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

VERSE 1. WHAT WILL YOU SEE IN THE SULAMITESS, BUT THE CHOIRS OF CAMPS? HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR STEPS IN SHOES, O DAUGHTER OF A PRINCE! THE JOINTS OF YOUR THIGHS ARE LIKE NECKLACES THAT ARE MADE BY THE HAND OF A CRAFTSMAN.

WHAT WILL YOU SEE (the Hebrew and the Septuagint have, what will you all see) IN THE SULAMITESS (many wrongly read, in the Sunamitess) BUT THE CHOIRS OF CAMPS? — The Septuagint render "choros" as χλωρόν, that is, grass, but it seems it should be read χορόν, that is, choir, as the Hebrew, the Chaldee, and the Latin have it: for what is the grass of camps? Hence the Septuagint as corrected at Rome have, what will you all see in the Sunamitess, who comes like the choirs of camps? St. Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian, of her who comes like choirs. Symmachus, stripped in the woundings of camps. Finally Aquila says, what will you behold as a spectacle, as it were, in the peaceful one? Pagninus, what will you all see in the Sulamitess? the choir of camps. Choirs are the assemblies of those exulting and singing, and dances of those leaping for joy. Wherefore Aben-Ezra and Luysius of León less correctly translate and interpret thus: what will you all see in the Sulamitess, O young maidens, who are so arranged, as it were two choirs of camps? These words belong to the end of the preceding chapter; hence in the Hebrew they are joined to it: for the Hebrews begin chapter VII from the following sentence: "How beautiful are your steps!" etc.

Now the choirs of camps are the dances, leapings, and dancings of triumphing soldiers; the Sulamitess, therefore, surrounded by armed soldiers, seems along with them to have gone forth and danced the warlike dance of arms, such as was once that which they called the pyrrhic. Here "chorus" in the singular denotes a collection, or assembly, of those singing and dancing; and "chori" in the plural, distributively, because in it there are many ranks of those singing and dancing.

is evident from the word "Sulamitess," that is, Jerusalemite, or Solomonic; by which word he accordingly denotes the Synagogue of the Jews, as I said at the preceding chapter, the last verse: for Solomon seems, besides Pharaoh's daughter, who represented the Church of the Gentiles, to have had another wife, the Sulamitess, that is, the Jerusalemite, beloved above all the rest, and joined in great love to Pharaoh's daughter, who represented the Church to be gathered from the Jews, says Alcazar in his Allusions to the Apocalypse, on these words of the Canticle. For Solomon, just as Christ, as is evident, Luke chapter XIX, 41, had great care for his Jewish nation, that it might be joined to Christ and the Church, and thus be saved. Therefore, just as he described the rise, progress, and perfection of the Church among the Gentiles, so here he describes the same in the Jews, who will be converted last, and thus consequently he goes on to describe the progress and perfection of the Church: for the Church will attain this when the Jews are converted, for then it will become, throughout the whole world, one fold and one shepherd.

Wherefore, just as St. John, describing in the Apocalypse the course and progress of the Church, chapter VI, after the various states of the Church symbolically shadowed forth in four horses, immediately in the sixth seal passes to the last times of Elijah and Antichrist, and then pursues them laboriously through 14 chapters, and at last, chapter XXI and chapter XXII, concludes by describing the glory of the saints in the heavenly Jerusalem: for there will be the consummation, triumph, and glorification of the Church: so too does Solomon do here altogether, as will be clear from what follows.

THE FIRST SENSE, THE ADEQUATE ONE. Concerning Christ and the Church.

St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Philo, Aponius, Honorius, Anselm, Alcuin, Haymo, and others hold that the Bridegroom is speaking here; these words, then, are those of the Bridegroom Christ (or, as others hold, of the Bride the Church: for she had a little before said to the Synagogue, "Return, return, O Sulamitess") exulting over the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews, to the Christian faith.

Therefore the Bridegroom Christ, just as in chapter VI he praised the beauty of the Church gathered from the Gentiles, so here he praises the beauty of the Church to be gathered from the Jews, as if to say: What will you see, O Church of the Gentiles, in the Sulamitess, that is, in the Synagogue of the Jews now converted to their Messiah and the true faith, but choirs of those singing and dancing for joy at so great a conversion; but choirs of camps, namely, that they may exult in such a way that at the same time they fight bravely against the antichristian and other infidels and impious men: "for camps belong to those who wage war, says St. Gregory; camps, therefore, will be seen in the Sunamitess, because for the faith which (the Synagogue) now assails, she will then fight vigorously against unbelievers"; whence the Syriac translates, what will you all see in the Sunamitess, who descends like a mound, or like the joy of camps triumphing over perfidy as over a conquered enemy? The Arabic, as it were choirs (others, dances) of camps coming. For the Jews, at the end of the world, recognizing their Elijah, and the Christ preached by him, condemning their own perfidy, will put on the zeal of Elijah, and will most fiercely fight for Christ,

as St. Paul did, made a Christian from a Jew. Thus Cassiodorus, St. Gregory, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, Honorius, William, Cosmas Damianus, Delrio, Alphonsus of Orozco, and Alcazar, book III of the Allusions to the Apocalypse, expound this of the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews, to Christ; some, however, as Theodoret, Justus, and St. Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian, understand it of the Church in general, fighting bravely with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and conquering them, and triumphing over them once conquered, keeping the choirs and dances of camps, that is, rejoicing in spirit, and singing psalms and giving thanks to God as the author of victory.

"Because," as Theodoret says, "choirs come from camps, for when soldiers have conquered in camp, they return singing a paean of valor, and leading choirs, they celebrate with praises the proclamation of victory," just as the Israelites made choirs and dances when Goliath was laid low by David: whence, as he returned from that slaughter, there met him "women from all the cities of Israel, singing, and leading choirs, and saying: Saul struck a thousand, and David ten thousand," 1 Kings XVIII, 6. Much greater is the choir and exultation of a soul fighting for virtue against vices, and vanquishing and overcoming them. Hear Theodoret himself: "The Bride exists as a choir, bearing divine praises on her mouth: which indeed the blessed David shows, Psalm CXVII, 15: The voice, he says, of exultation and of salvation is in the tabernacles of the just; and again, verse 27: Appoint a solemn day, in the thick boughs, even unto the horns of the altar. The blessed Paul declares the camps, 2 Corinthians X, 4: The weapons of our warfare, he says, are not carnal, but mighty to God for the destruction of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ."

Now Philo and Justus of Orgel understand by "choirs" the various orders of the saints in the Church, similar to the heavenly orders of angels, who, continually engaged in conflict, are, by God's protection, always unconquered.

Anagogically, St. Ambrose, in the oration On the Death of Valentinian, understands this of the victorious soul, the world being conquered, triumphing in the heavens. Hear him: "What will you all see in the Sulamitess, who comes like the choirs of camps? that is, in her who fought much and against very many while in the body: for she fought against outside enemies, she fought against the slippery changes of the age, she fought against the frailties of the body, against manifold passions." For those who dwell there, therefore, camps will be turned into choirs of those dancing and exulting for victory.

Symbolically, our Alcazar, book III of the Allusions to the Apocalypse, at this passage of the Canticle, understands by the choirs of camps the religious orders, and especially those assemblies which labor strenuously in propagating the Church, and in defending her against heretics and other infidels: for these, like soldiers and the unconquered battle-lines of Christ, together with Elijah and Enoch, will convert the Jews at the end of the world, and will fight most bravely against Antichrist. The Sulamitess rightly represents these, that is

Those who understand by the chariots of Aminadab the Turks, understand by the choirs of camps the military orders opposed to the Turks, such as the Teutonic Knights, the Knights of Jerusalem, the Templars of St. John, of St. James, etc.; likewise Charles Martel, Charlemagne, St. Louis, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin, Charles V, and others who routed the Saracens; whence Genebrard notes in his Chronology that in almost the same year in which the Ottoman usurped the empire of the Turks, God created Rudolph of Habsburg emperor of the Christians, from whom the Austrians descend, as though he seemed to have set them against the Ottomans; just as the Hebrews relate that on the very day on which Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, Cyrus was born, who destroyed his descendants.

But those who understand by the chariots of Aminadab the antipopes and their schisms, understand by the choirs of camps the true pontiffs, bishops, kings, and princes, who cast them down from the pontifical see which they had invaded. And those who understand by the chariots the emperors harassing the Church, and other tyrants, or libertines profaning the dogmas, laws, and sanctions of the Church, understand by the choirs of camps the ecumenical and national councils, and besides these the academies instituted among Christians against them, such as those of Paris, Oxford, Cologne, Salamanca, Padua, Louvain, etc.; likewise the religious orders which God has raised up in every age to reform the sanctity of faith and morals; or which, once raised up but growing old, he has renewed, and called back to their original splendor and fervor. So against the heresy of the sect of the carnal-minded, which occupied the world some six hundred years before, so that most gave themselves to gluttony and luxury, he set St. Romuald and the Camaldolese, who by their austerity and example might chastise this excess; so against Abelard he set St. Bernard; against the Albigensians, Sts. Dominic and Francis; against Luther and Calvin, St. Ignatius and the Society of Jesus.

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

The holy soul, by the unconquered strength of a lofty spirit, fighting bravely with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and conquering them, and triumphing over them once conquered, keeps the choirs and dances of camps, that is, rejoices in spirit, and sings psalms and gives thanks to God as the author of victory.

peaceful, because religious, with the movements of the soul at peace, announce and reconcile the peace of Christ to all, according to that word of Christ, Matthew V, 9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." To these rightly belongs what the choir of the heavenly host sang to Christ at his birth, Luke II, 14: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will"; for religious, as it were the paid soldiers of Christ, wage war on demons and vices, so that men may enjoy divine peace. I note, says Alcazar, that it was rightly observed by Honorius that the whole universal Church is indeed one Bride of Christ; but that in this Canticle she is considered as four brides of Christ: of whom the first is the firstfruits of the Synagogue; the second, the Church of the Gentiles; the third, the remnant of the Jews; the fourth, the Gentiles still remaining, and all the surviving heretics, the partisans of Antichrist. But indeed I find in this Canticle only three brides: mother, daughter, granddaughter: the mother is the firstborn Church, whom the shepherdess represented; the Egyptian woman represented the daughter, and this is the Roman Church; the religious Church, finally, whom the Sulamitess represents, is the granddaughter.

Hear Honorius: "While every secular man wonders at the sudden conversion of this one (who, leaving the world, enters religion to die to it), he is told by the spiritual, Canticle VII, 1: What will you all see in the Sulamitess, but the choirs of camps? In a soul formerly captive to vices, but now converted to virtue, you will see nothing more but the praises of God, and the fight against the snares of the devil: for the converted always praise God for their conversion, and continually fight against vices."

Tropologically, St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian, understands by the sons of Aminadab, that is, of the people offering spontaneously, the virgins: for these dedicate virginity to Christ of their own accord, for this belongs to counsel, not to precept: I will cite his words below: for virgins are, as it were, the choirs of camps, continually fighting against the flesh, and therefore they themselves are like the chariots of Aminadab.

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

First, the angels sang these words as a sort of victory hymn to the Blessed Virgin ascending into heaven: for then all the orders of angels surrounded her, like battle-lines and choirs of camps, according to that word concerning Jacob fleeing his brother Esau, of the angels meeting him for his defense, Genesis XXXII, 2: "These are the camps of God." Second, "in her," says Hailgrinus, "are seen the choirs of camps, namely the battle-lines of the saints adhering to her, who together with her fight for us against the enemy; whence she is called the vessel of the camps in Ecclesiasticus, chapter XLIII, verse 9, where, under the light of the moon, it is said of her: The vessel of the camps on high, shining gloriously in the firmament of heaven." Third, Alan: "In the Virgin," he says, "there were

choirs of those singing, as regards the harmony of virtues; but camps of those fighting, according as the Virgin, hedged about and instructed by holy disciplines, repelled the assaults of vices and demons." Hence, as a type of the Blessed Virgin, "Miriam the sister of Moses" prefigured her, who, after the Red Sea had been crossed and Pharaoh drowned in it, "took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and choirs, to whom she sang before, saying, Exodus XV, 20: Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea." And Judith, to whom, after Holofernes was slain and his camp scattered, returning to Bethulia, Joachim together with all the priests sang, Judith XV, 10: "You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you are the honor of our people: because you have done manfully, and your heart has been strengthened, because you have loved chastity, and after your husband have known no other: therefore also the hand of the Lord has strengthened you, and therefore you shall be blessed forever."

HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE YOUR STEPS IN SHOES, O DAUGHTER OF A PRINCE!

In Hebrew, "daughter of Nadib" (Philo wrongly reads, Arab); thus the Septuagint, as if Nadab were the proper name of the bride's father; whence St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian, takes Nadib as a shortening of Aminadab, just as Emmanuel is shortened by the French into Noel: beautiful, he says, are your steps in shoes, sons of Aminadab; the Arabic, in the shoes of the daughters of Nadab; St. Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian, in shoes, O daughter of Aminadab, that is, daughter of a prince. This is fitting enough, that the daughter of Aminadab should be the bride of Solomon, who was called Aminadab, that is, prince of the people, as I said at chapter VI, 11: for in Scripture the bridegroom and husband is called the father of his bride, because he nourishes and protects her as a daughter, according to that word, Jeremiah III, 4: "Call me: My father, you are the guide of my virginity."

Some, taking the word "daughter" in its proper sense, hold that this bride was truly the daughter of Solomon: for Aminadab was the son of Solomon, and here the father of both, Solomon, celebrates throughout this whole Canticle the marriage-song of him with his bride, as it were with a daughter, that is, his daughter-in-law: so they hold, in a novel way. The rest take Nadab as an appellative, and translate it "of a prince"; Aquila, "of one giving freely," "of the generous"; Symmachus, "of a leader"; the Syriac, "of one prepared"; St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17, "of will," or "of good pleasure"; the Scholiast of the Vatican, "liberal," because, as St. Ambrose says, God, willing, well-pleased, and liberal, gathered together the Church.

In chapter VI, the bride, praising the bridegroom, begins from the head and ends at the feet; here, on the contrary, the bridegroom, praising the bride, begins from the feet and ends at the head: the reason for the difference is that the bridegroom came down from heaven to earth, to join the bride to himself; but the bride, called up from earth to heaven by the bridegroom, ascends upward. The praise of the bridegroom, therefore, is in his descent, the praise of the bride in her ascent; the praise of the bridegroom is in the condescension of calling the bride, the praise of the bride is in the dignity of the grace and glory to which she is called by the bridegroom.

Theodoret gives another reason: the praise of the bridegroom, he says, begins from the eyes, that is, from contemplation, and ends at the feet, that is, in action, because his action arises from and is directed by contemplation; but the praise of the bride begins from the feet, that is, from action, and ends at the head, that is, in contemplation: because she must begin from action, and from it proceed and advance even to contemplation.

By "steps" understand both the gait itself, and the feet with which we walk; whence Vatablus translates, how beautiful are your shod feet, O daughter of a prince! as if to say: how beautiful are the shoes and buskins you have! how magnificently do you walk, shod and buskined with them! for of old noble women adorned their shoes and buskins with pearls, gems, and gold, as Pliny attests, book IX, chapter XXXV, and Clement of Alexandria, book II of the Pedagogue, chapter XI. Thus the eyes of Holofernes are said to have been captivated by sandals, Judith chapter IX, verse 13, and chapter XVI, verse 11: "Her sandals," it says, "ravished his eyes, her beauty took his soul captive, she cut off his neck with a dagger"; and Isaiah III, 18: "The Lord," it says, "will take away the ornament (in Hebrew, the glory) of the shoes." Thus India used to pay St. Catherine, queen of Portugal, a great weight of gold for her shoes or slippers, which St. Francis Xavier asked to be converted by her into help for the newly baptized, saying that she would ascend into heaven much more easily with the slippers of the poor than with royal ones; wherefore he willingly obtained this very thing from her.

The Three Anonymous Commentators, R. Solomon, Genebrard, and Sanchez hold that these are the words of the young maidens celebrating the beauty of the bride. St. Gregory holds that here the bride the Church is praised by the bridegroom Christ, because she sent preachers to the Synagogue of the Jews, and converted them. Others, better, hold that Christ here praises the Synagogue of the Jews, recently converted; for the discourse has preceded concerning her.

Now the Chaldee translates, in Jewish fashion: "Solomon said, in the spirit of prophecy from before the face of the Lord: how beautiful are the feet of Israel when they go up, that they may appear before the Lord three times in the year with shoes of badger-skin, and offer their vows, and their voluntary oblations!"

THE FIRST SENSE, THE ADEQUATE ONE. Concerning Christ and the Church.

Christ says to the Synagogue of the Jews, now believing in him through the preaching of Elijah and others: How beautiful are your steps, by which you have come to me and to the Church! With what swift readiness have you run to the faith, and not only to the faith, but also to the preaching of the faith! For as soon as you were made faithful, you began to be a preacher of the gospel, and, after the manner of Paul, running through cities and provinces with great eagerness and fervor, and preaching, you have labored to bring your fellow Jews, and other nations, to Christ. This the Jews will do at the end of the world, converted by Elijah; this is what Isaiah says, chapter LII, verse 7, and from him Paul, Romans X, 15: "How beautiful are the feet of those who evangelize peace, who evangelize good things!" see what is said there; and Ephesians VI, 15: "Feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace": so St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Theodoret, Bede, Philo, St. Anselm, Honorius, and others, and St. Ambrose, sermon 17, who also adds that by shoes the common people are symbolically denoted: for these will be converted to Christ just as much as princes, and are often more skilled than they.

He alludes to chapter VI, verse 11: "My soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab," as though the Synagogue were saying: I, once living as a Jew, was troubled by the chariots of Aminadab, that is, by the so successful course of the gospel, by which the Gentiles throughout the whole world, like Aminadab, that is, a spontaneous and liberal people, freely submitted themselves to the faith and to Christ: for this I saw, and I envied it, thinking that just so much was being taken away from the law and from Moses, whom I followed; but now, enlightened outwardly by Elijah, and inwardly by God, I have believed in Christ, and have joined myself to the Church of the Gentiles, and have myself become Nadab, or Aminadab, that is, a spontaneous and liberal people, freely subjecting myself to Christ and to Christianity; and in this I rejoice and exult, and therefore, joined to the chariot of the gospel, like a mare I draw and drag it eagerly, that I may spread the faith and fame of Christ everywhere.

Theodoret gives another reason why the Church is called the daughter of Nadab: There was, he says, Nadab, who, Leviticus X, 1, when he had brought strange fire into the tabernacle of God, met the end of his life. We find, therefore, that the bride of the Lord, the Church, also brought into the divine tabernacle not the fire of the law, but that which she had received from the Bridegroom himself: for, he says, I have come to send fire into the world, and what do I desire, if it is already kindled? Luke XII, 49. This new fire, from the New Testament, the bride brought into the tabernacle of God, crying out and saying, Apocalypse XXI, 5: The old things have passed away, behold, all things are made new. Rightly, therefore, he calls her the daughter of Nadab, who offered the sacrifice of men with a new fire: for although they changed the fire with a different intention, yet the same thing was done by both. Thus Theodoret.

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

First, the soul which fixes its steps in the way of God's commandments, and in the path of the examples of the holy Fathers, walks beautifully, and tends straight toward heaven: for it tramples all earthly things, and all the affections and desires of the soul, with the shoe of mortification: for the shoe, because it is made from the skins of dead animals, signifies mortification, which is the straight way to perfection and glory: thus St. Gregory: "The holy Church (and any soul within her)," he says, "is called the daughter of a prince, because

she is regenerated into new life by the preaching of Christ, who, by the power of his divinity, rules over every creature which he made. But what are the shoes of the Church, but the examples of the fathers who went before, by which she is fortified on the way of this world, so that through all the tribulations which arise, she may walk on confidently, shod? Whence Paul elsewhere says to preachers, Ephesians VI, 15: Feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace. For shoes are made from dead animals, and we spiritually shoe our feet when we take examples from the holy fathers who are dead to the flesh, so that, in their likeness, we may overcome the temptations of this world."

Second, and rather, you may attribute this to apostolic men and preachers: whence the same St. Gregory: "It can, however," he says, "be understood that the Church is shod, when in her preaching she is fortified by the death of Christ to bear the evils that arise against her. Beautiful, therefore, are the shod steps of the bride, who is the daughter of a prince, because before the divine eyes the office of every elect one pleases, who preaches according to the examples of the fathers." So too St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17, verse 5, which see.

Third, and fittingly, you may understand this maxim literally, with the Three Anonymous Commentators, Theodoret, and St. Ambrose, concerning the modesty, gravity, and piety of one's gait and outward actions, which proceeds from an inward composure of the affections: for this strikes the eyes of those who behold it, and wonderfully refreshes and edifies them, as if to say: How well shod is your step, O faithful soul! For as you have all your affections composed within, so outwardly you walk, speak, act, and work modestly, gravely, chastely, decorously, and religiously, so that you draw all into love and admiration of you. He commends, therefore, external modesty and piety, which ought to be supremely dear to the heart of a holy soul, both because it is a sign of internal composure, and preserves it; and because it draws others to virtue. For since men cannot look upon internal virtues, they look upon the external, and from these are kindled to imitate the former: for this is "to telmor," that is, seemliness, which all look to and desire. See what is said there, Philippians IV, 5, on those words: "Let your modesty be known to all men."

Whence St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian, understands this walking in shoes of the beauty of chastity: "The bridegroom," he says, "is praised by the bride, and in turn praises the virgin bride, and says to her: Beautiful have your steps become in shoes, O daughter of Aminadab, which is interpreted as of a people offering spontaneously; for virginity is voluntary, and therefore the steps of the Church are praised together in the beauty of chastity." And St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17: "A good shoe for the soul," he says, "is chastity: a good step is the footprint of chastity, etc.; let us use the body, then, as a shoe for the lower works of virtue: for service, not for a headlong fall; for compliance, not for delight; for obedience, not for dissension; and let us place our footprint in the way of wisdom, lest some force of a torrent shut in our steps."

Now the phrase "in shoes" is added, that there may be signified a gait and progress in modesty, chastity, and every virtue that is continuous, constant, and strong, which, shod as it were with the shoes of constancy, may trample and overcome all the thorns of temptations and the hindrances of adversaries. Thus shod, and composed in all things, was the Blessed Asella, of whom St. Jerome, epistle 15 to Marcella, says: "Nothing," he says, "is more pleasant than her severity, nothing more severe than her pleasantness, nothing sadder than her sweetness, nothing sweeter than her sadness. Her paleness of face is such that, while it shows continence, it does not smack of ostentation; her speech is silent, and her silence speaks; her gait is neither hurried nor slow, her dress always the same, her neatness unstudied, and, in unadorned dress, adornment itself without adornment."

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

The Blessed Virgin was most excellently shod, because she was supremely composed in all the movements both of soul and of body, and, as it were the queen of the heavens, proceeded everywhere angelically, to such a degree that she was an object of admiration and astonishment to all the angels: especially when they saw her ascending into heaven with such glory and majesty, both in body and in soul, and surrounded and accompanied her, for honor's sake, like legions and choirs of camps. Hence by "daughter of a prince" Theodoret and St. Ambrose understand the daughter of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said, Psalm L, 14: "And confirm me with a princely spirit"; for who else is the daughter of the Holy Spirit, but the Blessed Virgin, to whom the archangel Gabriel announced, Luke I, 35: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you"; but Honorius says: the Blessed Virgin was the daughter of the prince, that is, of King David, to whom Christ was promised, that he would come forth from his stock, and consequently also his mother, the Mother of God.

Hear St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter XIV: "In this shoe (of the body) Mary walked beautifully, who, without any mixture of bodily intercourse, as a virgin brought forth the author of salvation; whence John excellently says, chapter I, verse 27: I am not worthy to loose the latchet of his shoe, that is, I am not worthy to comprehend the mystery of the incarnation within the narrow bounds of the human mind, or to expound it with the poverty of a meager speech"; hence also Isaiah said, chapter LIII, verse 8: "Who shall declare his generation?"

Rupert adds that slaves walk barefoot, but the free-born and noble walk shod; whence he says: "For this reason the serpent bit the heel of the handmaid (Eve), but you, O daughter of a prince, well shod, crushed the head of the serpent; you especially, O prince and singularly beloved lady, and, as I have already said, Canticle V, 2: My one dove, one to her who bore her, namely to a free generation, a generation not of the flesh, but of faith, who conceived me, a man, not of the flesh of a man, but of the Spirit of God, and brought forth the father or prince of children, not of the flesh, but of faith or of the promise."

More precisely, Alan: "Your steps," he says, "O glorious Virgin, are the nobility of your lineage, the integrity of flesh and mind, the fruitfulness of offspring. Your shoes are affection in meditations, effect in works, progress in desires, ecstasy in joys. But you are the principal daughter of the Prince, namely of God, who is the Prince of princes and the Lord of lords, who specially begot you by grace, specially formed you: yet in such a way the daughter of God, that you were also an untouched mother."

"Or by the feet and steps are understood the mental affections, which were wholly purified and adorned by the incarnation of Christ; by the shoes the divine incarnation is figured." And Hailgrinus: "Her (the Virgin's) thoughts and comely works of spiritual devotion and intention shone forth, like feet in shoes of hyacinth color (according to that word): I shod you with hyacinth-blue," Ezekiel XVI, 10: see what is said there.

Finally, William: "Not," he says, "by swiftness of foot, but by purity of affections, did she go from virtue to virtue, seeing the God of gods in Zion, Psalm LXXXIII, verse 8. She embraced the innocence of Abel, the obedience of Abraham, the gentleness of Moses, the humility of David, the patience of Job, the continence of Daniel. Shod most fittingly, therefore, with these and such examples of the fathers, she went from virtue to virtue in the well-worn steps of the soul; and in emulating the virtues of the fathers, she even surpassed the fathers themselves, whose emulator she rejoiced to be, by her surpassing purity of affections and prerogative of actions. The joints of your thighs are like necklaces (St. Ambrose, torques) that are made by the hand of a craftsman."

Under the joints of the thighs, understand by metonymy the thighs themselves, or the hips: which, like necklaces, are beautiful, muscular, round, and strong. Again, understand the joints as both the lower ones, by which the thighs are joined below with the knees; and rather the upper ones, by which the same are bound above with the bones and ribs of the belly.

He alludes to the touch of the angel, who, touching Jacob on the thigh, and dislocating its joint and sinew, made him lame, Genesis XXXII, 25 and 31; by which lameness of Jacob was foreshadowed that his descendants would be lame in faith and religion, so that now they would worship God, now idols; now oppose Christ, now embrace him.

But first, at the end of the world, the Synagogue, converted to Christ, will cleave strongly, with sturdy joints of the thighs, to the body of the Church, that is, to the rest of the faithful of the Gentiles, and to the head, Christ: wherefore then she will no longer limp in faith, but will walk in it uprightly and strongly, to follow it, preach it, and spread it, and this agilely and flexibly in every direction, wherever the spirit of Christ shall impel her: for this is signified by the joints, or vertebrae, of the thighs, which are agile and flexible in every direction at the nod of a man.

Hence, secondly, symbolically, the two joints of the thighs, says Cosmas Damianus, signify truth and charity, and their bond and union, as the Jews at the end of the world, to be converted, will join them. Hence again, thirdly, by the thighs are denoted the organs of generation near the thighs, and generation itself, as if to say: The Synagogue will have strong thighs, and therefore will beget strong sons for Christ: so Cassiodorus, Philo, Justus, St. Gregory, whom hear: "By the two thighs of the bride are meant the two peoples of the Church; by the joint of the thighs is designated the concord of the preachers, by whom the peoples are united, while circumcision and uncircumcision are instructed by them unto the catholic faith. These exist as necklaces, because, while by the wisdom in which they shine they do holy works, they bear, as it were, stones set in gold, of which it follows: Which are made by the hand of a craftsman. Necklaces are fashioned by the hand of a craftsman, because by the work of Christ the preachers are made beautiful and useful."

To this agrees the Chaldee: "And their sons, who came forth from their thigh, are beautiful like precious stones, which are set in the holy crown, which Bezaleel the craftsman made for Aaron the priest." St. Anselm adds that the Jews and the believing Gentiles are compared to necklaces, because they mutually admonish one another to cleave constantly to Christ, and fortify each other against the snares of the devil.

THE FIRST SENSE, THE ADEQUATE ONE. Concerning Christ and the Church.

These depend on the preceding sentence and on the choirs of camps (whence all the Bibles comprehend these three sentences under the same verse 1), and give the reason for them, as if Christ were saying: Therefore, O Synagogue, now converted to me, you go forth like choirs of camps, that is, your steps are beautiful, upright, and strong, because the joints, or vertebrae, of your thighs are beautiful, upright, and strong: for on these depends the beauty, as well as the uprightness and strength, of one's gait, namely that one may not limp, may not stumble, but with upright and strong thighs may walk uprightly and strongly.

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

The joints of the thighs signify, first, prudence and modesty in one's approach and in every external action; whence for "joints" the Septuagint translate ῥυθμοί, that is, rhythms, measures, cadences, the harmonies of songs, as if to say: As gracefully and rhythmically as a song proceeds in its measures, feet, and cadences, so graceful and composed may your gait, speech, and every external act be. Hear St. Ambrose, on Psalm CXVIII, sermon 17, verse 4: "So great, then, is the progress of the Church (and of the holy soul) signified, that she is compared to the most precious ornaments

and to the collars of those triumphing: for these ornaments belong to warriors. Whether, then, it be the generation of Christ from the Virgin, or the propagation of the Church, adorned in appearance indeed as though by the hand of a craftsman with collars, but in truth crowned the necks of her sons with the spiritual insignia of virtue." Second, the joints of the thighs signify the chastity of the holy soul: for in the act of generation the thighs are opened; but in continence they are joined and drawn together. Hence our Sanchez understands by the joints of the thighs the bands or clasps of the loin-cloths, or tunics, by which the thighs are covered and clothed: for the chaste fasten their loin-cloths, the unchaste loosen them. Hence that word of Ezekiel XVI, 25: "You have opened your feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied your fornication." Chastity, therefore, adorns the thighs like a most beautiful and most precious necklace, made by the hand of the highest craftsman, God: this the religious embrace, and the Jews will embrace at the end of the world, that they may preach Christ more effectively in word and example; whence St. John saw 144,000 virgins, who at the end of the world will follow the Lamb in virginity, Apocalypse chapter XIV, 1: so Philo Carpathius, who also adds that chastity is a work of the highest craftsman, God, like that which he fashioned in the womb of the Virgin.

Symbolically, the two thighs and their joint signify, first, the concord of all the faithful, their bond and joining in the twin charity of God and neighbor; for just as the thighs cohere with the rest of the members through the vertebrae, so must every believer be joined to other believers by true charity: so St. Gregory, Bede, and others; whence John the Carmelite explains it thus, as if to say: The fellowship in charity of the spiritual sons, who are propagated from your thigh, as it were, and are bound by a mutual bond of love, is like necklaces, or little chains, whose links are mutually interwoven.

Again, the joints of the thighs signify, second, the harmony of the virtues: thus Philo: "By the harmonies of the thighs," he says, "he sets forth the temperance of life and the holiness of morals, as a kind of heavenly harmony of divine wisdom: for since holy Scripture here says that the harmonies of the thighs are like collars wrought by the hand, or work, of a craftsman, it shows that one conspiracy and will of peoples agreeing well together unto one faith and glory has been leveled by the work of that highest craftsman, who fashioned heaven and earth." So too St. Ambrose, On the Death of the Emperor Valentinian: "The measures," he says, "of your thighs, like collars, that is, the grace and moderation harmonious with itself in all your deeds, has equaled the insignia of great triumphs."

This, then, is the necklace, this is the collar of the virtues, which St. Peter commends to the faithful, saying, 2nd Epistle I, 5: "But do you, employing all care, minister virtue in your faith, and in virtue knowledge, and in knowledge abstinence, and in abstinence patience, and in patience piety, and in piety love of brotherhood, and in love of brotherhood, charity." Moreover, third, the Three Anonymous Commentators, in Theodoret, understand by the joints of the two thighs the composure of the motions of both appetites, namely the irascible and the concupiscible, or of anger and of desire; for these, composed by the craftsman reason or mind, are beautiful, like necklaces fashioned out of gold with varied art and bending. Fourth, finally, Honorius holds that here, in the choirs of the camps of the Church, is denoted their second battle-line or order, which is that of the married, so that the joint of the thighs is the love and concord of spouses, which is the work and gift of the craftsman, God.

Tropologically, the same Honorius: "The thighs of the soul," he says, "are fear and love, through which it begets a good work, which is spiritual offspring, which will be heir of the kingdom; for through fear it turns away from evil, through love it does good; the joint of these is faith, by which it believes the punishment which it fears, and believes the joy which it loves. This joint is like necklaces; for as a necklace adorns and protects the breast, so faith adorns and protects the soul. This is made by the hand of a craftsman, because faith is given through Christ."

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

The two joints of the thighs of the Blessed Virgin are motherhood and virginity, for in their joint all her virtues, gifts, and prerogatives are clasped together, bound, and grounded. Again, what has been said of the holy soul applies above all to the Blessed Virgin, for her gait, and every action, was supremely modest, graceful, pious, and religious: besides this, there was in her the supreme harmony and consonance of all the virtues: moreover angelic chastity and virginity shone forth in her, on account of which she merited to be chosen as the mother of God: so Philo, St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter XV, and Rupert, who explains it thus: The joints of your thighs are like necklaces, that is, the integrity of your virginity and the perpetual guard of your chastity is fortified by heavenly garrisons. Whose work is this? Whose virtue? Surely of God the Most High; and this very thing, says a certain wise man, is wisdom, to know that continence is a gift of God. I say, then, not necklaces of any sort, but such as are made by the hand of a craftsman, that is, such as God alone can, or could, make and give.

William adds that near the thighs is the seat and movement of concupiscence, but that in the Virgin these were joined, covered, and adorned with the necklace of virginity, so that she felt no movement of the flesh in them: for the kindling-wood of concupiscence was extinguished in her. Hear Alan: "The thighs are wont to be signs of generation; but the joint of the thighs is understood to be nothing other than the concord of two fruitfulnesses, which were in the Virgin: one of the mind, the other of the womb. And this joint was like a necklace, that is, it had with it a twofold companion, the virginity of the flesh and the virginity of the mind.

By "necklace" chastity is wont to be denoted: for a necklace is wont to be set upon the breast for adornment, and as a sign of chastity; whence it is called monile [necklace], that is, monens [admonishing] chastity. The sense, then, is: The joints of your thighs are like necklaces, that is, as you are endowed with a twofold fruitfulness, so with a twofold virginity." Succinctly, but pointedly, Honorius in the Seal: "Your thighs," he says, "are blessed, from which came forth the precious pearl Christ, the ineffable necklace who is the adornment of the whole of creation. The craftsman is God the Father, his hand is the Son through whom he made all things, through whom also the incarnation was arranged." Finally, pressing the Seventy's rendering "necklaces," Hailgrinus: "She was blessed," he says, "not for herself alone, but for us also; not chaste or beautiful for herself alone, but for us also an admonisher of chastity; therefore she is compared to necklaces, which are called monilia as it were admonishing [monentia] chastity: for she, by her example, reminds and invites us to the purity of continence."

VERSE 2. THY NAVEL IS A ROUNDED BOWL, NEVER WANTING FOR CUPS. THY BELLY IS LIKE A HEAP OF WHEAT, HEDGED ABOUT WITH LILIES.

THY NAVEL IS A ROUNDED BOWL, NEVER WANTING FOR CUPS — that is, drink; in Hebrew מזג, mazag, that is, mixed, namely wine mixed and tempered with water, as in Italy, Judea, and other hot regions wines are mixed and diluted with water; whence the Syriac translates, mixture does not fail in it, that is, wine mixed with water as is the custom; the Arabic, no tempering fails; the Tigurina translates less correctly, never wanting for fruitfulness. For "rounded" the Hebrew is סחר, sachar, which Pagninus and others translate as of roundness, that is, round; Aben-Ezra and Vatablus, moon: for the navel is like the half-full moon, which above is hollow like a bowl, and below round like a thing turned on a lathe. Our Sanchez takes "navel" by metonymy for the ornament of the navel, namely a gem or boss hanging from the neck down to the navel, which Isaiah, chapter 3, verse 18, calls himlam, because it had the appearance of the moon; for as St. Jerome says: "Women have pendants hanging in the likeness of the moon."

Better, Luysius and elsewhere others take it of the navel itself, for this is like a bowl turned and rounded: now under "navel" understand the whole belly and the intestines, for of these the navel is the knot, chain, joint, and bond. "In the navel is the knot and meeting-place of the veins," says Pliny, book 11, chapter 37: for as the body is held together by sinews and bones, so the belly is bound together by the navel as by a chain, whence a rupture of it is fatal.

For the navel is, as it were, the center of the body, which if you take away, all the lines drawn from it to the circumference vanish, and the whole circle; wherefore a navel that is fully round, full, and perfect is a sign of good health and of vigorous youth; the navel, then, is the ligament of the intestines, which occupies nearly the middle plane of the belly, made for this purpose, that through it the fetus, while it is in the mother's womb, may be nourished; hence by catachresis whatever is the middle of anything is called its navel: thus the city of Reate is called the navel of Italy; and Cicero, in the sixth Verrine, calls the grove of the Ennenses, from which Proserpina was carried off, the navel of Sicily; and Livy, book 5 of the Macedonian War, calls Aetolia the navel of Greece. In like manner Jerusalem is the navel of Judea and of the whole world, as I shall soon say.

Hear Aristotle, book 1, History of Animals, chapter 13: "The belly is below the chest in its forward part, and its root is the navel; to this root the part lying beneath on either side is called the flank; but what is directly attached beneath is the sumen, or abdomen, the last part of which is the aqualiculus; but above the navel is the hypochondrium, named as it were sub-cartilage from the cartilage." The same author, book 2, chapter 8, teaches that apes are like man except in the navel, which they lack, but in its place have something hard.

Now the navel, that is, the belly of the bride, "wants not cups," that is, drink, or drinkable liquid and a moisture as it were milky, because it is full of it like the full moon, and like a bowl which is always filled with wine, that it may refresh the eyes of those who behold it, and feed the taste of those who drink; for other bowls are often without wine and stand empty; and the moon often wanes and is deprived of its light, as is plain at the new moon.

Otherwise Sanchez and Delrio, as if to say: Thy navel is like a bowl turned on the lathe, not wanting cups, that is, drinkable liquid, because it is not roughened by any mould or squalor, nor is it impure and unclean with any defilement, but altogether neat and clean, as if it had just been washed and wiped with mixed wine. Moreover, as Alcazar rightly notes, for "navel" the Hebrew is not טבור, tabbur, that is, navel, but שרר, sorer, a word which signifies that intestine which is cut off from the infant newly born, and is tied at the navel; and it is that intestine which penetrates into all the internal vital parts, namely the stomach, liver, and heart. Now it is manifest that all these vital parts, into which that intestine penetrates, are comprehended in Sacred Scripture under the word sor or sorer, which Our translator renders "navel." And this indeed is clear from the passage of Job 40:11: "His strength is in the navel of his belly;" and from that of Proverbs 3:8: "Health shall be to thy navel, and moistening to thy bones." The navel, then, embraces all the vital parts, as if to say: The vital parts of the bride are full of moisture and juice, with which they are abundantly watered, nourished, and kept fresh, lively, and full of sap.

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

All these things regard the conversion of the Synagogue, that is, of the Jews, at the end of the world through Elijah; the navel, then, that is, the middle and center of the Synagogue, and of Judea, indeed of the whole habitable world, is Jerusalem, according to that word, Ezekiel 5:4: "This is Jerusalem, I have set her in the midst of the nations, and the countries round about her;" and therefore Christ willed to teach and to be crucified in her, and founded his Church in her, that from thence, as from a center, she might easily spread herself in every direction to the periphery of the other provinces, according to that word, Psalm 73:12: "But God our king before ages, hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth."

Again, the city of Jerusalem, in the time of Christ, had the appearance of a navel and of a rounded bowl, that is, a circular one, as is plain from its likeness, which Adrichomius exhibits in his Description of the Holy Land. Moreover, she, as a navel, connected the whole of Judea and all the Jews, and restrained and held in check their bellies, that is, their concupiscences, through their rabbis, priests, and princes. She was, finally, as it were a rounded bowl never wanting for cups, because, like a bowl, she abounded in the wine of wisdom and doctrine, and dispensed it to all the rest, according to that word, Isaiah 2:3: "Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem;" whence Jeremiah, Lamentations 2:15: "Is this," he says, "the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all the earth?"

Solomon signifies here, then, that Jerusalem will at the end of the world be converted to Christ through Elijah, who will preach there against Antichrist, and will be killed there by him, but on the third day, glorious, will rise again in the sight of all who behold it, as is plain from Apocalypse 11:11; which the people of Jerusalem seeing, they will believe in Christ as preached by Elijah, and will then bring over the rest of the Jews to the faith of Christ, and will nourish, cherish, and advance them in Christian piety, just as was done at first in the time of Solomon under the old law, when the scribes at Jerusalem taught the true faith, and in the new time of Christ; for as the metropolis of Judea, namely Jerusalem, is converted, all Judea will be converted, just as, Rome having been converted through Constantine, the whole world was converted; Jerusalem, then, will then abound with holy priests, doctors, preachers, and prophets, who together with Elijah will withstand Antichrist, and will teach the Jews the orthodox faith of Christ, as she abounded with the same in the time of the apostles.

As, then, the infant in the mother's womb sucks nourishment from the mother through the navel, by which it cleaves to and is joined with the mother (for, as Aristotle says, book 2, On the Generation of Animals, chapter 4: "Growth comes to the fetus through the navel in the same way as to plants through their roots"): so the Jews will be nourished by their mother the Church in the Christian faith and piety through Jerusalem and the teachers sent forth from her: so Honorius, Delrio, and others; hence Cassiodorus, Bede, Aponius, Anselm, and St. Ambrose, sermon 6 on Psalm 118, teach that by the navel are understood preachers.

Hear St. Gregory: "The navel is the order of holy preachers, which is rightly said to be a bowl; because while the people is instructed through them, it is inebriated by their office with spiritual wine; which is rightly called rounded, because it is necessary that the tongue of the preacher be turned according to the manners of all men; which lacks not cups, because what it pours out for others, it is necessary that it drink more abundantly than the rest, and contain more fully what it gives."

To this purpose serves the Chaldee version: "And the prince of thy school, by whose merit all ages are governed, as the fetus is nourished through the navel in its mother's womb; he is splendid in the law like the circle of the moon, when he comes to cleanse and to defile, and to justify and to condemn; and the words of the law never fail from his mouth, as the waters of the river will not fail, when it goes forth from paradise."

SECOND, THE PARTIAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The navel of the devout soul is the mind, which cherishes holy inspirations, thoughts, and affections: for this binds and restrains the belly, that is, the sensitive appetite, and the flanks of the belly, that is, the desires, with the knot of temperance and continence, after the manner of a navel: so the three Anonymous authors in Theodoret. This, again, like a rounded bowl, abounds with the heavenly wine of wisdom, prudence, doctrine, grace, consolation, and joy, with which it both gives drink to itself and to others and thereupon inebriates them, so much so that it seems to contain in the belly of the mind the fountain of this heavenly water, according to that word of Christ, John 7:38: "Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly;" and that, chapter 4, verse 14: "The water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting:" so St. Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian: "A good navel of the soul," he says, "is capacious of all virtues, like a bowl adorned by the very author of faith: for wisdom mixed her wine in the bowl, saying, Proverbs 9:5: Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you."

Hence Ezekiel, chapter 16, verse 4, rebukes the Synagogue, that is, the Olitan Jews, saying: "And when thou wast born, in the day of thy nativity, thy navel was not cut," as if to say: Thou didst cleave to the former errors and idolatry of thy mother: but this navel is cut off by the holy soul, and will be cut off by the Jews at the end of the world. See what is said there.

Tropologically, first, the cutting off of the navel is the cutting off of desire, which heals, sanctifies, and blesses man: truly Seneca: "He who has shut off desire, by Hercules, vies with Jove for happiness;" hence John the Carmelite explains it thus: The navel and the belly, that is, thy understanding, O bride, containing the wisdom of God as a fetus, because it gives its drink to those who thirst, is a round bowl most fit for drinking.

Again, Philo Carpathius takes the navel for priests, and the bowl for the chalice of the Eucharist, "which," he says, "never lacks the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, who is mingled with the peoples through faith and charity, which is most plainly taught by that water which the priest mixes with the wine in the chalice. And the same author said that the priesthood is rightly not unlike a navel, and is rounded, that he might openly teach that priests ought to be clean and pure, and cleansed from every stain, and well turned by all virtues, and that they should savor, meditate upon, and teach nothing else in their whole life and in every matter to be done, save heavenly things; for you know that word, Psalm 131:9: Let thy priests be clothed with justice: and let thy saints rejoice in the rectitude of life."

Hence again, thirdly, others take by the navel chastity, which the Eucharist brings forth, according to that word, Zechariah 9:17: "For what is the good thing of it, and what is the beautiful thing of it, but the corn of the elect, and wine springing forth virgins?" so Rupert, William, and others.

Honorius, however, takes it for sobriety, which is the mother of chastity: "The navel of the soul," he says, "is temperance, because as the navel is midway between the upper and lower members, so temperance is midway between the virtues and the vices; which is a rounded bowl, full of cups, because it is round with circumspection and fruitful with wisdom; and as drink tempers thirst and gladdens the heart, so temperance restrains the heat of the vices, and represses the immoderate fervor of the virtues.

Hear Aponius: "In this (the navel) there seem to me to be praised those who, not only by being born again have been cut off from sin from earthly desires, but who, already wonderfully polished by the lathe of habit or of good desire, no longer lack the cups of joy, but minister to others who are in need the release of the soul by the example of their conduct. For no one leads a soul thirsting for God, after the dryness of its crimes, to the fatness of holiness, except one who furnishes the cup by praiseworthy examples."

Finally, Honorius, referring these things to the companies of the camps of the Synagogue converted to Christ, of which mention was made at the beginning of the chapter, here assigns their third rank, namely, of the soft and the delicate, but merciful: "Because the navel," he says, "is a soft member and the middle part of man, which has above it six parts, namely the head, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the neck, and the chest. The seventh part is the navel; below it likewise it has six parts, the feet, the shins, the leg, the hip, the thigh, the belly, and here again the seventh is the navel, signifying in the Church those who, through the seven works of mercy, will obtain the sevenfold of rest, which will be given through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are like a rounded bowl, never wanting (that is, always full) cups, because they are rounded by charity, smoothed by the exercise of virtue, always full with the cups of doctrine, whence they can abundantly inebriate those who thirst for justice. This is said for this reason, because if such will be the imperfect then in the Synagogue, of what sort must the perfect be believed to be?"

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

First, St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 14: "Truly," he says, "that womb of Mary was a rounded bowl. In it was wisdom, who mixed her wine in the bowl, furnishing the unfailing grace of her knowledge from the fullness of her divinity." Second, Honorius: "Thy navel," he says — understand, blessed — "in which the Son of God hung" (for as a shield on a nail, so the little infant hangs on the navel); which Son is a rounded bowl, never wanting cups, that is, he offers himself abundantly to all who thirst. Third, Rupert: "In men," he says, "luxury is in the loins, but in women it is in the navel, on the testimony of the Lord, who speaks of the devil to blessed Job: His strength is in his loins, and his power is in the navel of his belly, Job 40:11; therefore what is thy navel, a rounded bowl, but as if he were to say: The virtue of chastity is perfect in thee, and thou hast been freed from every carnal appetite of pleasure?"

Fourth, Alanus: "The navel," he says, "is in the middle of the belly; by the navel of the Virgin, therefore, is understood the power of understanding, by which she loved God, namely charity: this in the Virgin was as it were a bowl, because through its mediation the Virgin gave the world to drink the wine of joy, of which it is said, Psalm 22:5: My inebriating cup, how excellent is it! and elsewhere: Wine that gladdens the heart of man, Psalm 104:15. It is called rounded, because we work more easily with a lathe; and the Virgin herself, without any difficulty, without any allurement, without any distress of the flesh, conceived and brought forth. Never wanting cups: it says less and signifies more, that is, full of cups, namely giving the world to drink the wine of love, the wine of salvation, the wine of joy, the cup of life."

Finally, in her navel, says William, the salvation of men consisted in this very fact, that there was the victim of human reconciliation, and thence salvation flowed to us in its own time, that is, when "the Word was made flesh": for that virginal navel supplied to the Son of God, through the warmth of the Holy Spirit, the substance of flesh, in which he might die for men, and by this very fact, like a rounded bowl, gave life to drink to the world. And after some words: "Never wanting cups." However many may draw from it, and however much they draw, it cannot be exhausted: for even if all the sinners of the earth drink from it, nevertheless it abounds and overflows.

THY BELLY IS LIKE A HEAP (Symmachus, a mound) OF WHEAT, HEDGED ABOUT WITH LILIES.

The Tigurina, fenced round about with lilies; St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 14, reads, like a heap of small wheat among lilies; but this appears to be a printer's error, and for "minuti" one should read "muniti," as the same St. Ambrose reads in On the Death of Valentinian, and so have the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the Latin. He says the same, or nearly the same, as what he said of the navel (for under it, as I have said, he includes the belly), but by another metaphor and comparison: for there he compared the belly to a bowl, which is full of wine; but here he compares it to a heap of wheat, but hedged about with lilies, to signify that it is filled with every kind of nourishment (for this consists both of drink and of food, namely wheat), and that it feeds the hungry abundantly, as it gives drink to the thirsty.

The heap of wheat is a symbol of fertility and fruitfulness, but the lilies of chastity; it signifies, then, that the belly of the bride is so fruitful for nourishing the other members, that yet it is pure and chaste.

By wheat, understand either the grains of wheat threshed and pure, which are hedged about with lilies, or rather the standing crop of wheat growing luxuriantly in ears and stalks, swelling and turgid: for this, in the fields of the nobility, especially in their gardens, is hedged at its borders with lilies and other flowers beautifully growing up, both for pleasantness and delight, and for sweetness and fragrance of scent. These are the lilies of the field, which Christ names, Matthew 6:28: to this heap the belly of the bride is likened, because after its likeness it swells with a solid and juicy fullness of food and chyle, full and even on every part, and, on account of its due concoction by the force of heat, breathes forth a sweet odor, as the belly of Alexander the Great, and of others like him, used to breathe forth.

Moreover, Sanchez and Alcazar take the belly here not as bare, but as clothed with a robe reaching to the feet, namely a garment and tunic of the belly: for this appears more honorable and fitting, as if to say: The garment, with which thy belly is covered, is of golden cloth, with raised work upon it imitating heaps of wheat, and a border with lilies skillfully worked with the needle. The bridegroom signifies, then, that this robe reaching to the feet fittingly becomes her, in that he himself hopes that the fruitfulness of his bride (signified, of course, by the belly) will be like the fruitfulness of wheat, and that she will then, by a copious offspring, be raised to the glory and exaltation which the lilies represent: for lilies are a symbol of being raised from a lowly place to exceptional dignity and glory; wheat, however, is a symbol of fruitfulness [the printed Latin reads "villiam," which is not a Latin word; "triticum," wheat, is the reading required by the Pliny quotation that follows and by the parallel above, "a heap of wheat is a symbol of fertility and fruitfulness, but the lilies of chastity"]: for, as Pliny says, book 18, chapter 10: "Nothing is more fruitful than wheat; nature has granted it this, since it nourishes man most of all, inasmuch as from one modius, if the soil be suitable, a hundred and fifty modii are yielded." Hence that word, Luke 1:42: "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb."

Finally the Chaldee translates: "And seventy wise men surround him like a round threshing floor, and their storehouses are full of sanctified tithes, and of votive and freewill offerings, which Ezra the priest, and Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and Nehemiah, and Belsan, men of the great assembly, who are compared to roses, appointed for them, that they might have strength to labor in the law day and night."

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

Jerusalem, to be converted to Christ through Elijah at the end of the world, will be like a heap of wheat, because she will be full of priests and preachers, who will feed the faithful with the Word of God and the Eucharist as with mystic wheat, not unto luxury, but unto chastity; and therefore she is hedged about with lilies, because she breathes forth the whiteness of purity, as well as the odor of sweetness: for this is "the corn of the elect, and wine springing forth virgins," Zechariah 9:17. For the Synagogue, after the death of the apostles and the first faithful, had remained as if barren, since the rest of the Jews were unwilling to be converted to Christ; but the remnant being converted through Elijah at the end of the world, the Synagogue will become like a heap of wheat, because she will produce many grains, that is, many faithful to be laid up in the barn of the Lord, whose multitude, says Delrio from St. Ambrose, is a mound heaped together into one by the bond of charity, made even by the roller of justice and of modesty, and hedged about with the examples of the other virtues. With such a heap the belly of the Synagogue will then be full, so that she too may be able to glory in having been made a joyful mother of children. Certainly, as in the Catholic Church that vital drink never fails, so neither does the wheat, for the feeding of all in a twofold manner.

Moreover, St. Gregory understands by the navel the preachers, and by the belly the people: "By the belly," he says, "is designated the breadth of the people, which is rightly hedged with lilies like a heap of wheat, because, while intent on holy works, it is prepared for the heavenly barn, and is fortified on every side by the examples of the saints, that it may persevere." The people chosen by God is compared to wheat, Matthew 13:30: "The wheat," he says (that is, the elect), "gather ye into my barn," the heavenly one. The Synagogue, then, containing the holy and elect Jews, is like a heap of wheat. Hear Philo Carpathius: The heap of wheat is the multitude, or assembly, of the Church; because as one mound is heaped up from many grains, so also from many peoples one Church of all the faithful is joined together; one and the same people by the faith of Christ, is gathered together by the communion of one baptism, and of the Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, etc. But here it must first be hedged and enclosed with lilies, that is, exercised in the most fragrant and fruitful actions of virtue and in the most chaste conversations, and soon after bring with it to that heavenly homeland some fruit that is incorrupt, that to each one may be given of the fruits of his hands, and that he may bear a bosom filled with virtues.

SECOND, THE PARTIAL SENSE: Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The mystical belly of the holy soul is the mind, containing within itself wheat, that is, holy doctrine, with which it nourishes itself and others in every virtue; and therefore it is hedged about with lilies of purity and chastity, sweetly fragrant: so Theodoret and the three Anonymous authors. Hear Honorius: "The belly of the soul is the memory, in which it stores up the foods of Sacred Scripture, which is like a heap of wheat: because as grains are heaped up in a heap, so also in the memory many maxims and images are gathered together, which are hedged about with lilies, because they are hemmed round with pure thoughts." Finally, the belly, that is, the mind of the saints, is a heap of wheat,

that is, a workshop and gathering of justice, beneficence, and of every virtue.

Symbolically, Honorius judges that here, in the companies of the camps of the Synagogue, the fourth rank of the married is signified by the belly, who use the belly for the generation of offspring, but abound in the wheat of almsgiving: these are hedged about with the lilies of chastity; these, then, are married persons who are fruitful, as well as holy, of whom the Psalmist, Psalm 127:3: "Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table." For the Jews are fruitful, and will be fruitful at the end of the world, that they may beget children to be grafted into heaven for Christ; hence we see such swarms of Jews scattered in so many kingdoms throughout the whole world: wherefore Gislerius fittingly judges this sense to be, according to the letter, the first and principal one.

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

The belly of the Blessed Virgin was a heap of wheat, that is, of Christ, who is the food and bread of Christians, hedged about with lilies, that is, encompassed with virgins, says Honorius; hence, first, it is said of her, Luke 1:42: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb;" and chapter 11, verse 27: "Blessed is the womb that bore thee." This, then, says William, is "like a heap of wheat, because distended and swelling with offspring; yet nevertheless hedged about with lilies, because swelling with the emptiness of perpetual virginity, yet with the fullness of truth."

Hear St. Ambrose, On the Institution of Virgins, chapter 14: "In the Virgin's womb there germinated together both the heap of wheat and the grace of the lily flower, since it produced both the grain of wheat and the lily: the grain of wheat, according to what is written, John 12:24: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remains alone; but because from one grain of wheat a heap was made, that prophetic word was fulfilled, Psalm 64:14: And the valleys shall abound with corn: because that grain, having died, brought forth very much fruit. This grain, therefore, has satisfied all men with the perpetual food of heavenly gifts. That utterance of the prophetic mouth was fulfilled, the same David saying, Psalm 80:17: He fed them with the fat of wheat, and filled them with honey out of the rock. That there is also a lily in this grain the divine oracles testify, because it is written, Canticles 2:1: I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys, as the lily among thorns. Christ was the lily among thorns, when he was in the midst of the Jews."

Second, Rupert: "Thy belly," he says, "is like a heap of wheat, namely because thou didst prudently gather that wheat by meditating on the Scriptures, as is said in a certain place, Luke 2:19: But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. A heap of this kind is rightly hedged about with lilies, because indeed the beauty of chastity, just as it produces clearness of understanding for the comprehension of the Scriptures, so also it prepares authority for every man, that he may be worthy to speak forth outwardly those things which he has stored up within, or the words of God which he has gathered together, as it were the wheat of the Lord."

Hear Christ appearing to St. Bridget, and mystically describing to her the individual members of the Blessed Virgin, book 5 of her Revelations, at the end of the Tenth Interrogation: "Thy belly, O blessed virgin, was most pure like ivory, and like a place most splendid with precious stones: because the constancy of thy conscience never grew lukewarm, nor could it be corrupted even in tribulations. The walls, then, of this belly, that is, of thy faith, were as it were most shining gold, in which is noted the fortitude of thy virtues, and thy prudence, and justice, and temperance with perfect perseverance, because all these virtues of thine were made perfect by divine charity."

Verse 3. Thy two breasts are like two twin fawns of a roe.

— It is repeated concerning the Synagogue of the Jews, what was said of the Church of the Gentiles, chap. 4, verse 5, of Christ, where I explained this. The Chaldee renders: "Thy saviors, who are to redeem thee, are like Moses and Aaron, sons of Jochabed, who are compared to two twin fawns of a roe." Honorius holds that by the breasts, among the choirs of the camps of the Synagogue, is denoted the fifth rank thereof, namely, that of the doctors. The same, tropologically: "The two breasts of the soul," he says, "are wisdom and knowledge, with which she suckles the foolish and the ignorant; these are like the fawns of a roe, which always seek the heights, since they strive to climb to the heights of the virtues; they are two twins, since in a twofold love they seek heavenly things. He said fawn of a roe, to distinguish it from the fawn of stags, which runs swiftly, but does not seek the heights as this one does." Philo understands by the two breasts the religious and the laity, and, analogically, the twofold beatitude of the saints in heaven, namely, the glory of soul and body.

VERSE 4. THY NECK IS LIKE A TOWER OF IVORY. THY EYES LIKE THE FISHPONDS IN HESEBON, WHICH ARE AT THE GATE OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE MULTITUDE. THY NOSE IS LIKE THE TOWER OF LIBANUS, WHICH LOOKETH TOWARD DAMASCUS.

THY NECK IS LIKE A TOWER OF IVORY. — Small ivory towers, skillfully wrought, are made from time to time by princes for magnificence, just as Solomon made his majestic throne out of ivory, as is said in II Paralipomenon 9:17; indeed Achab built an entire house out of ivory, as is recorded in III Kings 22:39: for the tusks of the elephant are so great and massive that some exceed the measure of twelve palms, indeed of ten feet; wherefore doorposts are made from them in houses and stables, says Pliny, who accordingly calls them horns rather than teeth. And this is the cause of the elephant's longevity, namely that with its vast and strong teeth it thoroughly grinds its food and reduces it to flour, and so digests it excellently, and converts what is digested into its own substance; and also that it is carried long in its mother's womb, namely for two years, so that it is born strong and vigorous. See Aldrovandi, on the Elephant, Part XLII, III and following.

He repeats concerning the Synagogue of the Jews what he said concerning the Church of the gentiles in chapter 4, verse 4 (see what is said there); for to both he gives a towered neck, but here he adds that it is ivory. A towered neck signifies the unconquered strength of the Synagogue, by which she will nobly raise herself up like a tower against all the temptations and persecutions of Antichrist; likewise the pontiffs, doctors, and prelates, who will heroically withstand the same.

To this agrees the version of the Chaldee: "Thy judge also, who judgeth thy judgment, is strong over the people, to bind them, and to drag to prison those who are condemned in judgment; like king Solomon who made a tower of ivory, and subjected the people of the house of Israel, and converted them to the Ruler of the age."

Ivory denotes the elephant's chastity (for the elephant is the most chaste of wild beasts and animals), purity and cleanness, with which the Jews will be endowed at the end of the world, Apocalypse 14:1 and following, especially the doctors and prelates: for ivory is white, polished, gleaming, smooth, straight, even, firm. Such likewise will be the virtue and fortitude of the Jews.

Moreover how chaste the elephant is, is gathered from the indications given by Aristotle, History of Animals, book V, chapter 14, where he teaches that the elephant remains continually celibate for three years, and after the three years, once the female's bearing is finished, mates with her only incidentally, for the sake of begetting offspring: "The elephant," he says, "renews coition after an interval of three years: and the one he makes pregnant he never afterward suffers to be touched again. She carries the womb for two years: she bears one at a time, and brings forth offspring of the size of a two-month or three-month-old calf." He gives the cause in book IX, chapter 49: "The elephant," he says, "is the gentlest and most placid of all wild beasts, since it is both trained and comes to understand through many tasks; sometimes it even learns to adore a king; it is strong in sense, and excels the rest in sagacity of mind; the one whom he has impregnated by coition, her he will not touch again. Some say male elephants live two hundred years, others a hundred and twenty; the female also nearly as many, but they say she flourishes in age around the sixtieth year."

The cause, then, why the elephant is chaste is its gentleness, sagacity, and love of a long life, for chastity prolongs life, whereas lust shortens it. The same author, book II, chapter 1: "The elephant," he says, "has testicles not visible outwardly, but hidden within near the kidneys, wherefore it accomplishes coition more quickly"; the same, book V, chapter 2: "Elephants," he says, "when about to mate seek out solitary places, but especially along rivers"; so much are they ashamed of the act of love that they wash it away with the river. Hear Pliny, book VIII, chapter 5: "Elephants," he says, "out of shame never mate except in hiding, the male at five years, the female at ten; initiches, and no more; on the sixth day they are washed in a river, not returning to the herd before this; nor do they know adultery, nor are there any battles among themselves on account of females, such as are ruinous among the rest of the animals."

And from so great a chastity comes so great a strength in the elephant, that it even bears towers, and in them files of soldiers, upon its back. Aldrovandi adds, from Aelian, on the Elephant, part XLIV, II, that the elephant so hates men and women who are adulterers, that it takes vengeance on them, and kills them, of which vengeance he recounts several examples in the same place.

Angelomus adds, on III Kings 10: "The elephant," he says, "mates temperately with its own female, and does not take a second." And Bede, on that verse of Psalm 44:9, From ivory houses: The ivory house, he says, is the most innocent and most chaste heart. In ivory there is whiteness, and by whiteness innocence is designated. For the elephant, whose it is, is most chaste, because it knows no wife but one, and knows her most temperately, and, once she is dead, never knows another.

Hear St. Gregory: "The bride's neck is said to be like a tower of ivory, because the preachers of the Church are held to be lofty through contemplation, strong through the practice of holy works, and precious through divine wisdom." Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others have similar things. And Angelomus, on book III Kings, chapter 10, at the words: The teeth of elephants were brought to Solomon: "Thy neck is like a tower of ivory, that is," he says, "thy doctors are strong on account of the brightness of wisdom."

Philo Carpathius, however, understands by the neck the priests: "For as the neck," he says, "is nearest to the head and joined to it, so the men who are ministers of God adhere most holily and most closely to the most sacred body and blood of Jesus Christ; and they are, as it were, his most ivory neck, whenever with a pure conscience and a sincere charity of soul they celebrate and handle the divine mysteries themselves without stain; just as above they were called an ivory box, they who admit no filth of soul, but minister to the most holy mysteries with the most honorable life and with most godly conduct, without any stain": so he. Aponius understands by it the martyrs, who bowed the neck to the sword for the faith, and after death shone forth like ivory.

Symbolically, Honorius: "The sixth order," he says, "(in the choirs of the camps of the Synagogue) is that of religious persons, who are expressed by the neck, of whom it is added: Thy neck is like, etc., that is, spiritual men, who join the Shunammite to Christ by words and examples, as the neck joins the head and the body; they are like a tower of ivory, that is, like the elephant, unconquerable in the virtues. Elephants are wont to bear towers, from which battle is waged, as is read in the book of Machabees: so spiritual men bear the sacred Scripture as a firm tower, from which they fight against the enemies of the kingdom of God. But by ivory also their chastity is understood, just as that animal is reported to be of a chaste nature."

To this Alcazar adds, who attributes all these things to religious persons, especially, however, to those contending for Christ in two years, five (as they say), of each tiches, no more; on the sixth they are washed, and to those contending in the faith, and to those who at the end of the world will contend against Antichrist: for these raise up the neck

against treachery, and the neck is a symbol of Christian liberty; for although religious persons submit their neck to the yoke of Christ and of obedience, yet this submission brings forth in them mighty courage and liberty, whereby they despise all worldly things, fear no tyrants, but only the offense of God: wherefore for God's sake they gladly submit their neck to the sword, if need be. Again William: The head, he says, is the speculative reason, which attends to the contemplation of eternal things; the members subject to the head are the sensual appetites, which are ruled by reason; the middle between the head and the members, and joining both, is the neck, that is, the practical reason, which attends to right action and directs it: this is like the ivory tower, built up through imitation from the examples of the ancient fathers; for ivory is the bone of elephants: and all these, as Abraham, Moses, David, etc., were, as it were, great, chaste, and strong elephants.

Finally Rupert, applying these words to the Blessed Virgin, takes by the neck her humility, which made her like a tower of ivory, most strong as well as most beautiful: "What," he says, "or of what sort is thy neck? Certainly not stretched out, but rather lovingly bowed down; and this is thy humility, a great fortitude, a most beautiful fortitude. Truly like a tower of ivory, which is both lovely to look upon and strong in stature. Strong to whom? Lovely to whom? Strong to God, lovely to God; but terrible and unapproachable to the devil. How is she strong to God himself? Doubtless as is proven from these examples: for if thou wast strong against God (as he himself says, Genesis 32:28, to his faithful father Jacob), how much more shalt thou prevail against men."

William adds: "If by the ivory tower are signified the examples of those saints, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the rest, surely the Mother of God is most truly called such, who far more sublimely than the rest built, out of that ancient ivory, a tower of fortitude formidable to all enemies: since she not only perfectly expressed the virtues of the ancients in her own conduct, but also, by a grace excelling beyond measure in those same virtues, far exceeded the measure of the ancients, and surpassed each one, not only in other respects, but even in their chief virtues: Abraham in obedience, Moses in meekness, David in humility," etc.

More subtly Hailgrinus: the Blessed Virgin, he says, is a tower, to which the wretched flee in every danger; ivory, on account of the whiteness of her chastity and the constancy of her firmness, and because ivory is the tooth of the elephant, which wages continual war with the dragon: just as the Blessed Virgin, from of old, from the origin of the world, by God's predestination, declared war on the ancient serpent, Genesis 3:15.

Hear the Lord Christ mystically describing the neck of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, book V of the Revelations, at the end of Interrogation 810: "Thy neck is nobly erect and most beautifully raised, because the righteousness of thy soul is fully erect toward me, and movable according to my will, because it was never bowed to any evil of pride: for as the neck is bent toward the head, so all thy intention and operation was bent toward my will."

THY EYES LIKE THE FISHPONDS (St. Ambrose: pools, namely, of springing and living waters) IN HESEBON, WHICH ARE AT THE GATE OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE MULTITUDE.

Pagninus: daughter of the nobles; for רבים rabbim signifies both "many" and "noble" and "princes"; the Syriac: at the gate of the many. Lyra and the rabbis wrongly understand Jerusalem by Hesebon: for they say Jerusalem is called Hesebon, that is, "estimation," because the city was of the highest dignity and estimation: "Hesebon," says Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land, page 127, number 31, "was a glorious and notable city, and very well fortified, situated in the mountains, girded with walls of baked brick, to which, as to a mistress, a very great number of villages did service: it had formerly belonged to the Moabites, and was possessed by the Amorrhites by right of war, and in it dwelt Sehon, king of the Amorrhites; when he, together with his people, had been slain by the Israelites, this city was rebuilt by the sons of Ruben and given to the Levites, against which Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied in the vision concerning Moab: in the time of St. Jerome it was called Esbus, distant twenty miles from the Jordan."

Adrichomius adds, number 32, that near the gate of Hesebon there were notable pools, or ponds and springs of water, to which the Hebrew עינים enaim alludes; for this word signifies both "eyes" and "springs," since what eyes are in the head, springs are in the earth. Again, just as the praise of pools or ponds, says Delrio, is that they abound in liquid moisture, that they are clear, that they render the image of the one gazing after the manner of mirrors: in the eyes, the first praise corresponds to the abundant watery humor, the second to the vitreous, the third to the crystalline; in these three it is possible to find those three qualities: for the eyes are both abundantly moist, and transmit vision, and represent an image. The sense, therefore, is as if it said: Thy eyes, O Synagogue, are like twin, most placid and most pure, most serene and most limpid springs.

Again, just as pools are surrounded by trees, and pleasantly shaded by them, so also the eyes are surrounded by pupils and hairs, and between them a pleasant light flashes and quivers, just as, over pools, the branches of overhanging trees shine through amid the crystalline liquid of the waters. Add that the crystalline humor of the eye is like a pool, because the origin of both springs up secretly from beneath, while the outermost surface remains quiet, stable, and serene, so much so that, like a mirror, it represents the objects placed before it. This is truer still in the bride, whose eyes are modest, grave, composed, constant: for inconstant and roving eyes indicate a mind either fearful, or fickle, or crafty; pools, therefore, or ponds, in which the waters do not flow but stand still, mark and commend the quiet and serenity of the eyes: for that stability increases the light and brightness, and is a sign of inward gravity and steadfastness of simplicity; just as frequent blinking of the eyelids, or the swift darting of the eyes hither and thither, is reckoned a mark either of a poorly disposed organ, or of a fickle, timid, deceitful mind: so Delrio.

Moreover, this gate of Hesebon is called "of the daughter of the multitude," that is, the gate looking toward a region in which there was a great multitude of men: for delightful and elegant regions are metaphorically called "daughters" by the Hebrews. This region was either the marketplace, for in the marketplace there is a great multitude of men; or the suburbs, and the abundance of the many villages subject to the city of Hesebon, as I said a little before from Adrichomius. This gate denotes the cavities of the head, in which, as in gates, the orbs of the eyes are situated; and they are called "daughters of the multitude," because within these cavities of the head are many cells of all the senses, both interior and exterior; likewise many vital and animal spirits, which serve the individual senses; and finally many arteries, veins, muscles, nerves, etc. Again, the eyes themselves are here tacitly compared to gates, because, like gates, they were ample and gracefully open: thus Juno is called by Homer Boopis, that is, having ox-like and large eyes.

By the symbol of the pool, therefore, a threefold beauty of the eyes is signified, says Luysius: first, their amplitude, that is, a just and becoming magnitude; then, serenity, from which arise light and brightness; finally, quiet as a kind of stability, which, being itself full of gravity and comeliness in the eyes, is certainly just as much a sign of a constant mind as of a simple one: for those whose eyelids and eyes move frequently with great swiftness are either timid, or altogether crafty and deceitful.

FIRST, ADEQUATE SENSE. Concerning Christ and the Church.

The eyes of the Synagogue converted to Christ are her wisdom and prudence, or sincere faith and knowledge, and a pure and clear understanding, both speculative and practical; likewise holy thoughts, say Theodoret and St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 16, and a pure intention of pleasing God alone; hence Hesebon in Hebrew is the same as "thought," as Aquila translates it, or, as Pagninus has it, is the same as "haste of understanding," from חוש chus, that is, "he hastened," and בין ban, that is, "he understood"; see what was said at chapter 4, verse 1, and chapter 1, verse 15: for just as there he compared the eyes of the Church to doves, so here he compares the eyes of the Synagogue to pools; whence R. Solomon asserts that the Hebrews and the Talmudists use ברכות berechot, which our version translates "pools," in place of "eyes."

Again, the eyes of the Synagogue at the end of the world will be the bishops, prophets, and rabbis or doctors, say Cassiodorus, Justus, and Anselm, who will teach the daughter of the multitude, that is, the congregation of the Jewish people, the faith and way of Christ, and will rule and direct them into the way of salvation: for wisdom, like a spring and an eye, shines forth in the doctor, for she herself is "the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness," Wisdom 7:26. Hence Honorius, by the eyes, understands, among the ranks in the choirs of the camps of the Synagogue, the seventh order,

or battle-line, which, he says, is that of the prelates. To this agrees the version of the Chaldee: "Thy scribes (doctors) are full of wisdom like pools of water, and know how to set the reckonings of intercalations, and they intercalate the years, and mark the beginnings of years and months at the gate of the house of the Great Council."

Hence Cosmas Damianus understands by the eyes the bishops, and their keenness of sight for contemplating divine things, and their providence for governing the sheep entrusted to them: for these twin eyes of the mind are as it were twin pools which, situated near the gate of Hesebon of a city once most populous, as if placed in its face, and containing a vast supply of most wholesome waters flowing perpetually from the mountains of Galaad, were of great use to an innumerable multitude, and afforded admirable benefits.

Furthermore, in "daughter of the multitude," for which the Hebrew is בת רבים bath rabbim, that is "daughter," this is, a city of many inhabitants, there seems to lie hidden another mystery, an oracle of the conversion of the Arabs: for bath rabbim, or Rabba, was a great, powerful and populous city, and therefore the metropolis of the Ammonites, which Og, king of Bazan, first conquered, then David through his general Joab, II Kings 11:12; finally Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second king of Egypt after Alexander, from whom it was named Philadelphia, and it was near the city of Hesebon; whence Jeremiah, in the destruction by the Chaldeans, joins the two together, saying, chapter 49:3: "Howl, O Hesebon, for Hai is laid waste: cry, ye daughters of Rabbath, gird yourselves with sackcloth: mourn and go about by the hedges: for Melchom shall be carried into captivity, his priests and his princes together."

The sense, then, is as if it said: Thy eyes, O Synagogue, are like pools situated at the gate of Hesebon, which looks toward Philadelphia, or through which one goes to Philadelphia, so Delrio and Vatablus: thus at Rome one gate is called Tiburtine, by which one goes to Tibur; another Tusculan, by which one goes to Tusculum; another Praenestine, by which one goes to Praeneste, etc. Solomon indicates, then, that the eyes, that is, the bishops of Jerusalem and Judea, will at the end of the world look toward the neighboring Arabia Felix, whose chief city is Philadelphia, in order to convert it to Christ, just as they once converted the same city; whence the Church of Philadelphia was formerly subject to the patriarch of Jerusalem. The same thing will happen at the end of the world, when Elijah and the bishops of Judea will go, or will send preachers into Arabia and the other neighboring regions, that they may draw them away from Mahomet (for Mahomet was an Arab, and a leader of the Arabs) and from Antichrist, to Christ. This the Holy Spirit seems to hint at here through bath rabbim, or Rabba, that is Philadelphia, which likewise, like the pools of Hesebon, is called a city of waters, II Kings 11 and following, because the torrent Jacob flows around it, says Adrichomius.

Solomon, therefore, mentions Arabia Felix before others, both because it is itself bordering upon Judea, and because of frankincense, which is burned to God, of myrrh, aloes, cassia, amomum, cinnamon, nard, cardamom, pepper, and every kind of spice

Fourthly, just as these pools were beside the gate of the daughter of the multitude, so meditation and contemplation are beside the gates of paradise, where there is an innumerable multitude of the sons of God, namely of the saints and the blessed. Fifthly, just as in pools the water is stagnant, and therefore quiet and stable, so meditation composes the movements of the soul, and makes them stable and quiet. These are the waters of Siloe, which go with silence, Isaiah chapter 8:5.

Sixthly, just as pools pour forth abundant water, so meditation gives abundant thoughts and affections, which we may pour forth upon a multitude however great.

Seventhly, these pools are in Hesebon; Hesebon in Hebrew is the same as thought, rumination, computation, calculation, estimation, because the force and fruit of meditation consists in the deep and serious rumination, estimation, and weighing of the mysteries of the faith: for this reason many of the faithful, although they believe in the rewards of heaven and the torments of hell, are nevertheless not moved by them to abstain from sins, and to observe the laws of God, because they do not weigh them according to their gravity, do not ruminate on them, do not ponder them. For who would dare to steal, to fornicate, to kill, if he seriously and deeply weighed and pondered the eternal fires of hell, which he most certainly brings upon himself? See Bernard, in the book On Consideration; hence the Hebrews call the work machascebat, which is radically the same as chesbon or hesebon, that is, of thought, an artful, arduous, and ingenious work, which requires much thought and meditation, such as is embroidery work; so good works, which proceed from deep meditation, are elaborate, exact, excellent, heroic.

Thy nose is like the tower of Libanus, which looks toward Damascus, is most fertile, so much so that there no other kinds of wood are in use than fragrant ones, says Pliny; it also abounds in gold, silver, diamonds, gems, pearls; it nourishes lions, leopards, horses, mules, herds of camels and elephants; finally it is said that Arabia Felix alone nourishes the phoenix, queen of birds. Then, because the three Magi and kings, the first from all the provinces, came from this Arabia to Jerusalem to adore Christ, led by a star, according to that verse, Psalm 71:10: The kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts, namely gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which they offered to the child Jesus, Matthew 2:11. Finally St. Paul, converted to Christ, went at once into this Arabia, and there preached for three years with such fruit, that its one city Beccara, which was an archiepiscopal see, had under it 35 bishoprics, as William of Tyre attests in the Holy War, and from him Adrichomius, in Arabia.

SECOND, PARTIAL SENSE. Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The two eyes of the holy soul are meditation and contemplation: these are like pools, first, because just as fish are fed in pools, so in meditation the affections and desires of a pious mind are nourished. Secondly, just as pools are clear, and render back the image of the one gazing, so the soul in meditation becomes a mirror receiving the likeness of God, and representing his image within itself.

Thirdly, just as pools send forth abundant waters, so the eyes flow and rain down tears of devotion and compunction, as is clear in David saying, Psalm 6:7: I have labored in my groaning, every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears; in Hebrew, amse, that is, "I will make to melt" and as it were "to swim," as if he said: I will pour forth tears so abundant, that the bed will, as it were, melt and float in them. And Jeremiah, Lamentations 1:46: Therefore, he says, I weep, and my eye runs down with water: because the comforter is far from me, who should relieve my soul. Hear St. Gregory: Hesebon is interpreted "girdle of sorrow"; the eyes of the bride, therefore, are said to be like pools in Hesebon, because while they grieve over their pilgrimage, and, strengthened by sorrow, gird themselves against the spiritual enemies, they wash themselves with tears, that through them the peoples may be fittingly cleansed before God. So also Rupert, Bede, and St. Thomas. Hear Aponius: in the eyes of Hesebon those seem to be shown, who bring forth fountains of tears for their own or others' sins; and Hugh of St. Victor, Annotations on Joel: The pool of Hesebon, he says, is the diverse kinds of compunction; the eyes of the bride, therefore, are pools in Hesebon, because thereby they are made more and more clear, since they are washed frequently in these pools. So the Jews at the end of the world, pricked with compunction for their so long treachery, will pour forth showers of tears like the pools of Hesebon.

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

First, Rupert: the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, he says, were like pools on account of the compunction and tears which she poured forth for the Church and for the miseries of the faithful. Hence the same Rupert, anagogically, by the two eyes likened to two pools, understands the upper and the lower watering, which Axa asked of her father Caleb, Judges 1:15: for the soul receives the upper watering, he says, when it afflicts itself with tears out of desire for the heavenly kingdom; but it receives the lower watering, when in weeping it dreads the punishments of hell. Therefore in these words, Thy eyes, etc., the mystical sense is, as if it said: Thy eyes, out of love or desire for the beloved, by which thou languishest and art pricked with compunction, flow with tears, and these tears are pools in Hesebon, that is, waters flowing from the girdle of sorrow: this compunction is a land watered with waters, a certain beginning of eternal sweetness and inheritance: just as that Hesebon and the land beyond the Jordan was the first possession of the land of promise for that daughter of the multitude, namely for the people of Israel, whose multitude is not fewer

than those who have ascended or are ascending, that they may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Secondly, Alan: the eyes of the Virgin are said to be the contemplative and active life: in the active she sees what is to be done, in the contemplative what is to be loved; these are compared to pools, because they satisfy the Virgin with spiritual refreshment, and free her from the stain of sin. These are in Hesebon, that is, in the girdle of sorrow, on account of the length of labor and misery, and, as regards the contemplative, on account of the delay of the homeland; and these pools are in the Church, that is, at the gate of the daughter of the multitude.

Thirdly, William: the Blessed Virgin, he says, was like the cherubim, who round about and within are full of eyes, Ezekiel 1:18: for she herself was full of the eyes of providence, without ceasing to provide what is good, not only before God, but before all men. Indeed, no dust of even the slightest carnal enticement ever dimmed these eyes of hers; no motion, even slight, of jealousy or of anger ever disturbed them, but they were always, like living water, pure and translucent, because they had nothing turbid or dusty in themselves, but expressed a certain likeness of living water, that is, of heavenly grace. Hear Christ depicting the eyes of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, book V of the Revelations, at the end, Interrogation 9: Thy eyes were, in the sight of my Father, so bright, that he beheld himself in them, because in thy spiritual sight and in the understanding of thy soul the Father saw all thy will, that thou willedst nothing but himself, and desiredst nothing except according to himself.

THY NOSE IS LIKE THE TOWER OF LIBANUS, WHICH LOOKETH TOWARD DAMASCUS.

In Hebrew, tsopha, that is, "watching the face of Damascus," so Pagninus; the Septuagint: "looking out upon the face of Damascus."

The tower of Libanus, says Adrichomius in the Description of the Holy Land, page 100, number 90, was a tower which Solomon built on Mount Libanus (for it is clear that he built there, III Kings 9:19, and II Paralipomenon 8:6) near Damascus, of such great height, that from it the houses of Damascus could be counted; and of such beauty, that the bride's nose is compared to it. This tower served as a watchtower, so that from it they could look out for the coming, ambushes, and attempts of the Syrians, who harassed Judea with frequent raids, and could give warning to the Jews, by a signal of fire or of trumpet, so that they might prepare either to flee or to take up arms to meet them. For Damascus was the head of Syria, as Isaiah says, chapter 7, verse 8.

For "nose," in Hebrew it is aph, which signifies both "face" and "nose"; whence some, with Vatablus and Pagninus, translate, "thy face is like the tower of Libanus," because the bride's face was round, high, and raised up like a tower, so that, situated at a distance, it might look out; our version, however, the Septuagint, Pagninus, and the Hebrews translate "nose."

You will ask, how is the bride's nose compared to a tower? For at first sight this seems an enormous, ill-fitting, and unbecoming hyperbole. Some understand by "nose" an ornament shaped like the tower of Libanus, which hung down from the forehead to the nostrils after the manner of orientals, and adorned them: for St. Jerome teaches, on Ezekiel 16:12, at the words, I put a ring upon thy face, that the ancients adorned the nose with this ornament. Again, our Sanchez thinks the nose is compared to the tower of Libanus because, he says, seen from a distance, it appeared small on account of the distance, and had the appearance of a nose. Thus rocks near Sorrento are called "goats," as Pliny attests, book III, chapter 6, because to those looking from a distance they present the shape of a goat: and that which is called Scylla is a rock in Sicily; that which is called Niobe is a rock at Sipylus: because they present to onlookers the likeness of Scylla and of Niobe. But here the nose is compared to a tower, not only as to appearance and semblance, but as to the reality and the thing itself. I say, then, that Solomon, in this bucolic Song, likens the members of the bride, after the Hebrew manner, to rural things: thus in the preceding verse he likened the bride's eyes to the pools of Hesebon, and in verse 5 he likens her head to Carmel: so here he compares the nose to the tower of Libanus, not as to size or height: for who, even though a giant or Polyphemus, would have a nose as long as a tower is high?

But first, as to proportion, because as much as this tower rises above Mount Libanus, proportionally so much does the bride's nose rise above the breast, and the other members subject to it. Again, just as a great tower rises up from Libanus, so proportionally a great nose rose up from the bride's face. He indicates, then, that the bride has a large nose, but one becoming and proportioned to her face: for a large nose is a sign of great judgment, prudence, discernment, discretion, as well as of a lofty and strong mind; whence that saying of Martial:

Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent, — And even boys have the nose of a rhinoceros.

And:

Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus. — Though you be nosy through and through, though you be a very nose.

And Horace:

Naso suspendis adunco. — You hang [them] up on your hooked nose (i.e. you sneer).

Whence Pliny, book XI, chapter 33, teaches that recent custom has dedicated the nose to sly mockery, which the Greeks call mycterismos: for mycter is "nose," and thus the Septuagint translates here: hence the word "nasutus," says Festus, denotes one who is shrewd, because he immediately detects the smell of any matter, and perceives it before he has examined it; whence St. Jerome, epistle 100, writing to Bonasus, who was overly nosed as well as nosey, wittily rebuking his excessive fault-finding and sharp wit: I will give you, he says, advice by which, if hidden, you might appear more handsome: let the nose not be seen in the face, let the speech not sound for speaking; and thus you will be able to appear both handsome and eloquent.

FIRST, ADEQUATE SENSE. Concerning Christ and the Church.

The nose of the Synagogue, to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, will be, like the tower of Libanus, a vast and exact providence, foresight, and discernment, by which she will scent and look out from afar at all the ambushes and attempts of Damascus, that is, of the devil and of Antichrist thirsting for the blood of souls (for Damascus in Hebrew is the same as "sack" or "plunder of blood"), and will elude and overcome them with a vast spirit of fortitude and magnanimity: for a large nose draws in a great spirit, and is therefore an indicator of magnanimity; whence the Hebrew aph, that is "nose," also signifies anger and burning wrath, for this is shown in a nose reddening and smoking, and is a sign of magnanimity; whence Luysius Legionensis, by aph, or nose, understands the burning wrath and gravity of the countenance, because it arises from a great and lofty mind; and R. Solomon, by aph, understands the gravity of the whole face, which shines forth most in the bride's brow. Just as, then, the Jews of old, from the tower of Libanus, detected the schemes of the Syrians coming from Damascus, and, forestalling them, eluded their counsels and ambushes; so surely the Jews, converted to Christ at the end of the world, and especially their bishops and prelates, will discern most keenly and most certainly all the feigned and adulterated conduct of Antichrist, of false prophets, of heretics, and of politicians, and their pretended faith, from the true and genuine conduct and orthodox faith of Christians; they will be, as it were, of a keen and sharp scent, so that they will immediately smell out, forestall, and render vain the secret counsels they scheme, and the crafty devices they contrive against Christians: so Cosmas Damianus. For Antichrist will be the craftiest, most eloquent, most learned, most powerful, most wicked of all men, and will indeed be the mouth and instrument of the devil: wherefore he will contrive a thousand deceits, frauds, and arts, by which to turn the Jews away from Christ, and entice them to himself, as I said at II Thessalonians 2, and Apocalypse 11 and following. Wherefore then Elijah, the prelates, and the Jews converted by him, will have need of a vast nose, that is, of sagacity, fortitude, and courage, to detect, discern, avoid, refute, and scatter these arts.

Hence again, by the nose you may understand Elijah and the prelates, especially the Roman Pontiff and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who will most fiercely oppose himself to Antichrist on behalf of his Jews, and will most shrewdly scent out his frauds, and will disclose them to his Jews, and will encourage and arm them with every effort against them: thus the Roman pontiffs, as it were the nose of the Church, have scented out the heresies and stratagems of Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Pelagius, Priscillian, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, and have condemned and scattered them.

Furthermore Cassiodorus, Bede, Philo, Anselm, and the other Fathers, after their custom, assign all these symbols, as I said above, to preachers. Hear St. Gregory: in the nose the discernment of scent is found; by the nose, therefore, the discernment of preachers is designated, because through them are shown to us the sweet odors of virtues and the stench of vices. But the nose exists like the tower of Libanus, because, once preachers are washed with the water of baptism, and whitened by daily tears from the sins which they have committed against God, they become worthy to be raised, more and more, to higher things through fortitude. But the tower looks toward Damascus, because every holy preacher always speaks against sinners: for Damascus is interpreted "bloody," and is said to a sinning people, Isaiah 1:15: Your hands are full of blood. Hence Philo Carpathius, by the nose of the Church, understands St. Paul, the chief of preachers, who scented the divine mysteries most deeply, and most shrewdly distinguished them from the stenches of the world.

SECOND, PARTIAL SENSE. Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The nose of the holy soul, like the tower of Libanus, is her providence, vigilance, shrewdness, and discernment, by which she looks out from afar for what is useful and what is harmful, and shrewdly distinguishes virtue from vice, the inspiration of God from the suggestion of the devil, the spirit of charity from the spirit of the flesh; so Theodoret: the bride's nose, he says, is lofty and exalted and receives the heavenly sweetness of fragrance, and perceiving the bridegroom's ointment cries out, Song of Songs 1:3: We will run after thee to the odor of thy ointments: therefore it is compared to a tower, which is situated in Libanus, and looks toward the face of Damascus, for because the devil, as blessed Paul asserts, II Corinthians 11:13, transforms himself into an angel of light, and takes on the appearance of a spiritual ointment, of necessity the bride's nose, erect and watchful, looks toward the face of Damascus, lest, being deceived and abandoning the true ointment, she follow a false and counterfeit one. And below: Thy nose is like the tower of Libanus, which looks toward the face of Damascus: for thou lookest out lest the devil deceive thee under the appearance of divine things, and thrust upon thee a lie in place of the truth. Thus Theodoret.

And St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 5, verse 37: Thy nostrils, he says, are like the tower of Libanus looking out upon the face of Damascus, because the ointment of the true priest, which descends from the head onto the beard, that is, that divine fragrance, the fragrance of spiritual grace, which was from the Father in Christ, and by the sacrament of the incarnation descended to the earth, so that all things might be filled with the outpoured ointment, stands out with the lofty power of judgment, and fills the nostrils of the soul, that it may discern what smells sweet and what foul: the sweet things being of the saints, who can say, II Corinthians 2:15: For we are the good odor of Christ unto God, apart from the foul things of sinners. Then, comparing the nostrils to the tower of Libanus, he adds: These are nostrils like the tower of Libanus, lofty above the world, but for this reason it looks out upon the face of Damascus, namely the gentile people, scenting out its faith, by whose grace it wipes away the stench of its sins. The face of Damascus, therefore, is the faith of the gentiles, overshadowed by no covering, clothed with no garment, naked and free, intent more upon heaven than upon earth. This the nostrils of the Church behold and look out upon, gathering what is sweet in it and fragrant of aspiration and grace. Thus far St. Ambrose.

Wherefore St. Anthony, on the way of perfection, gave first place to discretion: hear St. Bernard, sermon 3 on the Circumcision of the Lord: Lest he who runs, he says, should stumble, it is necessary that he be illumined by the light of discretion, which is the mother of the virtues, and the consummation of perfection: this indeed teaches that nothing be done to excess: and this is the eighth day, on which the child is circumcised: because discretion truly circumcises, so that neither more nor less is done: for he who is excessive cuts off the fruit of a good work, he does not circumcise it; just as he who is lukewarm does, if he does less. The same, sermon 49 on the Song: Discretion, he says, sets order for every virtue, order gives it measure, and also beauty and permanence. Finally he says: By thy ordinance the day continueth, Psalm 118:91, calling it a virtue. Discretion, therefore, is not so much a virtue, as a certain moderator and charioteer of the virtues, and an orderer of the affections, and a teacher of conduct: take this away, and virtue will become vice, and natural affection itself will be turned rather into disturbance, and the ruin of nature. The same, on the Resurrection of the Lord, sermon 2: But when both are present, namely the affection of compassion and the zeal of justice, it is necessary that the spirit of discretion be present, lest perhaps, when the one ought to be shown, the other come forward, and indiscretion itself confound everything. Let our mind, therefore, have a third, namely the spirit of discretion: that, mixing times fittingly with times, it may know how to be zealous opportunely, and nevertheless to forgive. See Cassian, the whole of Conference II, where among other things he says, chapter 10: True discretion is acquired only by true humility; the first proof of this humility will be, if all things, not only those which are to be done, but also those which are thought, are reserved for the examination of the elders, so that no one, trusting in his own judgment, but acquiescing in their determinations in all things, learns from their tradition what he ought to judge good or evil, etc.; for no one can in any way be deceived, if he lives not by his own judgment, but by the example of his elders.

Furthermore, the analogies of the nose and the tower, which I reviewed a little above, fit discretion best: for this, first, must proportionally be greater than all of a man's acts, because it must judge them and distinguish and separate them, so that it may choose the good from the evil, and from the good that which is better. Secondly, comparatively, because discretion must stand out not only over a man's acts, but also over the other virtues, so that it may judge between them, so that it may prefer the necessary to the unnecessary, the more useful to the less useful, the better to the less good. This looks out against the face of Damascus, that is, of the devil thirsting for the blood of souls, that it may scent out, elude, and render vain his machinations, illusions, and attempts. Thirdly, in whiteness, because it is necessary that it be pure from every impure affection, and wholly white: so Justus Orgelitanus: the nose of the Church, he says, are those who, perceiving the odor of righteousness (which is in Christ), carry it through to the inward parts of the heart. Those who stand in great virtue are arranged like the tower of Libanus: and we have already said above that Libanus means "whiteness"; the whiteness of their height looks out against Damascus, because their wisdom, which is from God, illumines the world. Fourthly, in the office of watching; for discretion shrewdly scents out hidden vices or virtues: wherefore it constantly looks out against the face of Damascus, that is, against the appetite of the flesh and of blood, so that whatever smells of flesh and of carnal things, it immediately rejects: for almost every temptation of man arises from the flesh and concupiscence, for Damascus in Hebrew is the same as "sack of blood," or "drink," or "kiss," or "plunder." It is, then, the office of discretion to discern shrewdly whether that which comes into the mind is suggested by the flesh or by the spirit, so that it may refute the one and accept the other. Fifthly, in rectitude, for discretion must be upright, inasmuch as it directs all the virtues and makes them upright: wherefore its intention must be most upright, so that it look upon nothing but God and God's law, grace, and glory.

Symbolically Aponius: the tower of Libanus, that is, of frankincense, he says, is the humanity of Christ, which breathes upon the nostrils of our mind the most sweet odors of the virtues, by which we may repel the stenches of vices. Damascus, says Aponius, is the same as "kiss of blood" or "drink of blood." But since the devil offered to deceived men the bloody kisses of your friendships, or cups, of blood, almighty God made for himself a tower of most sweet odor, where no stench of sin is found, through the flesh taken from the Virgin Mary, whereby, by looking out, he might destroy the kingdom of the devil. Whence there seem to me to be understood as the nose of the Church those in whom there is a greater zeal and a more ardent faith for the destruction of idolatry.

Such a nose, like the tower of Libanus, had St. Magdalene, that is, "towered" (for magdal, or migdal, in Hebrew is "tower"), who, looking forward to things to come, repented, trampled underfoot present things, and consecrated herself to Christ: and therefore, on account of her diligence and ardor of faith, she received the name of "towered," and was the first before the apostles to deserve to see Christ rising again, says St. Jerome, epistle 46 to Principia. The same, epistle 149 to the same, near the beginning: Mary Magdalene, he says, weeps at the cross, prepares ointments: seeks in the tomb, questions the gardener, recognizes the Lord, goes to the apostles, announces him found; they doubt, she believes with confidence. Truly a tower-dweller, truly a tower of whiteness and of Libanus, which looks out upon the face of Damascus, namely the blood of the Savior (as it were mesec, that is, of the procurer of our salvation calling to the penitence of the sack).

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

Physically, the Blessed Virgin had a rather large nose: hear St. Epiphanius, in Nicephorus, book III of the History, chapter 23, depicting the form and figure of the Virgin: her nose somewhat long, her lips full-colored and full of sweetness of words, her face not round and pointed, but somewhat longer: her hands likewise and her fingers rather long.

Ethically, the Blessed Virgin had a nose like a tower, because she excelled supremely in foresight and discretion: again the Blessed Virgin looked forward to the future joys of the saints in heaven, and the torments of the wicked in hell; and therefore she despised all the prosperous and adverse things of this world in hope of the good things to come, and taught others to despise them. Hear Hailgrinus: this nose is the discretion of the Mother of God, by which she both senses beforehand the malice of the devil, and foresees from afar as if from a lookout, so that, like a tower, she may strongly oppose herself on our behalf; and it is said to be situated in Libanus, to show that by the whiteness of her virginity she is able, as it were with her foot, to crush the head of the serpent. Strong, says Rupert, is this nose of discretion, like the tower of Libanus, while, by rightly despising visible things, it resists strongly, and is not broken by the inconveniences of visible things, according to that verse, Psalm 60:4: Thou hast led me, for thou hast become my hope; a tower of strength from the face of the enemy. How does this tower look out against Damascus? Doubtless by holding a sense contrary to its sense, according to that verse, Romans 8:5: For they that are according to the flesh mind the things that are of the flesh; but they that are according to the spirit mind the things that are of the spirit. Rupert adds that Damascus represents a captive slave mutilated in the nose, just as Judea has been deprived of the city of Jerusalem and of the temple, as it were of its own nose, by the Romans; and accordingly that the man who lacks discretion is like that one, for he is as deformed as is a man whose nose has been cut off. Looking upon this reproach of Damascus, the wise soul preserves its nose, that is, its discretion, in all things.

Symbolically St. Bernard, sermon 4 on the Salve Regina: Thou, he says, O Lady, art a beautiful nose, to whom the bridegroom says, Song of Songs 7:4: Thy nose is like the tower of Libanus. The nose has two openings, through which it sends forth breath from the head: so thou, O Lady, by thy virginity and humility, didst bring forth from heaven the Son of God, the breath of our mouth, the Prophet saying, Lamentations 4:20: Christ the Lord, indeed, who, as the breath of our mouth, warms us with charity, cools our concupiscence, moves us to a good will, justifies by faith; thou, therefore, the nose of the Church, art like a tower, namely in lofty dignity, in firm gravity; thou art the tower of Libanus: Libanus, the mountain which is called "whitening," signifies thy innocence, exalted above all.

VERSE 5. THY HEAD IS LIKE CARMEL: AND THE HAIRS OF THY HEAD LIKE THE PURPLE OF THE KING BOUND IN THE CHANNELS.

THY HEAD (the Hebrew and the Septuagint add "upon thee") is like Carmel — the Arabic: thy head is fat, or thick, like Mount Carmel; Aben-Ezra and Pagninus: thy head is red, from red hair, like scarlet — for thus Carmel is rendered "scarlet" by the Septuagint and by our own translator, II Paralipomenon 2:7. Better is Luysius Legionensis, as if to say: As Carmel stands out above the other mountains of Judaea, so does thy head, O bride, and thou thyself standest out above other women. Carmel is a mountain in Phoenicia, most renowned for the fertility of its vineyards and of every kind of fruit: so Theodoret. Alcazar and Gislerius understand by Carmel a crown made from the flowers of Carmel, with which the bride's head was crowned; so also, in chapter 5:11, he called Christ's head "finest gold," that is, wreathed with a crown of finest gold. Thus the sense is, as if to say: Thy head is like Carmel, that is, a crown woven from the flowers of Carmel fits thy head beautifully, so as to represent this head being elegantly compared to Mount Carmel.

FIRST, THE ADEQUATE SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

By the head of the Synagogue many understand Christ, who, after the likeness of Carmel, is through grace most lofty, most pleasant, and most fruitful: so Cassiodorus, Bede, Anselm, and others. St. Gregory adds (whom others follow): For on Carmel Elijah, praying, obtained rain, and we, praying on Carmel, obtain rain, when, believing in Christ, we desire Christ, and receive from the Father the watering of grace, which we ask for. Justus of Urgel adds: in Christ, as it were in Carmel, the just find a dwelling place and receive the nourishment of wisdom. Pagninus adds also that Carmel is the same as "lamb circumcised and slain," such as Christ is.

But Christ is the general and common head both of the Church and of the Synagogue; the particular head, however, of the Synagogue that is to be converted to Christ at the end of the world will be Elijah, who, as of old he shone forth on Mount Carmel with wondrous holiness, efficacy of prayer, familiarity with God, and the glory of miracles, and there established a religious family of men serving God, who in the books of Kings are called "sons of the prophets" — whence the religious Carmelites, as it were the posterity of Elijah, took their name from this mountain — so likewise this same Elijah will, at the end of the world, do the same things, and greater, in that same place, and will lead forth religious of every kind into battle array against Antichrist: so Alcazar.

Elijah, then, is compared to Carmel: first, because on it, given over to prayer, he dwelt with God. Second, because he inhabited that mountain, and there founded monasteries, so that he seems to have occupied and possessed Carmel; whence St. Jerome, in his letter to Paulinus, treating of monks, says: Our leader is Elijah, our captain is Elisha, our captains are the sons of the prophets. Third, because Elijah went about shaggy, long-haired, and as it were crowned with hair, as is plain from IV Kings 1:8, just as Mount Carmel is made shaggy and crowned with the foliage and branches of trees. Fourth, because Elijah stood out above the other prophets, just as Carmel stands out above the other mountains of Judaea; whence the Jews, even now, though faithless, hold this axiom: Elijah will come; he will resolve for us all the doubts of the Law; he will show us the Messiah — wherefore, when he returns at the end of the world and shows that the Christ slain by the Jews was the true Messiah, the Jews will do penance and believe in Christ. Fifth, because just as Carmel is most pleasant and most fruitful, whence it passed into a proverb, so that a very fertile field is called in Hebrew "Carmel" — so Elijah, full of grace and zeal, will be fruitful in virtues and good works, and will convert all the Jews to Christ, so that this saying of Isaiah 35:2 will suit the Synagogue: The glory of Libanus is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Saron: see what is said there.

Sixth, the mountain of Carmel was as it were a citadel and refuge against oncoming enemies: so too Elijah was a refuge for the faithful against Ahab, Jezebel, and the idolaters, and such he will be against Antichrist and the antichristians at the end of the world; whence Elisha, as he was being caught up into heaven, cried after him, IV Kings 2:12: My father, my father, (thou art) the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof. Seventh, Elijah, contending on Mount Carmel with the four hundred priests of Baal, and conquering them by fire drawn down from heaven which consumed his sacrifice, slew them all to a man, and restored the ancestral faith and worship of the one God, III Kings 18:19 and following: he will do the very same thing at the end of the world, as is plain from Apocalypse 11:5: And if any man, it says, will hurt them (them, that is, Elijah and Enoch), fire shall come out of their mouth, and shall devour their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain; whence Ecclesiasticus 48:1, among the many and ample praises of Elijah, assigns this as the first: And Elijah the prophet stood up, as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch. And concluding, in verse 9, it adds: Who wast taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. Who art registered in the judgments of times (at the end of the world) to appease the wrath of the Lord: to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. Blessed are they that saw thee, and were honored with thy friendship. On account of these correspondences and reasons, then, Elijah, who is to return at the end of the world and convert the Jews, is here called the head of the Synagogue, and compared to Carmel; whence the Chaldee renders: The king who is set up over thee as prince is just, like Elijah the prophet, who was zealous with zeal for the Lord of heaven, and slew the false prophets on Mount Carmel, and converted the peoples of the house of Israel to the fear of the Lord.

Furthermore, Aponius understands by the head, in the likeness of Carmel, the kings of the Romans made subject to Christ. Again, Honorius, dwelling on the choirs of the camps of the Synagogue distributed into ranks and orders, says: The ninth order is that of the high priests, of whom it is said: Thy head is like Carmel, because they have the knowledge of circumcision (for this is what Carmel signifies), namely so that they may discern and separate the spiritual and Christian circumcision, which consists in cutting away vices, from the carnal and Jewish circumcision, which will consist in cutting off the flesh of the foreskin.

SECOND, THE PARTIAL SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE HOLY SOUL.

The head of the holy soul is the holy mind, filled with all good things, says Theodoret — a mind, namely, that is pleasant with virtues, lofty in prayer and conduct, and fruitful in good works, like Carmel. Hear St. Gregory: Because just as the members are governed by the head, so are all our thoughts disposed by the mind; now Carmel is interpreted "knowledge of circumcision"; the head of the bride, therefore, is said to be like Carmel, because every holy mind knows how it ought worthily to be circumcised; it knows that whatever is done in the body is nothing, if the mind should be unclean; which, if it is made the temple of Christ, is inhabited by him.

Fittingly, the mind is compared to the head and to Carmel, because just as the head instills sensation and movement, and the animal spirits, into the members subject to it, and just as Carmel imparts its pleasantness, its foliage, flowers, and fruits to the region subject to it, so too the mind breathes its vigor, virtue, and grace into all the powers, senses, and faculties of the soul subject to it; and therefore in the Hebrew it is, thy head is above thee like Carmel, as if to say: As the head is above the members and Carmel above the land, which it waters and enriches, so also thy mind is above all the powers of the soul, and rules them, indeed waters them, and blesses them with all good things.

Symbolically, William refers this to the mystery of the circumcision of Christ: for Carmel is the same as "knowledge of circumcision," as if to say: Thy head is like Carmel, that is, thy mind, O Blessed Virgin, had the knowledge of circumcision, so that thou didst circumcise Christ, even though by the Law thou wast not bound to it: Well didst thou know, O pious mother, he says, why the remedy of circumcision had been given to the people of God, and yet me, whom thou didst conceive singularly without concupiscence, and hence not in sins, thou didst subject to carnal circumcision, as one to be purged as it were from original stain; nor didst thou do this unwisely, but, taught by the Spirit, thou wast serving the divine inspiration: for it was fitting that I, the giver of the Law, made of a woman, should also be made under the Law, and this by way of dispensation, that I might redeem those who were under the Law.

THIRD, THE PRINCIPAL SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

The Blessed Virgin, through Christ and after Christ, is the head of the faithful of the Church, watering, nourishing, refreshing, and protecting them like Carmel; whence the Carmelites, the first followers of Elijah after Christ, took the Blessed Virgin as their patroness, and built a church in her honor on Mount Carmel, and were thence called the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel, as Trithemius attests, in his book On the Praises of the Carmelite Order, chapter 7. Thomas Waldensis, a weighty theologian, adds, in his book On the Sacraments, title 1, chapter resser, and others, that the order of the Carmelites had already begun from the time of the apostles on Mount Carmel (and the name itself is an argument for this), in a church which was the first of all in the whole world dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; but afterward, when the number both of men and of dwellings had multiplied throughout all Palestine, it was scattered and dispersed by the invading Saracens; but when these had been driven out again, it flourished once more, about the eleven-hundredth year of man's salvation. See Paulus Maurigia, in his book On the Origin of Religious Orders, chapter 30, who says among other things that Pope Honorius IV confirmed for them this name of Carmelites, taken from Carmel, in the year of the Lord 1217. Moreover, that the Blessed Virgin appeared to Father Simon, general of the order, a holy man, and, as he prayed, gave him a white habit, and said: Receive this scapular, given by me to thee and to thy order, as a sign of my congregation.

Hear the Lord Christ mystically describing the head of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, book 5 of the Revelations, at the end, Question 9: Thy head was as it were gleaming gold, and thy hairs as it were the rays of the sun: because thou, most pure virginity, which is in thee as it were the head of all virtues, and the restraint of all unlawful motions, didst please and shine in my sight, with all humility; therefore thou art deservedly called crowned queen above all things that are created: queen, because of thy purity; crowned, because of thy excellent dignity. Thy forehead was of incomparable whiteness, signifying the modesty of thy conscience, in which is the fullness of human knowledge, and the sweetness of divine wisdom shines in it above all.

Furthermore, some hold that Solomon here uses comparisons that in appearance are so disparate and immense, by which he compares the bride's eyes to fishpools, her nose to a tower, her head to Carmel, so as to signify the immensity of the excess of the Blessed Virgin above all women, as if to say: As much as fishpools exceed the eyes of an ordinary man, as much as a tower is greater than a nose, and Carmel than a head, so much do the Blessed Virgin, and her eyes, nose, and head, in dignity, grace, and glory, exceed all women — indeed all men and angels, and all creatures whatsoever, and the eyes, nostrils, and head of all. Hence she herself is called by Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 2, the mountain in the top of the mountains.

AND THE HAIRS OF THY HEAD LIKE THE PURPLE OF THE KING BOUND IN THE CHANNELS.

The Hebrew: and the thinness of thy head is like purple — thinness, that is, fine hairs and locks; the Tigurine version: and the subtle exhalation (that is, the fine hairs that arise from the head and stream out) of thy head is like royal purple, which is bound in the channels (of the dyers); the Arabic: bound in amphitheaters; the Septuagint: the plait (St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 11, has "the adornment") of thy head is like purple. The king bound in the runnings, that is, in the channels through which the water runs — so also Pagninus; Isidore, more clearly: the king bound with hair. The Hebrew rehatim signifies both channels and beams, which run from one wall to another, just as channels run from one place to another; whence Cosmas Damianus renders: the king bound in the panelled ceilings — that is, he says, Christ bound to the beams of the cross; Vatablus: the hair of thy head is like purple, and it is as a king surrounded by channels, that is, dwelling near channels, where there is water — which was most commendable in the Holy Land, for since it was dry, watered land was held there in the highest price: so Vatablus; but this seems far-fetched and remote, as also that reading of others who render it, a king surrounded by those running about, namely soldiers.

The bride's hair is compared to purple, which is bound or tied in channels, so that if any impurity from the dyeing should adhere to it, it may be washed away by the water continually running through the channels; or rather, so that, already dyed in the dyer's vats, it may again, and more deeply, be dyed in the channels through which the purple liquid runs down into the basin, or dyeing-vessel; these vessels Pliny, book 9, chapter 38, calls cortinae: perhaps also these vessels are here called "channels," because they were hollow and long, like channels.

The sense, then, is, as if to say: The bride's hair is ruddy, gleaming and shining like royal purple newly dyed, indeed dibaphic, that is, twice-dyed, and therefore of a vivid and glowing redness: so interpreters generally. Hear Genebrard and Luysius: He compares the bride's hair to the most precious, most beautiful purple, and especially fresh, which the dyers still dry for kings on the topmost gutters of their houses, or which they dye in the pipes of their workshop, holding it bound in those same pipes and channels in which the purple color is contained, so that it may take the color better. Sanchez reads otherwise, who understands by the channels bands or cords of gold or silver, which, like channels and water running through channels, gleam white and shine with a silver whiteness. Whence also in the Talmud, chapter 3, On the Paschal Lamb, silver bands are called rehate hakkeseph, that is, channels of silver. Gislerius adds that fillets are called "channels," because, while they bind and press the flowing hair, they cause a kind of rivulet and channel of the streaming locks to run down over the head.

Furthermore, what the Septuagint, Pagninus, Vatablus, Cosmas, and others render as the king bound in the runnings, Theodoret, and after him Titelmann, explains thus, as if to say: The bride's hair is like a king crowned with a royal crown, and clothed in purple, which has folds and stripes like channels, and is fittingly fitted and marked out by these as if by furrows. The bride's hair is beautifully crowned with twisted locks, folded and striped; it is beautiful, therefore, both from its color, because it is purple, and from its binding and arrangement, because it is elegantly bound, bent, and braided with fillets or golden bands. Finally, the color of purple is the color of blood; whence Pliny, book 9, chapter 38, says: Its highest praise (that of purple) is a color gleaming to the sight like clotted blood; whence Homer calls blood "purple," and Virgil, following him: he vomits forth his purple soul — for the soul, that is, the life, is said in Scripture to be in the blood; indeed, some philosophers held that the soul is nothing other than blood, as Aristotle attests, book 1, On the Soul.

FIRST, THE ADEQUATE SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CHURCH, OR THE SYNAGOGUE.

The head of the Synagogue that is to be converted to Christ will be Christ, and after Christ, Elijah, as I have said; the hairs, then, of this head will be religious and zealous men, disciples and followers of Elijah: for just as hairs arise from the head and adorn and protect it, so these, proceeding from the discipline and spirit of Elijah, will adorn, defend, aid, and fight for him against Antichrist and the antichristians; and for this reason they will be slain by him, and will be dyed and adorned with their own blood as with the purple of martyrdom. Now this purple of blood will be like the blood with which Christ was made purple in his passion; indeed, it will draw from that blood all its force, color, and beauty, just as if, bound as it were to the five wounds of Christ as to channels, it were reddened and made purple by those same wounds. Excellent and most valiant, then, will be the martyrs at the end of the world, joined by faith and charity to Christ the king, as hair to a head, and bound by affection and meditation to his sacred wounds as to channels, and from these they will suck and drink in purple, that is, the strength and beauty of martyrdom: so Alcazar, Cosmas Damianus, Honorius, Delrio, and the others cited at the beginning of the chapter.

So also by the purple hair St. Gregory understands the desire of martyrdom; so too Justus of Urgel and Aponius, who also adds that the channels signify the example of the virtue of the martyrs, which they transmit to others. To this purpose serves the Septuagint's version, the king bound in the runnings; Cosmas, in the panelled ceilings, as if to say, Christ bound to the beams of the cross, from these, as it were from channels, drips upon us the purple of his blood, and through it strengthens us for martyrdom, so that we too may be made purple with our own blood equally as he was; the Septuagint, therefore, here clearly signify the mystery of the cross of Christ, when they say that the bride's hair is the same color as purple, and they give the reason: that the king is bound — indeed fixed with nails — above the hair of the Shulamite, that is, of the bride, and that from his wounds blood flows down through five channels, and the Shulamite receives the whole flow of it upon her hair. The king bound in the channels, or with the channels, namely the king with the five channels of blood flowing forth from his wounds, is fastened above the cross with the bonds of love and pierced with three nails, and purple bursts forth from all his wounds, with which the hair of the Shulamite — representing thereby the devotion of the religious Church — is thoroughly imbued. There serves this consideration wonderfully a certain pious sculpture, which places St. Magdalene at the foot of the cross, embracing it with her head uncovered, in such a way that the blood flowing down from Christ dyes her hair, with the color, namely, of Tyrian purple: so Alcazar.

This also agrees with what the Septuagint render, the king bound in the beams, because just as Christ was king on the cross, conquering and ruling over sin, hell, and the devil, so likewise the religious, crucified with Christ, is a king ruling over himself, his vices, his passions, and the whole world, as St. Chrysostom teaches, in his treatise On the Comparison of a King and a Monk, and, following him, our own Hieronymus Platus, book 2, On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 16.

To this purpose serves the version of the Chaldee: And the poor of the people, who walked beside the prince, on this side and on that, because they are needy, it shall come to pass that they shall be clothed in purple, as Daniel was clothed in the city of Babylon, and Mordecai in Susa, on account of the merit of Abraham, whom he set up from the beginning as ruler of the world; and on account of the righteousness of Isaac, whom his father bound, that he might offer him; and on account of the worthiness of Jacob, who peeled the rods at the channels.

Hence also Cassiodorus and Bede understand by the purple in the channels the saints fixed in humility, in which the purple of the eternal king is dipped, and every saint, imitating the humility of his Redeemer, strives to be made conformable to his sufferings, so far as they are turned into the dignity of purple, and, laboring for Christ, deserve to be crowned with Christ. This purple, moreover, is said to be bound, because the hearts of these same are fixed and made steadfast in the fear and love of their Redeemer, and can never be separated from his charity. These things could also be fitted to the cardinals of the Roman Church, for these, like purple hair, adorn the head of the Pontiff, and therefore wear purple, that this may remind them to pour out their blood for Christ, if need be, and that, at the end of the world, contending with the Pontiff against Antichrist, they will truly pour it out, as of old St. Lawrence, St. Cyriacus, and other first cardinals poured it out with St. Sixtus, Marcellus, Cornelius, Urban, and the other first pontiffs.

SECOND, THE PARTIAL SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE HOLY SOUL.

The purple hair of the soul is the abundance of pious thoughts and affections, and especially the desire of mortification and martyrdom, which it draws from the drops of blood dripping from Christ on the cross, which it drinks and draws in by constant meditation; the soul itself, then, as the hair of the purpled Christ, wholly dependent on him as on a head, bound by contemplation to the channels of his wounds, shines with the double dye of love of God and neighbor, and of martyrdom, and is not allowed to wander and dissolve into thinking of other things.

Whence St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 17: She herself, he says, as one well deserving, is crowned queen with the blood of Christ, as it is written, Canticle 7:5: And the adornment of thy head like purple. The blood of Christ is a purple which dyes the souls of the saints, splendid not only in color, but also in power, because it makes them kings, and better kings, to whom he grants an eternal kingdom. So too Theodoret, Honorius, Rupert. Hear also three anonymous writers cited in Theodoret: The hair of thy head like purple — namely, the doctrine of Christ, woven together by the bond of reasonings and morals, is, like the garment of a king, the mantle of thy mind, in which he rules over the passions, and he is a king bound in the runnings, that is, subject to no disturbance, but bound by the cord of that divine doctrine we have spoken of, in the passing course of this present life, lest he slip on the slippery ground of sensible and perishable things.

Furthermore, the pious mind binds itself to the passion of Christ with the cord of love, and so in turn Christ is bound by that same cord; whence Sanchez, understanding by the channels cords, teaches that the pious soul, through holy thoughts and meditations on the passion of Christ, binds that same Christ to itself — not unwilling, but willing — so that it can think, will, and desire nothing else; and that Christ, in turn, does not allow himself to be separated from her thought and love; for how should desires which aspire to him alone not capture and hold the most gentle mind of Christ the bridegroom? How should not those bonds bind him, by which the faithful bride has so restrained her own thoughts that she has cut off for herself every capacity of thinking of anything but her bridegroom? O happy, then, the bonds of the religious, that is, of those bound, by which they have bound the movements and pursuits of the mind, lest, having slipped from God, they wander off into diverse things! For unless the bonds be broken, they bind Christ to themselves, as their bridegroom and their king altogether.

THIRD, THE PRINCIPAL SENSE. CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Physically, the hair of the head of the Blessed Virgin was golden, tending toward purple, as I said above from St. Epiphanius and Nicephorus. Ethically, the hairs, that is, the thoughts of the Virgin, were constantly dyed with the memory and compassion of the purple of the king, that is, of the passion of Christ: for which reason she truly stood forth a martyr. The sense, then, says Hailgrinus, is: Thy mind, prudently circumcised, and thy thoughts, dyed in the blood of the Lord's passion, were always so affected, as if they saw the fresh blood flowing from the wounds. A bundle of myrrh lodged between her breasts, until she was taken up to that joy which swallowed up all sorrow.

More fully, William says: The purple of the king is the flesh of the Redeemer, ruddy with its own blood; that flesh was the sacred garment of the Word, from which the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, John 1:14; but at the time of the passion it was dyed, in its own blood, into a royal purple to be adored by men and angels; whence, Philippians 2:9, the Apostle says that, on account of the passion of his death, a name was given to him by the Father, which is above every name, that in his name every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Now while that sacred flesh, which the propitious Truth had taken to himself from the Virgin, was pierced with nails and a lance for the eliciting of the price of human redemption, according to the prophecy of the truthful Simeon, a sword pierced through the soul of the pious mother, Luke 2:35. As many wounds as the son received in his flesh, so many did the pious mother receive in her heart; what the four or three nails and the one lance wrought in the flesh of the son, that one sword wrought in the soul of the mother. The flesh of the son was red with the blood of the passion; those maternal thoughts, so to speak, were red with the blood of compassion; well, therefore, is it said to her, Canticle 7:3: The hairs of thy head like the purple of the king. But what is added, bound in the channels, signifies that this dyeing of the royal garment, which was wrought by the passion, was immediately followed by the abundance of his grace, which in the sacred writings is signified by water. See what was said on chapter 5, verse 9, on those words: Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one hair of thy neck.

Lastly, Philo, bishop of the Carpathians, rendering anew from the Septuagint, a king terrible in his goings forth, explains this of the going forth of Christ from the heavens, through the Blessed Virgin, into the earth and hell, and his return into the heavens: For from heaven, he says, he went forth into the earth, as a bridegroom coming forth from the virginal bridal chamber into the world; and descending even to the depths of hell, he destroyed death, and carried off the spoil of hell. He alone is altogether terrible in his goings forth and his deeds, which he performed for our salvation, compelled by no bonds of necessity, but overcome by the ardor of his immense charity, and, moved by the ineffable greatness of his goodness, willingly advanced to these mortal things and approached sorrowful things; and that he might grant us his immortality, he was clothed with our mortality, nowhere abandoning us, nowhere forsaking us, but everywhere cherishing and guarding us: for he says, Matthew 28:20: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. O incomparable power of love! O supreme goodness!

THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH To the Synagogue now believing in Christ.

VERSE 6. HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE, AND HOW COMELY, MOST DEAR ONE, IN DELIGHTS!

If you translate from the Hebrew with Pagninus: "O how beautiful you have become, and how sweet, love, in delights!" — namely of the bridegroom, by delighting him; or, word for word, "How beautiful you have become, and how pleasant (or sweet, agreeable and acceptable), O charity in delights!" so the Septuagint. In Hebrew it is battaanugim, which by systole signifies "in delights"; but by diastole, bath taanugim, which is the same as "daughter of delights," as Aquila and the Syriac translate it, that is, most dainty and most delightful; whence Vatablus translates, "obtaining the primacy in delights," by which, namely, you wonderfully delight both yourself, and the bridegroom, and us, the young maidens of Zion, and all others besides. The Arabic: "How beautiful is your comeliness, how delightful you are, O love in delights!"

Many judge these to be the words of the bridegroom, continuing to praise the bride, the Synagogue.

Others, better, judge these to be the words of the chorus of the young maidens of Zion, that is, of the virgins and girls of the new Jerusalem and the Christian Zion, who, having heard from the bridegroom such great praises of the bride through each of her members, admiring her beauty, cry out: How beautiful you are, etc., or rather that they are the words of the Church of the Gentiles, which, rejoicing together with the Synagogue of the Jews converted to Christ, congratulates her, and exulting applauds her as a sister now in the faith (for this is what it befitted a sister to do for a sister), saying: How beautiful you are, etc. That this is so will be clear from verse 9, where it is said: Your throat is like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink. Which words are agreed to be not the bridegroom's, but the chorus of the young maidens'; for the bride would not say of herself, worthy for my beloved, but worthy for me. And from verses 7, 8: Your stature (O bride) is compared to a palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes. I said: I will climb up into the palm tree — for Christ does not climb up into the bride's palm tree, but rather descends, since he is far higher than she.

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

The chorus of the young maidens, or girls, of Jerusalem, that is, of souls new and imperfect in the faith, will applaud the Synagogue of the Jews, to be converted through Elijah, saying: How beautiful you are, O my Lady, and how comely in delights! which you yourself enjoy, and by which you wonderfully delight the bridegroom Christ, and us your young maidens, and you appear the more beautiful the more suddenly you have emerged, out of so long and so black a deformity of perfidy and ignorance of Christ and of your salvation, into so fervent a faith and zeal — so perfectly, that you have given to Christ very many and most valiant martyrs, who, as I have already said, like the hair of your head, like the king's purple bound in channels, wonderfully adorn and beautify it. This is what Isaiah, exulting in spirit, foretold, chapter 35, verse 1: The desert and impassable land shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. Budding it shall bud, and shall rejoice, glad and praising: the glory of Lebanon is given to it: the beauty of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God.

Hear St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 17, verse 5: "How beautiful," he says, "and how sweet you have become, charity, in your delights! Beautiful with the comeliness of virtue, sweet with the pleasantness of grace, with the remission of vices, whom no bitterness of sin troubles, and she herself now charity, who by loving God has received also his name; because God is charity." Cassiodorus: "The new bride," he says, "is the Synagogue of the Jews; she is to be beautiful in faith, comely in works." Honorius: "Beautiful on account of outward works, comely on account of inward virtues." The three Anonymous writers in Theodoret: "You are surrounded," they say, "with admirable beauty, that indeed which has come to you from likeness and exemplar; for joined to the bridegroom, and enjoying him, you are filled with incredible spiritual pleasantness."

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

The holy soul, through grace and heroic works, especially of patience in adversities and of martyrdom, becomes so beautiful that she is a daughter of delights, that is, the allurement and delight of God, of the angels, and of all the saints. Wherefore St. James, chapter 1, verse 2: "Count it all joy," he says, "my brethren, when you fall into various temptations: knowing that the trial of your faith works patience. And patience has a perfect work." And Paul, Romans 5:3: "We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience." Hence the Chaldee translates: "King Solomon said: How beautiful you are, assembly of Israel, at the time when you bear the yoke of my kingdom, at the time when I chasten you in your infirmities on account of your sins, and you receive it in charity, and delights appear to you."

The delights of the holy soul, therefore, first, are tribulations and crosses; second, the divine sweetnesses, inspirations, and spiritual consolations, which God breathes into the faithful devoted to himself, and especially into the afflicted, and chiefly the hope of heavenly glory: so Cassiodorus. Third, Theodoret says these delights are of love and charity: "For you love," he says, "the bridegroom who loves you, and placing all your delights in his love, you have despised all the rest." Fourth, Rupert: "What is it," he says, "to be beautiful and comely in delights, except to have, in the abundance of grace, gentleness and the utmost humility of heart?" Fifth, these delights are of holy Scripture: hear St. Gregory: "It is to be noted," he says, "that she is called most dear in delights, because whoever does not strive to abound in the delights of holy Scripture does not arrive at the charity and familiarity of Christ. For hence it is said, Matthew 13:12: To everyone who has, it shall be given, and he shall abound; but from him who has not, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away from him: for whoever abounds in these delights is refreshed; refreshed by these, he is continually prepared to receive greater things." Sixth, St. Augustine, tract. 65 on John, teaches that the death which charity inflicts is most sweet, and that these are the delights of charity, and that charity is "in delights": for thus he says: "O how well it is sung to you in your marriage-song, Song of Songs 7:6: Because charity is in your delights! She does not destroy your soul along with the impious, she discerns your cause, and she is strong as death, and she is in your delights. What a wondrous kind of death, for which it was not enough not to be among torments, unless it were also, besides, among delights."

For this reason the bride is here called ahaba, that is, love, affection, charity in delights, that is, most delightfully and supremely lovable, beloved, dear (our version translates it, most dear), so much so that she seems to be love itself, beauty itself, sweetness and comeliness itself, delights themselves: because for her, charity is in delights, that is, because she loves the things that are truly lovable; because she loves the things that are worthy of charity and love: so Sanchez.

So the third daughter of St. Sophia, virgin and martyr, was called Charity, as being supremely lovable to God and men. So St. Lieba, or Lioba, conceived in England by a vow of noble parents, from her earliest age consecrated to God by her parents by vow, received this name, because she was to be beloved by God and men: for Lieb in German signifies "beloved"; wherefore, piously educated in a monastery, she grew into a woman of wondrous sanctity. Hear the author of her Life: "She was angelic in appearance, pleasant in speech, brilliant in intellect, great in counsel, catholic in faith, most patient in hope, abounding in charity; and though she always showed a cheerful countenance, she was never dissolved into laughter through excessive mirth." Wherefore, chosen as abbess, she governed the nuns subject to her with extraordinary prudence and sanctity: wherefore, being frequently summoned by the Emperor Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard, she was held by them in honor, and received with great reverence, so much so that Hildegard, kissing her eyes at Aachen as she was departing, said: "Farewell forever, lady and most beloved sister, farewell, precious portion of my soul. May Christ our creator and redeemer grant that we may see one another on the day of judgment without confusion. But in this present light, we shall never again from this day enjoy one another's mutual sight." She became famous for many miracles. Her Life is extant, written by Rudolph, a man of gravity, in Surius, on the 28th of September.

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

Nothing is more beautiful, nothing more comely, nothing more pleasant, nothing more delightful in the whole of creation than the Blessed Virgin: wherefore the Church, in the Office, sings to her this antiphon taken from here: "You have become comely and sweet in your delights, holy Mother of God." How beautiful, says Hailgrinus, you are in motherhood, how comely in virginity, how admirable in both! For, as William rightly explains: "In what great delights of holy pleasantness she lived, when she pressed God the Word in her maternal embraces, and imprinted sacred kisses upon him from her maternal mouth; when she nourished at her maternal breasts him who in heaven fed the angels from himself, and ministered the other offices of maternal devotion as the time required!" Finally, in all these things, not ignorant of the divine mystery and of her own privilege, she knew perfectly well that she was the mother of majesty, and to know this was to her a singular and continual delight.

Further, as regards the matter at hand, the Blessed Virgin will be beautiful and comely through the conversion of so many Jews to herself and to her Son through Elijah, which she herself will procure, as it were charity in delights, so that she may offer to them her charity to be tasted, and in turn may delight in their charity and holiness, and delight herself. Hence she is the delight, desire and joy not only of men on earth, but also of the angels and of the blessed in heaven, so that all sing together to her: As the dwelling of all who rejoice is in you, holy Mother of God.

Finally Philo, reading (though against the authority of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts) "how beautiful and powerful you have become," refers this to Christ the bridegroom, insofar as he is man: "Charity is in your delights," that is, he says, what Wisdom, Christ, says, Proverbs 8:31: "And my delights were to be with the children of men"; for he embraces us with such great charity, that he wishes nothing else than that we should always be with him; for this he desires of us, this he demands, this he urgently entreats; whence he adds: "This is your greatness, you are made like the palm tree," as if to say: The greatness of your immense charity is likened to a palm tree; for the palm signifies the heart's inward charity and virtue and the unconquerable strength of faith, etc., which lifts up the heart to things heavenly and eternal, and is broken by no adversities, but amid all things, indeed above all things, endures unconquered and reigns.

VERSE 7. YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE, AND YOUR BREASTS TO CLUSTERS.

YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE. — The Hebrew has, this thy stature; the Septuagint, this thy greatness, which the Complutensians refer to what preceded, in this way: love in thy delights, this thy greatness, that is to say: Thy delightful love is thy greatness; Aquila, this thy raising up, or resurrection, namely, O Synagogue, whereby thou hast risen from perfidy to faith, from death to life, from Moses to Christ; Symmachus, this thy youth, or age, especially flowering, vigorous and warlike, which used to begin from the seventeenth year, on the testimony of Plutarch in his Gracchus — notes the Synagogue's vigorous and strong age in the faith of Christ, in which she will fight to the death against Antichrist. The Syriac, this thy stature, namely which I have described up to this point; the Arabic, thy fame is magnified, or thy nature and disposition, like a palm tree; for the palm grows straight upward, and above has a head and foliage like that of a human.

The meaning is, as if to say: O new bride, thou art tall, with a lofty neck and body like a palm tree: for this is a great dowry and praise, which women seek after, wherefore they both raise up the neck, and place towered headdresses upon the head, and put high buskins beneath the feet, that they may appear taller. Hence Ovid, concerning Galatea, book XIV of the Metamorphoses: Taller than a tall alder.

In the anagogical sense, Honorius: The delights, he says, of the Church reigning with Christ, are the joys of the exultation of paradise: in these delights she herself is beautiful and comely, because she shines like the sun and moon, and is most dear to Christ and the angels.

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

YOUR STATURE IS LIKENED TO A PALM TREE. — The stature like a palm tree of the Synagogue converted to Christ, and yet to be converted through Elijah, notes her great and lofty spirit, whereby she will nobly raise herself up against the threats and blandishments of Antichrist, and by despising them will transcend and overcome them, to such a degree that she will desire to meet death for Christ, as I said a little before. Hence, just as the palm, the more it is weighed down by a burden placed upon it, the more it raises itself up, so likewise those then converted to Christ, the more bitter things they suffer from Antichrist, the stronger they will become. Again, just as the palm, on the testimony of Pliny, book XIII, chapter IV, does not bear fruit except in soil that is hot, nitrous, or salty, and therefore by its height seems to look down upon the earth and seek heaven, and to climb straight up to it, and scarcely to rely on roots in the ground, because there it finds nothing but what is tasteless: so also holy men have their mind fixed on heaven, and therefore all earthly things seem insipid to them, and they love the cross of Christ, and in it they put down roots, are nourished, and grow up to heaven, for which they long.

I have reviewed many analogies of the palm tree and the Church, or the holy soul, in perpetual greenness, uprightness, strength, height, fruit, foliage, etc., at Ecclesiasticus XXIV, 18, on the words: I was exalted like a palm tree in Cades; among which that one fits the Synagogue above the rest, which Nyssen attributes to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, in his Oration concerning him — namely, that the palm alone among trees rises up and grows out of the earth with the full thickness of its crown already complete at the root; and although, advancing straight upward, it receives an increase of height, nothing is added to it in thickness, but it remains equally thick, strong, and unbending: in like manner the Synagogue, to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, will straightway from the beginning receive such thickness and strength of faith and virtue, that she will at once become perfect, and will bring forth teachers and martyrs, who after the manner of Paul will pour out their soul and life for Christ.

Hence again, symbolically, by the palm tree you may understand the cross of Christ, from which all grace and strength will come to them, as will be plain from the sentence following: I will go up into the palm tree, etc. — that is to say: Thy stature, O Synagogue, is like Christ exalted on the cross, because thou dost render to him many martyrs and crucified ones from Antichrist. This is what Christ foretold, John XII, 32: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself.

AND YOUR BREASTS TO CLUSTERS. — By clusters understand the wings or fronds of palm trees, in which a multitude of dates is contained: for these plainly have the shape of breasts, just as clusters of grapes do: so Theodoret, three Anonymous writers, Gislerius and Sanchez, although Aben-Ezra, whom Luysius, Alcazar and Genebrardus follow, take clusters here to mean those of the vine and of grapes, which in Judea they say are married to palm trees, just as in Apulia they are married to very tall trees: for the vines there grow so thick and tall that they can be made equal to and joined with the tallest trees, so much so that a single vine produces as many grapes as suffice to press out a vessel of wine. Whence also it follows: I will go up into the palm tree, and take hold of its fruits: and thy breasts shall be like clusters of the vine: for these are like breasts not only in shape, but also in juice, for they give wine, just as breasts give milk. Whence, chapter I, verse 1, and chapter IV, verse 10, he said: Thy breasts are better than wine.

Furthermore, he joins the breasts to the stature, because when a woman grows in stature and age, her breasts likewise grow and swell, so that as a bride she may be able to conceive, bear, and nourish offspring, according to that word, Ezekiel XVI, 7: And thou wast made great, and hadst entered in, and camest to a woman's array: thy breasts swelled.

And your breasts to clusters — that is to say: Thou dost furnish the milk of thy doctrine fittingly and abundantly to all thy children. See the symbols of the breasts, which I reviewed at chapter IV, verse 5, and chapter I, verse 1. Furthermore, Alcazar, who takes the clusters not of the palm, that is, of dates, but of the vine, that is, of grapes, explains it thus, as if to say: Just as in Judea vines are married to palm trees, and produce clusters and wine, so likewise the Synagogue converted to Christ will join cluster and wine with palm and dates, that is, wisdom with holiness, and therefore her breasts will be like clusters of wine, not of milk: because she will nourish her disciples with the wine of perfect wisdom and virtue, namely, contempt of the world, zeal, mortification, desire, martyrdom, etc., with which novices are nourished in well-ordered religious orders: for the disciples of Elijah too will be contending against Antichrist, just as the religious themselves will. These, therefore, like clusters, which having drawn nourishment from the heavens have grown up on high, now ripened and matured by the heat of persecutions and tribulations, and pressed by the heavy weight in the winepress of the cross, will offer sweet wine to the bridegroom Christ, which will gladden his heart. Breasts, therefore, like clusters signify the Synagogue's remarkable diligence and constancy in teaching, charity in winning souls, and generosity in nursing little ones, say Philo and Honorius.

In the symbolic sense, Honorius: The stature, he says, of the Church (and of the holy soul) is the perseverance of the contest, which began to grow in Abel and will persevere to the last of the elect, or took its beginning of growth in the apostles, and will be consummated in the Synagogue at her final conversion. The palm is rough below, and beautiful above, and is called victory, and is understood as the life of Christ, which here on earth was in the roughness of sufferings, and after the victory of the cross was in the beauty of the heavens. The stature of the bride, therefore, will be likened to the endurance of Christ, because the Church here was rough amid oppressions; but having gained the victory over vices, she shines beautiful in the heavens; the palm also keeps its leaves, and the Church, though the state of the world varies, holds the same mysteries of the faith. The breasts of the Church are

the two Testaments, from which preachers suck the milk of mystical understanding, who are called the breasts, because they furnish the milk of doctrine to the unlearned; who are likened to clusters, because just as clusters are full of wine, so they are full of knowledge; and just as clusters when pressed intoxicate, so they, when pressed in the world, give out the milk of doctrine.

SECUNDUS SENSUS PARTIALIS: SECOND, THE PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The holy soul is like the palm tree, according to that word, Psalm XCI, 13: The just shall flourish like the palm tree; first, because like the palm it is upright through justice. Second, because it is lofty through heavenly life and contemplation, according to that word, Philippians III, 20: Our conversation is in heaven. Third, because it is always green through vigor of spirit; whence St. Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron, chapter XVII: Imitate, he says, O man, the palm tree, that it may be said to thee also, Canticle VII, 5: Thy stature is made like to the palm tree. Keep the greenness of thy childhood and of that natural innocence, which thou didst receive from the beginning, so that, planted beside the running waters, thou mayest have thy fruit ready in its season, and thy leaf shall not fall, etc., Psalm I, 3. Fourth, because it struggles against adversities, and rises up the higher. Fifth, because it brings forth dates, that is, the sweetest fruits of almsgiving and of the other virtues. Sixth, because the palm, although it does not grow in the thickness of its trunk, as I said from Nyssen, nevertheless grows in the spreading of its branches and foliage; whence St. Gregory: The palm, he says, while it grows, is drawn together below and spreads out above; so the holy soul begins from the lowest to the least things, and by growing gradually to greater things, arrives at the fullness of perfect charity. For no one, as it is written, becomes greatest suddenly. Now in the Psalm it is said of the just man: The just shall flourish like the palm tree, Psalm XCI, 13. The breasts of the bride, moreover, are the two precepts of charity, which intoxicate and nourish with heavenly wine the soul that they possess.

Yet by the palm tree the cross of Christ can also be understood: for the palm, growing very high, produces the sweetest fruits, and the cross of Christ has prepared heavenly food for us, to which the stature of the bride is likened, because whoever, loving Christ greatly, imitates him, does not hesitate to die for Christ. Seventh, the palm is a symbol of the victory which the saints obtain by fighting against the flesh, the devil, and the world, and of the reward which they will obtain, according to that word, Apocalypse VII, 9: And palms in their hands: so Cassiodorus: The palm, he says, adorns the victorious hand. Eighth, the palm is thorny and prickly, so the pricks and thorns in the just are the rebukes against sinners, says Philo, by which they chastise their vices.

Again, the palm is rough below in its trunk, but pleasant above in its branches, and sweet in its dates; so also Holy Church, says Cassiodorus, and the soul, in the lower things bears for Christ the roughness of labors and sufferings; but in the higher things, that is, in the heavenly things, awaits the beauty and sweetness of rewards. Furthermore, the holy soul has the breasts of doctrine and beneficence, with which she suckles and nourishes others; whence Theodoret: Although, he says, thou art so exalted that thou dost reach the heights of heaven, yet thou dost lower thyself to thy weak disciples, to whom, needing doctrine, thou dost offer the breasts of thy doctrine: for the palm has its fruits hanging down.

Furthermore Cassiodorus, Bede and Justus understand by the breasts the teachers; Aponius, however, the martyrs: for these, by the example of their blood, nourish and strengthen the faithful weaker in faith, as it were with milk. To this purpose serves the version of the Chaldee: And at the time when the priests stretch out their hands in prayer, and bless their brethren, the house of Israel, the fingers of their hand outstretched are like the branches of palm trees, and their stature is like the palm. And thy Church stands face to face against the priests, and their faces are bowed to the ground like clusters of grapes. Lastly, Philo Carpathius understands by stature the greatness of charity, as I said at the end of the preceding verse; whence read thus: Charity in delights, that is, thy greatness.

Symbolically, the stature of the palm is the four dimensions of the cross, which I reviewed at Ephesians III, 18, by which the holy soul must, as far as it can, measure and proportion itself. In the anagogical sense, Honorius: The stature of the glorious soul is equality with the angels, to which the palm is likened, because on earth it was straitened, but in the heavens it is enlarged. Her breasts are compared to clusters, because the apostles and her other teachers are full of eternal sweetness.

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

The Blessed Virgin was physically tall of stature, on the testimony of St. Epiphanius in Nicephorus, book II, XXIII. Ethically her stature was loftiness of spirit, especially amid adversities and the passion of Christ; whence John says of her, chapter XIX, verse 25: There stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother. She stood, says William, beside the cross of her Jesus, and by that very fact was in a certain manner herself erected upon a cross, standing beside the cross of her son; she herself, in a certain manner, by maternal affection, was made a cross to herself. Thus, then, when she stood beside that noble palm tree, her stature was likened to the palm tree; but the son now being glorified, from his resurrection and thereafter, her breasts were likened to clusters; whence also it follows: I will go up, etc. The palm surpasses the other trees not in length, but in stature, that is, in firmness and steadfastness. Mystically such is the Blessed Virgin; whence St. Epiphanius writes thus of her, tome III, heresy 78: Since John undertook a journey into Asia, and Scripture nowhere says that he took the holy Virgin with him, but simply kept silence on account of the miracle's

...LIKE CLUSTERS OF THE VINE: AND THE ODOR OF THY MOUTH (the Septuagint, Pagninus and Vatablus, of the nose; the Syriac, of the face; for the Hebrew אן aph signifies nose, face, and mouth) IS LIKE THAT OF APPLES. — The Septuagint, like of fruits. For fructus, the Hebrew is סנסנים sansinnim, which the Septuagint render as tops; the Arabic, heights; Aquila, raised parts; Symmachus, branches; Vatablus, shoots. All these come back to the same thing: for what is signified are the raised parts, or the fruits of dates hanging from the tops of the branches of the palm, likewise the fruits of the vine married to the palm, namely grapes and clusters, as Aben-Ezra, Alcazar, likewise Delrio and others hold. Breasts are rightly compared to clusters, because they are swelling, juicy, round; hence the larger clusters are called humasti, that is, the udders of an ox or a cow: so large are the breasts of mothers and of full-breasted nurses, such as the Synagogue is here represented to be.

The odor of the mouth or of the nose is the breath or exhalation, which is breathed out by the nose and mouth: Fragrance, says Theodoret, for it smells sweetly like apples, both pomegranates, says St. Gregory (for these are frequently mentioned in the Canticle), and citrons, and whatever else: for the odor of fruits is sweet and sharp, and has a certain wine-like scent.

THE VOICE OF THE CHOIR OF YOUNG MAIDENS.

VERSE 8. I SAID: I WILL ASCEND THE PALM TREE, AND I WILL TAKE HOLD OF ITS FRUITS: AND YOUR BREASTS SHALL BE LIKE THE CLUSTERS OF THE VINE: AND THE SCENT OF YOUR MOUTH LIKE APPLES.

FIRST, ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.

He persists in the likeness of the palm tree, as if to say: As the palm tree, by the frequent segments of its bark, as if by steps, entices those who look upon it to ascend to its crown, so that there they may gather the clusters both of the palm, that is, the dates, and of the vine married to it, that is, the grapes: so you, O Synagogue, who have grown up into the height and beauty of a palm, entice me — that is, the choir of young maidens, that is, of souls imperfect in faith and piety — to climb up to your loftiness, and to reach the breasts that are like your clusters, and from them to suck milk, indeed the wine of sublime doctrine, which may lead me to the perfection of Christian life, and at the same time to draw from your mouth the sweet-smelling breath of piety and holiness: thus Hortolanus, Sanchez, and Delrio. Hear three Anonymous writers in Theodoret: "Deliberating with myself I said: I will ascend, through the imitation of virtue, to the perfection of your doctrine, and through contemplation I will grasp its sublimity. And the breasts of your discipline, which nourish me naturally, will be altogether like the cluster of the true vine, who is Christ, offering me the grace of divinity, which, after the manner of wine, moves the mind away from nature, and carries it above nature. Whence also the scent of your nostril is like apples, namely the grace of the Holy Spirit, filling the mind with sweetness, which you, having received it from the bridegroom, pour into us. As apples are beautiful to the sight, sweet to the smell, and delightful to the taste; so she herself will be to us both comely in the manners of virtues, and fragrant with the charm of her words, and sweet with the delight of experience." First, then, by the palm understand the stature, that is, the height of the palms of the Synagogue: for the discourse has preceded concerning this; the height, I say, not of body, but of spirit and virtue.

Second, understand by the palm symbolically the cross of Christ; for the stature of the Synagogue was likened to the palm both natural and symbolic, that is, to the cross of Christ, because she herself, through the cross, grew up to the greatness of a palm in virtue and spirit. Whence by the palm Cassiodorus, Justus, St. Gregory, Honorius, Guilielmus here, and Tertullian, book III Against Marcion, and St. Cyprian, sermon On the Passion, Peter Damian, sermon On the Finding of the Cross, understand the cross of Christ. Wherefore many judge that the cross of Christ was made of palm wood, and that this is signified here, of which more shortly.

Hence again Cassiodorus, Philo, Honorius, St. Gregory, Aponius, Bede, Anselm, Rupert, and many others take these words of Christ about to ascend the cross. Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen, in the Tragedy on Christ's Suffering, judges that Christ was crucified not upon the ground, but was affixed by ladders to the cross already erected and fixed in the ground: the same is held by St. Bernard, On the Lord's Passion (or whoever is its author), chapter V, and St. Bonaventure in the Fasciculus of Myrrh, chapter III. The contrary, however, is commonly held by others, namely, that Christ, prostrate on the ground, was affixed to the cross: for this was easier and more convenient: thus judge St. Anselm, book On the Passion, Blessed Lawrence Justinian, sermon On the Lord's Passion, St. Antonius in the Chronicles, part I, Luysius, book II On the Cross, chapter VII, and others, and Francisco Suárez inclines to this view; yet the former opinion, that Christ was affixed to the cross already erected, is confirmed by the fact that this was a greater punishment, and a greater ignominy for greater terror, and St. Bridget asserts that this was revealed to her by Christ while she prayed on Mount Calvary, book VII of the Revelations, chapter XV; whence St. Ambrose, book X on Luke, teaches that Christ ascended the cross; and St. Cyprian, treatise On the Passion: "You ascended, Lord, he says, the palm, because that wood of your cross portended triumph." The same is expressly taught by Nicephorus, book I, chapter XXX, Toletus on chapter XIX of John, Annotation 14, Rutilius, Benzonius, Paleottus, and others, whom Daniel Mallonius cites, Annotation on chapter VI of Alfonso Paleotti's On the Stigmata of the Holy Shroud, and Consalvus Durantus, Annotation on book VII of the Revelations of St. Bridget, chapter XV — But this matter must be treated at greater length on Matthew XXVII, 33.

Hear Honorius: "That the stature of your perseverance has been likened to the palm of my victory, this is for this reason, because I ascended the palm, and drew you after me to victory: namely, because I was exalted on the cross, I drew all things to myself, among which also you. For I said, that is, I firmly determined with the Father before the ages, that I would ascend the palm, that is the cross, and conquer the tyrant, and then take hold of its fruits, namely all who are to be saved, of whom the last of the Jews are a part, and, the tyrant conquered, I would draw the fugitives back to myself." And after some things: "The true Shunammite [text wanting — page break in the source]

...without labor its fruit, which is at the top, is obtained.

Hence, for 'fruits,' the Septuagint here translates 'tops': wherefore Rupert, Honorius, and Guilielmus judge that for Christ to ascend the palm and take hold of its fruits is the same as to be exalted from the earth, and to draw all things to himself, John XII, 32; because this ascent for Christ to the cross was difficult, through the nails, the lance, and the thorns, so that he might obtain its fruit and top, that is, the empire of the world.

Hear Rupert: "He ascended the palm by the hands of the soldiers, who unknowingly serve my divine condescension. As far as it was in them, they crucified a man about to die miserably; as far as it concerned me, I ascended the palm as a king about to triumph. From which indeed the Jews, ignorant of the divine dispensation, urged me to descend, saying, Matthew XXVII, 42: If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross. I had ascended the palm, and therefore I was unwilling to descend, the fruits not yet being formed (for the palm was still in flower, when such things were being said to him); but when, having tasted the vinegar, I said, John chapter XIX, 30: It is consummated, and, bowing my head, I delivered up my spirit, then the fruits of the redemption of the world were already on the palm."

For this reason many judge that the cross of Christ was made, at least in part, of palm wood; whence the well-worn verse, which the Gloss cites in the Clementine, On the Highest Trinity:

The woods of the cross: palm, cedar, cypress, olive.

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

The holy soul, eager for perfection, says with St. Paul, Philippians III, 12: "I do not think that I have apprehended, but I follow after, if by any means I may apprehend, in which I have also been apprehended by Christ Jesus:" wherefore, with David, she disposes ascents in her heart, that she may go from virtue to virtue, says Theodoret, and by name ascends the palm of the mortification and cross of Christ: there she sucks breasts, not of milk, but of strong wine, namely of unconquered pa-

Again, after Christ ascended the palm of the cross, he soon took hold of its fruits; for on the third day he rose gloriously from death, and on the 40th day, triumphing, he ascended into heaven, and on the 50th day he sent the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin and upon the apostles; and then the breasts of the Blessed Virgin became like the clusters of the vine, because then she began to reveal to the faithful, and especially to St. Luke, who wrote them down in the Gospel, the mysteries of the conception, nativity, passion, and the rest of the life of Christ, especially the secret ones, known to herself alone, as having been accomplished in her or through her; then likewise she began openly to give to drink the wine of penance, consolation, grace, and holy exultation to sinners and to the afflicted fleeing to her.

"And the scent of your mouth like apples," which in her words was not only a holy delight, with sweet wholesomeness, but also a vital refreshment, which indeed the primitive Church, receiving from her mouth, full of wholesome sweetness, transmitted to posterity, both in words and in writings: this scent of hers, therefore, has been spread through all the ends of the earth, and through all the ages of time. Thus Guilielmus.

Honorius adds: "The vine, from which the cluster was brought, was the flowering body of Mary; which cluster was pressed in the winepress of the cross: and from it flowed the drink of the faithful."

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

Rupert, judging with others that these are the words of the bridegroom, says that Christ, about to go to his passion, signified this to his mother: for thus he represents Christ speaking: "For if I said to my own friends, Matthew XX, 18: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be delivered up to be crucified, and many other things pertaining to this sense: indeed, if I also said to my enemies, John chapter XII, 32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself; how much more did I say, or ought I to have said, to my most dear mother, Canticle VII, 8 and 9: I will ascend the palm, and take hold of its fruit, and your breasts shall be like the clusters of the vine, and your scents like apples: your throat like the best wine. This was to say: I shall be exalted on the victorious cross, and by dying a fruitful death I shall swiftly work the salvation of all believers: and thereafter your doctrine, the doctrine of the law and of the Gospel, shall at the opportune time be openly preached, just as in autumn the sweet clusters are eaten; and the good scent of your good works shall be spread everywhere, and your speech shall be most sweet and delightful to me."

VERSE 9. THY THROAT LIKE THE BEST WINE, WORTHY FOR MY BELOVED TO DRINK, AND FOR HIS LIPS AND TEETH TO CHEW.

THY THROAT LIKE THE BEST WINE (the Tigurine: dripping with the most excellent wine), WORTHY FOR MY BELOVED TO DRINK, AND FOR HIS LIPS AND TEETH TO CHEW. — The Hebrew: thy palate (O bride, Synagogue — for the pronominal suffix in חכך chichech, meaning "thy," is feminine) is like good wine (by way of eminence, that is, the best) which goes to my beloved unto right things (that is, it enters his mouth rightly and pleasantly, as our version renders it, Prov. XXIII, 31. Pagninus renders it: on account of the goodness of the wine; Symmachus: fitting for my beloved unto uprightness; the Arabic: whereby my beloved goes unto uprightness; the Tigurine: which renders it fit, for my love, unto those things that are most right), speaking or sounding upon the lips of the sleeping; or, as Pagninus has it, causing the lips of the sleeping to speak or murmur. Agathius: causing to speak, making the lips of old men speak — for excellent wine, after the drinking, returns to the mouth and lips, and makes them chew, murmur, and speak, according to that saying:

Whom have fruitful cups not made eloquent?

Thus the Sicilians, says Nigidius Siculus here, call the best wine "the wine of the dead," because it, as it were, raises up the dead and makes them speak; hence our version renders it "to chew," according to that saying of the wine-drinkers: Good wine is not to be drunk, but to be chewed; the Septuagint: sufficient for the lips; Vatablus: and thy palate is like wine, which flows down most sweetly to my beloved, speaking with the speech of the sleeping, that is, with a stammering and imperfect speech, as if to say: Thy speech is as sweet, O bride, as the best wine is wont to be sweet to my friend, who, once he has drunk it, is not wont to speak readily enough. So far Vatablus.

Our version, the Septuagint, and Aquila add "and the teeth," because in place of ישנים iescenim or iescanim, that is, "of those sleeping" or "of the aged," they read ושנים vescinnaim, that is, "and of the teeth." Following this, the Syriac renders it: thy mouth is like good wine, that I may go to my kinsman unto uprightness, who moves my lips and my teeth; for in place of שפתי siphte, that is, "lips," the Septuagint and the Syriac, with other points, read שפתי sephatai, that is, "my lips."

FIRST SENSE, THE ADEQUATE ONE: Concerning Christ and the Church.

The Synagogue, converted to Christ, will breathe from her throat the best wine, when, kindled through Elijah with the wine of Christian doctrine and charity, she will, as though drunk, belch it forth; that is, when by her words and her ardent preachings she will inflame all her neighbors with the love of Christ — which wine will be worthy of Christ, pleasing and delightful for him to chew and to call to mind again and again. Whence Cosmas Damianus brings in the choir of the daughters, or young maidens, of the Synagogue, speaking thus to their mistress: "Permit us, we beg, to kiss thee at times, and to drink in from thy throat the most hidden mysteries of the Godhead, which, as a generous and excellent wine, gladdens the heart of the spiritual man, inebriates without fault, and renders Christian virgin souls full of sap, and above all sober, so that now no one may impute it to thee as a fault (as once to that other) that, while thou givest a kiss, thou dost proffer wine. That wine indeed, poured first into thee by thy Bridegroom, now most dear to me — when by thy teaching thou pourest it back into others out of thy throat as out of some channel — runs back to Christ, my love, from whom it first flowed, as to its own first origin: which, thus taken back again, he drinks with the greatest delight, and turns over in his own mouth."

Indeed, this very wine is that which renders old men — who would otherwise be infants, unlearned — eloquent and articulate, being kindled and refreshed, of course, by a heavenly warmth.

SECOND SENSE, THE PARTIAL ONE: Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

Cato, on the testimony of Plutarch, was accustomed to kiss his wife, daughters, and granddaughters, that from their mouth and their winy breath he might smell out whether they had drunk wine, and might chastise wine-bibbers; just as St. Monica, while she was still young, being nicknamed a wine-bibber by the maidservants and chastised for it, corrected and cut off her appetite for wine, on the testimony of St. Augustine, Confessions, book IX. But the devout hang upon the mouth of the saints, who, drunk with the spiritual new wine of divine love, belch forth the great works of God, that they may drink in a like spirit of the doxology of God — as happened to the Jews who heard the apostles resounding with Christ after having received the Holy Spirit, Acts II, 15. For this new wine is most pleasing to Christ, to be drunk and chewed. Whence Bede and Honorius: The throat of the soul, they say, is the voice of its praise and confession, which is like the best wine, because it does not puff up by inebriating, but gladdens the heart by refreshing it; and William: "In the throat," he says, "is the office of the voice; but the inner man also has his own spiritual throat, by which the man is often loud within in the praise of God, with no bodily sound resounding without; whence the Prophet, concerning the saints praising God, Psalm CXLIX, 6: 'The exultations of God,' he says, 'are in their throat.' Furthermore, wine is pleasant in taste and comely in color; when, therefore, we fulfill that form which the Prophet prescribes for us, Psalm CXLVI, 1: 'Let praise to our God,' he says, 'be pleasant and comely,' then our throat is like wine. Indeed, the pleasantness of praise consists in the cheerfulness of devotion. He, then, who praises God cheerfully and devoutly, without doubt praises him pleasantly, etc.; but he who, with cleanness of conduct, shows to God the cheerfulness of holy and pious devotion, has in his throat a pleasant and comely praise, such as truly befits God."

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

First, the throat of the Blessed Virgin is like the best wine, because it belches forth nothing but the praises of God, as when she sang, Luke I, 46: "My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior," etc.; whence William brings her in speaking thus: "Truly, in the praises of my Beloved, my throat is like the best wine: for as much as I love, so much do I praise, and the measure of praise is according to the measure of love"; and this both in adversity and in prosperity, and especially when she stood by the cross of Christ: for then, resigned into the hands of God, she praised, in wonder, his immense love toward men, and the obedience of Christ. Second, Honorius: The throat, he says, is the teaching of the Virgin, by which she taught, in word and example, that God exalts the humble and humbles the proud, according to what she herself says, Luke I, 51: "He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble." This teaching is indeed the best and most excellent. Third, Hailgrinus takes by "throat" the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, which are like the best wine, because she asks nothing except what is pious, holy, and worthy of God; whence her Son not only drinks her prayers, that is, eagerly draws them in, but also chews them, that is, lingers over them, and delights himself in them. Hear the Lord Christ mystically describing the mouth and throat of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bridget, book IX of the Revelations, at the end of Interrogation 9: "Thy mouth was like a lamp burning within and shining without, because the words and affections of thy soul were burning inwardly with divine love, and shining outwardly from the praiseworthy disposition of thy bodily movements, and the most beautiful harmony of thy virtues. Truly, dearest Mother, the word of thy mouth drew, in a certain manner, my Godhead into thee, and the fervor of thy divine sweetness will never separate me from thee, because thy words are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," Psalm XVIII, 11.

THE VOICE OF THE NEW BRIDE, Namely, of the Synagogue Converted to Christ.

VERSE 10. I AM MY BELOVED'S, AND HIS TURNING IS TOWARD ME.

Pagninus renders it, "his desire"; Vatablus, "I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me," as if to say: I love my spouse, and he in turn loves me alone; I am wholly his, he in turn is wholly mine; I have devoted myself wholly to his service, he in turn turns himself and his eyes, his care, love, and offices toward me, and looks to see what I wish or desire, and forthwith accomplishes it, that he may comply with my wishes and desires; wherefore he seems to have surrendered himself wholly to my power and will. For this is what the Hebrew תשוקתו teschukatteh signifies, Genesis 3:16, which our version renders "power," saying, "thou shalt be under thy husband's power," for which Aben-Ezra renders, "and thy obedience is to thy husband."

Further, the Chaldean renders: "Jerusalem said: At every time that I walk in the way of the Ruler of the age, he causes his majesty to dwell in the midst of me, and his desire is toward me; and at the time that I turn aside from his ways, he takes his majesty away from me, and transfers me among the nations, and they lord it over me, as a husband who lords it over his wife."

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

This is the voice of the Synagogue converted to Christ, who answers the love of Christ the bridegroom, as well as the praises of the maidens, and repays love for love, and proclaims herself to be wholly the bridegroom's, as if to say: I am wholly my beloved's, just as he in turn is wholly mine; I turn my eyes, my mind, and all my acts toward him, I direct all my thoughts and intentions toward him, I strive to please and satisfy him alone; I look to him alone, that I may serve him in all things, just as he in turn looks to me alone, that he may attend to my advantage and my desires; I hang upon his mouth and his nod, just as he in turn observes my nod, my mouth, and my wishes. Again, this "et" can more forcefully be taken causally, in place of "quia," as if to say: I turn myself wholly to my beloved, and — that is, because — he too has wholly turned to me: wherefore I have cast aside all delays and hindrances to love. Aristotle gives a similar image, Ethics II: the bride, he says, looks to the bridegroom and desires him, just as the parched earth looks to the sky and thirsts for its rain; and the sky in turn looks to the earth, and desires to share its rain and influence with it, so as to make it pregnant, and fruitful in shoots and fruits.

Hear Theodoret: "I have consecrated myself to my brother, and I have despised the foreign custom, whether of the Gentiles, or of the Jews, or of the heretics; for he too has preferred me above all others, and has turned himself to me. For whereas before he had no place to lay his head, now he has found where to lay it; and though he has many concubines, and queens, and maidens, he sets me before them all. Nor indeed will I suffer that I alone should enjoy his sacred company, and therefore I say: Come, etc."

Symbolically, Cassiodorus understands by "turning" the incarnation: for in it the Word turned itself to human nature, and rushed forth to it from the height of the heavens; for the Hebrew תשוקה tescuka signifies a rushing forth. But this is foreign and remote from the letter; for at the beginning of the Canticle he treated of the incarnation, but here, toward the end of the Canticle, he treats of the end and consummation of the Church.

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

The soul which devotes itself wholly to Christ, such as is that of religious, truly says: "I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me," as if to say — so St. Gregory puts it: "Because by faith and love I cleave to Christ alone, follow him alone, desire to see the one God alone with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and joyfully proclaim, as I experience it, the sweetness of his regard, the kindness of his visitation, and the delight of his converse." A symbol of this thing is the herb or flower called the heliotrope, that is, "turning to the sun"; for as this plant turns itself about with the sun (even on a cloudy day), and at every hour turns with it, so the soul that loves Christ continually looks upon him, so as to be always occupied with him, and, turning itself through the mysteries of his life and passion, which the Church represents in turn throughout the whole year, fixes all its thought, will, and love perpetually upon him. Further, just as the sun with its rays turns this flower about and draws it to itself, so Christ is the first author of the soul's turning to him alone; for by his grace he draws the soul to himself, soothes it, entices it, so that it rejoices continually to hang, as it were, at his breasts like a mother's.

St. Ambrose notes, in the book On Isaac and the Soul, chapter 8, that this maxim is repeated three times in the Canticle, according to the three degrees and states of the soul: for the holy soul is first beginning, second progressing, third perfected. To the one beginning it is said, chapter 2, verse 16: "My beloved is mine, and I am his, who feeds among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows retire." To the one progressing it is said, chapter 6, verse 2: "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, who feeds among the lilies." Third, to the one perfected it is said here: "I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me." "In the first," says St. Ambrose, "the soul, as though still in its instruction, sees as yet the shadows, not yet stirred by the revelation of the approaching Word, and therefore the day of the Gospel still shone upon it. In the second, without confusion of shadows, it gathers the pious fragrances. In the third, now perfected, it furnishes rest within itself for the Word, that he may turn himself upon it, and lay down his head and rest, and, now rightly holding him whom before it could not find though sought, invites him to its field, saying, Canticle chapter 7, verse 11: Come, my brother, let us go forth into the field, let us rest in the villages."

Justus adds: "His turning is toward me," namely that he may hear my prayers, and that he may reward my good works and merits, and give recompense in heaven, says Philo. Thus in the Life of St. Bridget we read that Christ, appearing to her, said: "Be my bride"; to which she at once assenting, turned away from the world, and, wholly converted to Christ, changed her habit and her life: and from that time, for 28 years, she enjoyed heavenly converse, and had many revelations of the deep secrets of God, which are still extant, and have been approved by many eminent theologians with great praise for their wisdom and piety. Thus also our Francis Ribera, a noble interpreter of Holy Scripture, writes of Blessed Teresa, book 5 of her Life, chapter 10, that the divine Majesty often said to her, with a great token of love: "Now thou art mine, and I am thine." And at another time: "From now thou shalt be my bride; henceforth thou shalt regard my honor not only as that of thy creator, and thy king, and thy God, but as that of thy true bridegroom. Henceforth my honor shall be thine, and thy honor shall be mine." And again: "Because thou art betrothed to me, henceforth whatever I have is thine, and therefore I give thee all the sorrows and labors that I have borne, and through them, as through thy own property, ask of the Father what thou wilt."

Anagogically, Philo interprets the turning of Christ as his return to judgment: "I," he says, "will serve the Son of God, and he himself will abundantly reward me, when at that second coming he shall descend from heaven as judge, to sit and examine all, gathering all mortals from the four corners of the earth by the light and ministry of the angels. But we must first turn to him, and he to us, as it is written, Psalm 114:7: Turn to me, daughter, etc. And elsewhere, Zechariah 1:3: Turn to me, and I will turn to you. But it is necessary that he himself first draw us, it behooves that he himself first offer himself to us: for then we shall turn to him and be healed, according to that word, Jeremiah 17:14: Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, etc."

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

First, Honorius, fittingly, in accordance with the genuine sense of the letter, attributes these words to the Blessed Virgin praying her Son for the conversion of the Jews: "I," he says, "to my beloved" — I poured out prayers for you — "and his turning is toward me," that is, through me he willed you to be turned to mercy. Second, William applies these words to the Blessed Virgin standing by Christ crucified: "Clearly," he says, "I was dying together with my beloved through a mother's affection, so that his martyrdom overflowed into me, and made me, as it were, a co-martyr. I was then toward my beloved to declare the measure of my love toward him, and his turning toward me was then made to declare his filial love: for how much he loved me he showed clearly in that very moment of his passion, when, seeing me his devoted mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, turned to me from the cross and said to me, John 19:26: Woman, behold thy son; and to the disciple: Behold thy mother. Clearly his turning to me, so filial amid such bitterness of unfeigned sorrows, showed remarkably how filial a mind he bore toward me." See what was said at chapter 2, verse 16, and chapter 6, verse 2.

VERSE 11. COME, MY BELOVED, LET US GO FORTH INTO THE FIELD, LET US ABIDE IN THE VILLAGES.

The Hebrew and the Syriac have: let us lodge for the night in the villages; the Arabic: thou shalt go forth and shalt abide in the villages. The Sulamitess, that is, the new Synagogue, the bride of Christ, having already found the bridegroom, and as he is tending from the field into the city, calls him back to the field — that is, to some estate of his own — that there she may converse and be with him more secretly, more familiarly, and more fully. Furthermore the Chaldee paraphrase renders: "When the people of the house of Israel sinned, the Lord caused them to be carried away into the land of Seir, of the region of Idumea. The assembly of Israel said: I beseech thee, Ruler of the whole age, receive my prayer: I am before thee in the cities of my captivity and in the provinces of the peoples."

FIRST ADEQUATE SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Church.

The Synagogue, to be converted to Christ at the end of the world, will ask him to go forth with her into the fields and villages — both that, removed from the noise and crowd of the city, she may more freely devote herself to prayer and converse with him, and that he may convert to the faith of Christ, by his help and grace, the rustic and country people and others living outside Jerusalem in hamlets and villages: so Honorius, Delrio, Hortolanus, and others. Thus Christ, while he lived, went about the villages and strongholds, evangelizing the kingdom of God: for country folk, being of a simple, unlettered, and innocent life, are more apt for the Gospel; whence Christ says, Matthew 11:5: "The poor have the gospel preached to them." And Isaiah, chapter 43, verse 20: "The beast of the field shall glorify me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I have given waters in the desert, rivers in the trackless place, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself: it shall declare my praise."

Therefore here the Holy Spirit teaches that rustic, common, and plebeian people are not to be neglected, but that catechists and preachers ought to preach the word of God to them just as much as to citizens and nobles — nay, that in instructing them, since they are ruder, one ought to linger longer, until they grasp and imbibe the doctrine and precepts of the Christian life: this is signified by the word commoremur ["let us abide"]. So Theodoret and three Anonymous authors, and St. Ambrose, De Isaac, chapter 8, whom hear: "Above he was inviting to the garden; here to the field, which has not only the grace of flowers, but also wheat and barley, that is, the grains of solid virtues, that he may look upon its fruit. But the reason why, when he wished to go out, it was into the field, is plain: that, like a good shepherd, he might feed his flock, relieve the weary, call back the wandering. Therefore, as it were a perfect soul intervenes not for itself but for others, that it may go forth from the bosom of the Father, that it may proceed outward, as a bridegroom going forth from his chamber, that it may run its course, that it may win the weak." But in Book III, De Virginitate: "Hear," he says, "what the most holy Church says, Canticle 7:11: Come, my brother, let us go forth into the field, let us rest in the strongholds."

Hear also Hugh of St. Victor, Institutiones Monasticae, De Claustro Animae, book 7: "The soul," he says, "goes forth from contemplation to a consideration of itself; it goes forth from care of self to exercising care for one's neighbor, that it may console the fainthearted, correct the restless, that the field of virtues may be made, which before had been a field of briers and thorns. Let us abide in the villages, that is, among those who are villagers, that is, the rude and slow to grasp the teachings of the court of Christ." Rupert has the same.

Symbolically St. Gregory, by Christ's going forth into the villages, understands his going forth from heaven to earth through the Incarnation: "The field," he says, on the testimony of the Truth, Matthew 13:28, "is this world; but the Bridegroom goes forth into the field with the bride, when the Word of God, having taken flesh, is shown to the world in the chamber of the Virgin. He abides in the villages, when he visits the nations through faith, which he bestows on those who receive it." For this reason Christ willed to be born not in the city, but in the country, namely in the suburban district of Bethlehem, as it were a rustic child: in imitation of whom St. Jerome, St. Paula, St. Eustochium, and a great part of the Roman nobility willed to spend and pass their lives in that same place. Whence St. Jerome says: "To me a town is a prison, solitude a paradise."

SECOND PARTIAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

The holy soul loves the fields, that is, solitude, that in it she may more freely devote herself to prayer and contemplation; that from it she may conceive the ardor and zeal for preaching even to rustic, unlettered, and poor people, which Christ showed: so Honorius, Delrio, and others. Whence our own Alcazar, by fields and villages, understands foreign regions, such as Japan, China, Sinaloa, into which apostolic religious eagerly desire to set out, that they may convert to Christ the abandoned nations and barbarians, since they know this to be most pleasing to Christ.

Hear Cassiodorus: "Now," he says, "by the mystery of the Ascension, thou hast raised up the manhood thou didst assume to the heavens; but come, by more often visiting me with the presence of thy divine majesty, let us go forth into the field of this world: let us preach the faith of thy Incarnation to the world: let us abide in the villages and hamlets, announcing thy faith even to the pagans themselves." Cassiodorus adds: "No one is unaware that pagans are named from villa (village), since πάγος in Greek is called villa in Latin; whence they are called pagans, because they are far from the city of God" — although others give a different etymology for pagani; hence also symbolically Philo: the Bridegroom Christ, he says, lodged for the night in the villages, since among the rustic minds of the Jews, hard and obstinate souls, and most stubborn and savage hearts, even until the night of death he was a stranger, hated, and abhorred. You may better take this of the Jews already converted to Christ, and those to be converted at the end of the world.

Anagogically St. Ambrose, in the oration De Obitu Valentiniani, takes this of the soul's going forth from the body, and its passage into heaven: "Thou hast come," he says, "to that place where the fruits of the various virtues are bestowed according to each one's merits, where the rewards of merits abound. Let us go forth, then, into the field, in which the labor is not empty, but the yield of graces is fruitful. What thou hast sown on earth, reap here: what thou hast scattered there, gather here. Or rather, come into that field which is the smell of Jacob, that is, come into the bosom of Jacob, that as Lazarus the poor man rests in Abraham's bosom, so thou too mayest rest in the tranquility of the patriarch Jacob: for the bosom of the patriarchs is a certain retreat of eternal rest. Let us rest in the strongholds, where rest is safer, which, fortified and enclosed by the fence of the heavenly refuge, is not disturbed by the assaults of worldly beasts." So also Honorius.

THIRD PRINCIPAL SENSE, Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

What has already been said applies especially to the Blessed Virgin, who, most ardent in zeal for souls, earnestly desires and procures the salvation of even all rustic and lowly people, and therefore stirs up apostolic men, that they may preach to them and show them the way of salvation; William, however, takes this of the Blessed Virgin urging the apostles that, after Stephen had been killed by the Jews, they should go forth from them — as from the perfidious and those resisting the Gospel — into the villages of the nations, and announce Christ to them. Rupert has the same.

THE VOICE OF THE BRIDE of the Old and the New, that is, of the Church and the Synagogue.

VERSE 12. LET US RISE EARLY TO THE VINEYARDS; LET US SEE IF THE VINE HAS FLOURISHED, IF THE FLOWERS ARE BRINGING FORTH FRUIT, IF THE POMEGRANATES HAVE FLOWERED: THERE I WILL GIVE YOU MY BREASTS.

LET US RISE EARLY (that we may go) TO THE VINEYARDS, LET US SEE IF THE VINE HAS FLOURISHED, IF THE FLOWERS ARE BRINGING FORTH FRUIT, IF THE POMEGRANATES HAVE FLOWERED (Aquila: have opened themselves; for the flowers of the pomegranate open themselves) : THERE I WILL GIVE YOU MY BREASTS. — Vatablus: there I will pour out my love toward you. For "if the flowers are bringing forth fruit," the Septuagint renders, "if the shoot has flowered"; Philo, "if the cypress has flowered" — for in place of κυπρισμός, that is, shoot, he himself reads κύπρος, that is, cypress; Pagninus, "if the small grape has opened itself"; Vatablus, "a fresh or small grape": for in Hebrew it is סמדר semadar, of which I spoke at chapter 2, verses 13 and 15. For "pomegranates," the Arabic version renders "mountains": this alludes to the custom of Solomon, who, in order to withdraw his mind from the cares of the city and the kingdom, used to set out early in the morning into the countryside and the vineyards. "He delighted," says Josephus, book 8 of the Antiquities, chapter 7, "to be carried by chariot in the morning to an estate named Hetan, pleasant with gardens and fountains led in": for in the morning gardens and vineyards are most pleasant.

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

This is the voice of the old bride, namely the Church of the Gentiles, which congratulates the new bride, namely the Synagogue of the Jews, recently converted (that is, to be converted by Elias), and approves her resolve: indeed she exhorts and invites the bridegroom Christ to comply with the wishes of the new bride, her sister. Or rather, the Church here joins her voice with the Synagogue, and, both now united together and made one bride, namely the Church, entreats the bridegroom Christ to go with her into the country estates and vineyards, so that they may lead back to Christ with one consent the remnants of the Jews and the Gentiles either seduced or struck down by Antichrist, especially once Antichrist has now died and been slain: for then his frauds and deceits and vain hopes will be uncovered; then likewise his terror and persecution will cease: wherefore it will then be easy to call back to Christ those seduced or terrified by him: and therefore God, after the death of Antichrist, will grant to the fallen some time for repentance, and will put off the day of judgment, as I said at Daniel 12:12. He says therefore: Let us rise early to the vineyards, that is, let us visit the particular Churches. Let us see if the vine has flourished, that is, whether the Church of Jerusalem and of the Jews, which is closest to the heart of the Synagogue, flourishes in the faith of Christ. If the flowers are bringing forth fruit, that is, if the good seeds of Christ and of salvation, which my preachers cast into the Jews and the Gentiles, and, as it were, sowed in their minds, and which have broken forth into the flowers of good desires; if, I say, these seeds bring forth the fruit of good and effective action. If the pomegranates have flowered, that is, says Angelomus, the desires, fruits, and works of charity and martyrdom. There I will give you my breasts, that is, I will give you the breasts of holy doctrine, O my beloved, not to be sucked as by a son, but to be embraced as by a bridegroom, and to be given to your faithful, the Jews and the Gentiles, so that they may suck them and be nourished by them in the Christian faith and piety: thus St. Gregory, Philo, Justus and others understand this of the Church inviting Christ to visit her particular Churches. Again, I will give you my breasts, that is, my heart and my loves, as Vatablus renders it. See what I said concerning the breasts at chapter 1, verse 1.

But specifically, concerning the Churches of the Jews to be visited at the end of the world, Honorius understands this thus: "Night," he says, "was the time of the persecution of Antichrist; but morning is the time of peace after his death; therefore in the morning the bridegroom and the bride rise to the vineyards, who as it were slept in the night, when after the slaying of Antichrist they rouse themselves to build up the Churches, or renew those destroyed under him, or gather together those scattered which they saw destroyed under him, but, as though sleeping, did not resist. But now he says: Let us see if it has flourished, etc. Through preachers let us make them see whether the vine, namely the Synagogue, has flourished in the faith, that they may imitate her; whether those flourishing in the faith carry out the works of faith, that they may imitate them; whether the imitators of the martyrs flourish in patience, that they may imitate them. In that field I will bring forth, to your honor, all the doctrine of both laws, which are my breasts, so that those untutored in the faith may suck from it the milk of doctrine."

THE SECOND, PARTIAL SENSE. Concerning Christ and the holy soul.

Morning, says Philo, is when preventing grace is present, by which the soul is called from the darkness of ignorance of God and the blindness of the mind, and from the night of sins, into the wonderful light of religion and piety; then the vineyards and trees, that is, the habits of the virtues, produce their flowers and the fruits of holy works. Angelomus understands by the flower of the vine the faith of the heart, by the fruits the confession of the mouth, by the pomegranates the shedding of blood for the faith.

Anagogically, Honorius: "In the morning," he says, "the Church rises to the vineyards, when she raises herself to the heavenly Churches. For the whole time of this age is, as it were, night in comparison with the age to come. But the day of judgment is, as it were, the morning of the eternal day, which is better than thousands of years; or the life of each man is, as it were, night, but the future life is morning: in which morning each of the faithful rises to the vineyards, when after death he arrives at the heavenly Churches. There he sees the flowers of the vine, the fruits of the flowers, and the flowers of the pomegranates, that is, the rewards of the faithful and of the gifts, which will be given to those who do good works, and the recompense which will be paid back to the martyrs. There the Church will give to Christ her breasts, because she will present the teachers of both laws in eternal glory."

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

The Blessed Virgin visits the Churches, and will visit them at the end of the world, that they may bring forth the fruits of the virtues: "The vine," says William, "that is, the Church, flowers in those who are beginning: her flowers bring forth fruit in those who are advancing. But it is yours to see both, that is, to approve in your good pleasure, but much more the flowers of the pomegranates, that is, the glory and devotion of the martyrs reddened with their own blood for your sake. There I will give you my breasts, that is, in the Church of the Gentiles I will give you my breasts, which also I once gave you in the Church of the Jews. Truly among the Jews I gave you bodily breasts to nourish you: moreover, in the Church of the Gentiles I will give you my spiritual breasts to nourish your people: for spiritually I will feed your little ones with the milk of maternal piety; formerly I fed you with bodily milk for the truth of the flesh. Finally, because I am your bodily mother, I shall be your spiritual mother, bringing forth as it were my own children by maternal charity, until you are more fully formed in them, nourishing them there too with maternal care, until you grow in them into a perfect man. And all this I shall do, commending them to you unceasingly, and obtaining for them, by pious prayers, an increase of graces from you."

Verse 13. The mandrakes have given forth their scent. In our gates are all fruits: new and old, my beloved, I have kept for you.

The mandrakes have given forth their scent. In our gates are all fruits (the Septuagint has "nuts"; Philo, "fruit-bearing shrubs"; in Hebrew it is מגדים megadim, that is, delights, lovely things, delicacies, such as choice fruits are): new and old, my beloved, I have kept for you. — The Hebrew has, "I have hidden for you": so Aquila and Symmachus render it. Many refer "in the gates" to the mandrakes; others, better, to the fruits that follow; hence the Arabic has, "all the fruits of the trees standing at our doors."

For "mandrake," as our version renders it, together with the Septuagint, Aquila, the Chaldee, Aben-Ezra, Vatablus, Pagninus, and others, in Hebrew it is דודאים dudaim, a word that alludes to dodim and daddim, that is, breasts, because mandrakes have the appearance of breasts: wherefore Sixtus Senensis, Bibliotheca, book V, chapter 109, wrongly renders dudaim as "lilies"; R. Salomon, as "jasmine"; others, as "a shape"; others, as "a violet": Oleaster, on Genesis 30:14, judges it to be the little flower called the lily of the valley. This alludes to Rachel, who, receiving from Leah the mandrakes that her son Reuben had found in the field, granted her husband Jacob to her, Genesis 30:14: see what is said there. Hence the mandrake is held to have the power of winning love, and hence also circaea—

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

Mandrakes with their fruits are, in spring, beautiful and rare to look at, fragrant to the smell, tasteless to the palate, says St. Augustine, Against Faustus, book 22, chapter 36; but in Judea, as they say, they are savory, sleep-inducing to the head, and have the power of cooling, and bear a certain resemblance in their root to the human body, the head excepted; whence Pythagoras called the mandrake anthropomorphon, that is, resembling a man: see Dioscorides, book 4, chapter 71, and Galen, On Simple Medicines, book 7. The mandrakes, therefore, signify the throng of Jews and Gentiles whose head was Antichrist, which, once he is dead, will remain acephalous, that is, headless, but lulled asleep in its treachery and its sins; this throng, at the voice of the preachers, will awaken, and will breathe forth the sweet odor of faith and piety. The sense, then, is as if to say: Behold for you, O Christ the bridegroom, the scent of the mandrakes, whose coldness was until now harmful, and whose odor was heavy, which lay themselves barren, and, as it were, void of life, lulled in the sleep of death, offering the likeness rather of a human corpse than of a true man, and possessing nothing of a man beyond this mutilated appearance. Let us gather them, they have ripened: I have determined to gather them for you alone, and to feast on them with you: meanwhile feast on the fruits that I have laid up for you in my heart, and I have at hand every kind of fruit, of this year's growth and of many years' keeping, which I have kept in store for your delight. These are in the gates, that is, at the very entrance of the house and at the very threshold, ready and at hand.

Thus Delrio, by "new and old," signifies the good works of both peoples, namely of the Gentiles and of the Jews; or, as Hortolanus holds, the mysteries of both Testaments, the New and the Old, which are offered to Christ, that is, to the faithful of Christ, when through the gate of baptism they enter into his city, namely the Church.

But symbolically, as Cassiodorus, Aponius, and Bede hold, because through Christ and in Christ all those things have been fulfilled, and are daily being fulfilled. Theodoret adds: "The precepts of the Old Testament," he says, "and the commandments of the New Testament, which I received from my mother by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have kept for you, and I have guarded the deposit whole." So Christ says, Matthew 13:52: "Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a man, a father of a family, who brings forth from his treasure new things and old," namely the mysteries, gifts, and works of the evangelical and Mosaic law, as the Fathers explain: thus Aponius, Anselm, and Delrio take these words of the Jews and Gentiles who are to be converted at the end of the world. Hear Honorius: "The Shunammite (like Reuben) going out from the camp found the Mandrake, a royal maiden lying headless in the field: and taking great pity on her, and returning to the king, earnestly begs that he go with her, and come to the aid of the wretched one. By the Mandrake is understood the multitude of unbelievers, whose head was Antichrist, who is the head of all evils; but the head will be cut off when Antichrist is slain; and the Church, seeing her headless, desires that she be joined to herself in the faith of Christ, and be raised up with Christ as her head: O beloved, she says, whom I love above all, who came to me through grace, and visited me through the presence of your gifts, come now also through grace to the multitude of unbelievers, and visit them through the presence of your charisms, and let us go forth through preachers into the field of the world, and let us scatter among the peoples the seed of the word of God, you by inspiring, I by preaching and working and teaching; let us long tarry in the villages, in the little gatherings of the hamlets, and in the morning let us rise to the vineyards, that is, let us make Churches early."

To this agrees the Chaldee, which takes these words of the Jews who are to recognize their Messiah, namely through Elijah at the end of the world: for these, laboring for so many centuries under a long sleep of ignorance and treachery, indeed a lethargy, are fittingly represented by the mandrakes, which induce sleep, and are therefore given to those who are to be cut or cauterized, that they may not feel pain, as Dioscorides attests, book 4, chapter 71. Thus, then, the Chaldee renders it: "And when it shall be the will from before the Lord to redeem his people from captivity, it will be said to the King Messiah: Now the end of the captivity is completed, and the merit of the just is sweet before me, like the scent of balsam, and the wise men of the generations, stationed in the gates of the schoolhouse, apply themselves to the words of the scribes and the words of the law; now arise, receive the kingdom which I have laid up for you."

St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 19, on verse 4, assigns another property to mandrakes, namely that some are male and others female, and that the females are of a heavy odor; thus the Jews and the Gentiles likewise reek bodily, but they lay aside this stench once washed by the water of baptism, as experience confirms. Hear St. Ambrose: "Many distinguish a certain sex among the mandrakes, so that they suppose there to be males and also females, but that the females are of a heavy odor. It signifies, then, the Gentiles, who before reeked, when they were weaker, through a certain emasculated feebleness of unbelief, began to bear fruit of good odor after they believed in the coming of the Lord." Finally, because mandrakes induce coldness, torpor, sluggishness, and sleep, they mark out the slow, the negligent, and the sleepy: for these, in common speech, are said to have drunk mandrake or hellebore; wherefore, when such persons, by the grace of God, shake off their sleep, the mandrakes are said, as it were, to have given forth their scent after the sleep of winter, having awakened in spring. Fittingly, then, this is here attributed to the Jews and the Gentiles who are to be converted late and tardily, namely at the end of the world: for these will break off the long delays of their slowness and their slumber, and will give forth the sweet and pungent scent and fragrance of diligence and fervor; whence he adds: "All the fruits, new and old, I have kept for you": for the old are the old Christians, the new are the new ones, namely the old Jews who are to be renewed through Elijah, and converted to Christ at the end of the world. Finally, some think that by "new" is here meant the discovery of the new world, namely of America, by Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus, and its conversion to Christ: for this new world, containing the Peruvians, the Mexicans, the Brazilians, the Chileans, etc., is half of the whole world, as is clear from the cosmographical globe: wherefore it is itself "in the gates," that is, at the limits and borders of the land once known: for plainly, 140 years ago it was unknown, and up to that time had heard nothing of Christ; but now, through the religious of St. Dominic, St. Francis, and the Society of Jesus, it lies almost entirely subject to the Church: so too in the East Indies, in this century and the preceding one, the faith is wonderfully propagated by the same religious among the Japanese, where very many contend for the faith even to the point of martyrdom by slow fires, among the Chinese, the Moucenses, and the Ceylonese. Indeed Thomas Bozius, volume 1, section 20, dares to assert that Francis Xavier alone gathered more for the Church among the Indians than Luther and the whole North took away. Ethiopia, or that vast empire of Prester John, with its emperor and nobles, through the Society of Jesus submitted itself to the Roman Church, and from it received a patriarch in the year of the Lord 1628.

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

The mandrake gives forth its scent when the soul, formerly torpid, sluggish, and sleepy, awakening through the grace of God, breathes forth, by acting briskly and fervently, a good report of virtues; whence St. Augustine, Against Faustus, book 22, chapter 56, says that by the scent of the mandrake is represented the good report of the saints. The same plant induces sleep, when the soul, forgetful of earthly things, as though falling asleep to them, thinks upon, meditates on, and aspires to heavenly things: so Theodoret. The same procures fruitfulness, say Cassiodorus and Rupert, when the soul devotes itself to acts of charity, patience, humility, obedience, and the other virtues. The same purges melancholy and phlegm, removes nausea, lulls sadness and pain, various —

on the day the mandrakes will give forth their scent in the gates, which, in death, which is the gate of life, will give to the living their reputation, while they shine with miracles on earth, whose souls live in the heavens; who were once mandrakes, when they lost the devil as the head of all evils, and put on Christ as the head of all goods, or of the just, and now, like mandrakes, are a medicine for many diseases. There she has kept all the fruits, new and old, for her beloved bridegroom, because the heavenly Church will present to Christ, to be recompensed, all the works of the saints of the old law and all the works of the just of the new law.

Third Sense, the Principal Sense: Concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

Sleep-inducing mandrakes are a symbol of contemplation, which lulls the mind from earthly cares and concerns, so that it may enjoy God wholly; and it is therefore called by the mystics "rest," or "sleep," concerning which I have spoken at chapter 2, verse 5 and following. In this the Blessed Virgin excelled, and in it she offered to Christ her beloved all the fruits, new and old, that is, all her past and present acts. Likewise, she dedicated to Christ "new and old things," that is, all the acts done according to the precept of the new and the old law (for the Blessed Virgin exactly observed the precepts of both). Again, she herself offers to God all the saints of both the New and the Old Testament, and at the end of the world she will offer the Jews and the Gentiles who are to be converted through Elijah and Enoch, and all their gifts, graces, and virtues.

William adds that the mandrakes of Christ and the Virgin gave forth their scent when the divinity of Christ became known to the world through the preaching and miracles of the apostles: for then, from that same divinity, the virginity, dignity, and majesty of the Mother of God likewise became known to that same world. Also, that she kept for Christ all the fruits, new and old, when she kept in her heart the mysteries of the divinity and humanity of Christ, which she herself had seen, and in her own time revealed them to Christians for their salvation and the glory of Christ: "For that you were conceived and brought forth without corruption," she says, "that you were proclaimed by angels, that you were marked out by a star, that you were made fragrant by the mystical gifts of the Magi, and things of this kind, were plainly new, and declared your divinity. Moreover, that you were born a little child, that you were wrapped in swaddling clothes, that you were nourished with milk, and things of this kind, were old, because they were of the oldness of the flesh, and these prove in you the truth of a human substance. But I kept all these things, comparing them in my heart, comparing indeed the new with the old, and the old with the new, and, both being compared alike, proving you to be at once God and man, I kept all these words, and thus all the fruits, new and old, my beloved, I kept for you, to be brought forth and expended upon your own in their time."

Again, by the fruits, new and old, is marked the gift of perseverance, by which we make all our acts holy even to the end of life, and dedicate them to Christ: for this is a great, indeed the greatest, gift of Christ: moreover, Blessed Lawrence Justinian, On the Spiritual Death of the Soul, book 2, near the end: "The old fruits," he says, "he calls the habits, and the new the acts, of the virtues, by which one ascends to perfection. This was without doubt figured by that ladder which St. Jacob beheld in his sleep."

Finally, Philo Carpathius understands the mandrakes to signify the teachers, "because," he says, "while they diligently search the sacred Scriptures, and from them prepare and chew for the children of the Church a good and sweetly-smelling fruit, they spread abroad the most sweet scent and fruit of the true faith. And by the gates are signified the powers of the soul and the parts and members of the human body, such as the ears, the mouth, and the eyes, through whose approaches all the merits of life and death enter in, according to the purpose and will of him who makes use of the service of the body and the rule of the mind: through the eyes are readily discerned the tokens of modesty and chastity; through the ears, of honesty and modesty; through the mouth, of gravity and temperance, unto the observance of the commandments. Wherefore, if we truly fear and love God, we look with our eyes on modest and honest things; with our ears we perceive all things wholesome and excellent. With our mouth we speak holy and necessary things; our eyes are closed to base things, our ears we shut against obscenities, vain and harmful things we pass over in silence."

Anagogically, Honorius: "In the last judgment," he says, "...