Part One of the Works: Theological Works

OTHER EXPOSITION ON THE SONG OF SONGS, EXPLAINED BY PSELLUS IN POLITICAL VERSUS

Since your mind, adorned with a diadem and desirous of learning, is held by the desire that the Song of Songs be declared by a new and varied method of explanation and understanding, behold, we obey your will and study, O Emperor. And relying on the help of the Lord of all, we bring the whole exposition of the Canticles, arranged in simple and common speech. That most wise prophet Solomon, the son of David by the wife of Uriah, wrote three certain volumes in his life. The one is prudently called by all the name of *Proverbs*, which contains the discipline of morals, the correction of the passions of the mind, and the rule of right living and divine precepts. The second is called by men *Ecclesiastes*, which reveals the vanity of the present life. The third, master, which follows next, is the *Song of Songs* itself, which indeed handed down to you most elegantly, and under the appearance and kind of a nuptial rite, the perfection of the human soul. For he wisely proposes Christ ^A as the bridegroom, and likewise the soul as the bride, languishing and inflamed with the love of the Bridegroom, and swiftly flying toward his graces and gifts. It also contains certain sayings congruent with the Church. But now, with God helping, let us begin to interpret the words.

From the three holy Fathers.

The *Song of Songs* was inscribed by Solomon, in which is shown the love of his bride, the Church, for her Bridegroom, Christ. For after the exhortation to virtues ^B and the dehortation from vices in the *Proverbs*, and after the contempt for human and mortal things which he had learned from *Ecclesiastes*, he sings to the Bridegroom Christ himself, the Pacific, because he has been made peace for us by God, and through himself he has reconciled us to his Father. By which charity he betroths to himself the Church of the faithful by a divine reason and spiritual law, and by the revelation of the mysteries which were handed down concerning him, he instructs her ^C according to the divine mysteries and a spiritual law in the revelation of the secrets which before—

^A he had fashioned for her, whom he had previously adorned and instructed morally and naturally through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Therefore, the Church, having been betrothed to Christ—which through both the written and the natural law, the powers of which Solomon had expressed in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and through the signs of the whole of Scripture and of creation, had learned as if by a preliminary training and rudiments those things which pertain to providence and creation, and through these had understood the incredible love of the bridegroom for her—desires, moreover, that these things be taught to her more perfectly by the Word of God himself through his dispensation in the flesh, by a spiritual law, having been joined to him directly through love and having become one spirit, whereby she is called his bride. Come, let us therefore proceed to the interpretation of the words.

*Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.* ^B Of the three Fathers. That is: May he himself teach me his most excellent will concerning me, showing me what is profitable by words and by ways.

*Thy breasts are better than wine, and the fragrance of thy ointments above all spices.* Of the three Fathers. He calls the receptacles of milk "breasts" again here, which the blessed Paul knows how to offer to those who are still imperfect and infants. "For I gave you," he says, "milk to drink, not meat; for you were not yet able" (I Cor. III, 2). ^C The bride did not mention the breasts for this reason alone, but also because they are near the heart, in which the ruling faculty is established, from which the fountains of doctrine flow. She therefore admires the breasts of the bridegroom as fountains of good things, by which those who are still infants and those who are perfect are fed appropriately; and she says they are better than wine, which gladdens the heart of man, according to the divine Scripture. For figuratively he called wine "gladness," wishing to show that the gladness which arises in the pious from his gifts is greater than all the gladness among humans combined. ^D But if you wish to understand the words of the bride mystically also, consider the breasts admired as being better than wine to be those ineffable fountains of the altar, by which we are all fed as nurslings of piety. Then she explains the cause of the great longing and love for him by the souls who have not yielded to the desire for fleeting things, saying: "Because thy breasts are better than wine, and the fragrance of thy ointments above all spices."

*Thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore have the maidens loved thee.* That is: The nature of all things and the Scripture are good, if indeed they are taken as symbols of the truth, and as breasts they suggest to us the simple food of the faith which is in thee; and as a fragrance of thy ointments they teach us thy most excellent desires, by which all things have been made.

^A For if these are considered in themselves, they move the mind away from faith in thee, like certain aromatics which appear by nature to possess a sweet scent and draw one to themselves, so that it is pleasant to enjoy carnal and worldly things. Thus nature, I say, and scripture, like the scent of ointments, declare thy will. For thy goodness, like a poured-out ointment, distributed into all things that exist by way of participation, shows thee through its power to be the author of all things, indicating through the names of the things participated in—such as being, life, wisdom, and the like—what thou communicatest to the universe. Since, therefore, nature and scripture are good if they are understood in this way, those souls that have avoided the deceit which arises from the appearance of visible things and from the letter, and have thus overcome the devil and the passions—for which reason they are called 'maidens'—have loved thee; and having loved thee, whom they had learned from written and natural law to be Christ the bridegroom, they drew thee from the Father's bosom, having come in the flesh for the sake of those who were to attain salvation. Then it says: *We will run after thee in the odor of thy ointments.* That is, we will follow thee, imitating thy manner and rule of life, by which thou hast led us to the perception of thy most excellent will; which is, in every way, to lay down one's soul for the salvation of many—a thing which is the sign of perfect charity and which embraces all the divine commandments. *And thy scent*, it says, *is above all aromatics.*

Of the Three Fathers

^C The soul in Christ’s Church, wedded to him through a perfect life and having attained the office of teaching, and being therefore now fit to lead more imperfect souls to perfection, addresses them thus: *The king has brought me into his chamber.* That is, he has revealed to me his divine and hidden mysteries: a thing which befell also the great Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven—that is, having passed beyond moral and natural philosophy, he reached theology and heard unspeakable words which it is not permitted for a man to utter.

Of the Three Fathers

^D Replying therefore, as has been said, the souls that were being led to the one who leads, say: "Since, as thou thyself sayest, the king has brought thee into his chamber, in which are the hidden treasures of wisdom, and has shown thee their wealth, we will exult and rejoice in thee. In what way shall we love thy breasts? More than wine"—that is, more than the nature of wine, which turns the mind away from truth, and more than the appearance of visible things, and more than the letter of the law—"we shall love the rudiments which are delivered by thee in the Church, with which, as with the milk of discipline, thou givest drink to the infants in Christ and nourishest them unto godliness." For what reason? "Because rectitude, which is Christ, loved thee." For he himself, as he is truth, so also is he rectitude. And loving thee, he opened

^A his mysteries unto thee, whence thou leadest us without error unto the truth, by means of the symbols accomplished by thee in the Church. Wherefore we promise to love these things more than the letter, and the appearance of visible things which call us away from the truth.

Of the Three Fathers.

Since, therefore, the Church, the bride of Christ, was composed of Gentiles and Jews, and the Gentiles were formerly altogether unillumined, being in no wise enlightened by the rays of truth through the Law and the prophets; while those from Israel were, in this respect, enlightened by them, and were not entirely destitute of beauty: for this reason, ^B indicating the respective conditions of both peoples, she says: "I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem." Black, indeed, on account of the peoples gathered from the Gentiles, who were altogether dark and enveloped in the shadows of impiety; but beautiful on account of those who had come from Israel, adorned by the beauty of godliness through the Law and the prophets. And again, declaring her blackness and beauty by a comparison, she says: "As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." That is to say, I am black because of those from the Gentiles, as dwellings of darkness—for "Kedar" is interpreted as "obscurity"—but I am beautiful because of those from Israel, as the tent of the peaceful king. For ^C the term "tent" represents the skin, and "Solomon" represents the peaceful one. Now the peaceful one is entirely the word of the Law and the prophets, which governs the Israelites, because it requires of them love toward God and their neighbor.

As for the phrase, "Daughters of Jerusalem," although it was issued before the examples of blackness and beauty, it is nevertheless an inversion, as it is connected in meaning to the words: "Look not upon me, because I am blackened." For one part of the Church says these things to the other, namely, those from the Gentiles to those from Israel. For the "daughters of Jerusalem" are understood as those of Israel who believed, who did not accept those from the Gentiles; this is what happened at the beginning ^D among the apostles who were scandalized at Peter, the chief of the apostles, for having received Cornelius, until they learned from him the revelation of the sheet and were freed from the scandal. For the Church gathered from among the Gentiles, wishing not to be looked down upon by the Israelites because of her blackness, nor to be separated from them on that account, says what is said to them, and after this she also declares to them the reason for which she was blackened, saying: "Because the sun looked upon me"—that is to say, I am blackened because the Sun of righteousness looked upon me, while the cloud of godlessness covered me and did not allow me to be illuminated by the rays of the knowledge of God, in the same way as they were instructed toward the knowledge of God by the Law and the prophets.

Of the Illustrious Psellus.

The bride speaks these things immediately to the angels, who are understood as the daughters of Sion: "I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains

^A of Solomon."

The bride’s address to the angels

"The sons of my mother fought against me." ^C That is, those who had turned away from the mother of all as the cause of the wisdom of existing things did not lead me to her, since I was deceived by the appearance of visible things, but, appearing contrary to me, they divided me into countless opinions. And from there, "they set me as a keeper in the vineyards"; having prepared me to persist in said opinions, and to remain at variance with myself and the truth. These things happened to me because I did not keep my own vineyard, which is He who said, "I am the vine, you are the branches," the only-begotten Son of God and the Word, according to whose image human nature was created, and at the same time contained within itself the reasons for all things in the universe, since it contains and comprehends ^D all created things mixed together in a certain way. But when it did not preserve the one reason of its own nature, but, distracted into various opinions, worshipped multiple gods, it did not keep its own vineyard. For it did not gaze straight through the world as through an image toward its archetype, that is, it did not strive through the created things toward their Author.

"The sons of my mother fought against me." They fought against me, the bride says again, and the apostate demons showed me to be a transgressor. These...

things she lamented, as it were, to the angels. ^A

Of the Three Fathers.

Now my vineyard, from which the polytheistic error once tore me away, and in which I have now been planted by faith. "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves," as it rises from the contemplation of things perceived by the senses to the contemplation of those things which are discerned by the mind and thought, and which, being rightly perceived, lead to the truth. Where do you feed, nourishing the rational sheep according to virtue and providing for them, according to knowledge, water of life from the everlasting fountain? For you are not only the vine, but also the good shepherd, who lays down your life for your sheep, as you profess in the Gospels; ^B and where do you rest at midday, refreshing those who have suffered much labor in the shadowless light of your knowledge—of you, the Sun of justice—when all the shadow of falsehood has been dispelled, and those who have turned away from the path of truth, and who have been dragged down into the cliffs and chasms, I mean into contrary opinions, have been illumined by the light of your knowledge? Then, wishing to explain the reason why she asks to learn the place where the good shepherd feeds and rests, as it has been said, she says: "Lest I become as one who is veiled over the flocks of your companions," that is to say, lest, being deprived of your teaching, I become as one clothed in falsehood among the flocks of your fold ^C that are alien, with ignorance of the truth gathering me among them.

Of Psellus.

The bride, therefore, having progressed a little in repentance, speaks boldly and seeks the Word and Bridegroom. For she calls out to him thus, as if inflamed with love for him: "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where do you feed, where do you rest at midday?" Speak quickly to me, she says, where do you feed, where do you rest, O Word whom I have loved from the depth of my soul. "Do you rest at midday, O my spouse?" For I am persuaded that you dwell purely in the midday, that is, in light inaccessible ^D and having absolutely no shadow. Where you feed your sheep, O Word of God, and truly enlighten them with the light of your countenance, if they have arrived at that place as they rest in you. Afterwards, fearing lest she wander from the path that leads to the bridegroom, she pronounces these words to him: "Lest I wander away among the flocks of your companions," show me the pasture of your sheep. For I fear lest, carried away by error in my course,

I might unexpectedly be borne toward the flocks and pastures—perhaps—of the kids; and from there, missing the mark, I be led far from your sheep, and instead gain the portion of the kids on the left when you sit as Judge of the human race. These words, then, the soul that is living in virginity and adorned for the bridal chamber—desiring perhaps to be co-dead with Christ—surely spoke to the Bridegroom. But you, for my sake, understand by this "bride," as in a hypothesis, the soul living in virginity, ^A which has been caught up ineffably by the great Paul to the third heaven, that is, to the Jerusalem above, which is to say, the angels. But let us see what the friends of the Bridegroom also say, and how they point out the Bridegroom’s chamber, whom we mentioned at the beginning as daughters of the Word. For they speak thus to the pure virgin:

Of the Three Fathers

^B "If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, go out by the footprints of your flocks, and pasture your kids upon the tabernacles of the shepherds." O chaste and venerable soul, they say, if you desire to reach the flocks of the sheep, know yourself—what you have become, when before you were nothing at all, and how you have been honored to be the image of the Master. Depart from all the deceit of the world, and so examine the footprints of the flocks that you despise and hate those which lead to the broad and wide road; for they are the kids'. But those which lead to the narrow and constricted path, love and grasp; for they are the sheep's. Take heed, therefore, lest you be deceived by the footprints of the kids.

Of the Three Fathers

Responding, therefore, to this Church gathered from the nations, the good Shepherd and her Spouse says: "If you do not know yourself," that is, if you are ignorant of yourself—in whom I, who cannot be circumscribed, am described and am seen as the archetype in an image; and [if I do not] correct your irrational senses, both by warnings as if by a rod, and by promises as if by a pipe, leading you ^C to the eternal folds in which I shall make you rest at my second coming, when no shadow of distress will beset you on account of your incorruption and immortality. "O beautiful among women,"—beautiful because of your faith and love toward me, while every nation is suffering from the disease of unbelief and is enervated by the pleasures of the flesh—“go out you.” That is, since you have not understood the mystery concerning yourself intellectually, go out from the inwardness of the mind to the level of sense-perception, you who are entirely rational. For if you wish to learn at all where I pasture, you must not, in this very going-out, turn yourself entirely against reason. "Go out, then, by the footprints of the flocks," that is, by the footprints expressed in the very reality of the different natures, through which, investigating one by one, ^D reason is defined. "Flocks" are what the natures of existing things are called, because each of these is deemed worthy of individual providence, as if by a shepherd, by God, the provider of all things. "And pasture your kids": your turbulent movements of soul, that is, as holding the place of the left-hand party. "Upon the tabernacles of the shepherds": that is, upon the habits of the natures, as you change in accordance with your faculty of choice,

^A converting the sloth which is the cause of all evils into that diligence which is seen to reside by natural force in the ant and the bee, and yourself also preparing in the present time that which you will enjoy in the future, just as they too, in the season of spring and summer, provide food for the winter (for through diligence the vintage of justice is gathered from the tripartite soul, which is the preparation for the enjoyment of things to come); ^B and converting foolishness, which is a turning of the rational faculty from that which is according to nature to that which is against nature, into the prudence which likewise resides in the serpent, abandoning itself entirely to this in order to guard the word of faith, just as that creature offers itself entirely to guard its own head; and converting wrath, which is a perversion of the spirited faculty, into the integrity that likewise resides in the dove, not flying away in disposition from those who war against it, just as that bird, even if it suffers myriad plots and its nestlings are destroyed, does not depart far from those plotting against it; and finally, converting intemperance, which is a perversion of the desiring faculty, into the temperance that likewise resides in the turtledove, soberly using pleasure where necessary need compels, just as that bird also, by pairing in a single union for the birth of offspring. But let us hear hereafter from the good bridegroom. For he now speaks to the bride for the first time, saying: "To my mare in the chariots of Pharaoh I have likened you, my neighbor."

Psellus

^C Seeing her spurred on by the sting of love and hastening to run to him, he said she was like a fleet-footed mare. For you, O virgin, he says, will put the enemies to flight just as once my ordered cavalry, that is, the virtue of the angelic host, dissipated the forces of Pharaoh. But if you ask why the bridegroom compares the order of angels to cavalry, the answer will be easy. Whoever wages war, if he must fight against an archer, prepares a bow and arrows; if a foot soldier against a foot soldier, he takes a helmet and a spear; a horseman joins battle with a horseman, a commander with a commander. Since, therefore, the strength of Pharaoh’s army consisted most of all in its cavalry, for this reason he opposes to his cavalry the angelic host drawn up directly against it. And lest you should perhaps think the bride ^D is being insulted because she is clearly called like a mare, hear what the bridegroom says to her next: "How beautiful have your cheeks been made, as the turtledove's! Your neck as necklaces!" Having said I likened you to a very fast horse; yet you do not need to carry a bit in your jaw: for your cheeks are most beautiful, and instead of a bridle, are endowed with natural modesty, like that of the chaste turtledove; a turtledove, I say, which loves solitude. Your neck is admirable, au-

- ^A -dorned by the golden necklace of the Proverb. Consider the necklace as the one I called a bridle.

Of the Three Fathers

^B The Bridegroom therefore, alluding to the Church gathered from the nations—in which He feeds, as He demonstrated allegorically by that reply, "If you do not know yourself"—now indicates the same thing more clearly. "I have likened you, my near one," He says, "to my mare in the chariots of Pharaoh." In order to make these words clearer, they must be arranged as follows: "I have likened you, my near one, to my mare in the chariots of Pharaoh," that is to say, to my apostles, upon whom I rode while performing my equestrian journey, running swiftly to the ends of the world for the sake of my proclamation, and I have shown you to be like them in virtue. Therefore, just as I am shown to be feeding in them, so also in you, who are near to me because of your faith in me. In the chariots of the intelligible Pharaoh, that is, the nations, by which this Pharaoh is carried as he rides within them. For "horse" in the plural signifies cavalry. Now these are the holy apostles, according to the passage: "You will mount your horses." And "your horsemanship is salvation." But the mystic chariots of Pharaoh are the gatherings of the nations, as they are dependent upon his most wicked will. In these gatherings the Church, having heard the preaching of the apostles and having believed in the Christ preached by them, becomes near to Him. For because faith is an immediate union between the believer and the One believed in, the Church is likened by Christ Himself to the apostles, since she obeys His commandments and imitates the apostolic life.

^C Now let us see how He likened her to the apostles. "Why," He says, "are your cheeks made beautiful, as the turtledove’s?" Marvelously, in truth, have your cheeks been made beautiful, as you embrace modesty and continence after the likeness of the turtledove, and imitate the custom of the apostles; and you do not use your cheeks, after the manner of the nations, with unbridled motion in disputations, silly talk, and long-winded prayers, and in gluttony of food, from which all other intemperance arises. But rather, with such moderation that, with a concise and well-ordered speech, you have overcome the empty wisdom of the Greeks; in your prayers you seek only the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and you do not feed on superfluous and delectable foods, but are content with luxuries that are necessary. From which it results that you live temperately in all things, and do not refer these things to glory and ostentation; but further, regarding fortitude and patience, you bear being struck on the right cheek with such a mild spirit that you offer the other to the one striking you, in imitation of Christ, who endured blows with equanimity, demonstrating in deed that the commandment can be kept; and like the solitary bird, the turtledove, retreating into the desert, He fasted there, and thus taught that ostentation and human praise are to be shunned. And in this way indeed he...

^A has wonderfully beautified your cheeks, demonstrating your temperance in regard to desire by self-control, and your courage in regard to anger by endurance. In the same way, your neck has been beautified as with necklaces; for your neck is not of iron, so as to be unbending due to pride, but it is bent due to humility, like necklaces fabricated of gold, whose excellence and purity your unfeigned humble disposition imitates. If, as has been said, the necklace signifies unfeigned humility, then the neck of the bride of Christ, praised as necklaces, also indicates a multitude of virtues, and humility implicit in each virtue. For just as a necklace, when crafted in a straight form, is afterwards bent to be fitted for use, so also is one who is perfect in virtue humbled by condescension, being upright in life and bent by humility. The neck, moreover, covered with humility, is the rational part of the soul; which, like a neck joining the head to the remainder of the body, connects the mind with the senses, bringing down the inner reasonings of the virtues according to their respective modes to the senses, and, conversely, leading their modes back to the mind according to those same reasonings. It is also bent through humility, not being lifted up by its own dignity, but lowered by the abjection of dust and matter. By these reasons, Christ, the bridegroom of the Church gathered from the nations, has likened her to the assembly of apostles from Israel through faith in him; restoring the tripartite part of the soul, through self-control and endurance and humility, from a state ^B contrary to nature to a habit congruent with nature, and washing away the blackness contracted by her from infidelity.

Of the Fathers

Psellus

bride’s intense flame of love for the bridegroom, and her inclination toward the bridegroom, ^B and perceiving from these the end of the matter—that indeed the bridegroom will descend to her and rest in her after the manner of a king—now instruct the bride and adorn her with gold, so that when the King wishes to arrive, he may find her most prepared for rest. Therefore, they address her thus: "We shall make thee likenesses of gold, with silver studs, as long as the king is in his reclining place."

When, they say, it will come to pass that the King rests within you, whom you purely love and seek, come then, allow yourself to be instructed and adorned by us. For although, O bride, you do not yet shine with virtues as gold, but still gleam as silver against the darkness, nevertheless, we will decorate you to the likeness of gold and make you like a cherubic, fiery, and venerable throne, onto which the King, descending, will recline and find rest. This entire apparatus, in my judgment, signifies the marvelous transformation of the bride and virgin from silver into gold, ^C accurately sought out by the friends of the Word and bridegroom—that is, the beauty and grace bestowed upon the bride worthily by the angels of God. For this is the custom and office of the friends of the Lord: when they have found some virginal soul hastening zealously toward Christ, they surround her on all sides as her guardians and assist her, inciting her to upright and virtuous ways of life, until they present her fit and pleasing to the Lord. ^D But let us now proceed further with the interpretation, and hear what the bride, adorned by the zeal and diligence of these friends, says to the friends themselves, that is, to the angels:

*My nard gave forth its odor.*

You perceive the fruit of the soul's progression in the study of virtue. For when a virgin has progressed in a straight walk of life, and in such a way has drawn near to the desired Word and bridegroom, she declares that she has recognized the beauty of the bridegroom, but through one sense only, namely, the sense of smell. But why, you ask, does she say that the Lord exhales no other ointment, but only nard? Is it because nard holds primacy among the ointments? Or does she rather wish to imply something more divine? For if any person of the present life—even if he acquires all the virtues through labor and industry—lives rightly, yet has not put on Christ through divine baptism, he will in reality attain nothing of eternal life through these virtues. This mystery which you hold in your mind is made manifest by the example of the perfumers. For when they wish to prepare nard, although they cast many other things together into one, unless they also add nard—which is indeed an herb—those who work the art toil in vain. ^B Moreover, Christ, who is one and the same as the bridegroom, at the feast of Simon the leper

was anointed with this ointment by the woman who was a sinner. ^A Merito igitur nardi mentio facta est.

From the Three Fathers.

The bride, having been purified thereafter by the diverse ways of the virtues in practice and by words in contemplation, and then being led on to perfection, answering the friends of the bridegroom who had spoken the aforementioned words to her, says: "My nard gave forth its scent"; that is, the knowledge acquired through diverse ways of action and words of contemplation, like nard compounded of various aromatics, offered a representation of him, the bridegroom by nature inaccessible, whose character I bear as his image and likeness. ^B For this mixture is one that exists of those things in the universe that participate in the one cause of all things, in that it consists naturally of intelligible and sensible creation, and according to intention has mingled within itself the reasons and ways [that exist] in the universe. And from there, having returned to the reason that is according to the image, the way that is according to the likeness, she displays this within herself as if she were an archetype in an image. But since, as she has said, she has come to a sense of the bridegroom, what is it for her? "This is," she says, "a bundle of myrrh, my kinsman to me." That is, there is for me a binding together and a preservation of the drop of the divine grace that is imparted to me, my beloved, as Symmachus interprets it. For, accepted through faith, he guards and preserves the spiritual gifts for the Church, and strengthens the faithful so that they do not turn away from the truth. ^C Then, where he having remained in her grants this constancy, she explains, saying: "In the midst of my breasts he shall lodge." The heart holds the middle of the breasts, from which the vital spirit is diffused to the rest of the body; which [spirit] signifies the ruling mind, in which the Lord shall reside when his bride, through perfection united to him, becomes one spirit, receiving the habit of virtue through the operation of the Holy Spirit, from which the "life hidden in Christ" (Coloss. III, 3), flowing into all the powers of the soul as if into the members of this [body], instills in them stable firmness and strength. And thus will the bridegroom be to the bride an immovable foundation of virtues, when she is shown to be perfect.

Of Psellus.

But let us now hear also the words that follow. For the bride, as if becoming inspired by her progress, still loves to weave [together] the discourse with the friends. She says, therefore, the following to them after the mention of the nard: ^D "A bundle of myrrh is my kinsman to me; he shall lodge in the midst of my breasts." It is the custom, as they say, for young women who are lovers of beauty, not only to adorn themselves outwardly in an exquisite manner, so that they may quickly attract their lovers, but also, even more than that, inside their garments, to place preparations made from sweet-smelling substances. Since, therefore, the soul is adorned like a beautiful virgin with the words of the Canticles, and in the manner of men is decorated for the wedding with garments

^A suitable for a woman, it is natural for her to speak as a woman, even if she keeps an hidden meaning in the depth of her reason. This, therefore, she says openly, as if acting coyly, that even if some women carry other perfumes for a more ardent love inside their garments, yet I, instead of every fragrant perfume, will possess that most beautiful bridegroom himself, like a bunch of most sweet-smelling spices, having hung him gracefully around my neck. Or rather, this clearly hints in the discourse that even if other souls, entangled in the life, have different cares for worldly matters, I, knowing another pleasure of my bridegroom, will engrave him upon the tablets of my heart; for the seat of the heart is situated in the midst of the breasts.

Of the Three Fathers. A cluster of cypress is my kinsman to me in the vineyards of Engaddi. ^B That is, like a grape that is still flowering, and promising the wine that brings joy to the heart, my beloved brings forth fruit for me on account of my imperfection, as in the vineyards, that is, in the various natures of things which are visible to the eye of trial (for that is what *Gaddi* means), to the eye, that is to say, of the reason that explores the natures of things and their truth in all things. For this, investigating them like a flowering grape, gathers the truth from them; which, just as a certain wine, will move the mind from figures, when it embraces the diverse reasons which are in the world, gathered together into itself. ^C

By Psellus. Some things remain from the words of the bride, which now must be explained according to our strength: for thus she addresses the angels themselves: A cluster of cypress is my kinsman to me in the vineyards of Engaddi. O the remarkable transformation in the progress of the bride! For she who, a little before, had been clearly likened to a mare, now, clearly advancing through the kindness of her friends, recognizes herself as a fruit-bearing vine. For every pure soul, kindled with desire for the Lord, becomes everything through the progress of its works. Now, indeed, the seat ^D of the Cherubim, and the throne of the King, now, however, a fruit-bearing vine in the courts of the Lord. What, therefore, the bride purely says, is this: Thus I have known the son of my sister, that is, the bridegroom, who has distilled for us the must of eternity. He is not mature for all souls that are grasping at virtues, but according to the measure of the virtues, he changes his sweetness by turns. For to some he blossoms, in others he darkens, in others he is mature, and in others he is clearly mellow and sweet. Therefore, the bride, while she says she bears the flowering cluster, shows that she has not yet arrived at perfection. Or, as if exaggerating the beauty of the flower, she says: Thus Christ and my bridegroom blossoms to me, so that the odoriferous

clusters of the vines, naturally fragrant, blossom pleasantly in the place called Gaddi. For the land of Gaddi, as they say, being a vine-grower, surpassed every land in the sweetness of its grapes. ^A When, then, the chaste and pure soul has said these things, the Word answers, saying these things: *Behold thou art fair, my neighbor, behold thou art fair; thy eyes are as of doves.* As those who are skilled in gold, whom they call goldsmiths, if they wish to refine adulterated gold and make it purer and most splendid, often cast it into the furnaces: in this way does the Word, the healer of darkened souls, now show the bride. For having previously likened her to a horse, and having shown the virgin to be still crawling on the ground, ^B he stirred her toward a higher virtue. She, having progressed plainly in the graces of the friends, becomes a fiery throne of the King of all. But still again, reaching in virtues to a height, and again approaching the pure bridegroom, she is brilliantly praised by the bridegroom. *For behold*, he says, *thou art fair, my neighbor.* Then, bringing a twofold praise of beauty, he says: Behold, he says, thou art fair, O virgin. For thou hast the pleasant eyes of a dove-like virgin, whenever thou turnest thine eyes from error and gazest upon me, thy Creator. ^C And the Word mentions the eyes of a dove now, signifying the purity of the virgin’s gaze. For she had such a pure gaze that she beheld clearly the most beautiful bridegroom.

Of the Three Fathers.

Thus, therefore, the bridegroom, seeing the bride pure in action and enlightened in contemplation, says to her: *Behold thou art fair, my neighbor, behold thou art fair; thy eyes are as of doves.* That is: Behold, thou existest as fair by participation in my beauty, as one who has cast off the ugliness of former unbelief, and has approached me through virtue by imitating my imitators, the apostles. ^D Behold, thou existest beautiful, as one who hast learned from my angels my manifestations that are in the world, and hence hast been adorned also in knowledge; since thy intellectual eyes are spiritual, in not being deceived by things pleasant to the senses, but as in mirrors, thou discernest in them the hidden intelligible beauties.

Of the Three Fathers.

To these things, the bride, since she has been testified by the bridegroom to have spiritual eyes—and hence not to be deceived, but to behold that which is truly beautiful, from which she herself also becomes a participant in beauty—says these things: Behold, she says, thou art fair, my bridegroom. Thou alone, evidently, canst justly be called fair, my beloved, by participation in whom the fair things are fair. Fair, I say, inaccessible by nature's beauty...

^A Thus, therefore, you who are fair are to our bed umbrageous—that is, in our nature, upon which, as upon a bed, you, the all-luminous and shadowless ray of God and the Father, find your rest; you appear as if in shadow, as if in an image of the archetype. And since we are your dwelling-place—we, the Church that believes in you—our beams occur; that is, the dogmas of piety, which like beams holding together a house, hold together the Church of the faithful, and like cedars, firmly rooted in that steadfast faith in Christ, they are made stable. And to the Church, which is assailed by the frequent onsets of various heresies and temptations, just like violent rains and winds, they do not permit her to fall. Our panelled ceilings are cypresses. Panelled ceilings, moreover, are those that diversify the beauty of the roof with a harmonious and sculpted arrangement of planks; if these are made of cypress, they are fragrant and nearly immune to rot. Similar to these are the virtues with which the Church is adorned, being empty of the corruption of passions and vices; and they shed a spiritual fragrance upon those whose senses of the soul are well trained.

Psellus.

But let us hear what follows next in the Canticles. For the bride continues to address the bridegroom: “Our beams, cedars; our panelled ceilings, cypresses.” “Since now you have come to us, O bridegroom, no longer [do we fear] any dreadful rains, nor any onsets of torrents, nor any

We no longer fear any violent rains, nor the disturbances of the rivers of evil currents, nor even the blasts of the contrary north wind. For since You have been pleased that I should be Your dwelling, You have built well within Yourself, O Bridegroom, who are truly the pleasant stone and the rock of life. Whence we judge our beams to be of cedar, and again our panelled ceilings to be of cypress wood. Since, therefore, there is mention here of a house, He also speaks of beams and panelled ceilings. Accept all these as virtues with which the Word, upon coming, fortified her against winds, and rains, and rivers, that is to say, against temptations. When, therefore, you hear of winds, rains, or rivers, know that these are by nature the temptations of the demons.

^C *I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys.*

Of the Three Fathers. That is to say, I, the Church gathered from Israel and from the Gentiles: as far as the Israelites are concerned, who were pre-purified from unbelief and malice by the Law and the prophets, and were thereby leveled like a field, and had not stood far from the good for long, I have blossomed in virtue, having received the heavenly rain of knowledge; but as far as the Gentiles are concerned, who through their initial unbelief were deprived of their natural equality and were bowed down by the whirlwind of vices: like a lily rising from the depths to the heights, and growing from the root along the stalk to a suitable height, so that it might not be hidden in the depth of the valleys but might display its lofty beauty, I have been rooted through faith in Christ, and through purification I have risen from the confusion of my vices, and at the summit of contemplative vision I have been adorned with the beauty of virtue.

Pselli. It is time now to hear what the bride says next. For she speaks thus to Him as if glorying:

*But I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys.* O the splendid progress of the pure Virgin! For behold, you have acknowledged yourself to be both the choice flower of the whole field of human nature, and then also, in order, the divine lily of the valleys. For every soul that is truly fragrant in its conduct, having blossomed and been adorned with virtues, and not at all suffocated by worldly anxieties, is sweet-smelling. And the witness to this fact is Christ, the Bridegroom, who confirms the bride's speech, as you will find in order:

*As a lily in the midst of thorns, so is my kinswoman in the midst of the daughters.* Rightly, He says, have you spoken of yourself, O bride; for thus, in the midst of souls who are, as it were, daughters—those who are always being suffocated by anxieties—you alone have now blossomed like a sweet-smelling rose. And the Word and Bridegroom calls her sister, because she obeys the divine will. For He...

^A says in the Gospels that those who fulfill His Father’s commands are brothers, relatives, and friends to Him.

Of the Three Fathers

Of the Three Holy Fathers

^A to dwell are not consumed by the heat of passions, but are protected by it. "And his fruit is sweet to my palate." Now his fruit is the fruit of the spirit, which is, as the great apostle Paul says, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, and the rest; those who are nourished by it through experience surpass others in the perception of its sweetness. For nothing is sweeter than spiritual joy, freedom from passion, and love. The palate that perceives the sweetness of this spiritual fruit would be the rational faculty of the soul, since without it no discourse is brought forth, just as neither is food without a palate.

Psellus

When the bride had heard these praises, she in turn extols the bridegroom with certain praises. For she speaks these words to the Lord: "As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." Just as, among all the souls of men which you, O Word and bridegroom, have called daughters, I alone have grown as a lily in its bloom; so also you, having bent the heavens in an ineffable manner, and having descended upon the earth into an earthly life, and having become incarnate for our sake in this wood, ^B appeared in the midst of the sons of men here, as an apple tree, most fragrant and pleasant to the taste. But why, you ask, does she call the Word an apple? Because the apple fruit is endowed with many graces. For if it be squeezed by someone, as is fitting, it secretes a blood-mixed, watery juice. And from this are hinted the saving fountains which flowed from the side of the Word and Savior. O admirable prudence of the pure Virgin! For she wisely said that he is truly an apple tree. For every human soul, in truth, even if it be exalted by virtues, and even if it reaches the angels, is judged to be only a flower and a lily of the valleys (not feeding the farmer, for grass does not feed him), but adorning itself with the beauty of its form. For the farmer does not seek profit from us, as David shows in a certain place when addressing the bridegroom himself: "You are my God," he says, "for you have no need of my goods." But Christ, our farmer and bridegroom, having taken on human flesh, has truly become an apple tree, and delights our three principal senses: sight, smell, and especially taste. For he is truly very comely in appearance: since he is the most beautiful of all who have been born on earth, ^C and he makes those who look upon him bright. He is sweet to the smell, being more than perfume; for that perfume which descended upon the beard of Aaron is the pure bridegroom himself. In taste, indeed, how sweet he is: for he imparts immortal life to those who taste him. For he who worthily eats his body, as he himself says, will truly possess eternal life. And so much for the interpretation of this song. Toward the remaining parts of the Canticles... ^D

we must rightly proceed. ^A The bride says next concerning the divine Word: "In his shadow I desired and sat, and his fruit was sweet to my throat." She says that she often desired to look upon the shadow of this wonderful and life-bearing apple, whenever the flame of temptations burned me severely. But behold, now I have sat down, and I rejoice, and I am glad; and I have escaped the flame of the temptations, and I meditate on all the commandments of the Lord, whenever the most sweet Word and bridegroom provides shade with his own divine wings, and walls off the flame of temptation from afar. She spoke these things as if boasting. She next exhorts the friends of the bridegroom to advance further and to run toward the beautiful bridegroom. For she says thus to them: "I must consider: Bring me into the wine cellar; set in order charity in me. Refresh me with ointments, sustain me with apples, for I am wounded by love." He says: I thirst for the advancement that is toward the bridegroom, I mean the cluster of life, the mature, the divine, the one dripping sweet wine through the death of the cross. Therefore, bring me also into the cellar of this one, so that, having looked purely upon the beauty of the bridegroom, I may increase the kindling of my love for him. And further, I also beseech to attain greater things. For she says these things to them, that is, to the angels ^B "Refresh me with ointments, sustain me with apples." Since, she says, the wonderful, the fearful, the most beautiful bridegroom has loved me, the rejected one, you, therefore, who are the friends of this one, refresh me, for the sake of the love of the Word himself and the bridegroom, just as you first gave me gold in exchange for ointments, those things which ward off every stench of sin, so that I may no longer wander and turn aside again. But you, understand the virtues by the ointments of the friends. But for what reason does she again entreat to be sustained with apples? For at one time the virgin soul, adorned for the wedding, holds converse with the friends as a bride. At another time as a gold-glittering couch, at another as a divine throne. For truly, in one most pure soul, Christ and bridegroom now rests, now walks, and sits very often. All these things indeed the sustaining with apples indicates. The bride burns and clearly flames with desire for the bridegroom, who is also called an apple brought forth from the wood, and she wishes for him to be all these things to her always: food, and luxury, and shadow, and shelter ^C and roof, just as she herself is all these things to him: a bride, to be sure, and a seat, and a couch, and a house. Then, the cause of her constant entreaty to the angels...

is stated by her: "For I am wounded with love." I, she says, implore your grace, that my whole covering may be well bedded with apples, because I am wounded by the arrow of this love. Therefore, understand "love" to be the unoriginated Father, and the truly chosen "arrow" to be the Word and bridegroom; for this is what He is accustomed to send upon those who are being saved.

Of the Three Fathers

Thus, indeed, the bride, having learned the beauty, the fragrance, the shelter, and the sweetness of the bridegroom, proclaims these things, sending them forth into ministry. Calling upon the ministering spirits, sent forth to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit ^B salvation, she says: "Bring me into the house of wine," that is, "Teach me the divine accounts concerning the incarnation." For she calls the Word of God, who makes glad the souls of those who partake of Him and leads them to divinization, "wine." The house of this [wine] is the flesh assumed by Him; into this house the Church is brought, being about to be one flesh with Christ, as the Apostle says concerning that passage, "The two shall be one flesh," adding, "But I speak concerning Christ and the Church." For the Church of the faithful, partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ, and becoming one body with Him, and learning through the angels—and by virtue manifesting in its ways—the accounts concerning the incarnation, enters into the house of wine, ^C being made a dwelling-place of God in the Holy Spirit.

"And thus, having brought me into the house of wine, set in order charity upon me," that is, "The communion of divine grace, which you yourselves partake of in order, set also upon me, instructing each of the faithful in the divine mysteries in proportion to each one's capacity. Support me with ointments," that is, "Strengthen me with the gifts of the most holy Spirit, which like ointments sprinkle the souls of the faithful with the sweetness of their fragrance, and strengthen me in divine piety, as I weaken due to bodily infirmity. Bed me with apples," that is, "Fill me with divine knowledge in the divine words which, like apples, make the throat sweet." I ask these things from you, "For I am wounded with love." That is, since I am pierced not by fear, ^D but by love—for charity casts out fear—being the one betrothed to Christ through faith. For as she previously was purified by the fear of punishments and then enlightened by the hope of future goods, she now hastens through love to be led to perfection by the holy angels. Hence she says: "His left hand [shall be] under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me." Namely, the threats of punishments, as befalling those on the left, under what is like the head—the governing part of the soul—that is, the mind, which subjects the senses to itself. And so, His right hand, I hope, shall now embrace me. Namely, the promise of good things which...

^A receive those on the right, the kingdom of God that is, in the age to come, shall encompass me, having neither temporal beginning nor end; yet for me, both a beginning and an end are found. For it is on account of it that I, as if to inherit it, have come into being from the beginning; and to it I return again through His love for mankind, ceasing from all movement, and being defined by it alone.

Psellus

Of the Three Fathers

is love, which never falls away, may grant us by His coming immutability.

Psellus

"The voice of my kinsman." So incomprehensible, in truth, is the divine, that even if someone achieves all virtues through labors, and even if he is raised toward the heavens by virtuous ways, and from there thinks he has stood near to God, let him know that he is found far from the divine essence. For behold, the bride, who has progressed and arrived at a height, and expects that she has stood near the bridegroom, has not perceived the essence of the divinity at all. And by his voice, understand the utterances of the prophets which indescribably prefigured the incarnation of the Word. Then also what she says next must be examined.

"Behold, this one comes skipping upon the mountains, leaping over the hills." Having said first that she hears the voice of the bridegroom, she says, "This one now comes skipping upon the mountains." The pure Virgin philosophizes well. For the Word of God, before His coming down to earth, sent before Him the prophets to announce His descent to men and His divine incarnation. And after them, He Himself arrived from heaven. The passage of the Canticles hints at that of the incarnation of the God-man Word, through which He drew up those sitting in the darkness, having overthrown all the demons by a single command. ^A For these she has called mountains, and again she calls them hills. For Christ, working miracles and casting out the demons by His word alone, cast all of them alike into Tartarus, the lesser and the greater and even the legions. Next, what the bride says immediately must be considered.

^A *My beloved is like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel.*

Three Fathers.

^C In this way, when the instructress bride had taught the souls being discipled, so that by both the fear of punishments and the hope of promises they might cultivate virtue, and awaken love within themselves according to knowledge, until it should please the bridegroom to appear to them and establish them in immutability—lest, thinking the coming of the bridegroom to be delayed, they might shrink from the labor of cultivating virtue—she confirms them, saying, *The voice of my kinsman.* For the voice of the beloved is the Precursor, he the herald of repentance, instructing the divine ways and directing the paths. Voices are threats and promises, which in part impel the hearers to repentance, and in part prepare the ways of the Lord through virtue, and by knowledge make His paths straight in these. *Behold, this one comes*; that is, Behold, this one arrives; if, having heard His threats and promises, we turn away from our prior transgressions through repentance, and be illumined by the hope of future goods. He comes to us who have been prepared, as it is said, *leaping upon the mountains*; that is, mounting upon the supernatural dogmas of His own divinity like an overarching summit. For trying to comprehend Him from affirmative theology—in which He is shown to be exalted by act—from this we see Him in negative theology, as being transcendent, leaping over the hills. Verily, the hills also, as they are prominent, extend the institutions of the dispensation, which themselves also cannot be comprehended. But upon the hills, as far as our understanding is concerned, the bridegroom leaps, while from being God, He is seen as man. And leaping into that which is man, He is recognized as God. Now as for what she said about the bridegroom, to leap upon the mountains ^D and to leap over the hills—for to leap and to leap over is proper to the roe and the fawning deer—assimilating the bridegroom further to these, he says: *My beloved is like a roe or a young hart of deer upon the mountains of Bethel.* Now "Bethel" is interpreted as "house of God," which is the Church of the faithful, whose mountains are understood, by reason of [their] height, to be the most pious dogmas regarding the divinity and humanity of the Only-begotten; upon which this beloved of the bride leaps, as we said above, and leaping over, in the manner of the aforementioned animals, he drives far away from the Church the spiritual beasts which, like poison, cast opinions contrary to the truth against the Church. For the nature

^A of the gazelle and the deer is such that they hunt down poisonous beasts.

Of the Three Fathers

Of Psellus

^A *Behold the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers have appeared on the earth: the time of pruning has arrived.* For, he says, he has overthrown the nature of the demons by which human nature is frozen and rendered sluggish and utterly inert for acting rightly; and therefore the winter of charity has departed, and the heavy rain has altogether gone away and receded, and the pleasant spring of truth has arisen. The earth has begun to flower—that is, human nature. The time of pruning has now arrived; flowers must be gathered if you wish to weave garlands from the flowers. For the nature of men, which he called the earth, bowing its neck to idols and fraud, offered no appearance of virtues (for this is what the flower signifies), having been reduced to ice and almost destroyed by the most bitter and vehement winter of deception. For who would ever have hoped that one, in such darkness of errors, could maintain a profession of piety, preserve modesty, embrace temperance, or kiss justice? But now *the flowers have appeared in our land.* Arise, therefore, and weave for yourself crowns from the virtues. And the witness of the flowers—not at all to be rejected—is that the precursor of grace, saying, *Do penance,* who baptized many of the people of the Hebrews when he saw them flowering in confession. For it is to this that these words of the Canticles look: *The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.* For that precursor was the voice of one crying out; he is likened, according to the cleverness of the Word, to the sparrow and the turtledove.

*The fig tree has put forth its green figs; the vines are in flower: they have given their scent.* These perhaps hold the same meaning as the ones above. For by the fig tree, again, understand human nature; by the green figs, the inferior virtues; by the vines in flower, the souls which have already begun to advance in the right manner and path of living. *Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove.*

Of the Three Fathers

Since, therefore, the teacher-soul had so exercised itself in instructing the young ones, it now recounts what it has itself learned from the spouse: *My nephew answers,* it says—noting, that is, the one who brings my discourse to the disciples—*my beloved answers, and says to me: Arise, come, my neighbor:* cease teaching the mysteries pertaining to me that you previously learned through the natural and written law. Rising from these, you who are my neighbor on account of your perfection, apply yourself to handing down those things which consist of the spiritual law, which are far more excellent than these. For I, who am by nature immense and infinite, shall never be contained by any limits of things consisting of matter. And therefore, it is always necessary for you to strive toward what lies beyond. *My beautiful one, my dove.* Beautiful indeed, in my view, insofar as you are purified and

decorated; and a dove, insofar as you are illuminated by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. ^A *Arise,* he says, *and come; for behold, the winter has passed.* That is, for this reason I command you always to rise from high contemplations to higher ones, drawing you toward the participation of the beauty that lies above, because the storms ^B that afflict the soul like the tempests of winter and hinder it from the spiritual journey have been removed. *The rain has gone, it has departed.* The violent storm of heresies, by which you were troubled, has ceased, as they have perished, having been crushed by their own mutual conflicts. *The flowers have appeared on the earth.* The virtues, which adorn the soul like various and beautiful flowers, have blossomed in the flesh, while they are cultivated by right actions and deeds. These things, however, have come to pass because the time of pruning has arrived, which is the time of Christ’s advent in the flesh. For he himself says in the Gospels: *I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the bride against her mother-in-law.* For these new ones, renewed by the Spirit, are severed by faith and virtue from those who are hardened in unbelief and malice. Wherefore, ^C also bearing witness to his own advent in the flesh, he says: *The voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.* By the turtledove he names the prophet and forerunner of his advent, as he was solitary and chaste; whose voice is the preaching of repentance, which was heard by some of those who are carnal and think on earthly things, when they obeyed that preaching and were baptized with the baptism of repentance. *And so,* he says, *the fig tree has brought forth her green figs.* He understands by the fig tree the synagogue of the Jews, which Christ afterwards cursed on account of its unfruitfulness; which indeed brought forth, like green figs that are born before the perfect fruit but fall quickly, those who were baptized with the baptism of John. ^D For these showed forth the fruit beforehand, prefiguring through the baptism in water alone the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire; yet they did not arrive at this, since, not believing John’s testimony concerning Christ, they fell away from the faith in Christ. *Our vines are in blossom, they have given their scent.* He calls the churches of those who have believed in Christ, which were planted among the nations by his own preaching, vines; the flowers of which churches, portending the fruit that would be theirs through virtue, were the Magi who offered gifts to Christ from the regions of the East, bringing them to him as King and God, and, for our sake, a mortal, and offered gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, providing to those who are active through the Holy Spirit the gift of knowledge, the sweet scent of the faith of the nations in Christ himself. For this reason, therefore, he says: *Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove.* Namely, depart from that method of teaching which is contained in the figures and shadows both of nature and of the letter, and come to be taught those things which are of the spirit, because of your nearness to me.

^A you are adorned with the operations of the Holy Spirit. For in the way that you are in a sense distant from me by means of the figures, while you descend to instruct the disciples, and appear beautiful to them in sense, but not in spirit—as they are not capable of the things of the Spirit—so do you seem to these. Then, because He has shown the cause for which He demanded of her the return to Him, having taught that the time of His advent in the flesh had arrived—on account of which He also said to His own disciples, "Arise, let us go hence"—yet having not declared with what security she ought to come to Him, now, teaching this too, He says: "And come, my dove, into the cleft of the rock." Proceeding from the bulwark: that is, since the disciples being taught by you do not follow, you who teach them the things of the spirit by means of sensible things, come you, the spiritual one, ^B to my evangelical instruction of the immutable, kept in accordance with the precaution according to the commandments of the written law. For the written law used to protect as a bulwark against the passions of action, and it showed only the figures of the truth; to which order is directed toward perfection, so that the purification of the passions of action and the washing away of the evil thoughts themselves might follow, and then the contemplation of the figures, which is the spiritual movement toward the truth itself: things which the spiritual law teaches—namely the Gospel, in which we are covered by Christ, the spiritual rock, according to the divine Apostle. Thus, therefore, having called her, what He wishes is clear: that, having abandoned the teaching of the shadows, she should come to Him in spirit and in truth, He says: ^C "Show me your face." That is, reveal to me your spiritual character according to my image and likeness, which, in order that it might be visible to those being taught, you have covered with figures and veils of the truth. "And let your voice sound in my ears." In your being spiritually engaged with me. For the spirit leads the voice of the teaching soul to the ears of the Lord; but the words and the letter, with which the simple word is thickened when composed in the spirit, leads down to the ears of those being taught. "For your voice is sweet." Clearly, sweet, as sounding the things of the spirit. "And your face is beautiful." As preserving the Lordly character, and adorned by the hands ^D of the Spirit. "Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove."

Pselli. We have often spoken of the meanings of this discourse; let us then interpret the words which follow in sequence. O virgin, He says, most pure soul, "Arise" from your fall, "and come," yet eagerly, and by no forced necessity, but willing and glad. I say, come not unwillingly, but of your own accord. For thus entirely to me...

the Rock, he says, you shall attain—that is, the Rock, Christ, of eternal life—by passing beyond the rampart ^A of the ancient law, which is joined to the Rock. For he truly comes; that is, he draws near to the rampart of the Rock. And learn also the manner of this. The ancient law is indeed called the rampart, but the solid Rock is the New Testament. And although the Mosaic law and the Gospel may seem to stand apart from one another, yet in their power they sound in unison and are in harmony with each other. For what can be more closely joined than these precepts? The ancient law forbids adultery: the Gospel amputates desire. That law commands you to abstain from slaughter: this forbids you even to be stirred to anger. And if you seek also the sheep, and the Sabbaths, and the Passover—those manifest and carnal ordinances of that law—if you look into it spiritually, you will find these in it as well. For the Rock is spiritual, and the wall is not of earth. But let us now hear the words that follow, for the Bride answers the Bridegroom:

"Show me your face, and let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your ^B face is lovely."

No longer, she says, oh beautiful Bridegroom, converse with me through certain prophetic and legal books; but may it be granted to me to see you and to hear your voice; let your voice sound in my ears, show me your divine face. For if your voice was most pleasant and sweetest to us, and if your countenance appeared most beautiful and altogether lovely when your voice resounded through the prophets, and we beheld your form as if in a mirror, how great shall be the beauty of your presence! How great the sweetness of your voice itself, which shall be heard without any intermediary! The Bridegroom heard the prayer of the bride, and in order to make himself more visible in person, he incites the hunters to the prey, saying:

"Catch for us the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, and our vines are in blossom."

Oh, the terrible and fearful dominion of the Word! Oh, the omnipotent power! Oh, the incredible strength! For he commands the hunters—that is, the angels—as if they were certain ^C tiny and most wretched foxes, to hunt down, capture, overcome, and bind the entire apostate power of the demons: that great dragon, the rebel by nature, who raves against us no differently than a lion against flocks, the Satan of the world-ruler, the prince of darkness, ^D hell, which opens its dark jaws and holds and bears the empire of death; he who boasts that he has taken and plundered the world, which is like a sparrow’s nest, as if it were rotten and worthless eggs: he who [thinks he will overturn] the mountains of the earth and the sea, and

who says he will fix his throne in the clouds, whose sides are of bronze and his backbone of iron, and whose entrails, as they say, are a smyrite stone—that serpent, the terrible one, that old one, that great one, and every other hostile power of his—the Power of the true Sovereignty has called little foxes, treacherous by nature. ^A “Take for me,” she says, “the little foxes,” as they are harmful to human souls. For she truly considers only these to be the vines.

Of the Three Fathers.

When, however, the teacher-souls were present at the command of the bridegroom and were occupied with him according to his teaching, he addresses these words to them: “Take for us the little foxes,” ^B meaning: by means of the commandments, restrain, together with the motions of the passions, the most treacherous spirits that are their cause, which still seem to be young, since the motions of the passions have not yet proceeded into action. He says to us, “Take,” because we have received the end of our purpose concerning those who are being taught. “Which demolish the vines,” that is, they overturn the souls that have been planted in me through faith. “And our vines are in blossom.” The souls diligently trained by us for salvation are already blooming in virtue, now that the most treacherous spirits have been routed, as has been said.

Psellus.

But let us see what the bride and virgin also says: “My kinsman is mine, and I am his.” But then she continues in an earnest manner, speaking to the bridegroom: “O you who feed among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows are inclined, turn back, be like, my kinsman, to a gazelle or to a young hart upon the mountains of the ravines.” ^C “O most beautiful shepherd of the rational sheep,” says the bride to him, the Word and bridegroom, “as you feed your sheep with virtues as with lilies, again show yourself like a gazelle or a young hart, and again seek us out, returning—you who were leaping a little while ago upon the mountains of the ravines—and annihilate every opposing power, and level the exceedingly high hills. For thus by your courses every valley will be filled, and every hill of malice will be humbled, and all the shadows of impiety will be dispersed, and the day of salvation will dawn upon mortals.”

Of the Three Fathers.

“Turn back, be like, my kinsman, to a gazelle or to a young hart upon the mountains of the ravines.” ^D Repel the spiritual beasts, the corrupters of souls, which rage against us and, after the manner of serpents, pour the poison of the passions into us; and for this reason, do you [become like...]

them], coming to the teachers who stand like mountains above the female disciples sunken in the currents of the passions, so that you might drive away, through the midst of those, the beasts that have buried the natural equilibrium of these souls and, dwelling within them, have corrupted their souls; and from there, restore to them the aforementioned equilibrium—I mean the equality of the faculties of the soul.

Of the Three Fathers.

This teacher, therefore, having asked the Bridegroom concerning those being taught, henceforth turns her discourse to them, and explains what pertains to herself; and in this way she strives to instruct them, saying: *On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth*; that is to say, in my flesh, in which, on account of the pleasure, I seemed to rest through the nights of ignorance, I sought to find that which is truly good—which is my beloved Bridegroom—but I did not recognize him, because of the reason I mentioned, namely, that night surrounded me, miserable as I was; for I supposed pleasure to be illumination. *I sought him and I did not find him; I called him, and he did not answer me*; that is to say, having sought him in those things that are pleasant according to the flesh, I did not find him. Since pain is naturally yoked to carnal pleasure—because sensory pleasure is the generation of corruption, which is pain. And from this very experience I learned that the one I love is absent from carnal pleasure; therefore, when I called him to this [pleasure] for painless enjoyment, he did not answer me. ^B Whence, being at a loss, I said these things to myself: *I will rise and I will compass in the city, in the streets and in the broad ways; and I will seek him whom my soul loveth.* That is: I will rise from carnal connection, and I will contemplate as a beginner; and so I will act. And from there, through experience, I will contemplate more perfectly; and as one beginning from contemplation and ending in the same, I will compass within myself, by way of action as in the streets of a certain city, spending labors like tried silver and acquiring virtues; but by way of contemplation, as walking through the broad ways in the natural speculations of things and collecting the varied knowledge of them; and in this way I will strive to find the one I desire. *I sought him and I did not find him; I called him and he did not answer me.* Clearly, I sought him by way of action and contemplation, imitating him. *I called him and he did not answer me.*

Of Psellus.

Truly, O my Christ, your nature cannot be comprehended. *On my bed*, she says—that is, the great progress in which I hoped at last to rest, as having already arrived at the pinnacle of all things—*when I reached the night of divine mysteries, ardently seeking the Word and Bridegroom, I found him nowhere to be seen.*

^A And again I have called him, but he did not answer me. How truly the bride portrays in tragedy the words! For every soul, even if it reaches the angels and enters within the inner, unspeakable mysteries, must not imagine that it sees the divine essence. Since, then, she did not find the Bridegroom as she had sought, let us hear what she desires. For she says thus again: *I will rise now and will go about in the city, in the streets and broad ways, and will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not; I called him, and he did not answer me.*

I will arise, she says, and I will search for him; I will examine thoroughly the whole nature that is contained in the world. For by this city she designates in this place, even as by the broad ways she understands the companies of the angels. ^B To his investigation, therefore, she says, I betook myself. And with this purpose and intent, I explored with great labor all the natures of the angels, hoping that I would reach him among the angels. Truly, when I examined him among the angels, that I might understand who and what sort he was, whence he had his beginning, and in what end he is concluded, the guards of the higher city of Zion saw me wandering and inquiring. For thus she continues her narrative: *The watchmen that go about the city found me.*

Then, she says, I questioned them: *Have you seen him whom my soul loveth?* For I truly hoped that the Word and my Bridegroom could be understood and comprehended at least among the angels. But when I perceived that they knew nothing, I withdrew from them, she says, in hesitation. But I had gone not far from the angels when I found him whom my soul loveth. As I passed slightly, she says, from the angels, understanding through faith that Christ the Almighty and the Word, God and man, could be comprehended by no reasoning, I found him in those things which surpass all force of talent and reason and intelligence. For the divine nature of the Word and Bridegroom becomes comprehensible only by the fact that it is known to be incomprehensible.

I held him, and I will not let him go, until I have brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her that conceived me. ^C Because, she says, I found him incomprehensible, I held him within and in the midst of my heart, and I recognized him to be coeternal with the Father. For we are the houses, and temples, and chambers of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says, who also begat us and nourisheth us, as he himself knoweth.

^D

Psellus.

powers and by the strengths of the field, if you rouse and awaken love until it should please. These things, having anticipated, we have explained; wherefore let us proceed to the rest.

^A What is this, that comes up from the wilderness like a pillar of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, from all the powders of the apothecary?

These things the friends say to one another. But the aim of the words is this, as I think: for the bride was even before exalted by virtues, by faith, by meekness, and by justice; but since she shifted also to another form of virtue, of fasting, of vigils, and of all-night prayer, and changed her appearance by strictly sleeping on the ground, the friends were astonished at the progress of the bride, and somehow feigning, as it were, one who knows not, they wish to ask one another concerning the bride, saying: Who is this that has run up from the wilderness to the heavens, ^B like a pillar of smoke, sending forth the scent of myrrh and of marvelous frankincense? For every soul desiring to be perfected as frankincense, that is, a pleasing incense to the King of all, unless it first mortify all its members, and truly become myrrh, having been deadened together with Christ, it cannot otherwise ever become frankincense to the Lord.

Of the Three Fathers

Having then explained these most perfect ascents of mine, "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, if you rouse and awaken love, until it should please": she means, just as I adjured you by threats and by promises, in the same sense I have again adjured you by the explanation according to me. ^C Confirming and strengthening like an oath by the example according to me, toward the race according to God, until the divine appearance should grant to you immutability. But they, being filled with wonder, and being perplexed among themselves concerning her who had explained, say: "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness like a pillar of smoke?" That is to say, who is she who, from a habit remote from the passions, is raised and ascends toward God according to virtue and knowledge, like stalks of smoke, which, under the fire consuming the wood, is carried up light into the air? For thus also every soul, burning with the spirit, having thinned by action the thickness of the flesh, and by contemplation ^D the appearance of the nature of existing things, is carried light toward God according to good manners and words, not being dragged down by earthy thickness. And thus she is borne toward the heavenly bridegroom, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense from all the powders of the apothecary. That is, having been anointed, as if with myrrh, by virtue, as having mortified the carnal mind; and as if with frankincense, by knowledge, as having shown herself to be a divine image by the characters of the truth. In such a way she is fragrant, passing through the natures of all things, and being borne toward the author of these; from which, like powders, the reasons and modes of these are raised up to her, thinning by these, as by pathways of truth, an accurate ser-

a probing reason that cooks down the whole of this as if in the fire of the Spirit. Behold the bed of Solomon; sixty mighty men are around it, from the mighty men of Israel, all holding swords, instructed for war. Each man has his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the nights.

Psellus. These things the friends say, ostensibly to the virgin, explaining the beauty of the bed of the bridegroom, so that they may the more kindle the desire of the bride. You, however, pay close attention to my explanation of these. The bed of Solomon ^B is the place of those who are saved. The sixty mighty men who surround it are, in truth, they themselves who are saved. They are called "sixty," according to the text of the Canticles, whoever are truly preeminent by divine grace and have filled with terror the ranks of the demons who assault men by night. Just as a man girded with a sword terrifies those who are unwarlike and unpracticed in battles, so these, armed with the sign of the cross as with a two-edged sword, have taken their stand against the principalities and against the prince of the world and of darkness, Satan. These things, indeed, have been spoken by us to the best of our ability. But if the sequence of the discourse does not seem so continuous, do not marvel, O prince, nor be moved; for thus are most prophetic writings.

Of the Three Fathers. The disciples, therefore, who had been in doubt concerning their mistress, as to who she was, now say concerning her: ^C "Behold the bed of Solomon," in which Christ the King of peace truly rests, who has reconciled us both to Himself, and to one another, and to His own Father. "Sixty mighty men are around it": these are the effective thoughts which, by divine power, protect from every side the soul prepared for the rest of God, against the fallacies of wicked spirits. For the reason, which presides over the five senses, together with those very senses, completes the number six; but when he who commands the senses by reason fulfills the divine precepts, which are ten in number, he completes the number sixty, and living in virtue, as it is said, "From the mighty men of Israel." These are wholly the true concepts ^D of the mind that sees God, from which those effective thoughts for the performing of good consist. "And they surround the soul" in which God rests, "all holding swords and instructed for war." For the thoughts that have been spoken, from the habit of contemplation, possess two-edged swords, by which they may discern those things that are contrary; but from the force of action, they obtain the use and experience of how the opposing powers can be defeated. "Each man has his sword upon his thigh, because of fear in the nights." Each of those things which we have mentioned, the thoughts, [has] the sword of the Spirit by which

they strike down vices, leveling their power against the soul that desires; this is because of the terror which the most wicked demons cast upon the soul in the nights of ignorance, through the impulses of desire that are repugnant to reason.

"A litter King Solomon made for himself from the woods of Libanus. Its pillars he made silver, and its reclinatory gold; its ascent purple, and within it a pavement of stones, for love from the daughters of Jerusalem."

Pselli

Of the Three Fathers

^A divine teaching and by His examples laid down charity, beginning [it] through those heralds of His, the apostolic souls (which were also called daughters of Jerusalem, since as far as the flesh is concerned, they draw their origin from thence); since the first of the apostles, in imitation of Christ, laid down their own souls for the salvation of many, and enjoined those who desired to attain perfection in Christ to do the same. Wherefore the great Apostle says: "Be imitators of me, as I [am] of Christ." 41

Psellus.

Then he exhorts all the souls of men to depart from the scandals and perturbations of the world, and to behold the bridegroom united with them. For the bride, because of her joy, addresses them thus: "Go forth and see, O daughters of Sion," says the bride, "since I, who formerly was detested, have now become the most delightful litter of the bridegroom; I desire that you all likewise flee from this life, and with pure eyes contemplate the bridegroom ^B adorned with a diadem woven from precious stones, who, having been crowned in this way by His mother, has betrothed me to Himself today." Indeed, His mother was the charity of the Father.

Of the Three Fathers.

Since the mistress perceives her disciples hesitant on account of herself and full of admiration, desiring to explain those things that pertained to her, she wills that they henceforth contemplate the manner of our salvation in the bridegroom Christ, and justly to be at a loss and to marvel how He Himself, by His salutary torments and His death, has bestowed peace ^C and life upon us. "Therefore," she says, "Go forth and see, O daughters of Sion": omit considering those things that pertain to me, a handmaid, and fix the gaze of your mind upon the peaceful Lord, contemplating how He has acquired salvation for us here. "Daughters of the watchtower," as having been born spiritually through faith; for Sion signifies a watchtower. A watchtower, moreover, from which one can easily look down spiritually, is the spiritual generation, which he who has not attained is blind, and gropes for the way with his hand in the brilliance of truth. "But behold," she says, "the reason of the dispensation in the diadem with which His mother crowned Him on the day of His betrothal": namely, in the crown of thorns which the synagogue of the Jews, from which He is [descended] according to the flesh, placed upon the head of Christ, on the day of His salutary death, in which He ^D betrothed the Church to Himself with His own blood. And on the day of the joy of His heart: by which, indeed, accepting the salutary death for us, He freed us from the servitude of the enemy: and thus, obeying the will of the Father, He rejoiced in spirit, although He was vexed by the torments of the flesh. These things the bride has spoken to her disciples, loving that which cannot be demonstrated, and fleeing from human glory, and desiring that everyone might marvel only at her bridegroom.

^A Behold, you are fair, my neighbor; behold, you are fair. Your eyes are doves, besides your silence.

**By Psellus.** When the bridegroom heard these words from her, he is stirred to praise her beauty, saying: “Behold, you are fair, my neighbor.” For you are truly fair, he says, and my neighbor, desiring that the souls of all men might be saved. Then, wishing to praise her also in part, he speaks thus to her, that is, to the Church: “Your eyes are as of a dove.” Just as in the body of a man there are many parts—feet, and hands, and breasts, and chest, and belly—so also there is the holy body of the divine Church, whose head is Christ, who is also the bridegroom. ^B He began to weave the crown from the eyes; but you, consider the eyes of the divine Church to be the company of the most keen-sighted prophets. And wishing to praise these inner eyes of hers, he says these things to her as well, as you will find in the sequence: “Besides your silence.” For he says, “I have praised your external eyes; for the internal ones are superior to praise.”

**By the Three Fathers.** Therefore the bridegroom, receiving her as beautiful in all things, says: “Behold, you are fair, my neighbor”; that is, “Behold, you are beautiful, having drawn near to me through imitation, having amassed with effective knowledge the beauty which you drew [from me] for the image and likeness. Behold, you are fair also because you join humility to all your other virtues.” Having thus praised her as a whole, he now pursues the praises of her individual parts. “Your eyes, he says, are doves, besides your silence.” Eyes that perceive all things that fall under the senses, and as spiritual ones, comprehend the things that are understood by the mind alone; because through them you refer all things that have been created to the praise of the Creator. Thus, these eyes of yours are spiritual, besides your silence regarding God; for this is even more spiritual, because in the Holy Spirit she knows, beyond knowledge, that which concerns God, namely, that He cannot be comprehended.

**By Psellus.** These things, then, he speaks to the bride as to a woman. But if you wish to investigate the matter more anagogically: the locks of the bride and virgin, that is, the adornments of the divine Church, are truly the multitude of the people from the flock of the Gentiles. ^C “Your teeth are as flocks of shorn sheep, which have come up from the washing, all bearing twins, and there is none barren among them.” By the teeth, understand for me the divine teachers, who have interpreted for us the holy Scripture, ^D who have shorn away the cares of the flesh and have been cleansed by the laver of conscience. And again the discourse has called these “twins-bearing,”

^A because of the fruit of virtues which they produce through both words and deeds; and there is no barren or useless thought among them.

*Thy lips are as a scarlet thread, and thy speech is comely.* Understand by the "thread," the measure of silence; and by the "comely speech," the divine preaching. For he says: Thou hast perfected the grace of silence, speaking nothing superfluous, nor anything wandering; for if thou shouldst ever desire to speak or to provide a voice, thou preachest and teachest the proclamation of the faith.

*Behold, thou art fair, my neighbor; behold, thou art fair.* Here, too, he has given a double praise of beauty; for having now praised the apple of her face, as being full of redness and replete with modesty, he also praised the beauty of her soul, saying thus: Beside the silence of the beauty of thy soul—these things, indeed, have an amorous aspect externally, but within they possess magnificent ascents.

*Thy hair is as a flock of goats that appeared from Galaad.* ^B Of the Three Fathers. That is to say, thy practical thoughts, and the discursive [arguments] in the spirit regarding contemplation, and the theological efforts concerning doctrines beyond understanding, all spring forth spiritually from thy mind (as hair from a head that is covered); and they are devoid of sensation toward the things that are in the flesh and in the world, like the flourishing hair of goats that were revealed from the invisible mountain called Galaad; and they are uncovered from the darkness of malice and ignorance and impiety, from which they have migrated, as it were, to truth and knowledge and piety, through the Gospel which testifies to the faithful the future judgments; for Galaad, if you interpret it, signifies "migration of testimony."

*Thy teeth are as a flock of shorn ones that came up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and there is not a barren one among them.* ^C That is, thy meditations, through which, as with certain teeth, the bodily thickness of the written law and of the natural law is attenuated into true meanings, and becomes suitable for spiritual nourishment, like shorn flocks [they] have stripped away every false opinion, and dwell only upon the truth. And they have also risen, being exalted toward spiritual and heavenly things, away from these earthly and carnal ones, being cleansed as if from a washing; and all of them, through the said laws, bear twin-offspring of words and modes of the virtues; and there is no barren or useless thought among them. ^D

*Thy lips are as a scarlet thread, and thy speech is comely.* It is clear that as a measured thread, and as a scarlet [thread] one putting forth the true Word, the speech of which, or rather the utterance, is perfected through these things.

*Thy cheek is as a piece of a pomegranate within thy silence.* That is to say, thy cheeks are like the rind of a pomegranate, astringent; because of the sternness and [the fact that they are] not dissolute, and because thou art not silent. For even if in conversations it is customary...

^A in congresses and mutual discourses for pleasantness to be present, thou, nevertheless, because of thy temperance in these also, dost repress that which is exuberant and dissolute.

*Sicut turris David collum tuum.* *Pselli.* And these things he speaks in womanly fashion with the bride. For when he wished to praise her neck exceedingly, he compared it to a very towering tower, which had been built previously by the divine David in Thalphioth for the defense of all the chariots, when he had put an end to wars with foreign enemies. But do thou, prince, crowned with garlands, understand for me that the neck of the holy Church is the great Paul, who bore Christ, the head of all, and whosoever else thou hast learned to be like him. For from these hang the ranks of the incorporeal ones, which the word has called a thousand shields. ^B Yet do not demand a reason, master, for the "thousand." For it is customary for Scripture to say this frequently. As it says: *The law of thy mouth is above thousands of gold and silver* [Ps. CXVIII, 72]. And elsewhere: *Thousands*, he says, *of those who rejoice* [Ps. LXVII, 18].

*Sicut turris David collum tuum; quæ ædificata est in Thalphioth.* *Trium Patrum.* That is, as the tower of David, thy interior mind—excellent in both action and contemplation—has been built by virtue and divine commandments as if upon bulwarks, that is, it is raised above the temptations of the adversary, and is lifted up by knowledge to the heights of spiritual contemplation. For David signifies "strong of hand, keen of vision." But the neck is the rational part, as has been shown beforehand. And that which is said, *built in Thalphioth*: Aquila translated it "upon bulwarks," while Symmachus rendered it ^C "into height." Whence it is shown by what has been said that the rational part of the bride overcomes the counsels of the enemy by action, and by contemplation is raised to the height of true understanding. Wherefore he also says: *A thousand shields hang upon it*; that is, those energies which multiply the ten divine commandments tenfold, and which, being multiplied again according to the natural law as a decimal, and thus fulfilling the number one thousand, are hung as if they were shields to keep thee invulnerable from the arrows of the enemy, as thy rational neck. For in this the bride seeks the good will of God, and persuades the concupiscible part to desire this, and the irascible part to fight for it; and through this same rational part it uses the senses for the discernment of the good, and the vocal power for its expression, and the generative power for its increase. And through these ten faculties—I speak of the rational, the concupiscible, the irascible, the five senses, the vocal energy, and the natural generative power—the natural law consists, and is aided by the ten divine commandments ^D toward the performance of the good. And these ten commandments which by the law

^A of the written code are encompassed, the natural law multiplying tenfold, creates the hundred. Again, by multiplying these deeds tenfold, according to the ten powers that underlie them, it fulfills the thousand. And thus the thousand hanging shields, as has been said, signify the written and the natural law, harmonizing with each other as they hang from the rational part of the bride, as if from her neck, and providing her protection from all those who plot against her. But not only do the shields hang upon her, he says, but also all the darts of the mighty ones, which are the teachings suggested to the bride by the holy and heavenly powers through contemplation, and which are cast like darts against the spirits of wickedness to destroy the engines they have constructed against her. And as she is instructed by the holy angels in rational inquiries on how she ought to cast darts at those who plot against her, these teachings also are hung from her rational part.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies: until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

Pselli.

Until the day break, and the shadows move away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Of the Three Fathers.

^A are said to be those who pasture among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows move; that is, the teachings, moral and natural, which, being imparted to souls that have been stripped of every anxiety of this life, coalesce and receive growth until that all-brilliant day of the future shall shine forth, and all things that are shrouded in shadows shall pass away. But since, by coming in the flesh, I, your bridegroom, have rendered you so beautiful, I will henceforth go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense: that is, I will go voluntarily to the height of death, which is the cross, as to a mountain of myrrh. For the voluntary death through the cross overcame the natural weakness common to all animals, who shrink from it. ^B And I will go back again to myself, returning to the Father, from whom I went forth and have come into the world. That Father is rightly understood by the hill of frankincense; for, as the cause, He is greater than I, the Only-Begotten, and the Holy Spirit, who are consubstantial with Him. For myrrh is the symbol of mortality, but frankincense of divinity. Wherefore, that "I will go to myself" signifies, on the one hand, the voluntary approach to death through the cross, and on the other, the height of divinity, by returning from our lowly state to Himself, God the Word, as I go to the Father. And so, He says, I will go, because I have accomplished the work of the Father concerning you. For indeed:

"You are altogether beautiful, my neighbor, and there is no blemish in you."

You are beautiful, that is to say, in mind, in soul, and in body; in body, as one who has been purged by action ^C from various perturbations and excels in the habits of virtue; in soul, as one who has been delivered from every base desire and adorned with the teachings of the commandments; and in mind, as one who has been freed even from idle thoughts and made radiant in the Holy Spirit by the deification which comes through grace. And because of this, there is no blemish in you, who have become my neighbor through perfection.

Psellus.

Then he calls her to be raised to this greater glory. "Come from Lebanon, bride. Come, you shall come from Lebanon." Since, he says, you have come to the mountain of myrrh, and have ascended with me to that mountain of frankincense—that is, you have suffered with me ^D and have been glorified together—come, therefore, make haste to ascend from Lebanon to certain higher places of progress, and do not cease to go up with me, avoiding the dens of leopards and the lairs of lions. When this word had become a reality through deeds, and the bride had been lifted up together with Christ, the pure bridegroom, the friends were struck with wonder at the progress of the bride, and sang to her in psalmody, addressing the virgin:

"You have wounded our heart, our sister, our bride. You have taught us," they say, "something more about God, while [...]

^A fixedly gazing with the eye of your soul, O bride, upon the Word and Bridegroom, and having bowed the neck of your soul and taken upon yourself the light yoke of Christ. Truly you have wounded our heart," they say, "for through you we have known the incarnation of the Word." Thus, then, the friends praised the virgin.

Of the Three Fathers.

But since you are all so beautiful, come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon; that is, make your course toward me, who am uncircumscribed, always from faith, which is offered to God like frankincense, progressing through hope toward charity; for whose sake I became man, and you become God. For you shall come and shall pass through from the beginning of faith, from the head of Sanir and Aermon, and you shall indeed come to me with total charity; and you shall pass through with uncontainable zeal the furnace of various temptations, both of the flesh and of the world, strengthened by hope. And thus you shall come and shall pass through, since you began the journey toward me from faith, and not from unbelief, as did the first-formed man, who ^B was deceived by the hope of divinity; which faith, as a head, is the beginning of the way enlightened by virtue (which Sanir signifies, interpreted as "way of the lamp"), and of the refreshment through hope from the burden and heat of the bringing upon you of involuntary toils; which Aermon signifies, interpreted as "dew." And thus you shall be preserved from the dens of lions and from the mountains of leopards; that is, from the unity of carnal pleasures, which are like a den, conspiring against you and rushing upon you like lions with great force, so that you might fall away from virtue; and from those temptations which, springing from the excellence of virtue as if from high mountains, cunningly lay traps for you so that you might be puffed up with arrogance; which the variety of the leopards signifies. You shall come, and shall pass through, and shall be preserved, as it is ^C said: Because you have wounded our heart, my sister, my bride; that is, because you have drawn into desire for you the three persons of the one divinity, whom you have pleased by mind, by reason, and by spirit. O you who are a sister to me because of the kinship of the flesh, but by the voluntary bond of charity and union of the spirit, are betrothed to me (who am one of the three persons), namely the only-begotten Son of the Father. For when the holy Scripture uses the plural number speaking about God, it makes an indication of the most holy three persons; mystically signifying the manner of the most holy and beginningless unity, that unit is in trinity, and trinity is in unity, our God is. And again, You have wounded our heart; that is, and again you have drawn us into desire for you: the one in one of your eyes, namely your mind, ^D by which, gazing upon intelligible things, you contemplate me, the truth and the end of all intelligible things, in perpetual knowledge; and the one in one adorning chain of your neck, namely your reason, by which, decorated as if with an ornament of the neck in all actions, you follow me, the supreme good and the end of all things, and in deed itself you experience my goodness. For the Bridegroom Christ is himself the truth and the

truth is understood to be such, insofar as he is immutable by his essence: however, he is the supreme good, insofar as he is shown to be beneficent through his works.

Of Psellus.

*And the smell of your garments is above all aromatics.* For the covering of garments that I wear from you—from those sacrifices, I say, which are offered to me by you—I consider to be superior to all aromatics.

*Your lips distill honeycombs, my bride.* For the doctrine with which you nourish your children is sweeter than the honeycomb and honey.

*Honey and milk are under your tongue.* For you do not nourish all in the same manner, but each according to his own nature and age. For you feed the weaker ones with milk, but the more perfect with honey.

*The smell of your garments is like the smell of incense.* Although he had earlier declared the smell of the Church’s garments to be superior to all aromatics, he now pronounces it to be similar and equal to incense. But incense is the most excellent of all aromatics.

Of the Three Fathers.

*How beautiful your breasts have become from wine!* These things, indeed, have been made so marvelously beautiful from the divinity freely granted to you, from which they are poured forth like wine, both through the assiduous knowledge of the truth and through the firm, good-effecting faith. ^D Hence there is also diffused the smell of your garments above all aromatics. Moreover, the garments of the bride, which the great apostle Paul [commands] to the

the elect of God, the saints, to put on, are kindness and humility; which the divine command had assigned to the first-created man as well, urging him to do good and to preserve it through humility. But the transgression stripped him of this, having enticed him with the hope of divinity, and having made his nature fierce against itself. But God the Word reclothed him in this again by His own example. For He showed us the standard of humility, in that, being in the form of God, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; and of kindness, in that, for the sake of the salvation of us who are guilty, He even consented to die, though He was innocent. Whence also the fragrance of these virtues in those who have clothed themselves according to their will in such things—since they are indicative of the kindness and immutability of God—is, to those who are clothed with them, ^B above all aromatics. For nothing can be compared to the fragrance of divinity, which she who has been betrothed to God does not possess by nature, but acquires by grace. And your garments indeed send forth such sweetness. But what of the rest?

*Favum distillant labia tua, sponsa: mel et lac sub lingua tua.*

That is: Your lips produce a didactic word, prepared as a honeycomb by a bee, in that it does not manifest benefit in a uniform way to those who hear, but adapts itself appropriately to the capacity of those who receive it, so that it is suitable for both the more perfect and the more childish; sweetestening the mind of the former with more divine words as with honey, and feeding the understanding of the latter with natural principles as with milk. These teachings, therefore, both the more divine and the more human, are under your tongue, so that you may not produce them at the wrong time, but at the appropriate time and for the need ^C of each of those being taught. *Et odor vestimentorum tuorum sicut odor thuris.*

That is, the fragrance of your works, of which though you bring forth the powers naturally, yet you put on the active dispositions by [your own] will as garments, is likened to the sweetness of the providence of God, which is perceived in all things, according to the imitation of God, as you care for the salvation of many. For in a specific way, for a certain reason, incense is referred to the honor of God. And just as incense is known from its own odor, so God is known from the providence over all things; and the disposition of the individual soul is indicated by its works. But since a little above he had said that the odor of the bride’s garments was above all aromatics, and had not explained how that could be, ^D here he discloses this, by comparing that odor to the odor of incense, because the latter is taken for the honor of the divine. And since the divine is incomparably above all things, so also are the works [that are] done in imitation of His goodness.

^A *A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse:* for you have become, he says, O spouse, an enclosed garden.

*Pselli.* The bridegroom extols the bride with various praises. For you are, he says, O spouse, a garden enclosed, containing in yourself the beauty of all trees, both the fruit-bearing olive and the sweet fig. You are also, he says, a fountain sealed; for you do not pour out your waters in vain, but you give drink to the faithful who thirst for salvation. *Your emissions are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of nuts.* In these words, the bridegroom embraces all things that pertain to the doctrine of our most immaculate faith, whose reverence, beauty, fragrance, and divinity the mouth of the Church never ceases to proclaim. For your emissions, he says, are a paradise of pomegranates and are full of every grace. *A fountain of gardens:* for you do not scatter your streams in vain, but you water the divine plants, that is, the faithful.

*A well of living water, which flows with noise from Lebanon.* So much, he says, have you been exalted in virtues, that you have even attained to the same name as I. For I am truly a well of living water, who descended from heaven like the rain into the fleece, as if from the high and wondrous mount Lebanon.

*Of the three Fathers.* Such, then, are your members and your garments. But what are you from within? *A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse: a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.* That is to say, as a ^B twofold garden you are planted, both according to the soul with the principles of virtues, and according to the flesh with their practices, and are secured as if by a fence with my commandments. And as a fountain, you spring forth in your mind pious and divine thoughts concerning me, and you have been sealed with my character as my image, so that the enemy who comes may not only steal, but also kill and destroy, by entering in secretly and plundering the fruit of your virtue, and contaminating your water—the knowledge of the truth—with false notions.

But you are not only such a garden yourself; rather, *Your emissions are a paradise of pomegranates with the fruits of nuts:* absolutely all your doctrinal discourses sent forth to the souls instructed by you, because they are planted in them by faith, are like a paradise sheltered by the trees of pomegranates, grafted upon the roots of oaks, and therefore bearing their own fruit, as the fruit of nuts. The roots of these pomegranates are not easily torn away, and the rind of the fruit itself is bitter, and protects what is within. But the fruit itself, ^C after it has reached maturity, with the casing of the rind broken, shows itself both sweet to the taste and pleasant to the sight. In the same way, the bride’s doctrines, being, as it were, confirmed by the roots of the tree—that is, by the firmness of faith—are with difficulty torn away from the souls that believe. For, since they are struck by the fear of punishments, as if

by the rind of a pomegranate, they preserve the fruit of the Spirit within them whole and uninjured by all irrational passions. But by the rays of the promises of the Sun of justice, warming them toward a desire for the goods to come, they break through this fear as if it were a rind, for love casts it out. And they sweeten the intelligible throat of those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious, just as the fruit of the pomegranate also sweetens the physical throat of those who eat it. Hence, these didactic discourses, as they deal with those being discipled, become for them a cleansing of passions through the fear of threatened punishments, and an illumination of the works of justice through the promises of future goods.

*Cypri cum nardo*—that is, the flowers and mixtures of every kind of virtue—indicates beginnings and commixtures. As for there being "beginnings" ^B subsisting in the souls of those being taught: there is the fear of threats and the desire for promises, which are the various forms, according to virtue, of love toward God and neighbor. And as for "commixtures," they persuade them that, while suffering in the flesh for the sake of their love toward God, they should endure evils because of the love with which they embrace the neighbor, and also receive joy from the future reward. Yet, while they endure evils on account of their love for the neighbor, they should display the love with which they pursue God, keeping His commandment, by which it is commanded us to love our neighbor.

Thus, therefore, the doctrine of the Bride becomes in the disciples "nard and crocus, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of Lebanon"—that is, the four principal virtues with all those subordinate to them, planted in the loftiness of faith toward God, as if on the mount of Lebanon. For by "nard," which carries one-like the mixture ^C of different spices—the reasons for all virtues, we understand prudence, in which the principles of all virtues are contained in summary. By "crocus," which possesses a power midway between cold and heat, and excludes the extremes of both, we understand justice, which flees from defect and excess in the virtues. By the sweet reed, or calamus, which is light and easily raised on high, is signified temperance; which relieves the mind from the heavy burden of bodily desire and raises it on high toward spiritual and heavenly things, and fills it with their sweetness. And by "cinnamon," whose nature is warm and pleasant, the strength of fortitude—burning with divine zeal against impiety and wickedness—is indicated.

Nor indeed do these things happen in the disciples of the Bridegroom alone, but also "myrrh and aloe with all the first ointments"—that is, the mortification of their carnal mind ^D together with all the primary gifts of the Holy Spirit, which recreate the souls like ointments. For unless the soul tastes of those things which are of the Spirit, and receives His most holy gifts—I mean those of fear, and of strength, and of counsel, and of science, and of knowledge, and of intellect, and of wisdom—it surely cannot attain to the mortification of the carnal mind, which is understood through myrrh and aloes, those aromatics with which dead bodies are embalmed.

^A These mandates and disciplines in those who cultivate them become also a fountain of gardens; for from thence flows knowledge, by which the various virtues, like plants sown in them, are irrigated. And it is a well of living water, and one flowing down with a roar from Lebanon: that is, resounding from the depth of divine and everlasting wisdom, and from the sublimity of faith in God, bringing forth, after the manner of teachers, divine mysteries that are to the multitude inexplicable, as if from Lebanon. Since, however, the Bridegroom has called the teaching words of the Bride a garden, as has been shown: and a garden is a paradise, as it were a place of all kinds of plants; therefore, the garden of the Bride consists of those souls planted with her doctrines, through which she strives to accomplish the things that have been said.

Awake, O north wind; and the rest.

By Psellus.

Since the Church of God, being called a garden, has altogether received authority, ^B Having within itself the beauty of all plants, Wishing to banish the most evil blast of the north wind, Which was crystallizing the beauty of the flowers; It entreats the south wind, the most beautiful, to blow; Which, having breathed in Zion upon the apostles of old, Gave them streams of words to pour forth. That most holy Spirit, therefore, does the Bride invoke To blow upon her garden for salvation, So that all her children might bear fruit, And gladden Christ, the Word and Bridegroom. Since, then, what He had commanded had passed into deed, And the Virgin saw that the north wind had fallen silent, And that the most beautiful, truly divine south wind was blowing, And had shown all her children to be fruit-bearing, She prays for the wondrous Bridegroom to descend Quickly into her fruit-bearing garden, That He might harvest the fruits of its nuts, That is, that He might be gladdened by her fruit-bearing children. For if He does not thus descend to us the humble ^C and abject, taking up also the meek, as says the Psalmist, It is impossible for us in any other way to be raised to the heavens. These things the Bride has urged upon the Bridegroom. But He who fills all things and is present everywhere, and says, "Behold, I am near," to those who call upon Him, Before the prayer of the Bride was finished, having heard her, Decended into her garden, as she wished, And harvested the fruits of her trees. For thus He speaks to her, as you will find in sequence:

I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatics; I have eaten my bread with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. ^D

^A I have indeed come, he says, into thy garden, O Virgin, and I have satisfied my desire with thy fair fruits, and from the burning faith and repentance of thy children I have received great joy. All this, however, has come to pass: the harvest of myrrh, the eating of honey, and the drinking of milk. When Christ, who is both the same and the bridegroom, had said these things, to return, as it were, some grace for the honeyed banquet, he gives his own body to the sons of the Virgin. For thus he speaks to them—but only to the worthy, whom he also calls his neighbors:

Comedite, propinqui mei, et bibite, et inebriamini, fratres mei. Eat, my neighbors, and drink, and be inebriated, my brethren.

Whoever you are, he says, who are my brothers in works, eat my body and drink my blood. Then, he says, be inebriated with joy, and, struck with amazement by this inebriation, forget entirely the cares of the world. ^B

Trium Patrum. Of the Three Fathers. *Surge, aquilo, et veni, auster.* Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind. Depart, O most wicked spirit, thou who afflict the souls that are instructed by me with perturbations, as if with the blasts of the north wind. And come, O most holy Spirit, who warmest them with the salutary breezes of the south wind with the gifts of thy grace.

*Perfla hortum meum, et fluant aromata mea.* Blow through my garden, and let my aromatics flow.

Blow through the souls which I have fashioned like a garden with my doctrine and my precepts. And upon these let thy divine gifts be poured forth through communion, with which I am perfumed as if with certain aromatics. And then let my descendant ^C descend into his garden: that is to say, into those souls which I have instructed and, as it were, have formed into a garden by divine commandments. Therefore, my beloved inhabits and walks within the aforementioned souls. *Et comedat fructum nucum ejus.* And let him eat the fruit of his nuts. Let him sate himself with the salvation of these souls, which he himself has asserted to be his own food: "My food," he says, "is to do the will of my Father," whose will it altogether is that men should be saved. But the fruit of the bridegroom's nuts is the salvation of men, as the end of his own good will, which is contained in his holy commandments, which indeed are fixed through action in souls rooted in faith towards him as if upon an oak ^D.

*Veni in hortum meum, soror mea, sponsa : messui myrrham meam cum aromatibus meis : comedi panem meum cum melle meo : bibi vinum meum cum lacte meo : comedite, propinqui mei, et bibite, et inebriamini, fratres.* Come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatics; I have eaten my bread with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, my neighbors, and drink, and be inebriated, my brethren.

Trium Patrum. Of the Three Fathers. The bridegroom has heard the entreaties of the bride, according to that saying: "While you are yet speaking, he will say, Behold, I am present." For such is

Such was she who besought, that she might not be despised. Wherefore, making answer to her, He says: "I have entered into my garden, my sister, my spouse." That is to say, which thou hast planted with the doctrine of my commandments, by which the storm of the passions has been scattered. My Holy Spirit has breathed, and the plants of this garden have brought forth—as it were, various ointments—the reasons of the virtues, through which I too have entered into this garden, in which my desires, my holy precepts, have been planted; I have plucked by all means its fruit, which is the observance of the aforementioned commandments. "My sister," because I am by nature the Son of God and Father, inasmuch as thou doest His will and hast been adopted for a daughter by grace; "and my spouse," as being joined to me through love and having become one spirit. ^B Having entered, then, into my garden, "I have gathered my myrrh with my spices"—namely, the mortification of the carnal sense of those who are disciplined by thee, together with the virtues that follow it. For those who have mortified their mind to the flesh and to the world, they seek this in the Spirit, and offer it to God as a kind of fruit of spices—the observance of His commandments: concerning which He says: "I have eaten my bread with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk." And His bread indeed is that which, as has been said before, He Himself declared in the Gospels, saying: "My meat is to do the will of my Father" (John 4:34). But the honey consists of His divine utterances, which drench with sweetness the tongue by which they are pronounced. The wine is the grace of the divinity, which bestows and elevates that which is natural above nature. And the milk is guileless simplicity. The Spouse, therefore, in the souls into which He enters through His holy commandments, nourishes them both as with a bread-and-honey, by virtue together with cognition; and gives them drink as with a wine-and-milk, by divinity granted through grace together with a guileless simplicity. Yet their salvation He eats Himself as it were a bread-and-honey, and drinks it as it were a wine-and-milk. Wherefore, to those whom He entered, as has been said—and whom He made His own dwellings in the Holy Spirit—He says: "Eat, my neighbors, and drink, and be inebriated, my brethren." That is: "Be converted, you who have been delivered from the passions, and have approached me through the purest repentance to virtue; and drink the ecstatic wine of deification with a guileless faith towards me. ^C And from those things that are according to nature, pass over to those that are above nature, whom I have adopted by grace in the Holy Spirit to my own Father." These things, therefore, the Bridegroom having spoken for the sake of the exhortations of the bride to those who were being instructed, she, setting herself before them as an example of how they ought to hear the voice of their bridegroom and bring Him into the house, says: "I sleep," says she, "and my heart wakes; the voice of my kinsman knocks at the door." And I sleep, indeed, to the pleasant things of the present life, with my senses as if dormant in the idleness of these things. But my mind watches, so that the Word who is beyond speech, having come, may not find it sluggish. And in those things in which it watches, it hears the voice of the Beloved knocking at it. Through which, as if through some door, He enters...

into the soul.

Of Psellus.

Of the Three Fathers.

sin, which I contracted from the transgression: how, therefore, shall I put it on, having been stripped of it by the garment of light? I have washed my feet, having been purified to the highest degree by the bath of baptism, and by the incoming of the all-holy Spirit, and by the keeping of the divine commandments. Whence, how shall I defile them, having received the track of irrational desire? I have stripped off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

Psellus

Of the Fathers

^A go about the city found me; they struck me, they wounded me. O the most beautiful progress of the bride and virgin! For behold, she has progressed even to the angels. For these are the keepers of the celestial city. They found me, she says, who am seeking the Word, and they terrified and wounded me with words. For they said that it is by no means possible that a comprehension of the Incomprehensible should be found. The keepers of the walls took away my mantle. They took away, she says, the veil from my eyes, so that I might gaze more clearly upon the Spouse, who cannot be comprehended in His entirety even by the angels. Wherefore, departing all the more uncertain, she even turns away from the keepers—that is, from the angels—because not even by them could the immense longing for the Spouse be diminished.

Of the Three Fathers.

How, she says, I the bride put off the sordid garment of sin before those who are being instructed, and how I came forth most pure, hear: *My kinsman sent forth his hand through the hole, and my belly trembled at his touch.* That is, my Beloved sent forth from the Father the Spirit proceeding from Him, consubstantial with Him, through whom, as if by a hand, He performs the divine gifts of grace through my mind, as through some opening. And as I suffered the beginning of wisdom, the fear of my Beloved as a Judge, the vice of gluttony and of the belly—from which every kind of intemperance is born—is corrected.

And immediately I arose, that I might open to my kinsman: that is, I arose through active contemplation from the disposition of habit to throw open the gate of my mind to my Beloved. ^C *My hands dropped myrrh.* Undoubtedly my active powers, the mind and the reason, by choice poured forth discourses and manners mortifying the carnal sense. *My fingers (dropped) full myrrh upon the hands of the bolt.* Clearly, those my desiring powers that act in concert with the mind and reason, like fingers with the hands—so that the senses, the concupiscence, and the irascible power, through knowledge and virtue, have dropped their own perfect mortification onto those sinful works which, like a bolt, shut out the approach of disbelief to the divine Word—as these works of disbelief, which by transposition are called the hands of the bolt, were mortified together ^D with the passive powers which we mentioned.

Since, however, the mortification of the works of disbelief is the perfection of faith, and faith is the corruption of infidelity; this, like a bolt, as we have said, was corrupted by me. *I opened to my kinsman;* I threw open the gate of my mind to my Beloved through the affection of faith. *My kinsman had declined and passed by.* Inasmuch as He is not subject to the mind in His essence, since He is incomprehensible through it. *My soul went out in his word.* It went out from interior thought to perception through natural contemplation, desiring to find her Spouse. *In his word:* that is, in that word which He spoke to her when He said: *Go forth in the tracks of the flocks,* that He might indicate to her where He himself feeds. And so I sought Him, and I did not find Him. For in created things,

^A the uncreated One is not found. I called Him, and He did not answer me. When she calls Him "Being" who is above being, and "Substance" who is supersubstantial, and "Life" who is above life, and "Maker of all," He does not answer when called by names that He is not by essence. And although I, as I said, was unable to find my Beloved, the holy angels found me, they who are the guardians surrounding the city. They found me, *me* who had once gone astray through ignorance, a disciple of theirs, and they illuminated me, who was occupied with the contemplation of existing things—they who surround the whole of creation as if it were a city, through the knowledge of the reasons thereof. For the reasons of things are the boundaries of existing beings, according to which they have also come to be, as though delineating their natures. Whence the angels, knowing these, patrol the creation as if within boundaries. And so, these having encountered me, ^B they struck me, they wounded me, they took away my veil from me; that is to say, they humbled me, teaching me that I had not yet apprehended God as is fitting. And in rebuking me, they struck my conscience, which had assumed it had apprehended the Uncreated One by calling Him with the names of created things. But in teaching me that the Divine is above all knowledge, they took away from me—as a reaper gathers ears of grain—the veil, that is to say, my reason, which gathers together the knowledge of existing things; and they restrained my intellect from leading the incomprehensible divine nature under comprehension. These things the guardians of the walls performed in me, that is, the perpetual observers of the divine wills, which like walls preserve the natures of existing things. Having narrated these things to the young women, ^C the bride again puts them under oath, saying: *I adjure you, etc.*

Of the Three Fathers.

Having thus explained these my ascents toward perfection—*I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and the strengths of the field, if you find my Beloved, what will you tell Him? That I am wounded with love*—that is to say: As if by an oath, by the example set by me, I have confirmed and strengthened you, my disciples, you who see peace in the tranquility of the mind: if in the contemplative powers and the active strengths, which in this present life are able to attain knowledge and virtue, you find my Beloved as Truth and Good, what will you promise Him? That you will by no means any longer put on the stained tunic of sin, nor receive any trace of defilement at all. And so I adjure you, because I am wounded by the love which I have toward you, and I desire your salvation. From this ^D

^A point, his disciples, having been stirred to seek the bridegroom, and fearing lest, by being deceived in contemplation or in action, they might receive darkness instead of light, make such responses to the mistress: "What is thy kinsman more than another kinsman, O thou fairest among women? What is thy kinsman more than another, that thou hast so adjured us?" That is to say, "Declare to us what are the signs of thy beloved according to contemplation, that we, not failing to recognize him, may not receive him who is darkness and pretends to be light in his stead, and by chancing upon falsehood instead of truth—[we who are] the most beautiful among those betrothed to him, inasmuch as [thou art] perfect and the teacher of all these." And again, "What are the things that characterize him according to action? So that we may not, through the passions of virtue carried to excess, fail to recognize him and fall into the evil as if it were good, being stolen away from the right hand. These things we seek to learn from thee, because thou hast implanted in us the desire for him, compelling us like an oath to seek him and to hasten to attain him."

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and by the strengths of the field, if ye find my kinsman, tell him that I am wounded by love."

Psellus. ^B I adjure, she says, you by the power of the field, that is, by the force of divine charity, that ye indicate my desire to the bridegroom. With these words the bride adjures the angels. But the choirs of the angels, despairing of finding him, say: "What kind of person is thy kinsman? By what marks is he distinguished for thee? Teach us, as we are ignorant, all things diligently."

Of the Three Fathers. The mistress begins to declare the marks and insignia of her bridegroom. And first, indeed, she enumerates them in a general discourse, saying: "My kinsman is white and ruddy, chosen out of ten thousand." That is, My beloved is, according to the divine nature, white as unapproachable light; ruddy as gold, which excels the rest of things consisting of matter, ^C as being supersubstantial; and chosen out of ten thousand, as the only one begotten of the Father timelessly. But as regards his humanity, he is white, as pure and whole from all sin; ruddy, as one who shed his own blood on the cross for us; and chosen out of ten thousand, as the only one from all [mankind] born without seed from a virgin. And in this manner, indeed, he is contemplated in the spirit. But they experience him in deeds and acts as white, who have been cleansed from all the defilement of sins; as ruddy, those who, having fallen into various temptations, have shone forth from them through patience, ^D as the fiery brightness of gold from a furnace, being proven; and as chosen out of ten thousand, those who, in the cleansing through temperance and patience, have admitted no human passion to dwell within them, and for this reason, from humility, have not

^A fallen away. Then, the bride, making an explanation of her bridegroom's characteristics in part, says: "His head is as the most fine gold." That is to say, the ineffable Intellect begetting Him according to essence (toward whom, as to a head, His ineffable Word, together with the Spirit connatural in essence, leads the one who now follows, as gold most pure, excelling all other materials) is in all things, in every way, infinitely removed. For the head of Christ, as the divine Apostle says, is God and the Father. When all these contemplations are thus established, he who has the faith which is understood through ineffable knowledge—or who knows, beyond intellectual grasp, the rational grounds of faith—and who, for the sake of keeping this, surrenders his whole self to temptations, ^B and from that, as in a furnace, keeps the faith undefiled like the purest gold, attains to his experience ^C as far as human nature can grasp, proposing nothing at all above it, and for its protection and preservation, subjects himself to temptations, perils, and torments. "His locks are hanging down like branches, black as a raven." That is, the good wills of the Father, fulfilled by the Only-begotten Son in the Holy Spirit; the essence, the life, the wisdom, and things like these. These hide the one principle and cause of all things, just as hair covers a head, under the appearance of comprehension, making Him who is incomprehensible seem to be understood. "Hanging branches" are very high trees, reaching up to heaven; for they lead those who embrace these things in their minds, while they gaze upon those things which are possessed through charity, toward the height of divine blessedness by ^D imitation of works. "Black as a raven," because with the unsearchable reason of divine judgments, they strengthen the eyes of the mind in contemplation. For just as white color scatters the sight, so black strengthens it. "His eyes are as doves upon the fullness of waters." That is, the energies of the all-holy Spirit (called the eyes of the Lord because through them God is accustomed to look upon those on earth) fly like doves to water-tanks full of water; that is, to the virtues, which are the fullness of divine commandments descending from heaven, because the words of these commandments are fulfilled in action. Such energies are said to "fly" toward the virtues because if the Lord does not through them build up the soul that chooses the good as His own house, in vain does the builder labor. "As doves," he says, "washed in milk, sitting upon the fullness of waters." That is, pure by nature. For the energies of the Spirit are entirely unstained, resting upon the souls that are filled by these through grace, as if they had been cleansed, illuminated, and perfected. The eyes of the bridegroom are thus. "His cheeks are as vessels of perfume, yielding spices." That is to say, the reasons of God's providence concerning all things (which, like cheeks, move as it were with the energies, and teach the saving manners of the virtues, and through these spiritually nourish, in a way softening that which cannot be understood in God according to essence, while they explain Him through the action of these).

They are filled with the all-holy Spirit, who perfumes the souls of the faithful with His own energies; they are like certain spice-bearing phials, bringing forth, as it were, all kinds of perfumery, along with the manifold spiritual ways already mentioned. For indeed, the Word of God ^A and the Father, the provider of all things, in the Holy Spirit as consubstantial, perfects His providence over all.

And so much, then, for the cheeks. *His lips are lilies, dripping with full myrrh.* That is, the reasons of the divine judgment concerning all things, according to which the Word of God, distributing to each nature and mind what is suitable, is entwined with each of them through communion, as if with certain lips. These are transparent in their brightness, like lilies, while they preserve the natures of things firm and without confusion according to the property of each, and teach the ways of the total mortification of all movements that are contrary to nature by choice. *His hands are rounded, golden, full of Tarshish.* That is, the universal reasons that produce and restore all things—those of creation, I mean, and of providence, and of judgment—by which the Word of God has made all things, leads them, and preserves them unmixed; these are rounded by His manifold wisdom, and, like pure gold, are purged of every false notion; and, being *full of Tarshish* (which is interpreted as the contemplation of joy), they are filled with true knowledge of His goodness in which all things rejoice. For "goodness" (bonitas) in Greek seems ^B to be spoken of from the fact that it is a thing of high degree (valde), or that it is placed (posita), or that it runs (currat). For the essence of things declares that God is superior to essence; but the "being placed" (positio) declares, because of the immutable reasons of those things, that His nature is entirely immobile; while the "running" (cursus) through the mutual successions of those things declares His movement to be sempiterral in act.

*His belly is an ivory box, upon a stone of sapphire.* His wisdom, which in itself, insofar as it is the cause, bears the reasons of things, has as a support according to essence those things which are visible, like a sapphire stone because of its firmness and immobility and its sky-blue color. But by action it is described in created things, through which, as a certain ivory book, polished and pure, it truly and clearly represents both His divine glory and majesty. *For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made* 58, as the great Apostle says. And in this way, the mind, from those things which are comprehended concerning God through His works, discerns that which cannot be comprehended ^C through His essence. But in that which is not comprehended through essence, it finds rest from the labor which it perceives in the course of speculating: *For he who adds knowledge adds pain* 59; and it is strengthened again for the contemplation of things. Just as the power of sight of the bodily eye is broken by the white color, and yet is restored and recreated when it is mixed with black, so it is here. And such, indeed, is the belly. *But his legs are marble columns, which are founded upon golden bases.* Namely, the two commandments that summarize and comprehend the rest, so that it may love Him and its neigh- ^D

neighbor—these are what the Word of God Himself uses, as if they were legs, to walk within faithful souls and pursue His course within them according to knowledge and virtue. ^A Just as marble columns, by their unshakable faith and shining life, uphold the Word who is believed, so that because of us His name might not fall into being blasphemed by the gentiles, they are firmly established as if on golden bases by truth and the good, by which, owing to His immutability in essence and His active efficacy, the Divine—which transcends every nature—is revealed.

After the detailed explanation of the Bridegroom, the Bride once more describes Him generally to her disciples, saying: *His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.* That is: His operation, according to which He is characterized as the consubstantial power of God and the Father, is manifest and evident to all, like the mountain of Lebanon, because it rises above the mountains adjacent to it. For the good, which signifies the divine operation, is by nature desirable to all, because all things seek after it. Therefore, by the aforementioned operation, the Bridegroom is chosen out from the darkness that fakes being light, ^B just as the just, likened to cedars, are separated from the unjust and wicked. *His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desire.* That is: the New Testament, through which, as through a throat, He establishes the salvation of men as food, is sweet to our throat, gushing forth the sweet and drinkable words of virtues. Hence, *he is altogether desire*, as the ultimate desirable thing. *This is my kinsman, and this is my neighbor, O daughters of Jerusalem.* That is: This is my beloved, whose marks and signs I have expounded to you both in detail and as a whole. And this is the one who has been called my neighbor, to whom I have drawn near—both as truth through knowledge and as good through active faith. O my disciples, you who see within the deliverance from all passion the divine peace and the joy that is free from all disturbance—which is, of course, the kingdom of God within us.

By Psellus

*White and ruddy, chosen from ten thousand.* ^C He is, she says, truly my kinsman, who on the cross, having His immaculate side pierced by a spear, poured forth blood and water for men in a wondrous way. ^D Who alone among all men, born of a Virgin without the pangs of childbirth, was accounted man. *His head is as the finest gold.* Which is, she says, pure and free from the stain of sin. *His locks are flowing, black as a raven.* The adornment of His locks, she says, are Peter and Paul, who before were black and darkened, as is everyone from the gentiles who is baptized and has come to Him. *His eyes are like doves washed upon pools of water.* His eyes are the prophets, simple in prudence and admirable in character. *Washed upon pools of water*, she says: that is, [adorned] with all virtues.

^A Sitting in milk, the fullness of those waters. Not boastfully, he says, displaying their virtue, but performing it with great serenity. His cheeks are as vessels, producing spice; his perfumed lips are lilies dropping full myrrh. The discourse hints at the all-golden Chrysostom, and those who are his equals and teachers, the greatest Basil, the great Gregory, whose lips poured forth doctrines and sermons sweeter than honey, with which those who have tasted are filled with much myrrh; that is, they mortify their members upon the earth with labors, and are crucified together with Christ and exalted with him. ^B His hands are turned [work], golden, full of Tarshish. His belly is an ivory box upon a stone of sapphire. His legs are marble columns, founded upon golden bases. ^C This pure virgin and bride has recounted this to the guardians, that is, to the angels, signifies [the beauty] of her bridegroom. But you, understand all these words through figurative interpretation. For since Christ alone is the head of all, and his body is the divine Church, and we call the saints members of this body—one the neck, another the feet—so by his turned hands, understand the venerable apostles, the divine princes of the priesthood, the faithful stewards of divine grace, who have polished themselves by amputating all malice. Wherefore they are filled with the hope of good things. Likewise, recognize as his belly and box the souls and hearts of all those excelling in virtue, in which the Word of God is inscribed, who have their minds and senses directed toward the King of the heavens; for the sapphire stone signifies this, as it is the only stone that possesses the appearance and color of heaven. By his legs, understand Peter, the chief of the apostles. For in him the Lord promised in the Gospels ^D that he would build His Church. *His appearance is like Lebanon, chosen.* Through the magnificent, terrible, admirable, and divine beauty of the bridegroom, gather from the beautiful height of Lebanon. *His throat is sweetness, and he is altogether desirable.* His throat was that divine Forerunner, who is called the voice of the Word and the bridegroom.

^A When the disciples had learned from their mistress who her bridegroom was by his signs and tokens, desiring now to know also where he has come, they say to her: *Whither has thy kinsman gone, O fair among women?* That is, announce to us where thy beloved dwells, thou who amongst souls that had lost the beauty of [the image] and [the likeness] through the transgression of the divine command, hast received it back again by being espoused to the Word of God. Since, from the marks of him we have heard of, we do not yet behold him in ourselves, whither has thy kinsman looked? And we will seek him with thee. Clearly, where has thy beloved, who is invisible, wished to be seen? And we will follow thee toward the better things, and we will search him out by practice and contemplation. She, answering them, says: *My kinsman has gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices.* That is, my beloved, who is invisible by the height of his own essence, has gone down by his operation as into his own garden—the creation planted by his own divine wills—and as to the beds of spices—the souls acceptable to him through faith in God, which are perfused with the most sweet fragrance of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit; which grace, through contemplation and action, so restores in them the beauty of [the image] and [the likeness], that the bridegroom is seen in them as in his own proper imprint. And he went down, as it is said, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies, that is, to guide the rational sheep and to nourish them according to knowledge and virtue in both the intelligible and sensible creation; in which the reasons and modes of the virtues are planted as in certain gardens; and to select as from thorns the lilies—namely, from those souls which are choked by bodily cares, those souls which, having cast away such thorns, obey God himself, who says in the Gospels: *Consider the lilies of the field, that they do not toil, nor do they spin.* Of which each one also says: *I to my kinsman, and my kinsman to me, who grazes among the lilies*; that is, I live for God, having become dead to the world, and in me alone Christ lives, who directs the soul that follows him, and grazes in the lilies, in the splendors of the virtues.

Psellus

^A For when the ranks of those ministering to the Savior at the time of his ascension were greatly beseeching, [saying]: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and the King of glory shall enter in"; they, not knowing the mystery of the dispensation, asked, as it were, in hesitation: "Who is this King of glory?" And while the guardians spoke thus to the bride, she answered those angels herself, saying: "My nephew went down into his garden, to the bowls of spice, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies."

That one descended, she says, in an ineffable manner, like rain upon the wool and as dew upon the grass, into the womb of the pure and all-immaculate virgin, as into a pure bowl of divine spices; from which, proceeding without seed in the way known to him alone, he flowed into the souls of pure men. For understand these, O king, to be the bowls of spices, and recognize this world into which Christ descended as the garden, so that he might feed the faithful with holy eloquence: for divine utterances are called lilies. "I to my nephew, and my nephew to me." But, she says, that I may teach you more clearly, he is altogether like me. For he first fashioned me after his own likeness, and later, when I was severely shattered, he renewed me, taking my form from the virgin. Thus, then, the bride spoke to the angels. ^B

Of the Three Fathers.

The bridegroom himself, considering the beauty of virtues in such souls—that is, in young men—speaks to her in this manner: "You are beautiful, my neighbor, like good will." That is to say, you are good, my neighbor, through participation in divine wisdom and goodness, inasmuch as you do not in the least resist my will, by which you were brought into being out of nothing, but rather hang entirely upon it, so long as you preserve the beauty of the image and the likeness. Wherefore you are also comely, as Jerusalem. Comely, indeed, because you preserve my mark and habit, far removed from all disturbance, contemplating in yourself me, the peace of the Father, who reconciled you to him. For Jerusalem, as we have taught, is interpreted as the vision of peace. Wherefore you are also a "terror," as an army set in order. All, indeed, is stupor, ^D while you are astounded in the contemplation of my incomprehensible nature, just as also the divine and angelic ranks, struck with admiration, are overwhelmed with fear at the reverence of my inaccessible beauty. "Therefore turn away your eyes from me, for they have made me fly away." That is, do not strive to comprehend me, who transcend substance, by [my] substance. For the more you labor in comprehending me, the further I, being incomprehensible, shall fly away from the eyes of your mind. But turn them from my substance which

cannot be looked upon, and turn them to contemplate the beauty which is perceived through my works. And you will discern me as beneficent and omnipotent. For your eyes are spiritual. ^A *Thy hair is as flocks of goats, that appeared from Galaad.* That is to say, those [thoughts] which, as if from a hairy crown, proceed from your mind spiritually, having no sense of the things of this life, but occupied in acting, contemplating, and investigating divine things—these are like the flowering hair of goats, which appeared conspicuous over a certain high and dark mountain called Galaad. Since indeed they have migrated from the darkness of malice, ignorance, and impiety to the light of virtue, knowledge, and piety through the Gospel, which bears witness to the faithful of the future judgment. For Galaad is interpreted as "Migration of testimony." And so much for the hair.

*And thy teeth are as flocks of shorn [sheep], which went up from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and there is none barren among them.* That is to say, your thoughts, through which the physical thickness of the Law is thinned into true meanings, and becomes suitable for spiritual food—like shorn flocks—have stripped away every false opinion, herding only around the truth. These, having been cleansed as if from a washing of false opinions, have been raised from earthly and carnal things to spiritual and heavenly things, bearing the twin fruits of the virtues; and there is no fruitless and useless thought among them.

*As a scarlet lace are thy lips, and thy speech is comely.* Clearly, as a measured cord, so as a scarlet [thread] they bring forth the true Word. Whence also its utterance is comely. *As the rind of a pomegranate is thy cheek, except for thy silence.* That is, your cheeks are like the rind of a pomegranate because of your austere and non-diffuse [nature], and when you are not silent, with restrained [speech] you correct the dissipation in your conversations.

Pselli.

These things, then, the bride spoke to the angels. But the most philanthropic Lord and bridegroom, having seen her barking and distraught, and anxiously and excessively troubled, and groping for this, again praised her, speaking invisibly: *Thou art fair, my neighbor, as good will, comely as Jerusalem, a terror as armies set in order.* ^C Fair, he says, you have become, and you have no blemish, having been well likened to my good will. For you also desire all men to be saved. And again, you have been well likened to Jerusalem, in which I have rested along with my Father. Whence also you possess a terror, and you are as formidable as my set-in-order armies of angels.

*To me,* she says, *the venerable bridegroom has spoken. Henceforth, turn your eyes upon me,* he says. *For the light of your eyes has made me take wing, and I have despised all the affairs of the world.* But He who fulfills the will of those who love Him, immediately cast his divine eyes upon the bride; and seeing her vir-

adorned with virtues, He began to praise her: for He speaks thus:

Thy hair is as the flocks of goats, which have appeared from Galaad. Thy teeth are as flocks of shorn sheep, which have ascended from the washing, all of them bearing twins, and there is none barren among them. Thy lips are as a scarlet cord, and thy speech is comely. Thy check is like the rind of a pomegranate, except for thy silence.

Thus, then, the bridegroom praised the bride, in a manner feminine, amorous, and most befitting a bridegroom. But do you, O crown-bearer, consider all these praises of the bride ^B as they have been interpreted from above. For we, having found this passage from above, have interpreted it from that point, as it was altogether possible to do. But let us now hear the end of the Canticles.

Sixty are the queens, and eighty concubines, and young maidens without number. One is my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and they shall call her blessed; the queens and the concubines shall praise her.

That all-wise Solomon, that wondrous prophet, saw ^C as in a mirror with prophetic eyes the characters and virtues of the souls that achieve salvation, or rather, to speak truly, the orders and ranks. For there are three orders, as I am persuaded, of those who are saved. For they are either sons, or hirelings, or slaves. For they who from their tenderest years love God, the most excellent Author of all things, with their whole heart, and for the sake of His love and friendship, despising the world and those things which are in the world, are joined to Christ the Word and bridegroom—these obtain the order of sons by divine grace. But they who, ^D led by the desire for the heavenly kingdom, so that they may obtain it, serve Christ diligently, are established in the place of hirelings. But they who have been overwhelmed by all sins, as I, wretched one, and who repent through the fear of torments and punishments, and do penance (among whose number I would that I also were, by Thy grace, O Christ Word and Savior!), are placed in the order of slaves, who yet are saved. Solomon, foreseeing these classes and these orders, and inspired by the divine Spirit, and perceiving so long before the incarnation of the Word, the most pure bridegroom, and her who brought Him forth without seed, the most holy Mother of God, Mary that most immaculate one, whom all generations of all men with never-ceasing voices proclaim blessed because she brought forth the Savior of the whole world—in the person of the bridegroom sung this Canticle. But do you, prince and crown-bearer, when you hear of the sixty queens, understand those who, multiplying the number of sixty talents handed down to them ten times through good works, by divine grace

have reached the place of sons. And conceive the concubines to be in truth those who, multiplying in labors of salvation eight times the talent given to them by the Master, have become hirelings of the Word and Bridegroom. ^A Hearing of the many, numberless maidens, know them to be in truth sinful men, who, having received the talent from the Master, hid it in the earth through extreme sloth; and yet, they have become servants, but nonetheless are saved. Since so many have appeared as saved, the one who surpasses all those upon the earth, as the elect dove, is the one alone, the Mother-Virgin who gave birth to Christ, who in purity truly surpasses Cherubim and Seraphim. ^B

Epilogue

Of the Three Fathers

motion of the number seventy, which is odd. And those who are still young in faith, and have not yet arrived at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ 69 through the purification and illumination of the works of righteousness, and because they still carry a dead faith within themselves, are not yet reckoned among the orders of those who are saved. From all the orders we have mentioned, however, there is one dove, perfect to its mother, elect to her who bore it; that is to say, one who, after believing in God, and having been purified by the fear of punishments and illuminated by the hope of the promises, cultivates the good by the affection of charity, and does so for no other cause but for the sake of the good itself, as it is by nature good. For this one is indeed unique, since it has been united by deification to the one and only God, and remains unmoved with Him. It is a dove, as one spiritual and perfect, ^B joined to the wisdom that produces all things through the ample cultivation of virtues, and progressing in itself through the fruits of individual virtues. By this wisdom it is singled out from the handmaids and mercenaries, as having been adopted as a daughter and chosen to attain divinity through grace. "The daughters saw her, and will call her blessed; the queens and the concubines will praise her." Those who have indeed had experience of her righteous deeds are her only faithful disciples, whom she herself brought forth in the laver of regeneration, and they will proclaim her divine by word alone. But those who, having been illuminated by the works of righteousness, attain the kingdom of God, and those who refrain from various sins out of fear of punishments, will praise her by their works as well. ^C

*Of the Three Fathers.*

Since the glory of the mistress is the illumination and purification of the disciples, concerning which they also inquire: "Who is she that comes forth as the dawn rising, fair as the moon, elect as the sun, terrible as an army set in order?" Truly, our mistress is to be wondered at. For she accommodates herself toward her disciples, as the method of teaching requires—those who have retreated from the works of darkness through purification, but have not yet arrived at the works of righteousness—and she presents herself as morning light, hiding those mysteries which they are not yet able to comprehend, and handing down those which they are suited to perceive, ^D bringing them to the end and to obedience by the threats of future punishments. But to those who have believed the preaching of the truth, yet have not yet been purified of the works of darkness and wickedness, she shows herself to be good, as she provides a kind of lunar light through the discipline of repentance, dispelling from them the night of ignorance. But with those souls which, being endowed with virtue, walk decorously as if in the day, she bears herself as elect (just as the sun, which surpasses the other lights of heaven both in magnitude and in splendor), as she rises upon them with the light of true knowledge, and therefrom strikes with wonder those who behold her just as

a manifestation of the angelic orders. And thus much indeed the disciples have said concerning their instructress. ^B

Of the Three Fathers

Thus much the disciples have said concerning their instructress; but she herself, speaking of them to the Bridegroom, says: *I went down into the garden of the nut-tree, to see the fruits of the valley; to see if the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.* That is to say: I descended from the height of mystical contemplation to the souls that cultivate virtue, as if to nut-trees; whose outer husk is bitter, and whose inner shell is hard, but the fruit which is enclosed within these husks is sweet—that is, the sweetness of virtues, which is preserved by the bitterness of involuntary temptations and the hardness of voluntary labors, shielded from the defects and the excesses of the passions. Thus, I descended, that I might behold in their patience—which is as it were the offspring of the flowing tribulation from the winter of temptations (for *tribulation produces patience*), whether it be thanksgiving or reproach that is offered to Thee, who educates as a physician and not as a punisher. I descended, that I might see again whether He who said in the Gospels, *I am the vine*, is made manifest in this patience, like the flower of the cluster that produces wine, stimulating nature through the grace of divinity. For he who, in his patience, disregards even his own nature, receives the grace of the Divinity which is above nature. *Whether the pomegranates budded.* Whether those virtues, which are like pomegranates—having an exterior rind that possesses an astringent quality, but an inner fruit that brings sweetness to those who taste—which are preserved by the austerity of the fear of Thee, but which delight the souls of those who taste them with the sweetness of hope in Thee—namely prudence and simplicity—should appear in their patience like a blossoming fruit. Prudence, by preserving faith in Thee from the blows of the enemy, as it were a head intact; and simplicity, by keeping love towards one's neighbor unshakeable in the various provocations of temptations; just as Thou Thyself hast said in the Gospels: *Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.* *There will I give thee my breasts.* Assuredly, in the aforementioned garden of virtues—which are the disciples planted therein—I shall offer to Thee, O Bridegroom, my moral and natural teaching, with which I nourish them as if with natural and fitting milk and food; thus doing Thy will and bringing to Thee those who are being discipled by me. Then, turning the discourse toward those being discipled, she says to them, as it were: ^C Even if I descended to you from a more mystical viewing of my Bridegroom within myself, in order to behold Him also in you, as I have said—*but my soul knew not.* That is, I have not yet beheld Him in you, as you are not yet perfected according to Christ; for He from that point *set me as the chariots of Amminadab*, that is, He has made me His own chariots, as one carrying Him by means of [my] teachings ^D

having regard for each of you in turn. For Amminadab is interpreted as "Prince of the people," who is Christ, the author of our salvation.

Of the Three Fathers.

The disciples say to the bride: *Return, return, O Sulamite: return, return; and we will look into thee.*

From the sublimity of mystical contemplation, descend ^B to the teaching of the four general virtues, and by their fourfold method, rule and instruct us who are still moved by perturbations, O Sulamite, thou who hast the name of tranquility and peace, free from every perturbation; and we shall behold in thee those things which, on account of our own imperfection, we have not yet seen in ourselves. But the bride asks the disciples: *What will ye see in the Sulamite, as one who comes like the choirs of camps?* That is, "What will ye see in me, the peaceful one?" As one who no longer reveals the hidden disposition of my soul through the body in a warlike and contentious manner during action, but who, through reason and knowledge, remains in what is truly good on account of perfection, and who returns as a multitude from the war of perturbations, just as certain choirs return from battle celebrating a proclamation of victory. For when you have vigorously conducted yourselves in the struggle against vices, through the institutions and customs of the virtues, you cleverly sing the reasons for these things as songs of victory.

Of the Three Fathers.

The disciples, however, beginning to praise the bride, say: ^C *How beautiful have thy steps become in shoes, O daughter of Nadab!* Thy steps, by which thou accommodatest thyself to us through the actions of the virtues, show a marvelous beauty; for walking in them as if in shoes, thou demonstratest them through the body to us who are imperfect, that we may be formed toward virtue by thy example, O daughter of God; for thou hearest his words as those of a father who rules over all, even if they do not wish it, but over thee willingly. For Nadab is interpreted as a "prince" or "leader who commands willingly." Thus, thy steps in virtue are beautiful, because ^D *the joints of thy thighs are like necklaces, the work of the hands of the craftsman.* That is, the movements of thy practical powers, which reside in generation and corruption—I speak of desire and anger—ordered by reason, as if by an artisan, and bent from things generated and corruptible toward things above them, are likened to necklaces fashioned by the hands of an artisan and bent in shape. Wherefore also *thy navel is a round bowl, not lacking a drinking cup.* Thy sensitive power, altogether—by which, as through a navel, the infant is nourished in the womb of the speculation of sensible things, thou being embraced by Wisdom, the mother of all, and being childlike in malice—is naturally a receptacle of the natural knowledge of visible things, rightly cut away by the sword of the Spirit

^A and delivered from deception. And thence, as one who does not senselessly perceive sensible things, it does not bring forward the mere surfaces of virtues, but all of them tempered with their spiritual reasons. "Thy belly is as a heap of wheat set about with lilies." That is, thy imaginative faculty—which, like a belly that contains along with superfluous matter the juices from food, without distinguishing them—brings forward, along with the surfaces of visible things, their reasons; it is a storage and a dwelling (which "heap" signifies) for the truth of the reasons of all things hidden within the surfaces, as wheat covered under ears of corn, until the mind, having distinguished them with knowledge, pulls them out, and having stripped them of every covering and obstacle, hands them over to the intellect. And this storage, being guarded by the lilies of the field, as exemplified in the Gospels, is tranquility, so that the mind may not be corrupted by the anxieties of life and the good cultivator, the mind, be deprived of its spiritual fruit. And thus much for thy belly. ^B "And thy two breasts are as two young roes that are twins." That is, thy natural and moral teaching, by which thou feedest us, who are imperfect, as if with milk, through natural reasons and ways toward the perfection that is in Christ; at the same time they flow from thee, both acutely through contemplation and swiftly through action, since thou teachest that neither reason should be embraced without action, nor action without reason. Furthermore, "Thy neck is as a tower of ivory." That is, the power of reason, which like a neck connects the rest of the body to the head, connects sense to the mind. It is like a tower in that through virtue it is raised from carnal things to spiritual and heavenly things; and it is like ivory in that it is smooth and pure, because it is far removed from the inequality which consists in the excess and defect of virtue and defiles souls. "And thine eyes are as the pools in Hese- ^C bon, by the gates of the daughter of many." That is, the contemplative powers of thy soul, like pools that gather the waters flowing into them, gather in the growth of divine fruitfulness according to virtue (which is what Hese-bon is interpreted to mean), through the senses, by which, as through certain gates, the knowledge of all things is wont to enter into the intellectual soul, producing knowledge according to contemplation from the diverse nature of things. Furthermore, "Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward the face of Damascus." That is to say, thy power of discernment—which, like one separating fragrance from stench, discerns those things which the ministering spirits sent forth to minister for the sake of them who shall inherit salvation 18 suggest for ministry, from those things which are suggested by the spirits of wickedness—is as a most high tower upon Mount Lebanon, looking toward the face of the city of Damascus, and from thence announcing to Israel the approach of the enemies; it beholds and discerns the attacks and snares of the unclean spirits, and by announcing their deceits to thy mind, which looks as much as is permitted toward God, it preserves thee whole from their frauds and injuries. Such is thy power of discerning and judging, because thy head is as Carmel upon thee (Christ 78

thy Bridegroom, the living and active Word, ^A even reaching unto the division of soul and spirit, is an acknowledgment of the circumcision within thee (which is what Carmel is interpreted to mean), cutting away from thee the covering of the passions [thou hast] from birth with the sword of the Spirit. Hence it is that the eye of thy understanding is able to see clearly the machinations of the intelligible enemies, with no passion clouding it. Wherefore, also, ^B *thy head is like purple* — that is to say, the teaching of Christ himself, woven for thee through words and ways of life, is, like a royal garment, the vesture of thy mind, in which it becomes master of the passions, and exists as a king bound in the course [of this life], that is to say, not subject to any passion, but bound by the cord of the aforementioned divine teaching in the crossings of the present life, that it may not fall through the slipperiness of fleeting things that appeal to the senses.

Of the Three Fathers.

^C How beautiful and how pleasant thou hast become! That is to say, thou hast been clothed in wondrous beauty, namely that which comes to thee from the likeness of the archetype. For as one united to the Bridegroom and enjoying Him, thou hast been filled with unspeakable spiritual delight. For indeed, *Love is in thy delights*, that is, in those which come from virtue. For having tasted and seen that Christ is the Lord, thou art no longer occupied with that good [kind of] fear, but hangest entirely upon His love, which casteth out fear. Whence, *Thy stature is become like a palm tree.* That is to say, thy loftiness according to virtue is likened to the palm tree, which does not root itself so deep into the earth, but is hoisted very high at the summit. So thou, too, thinking lightly of earthly things, as much as the necessity of the body urges, reachest the heavens with the height of thy mind, having attained to the measure of the stature ^D of the fulness of Christ. *And thy breasts are like clusters of grapes.* That is to say, thy moral and natural instruction, by means of which thou didst nourish us while we were yet infants, training us in piety, now are become like the clusters of the palm, in that we have progressed unto perfection, feeding on more divine instruction, as if on the honeyed sweetness of the clusters of the palm. Thus the magnitude of thy teaching has been compared to the palm by the multitude being taught by thee. *I said, I will go up into the palm tree, I will take hold of its heights: and thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine.* That is, reasoning with myself, I said: I will go up, by imitation of virtue, unto the perfection of thy teaching, and I will take hold of its most sublime contemplations according to knowledge. Thus, naturally, as breasts that nourish me, thy teachings shall exist in every way as the clusters of the true vine, Christ, granting me the deification according to grace, which, like wine, moves the mind from [its] nature and transfers it to that which is above nature. Whence the smell of thy nose is also like apples. Namely, the grace of the Holy Spirit.

which fills one with intelligible fragrance; which she, having received from her Bridegroom, breathed into me, communicating it to me; just as apples are comely in appearance, fragrant in smell, and sweet in taste; comely in the manner of virtues, fragrant in their discourses, and sweet in experience to me. ^B And thy throat, as good wine moving to my beloved for straightness, satisfying my lips and teeth. That is, thy instructive word, which is like the best wine, shall be for me a cause of heart-felt joy, being brought forth in my beloved, into whom thou hast instilled desire in me for paths unerring in virtue; and in keeping to this, as to the truth, and not allowing me to swerve into the passions of a deficiency of virtue, or into those of excess. And also, [it is] for the governing of my appetitive faculties, by which, as with lips, I kiss everything according to the will; and for the intellectual faculties, by which, as with certain teeth, I soften the hardness of notions for spiritual food. The multitude of the disciples having, therefore, requested the teacher to turn from the height of mystical contemplation and to condescend to them in moral philosophy, so that they might behold in her the mentioned spiritual beauties of this [contemplation], and ascend with her through imitation, she replies to them: I [am] to my beloved, and his turning is toward me. That is, I have dedicated my whole self to my beloved, and without him I desire to do nothing; and to me, being so disposed, his condescension takes place, turning from his own height, so that he who is invisible might be seen by those who desire to see him. But I do not suffer that I myself should alone enjoy his communion; but I desire that those also who are still imperfect should obtain salvation from him. ^C Therefore I cry out and say: Come, my beloved, and what follows.

Of the Three Fathers

The bride says, therefore, to those being taught: Since I am now bringing your request to my bridegroom, I say: Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field. That is: Come, my beloved, let us go forth, I who contemplate thee mystically, and thou who art thus contemplated by me, to the choir of those being taught by me, which, as a field of thistles and thorns choking it—the cares of life and the passions of the mind—I have cleansed; and let us go forth, revealing to it our spiritual union in the active manners of the virtues. Going forth, as it has been said, let us lodge in the villages; that is, let us take up our abode in souls that possess all their intellectual and appetitive powers and senses gathered together in thy name, even as villages gather those who dwell in them. Thou ^D shalt constitute them a dwelling place for thyself alone to enjoy thy sacred communion; I wish [to do this, and so I] cry out and say: Come, my beloved, and the rest.

The bride says, therefore, to the disciples: Now, laying your prayers before my bridegroom, I say: Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field. Come, my beloved, let us go out, both I who contemplate thee mystically, and thou who art thus gazed upon by me, to the choir of my disciples: which, as a field of thistles and thorns choking it with the cares of life and wicked thoughts, I have cleansed. Let us go forth, moreover, displaying to it our spiritual union expressed in the manners of the virtues through action. Going forth, indeed, as it has been said, let us lodge in the villages, in souls which, like a village its inhabitants, have gathered and dedicated all their powers of understanding and appetite and all their senses into one. You shall constitute these a domicile for yourself in the holy Spirit. And I shall present myself as an example to them, by which they may be pleasing to you. Let us rise early.

^A to the vineyards. You yourself are the Sun of righteousness, rising as the light of knowledge to souls that bring forth fruit, and bestowing the patience of labors; which, like a cluster of grapes, through many tribulations distills the wine that gladdens the heart of man, on account of the hope of future recompense. And I, according to that same rising of the sun, shall show forth those habits of patience by my own example. So, rising early, let us see if the vine has blossomed, if the sprig has budded, if the pomegranates have flowered; that is, let us observe, both you who see in secret and I who am in the manifest, whether the faith of those who have been instructed by me (which, like a vine into its branches, is spread out into various virtues) has blossomed—inwardly indeed through habit according to the reasons of the virtues, and outwardly through action according to their ways. For the soul’s flower, arising from the reasons of the virtues, blossoms in the flesh according to their ways. The flower of faith, both mystical and manifest, is the flower of the pomegranates, which contain a sweet fruit within, but present an austere rind without. And indeed the fruit of faith also, in the secret affection of the soul, brings joy on account of the hope of future ^B recompense; but in the external sense of the flesh, it presents bitterness, on account of the labor required by virtue. “There I will give you my breasts.” Clearly: in the aforementioned field of those instructed by me, I shall bring to you, my bridegroom, the moral and natural teaching that I apply to their instruction, so that by leading them through these things to mystical instruction, I may point out that the nature of all things indicates you, their Author, through certain signs as the truth; and not, according to the folly of the clever Greeks, imbue them with natural knowledge of things such that they are led far away from you, who are the Truth. “For the mandrakes have given their scent.” In truth, the appearances of sensible things and the signs of the Scripture itself make, as it were, certain mandrakes, so that the mind, clinging to them through the senses, and not vigilantly ascending through them to the truth, falls asleep and is held in stupor as if dull-witted. They have given forth the scent of the reasons of truth, which are present in all things if they are contemplated spiritually. Wherefore also, “at our gates are all kinds of fruits.” This is, in my senses (which, as if certain gates, lead me out to you as the cause of all things, through their natural contemplation in the spirit to be investigated; but lead you in to me through the knowledge of the mind) are all the reasons of truth inherent in created things, which, like nuts, were once feeding the folly of Jews and Greeks, both through the signs of the Scripture and through the species of sensible things. “Whence the new with the old, my nephew, I have kept for you.” That is, I have kept for you the recent evangelical reasons (renewed by the grace of the Spirit) together with the ancient [reasons] heaped up by the ignorance of the Greeks and Jews, both natural and written; because I have been purified and instructed in my ways through those written ones, and illuminated through the natural ones, so that through the contemplation of those things which were made, [I may show] you, the Creator of all.

^A, ^B along with the Father and the Spirit, consubstantial, and perfected in spiritual things, and declaring your theology.

Of the Three Fathers.

"Who would grant you to me, my kinsman, sucking the breasts of my mother?" That is to say: Since your first coming prepared me to enjoy you, who will grant me, at your second coming, that you, my beloved, [may be] with us in the kingdom of the Father (which is the mother of us believers, the heavenly Jerusalem), drinking the new cup, which flows from it into us by grace without intermediary, as if milk from a mother's breasts flows into her offspring, and thereby nourishes the salvation of our souls, and offers the end of faith, namely, the communion of goods that are above nature, and that divine and incredible pleasure, which you, possessing naturally, impart to the worthy while being joined to them by grace? For thus, "finding you outside, I will kiss you, and no one will despise me"—that is to say: recognizing you, not as now through faith, but by sight, in our substance outside your divine substance, granting to us incorruption and immutability in the common resurrection, I shall enjoy you, even if now I am held in contempt by those who think of the things of the world, because I despise ^C all fleeting things for your sake.

What, then, will be my manner of enjoyment? "For I will take you, I will lead you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her who conceived me. I will give you a drink of spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranates." Clearly: [I will] take you, who grant me divinization, while longing for your splendor; and in beholding this, I shall lead you into the mind, which is the house of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, from which I was born through baptism, as if from a mother, and [which], because of that likeness, is capable of holding it. And [the mind] is again its ^D chamber, since it holds its hidden treasures stored up in itself because of the [divine] image. It is this grace that conceived me through faith. In addition to these things, I shall offer to you, who thirst for my salvation, as if a certain drink, the knowledge of you as truth, which is inexhaustible to me and depends entirely upon the composition of the different discourses in all creation and in Scripture; which, like a sweet-smelling wine that gladdens the heart, cheers the souls that partake of it, and pours into me an everlasting love for you, as the Good, [arising] from the excellence of the fear of you and the desire to enjoy you, of which [qualities], like pomegranates, the one constrains me with its astringency, and the other delights me with its sweetness.

Of the Three Fathers.

Then, turning her speech again to those being taught by her, she explains the reason why she said those things to her bridegroom:

"His left hand is under my head."

That is to say, because the threats of the punishments to be received by those on the left hand of the bridegroom now, under the head

^A of my soul—that is, the intellectual part—they bring into subjection the sensible part. For this reason, I am in hope that his right hand will also embrace me; that is, the good things of the kingdom of God promised to those who are to be placed on the right, which will encompass me entirely in the future age, providing endless joy to both soul and body. Having spoken ^B all these things as a teacher, she adds: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and the strengths of the field, if you stir up and if you awaken love, until it pleases." That is to say: "I have confirmed you, my disciples, as though by an oath, in the exposition of divine mysteries—you who see in the Holy Spirit Him who reconciled us to His own Father—having taught you the cause why, by the intellectual and practical powers and strengths that are effective in this present world, you should awaken according to virtue and stir up according to knowledge within yourselves Him who seems to sleep—when that which is right and good is ignored and the good itself is not done—Him who loved us and offered Himself as a ransom for us, until He pleases to perform in those of us receiving His grace, through His second coming, those things which are His own by nature." The disciples, filled with admiration and stupor concerning their teacher, say: "Who is this that comes up whitened, leaning upon her kinsman?" Who is this, they mean, who teaches so skillfully and progresses from hidden things to things more hidden and recondite, having been purged of every stain of sins, and leaning upon her kinsman? The bridegroom, therefore, observing the bride’s diligence in instructing the disciples and embracing her zeal for the good, warns her of her former life so that she might think humbly of herself and not, by being puffed up with praises, fall into the passion of arrogance. He says to her: "Under the apple tree I awakened thee." That is, under these created things which, like a sweet apple, delight all the senses, I awakened you—you who were sluggish in embracing the good and lulled to sleep by the pursuit of perishable things—impelling you by the reasons of providence and judgment and by my words toward a longing for me; for indeed, ^C"There thy mother brought thee forth. There she brought thee forth who bore thee." That is to say, in the attachment to material things, your foremother Eve conceived you in the birth that is according to pleasure, and brought you forth in the birth that is according to pain. By these affections you were laboring in a desire for fragile things, following pleasure and fleeing pain, struggling toward the end of pleasure in such a way that you wished to be ^D separated from pain; which, however, can in no way come to pass. Therefore, if you wish to be free from these perturbations, "Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm." That is to say, remain in me, the archetype, keeping the image in the ruling part of you—the mind—through true contemplation and longing for me; but through the power by which you are able to act, preserve the likeness through

an unfeigned and ardent turning away from evil. From this I myself will also dwell in you, ^A guarding, like a seal, your faculty of understanding and your activity, keeping them inviolate from contact with material things. *For love is strong as death, and zeal is harsh as Hades.* That is to say, if you remain in my love and in the zeal that exists for its sake, I will also dwell in you; and you shall be guarded, as it is written. For love directed entirely towards me is strong, inasmuch as it calms every impulse and movement toward evil, like death. Zeal for my sake is unyielding toward evil, binding irrational impulses and holding them fast, just as Hades does. For its wings are wings of fire, coals of fire, its flames. These wings are, in fact, the works of a burning love toward me, which illuminates the mind by the light of truth in contemplation and dispels ignorance; and from this, through the practice of the commandments, it consumes all wickedness (like fuel easily kindled by flames) and grants increase. Therefore, ^B *many waters will not be able to quench love, nor will rivers overflow it.* That is to say, those many tribulations flowing like a multitude of waters from the winter of involuntary temptations, and the assaults—one after another—of those same tribulations like river torrents, in which the spirits of wickedness hasten to pluck out the love for me either completely through hatred of good, or to overwhelm it through hatred of mankind, will not be able either to quench it entirely through blasphemy, or to overwhelm and destroy it through the neglect of my commandments; which commandments demonstrate love toward me, and are also beneficial toward one's neighbor. *But if a man should give all his life in love, they will despise him.* Clearly, if one who is not rendered effeminate by the deceit of fleeting things should provide to those in need all that he possesses because of love for me, the opposing powers will surely treat him with contempt, just as they treated Job—after taking away all of his sensible wealth—seeking to test him away from me through the pains of the flesh, and inciting his friends to insult him. Knowing these things, then, when you observe all my commandments and pain of the flesh comes upon you by my permission, know that such a thing is happening to you so that your love toward me may become manifest to all, as one who does not yield to temptations, and not because there is no providence that extends over all things.

*Our little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day that she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build upon her silver battlements; and if she is a door, we will carve upon her a cedar board.*

Of the Three Fathers.

The bride of Christ, the Church, having already received her own security from Him, and desiring that the multitude of those initiated by her, both Jews and Greeks, should come through baptism by knowledge and virtue to perfection, speaks these words about her to the Bridegroom.

^A "Our sister is small, and has no breasts." That is to say, being our sister because of the affinity of nature, the multitude is still immature due to infidelity; and for this reason, she does not possess the reasons and manner of virtues, which are offered to you, O Bridegroom, as breasts, so that she might derive her salvation from them. "And what shall we do for our sister in the day when the word shall be spoken in her?" That is, what shall we perform for this aforementioned sister of ours at the time when she will receive your proclamation according to faith? "If she is a wall, we will build upon her battlements of silver; and if she is a door, we will frame upon her a board of cedar." That is, if she has been built up by the practice of the legal commandments—like a wall—we will place upon her, as battlements of silver, the luminous reasons of the mysteries contained in the legal letter according to knowledge. But if she is opened by natural contemplation through sense perception, like a door of introductory knowledge, we shall fashion in her a sort of cedar board, which constricts the senses that scatter the mind, and which, having faith made perfect by works, lops off with the sword of the spirit every false opinion and every defect or excess of virtue; and from these things, you indeed shall bestow perfection in yourself upon this multitude I spoke of, while I shall serve as a minister.

^B

Of the Three Fathers

When the congregation of Jews, called to the faith, heard the words of the Bride, the teacher, that she truly "has no breasts," and heard also what was said concerning her, "If she is a wall," she makes her answer to both these things, saying, as if showingly: "I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers." Truly, I am a multitude formed from the Israelites, as being built up by the discipline of the legal commandments—such as that which says: "You shall not commit adultery," ^C and the rest. And those figures and marks of the legal letter seem similar to towers, which provide me, like breasts, with food suitable for nourishing and instructing infants and the unlearned; and they preserve me impregnable against the customs of the Gentiles. "And I was in his eyes as one finding peace." Truly, I was once worthy of divine visitation. And although I did not know the true peace that reconciles us to our own Father, yet I had learned it through the figures in the prophets. To this the Bride, as a teacher, says: "Why do you propose old things to me? Solomon had a vineyard in Beelamon." This signifies the spiritual plantation of the Church of the faithful, made for the peaceful King in the multitude of the Gentiles; for this is what Beelamon signifies. "He delivered the vineyard to keepers." That is, He committed the Church to the apostles and teachers who watch over it diligently, lest the various heresies rising up against it should lay it waste and divide its ^D unity into diverse opinions. "A man shall bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver." He, indeed, who from the number of the perfect, having destroyed what was characteristic of an infant in bringing these things: from those who initiate into the spiritual fruit of the Church, namely by purgation and perfection, brings as...

it were a thousand pieces of silver, the perfection which is through cleanliness and illumination. ^B Hearing indeed the Bridegroom speaking of himself to those who were being discipled by her, that he had handed over the vineyard to those who keep it; lest perhaps those who heard might think that he had abandoned the care of the vineyard, he says to her: "My vineyard is before me." That is to say, although I have set certain guardians of the Church, nevertheless I myself am its Lord and Bridegroom, and the solicitude of these lives through my protection: for unless I keep it, he who guards watches in vain. The Bride, responding in turn to the Bridegroom, says: "A thousand are thine, O Solomon, and two hundred to those who keep its fruit." Videlicet: The perfection indeed is the gift of thee who makest perfect, O Pacific and Peacemaker; but the restoration of our nature to its own state is accomplished through the fulfillment of thy commandments, which is indeed the fruit of our Church, which pertains to the Bridegroom.

"Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it. Flee, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices." ^C She speaks these things also to the Bridegroom, whom she says sits in the gardens. For gardens are the divine temples, the monuments of the martyrs, the assemblies of those who have embraced the solitary life. In these, she says, he dwells, bringing a thousand pieces of silver for the fruit of the vineyard: and she beseeches him not only to converse with angelic powers, but to deem her herself worthy of his most sweet voice, and not to despise her who burns with desire and thirst to enjoy his words. She entreats him, furthermore, that he should flee. But whom should he flee, if not the wicked cœtus of heretics, and the tongues whetted against piety? Having declined and despised these, she exhorts him that, like to a roe or a young hart of the deer, he should flee and ascend to the mountains of spices, and in the manner of a young hart destroy the wild beasts of spiritual wickedness. Let him look out upon the impiety of those who speak iniquity on high, and let him come to the mountains of spices. To those, namely, who are both endowed with an exalted mind, and as mountains excel among the valleys; ^D then they bear the fruit of spices, breathing forth fragrance; so that with blessed Paul they may be able to say: "We are a sweet odor of Christ." May God grant, however, that we likewise may be mountains of spices, that we may receive the leaps of the Bridegroom, and attain to that blessedness: "Blessed is the man whose help is from thee, in whose heart are thy ascensions."