sanir, and Hermon, that is, from unbelief and paganism, where among idolaters, unbelievers, and the impious, as among savage lions and leopards, you lived after the manner of beasts, and among wild creatures led a rough life: come into beautiful Jerusalem and Zion, where God is worshipped in his temple; come, I say, to the Church and to the mountain of myrrh, and the hill of frankincense, that is, to the Mount of Olives and Calvary, where Christ was seized and crucified, that you may believe in him; and to Zion, where the Church of Christians began, that you may join yourself to her. Come, then, to Christianity, where among humble, gentle, and kindly Christians, as among doves, fawns, and lambs, you will lead a most sweet and most holy life; indeed, there you will be crowned as the bride of Christ the king, and therefore a queen; you will be crowned, I say, in this life through grace, and in the life to come through glory. Or, more fittingly and more forcefully, as if to say: You, O primitive Church, who through the apostles and their companions and followers labor in Lebanon, Amana, Sanir, and Hermon, that is, in converting the gentile world to Christ, come thence with the great multitudes of the nations converted by you, that you may lead them into Zion, that is, into the Church of Christ: and if you do this, "you shall be crowned from the head of Amana, from the peak of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards," that is, you shall triumph over the nations converted by you, and shall lead them as it were in triumph, and shall be crowned with a triumphal crown.

So our Alcazar, in his Allusions to the Apocalypse, book III, says that in this verse is promised to the new Rome, that is, the Christian Rome, a perfect victory over the old Rome, that is, the pagan Rome, and over the whole empire. He therefore names the regions whose likenesses the Church shall, as it were, carry before her on the litters of her triumphs: first, from Amana, that is, from the faith planted, as it were the crown of faith; second, from Sanir, that is, "the tooth of the lamp" (for this is what Sanir means in Hebrew), on account of the preachers shining with the light of doctrine and of virtues, through whom you converted those regions; third, from Hermon or Chermon, because you vowed, consecrated, and sacrificed the Church of the gentiles to God as it were for a cherem, that is, an anathema; for in them you slew unbelief, vices, and the devil, and made faith, virtues, and Christ to live in them; fourth, from the lions and leopards overcome, that is, the tyrants and persecutors whom you, O Church, subdued to yourself.

To this may be added the Chaldean version: "And the king," it says, "who was their prince, was full of precepts as a pomegranate, apart from the officers and princes who approach the king, who are just, in whom there is nothing evil."

emate Isaiah depicts the Church's triumph over subdued and tamed nations, chapter 11: "The wolf," he says, "shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them," etc. Further, as to what he says of the peak (vertice), it denotes the summits, that is, the princes of the gentiles — namely, those who among them were eminent in power, wisdom, wealth, and authority — as to be converted to Christ, and here he tacitly admonishes apostolic men to convert the summits, that is, the princes; for once these are converted, their subjects are easily converted. Hence St. Francis Xavier used to approach the kings and princes of the Indies, and intended to approach first the great king of the Chinese and to win him over, so that from him he might obtain permission to evangelize throughout the whole kingdom; and he likewise counseled our men to win over first the prelates and magistrates, so that these might further their efforts, since otherwise they would labor in vain.

Hortolanus adds that these four mountains are situated toward the four regions of the world, with respect to Palestine. For Lebanon lies to the north, Amana to the west, Hermon to the east, Sanir to the south; and by this position it is signified that all the nations from the four regions of the world will come to the faith and submit themselves to the Church, according to that word, Isaiah 43:5: "Fear not, for I am with you: I will bring your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north: Give up; and to the south: Do not withhold: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." And that word of Christ, Matthew 8:11: "But I say to you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness."

For all these things which are said in Canticle 4 regard the mature age of the Church, when, propagated through all nations, she established her spiritual kingdom throughout the whole world; whence, as it were queen of the world, crowned with the faith and obedience of all nations, she advanced, according to that word, Isaiah 49:18: "Lift up your eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they have come to you: as I live, says the Lord, you shall be clothed with all these as with an ornament, and you shall bind them about you (or: crown yourself with them) as a bride."

Further, the Septuagint version, which has "you shall come and you shall pass over from the beginning of faith," Philo Carpathius interprets thus: "You shall come from the gentiles, you shall pass over from the Law, from the first-fruits of faith, from the peak of Sanir and Hermon. Sanir is interpreted 'bush,' and Hermon 'spirit,' or 'sublime voice': for the beginning of faith was from him who spoke to Moses in the bush, and spoke with a sublime voice to the children of Israel, when he led them out of Egypt and gathered them into one."

Differently, St. Augustine, on Psalm 67, toward the end: "From the beginning of faith," he says, because, in order that good works may follow, faith goes before, nor are any works good unless they follow a preceding faith; for faith is the beginning of every good thing and of virtue; whence the three Anonymous writers in Theodoret, reading "you shall come, and you shall arrive, from the beginning of faith, from the peak of Sanir," etc., explain it thus, as if to say: You shall begin to come through faith, but you shall arrive at the crown through hope and charity, when you have been tried by various temptations, which are signified by the name of lions and leopards.

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Finally, our Sanchez explains "from the beginning of faith" with reference to the Blessed Virgin, as if to say: the Blessed Virgin, from the beginning of her conception, was faithful, holy, and immaculate, and therefore conceived without original sin, inasmuch as Christ called her to himself; whence the Hebrew has, "with me from Lebanon you shall come."

All these things which have been said of the Church may be adapted, the name being changed, to the soul. First, then, these things can be attributed to the soul which, out of the state of sin and the vices to which she was enslaved as a beast, is called forth by Christ to penitence, virtues, and grace, that she may no longer serve concupiscence but charity: for, as St. John says, 1 Epistle, ch. 2:16: "All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." The concupiscence of the flesh is noted by Amana, that is, "nurse," for the concupiscence of gluttony nourishes the flesh; the concupiscence of the eyes, that is, avarice, is noted by Sanir, that is, "the repetition of fallow ground," for avarice gapes after new fields and wealth to be gathered; the pride of life is noted by Hermon, that is, "destruction and anathema," for pride destroys every good thing. From these mountains of vice, then, the sinning and repentant soul is called forth to the opposite valleys of abstinence, poverty, and humility. Richard of St. Victor and others interpret and adapt these names Amana, Hermon, and Sanir differently, but less truly and less fittingly to the Hebrew etymology.

Second, these things can be attributed to the holy soul, who is called by Christ to greater holiness and perfection, and especially to the three vows of the religious life: for she is called from Amana, that is, gluttony and luxury, to chastity; from Sanir, that is, avarice, to the pursuit of poverty; from Hermon, that is, pride, to humble obedience. Hence the word "come" is repeated three times: first, to signify the burning desire of Christ, by which he wishes the soul to follow him who calls her, and therefore he calls her three times, that is, fully and perfectly; second, to signify the immense goods, present and future, to which she is called; third, to signify that she is called to serve the most holy Trinity through the three vows, and through the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, says St. Gregory; fourth, to signify that she must wage constant war with the world, the flesh, and the devil; for the world is signified by Sanir, that is, "the changing of a lamp" or "of fallow ground": for in the world there is perpetual change, and a succession of ranks and riches, for these are continually taken from one — whether by death or by some turn of fortune — and conferred on another; by which the wheel of fortune is constantly turning in the world, so that, as some rise on high, others go down and fall. The flesh is signified by Amana, that is, "nurse," as I have already said: the devil is represented by Hermon, that is, "destruction and anathema," because the devil destroys every good thing, and is therefore, as it were, given over to anathema, to eternal malediction, and to hell.

Cassiodorus and Bede add that the threefold "come" denotes a threefold progress of the soul, namely in thought, in speech, and in action; but St. Gregory says: the first progress of the soul is an advance in the virtues; the second comes about through departure from the body; the third through the resurrection of the flesh: further, the holy soul is crowned with the crown of the virtues in this life, and with the crown of glory in the life to come; and this crown then, from Hermon, becomes Herem or Cherem, that is, "death and consecration," because she dies to herself, that she may live to God, and as an anathema consecrates herself wholly to God, and makes herself a holocaust to him. For this soul, a little before, was called "all fair," and was called forth to the mountain of myrrh, buried together with Christ through baptism; she also ascends to the hill of frankincense, made through the resurrection a partaker, freed from sins, of the divinity which is signified by the frankincense. Here, further, she is called to pass over from the beginning of faith, as the Septuagint has it, to its consummation, and to progress through works of charity and of the virtues: so Nyssen, and St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, ch. 5, whom hear: "Go forth," he says, "from the body, and strip yourself entirely; for you cannot be present to me unless you first become a stranger to the body, since those who are in the flesh are strangers to the kingdom of God. Be present," he says, "be present": he well repeated it, because whether present or absent you ought to be present to, and to please, the Lord your God. Be present while present, be present while absent, even while you are still in the body: for to me all are present whose faith is with me." Then he beautifully explains the same thing through antitheses: "He is present to me who goes forth from the world; he is present to me who thinks of me, looks upon me, hopes in me, to whom I am a portion; he is present to me who has been absent from himself; he is present to me who has denied himself. He is with me who is not within himself, since he who is in the flesh is not in the spirit; he is with me who goes forth from himself. He is next to me who has been outside himself; he is whole to me who for my sake has lost his soul. And therefore be present, O bride, you shall pass over, and you shall pass through, from the beginning of faith. She passes over and passes through the rest, who arrives at Christ: she passes over by the merit of faith and the brightness of works, which shines like Sanir and Hermon, that is, by the way of the lamp she passes over, the temptations of the world having been overcome, and the wickednesses of the spirit surmounted, seeking the crown of the lawful contest, and therefore she has deserved to be praised when Christ is the judge."

Tropologically, by the lions St. Gregory understands the demons, but Bede the proud and powerful, such as unbelieving kings and princes; by the spotted leopards he understands hypocrites, the fraudulent and deceitful, such as heretics are, says Philo Carpathius.

Further, the demons and the unbelieving tyrants ruled over the nations before Christ savagely and cruelly, after the manner of lions: "for these," as St. Gregory says, "truly imitate the variegation of leopards, because while along with virtues they also pursue vices, they are divided, as it were, in a hide of varied and dissimilar color. But the Church is crowned from the dens of the lions and the mountains of the leopards, because, when through her preaching both the cruel are converted to piety, and hypocrites to the unity of a humble life, for all these she will receive the reward that she deserves."

ificatur here the calling forth of the holy soul from the dangers, temptations, and troubles of this life, on account of her patience and victory, to the heavenly crown and glory: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and St. Augustine on Psalm 67; whence St. Ambrose, in his book On Virgins, III, past the middle, applying it to these matters: "Dedicate," he says, "the firstfruits of your vigils to Christ; offer the firstfruits of your deeds to Christ. You have heard that he called you, saying: Come from Lebanon: you shall pass over and pass through from the beginning of faith; you shall pass over into the world of created things, you shall pass through to Christ, to triumph over the world. You have heard that he has separated you from the incursions of lions and leopards, that is, of spiritual wickednesses."

St. Jerome has similar things, book I Against Jovinian;

whence John the Carmelite expounds "you shall be crowned from the head of Amana," etc., thus, as if to say: You shall receive a crown from persecution, while living on Lebanon, you shall suffer the hostile assaults of the mountains where wild beasts dwell; for it was fitting that mountains of persecution be set against the mountain of love, so that the measure of labor and of trial might be as great as the greatness of your love toward me.

First, the Blessed Virgin was called forth from Lebanon, Amana, Hermon, and Sanir, when she was called forth from Judea and from this world to Christ in heaven, and there crowned queen of heaven and earth with a threefold aureole, namely of eminent virginity, of doctorate, and of martyrdom; for she was herself the foremost of virgins, of doctors, and of martyrs. Whence, second, the crown of those is the crown of the Blessed Virgin, because it was obtained through her intercession, prayers, and merits: so Rupert, who — interpreting the Hebrew names of the mountains in a novel way, and therefore not altogether fittingly — says thus: "Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come, you shall be crowned. From what shall you be crowned? From the head of Amana, which is interpreted 'night bird'; from the peak of Sanir, which is interpreted 'tooth of the watches,' and Hermon, which is interpreted 'anathema.' You shall come from Lebanon, which is interpreted 'whitening,' that is, you shall migrate from this body, a white body, a virgin body, and you shall be crowned from all these, that is, from the body or members of him who is rightly denoted by these names, from the kingdoms of this world; for certain heads, or certain peaks, of the kingdoms of this world are rightly called night birds, and teeth of the watches, and truly anathematized ones separated from God by the devil, who, since he is the prince of darkness, and, as a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour, 1 Peter 5:8, is rightly called both a night bird and a tooth of the watches.

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Finally, understanding by the lions and leopards the kings of the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, and Greeks, he weaves these very ones into the crown of the Blessed Virgin thus: these kings, "let them believe in me (Christ), the fruit of your womb, and the salvation of those who believe shall be your crown. Thus you shall be crowned, that you may be both queen of the saints in heaven, and queen of the kingdoms on earth. For wherever that word spoken of the Beloved shall be preached, Psalm 8:6: You have made him a little less than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands — it shall also be preached of you, that you are, O beloved, the mother of this crowned one; and therefore queen of the heavens, rightfully possessing the whole kingdom of your Son; and with this in view, kings and emperors shall crown you with their crowns, shall consecrate their palaces to your name, shall dedicate them to your honor, so that they may cease to be what they had been — mountains of leopards, dens of lions."

Hence St. Epiphanius, heresy 78, book 8, book III, calls the Blessed Virgin a lioness, who is queen of all animals: because she herself brought forth Christ as it were a DIVINE LION, through whom he tamed all the lions of the earth, indeed made lambs out of lions. And he adds that the Blessed Virgin brought forth only one son, just as a lioness brings forth one cub, and gives birth only in secret; for a second birth does not befall a lioness. The reason is, he says, that a lioness carries her cub in the womb for 26 months, in which the cub grows up and is furnished with teeth and claws, with which it tears and cuts the womb; wherefore he asserts that the mother, in giving birth, expels the womb together with the cub, and therefore she can no longer conceive offspring in the womb, since she no longer has the place and seat of conception, namely the womb. So Epiphanius says; but the naturalists and experience teach that this is false, for it teaches that the lioness gives birth many times and often. See what is said, Ezekiel 19:2.

VERSE 9. THOU HAST WOUNDED MY HEART, MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE, THOU HAST WOUNDED MY HEART WITH ONE OF THY EYES, AND WITH ONE HAIR OF THY NECK.

The Bridegroom, says Theodoret, having called the bride to himself out of Lebanon, when he had gazed upon her and her beauty, declares himself captured by her love, and wounded by her eye and her hair.

…eye and hair.

THOU HAST WOUNDED MY HEART, MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE, THOU HAST WOUNDED MY HEART. — For vulnerasti the Hebrew has לבבתני libbautini, which is derived from לבב lebab, that is, heart; whence the Septuagint render ἐκαρδίωσας ἡμᾶς, that is, thou hast unhearted us, that is, as Vatablus has it, thou hast taken my heart from me; R. David, thou hast pierced my heart through; the Complutensian, thou hast stupefied me; the Arabic, thou hast inflamed our hearts; others, thou hast en-hearted me, that is, thou hast wounded me in the heart, and a wound of the heart is one of the utmost pain and is mortal: so it is that love brings it about that the soul, as it were, dies in the body of the one loving, and lives in the body of the one loved. Or, thou hast en-hearted me, that is, as Gregory of Nyssa says,

thou hast snatched my heart from me, and hast shut it up and made it captive in thine own heart; St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 11, renders it, thou hast taken us by the heart; Symmachus, in Theodoret, thou hast roused my heart; the fifth edition and the Syriac, thou hast made me trust; others, thou hast put a heart into me — heart, that is, mind — as if to say: Thou hast shown me what I ought to look upon and love, namely nothing other than thee; or rather, as if to say: Thou hast set thy heart within me, that it may work in me, and that I may do all that thy heart desires.

…by one hair) of thy neck — a hair not single, but plaited of many, that is, a braid or cord twisted out of hairs; for the Hebrews used to gather their locks into various plaits, or rather braids, as Samson did, Judges 16:13, and to wind the neck about with one or another of these, thus twisting the locks about the neck: for in Hebrew it is ענק anac, that is, a cord or a chain; whence the Septuagint, with one ἐνθύματι, that is, ornament, or chain of thy neck: so too the Syriac and the Arabic; Aquila, with one wreath (hanging) from thy neck; Symmachus, with one of the necklaces of thy neck. So Pliny, book 17, chapter 23, takes crinis for a bond or cord twisted of hairs: "Let the yoke," he says, "be of a pole, or a reed, or hair, or a small cord." Wherefore our own Alcazar, in the Allusions on the Apocalypse, book 3, takes one hair of the neck to mean one of the two windings of a chain about the neck.

WITH ONE OF THY EYES. — The Arabic, on account of the beauty of thy eyes. "With one," because the bride, her head veiled after the bridal custom, showed only a single eye, since that alone she had to bare for her journey and other actions. The maidens of Jerusalem, and the Arabian maidens likewise, used to do the same, of whom Tertullian speaks, in the book On the Veiling of Virgins, near the end: "The heathen women of Arabia," he says, "will judge us, who cover not the head only but the whole face as well, so that, with one eye set free, they are content to enjoy but half the light rather than prostitute the whole face.

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Add that, whither one eye is carried and looks, thither, following nature's guidance in company, the other too is carried and looks. The eye is the seat of the soul; for in the eye the heart, the mind, the affection shine forth: wherefore the eye of a beautiful, loving, and alluring woman wounds the heart of the man who beholds it, and carries it off to herself: for eyes flash their rays and, as it were, hurl the arrows of love, as Theocritus writes of Helen, Idyll 18.

James of Vitry relates that a certain cardinal's holy sister so wounded the heart of a prince by the beauty of her eyes that he wished her given to him by every means: wherefore she sent to the prince her eyes, plucked out, and said: "Behold the arrows that wounded thy heart.

" Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 60, relates that another virgin plainly did the like, and Sabellicus, book 4 of the Exempla, chapter 8, relates just the same of St. Lucy. The same thing, and even more, is done by women's fair, well-groomed hair; the gradation therefore rises from the eyes to the hair, because fair, tawny, saffron, golden, and shining hair flashes wondrously,

and so seizes the eyes of those who behold it; whence the poets compare it to stars and to lightning, and say that it flashes: wherefore Virgil, Aeneid 2, calls hair "blazing." Add that women set their beauty in the dressing, polishing, tinting, and arranging of their hair; whence the Comic poet: "While they are dressed, while they are polished, a year goes by;" and Catullus: "They toss their splendid locks." Moreover, hair is beautifully curled and crimped; by "one hair," then, understand one curling of the hair, which produces a beautiful head of hair; whence Virgil, Aeneid 12: "Locks curled with the hot iron," that is, crimped with the curling-tongs. Besides this, they used to anoint their hair with the most fragrant ointment, whence they breathed out a most sweet odor. Hear Horace, Odes 5:

The shoulder besprinkled with fragrant locks.

And Ovid, epistle 21:

My hair does not smell of Arabian dew.

And my fragrant shoulder, adorned by my hair.

And Ovid, epistle 21:

My hair does not smell of Arabian dew.

And Tibullus, book 3:

Her myrrh-scented hair breathed of Tyrian dew.

And Silius, book 11:

She drenches her hair with amomum.

And Silius, book 11:

She drenches her hair with amomum.

Furthermore, women comb their hair so carefully, and part and divide it with a parting-pin, that it may appear most beautiful, as is seen in brides, whose elegance consists in hair that is polished, prettily parted, and spread. Whence Festus: "Hairs," he says, "are called crines from discretio, a parting." Finally, they used to plait and adorn the hair, twisted about the neck, with a golden chain cast over it; some, too, gilded their very hair, or made it shining and radiant with an elegant dye; whence Virgil, Aeneid 4:

Whose quiver was of gold, whose hair was knotted in gold.

The same, book 8:

Golden was their hair, and golden their garments.

The same, book 10:

And Ovid, Metamorphoses 15:

They make their hair like amber and gold.

They make their hair like amber and gold.

And Claudian, book 3 of The Rape of Proserpina:

Her hair — locks lovelier than tawny gold — gleams.

…so, then, with locks so elegant and radiant did the bride wound the heart of the bridegroom.

Christ the Bridegroom says: Thou hast wounded my heart, O Church my spouse, by one of thy eyes, because, that is, with one whole eye — and that a dove's eye, that is, chaste, modest, and simple — thou lookest upon me: for me alone thou lovest with a spiritual love, to please me alone thou art busy; and with one hair, that is, with the braided chain of thy neck: this chain is obedience, whereby thou dost of thy own accord subject thy neck to my law, as I said, chapter 1, verse 10: for with this, as with a chain, thou dost bind my heart, and dost draw it tight and fasten it to thyself. The eye, then, denotes intention and love; the hair, or chain, obedience: for these two, like two sharp and fiery arrows, wound the heart of Christ, so that he, wounded with love, may most greatly return the love of the Church that so loves him; nay, they, as it were, un-heart him, that is, take his heart from him, and hand it over to the bride, that she may bend it whither she will, and use it at her pleasure; nay, that she may live, be moved, and act by it, as St. Catherine of Siena asked for and obtained, in exchange for her own heart, the heart of Christ, that by it she might be quickened, live, and do whatever she did. Whence St. Paul, Galatians 2:20: "I live," he says, "now not I; but Christ liveth in me" — namely, the heart of Christ.

Further, the eye here denotes several things. First, knowledge and faith, for by the eye we behold and know things, as if to say: One faith, O Church, hast thou in me, Christ thy Savior, and with St. Paul thou now knowest nothing else but Jesus and him crucified: wherefore thou dost compel me, in turn, to behold and look upon thee alone. Wherefore our Alcazar, in the Allusions on the Apocalypse, book 3, expounding this whole fourth chapter of the praises of the ancient Roman Church, takes by one eye the faith of St. Peter, by one hair of the neck the obedience of St. Paul, as if to say: Of the whole victory and glory which Christian Rome obtained from the subduing of lions and leopards, that is, unbelieving tyrants, the origin and cause was the faith of St. Peter and the obedience of St. Paul. Hence many understand by the eye contemplation, by the hair devout thought, which nourishes contemplation; or by the hair they take holy action, which follows from contemplation.

Second, the eye denotes hope, for what we hope for, this we look upon with the eye; whence the fifth edition renders, thou hast made me trust, as if to say: Because thou, O Church, hast fixed thy whole eye, that is, thy whole trust, in me; hence I, in turn, will have singular care for thee as for my most dear bride, and will care for thee as if I cared for nothing else.

Third, the eye denotes love, for what we love, this we behold with a fixed eye; whence the saying: "Where the eye is, there is love; where the hand is, there is pain." For the member which we touch often with the hand, in that we feel pain. To this bears the Chaldee, who, judaizing after his manner, expounds these words of the Synagogue of the Jews, which was a type of the Church of Christians: "Fixed," he says, "in the tablet of my heart is thy love, my sister, the assembly of Israel, which is compared to a bride, who is honorable. Fixed in the tablet of my heart is the love of the least of thy children, who is just,

as one of the princes of the council, and as one of the kings of the house of Judah, upon whose neck the diadem of the kingdom has been set.

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Finally, the Church is called Christ's sister, because he himself, as touching the flesh, was begotten of the same father Adam as she: so St. Anselm; whence St. Isidore, book 9 of the Etymologies, chapter 6: "A sister," he says, "is so called from the same seed, because alone with her brothers she is held in the lot of kinship;" although others give another etymology for "sister." Hear the Gellian problems in Julius Scaliger, number 91: "Why is she called soror? Is it because she is born apart (seorsim) from the house? Or does a sister seem, as it were, an adventitious burden, and not an increase of the family? For among the ancients sororiari meant to swell: so she is, as it were, a swelling of the family." Nonius Marcellus, On Propriety of Speech, chapter 1, number 258: "A sister," he says, "is so called because she is born, as it were, apart (seorsim), and is separated from that house in which she is born." This etymology of "sister" also fits the Church, for she, separated from the house and family of her parent Adam, corrupted by sin, passed by baptism into the house and family of Christ. Finally, St. Bernard, or whoever is the author of the book On the Passion of the Lord: "Brides not yet bound by the marriage tie," he says, "are wont to be loved more ardently than afterward: for as time goes on, love itself settles down; our Bridegroom, therefore, to suggest the greatness of his love, which does not lessen with time, calls his beloved his bride, because her love is ever new; he calls the same one sister, to signify the purity and chastity of that love of his, which savors nothing of the flesh." Finally, the Church of Christ is sister in chastity, bride in fruitfulness.

Symbolically, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others take by one eye the unity of the doctors, by one hair the unity of the faithful, whom the doctors, as members, join, as it were a neck, to Christ the head.

Fourth, and most genuinely, St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, Anselm, Richard, Honorius, and others take by the tunic temporal occupations, with which, as with garments, those who take up care of their neighbors necessarily entangle themselves, and thereby soil their feet, that is, their affections. The Church, therefore, that is, the prelates of the Church in the time of Constantine, given over to peace, ease, prayer, a quiet and, as it were, contemplative life, and therefore shunning the labor of preaching, of confuting the Arians and the rest of the heretics and unbelievers, and of converting depraved Christians — to which task they were called by office from Christ — used to allege, for their own sloth and torpor, this excuse: that, being consecrated to God, they were unwilling to busy themselves with temporal things, by being occupied with which one necessarily contracts the defects and stains of sins, according to that saying of St. Leo: "Even religious hearts must needs be soiled with earthly dust." Hear Honorius: "This she says not by way of disobedience, but by shunning secular care: for he who is set over secular affairs is cast down in spiritual things: because just as the body is clothed with a tunic, so the mind is entangled with secular care, which, once put off, the spiritual are unwilling to put on again, but wish to be free for God alone in spiritual things. But those called by God set aside their own will, and take up, unwilling, the burden of governance for their neighbors' sake; whence, groaning, they say: I have washed my feet," etc. He then explains these feet mystically, adding: "The feet of the soul are the affections, by which it is carried to various desires, just as the body walks by feet — these are desire, fear, joy, sorrow; for it desires earthly things, fears lest it should fail to obtain what it desires, rejoices over what it has obtained, grieves over what it has lost; these feet it has washed, when it has washed away earthly desires with the tears of penitence; it fears to soil them again, because he who is set in the government of secular affairs can scarcely, or not at all, avoid the stains of sins."

Further, before this, chapter 2, verse 10, the Bridegroom had knocked at the door of the bride, but while she was still a young girl, and had roused her to procure the salvation of the Jews in the primitive Church; here, however, he knocks at the door of the same bride, now grown up under Constantine, and stirs her up to procure the conversion of all the nations, and especially of heretics and the impious: for under Constantine the Church rejoiced in full peace, wherefore many prelates gave themselves over to the leisure of holy quiet and contemplation; from that leisure, then, Christ here calls them to the business of preaching: so St. Augustine, Sermon 57 on John: "I sleep," he says, "and my heart watches: I rest from busy actions, and my mind gives itself to divine affections; but while, in those things which in this way sweetly and humbly rest, the Church takes her ease at leisure, behold, he knocks who says, Matthew 10:27: What I tell you in darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops." And a little after: "He knocks, then, to shake off the quiet of the holy who are at ease, and cries: Open to me, from my blood, my sister; from my approach, my near one; from my Spirit, my dove; from my word, which thou hast learned more fully from thy leisure, my perfect one; open to me, preach me: for to those who have shut the door against me, how shall I enter without one to open? For how shall they hear without one to preach?" Romans 10:14.

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Better, Philo Carpathius, translating from the Septuagint — wholly, with the eye as it were the left one, intent upon earthly things, 1 Kings 11:2: so Justus Orgelitanus, and St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 11.

Fourth, St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, by one right eye takes the pursuit of virginity, by the left, marriage and the desire of offspring; for just as the right eye excels the left, so does virginity excel marriage. "I do not repudiate marriage," he says; "thou hast also the left eye, which I gave thee on account of the weakness of those who cannot see straight; but the right eye of virginity pleases me more, which, if it should be blinded, the whole body is in darkness. And lest we should think that Christ the Bridegroom signifies fleshly love and bodily marriage, he at once excludes this sense, and says, Canticles 4:9: Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse; where, by the name of sister, every suspicion of foul love is excluded."

Further, the wound by which the virgin and the holy soul, intent upon Christ alone, and therefore first wounded by Christ, wounds in turn the heart of Christ, is the wound of charity, which is healed by nothing but loving, because by loving it is the more wounded and grows; for the one who loves desires the wound of love to be increased, because by this wound she is quickened and lives; the more, then, Christ sees himself loved by the soul and wounded by love, the more he loves her, the more he delights and rejoices in this wound of love: for this wound is not a bodily one, which injures the body, but a spiritual one, which pierces the soul with love, and by piercing strengthens it in love, and therefore in turn wounds the soul the more vehemently with love: for just as the sun darts its rays upon a mirror, which, gathered together in it, make as it were one dense and most brilliant ray, and, reflected back from the mirror, are turned back upon the sun itself, and, as it were, wound it, but only with light, not with blood: so likewise Christ, the sun of righteousness, darting the rays of his love into the soul, which gathers them, and through a single intention of love reflects them back into Christ like a most brilliant and most burning ray, Christ himself is, as it were, wounded by that same ray, but with a wound of light, not of blood, because he is pierced through by the arrow of spiritual love, so that he may love in return, more ardently than before, the soul so loving him: wherefore this spiritual wound pours forth not blood, but love.

Again, St. Gregory and Justus Orgelitanus refer this vulnerasti to the wounds which Christ received in the Passion for us, as if Christ were to say: Thy love, O soul, wounded me upon the cross: for that I might sanctify thee, and join thee to myself in love, I took upon myself the wounds of the nails and the scourges. For the wound of love which Christ bore in his soul drove him to receive so many and so great wounds in his body; whence St. Bernard, or whoever is the author of the book On the Passion of the Lord: "By the bodily wound," he says, "which Christ received in his side upon the cross, a spiritual wound is shown, and this is perhaps signified in that vulnerasti is said twice. For the cause of each wound is this same sister and spouse, as if the Bridegroom were to say openly: Because thou didst wound me with the zeal of thy love, also with a lance…

Now apply what has been said of the Church to the holy soul; and in the first place, by the eye understand, most of all according to the letter, that there is signified the intention of chaste love, whereby the holy soul strives and contends to please above all else the one Christ, as it were her bridegroom, whom she dearly loves; and by the hair, or the braided chain, that obedience is signified, whereby she is busy to obey each of God's laws and inspirations, and those of her prelates (for these the neck denotes). For just as a braided chain is twisted out of many hairs, so is full obedience perfected out of the prompt execution of all laws and inspirations. For now the intention of love, as much as obedience, wounds the mind of Christ, and carries it off, so that he may wondrously love in return the soul that so loves him. Whence John the Carmelite thus explains: "Thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes," that is, by thy faith working through love, thou hast wounded me as it were with a certain arrow. "And with one hair of thy neck," that is, by thy obedience, which is the hair or chain binding thy neck to obey, thou hast wounded me, who need no chains, or bonds of iron, to draw thee to myself; for with one single hair, most sweetly, I lead thee where I please.

Morally, from this let those learn who devote themselves to the converting of souls, that they should never grow weary at their number, nor fear that they cannot suffice to nourish all of them in the spirit: because the more children they bring forth to God, the more helps God will supply to them, by which to nourish and cherish them; just as, to a woman, the more children she bears, the greater the breasts, swelling with milk, that he gives her, with which to suckle them all.

Rupert, by one of the eyes, takes the unity of the thoughts and prayers which the Blessed Virgin fixed on God, and by one hair, the uniformity of her humility; whence, bringing forward the example of Hannah the mother of Samuel, of whom it is said, 1 Kings 1, after her prayer: "Her face was no more changed into diverse looks," he adds: "What was that uniformity of countenance, no longer changing into diverse looks? Surely the identity of her thoughts, and the deeply intent perseverance of these same prayers." And then, applying this same thing to the Blessed Virgin: "This is

…nt.

Third, one eye is the right, which is intent upon spiritual and eternal things; the other eye is the left, which is intent upon temporal and passing things. Whence Nahash, king of the Ammonites, wishing to gouge out the right eye of the Hebrews, so as to render them unfit and blind for war (for they used to cover the left eye with a shield), signifies the devil, who strives to snatch from the mind the pursuit of heavenly things, so that she herself

thou hast wounded our heart — by "our" he judges to be signified the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, who, moved by love of men, decreed that the Son should be incarnate for their salvation.

…of a soldier I was wounded: for who would allow his heart to be wounded by a spear, unless he had first felt the wound of that love?

…that which Vatablus and others render, for thou hast wounded my heart, as thou hast taken my heart from me, that is, my mind, signifies the highest degree of love, which, as Plato too testifies, is a kind of madness: for just as excessive worldly love makes lovers mad, so that they seem to be insane, so too does spiritual love: for the young man, captured by love of his sweetheart, the merchant by love of money, the ambitious man by love of glory, hands over to it his whole heart and mind, so that he can think of nothing but it: wherefore he forgets his own honor, and loses all shame, nor can anything hold him back or restrain him — not labor, not vexation, not danger, not death, not the counsel of friends, nor the fear of God or of hell, but all these things are to him as it were a fable; whether he sleeps, he dreams of her; whether he wakes, he speaks or listens to nothing else, so much so that he loses all reason and sense, and becomes as it were foolish, drunk, and mad: for "to love and to be wise is scarcely granted even to the gods," as he says. So Christ, taken captive by divine love of men, emptied himself, when he came down from heaven and the throne of the Godhead to earth, made man, nor was he ashamed to lead among men a poor and lowly life; nay, for their salvation, to be tortured, crucified, and to die like a robber: wherefore he feared no contempts, shrank from no injuries, no reproaches, no scourgings, nor the death of the cross, so that he was reckoned by the Jews a criminal, by the Gentiles a fool; whence that saying: "Love triumphs over God."

Christians perfect in love followed Christ, as the Apostles, of whom Paul says, 1 Corinthians 4:10: "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; you are honorable, but we are dishonorable; we are made as it were the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all things even until now;" read the rest that he himself writes; hence the apostles exulted in scourgings, gloried in tribulations, triumphed in persecutions. Whence that saying, 2 Corinthians 5:13: "Whether we are beside ourselves," in Greek ἐξέστημεν, which others render, whether we are mad, "it is to God: whether we are sober, it is for you;" and Agrippa says to Paul, Acts 26:24: "Thou art mad, Paul; much learning turns thee to madness." For Paul seemed to King Agrippa to be mad, who, with zeal, was trying, in the very tribunal, to persuade him to the faith in Christ, on account of which he was there in bonds, and was being tried on a capital charge.

Such, too, above others, was St. Francis, who called himself the fool of the world, and displayed himself as such in word and deed: for true wisdom of God is to be wise unto God and foolish unto the world. Wherefore Gerson, in the treatise On the Mount of Contemplation, chapter 19, 20, beautifully teaches that the model of perfect love is the lovers of the world, and how the spiritual man ought to examine his own love, that he may see how far it falls short of the perfection of the love of God, and that therefore he who wishes to be perfect in the love of God ought to imitate the deeds

of the lovers of the world, so that, just as these do hard and even foolish things for the world's sake, so he too may do like things for God and Christ's sake; but they out of vice, he out of virtue. For where love is, there is no shame nor fear, for love casts out fear, as St. John says, 1 Epistle 4:18. The literal example is in St. Mary Magdalene, who, penitent and wounded by love of Christ, without shame rushed into the house of Simon the Pharisee, and there, before the guests, prostrating herself at the feet of Jesus, wounded him not with one, but with both of her eyes, since, pouring forth from them abundant tears of love, with them she washed the feet of Jesus; and with her hair, not one, but all of her head, she wiped them dry: whence she deserved to hear from him: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much," Luke 7:47. She, then, had taken away the heart of Jesus, and Jesus had taken away her heart, because the heart of Jesus lived in Magdalene, and the heart of Magdalene lived in Jesus, as Origen beautifully and movingly describes, in the homily On St. Mary Magdalene, where, among other things, he says: "She had forgotten to fear, she had forgotten to rejoice, she had forgotten herself, she had, in short, forgotten everything except him whom she loved above all things, and, what is wonderful, she was so forgetful that she did not even recognize him himself, when, in the guise of a gardener, he first appeared to her after the resurrection. He adds the reason further below, saying: "Finally, Joseph placed thy body in the tomb; Mary buried there, likewise, her own spirit, and so indissolubly joined it, and in a manner united it with thy body, that she could more easily separate her soul, which gave her life, from her own body that was given life by it, than separate her spirit, loving thee, from thy dead body: for the spirit of Mary was more in thy body than in her own; and when she sought thy body, she likewise sought her own spirit, and where thy body lost thy spirit, it lost with it her own spirit too. What wonder, then, if she had no feeling, she who had lost her spirit? What wonder if she did not know thee, she who had no spirit by which she ought to know? Restore to her, then, her own spirit, which thy body holds within itself, and at once she will recover her feeling, and will leave behind her error."

Rupert, by one of the eyes, takes the unity of the thoughts and prayers which the Blessed Virgin fixed on God, and by one hair, the uniformity of her humility; whence, bringing forward the example of Hannah the mother of Samuel, of whom it is said, 1 Kings 1, after her prayer: "Her face was no more changed into diverse looks," he adds: "What was that uniformity of countenance, no longer changing into diverse looks? Surely the identity of her thoughts, and the deeply intent perseverance of these same prayers." And then, applying this same thing to the Blessed Virgin: "This is

Morally, from this let those learn who devote themselves to the converting of souls, that they should never grow weary at their number, nor fear that they cannot suffice to nourish all of them in the spirit: because the more children they bring forth to God, the more helps God will supply to them, by which to nourish and cherish them; just as, to a woman, the more children she bears, the greater the breasts, swelling with milk, that he gives her, with which to suckle them all.

Hence these breasts of hers are lovelier than wine, that is, than all fleshly delights; and, mystically, than wine, that is, than the austerity of the Synagogue and of the Mosaic law; likewise than the wine of the rigor of justice, says Richard of St. Victor. See what was said, chapter 1, where he said the same of the breasts of Christ: for the breasts of Christ and of the Church are alike.

Symbolically, the breasts of doctrine and preaching excel the wine of contemplation: for although the contemplative life is more perfect than the active, yet a life mixed of both is more perfect than either alone — namely, a contemplation which, through action, communicates itself to others, and pours out upon its neighbors what it has drawn from God: for the more it enlightens others, the greater the light it receives from God, since it is given by God for this very end. Hence that saying, Hosea 6:6: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice," see what was said there; and that saying of Christ, Mark 12:33: "To love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices;" and that saying, Ecclesiasticus 40:47: "Grace (that is, almsgiving) is like a paradise in blessings, and mercy endures for ever;" whence she pleases God so much that God, admiring her beauty, cries out: "How beautiful are thy breasts, my sister, my spouse!" So Gregory of Nyssa, and Bede, who teaches that God here admires that soul which does not refuse to teach others less learned the rudiments of the faith: "Rightly," he says, "does the Lord bear witness that such a soul is his sister and his spouse."

VERSE 10. HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR BREASTS, MY SISTER, MY BRIDE! YOUR BREASTS ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN WINE, AND THE SCENT OF YOUR OINTMENTS ABOVE ALL SPICES.

HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR BREASTS, MY SISTER, MY BRIDE! MORE BEAUTIFUL (in Hebrew, better) ARE YOUR BREASTS THAN WINE, AND THE SCENT OF YOUR OINTMENTS ABOVE ALL SPICES. — The Arabic: how beautiful is the appearance of your breasts! By ointments, understand sweet-smelling spices that strengthen the heart, which she wore about her breasts and bosom, according to that word, chapter 1, 12: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me; he shall lie between my breasts." The Seventy, for שמניך manaiich, that is, of your ointments, read שלמתיך salmotaiich, that is, of your garments, whence they translate, and the scent of your garments above all spices; the Chaldaean translates, how beautiful above me are your loves, my sister, assembly of Israel, who art compared to a chaste bride! how good above me are your loves, more than the seventy nations, and the good name of the just is more fragrant than all spices! The bridegroom returns to praises and speaks, because indeed he judges her most worthy of his love and union, whom he considers to have become an imitator of his own work. For he himself too, that he might make us, weak, strong, did not shrink from being weak for a time, indeed even from dying, that we might live. He himself, though he were the bread of angels in his divinity, willed to become milk through the assumption of flesh, that he might nourish the littleness of men, and show it capable of that same heavenly bread.

Wherefore the scent of your ointments surpasses all spices, that is, the good report which you attain from your charity, mercy, and zeal for souls, and which you spread far and wide, is better before God than all fragrant virtues — God who, as I have said, prefers mercy to sacrifice. For, as Ecclesiasticus says, chapter 31, verse 28: "Bountiful in bread, the lips of many shall bless; and the testimony of his truth is faithful." And Solomon, Proverbs 22, 9: "He that is inclined to mercy shall be blessed," that is, shall be praised by men as much as by God. See what was said at chapter 1, verse 1, at those words: "Your breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the best ointments." Richard of St. Victor gives the reason, that charity is the mother and queen of all the virtues alike, and therefore the bridegroom here again commends and repeats it under the figure of the breasts in the bride; indeed in Hebrew דודים dodim, that is, loves, are said to come from דדים daddim, that is, breasts, says Marinus: for the breasts are the seat as well as the symbol of love.

Furthermore, Theodoret and the three Anonymous writers in him, and Philo Carpathius, do not explain to vino comparatively, as above wine, but affectively, as from wine (for thus the Seventy translate it), as if to say: Your charity draws all its goodness from wine, that is, from the divinity and goodness of God and of Christ.

Again, that the Seventy translate "of ointments" as "of garments" comes, as to sense, to the same thing: for the ointments or spices of the soul are, says St. Ambrose, book 1, On Virgins, its almsgiving, compassion, mortification, and the other good works, by which it is likewise adorned as with most precious and most fragrant garments, according to that word, Colossians 3, 12: "Put ye on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience: bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." So Nyssen, Theodoret, and the three Anonymous writers in him. Hence the Arabic translates, the sweetness of the scent of your garments is the most excellent of all sweetnesses.

Finally, some apply these words to the letter to St. Magdalene, who anointed Christ a third time; whence her ointments were better than the ointments of others, because she herself anointed the very body of Christ; whereas the others anoint other of the faithful, who are only members of Christ. Hence Rupert, applying the same mystically to the Blessed Virgin: "These," he says, "are spices

true, precious ointments — to give food to any hungry one among my enemies, to offer drink to the thirsty, to take in the guest or the wayfarer, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, and if he is in prison, to come to him. Above all these spices is the scent of your ointments, that is, the sweetness of your almsgiving, because not, as others, upon my members, but upon myself you have shown yourself most generous, and indeed by a mother's right, and by natural affection you owed me all things; nevertheless, to me who look upon your faith and humility, or your charity, as more than a mother's, all things were as the best ointments, all things were as the sweetest almsgivings, so that no spices of alms, whatever may be spent for me in the least of mine, could be compared in any degree to those ointments."

Of these ointments and their scent Gilbert treats at length, who continued the sermons of St. Bernard on the Song of Songs, sermons 31 and 32, where among other things he says: "What else is patience itself, but as it were a certain scent of the impassibility to come?" And again: "Let us compare," he says, "these three among themselves: wine, breasts, ointments: in the wine, the failing of the old man; in the breast, the refreshment of the new; in the ointments, a certain delight. By wine the carnal sense is made drunk, and lulled to sleep, and overwhelmed; by the breast the new man is nourished; by the ointments the grown man is delighted: in the first the old man is undone, in the second the new man is refreshed, in the third, now drawing near to perfection, he is affected with ineffable joy."

VERSE 11. YOUR LIPS DRIP HONEYCOMB, O BRIDE; HONEY AND MILK ARE UNDER YOUR TONGUE; AND THE SCENT OF YOUR GARMENTS IS LIKE THE SCENT OF FRANKINCENSE.

YOUR LIPS DRIP HONEYCOMB, O BRIDE; HONEY AND MILK ARE UNDER YOUR TONGUE. — The Syriac and Arabic have, like the scent of Lebanon. Some refer this to a kiss, others to the breath of the mouth, which women are careful about, as if to say: You have the sweetest breath, as if you held honey under your tongue. Others, better, refer it to the grace and sweetness of speech. Honeycombs are what the waxen cells are called in which bees store their honey: a honeycomb, therefore, is nothing other than honey in wax, says Cassiodorus: for honeycombs are the houses and cells of bees, so called because in them they cherish their offspring, according to that of Virgil, Georgics IV:

First they lay foundations for the combs,
then they hang up the clinging wax.

In Hebrew and in Greek, "your lips drip a honeycomb"; so too the Syriac and the Arabic; whence Willeramus:

Your lips give forth honeycomb, honey liquefied through the wax.

This bears on that saying of the Comic poet: "Your tongues are set in honey": the sense comes to the same thing, as if to say: Your lips are as a honeycomb, which drip a honeycomb, that is, the honey of a honeycomb: that is, your speech is most sweet, so that you seem to drop and pour forth as many honeyed words as you speak from your mouth, just as if bees had built honeycombs in your mouth as in a hive. Aptly is this saying appended to the preceding one about the breasts, because the breasts of the Church, that is, of her teachers, are lips dripping the honeycomb of wisdom and of Christian eloquence, by which she begets sons, that is, the faithful, and nourishes those she has begotten: and therefore she here repeats and doubles only the breasts and the lips of the bride: for a little before she praised the same things at verse 3, saying: "Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your speech is sweet," where I have said more on this matter: wherefore here I shall be brief.

I have gathered many parallels of the honeycomb and of the sweet tongue at Proverbs 16:24, and at chapter 24, verse 13, on the words: "Eat, my son, honey." The reason a priori is that speech of the mouth and its quality flows from the affection of the heart: for as the heart is, so is the mouth and the speech; the sweetness of speech, therefore, shows, and as it were carries with it, the sweetness and love of the heart: wherefore one who speaks sweetly to another, as it were, pours out his heart into him, and thereby pledges his love to him, indeed actually delivers it: for love is the magnet of love, for by nothing are the minds of men so drawn as by love: for he who sees himself loved by another is, as it were, compelled by that one's love to love him in return, to obey his counsels, and to submit himself to him. This is what he says: "Honey and milk are under your tongue"; the Syriac, all honey is under your lips, as if to say: Under your tongue lies hidden the heart, which, as a storehouse of honey and milk, communicates and instills its honeyed and milky sweetness and love to the tongue, so that it may bring forth sweet and lovable words, by which it may allure and carry away the hearts of those who hear. Sweet words, therefore, are first formed in the heart, and by the sweet heart, and pass from it into the tongue: wherefore by St. Augustine, book XV of On the Trinity, chapter X, they are called the words of the heart. And for this reason the preacher, and whoever tries to persuade another to virtue or to some good work, ought first to arouse in himself the same affection and love, so that, kindled by it, he may impress the same more easily and more ardently upon others by speaking: for this affection and love makes even bitter things — such as the fear of death, of judgment, and of hell, which preachers must instill in their hearers — savory, sweet, and pleasing: St. Gregory adds, Morals, chapter V, that preachers, when they chastise vices and the vicious rather bitterly, ought to sweeten the bitterness with the honey of sweetness mixed in.

Again, honey and milk are stored under the tongue of the bride, as if to say: You do not rashly bring forth your gift of speech, nor do you boast of it, but you conceal it and, as it were, cover it with your tongue. On this John of Carmel notes that honey and milk are for this reason hidden under the tongue of the bride, lest she pour forth both at once, if it should float on the tongue and not be enclosed within, but rather should tarry with prior meditation, so that from it, as from a storeroom, she may bring forth either honey or milk, as opportunity allows: milk indeed for those who are still tender and yet in the infancy of virtue, but honey for those more advanced.

Symbolically, the honeycomb of honey is the sacred Scripture — so Cassiodorus, Aponius, Philo, and Theodoret; hear him: "Now the honeycombs of honey, which are carried on the lips of teachers, are the divine Scriptures, which contain the bees that are the makers both of the wax and of the honey, namely the holy prophets and apostles, who, flying through the meadows of the Holy Spirit and building the cells of the divine Scriptures, and filling them with the honey and nectar of doctrine, have transmitted their usefulness to us; and the letter indeed seems like the wax, but the sense hidden within it like the honey." Hence in former times milk and honey were given to the newly baptized, that the sweetness of doctrine and of the Christian life might thus be represented; whence Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown, chapter III: "Thrice, he says, we are plunged, whence, having been conceived, we taste beforehand the concord of milk and honey."

FIRST, THE PROPER SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.

The Church, that is, the teachers of the Church, the preachers, and the rest of the faithful and the saints, are a dripping honeycomb, since their mouth and lips drip milk and honey of sacred doctrine, and so are full of sweetness and pleasantness, as well as of discretion, so that they drip milk for the tender and the untrained, but honey, that is, more solid doctrine, for the more advanced. The sense, then, is, as if to say: Your lips, that is, your speech, O Church, imitate a dripping honeycomb: for it is itself a kind of instillation of honey, which you, O bride, preserve as a waxen cell of the comb, while you store me — who am called honey in a hidden way on account of my sweetness — in the receptacle of your mind, and thence, when you speak, pour forth: so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Bede, Theodoret, Aponius, Philo, Justus, Anselm, and others. Hear Bede, who shows how the lips of preachers are both a honeycomb and, at the same time, a fillet, as I said at verse 3: "Since the one, he says, delights by satisfying the throat, the other binds by encircling the hair; the one refreshes within, the other binds without. For the same teachers are both fillets in wholesome precepts, and a honeycomb in heavenly promises: fillets, in that they restrain us from the flow of carnal pleasures; a honeycomb, in that they promise us the gifts of heavenly joys; likewise they are fillets in those things which they teach are openly to be done or avoided; a honeycomb in those things which, done or said typologically, disclose what they hold within of a saving mystery."

The speech of the saints is compared to a honeycomb: first, because as a honeycomb drips honey, so their speech drips wisdom and sweetness. Second, as a honeycomb is built by bees with wondrous craft, so also the speech of a wise man is most prudently conceived and put together, and from it flow its grace and sweetness, according to that of Proverbs 10:20: "Choice silver, the tongue of the just"; and chapter 16:24: "Well-ordered words are a honeycomb of honey: sweetness to the soul, health to the bones." Third, as a honeycomb is formed by the bee dwelling within it, so speech is formed by the heart, according to that of Proverbs 14:33: "In the heart of the prudent wisdom rests, and she will instruct all the unlearned"; and chapter 16:23: "The heart of the wise instructs his mouth, and adds grace to his lips." Fourth, as bees in the honeycomb bring forth and nurture their young, so the sweet speech of the saints brings forth many children for Christ: for the saints know how to give sweetness and grace to their words, so that they may allure and capture their hearers as if with honey, according to that of Proverbs 10:21: "The lips of the just instruct many; but the unlearned shall die in want of heart."

SECOND, PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Holy Soul.

The mental lips of the holy soul drip milk and honey, when they pour forth into the ears of God prayer and orison seasoned with the sweet tears of compunction and love: wherefore then the soul gives a kiss and in turn receives one from God; indeed the soul pours out its spirit, as it were, into God, and in turn receives and draws in the spirit of God. Wherefore then the scent of her garments is like the scent of frankincense; the garments are the external virtues, such as modesty, restraint, humility, reverence, obedience: these breathe forth the scent of frankincense, that is, a scent most pleasing in the nostrils of God, and so they are themselves as it were frankincense, that is, a mystical offering and sacrifice, which God smells, as an odor of sweetness. Again, they are frankincense to men, because to them they breathe forth and instill the sweetest scent of the virtues. He compares them to frankincense above other spices, because frankincense above all is the most fragrant, as well as the brightest; whence in Hebrew it is called לבנון labanon from לבן laban, that is, white. Hence too frankincense, the brighter it is, the better and more fragrant it is; whence, Exodus 30:40, in the incense that was burned to God, the brightest frankincense is commanded to be used: so the virtues in themselves are most bright, because most pure, but to others they are most fragrant: for, as St. Bernard says, they have their own colors, and their own scents; scent in reputation, color in conscience. Furthermore, as a garment is woven from many threads, so holiness is woven from many virtues: the threads, then, of which it is woven, are charity, joy, peace, etc., which Paul lists, Galatians 5:22. So Nyssen.

This bears on the Chaldee version: "And at the time when the priests were in the court of the sanctuary, their lips dripped the honeycomb of honey: and your tongue is like a virtuous bride in your speech; songs and praises sweet as milk and honey: and the scent of the priests' garments, like the scent of the spices of Lebanon." Hear Gilbert here, sermon 34: "He who does everything so as to please Him to whom he has proved himself, God, that he may merit His favor, assuredly the scent of his garments is like the scent of frankincense. And indeed frankincense is not wont, nor ought, to be offered except to God alone; therefore the scent of his garments is like the scent of frankincense, since whatever he does, whether openly or secretly, he refers to the obtaining of the divine appeasement."

Finally, the bridegroom fittingly likens the scent of the garments to frankincense together with the honeyed tongue of the bride, both because the speech of the tongue, as well as the external actions signified by the garments, look to the external comeliness of the bride, just as faith, hope, charity, etc., look to the internal; and because honeyed speech is wonderfully adorned and perfected by honeyed external actions of beneficence, humility, modesty, patience, and especially of religion, devotion, and prayer — for then every action, and every habit and external composure, breathes frankincense, when it exhales piety and devotion, and thence is born and flows forth the sweet and gracious eloquence of the tongue. Moreover this must be done by every one of the faithful, especially by a zealot for souls, that all his speech and action exhale the frankincense of religion, indeed the frankincense of divinity, so that his words and deeds may seem not so much human as divine, and proceeding from God. Wherefore Nyssen, in the treatise on What the Christian Profession Means, defines Christianity, or the Christian life, thus: Christianity is the imitation of the divine nature, or the imitation of Christ and of God incarnate, so that Christ may seem to live, speak, and act in the Christian. If anyone, then, he says, assumes the name of Christ, but does not express His character in his life, this man falsely claims the name of Christ; just as a monkey imitating a man falsely assumes the person of a man. For Christ is justice, purity, and truth, and the avoidance of every evil: wherefore he cannot be a Christian who does not show in himself the communion and fellowship of these virtues; but he is truly a Christian who represents in all his actions the meekness, beneficence, devotion, and spirit of Christ, and breathes them upon his neighbors, so that whoever sees the Christian may reckon that he beholds and looks upon Christ speaking and acting in him. Now as the scent of frankincense is vehement, sharp, abundant, and fervent, such likewise was every action of Christ, and such ought to be that of the Christian, especially of the apostolic man.

Gilbert notes, sermon 34, on the word "dripping," that it signifies, first, that the soul is full of honey, that is, of the sense of spiritual things, so that it is compelled to drip it forth; second, that she dispenses it discreetly and sparingly according to the capacity of her hearers: "Honey does not flow, he says, but rather drips: for she does not pour forth everywhere and without restraint those sublime and hidden senses of the heavenly secrets, the mysteries of the Godhead, nor does she offer the drink of milk without discernment." The acts of this dripping he thus recounts: "She remits, permits, promises, sends before. She remits sins, permits weaknesses, promises eternal things, and sends before certain firstfruits of these very things. She speaks wisdom among the perfect, wisdom indeed not of this world, but the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, and among those less spiritually wise she reckons that she knows nothing, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. She exhorts to perfection, she does not compel, but rather consoles the fainthearted, sustains the weak: and if she rebukes the restless, the rebuke itself tastes of a mother's sweetness; she has compassion on the sinner, she is indulgent to the converted, nor does she fix a number of indulgences, or as it were a limit which is not to be transgressed, to one who is bidden to forgive seventy times seven times a day to one confessing his sins that often. See how great a multitude of sweetness is in the lips of the bride, who, as often as you flow forth into evil, so often, if you are converted, drips down upon you into good, and is not exhausted by the number of times she grants pardon."

THIRD, PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

Rupert adapts these words to the Blessed Virgin thus: "You are sweet in mouth, sweet also in heart. This is what I now say, your lips are a dripping honeycomb, adding, honey and milk are under your tongue, that is, in your soul; there the honeycomb of your eloquence tastes sweetly to you yourself, a honeycomb dripping from your lips, gracious lips. I am your honeycomb, I am your honey and your milk, because I am your God and your son. This your soul feels, this your lips sound: you can speak nothing other than what you have in your breast; out of the abundance of the heart your lips speak." He adds then that the lips of the Blessed Virgin dripped honey, when with her lips she gave the sweetest and most devout kisses to the child Christ, and said: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth." Concerning the scent of the garments, he adds this: "The scent of your garments is like the scent of frankincense, because with more than a mother's love you wrapped me in swaddling clothes, and laid me in the manger; and so in all things you served me, mother and faithful virgin, as to God, to whom alone is owed the scent of frankincense in his sacrifice, although I was your little one, a little child."

But Hugh of St. Victor, volume II, sermon On the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, adding: "And the scent of your ointments above all spices," judges here that the Blessed Virgin is praised by the Holy Trinity on account of three gifts, namely, that in her lips she received the kiss of the Father, in her tongue the Word, that is, the Son, in her ointments the Holy Spirit. Hear him: "The honeycomb has honey and wax: the honey is the divinity, the wax the humanity, the honeycomb is the Word made flesh in the Virgin; as if God should say: I have experienced what I praise. Your lips are a dripping honeycomb; I, bound to you by charity, pressed your lips with the kiss of my mouth, and at the same time poured in sweetness, and from the sweet drew out sweetness. Deeply did I impress sweetness, and truly did I draw out pleasantness, when I joined mine to yours in you, and through yours went forth from you together with mine and yours. My divinity was the honey, and your humanity was the wax, and from these I made myself a honeycomb." He then continues with the rest: "Honey and milk are under your tongue, the Word under your flesh; under your tongue, because it is the Word; under your tongue, under your flesh, because it is hidden. Honey and milk, God and man; honey the divinity, milk the humanity: honey comes from the dew of heaven, because the divine nature is above all things: milk is pressed out from flesh, because the humanity was taken up from below. The scent of your ointments above all spices, because your sublimity conquers all grace, your dignity surpasses all perfection; because the Spirit rested singularly in your humility, he who wrought in your virginity a miracle comparable to none."

VERSE 12. A GARDEN ENCLOSED IS MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE: A GARDEN ENCLOSED, A FOUNTAIN SEALED.

A GARDEN ENCLOSED (with a bolt or bar, for this is what נעול naul means: the Arabic, bolted) IS MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE: A GARDEN ENCLOSED, A FOUNTAIN SEALED. — The Hebrew min chatum, that is, sealed with a seal; the Arabic, sealed. Understand this as a note of comparison or likeness, as if to say: My spouse is like a garden enclosed, or the spouse is similar to a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, that is, to a garden planted with the choicest plants and arranged by the topiary art to every elegance and pleasantness, and therefore enclosed, lest any heresy, impiety, or other fault or harm should either violently burst in upon it or fraudulently creep into it; but that it might be kept whole and untouched for Christ alone, and might produce for him the flowers and fruits of all virtues, with which it might delight and feed him. "Enclosed" is repeated twice, so that its twofold enclosure and bolt might be signified: the first is the guardianship of the holy angels and doctors; the second is the protection of God and Christ himself, according to that word, Zechariah 2:5: "And I will be to her, says the Lord, a wall of fire round about": so Cassiodorus, Bede, and others. Again, the Church is like a fountain unmuddied, most limpid and most wholesome, and therefore sealed, lest its crystalline stream of truth and doctrine be defiled by the mire of errors or vices: "For, as St. Ambrose says, book 2, On Virgins, it is therefore shut up, lest, scattered upon the wallowing-places of spiritual things, its streams be disturbed by mire"; whence John the Carmelite thus explains: "You have drunk the water of divine grace and life, which I gave you, and you have become a fountain of leaping water into life everlasting, into which grace by its own force ascends. And lest this water be stolen away or corrupted, I have sealed you with myself, as with a royal seal."

He compares the Church to a garden and paradise, which delights and feeds all the senses: namely, the eyes with the greenness of the plants and the variety of flowers and fruits; the ears with the song of birds, the nostrils with the scent of flowers and spices, the taste with the flavor of fruits, the touch with the handling of the same. For thus the Church refreshes and strengthens all the senses, all the powers of the mind, all the forces of the soul, by her doctrine, her sacraments, her rites and ceremonies, her virtues, examples, and other charisms, which she explains symbolically when she adds: "Your shoots are a paradise of pomegranates," etc. So St. Gregory, who reckons that the bolt by which the Church-garden is shut is charity. "The Holy Church," he says, "exists as a garden, because while she brings forth many peoples in the faith, the good earth sends forth, as it were, beautiful flowers. This garden is rightly said to be enclosed, because it is fortified all around by the rampart of charity, lest any reprobate should enter within the number of the elect." So too Philo of Carpathus reckons that the Church is called a garden, because she produces the fruits of every kind of holiness, such as apostles, virgins, martyrs, widows, married persons, the chaste, etc.; but it is said to be closed twice, he says, because of faith, hope, and charity

Our version translates "garden," for the Septuagint also translates it so, and some copies have גן gan, that is, garden, in place of גל gal, and this appears to be the true and genuine reading.

The Church is like a garden, or paradise, blooming with all graces and virtues as with heavenly plants, beautifully marked out into its own little plots, and skillfully arranged by the topiary art, and therefore enclosed lest it be plundered by travelers or trampled by beasts; and like a fountain gushing forth waters most clear and most sweet, and therefore sealed, lest it be in any way defiled, disturbed, or made muddy.

Further, Adrichomius, in his Description of the Holy Land, page 170, no. 189, depicts Solomon's enclosed garden according to the letter thus, from Josephus, Brochard, and Bredenbach: "The royal garden, which is called the enclosed garden, was a garden in the suburbs of Jerusalem, fenced and fortified on every side by walls: and, like paradise, pleasant with the abundance of trees, shrubs, herbs, spices, flowers, and fruits, suited to soothing and cherishing the senses, and fit for pleasurable retreats. In it was that famous fountain of Rogel and the stone of Zoeleth, of which frequent mention is made in Scripture: where Adonijah, when he had determined to reign, sacrificed victims, and held a feast together with his followers," 3 Kings 1:9. Hence, accordingly, the sealed fountain was the royal fountain of Rogel, irrigating the enclosed garden, as I have already said, from which the king drank. Just as among the Persians there was a fountain from which only the king and his firstborn son drank, so much so that if anyone else had drunk from it, he would be put to death, on the testimony of Athenaeus, book 12, chapter 3. A similar closed fountain is in Spain near Complutum, from which water is drawn for the king alone. In like manner, in desert places and others where there is a scarcity of water, fountains are closed and sealed, lest the water be exhausted by travelers, or defiled by mud or some other thing. Such was the fountain at which Rachel watered her father's sheep, Genesis chapter 29, verse 3.

Above he compared the spouse to frankincense, myrrh, and spices; now in general he compares the same to a garden abounding in these and other foliage, flowers, and fruits, and therefore enclosed; especially since with such things the luxurious Solomon fed himself, as appears from Ecclesiastes chapter 2. Further, in the second place, for "garden" the Hebrew is גל gal, which Isidore Clarius and R. Solomon first translate as "gate," so that there is here a threefold comparison, namely that the spouse is compared to an enclosed garden, to a closed gate (as also in Ezekiel chapter 44, verse 2), and to a sealed fountain. Secondly, others translate gal as "the rolling of waters" (for גלל galal is to roll, to roll back), that is, a spring or fountain; whence they render this verse thus: "a garden bolted is my sister, my spouse; a fountain sealed." Thirdly, best

is closed and bolted, against all the snares both of demons and of men. So St. Ambrose, book On the Good of Death, chapter 5, where he also adds that Plato, in the Symposium, borrowed his fable of the garden of Jove from this passage of the Canticle, as well as from Genesis chapter 2:8: "Hence," he says, "Plato composed for himself that garden, which elsewhere he called the garden of Jove, elsewhere the garden of the mind: for he said that Jove was both God and the mind of the whole. Into this garden, he says, the soul entered, whom he calls Penia, that she might fill herself with the abundance and riches of the garden, in which Porus, filled with drink, lay, who poured forth nectar. This, therefore, he composed out of the book of Canticles: because the soul cleaving to God has entered into the garden of the mind, in which was the abundance of diverse virtues, and the flowers of discourses. But who does not know that he thought the abundance of virtues was to be transferred from that paradise which we read of in Genesis, having the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other trees, and to be planted in the garden of the mind? Which garden, in the Song of Songs, Solomon signified to be the garden of the soul, or the soul itself; for thus it is written: A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse: a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed: your conduits are a paradise."

A holy soul, especially a perfect one, is an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain, because, blooming as it were with the pleasantness of the flowers and fruits of all virtues, and abounding in the waters of wisdom, she most diligently guards, closes, and seals them, lest the devil, the world, or the flesh should steal them away or defile them. Hear Richard of St. Victor: "The soul is a garden, in which are cultivated the plantings of the virtues and the seeds of spiritual pursuits: this garden is then dug, when the vices are uprooted to the root and the ways are changed. It is dug even more deeply when a man strives to know the nature and origins of the vices: for a lukewarm laborer, ignorant of the nature of the vices, will never be able to mortify the vices well. Therefore the memory of the divine passion must be dug, and those nails, with which the wicked pierced the hands and feet of the Lord, pierce it while we hold the memory of these things, and grieve with this sorrow, and consequently grieve over our sins, by which we recall ourselves ungrateful for such great benefits. From this gather that the holy soul is the garden of God, in which he himself sows not only the seeds of flowers, that is, of holy desires, but also scatters the seeds of fruits, that is, of holy actions.

You will ask, what is the bolt by which the garden of this soul is barred, and what is the seal by which its fountain is sealed? First, St. Gregory rightly answers that it is right intention: "The holy soul," he says, "is an enclosed garden, because while she sends forth virtues, she brings forth flowers; and while she refreshes herself with the gladness of the virtues, she guards the fruits which she had brought forth. For it is called an enclosed garden, because while by her good intention she hides herself in things eternal, while she utterly despises human praises, she fences herself about with that same good intention, lest the ancient enemy be able to break in to seize what is within. It is also called a fountain, because while she constantly thinks on heavenly things, while she always gathers the knowledge of the Scriptures into the belly of memory, the holy mind does not cease to generate in herself living waters, as it were, which she may be able to offer to her thirsting neighbors, that they may be refreshed; whence it is written, the Lord saying, John 4:13: Whoever shall drink of the water which I will give him shall not thirst forever: but the water which I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting. And elsewhere, chapter 7:38: He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But why is this fountain called sealed, except because the spiritual sense is hidden from unworthy minds? For to the unbelieving man it is said by the Lord, John 3:8: The Spirit breathes where he will: and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from, or where he goes."

Secondly, Justus of Urgel reckons this bolt to be the grace of Christ: so too St. Augustine, book 2, Against Cresconius, chapters 14 and 15, refuting the opinion of Cresconius who said that the seal of the spouse Church is baptism, teaches that the seal is the Spirit, who joins the faithful together in one Church: "By the abundant and invisible river of this fountain," he says, "God gladdens his city, of which the Prophet foretold, Psalm 45:5: The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God: for to this fountain no stranger, because none but one worthy of eternal life, approaches. This is the fountain proper to the Church of Christ,

she refreshes herself, she guards the same fruits which she had brought forth. For it is called an enclosed garden, because while by her good intention she hides herself in things eternal, while she utterly despises human praises, she fences herself about with that same good intention, lest the ancient enemy break in to seize what is within.

Fourthly, others say: The holy soul, they say, is a garden enclosed by the protection of God, and a fountain sealed by the pursuit of humility.

Fifthly, three Fathers in Theodoret assert that the sealed fountain is the mind sealed by the thought and love of God, whose image it is, which admits no thoughts of the devil, of concupiscence, or of the flesh; whence St. Ambrose, book On Isaac, chapter 1: "Beware," he says, "lest the vigor of your mind, bent by some union of bodily pleasure, be softened, and wholly dissolve into its embraces, and open its fountain, which ought to be closed and fenced about by the pursuit of intention and the consideration of reason."

Sixthly, Richard of St. Victor asserts that the bolt of the garden of the soul is silence and the guarding of the senses: "For by silence," he himself says, "one is cultivated in growth and righteousness, because the cultivation of righteousness requires silence. In which she restrains herself not only from things harmful, but also from things idle and superfluous, because through the smallest things one arrives at the greatest, and through idle things the mind is deceived, and led outside itself; as Gregory says: That by superfluous words the mind is scattered away from the censure of its own silence, as if led outside itself by so many streams. That she may therefore remain in herself and see herself, know herself, correct herself, she represses and tempers herself from idle and superfluous words. She also shuts up hearing and sight, lest they draw inward what might disturb or stain the mind."

He then adds another bolt of the soul, namely, to conceal her good deeds: "For not only," he says, "does she fortify and close this garden against outward dangers, but she hides her good things within herself and conceals them from men, knowing that when good works become known and are praised, they loosen and weaken the mind: for it is difficult for anyone to be praised and honored, and not to some extent take delight in his own praise, or even to glory inwardly; it is difficult for anyone to reckon himself an unprofitable servant, while by the testimony of good men he is proclaimed good; indeed it usually happens that, deceived by praise, he trusts reputation more than conscience: for the soul is enchanted by praises, so that she does not see her own evils, and falsely exalts herself concerning her righteousness;" and, having interposed several things, he adds: "By the sealed fountain, understand the spiritual understanding, impressed with the seal of the Holy Spirit, and fortified by the documents of sacred Scripture and the examples of the Fathers. For what such a soul tastes and perceives is neither corrupted by the evil spirit, nor in anything at odds with sound doctrine, nor found contrary to the examples of the saints, nor vitiated by harmful novelty or presumption. By this fountain are the plantings of this garden watered, because by this knowledge the virtues and good pursuits are formed, and make progress, and become discerning."

Symbolically, Nazianzen, in the Oration delivered to Gregory of Nyssa, understands by the enclosed garden and sealed fountain friendship and a true friend: for to him, in any necessity, as to a garden abounding in wholesome fruits of any help, and to a fountain of most limpid counsel, is a safe mico refuge: "A faithful friend," he says, "is an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain, which are fittingly opened and shared" with friends, not with enemies and foes.

Thirdly, Nyssen and Philo reckon it to be the observance of the commandments of God: "By this," they say, "the soul is closed and fenced about, lest she do any good for the sake of human praises; that she may not labor for the sake of these empty and perishable earthly things, but may live most honorably for the sake of those everlasting and heavenly things, which alone can fulfill and bless us: watching with the utmost diligence lest the ancient enemy break in to seize the goods within."

The Blessed Virgin is called by the Church in the Litany of Loreto, and is invoked as, garden enclosed, fountain sealed. Blessed Mary, as Justus of Urgel says, "a virgin conceiving, and a virgin bringing forth, showed in herself the unblemished glory of the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain:" so too Nyssen, On the Nativity of the Lord, St. Epiphanius, sermon On the Praises of the Mother of God, St. Ildephonsus, and St. Ambrose, On the Institution of a Virgin, chapter 8, and others teach that the Blessed Virgin is a garden and a fountain on account of her fruitfulness, but enclosed and sealed on account of her virginity; whence "the serpent had no entrance into this paradise," says Damascene, Oration 2, On the Assumption, and St. Jerome, book 1, Against Jovinian, about the middle: "That which is closed," he says, "and sealed bears a likeness to the mother of the Lord, a mother and a Virgin; whence also in the new sepulcher of the Savior, which had been hewn out of the hardest rock, no one had been laid either before or after. And yet this perpetual virgin is the mother of many virgins; for it follows: Your shoots are a paradise," etc.

Hence, in imitation and after the example of the Blessed Virgin, every virgin is an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain; sealed, I say, by the guarding of virginity, by the guarding of the eyes and ears, by virginal modesty, by silence, solitude, and the avoidance of men. So St. Ambrose, book 1, On Virgins: "A virgin," he says, "is like a garden inaccessible with flowers, she is redolent of the vine, fragrant of the olive, she gleams like the rose, so that in her life religion, in the olive peace, in the rose the modesty of consecrated virginity may grow: gird yourself, then, virgin, and if you wish such a garden to breathe upon you, close it with the prophetic precepts: Set a guard on your mouth, and a door of safety about your lips," Psalm 140:3. And St. Jerome, letter 22 to Eustochium, on the guarding of virginity: "Again," he says, "you will hear from the Bridegroom: A garden enclosed, etc., a fountain sealed. Take care that you do not go out of the house, and wish to see the daughters of a strange land, although you have the patriarchs as brothers, and rejoice in Israel as your father. Dinah, having gone out, is corrupted: I do not wish you to seek the Bridegroom through the streets, I do not wish you to go about the corners of the city."

Moreover, St. Ambrose, On the Institution of a Virgin, chapter 8: "You are an enclosed garden," he says, "O virgin, keep your fruits, let not thorns grow up in you, but let your grapes flourish; let no one take away the hedge of your modesty, for it is written, Ecclesiastes 10:8: And he who breaks through a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. You are a sealed fountain, O virgin: let no one pollute your water, let no one trouble it, that your image

Rupert adds that the Blessed Virgin is an enclosed garden on account of the virginity of her body, a sealed fountain on account of the inviolable integrity of her soul and mind: "because her mind was never penetrable by any idleness, by any special wickedness." Hear Sophronius, sermon On the Assumption of the Mother of God: "Thus Christ came forth from the Virgin, so that he was, as Ezekiel declares, a gate wholly shut: whence it is sung of her in the same Canticles: A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed: your shoots are a paradise. Truly a garden of delights, in which are planted every kind of flower and the fragrances of the virtues; and so enclosed that it knows not how to be violated, nor to be corrupted by any deceits of snares: and thus a fountain sealed with the seal of the whole Trinity, from which the fountain of life flows, in whose light we shall all see light, because, according to John, chapter 1, verse 9, he it is who enlightens every man coming into this world, whose issuing indeed from the womb is the paradise of all the citizens above."

VERSES 13 AND 14. Thy sendings-forth are a paradise of pomegranates, WITH THE FRUIT OF THE ORCHARDS. CYPRESS WITH SPIKENARD: SPIKENARD AND SAFFRON, SWEET CANE AND CINNAMON, WITH ALL THE TREES OF LEBANON: MYRRH AND ALOES, WITH ALL THE CHIEF OINTMENTS.

In Hebrew, besamim [בשמים], that is, spices, from which ointments are made: the pomegranate, or granatum, is common in Palestine and very beautiful, and therefore he here makes mention of it before the other fruits.

Thy sendings-forth — in Hebrew shelachayikh [שלחיך] — can, in the first place, be referred to the sweet breath and scents which the trees of the enclosed garden breathe out, as if to say: Thou, O bride, dost breathe out a sweet scent, such as the trees of paradise breathe out;

It smells of what Hybla and Attic flowers smell;

...que flowers;

secondly, to the gifts which the bride sent to the bridegroom as it were a dowry, or which she distributed among her companions: for these are called "sendings-forth," or things sent, as if to say: Thou hast sent me, thy bridegroom, the gifts of the fruits of paradise, or of thy garden — namely spikenard, saffron, cinnamon, myrrh, etc.; whence Theodoret says that she sent him all these things, and brought them at the time of the wedding: and so too Origen. To this St. Ambrose adds, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5, where by "sendings-forth" he understands the gifts which the bridegroom sent to the bride: "He praises," he says, "the gifts of the soul, which were sent by the bridegroom, with which she came endowed; but the dowry of a devout soul is good odors, of myrrh and aloe, by which the grace of gardens breathes forth, and the stench of sins is destroyed." Thirdly, Gilbert the Abbot, sermon 35, and Titelmann, understand "sendings-forth" as the waters which the sealed fountain sends forth into the bride's garden, that it may water and fructify it. Fourthly, and properly, "sendings-forth" are the offshoots of plants and trees, namely the shoots which roots or branches put forth, so as to produce leaves, flowers, and fruits: for these seem to be sent forth from the bosom of the earth or of the trees; whence Vatablus and

others translate it "thy plantations," or "thy plants"; Rabbi Solomon, "thy plots"; others, "thy gardens," as if to say: Thy plants, propagating themselves, O bride, are so many and so precious that they make a paradise — indeed, gathered together they are themselves a paradise of pomegranates and fruits of every kind. For he explains what he had said, "a garden enclosed," as if to say: Thou art therefore an enclosed garden, because thou art a precious paradise planted with pomegranates, fruits, cypress, spikenard, etc., which must therefore be shut up, lest it lie open to be plucked and trampled by thieves or beasts; whence the Arabic, for "sendings-forth," etc., translates: "a fruit-bearing garden of foliage, of branches, flowers with the variety of the colors of Lebanon."

For "of fruits," in Hebrew it is megadim [מגדים], which signifies the best, sweetest fruits, the very delights of paradise: for megadim, both in letters and in meaning, alludes to maadannim [מעדנים], that is, delights, dainties, delicacies; "fruits" here therefore signify figs, pears, cherries, almonds, and all fruits, even nuts: otherwise, "fruits" (poma) are called those which have a softer rind; "nuts," those with a harder one: the Septuagint translates akrodryōn [ἀκροδρύων], which the Complutensian and Vatican editions translate "of nuts." St. Ambrose, in his book On Isaac, chapter 5, and St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, translate it "of fruits": for akrodrya [ἀκρόδρυα] is the name given to all fruits, whether they be fruits (poma) or nuts; hence, expressing these fruits one by one, he adds, "cypress with spikenard," etc. Hence too, in Hebrew, "cypress" and "spikenard" are in the plural; there are signified here, therefore, the fruits of the shrub soon to be called spikenard, and of the other, called above cypress; whence he adds, "with all the trees of Lebanon." The Hebrew kaneh [קנה] is an aromatic and fragrant reed, as the Septuagint and others translate it. This alludes to the earthly paradise, for it was created by God in March, together with all these shrubs and trees, and at the same time with their fruits already ripe.

For "of Lebanon," in Hebrew it is lebona [לבנה], which properly signifies "frankincense"; whence the Arabic, the Syriac, and Vatablus translate, "with all the trees of frankincense," that is, frankincense-bearing: moreover frankincense, says Nyssa, "is a symbol of divinity: whoever, therefore, in all the pursuits of life shows in himself the likeness of the divine form, shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of Lebanon (of frankincense), by which the divine form is expressed."

For "aloe," in Hebrew it is ahaloth [אהלות], which word the Septuagint retains, and, contracting it by crasis, translates "aloth"; but the Hebrew ahaloth signifies "aloe." Symmachus translates it "thymiama" [incense], because, as Cassiodorus says, "the wood of the aloe is of the sweetest fragrance, so much so that it is burned on altars in place of incense."

He joins cypress with spikenard, spikenard with saffron, sweet cane with cinnamon, myrrh with aloe, because these plants have a certain sympathy among themselves, and where one is joined to another in planting, both grow the more happily, so that they seem to be twin sisters: hence too, if crushed together with a pestle they make a lozenge or a bundle, they smell wonderfully sweet. Like to this is that saying of Virgil, Eclogue.

"Sendings-forth" are the particular Churches, which the universal Church and its head — namely St. Peter, and the Roman Pontiff, through his priests and legates sent throughout the whole world from Jerusalem or Rome — founded, or founds, or advances in the various kingdoms and provinces of Asia, Africa, Europe, and India; according to that which the Psalmist sang of the Church under the metaphor of a vine, Psalm 79:12: "She hath stretched forth her branches unto the sea, and her shoots unto the river;" so Cassiodorus: for these breathe forth the sweetest fragrance of all virtues, as it were of trees and spices, so much so that they seem to be a paradise, and indeed in reality lead their faithful to the heavenly paradise. Hence again, in them are the most precious plants of every kind, that is, all the orders of the saints, which are numbered seven, according to the seven spices named here, namely: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, pontiffs, doctors, martyrs, virgins, together with the rest of the trees of Lebanon, that is, with the remaining company of the just, who by their holiness breathe forth the sweetest fragrance, and strive with all their strength toward the heavenly paradise. The Church, therefore, is not a garden of herbs, but a paradise of the most precious trees and spices.

Wherefore, for "sendings-forth," in Hebrew it is scelachim [שלחים], in Greek apostolai [ἀποστολαί], that is, "apostleship": for "apostle" in Hebrew is called scaluach [שלוח], in Chaldean sceliach [שליח], in Latin "legate," or "one sent"; whence Philo of Carpasia: "By the sendings-forth of paradise," he says, "which are called apostolai, are understood the most holy apostles, having as it were the washing of the sacred fount of the garden of delights; who, red on the outside like pomegranates in labors and hardships, and finally in the blood of martyrdom, brought forth very many men to the faith of Christ, as it were grains; and to these, as to little children, they offered the sweetest fruits of the heavenly trees, for the increase of faith and the works of charity." "Sendings-forth," therefore, are the particular Churches, raised up and founded by Christ and the apostles, and especially by St. Peter the Roman Pontiff, sent forth; in which are pomegranates and the fruits of the orchard, that is, the harmony of all virtues, both sublime and ordinary, says St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, and Nyssa: because the pomegranate bristles with thorns, says Sanchez, which keep away thieves, and has a bitter and harsh rind, which is the best guardian of the virtues. In the thorny branches, moreover, and in the bitter rind, he thinks is signified continence and a severe manner of living, which drives far from itself whatever lies in wait for the fruits of the pomegranate plant, that is, for the virtues, which are both elegantly red and pleasing to the palate. Theodoret, however, by "pomegranates" understands charity, which contains in itself the other virtues, just as the pomegranate its grains,

very numerous, embraces them among themselves, and unites and joins them together. St. Gregory, however, and Anselm, Hugh, and others, by "pomegranates" understand the martyrs, reddened with their own blood, whom the Church sent forth from herself as her first fruits: for these abounded in all the virtues as in a heap of grains, and these were the paradise of delights, because all torments seemed to them sweet and delightful out of love of Christ. Cassiodorus adds that any faithful who always keep in mind the memory of Christ's passion and live beneath the rind of the Church, are pomegranates.

Now he expresses this combination of virtues, item by item, in what follows, saying: "Cypress with spikenard, spikenard with saffron"; cypress, spikenard, and saffron denote the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, says Philo of Carpasia, and he adds the reason: "For cypress is a small shrub with a white flower hanging like ringlets, with very fragrant foliage, and a leaf like that of the olive. From it is made an ointment called cyprinum, most useful for many purposes: and it has leaves, flowers, fruits, and branches that are very useful; for it grows best in Ascalon of Judea and in the countryside of Egypt. Spikenard, too, is a most excellent medicinal shrub of Syria and India, reddish in color, leafy, very fragrant, of a bitter taste, retaining the sweetness of its scent for a very long time: it warms, dries, and is perpetually green: it is mixed into antidotes, and has most effective powers against very many diseases." He then proceeds to saffron and the other fruits: "Saffron, likewise, is a very well-known herb, whose use in medicine is most approved, especially that which comes from the promontory of Cilicia, called Corycian, which is of the greatest fragrance: it has a narrow leaf like a fine hair, a flower very similar in color to the rainbow, and shaped like a cup opening from narrow to wide: within which it puts forth a triple fruit, like a flame-colored tip from a single little root, furnished on either side with a double thread of yellow color; it delights in being trodden and crushed underfoot, and thrives the more happily by perishing: therefore it is most flourishing near springs and the paths of roads, and it is dissolved not by honey or something sweet, but by wine or water;

to this saffron, then, are compared those trained in the virtue of patience, and illustrious in the works of charity; who (like the threefold fruit of saffron springing forth from the one root of love) proved useful to God, to themselves, and to their neighbors; narrow in earthly things, but most ample in heavenly things; chastised and afflicted in body, but vigorous in soul, most joyful and immortal.

These properties of cypress, spikenard, and saffron are easily applied to faith, hope, and charity; cypress, then, because it is small, etc., denotes faith; spikenard, because it is buried in the ground by the better part of its root, and heals the cold diseases of the head, the stomach, and the spleen, denotes hope, which shakes off the cold of sloth, which is as it were the bond of faith and charity: hence spikenard is repeated twice, and is joined both to cypress and to saffron. Hear Aponius: "Since spikenard drives out the cold from chilled limbs, it signifies the consolation of the Holy Spirit and the hope thereof, which is spoken of, Matthew 5:8: Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Saffron, which is red with three threads of golden color, denotes charity toward the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; which the more it is trodden down and pressed, the more it rises up and grows: so Cassiodorus, Angelomus, Aponius, Willeramus, and Hailgrinus. The remaining four kinds of spices signify the four cardinal virtues, namely: sweet cane, or reed, because it is straight and like a royal scepter, denotes justice, for kings ought to administer this; cinnamon, because it is sharp, warming, and savory, and likewise makes foods savory, signifies wisdom and prudence — so Aponius and the three Anonymous [commentators] in Theodoret; myrrh, because being bitter it resists corruption, and keeps dead bodies incorrupt, denotes fortitude, which consists chiefly in the unconquered endurance of harsh things; aloe, which purges the belly and the body, and drives out harmful humors from the body, or restrains them, and therefore heals diseases, denotes temperance, which is the singular remedy for all diseases, and the medicine of health both of body and of soul. The rest of the trees of Lebanon denote the other virtues: so Delrio, Hugh of St. Victor, and others.

Again, these seven spices, representing the seven virtues already named, signify the seven states of the Church and the orders of the saints, whom we successively invoke in the litanies, in whom these seven virtues respectively shine forth. Cypress, then, denoting faith, represents the patriarchs: for in these the faith of the coming Messiah, of grace, and of the Gospel shone forth; whence, Romans chapter 4, verse 3: "Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice"; and therefore he is called the father of believers. Spikenard, denoting hope, represents the prophets, who hoped for the good things of the Messiah, which they prophesied; whence Isaiah, sighing toward him out of this hope, exclaims, chapter 45, verse 8: "Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just": the rest of the prophets do the same. Saffron, denoting charity, represents the apostles, for these, burning with the love of God, kindled the whole world with the same: for saffron is red, warms, dries, binds, and cheers, to such a degree that, taken in abundance, men are said to die soon after, poured out in laughter, says Matthiolus out of Dioscorides: the apostles did the same.

The reed, denoting justice, represents bishops, prelates, and princes, whose duty it is to guard private and public rights, sacred and profane. Cinnamon, denoting wisdom and prudence, represents doctors and preachers. Myrrh, denoting fortitude, represents the martyrs, who, most bravely enduring all adversities, contended even unto death for the faith and religion. Aloe, denoting temperance and continence, represents virgins and the continent: for aloe is bitter, warms the body, dries it, and purges it, and heals the diseases of the genital organs, says Matthiolus out of Dioscorides; the same thing continence and virginity do spiritually in the soul. All these, behold, are the "sendings-forth," that is, the shoots and fruits which the Church sends forth and puts forth from herself: so Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Justus, Bede,

All these things, which I have said of the Church, it is easy to adapt to the holy soul, the name being changed: "sendings-forth," therefore, that is, the offshoots and shoots which the garden of the holy soul, cultivated by pious discipline, sends forth from itself, are the acts of the virtues, both theological and cardinal. Likewise, the holy words which it sends forth from its mouth, so as to lead one's neighbors from vices to those same virtues, and to the discipline of Christ: so Cassiodorus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, homily 9, Bede, and St. Ambrose, On the Good of Death, chapter 5, who reads "thy transmissions are a paradise": "In that garden," he says, "there are good discourses: one that restrains fault, another that reproves iniquity, another that puts to death insolence and as it were buries it, when someone, corrected, renounces his errors."

Now assign, one by one, the virtues which I have reviewed, to each of the spices, in the manner which I have said; but because various Fathers attribute them otherwise, and in different ways, I have decided to weave in their views here for the benefit of the readers.

POMEGRANATES. — Gilbert, who continued the sermons of St. Bernard, sermon 33, by "pomegranates" understands the unanimity of a rule, or religious living unanimously in the same college or convent under regular discipline: "The grains of this fruit," he says, "cling together with an almost undivided face; they differ more in singularity of number than in kind: let us too learn to differ from one another in number, not in mind. They do not quarrel with one another, they do not murmur against the rind, they do not try to break through it, they patiently allow themselves to be enclosed as it were in its womb, so that they seem in a certain way to say that word, Psalm 132:1: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." He gives as an example his own religious, whom he addresses, saying: "Do not the brothers in this our order, as if in the rind of the pomegranate, glow red through imitation of the passion of Christ? In short, they are as it were certain grains of this fruit, who say that their native condition is contained beneath the hide of discipline, who reckon themselves not so much pressed as protected. Far be the love of property, far be the love of private power, and thou dost show thyself a grain of this fruit. Let others say, invited by our example, how good it is, and how pleasant, to dwell in a certain garden of communion, and under the protection of the rind; let charity unite, and let the rind protect. As many ordered communities as you see, so many understand as it were certain pomegranates."

CYPRESS. — First, by cypress understand faith, as I have said; Nyssa, however, and the three Anonymous [commentators] in Theodoret, understand charity: for cypress is warm, and charity is the warmth of the spirit. To this Cassiodorus and Bede agree, who by cypress understand grace, which rains down from heaven like manna: for as manna was as it were a white seed like coriander, so also is cypress. Secondly, St. Anselm: "Cypress," he says, "since it is a slender rod which grows to a great height, and has grains from which the royal ointment is made, signifies those saints who grow to a great height of virtues and put forth grains of good works, with which God is anointed and delighted."

To this Aponius agrees, who by cypress understands patience, for this "hath a perfect work," as St. James says, epistle chapter 1, verse 4: "Whence then," says Aponius, "come the good orders in the Church? If sadness be patiently borne": for "cypress" is interpreted "sadness."

SPIKENARD. — First, with Aponius, understand by spikenard hope; Richard of St. Victor, however, understands love: "Spikenard," he says, "with which the Lord's body was anointed, signifies the anointing of the love of God in the heart, because we are so anointed that we may not be overcome by the fire of tribulation; when grace refreshes and fills us, it makes us strong against adversities." To this Cassiodorus agrees: "Spikenard," he says, "is a type of the Lord's passion; whence Mary Magdalene anointed the head and feet of Jesus with spikenard ointment. And then is spikenard in the garden of the Church, when the saints venerate the memory of the Lord's passion, and give him thanks that he deigned to die for love of them." Secondly, St. Anselm, Hugh, and others, by spikenard understand humility, for spikenard is a low and fragrant herb: such also is humility. Thirdly, the three Anonymous [commentators] in Theodoret, by spikenard understand prudence, which mingles itself with all the virtues, just as spikenard does with all spices and ointments.

Furthermore, St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, who by the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain understands virginity and the virgins of the Church, by these seven spices understands the seven virtues of virgins: "In the pomegranates," he says, "and in the fruits, the harmony of all virtues is signified in virginity." Alcuin, however, adapting each item to each in turn: "Sendings-forth," he says, "signify good works, which are a paradise, that is, delightful things, because in Hebrew Eden signifies a garden of delights: and indeed it is called a paradise of pomegranates, because just as the pomegranate is red on the outside, and has a multitude of grains in one rind, so in the virgin a multitude of good works is held enclosed within the faith of the Lord's passion. With the fruits of the orchard, that is, with her honest and modest words, from which the fruit of instruction has proceeded into the minds of the faithful: namely, cypress signifying virginity, spikenard true charity, saffron divine wisdom, sweet cane humility and patience, cinnamon the sweetness of interior contemplation, all the trees of Lebanon all the other virtues which have some strength, and which whiten the mind spiritually, myrrh, which signifies the mortification of the flesh, aloe a good reputation, the chief ointments the gifts of the Holy Spirit."

...and by springs, most flourishing. But Christ embraced the cross, reproaches, and scourges, and, pressed down and trodden underfoot by these, rose again on the third day into the highest glory. The same has happened to all the holy followers of Christ: for the cross is the way to happiness, humility to loftiness, contempt to glory. Finally, John the Carmelite, by saffron understands humility, which rejoices to be trodden down, like saffron; and just as saffron resists drunkenness, so humility resists pride, which intoxicates and deranges the mind with a vain estimation of itself.

SWEET CANE. — Sweet cane denotes, first, justice, which resists avarice, just as the pipe resists dropsy: for avarice is a dropsy of the soul; Cassiodorus, however, by sweet cane understands humility: "From the fact," he says, "that it is a short shrub, which is also called cassia, with a purple bark, sweet cane signifies the saints outstanding in humility and patience, namely the poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven; and the purple bark signifies the passion of Christ, which the humble in spirit always keep in their heart, and strive to imitate." Secondly, Aponius and the three Anonymous [commentators] in Theodoret, by sweet cane understand temperance, which, like a pipe, heals the infirmities of the inward parts by drying the humors through abstinence, and, like a pipe, raises the sober mind up on high to the contemplation of heavenly things. Thirdly, Hugh of St. Victor: "Sweet cane," he says, "are those compunct penitents who drive out, whether in themselves or in others, the hidden inward troubles of sins, through the grace of compunction, confession, or even of more effective admonition: for the pipe is indeed useful for curing the troubles of the inward parts." Fourthly, John the Carmelite, who by sweet cane, or reed, understands the cane that contains sugar, by it understands prayer: for this is as it were a heavenly pipe, sucking from God the sweetness of consolations, sweeter than all sugar.

CINNAMON. — By its sharpness, liveliness, and taste, cinnamon denotes wisdom and prudence, as I have said; Cassiodorus, however, and Anselm understand humility, because cinnamon grows from a short shrub of ashen color. Cosmas Damian understands piety: for this, like cinnamon, breathes out a sweet odor, and is useful for all things, as the Apostle says, 1 Timothy 4:8. Furthermore, some attribute wondrous powers to cinnamon, such as that, thrown into boiling water, it instantly cools it, that placed in the mouth of a sleeping person it makes him answer everything he is asked, etc., which things Nyssa recounts and applies to perfect men: but these are fabulous and false. More truly, Philo of Carpasia, by sweet cane and cinnamon, understands Sts. Peter and Paul, who filled the whole world with the fragrance of their preaching and holy life. Finally, Gilbert, sermon 36: "It is sweet cane," he says, "when the bride goes forth to God; cinnamon, when she is tempering herself to us"; and after some things: "Be like cinnamon; let your conversations, your common way of life, breathe forth grace; and if from thy own will

and purpose thou art sometimes bent back, let thy will, bent back at the judgment of thy elder, be as it were broken: let no murmur sound, no complaint. Be cinnamon: send forth the breath of grace, not the answer of injury: for this reason, broken, it sends forth a visible breath, because the virtue of humility profits and is proved in the weakness of vexation, and as it were of breaking. And it is called both breath and visible: breath, because tranquility is kept in the heart; visible, because it shines forth in the face."

WITH ALL THE TREES OF LEBANON. — which signify the other virtues, as I have said, although Cassiodorus, Anselm, and Richard, by the trees of Lebanon, understand eminent men and doctors. Hear Cassiodorus: "The trees of Lebanon excel in beauty, height, and strength, and therefore signify the holy doctors and all the perfect in the Church." For "of Lebanon," in Hebrew it is levona [לבונה], which properly signifies "frankincense"; whence the Arabic, the Syriac, and Vatablus translate, "with all the trees of frankincense," that is, frankincense-bearing: moreover frankincense, says Nyssa, "is a symbol of divinity: whoever, therefore, in all the pursuits of life shows in himself the likeness of the divine form, shows in himself the beauty of all the trees of Lebanon (of frankincense), by which the divine form is expressed."

MYRRH AND ALOE. — Myrrh denotes fortitude, aloe temperance; Theodoret, however, by myrrh understands mortification, by aloe the bitterness of temptations; Cassiodorus by myrrh understands continence, by aloe chastity; Anselm by myrrh understands the passion of martyrdom, by aloe the mortification of the flesh and penitence.

Symbolically, Nyssa: By these, he says, is shown, it seems, a fellowship with the burial of Christ; for no one becomes a partaker of the glory of God, who has not first been made conformable to the likeness of his death. So too Philo of Carpasia.

With all the chief ointments — that is, with all the chief charisms and gifts of the Holy Spirit: so the three Anonymous [commentators] in Theodoret, St. Anselm, Richard, and Hugh of St. Victor; Cassiodorus, however, by the chief ointments understands charity, of which the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 13: "I show unto you a more excellent way"; Nyssa, however, by these ointments understands the sincere dogmas of the Church and of the faith.

PARADISE. — Finally, the paradise of pomegranates is the religious orders and the cloisters of religious, in which all the spices of the virtues most joyfully germinate and most sweetly give forth their fragrance, as St. Bernard teaches, On Conversion, to the clergy, chapter 21. See Jerome Piatti, book 3, On the Good State of Religious Life, chapter 14, where he shows that the religious life is a paradise of delight.

The Blessed Virgin, says Rupert, is an enclosed garden and a paradise of delights, bringing forth the fruit of life, namely Christ, who has filled the world with seven spices, that is, with the sevenfold grace of the Spirit. "Spikenard," he says, "is thy humility, which greatly delighted the Most High, delighted me, thy beloved king, as thou thyself sayest, because while the king was at his repose, my spikenard gave forth its odor. Whatsoever of graces, whatsoever of virtues, whatsoever of heavenly workings the world has received, are thy sendings-forth; and where there were its thorns and briers, and thistle, burdock and thorn-bush, nettle and buckthorn, the whole company of wickednesses, there let there be cypress with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, sweet cane and cinnamon, myrrh and aloe, the whole company of graces." Then, he says, the chief ointments are all the bodily works of piety and mercy, by which the Blessed Virgin supplies the lack of spiritual goods in the trees of Lebanon, that is, in the rich and powerful. Hear also William: "Sendings-forth are the fruits sent forth from her; her one fruit is he who, from the efficacy of salvation, was called Jesus; but in that one fruit is a manifold fruit. In the one Savior of all, Jesus, Mary brought forth very many unto salvation; by bringing forth life, she brought forth many unto life. By the very fact that she is the mother of the head, she is the mother of many members. The mother of Christ is the mother of the members of Christ; because head and body are one Christ; bodily bringing forth the head, she spiritually brought forth the members; whence also she is called mother by all, and is honored by all with due worship, as a mother.

VERSE 15. A FOUNTAIN OF GARDENS: A WELL OF LIVING WATERS, WHICH FLOW WITH FORCE FROM LEBANON.

A Fountain of Gardens (the Arabic: fountain, garden): A WELL OF LIVING WATERS, WHICH FLOW WITH FORCE FROM LEBANON. — The Septuagint: a well of living and resounding water from Lebanon; St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17: and a rush descending from Lebanon; the fifth edition and Vatablus: which flow forth from Lebanon, that is, with great abundance as well as force, for this is produced by the abundance of waters gliding down from on high. Waters are called "living" which flow and well up continually from the veins of the earth, as happens in wells and fountains: for these are as it were the blood of the earth, and like a living thing bubble up from their own springs, are stirred, and flow perpetually, whereas standing waters remain motionless and are therefore called dead.

A Fountain of Gardens. — Some take this generally as any fountain which waters and fertilizes many gardens, of the kind that arise in great number on Lebanon and flow down into the valleys below; indeed R. Solomon and Gislerius take "Lebanon" to mean any pure and shining mountain from which fountains flow forth: for "Lebanon" in Hebrew is the same as "white" and "shining." But others take this specifically of a certain clear fountain welling up from Lebanon, and gliding down with a sweet murmur into the neighboring gardens, watering and fertilizing them: so Hortolanus, Titelmannus, Sotomaior, and others. This fountain, following Brocardus, Salignacus, Bredenbachius, and others, Adrichomius describes thus in his Description of the Holy Land, page 107, no. 48: "The fountain of gardens, of which mention is made in the Song of Solomon, gushes forth with force from Mount Lebanon, six miles from Tripoli, and, swelled within a short space, grows into a vehement and swift-flowing river, and with its waters, which are most clear, cold, and sweet, waters and fertilizes all the gardens (whence too it is called the fountain of gardens) and the whole region that lies between Lebanon and Tripoli. Besides some smaller ones, it divides itself into three great streams, of which the first flows between Tripoli and the Mountain of the Leopards into the Great Sea; the second, going around the Mountain of the Leopards, flows into the same sea; the third, flowing midway between Arcas and Raphaneas, cities of the kingdom of Agrippa, and washing Antaradus, at last empties itself into the aforesaid sea." Josephus, Book VII of the War, chapter XXIV, writes that this river is called the Sabbatic river, because by a miracle it flows abundantly on the Sabbath day, but on the other days it dries up and runs dry. Moreover fountains bring not only fruitfulness to gardens, but also great delight, refreshment, and satisfaction to those who look upon them, and to those who wash and drink, especially when, led down from the high mountains through channels into the garden valleys, they there leap up on high, even to their own source, by their own natural force and weight. They burst forth through the fashioned mouths of birds and beasts, and thereupon present to the ears the concert of birds and the harmony of instruments, such as are the hydraulic fountains of Este, Aldobrandini, and the like, which we behold at Tusculum and Tibur. For by these he compares the bride, on account of her elegance and charm, as altogether like to them.

A WELL OF LIVING WATERS. — This well, likewise, Adrichomius describes thus, page 6, no. 67: "The well of living waters, of which mention is made in the Song of Solomon, is situated, an outstanding and admirable spot, beside the road that leads to Tyre, and lies toward the north a little more than a mile from Sandalium Castle, and toward the south a small mile from Tyre. Although it is called a well in the singular, there are nevertheless four square fountains, of which the chief one has forty cubits on each side of the square, the rest twenty-five. All are enclosed by very strong walls, built of the hardest stones in indissoluble work. From these various aqueducts and streams are drawn off, which water and fertilize the whole plain of Tyre and all its gardens. These fountains are distant from the Great Sea a little more than a bowshot, in which so small a space they drive six mills, and then mingle themselves with the sea." Of this well William of Tyre also makes mention, in Book VII of the Holy War, chapter XXII, and Book XIII, chapter III. It alludes to the Jordan, which is formed in Lebanon from two fountains, Jor and Dan, flowing together, and is named Jordan, or Jordanes: for this river, flowing through the whole land of Israel, brings to it wondrous fruitfulness as well as pleasantness and cheerfulness, according to that: "The rush of the river makes glad the city of God," Psalm XLV, 5. This river, precisely according to the letter, is the waters of Siloe, which water the gardens of Jerusalem, to which this too alludes; whence the Chaldean renders: "And the waters of Siloe, which are led quietly, together with the rest of the waters that flow down from Lebanon, to water the land of Israel, because they apply themselves diligently to the words of the law, which are compared to a well of living waters, and in the righteousness of the libation of waters, which are poured out upon the altar in the house of the sanctuary, which is built in Jerusalem, which is called Lebanon."

The Church is a fountain of gardens and a well of living waters, that is, of most pure wisdom, sacred doctrine, and grace, which flow with force from Lebanon, that is, from Christ, exalted and white, abounding in the waters already spoken of, say Aponius, Richard, and others, according to that, Isaiah XII, 3: "You shall draw waters in joy from the fountains of the Savior"; and that, Ecclesiasticus XXIV, 35: "Who fills up wisdom as the Phison, and as the Tigris in the days of new fruits. Who fills up understanding as the Euphrates: who multiplies as the Jordan in the time of harvest. Who sends forth discipline as light, and stands forth as the Gehon in the day of vintage:" see what is said there. For the Church derives all the doctrine and grace which she draws from Christ into gardens, that is, into particular churches and assemblies, especially of clergy and religious, who are as it were the garden and paradise of the Lord: the same is called a well, on account of the depth of doctrine and mysteries which lie hidden within her, and with which she overflows and flows out to her faithful: so Cassiodorus, Aponius, Anselm, and others.

Now since the Church draws her doctrine, preaching, and the grace of Christ from Sacred Scripture, and from baptism and the other sacraments, hence these same things can consequently be understood here as well. Whence by the fountain and the well, Holy Scripture is understood by St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Bede, Justus, three Anonymous authors in Theodoret, Anselm, and Ambrose, On Isaac, chapter IV. Hear St. Gregory: "What is signified by the fountain and the well, but Holy Scripture? which so generates the water of wisdom that it always refreshes those who drink, and yet does not cease to flow; which is well said to belong to gardens, because Holy Scripture belongs especially to those in whose minds the seeds of the virtues arise. But we must ask why Scripture is called both fountain and well together, since a fountain appears on the surface, while a well, lying hidden in the depths, exercises all who seek it with greater labor. But it must be known that divine Scripture, being manifest in certain places, but showing itself obscure in others, is sometimes found easily like a fountain, so that it is drunk as from a fountain, and sometimes requires great searching, like a well, so that once found it may be taken up." Cassiodorus adds that the teachings of Sacred Scripture are called a fountain,

and a well of living waters, with respect to the doctrine of heretics, of which it is said, Jeremiah II, 13: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns."

Again, by the fountain and the well of living waters, you may understand baptism and the other sacraments: for these are as it were the seven fountains of grace: so St. Anselm. Hear St. Gregory: "The waters of the well flow from Lebanon, because in baptism each of the elect receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, by which, being enlightened, they understand the sense of Sacred Scripture: which knowledge of Holy Scripture flows with such force, that while it touches the elect, it removes them from the love of this life, and by the force of its rush carries across to eternal joys all who cling to it. For hence it is that it is written in the Psalm, Psalm XLV, 5: The rush of the river makes glad the city of God: for the rush of the river makes glad the city of God, when, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of Scripture, powerfully overflowing, gladdens the holy Church, or the mind of any wise man, by its infusion."

Bede judges that by the "rush" is signified the power and efficacy of apostolic preaching, which no one could resist.

And Richard of St. Victor: "By Lebanon," he says, "from which these waters flow, he understands Christ, the brightness of eternal light, because from Christ the time of grace began. From Lebanon," he says, "these waters flowed, that is, from Christ, when the Holy Spirit flowed into the disciples like a torrent, and inebriated them with the sweet abundance of his gifts. And when, at the Supper, Christ blessing the bread, the sacrament of the Eucharist began to be celebrated, and, his one passible presence being taken away, he remained with us in many places until the consummation of the age; having also been offered once on the cross, he is offered many times on the altar for us."

Furthermore, Theodoret and Anselm understand by Lebanon Jerusalem and Judea, from which the streams of the law flowed down with the rush of the Spirit to the Church: for Lebanon is the border of Judea.

Furthermore St. Ambrose, in the book On Naboth, chapter XII, understands by the well of living waters almsgiving, and gives the reason: "A well," he says, "if you draw nothing from it, is easily spoiled by idle sloth and degenerate stagnation; but when put to use it grows bright in appearance, and sweet to the taste: so too a heap of riches, sandy in its accumulation, is fair to look upon, but is held useless in idleness. Draw off, then, something from this well, and quench the burning fire, because almsgiving resists sins." See what is said, II Corinthians, chapters VIII and IX.

Finally, St. Anselm understands by Lebanon the perfect, who are made white by their virtues, from whom life-giving waters flow for the correction of their subjects with great abundance and force.

The Blessed Virgin was and is a fountain and a well of living waters, who so watered the barren world that she made it fruitful and pleasant like paradise, according to that, Ecclesiasticus XXIV, 41: "I, as a channel of a river, and as a conduit, came out of paradise; I said: I will water my garden:" so Rupert, who mystically applies the four rivers of paradise to the Blessed Virgin, and adds that she herself is the fountain and well of living waters, because she is the sanctuary of all the sacred Scriptures. The Blessed Virgin, then, is a fountain, both because she bore Christ for us and poured him forth; and because, by praying to her Son, she obtains and imparts to us every good thing. Hence Methodius, in the Hypapante, addresses the Blessed Virgin thus: "Hail, fountain of the Son's humanity, hail, shelter of mankind"; and St. Epiphanius, in his oration On the Mother of God: "Hail," he says, "full of grace, who satisfy the thirsty with the sweetness of a perennial fountain"; St. Ephrem too, in his Praise of the Mother of God, calls her the fountain of grace and of all consolation; St. Chrysostom: "Hail," he says, "who are the well of ever-living water." For, as Antoninus says, part IV, title 45, chapter XVII, § 4, "she herself gave to us, wretched captives, her own Son, God, as our ransom, to the hungry as their food for the journey, to those who labor as their reward, to the infirm as their medicine, and with him gave us the kingdom of heaven and every good."

Finally, the Sabbatic river rightly agrees with the Blessed Virgin: for to her, worship is religiously rendered by the Church in the Ecclesiastical Office and in the Sacrifice of the Mass on the Sabbath, on which day she, when Christ was dead, sustained the Church like a pillar, firmly believing and hoping that Christ would rise on the following Lord's Day. Hence she confers greater benefits on that very Sabbath day; whence also many of the faithful fast on the Sabbath in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and perform other offices of piety and penance, that they may obtain from her a sabbath, that is, a rest amid temptations and tribulations, and be led to the sabbath of eternal peace in heaven.

VERSE 16. ARISE, O NORTH WIND, AND COME, O SOUTH WIND, BLOW THROUGH MY GARDEN, AND LET ITS SPICES FLOW.

For "its," the Septuagint reads "my"; St. Jerome on Habakkuk III, Theodoret, and St. Ambrose, book I On Virginity, read "thy." Both are true, for what belongs to the bride belongs also to the bridegroom: for between spouses all things are shared: wherefore the Church, the bride, is the garden and paradise of Christ her bridegroom.

For "arise," the Hebrew is עורי uri, that is, to rouse, to awaken; the Syriac, "awake, thou who as it were sleepest"; this word is ambiguous, for first it can be taken as "arise," as if to say: Arise that thou mayest depart, hasten thy flight, withdraw quickly, O north wind, for thou art a cold and dry wind, scorching, drying and killing the plants, so that the south wind may come and succeed thee, which by its warmth and moisture quickens and fructifies the trees, that they may produce leaves, flowers, and fruit. Hence the south wind is called, as it were, "hauster," from drawing up the waters, says Isidore, book XIII of the Etymologies, chapter XI; "whence it also makes the air thick, and nourishes the clouds." In Greek it is called νότος from νοτίς, that is, moisture, says Nonius Marcellus: wherefore, when the south wind blows, one should sow and plant, not when the north wind blows. Hear Pliny, book XVIII, chapter XXXIV: "While this (the north wind) blows, do not plow, do not sow the crop, do not cast the seed: for it grips and batters the roots of the trees which thou art about to plant." For although the south wind is heavy and harmful to Italy and Spain, yet to Palestine and other regions it is pleasant, gentle and healthful: the north wind, however, is troublesome by its cold and stiffness: wherefore the north wind is called as it were binding and freezing the waters, says Richard of St. Victor, and therefore in sacred Scripture it is taken in a bad sense, because it is sinister and unlucky; whence Lucifer wished to sit in the sides of the north, Isaiah XIV, 14; but the south wind is taken in a good sense, and therefore in Hebrew it is called תימן theman, that is, right-hand and fortunate, from ימין iamin, that is, the right hand; whence, when it blows, the spices flow, and breathe out a pleasing fragrance, which when the north wind blows is held back and constricted; hence that saying, Jeremiah I, 14: "From the north shall all evil be spread abroad;" and Ecclesiasticus XLIII, 22: "The cold wind, the north wind, blew, and the crystal froze from the water; it shall rest upon every gathering of waters, and shall clothe itself with the waters as with a breastplate. And it shall devour the mountains, and burn up the desert, and quench the green, as with fire."

Secondly, the force of "arise" can be taken as referring to "blow," as if to say: Thou, O north wind, equally as thou, O south wind, act, arise, blow through my garden: for the north wind binds the plants in winter, so that the roots may fix themselves more firmly and spread in the earth; but the south wind, succeeding in springtime

Some, such as Nyssen, Theodoret, Psellus, the rabbis, Genebrard, and Sotomayor, hold that these are the words of the bride; almost all the rest, however, hold that they are the words of the bridegroom, who, having called the bride an enclosed garden, now commands the winds to blow through her and stir her, that the sweetness of her spices may breathe forth more fully, be perceived, and refresh both the bridegroom and the bride, as well as the companions and followers of each. Furthermore, the Chaldee understands by the north wind the table of the loaves of proposition, and by the south wind the candlestick, which was placed toward the south in the temple: for thus it says: "And on the north side was the table, and upon it the twelve loaves of the faces; and on the south side was the candlestick for giving light, and upon the altar the priests offered oblations, and burned upon it the incense of spices."

According to the former explanation already given, in which "arise" means the same as "go away and flee," O north wind, the sense is, as if to say: Arise, O north wind — that is, O devil, who rejoicest to sit in the north — for thou hast brought into men, in the time of the law of Moses and of nature, the north wind, that is, cold infidelity and the torpor of the virtues. When Christ comes, therefore, let the south wind come with him, that is, the Holy Spirit, who by the warmth and fervor of his grace may cause the Church and the faithful to breathe forth, through their holy works, the most delightful fragrance of every virtue. Depart, then, O north wind, far from our gardens, be gone, thou dreadful infidelity and impiety, who, as the north wind does the plants, so dost thou contract the hearts of men, and, quenching the heavenly warmth, dost force them to freeze. But thou, O south wind, come, blow through my gardens; warm the myrrh and the aloes, the cane and the cinnamon, and the rest of our aromatic plants, that, growing warm by thy heated breath, they may bring forth their native heat, and by its force pour out their most delightful liquefied juices: so say St. Gregory, Philo, Rupert, Anselm, Nyssen, Theodoret, Psellus, and St. Ambrose on Psalm I, and St. Augustine, epistle 120 to Honoratus, chapter XXII. This indeed came to pass at Pentecost, when the 120 disciples, who had been planted in the house of the Lord, by the breath of this south wind, that is, of the Holy Spirit,

poured forth streams of teaching in every kind of tongue, says Nyssen, who adds that by the force of the Holy Spirit the streams of waters were changed into streams of spices. Hear St. Gregory: "What is signified by the north wind, which binds fast in cold and makes things sluggish, but the unclean spirit, who, while he possesses all the reprobate, makes them sluggish in good work? But by the south wind, that is, the warm wind, the Holy Spirit is figured, who, while he touches the minds of the elect, releases them from all sluggishness and makes them fervent, that they may do the good things they desire. Hence the harshness of a persecution that blows against us profits no less than the sweetness of a prosperity and consolation that breathes upon us." Lucas the abbot, the continuator of Aponius, gives the reason, namely, that just as the cold of the north wind and the warmth of the south wind produce a tempered air in paradise, so the cold of tribulations mixed with the heat of consolations brings forth a just temper in the soul, so that it neither grows proud in prosperity, nor loses heart in adversity, but with equal constancy overcomes both. To this St. Anselm adds: "The north wind," he says, "stirring the trees, makes them germinate, that the south wind, succeeding it, may make them bring forth fruit: so persecution, when the fervor of charity succeeds it, makes the Church, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, bear fruit." Here belongs the exposition of Richard of St. Victor, who says that God sends, or permits, the north wind upon the soul, that is, tribulations and temptations, but immediately after it sends the south wind of consolations, which drive away, or mitigate and sweeten, the tribulations and temptations, since indeed, when the soul is tempted and afflicted, "the Holy Spirit shows it such sweetness that it perceives delight from the very adversities themselves: for then, when this south wind not only blows but blows through, that is, occupies the whole garden of the soul, so that it has sadness in nothing, the spices of its virtues flow, and indeed with such abundance that it accounts every adversity a prosperity, and turns outward losses into a gain for the soul; then patience becomes joyful, charity kind, humility devout, obedience ready, and it possesses the virtues not so much in desire as in effect." Finally, just as the north wind, being opposed to the south wind, by its cold increases and intensifies, through antiperistasis, the warmth and moisture of the south wind — whence, when the north wind blows, the south wind is warmer and more moist, says Aristotle in the Problems, section 26, number 29 — so tribulation increases and intensifies the warmth and consolation of the Holy Spirit, and causes the spices of the tears of pious devotion and of spiritual joy to flow.

But according to the latter exposition, in which the north wind is bidden to arise, that together with the south wind it may blow through the garden of the Church: first, Justus of Urgell understands by both the north wind and the south wind the Holy Spirit: for he, he says, is called "the north wind, in that he grants refreshment to those who burn; the south wind, in that he melts the hardened, whether to belief or to well-doing; and since in the two a single reality is discerned, he does not say, 'Blow ye,' but 'blow through my garden, and let its spices flow'; breathe into the believing people, that their good works may abound." Secondly, St. Ambrose, by the north wind, which embraces the neighboring West, and by the south wind, which embraces the neighboring East, understands the four quarters of the world, so that the sense is, as if to say: Come, O mortals, from all the quarters of the world, through faith in Christ, to the Church, that you may bring forth the fruit of good works, by which you may be saved. The same St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 12, by the cold north wind understands the unbelieving Gentiles, by the south wind the believing Jews, as though both were called to Christ, as if to say: "Arise, O north wind, that is, arise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, people of the nations, thou who hast long slept before, awake at last, and Christ shall shine upon thee."

According to the former sense, "arise" means, as if to say: Flee from the penitent soul, O north wind — that is, O sin, O devil; and come, O south wind — that is, O grace of God, O Holy Spirit; but according to the latter sense, symbolically, yet fittingly: first, by the north wind you may understand adversities, by the south wind prosperities; for Christ sends, or permits, both of these upon faithful souls (or, as some hold, the Church and the holy soul desire that both be sent upon itself and its own), because both work toward its advancement, so that from it may flow the spices of patience, temperance, modesty, and the other virtues: for with a view to these it is said, Psalm CXXV, 4: Turn again, O Lord, our captivity, as a stream in the south. Let the north wind, therefore, arise, and let the south wind come, and blow through the garden of the bridegroom, and let its spices flow, namely, that the evil spirit may depart from the Church, or from each chosen soul, and that the Holy Spirit may come, who, coming, may pour the fire of charity into their thoughts, and, once he has poured it in, may loose them from the torpor of negligence." He next adds the effect and the fruit: "While this is done, the spices flow, because, when the Holy Spirit comes, the heart which before was sluggish rouses itself to works, soon the report of the holy activity pleasantly runs through all one's neighbors, so that those who hear it are kindled to the same, and, the south wind blowing, that is, the Holy Spirit pouring himself in, they send forth the odors of the virtues, so that everywhere the holy garden may flourish, and after the flower may bring forth fruits fragrant and refreshing."

Secondly, by the breath of the north wind you may understand the terrible inspirations and impulses of the Holy Spirit, such as the fear of death, of judgment, of hell, which he sends upon sinners, or upon those tempted, that he may restrain them from evil; but by the breath of the south wind, the gentle inspirations, such as the hope of happiness, the impulses of divine love, the desire of heavenly glory, etc.: for by both of these, as by contrary winds, the Holy Spirit works, and urges the soul toward its advancement, that the spices may flow, that is, the works of the virtues. Moreover, Cassiodorus, Bede, and Cosmas understand both by

the north wind and the south wind temptations and tribulations, but by the raging north wind they understand persecutions, threats and torments; by the gentle-blowing south wind, however, the flatteries devised for deceiving, as if to say: "Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden," that is: burst in now (with my leave) upon my saints, ye impious men: swords, axes, crosses, wild beasts, furnaces, fires, and finally every whirlwind of torments gathered by your art, O demons, send them into my Church, rage as much as you please through the gardens of my Church: you will do nothing else but stir up the warmth of the plantation which my heavenly Father has planted. In the midst of torments you will hear nothing else from my saints but their professing my faith, and pouring out vows and prayers for their own torturers. In them you will see nothing else but proofs of faith, of charity, and of a great and unbroken spirit. From my saints you will experience nothing other than illustrious sayings and brave deeds: the fragrance of these spices shall torment you forever, but shall delight me beyond measure. Excellently does St. Basil say, epistle II to the presbyter of Nicopolis: "Persecutions," he says, "are hailstorms and torrents and whatever other things are sudden and temporal, which indeed easily injure and scatter soft things, but from solid and resisting things, if they fall upon them, they themselves rather suffer something than do them harm: so also those violent temptations stirred up against the Church were too weak to break the strength of the faith which is in Christ. And so, just as, when the cloud of hail has passed, and the torrent has flowed out of its channel, the one dissolves into calm weather, the other, absorbed into the deep, leaves dry and arid the path by which it had flowed: so too that tempest which has now seized us will, a little later, be no more, provided only that we endure, not

looking upon the things present, but stretching our hope toward those things which are a little further on." And St. Chrysostom, homily 25 on Matthew: "Whoever," he says, "strikes a diamond, is himself struck the more, and whoever kicks against a goad, without doubt is himself pricked, and is wounded by his own blows: and whoever attacks those who hold fast to virtue, is himself indeed undermined, and becomes the weaker in malice the longer he fights against virtue; and just as one who wraps fire in a garment does not indeed extinguish it, but burns the garment, so too those who persecuted, seized, and often bound those established in virtue, made them indeed more illustrious by all this, but utterly destroyed themselves."

According to the former sense, flee — the south wind who made fruitful the Blessed Virgin, that she might bring forth God in his humanity, was the Holy Spirit, according to that saying, Luke I, 35: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee;" and therefore by him the north wind was put to flight, that is, Lucifer, and the south wind was sent, that is, Gabriel, who brought her the joyful news of the Word to be incarnated. Again, the south wind, that is, the fervor of the Holy Spirit, continually impelled her to unceasing love of God, and to heroic acts of virtue.

According to the latter sense, the life of the Blessed Virgin, above all the just, was mingled with the north wind and the south wind, that is, with adversities and prosperities, with desolation and consolation, with sorrow and joy, as is evident to one who weighs it well.