Sermons on the Song of Songs

In the first of these He applied to Himself the bitterness of my sins, in the second He pronounced the future incorruption of my body.

As long as I live I will proclaim loudly the abundance of the graces which come from these ; I will never forget those mercies, since it is by them that I have been restored to life. 4. It was these mercies of which holy David formerly entreated with tears : Let Thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live (Ps. cxix. 77). Of them, too, another saint recalled the remembrance, with weeping : Great are the mercies of the Lord. How many kings and prophets have desired to see the things which I see, and have not seen them ! They have laboured, and I have entered into their labours ; I have reaped the harvest of myrrh which they have planted ; it is for me that this salutary bundle has been reserved. No one shall take it from me ; it shall lie between my breasts. To meditate on these things I have called wisdom ; in these I have placed the perfection of righteousness for me, the fulness of knowledge, the abundance of merits, the riches of salvation. There is among them for me sometimes a draught of salutary bitterness ; sometimes, again, a sweet unction of consolation. In adversities they raise me up, and in prosperity repress my exuberant delight, and among the

joys on the one hand, and the sorrows of the other, of this present life, they enable me to walk in safety along the royal road which leads to life by defending me from the perils on either hand. These conciliate on my behalf the Judge of all the world, showing to me Him who is so greatly to be feared, as one who is gentle and humble, and not only making Him willing to receive and to pardon, but even more, in giving roe Him who is far above all powers, and terrible among the kings of the earth, as a model for me to imitate. It is for these reasons that 1 have these [sufferings of Jesus] frequently in my mouth, as you know, Digitized by Google THE BRIDE MEDITATES ON THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST 269 and always in my heart, as God knows. These are familiar themes in all my writings, as is well known. In a word, my philosophy is this, and it is the loftiest in the world : to know Jesus, and Him crucified. I do not ask, as does the Bride in this passage, ' where reposes at noon ' Him who I embrace with joy and gladness, for He dwells ever upon my breast and in my heart. I do not

ask 4 where He feeds His flock,' for I behold Him as my Saviour, upon His Cross. The one object is loftier, the other has more of sweetness ; the one is bread, the other milk ; the one the children's food, the other the nourishment which infants find at their mothers' breasts, and therefore He shall lie betwixt my breasts. 5. My dearest brethren, do you also gather for yourselves each a bundle so precious and beloved, give it a place in the depths of your heart, fortify with it the portal of your breast, that it may abide between your breasts also. Let [Jesus] be borne, not behind you and on your shoulders as a burden, but in front of you and before your eyes,1 lest When the Abbey of Clairvaux had been suppressed by the Directory of France, the church and monastic buildings were sold, on the 10th February, 1792, to the ' Sieur Pierre-Claude Cauzon, architecte,' for the sum of 337,500 livres. He proceeded to set up a manufactory of glass there, and in order to carry out this purpose, required of the vendors, according to the conditions of sale, that all the relics of saints, as well as the remains of bishops, monks, and others, of which there were great numbers deposited in the church

and its precincts, should be forthwith removed.

The inhabitants of Ville, in which parish Clairvaux is situated, seem to have been shocked and outraged, as well they might be, at the contemplated spoliation and sacrilege. They desired that the relics of St. Bernard and St. Malachi and other holy men, • for which their veneration is extreme, ' should be deposited, if they must be removed, in their parish church of Ville«sous-La Ferte. In order to meet their wishes, which (says the official charged to carry out the affair) ' it might, perhaps, be dangerous to treat with disregard and contempt (frotider), order was given by the Directory of Bar-sur-Aube that this should be done, and that the bones of all the less distinguished persons should be deposited together in the churchyard of that parish. This seems to have been accordingly done in 1793. (* Report of M. Delaine, Administrates du Directoire.') The statement of these details was necessary to explain what follows.

In 1855 the Count de Montalembert, the illustrious author of 'The Monks of the West,' was collecting materials for that 1 Life of St. Bernard,' which, unfortunately, he did not live to finish. At his instance, M. Guignard, Town Librarian of Dijon, visited this Church of Ville-sous-La Ferte, and from his account of what he found there we extract the following interesting facts : ' In the little sacristy of that church there repose, in an old wooden chest, once used for treasure, the bones removed from the Church of Clairvaux in 1793.

Before 1836 or 1837 they were in the shells used for their translation ; at or after that date they were thrown pele mile into this worm-eaten coffer, and the shells were burned. It is half-filled by them.' After describing the nature and condition of the bones, and other mouldering fragments which were with them, he continues : * Finally there was a very thin board, nearly 5 inches long, and 3$ inches high, which wa,s covered with a leaf of parchment turning up at the edges, along which it is fastened by small nails. A wooden link, nailed at its lower part to the board, suggests that it was intended to be hung up, or at all events, to be put in an upright position. This parchment bears four lines of writing ; it is entirely eaten away in Digitized by 270 if you bear Him and do not perceive His sweetness, you should be oppressed by His weight, without being refreshed by His fragrance rising up before you. Remember how Simeon took Him up in his arms (S. Luke ii. 28), how Mary bore Him in her womb, nursed Him on her bosom, how He who is the Bridegroom was laid upon her breast, and, not to pass over anything, how the word [of prophecy of Him] was spoken by the aged Zacharias (i. 67), and, indeed, by others also. I suppose that Joseph, too, the husband of Mary, must frequently have taken the Child upon his knees to smile upon and to please Him. All these bore Him before them, and by no means behind. Let them be for an example to you. Do ye do likewise ; for if you have Him whom you are bearing, always before your eyes, it is certain that, beholding the pains and troubles which the Lord endured, you will more easily and willingly bear your own, by His help, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, above all, God blessed for ever.

Amen. the centre, but the ends of the lines are still legible. The writing is plainly of the twelfth century.' This is a facsimile of the inscription : The presence of this written quotation is a proof (were any needful) that the relics are those of St. Bernard. But it suggests even more than this. When we bear in mind the Saint's own words : ' Habetehunc fasciculum . . . ante tra oculis? and observe that we have here a text nailed upon a board, with a hook by which it might be hung up, for instance upon a wall, the inference is surely not a violent one that the Saint had carried into effect his own precept, and that this text was written out, it may be by his own hand, to hang upon the wall of his cell, and thus to be literally * always before his eyes/ Then his disciples, after his lamented death, would carry out the precept so dear to their master, a step further ; they would lay it upon his breast in his tomb, and thus his devout aspiration would be accomplished : ' inter ubera mea commorabitur,' It is a pleasant thought, and not at all an improbable one, that we have here some few words in the autograph of the Saint. — Ed. Digitized by Google CORRECTION TO BE ADAPTED TO THE CHARACTER OF OFFENDERS 2J1

OFFENDERS, SO THAT THOSE OF HUMBLE AND COMPLYING DISPOSITION SHOULD BE GENTLY DEALT WITH, BUT THE STUBBORN REFORM. Cant i. 14IF the Bridegroom were beloved in the bitter myrrh, much more will He be so in the sweetness of the grape. Therefore my Lord Jesus Christ is to me in His Death myrrh, in His Resurrection a cluster of grapes ; and thus He has given Himself to me as a most salutary draught, though commingled with tears. For our sins He died, for our justification He was raised again from the dead (Rom. iv. 25), so that we, being dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness (1 Peter ii. 24). If, then, you have mourned for sins past, you have tasted the bitterness of the draught ; but if you have now entered upon a holier life, and are beginning to breathe in more and more the hope of eternal life, the bitterness of the myrrh is changed for you into wine, which maketh glad the heart of man.

And, perhaps, when there was offered to the Saviour upon the Cross wine2 mingled with myrrh, and He would not drink it, this was signified, that He thirsted only for the former. You, then, after experiencing, as I have said, the bitternesses of the myrrh, and then tasting the wine of gladness, may yourself say without rashness : My Beloved is to me as a cluster of camphire [grapes] in the vineyards of EngedL Engedi has a twofold meaning, and each sense tends to teach the same lesson, for it means ' the fountain of the kid ' and ' the washing of the nations ' ; and both the one sense and the other point to the tears of sinners. It signifies also 1 the eye of temptation/ which also pours forth tears, and looks onward to temptations, which are never wanting to the life of man upon the earth. But the people of the Gentiles, who walked in darkness, were never able to discover by themselves, nor, on this account, to escape, the snares of temptations, until, inermis, Linn.), which is indigenous to India and probably to Egypt, and may have been introduced by Solomon into his vineyards at Engedi for the sake of the strong odour of its flowers. The Henna blossoms are yellowish-white in colour, and the powder from them is used by Eastern women as a dye for the ends of the fingers and the nails, as well as the blossoms ( Tamar-henna) for bouquets. They grow in grape -like clusters. The Greek word &6rpvg denotes, in fact, simply a bunch of grapes or the grape itself. The Latin derivative, bolrys, signifies, also, the strongly aromatic plant artemisia, called also ambrosia ; but here it appears to be used m the sense of a bunch of grapes. See Cant. iv. 13. — Ed.

Digitized by 272 by His grace who gives light to the blind, they received the eyes of faith, until they came to the Church which has an eye to discover temptation, until they gave themselves to the instructions of spiritual men, who, having been enlightened by the Spirit of Wisdom, and rendered learned also by their own experience, are able to say truly that 7U€ are not ignorant of the snares of the devil nor of his devices (2 Cor. ii. 11). 2. It is said that in Engedi grow aromatic shrubs, which the people of the country train in the manner of vines ; and thence, perhaps, it is that they are here called vineyards. For otherwise, what would the cluster of camphire do in the vineyards of Engedi ? Whoever carried clusters [of grapes] from one vineyard to another? For wine is usually carried to places where there is none, and not whither there is a store of it already. He calls, then, by the name of the vineyards of Engedi the peoples of the Church, which possesses a liquid balm, that is, a spirit of gentle kindness, in which she tenderly cherishes the weakness of those who are still babes in Christ, and consoles the sorrows of penitents. If any brother, then, shall have fallen into some

fault, the minister of the Church, who has already received of that Spirit, will at once take measures to restore him, and that in the same spirit of gentleness, considering himself lest he also be tempted (Gal. vi. 1). That material oil, with which the Church is accustomed to anoint all those who are baptized, is a type of this. 3. But as the wounds of that traveller who fell among thieves, and whom the charitable Samaritan took up and carried on his own beast to a hostelry, that is, to the Church, were not healed with oil alone, but with wine and oil together (Luke x. 30-34), so the spiritual physician needs to mix the wine of fervid zeal with the oil of gentleness, since it behoves him not only to console the weak, but also to restrain the unruly. For if he perceives that the wounded man, that is, the sinner, is not at all amended by the gentle and kindly reprimands which he has first employed, but, on the contrary, abuses his forbearance, becomes more negligent by his patience, and sleeps the more securely in his sin, then, the oil of his gentle remonstrances being shown to be of no use, it behoves him to employ more powerful remedies, and so to pour in the wine of

penitence — that is, to have recourse to stern accusations and reproofs, and if need be, and the stubbornness of the offender be so great, to smite him with the staff of ecclesiastical censure. But whence shall he obtain that wine ?

It is not wine, but oil, that is found in the vineyards of Engedi. Let him seek it in the isle of Cyprus, for that isle is fertile in producing wine, and that of the best ; let him gather there of those weighty clusters, which the spies of Israel formerly bore upon a strong pole (Numb. xiii. 23) between two, [in which they typified] the prophets who went before, and the Apostles who followed after, and in the midst Jesus in His beauty ; let him take unto himself this cluster, and say : My Beloved is to me a cluster of the grape of Cyprus. 4. We have spoken, then, of this cluster ; let us now see how the wine of fervent zeal is expressed from it. For if a man, being himself Digitized by Google CORRECTION TO BE ADAPTED TO THE CHARACTER OF OFFENDERS 273 a sinner, does not show anger towards one who offends, but, on the contrary, manifests compassion for him, and, as it were, pours over him the dew of a sweet and healing balsam, we know whence that proceeds ; and you have already heard, though perhaps without taking notice, the source of it. For it has been said that everyone, from consideration of himself, should be gentle to all others ;

and following the wise counsel of St. Paul, should know how to make kindly allowance for such as have been overtaken in a fault, considering himself lest he also be tempted (Gal. vi. t). Is it not, in fact, from thence that the love of our neighbour, of which it is said in the Law as a commandment : Thou shall love Ihy neighbour as Ihyself (Luke x. 27) derives its origin? Brotherly affection has without doubt its first beginnings in the deepest feelings of human nature ; and from the deeply-seated principle of love to oneself, as from a terrestrial humour, the love of our neighbour draws without doubt a degree of life and increase by which, if grace from on high be breathed upon it, the fruit of charity is brought forth ; so that what the soul naturally desires for itself, it considers is not to be denied to another, who seems to have a right to share in it, as being a participant in the same nature, and by the mere right of humanity, but is, on the contrary, to be willingly and gladly shared, as far as it is possible, or there is need of it. Thus, that anointing of sweetness and kindness of disposition which is natural to man, if it be not decayed

and ruined by sin, disposes him more to compassionate the faults and offences of sinners than to treat them with indignation and severity. 5. But since according to the word of the Wise man, Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment (Eccles. x. 1, Vulg.), and when that is once lost, nature has no means in itself of repairing the loss ; a man feels that a sad change has passed over him, and that he has fallen into that state, of which the Scripture says truly : The imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth (Gen. viii. 21). That youth was not well spent or good, of which we read in the Scripture that the younger son made demand that his portion of his father's substance should be given over to him, and began to wish to have in his separate possession that which he had enjoyed so happily in common with others, so as to possess alone that, which though it loses nothing by participation, is lost altogether by partition. For he spent all his substance, says the Scripture, in living riotously with harlots (Luke xv. 13, 14). Who are these harlots? Are they not those carnal concupiscences which banish and destroy the sweetness of this anointing, and of which the Scripture gives us the

salutary warning : Go not after thy lusts (Ecclus. xviii. 30). Truly does the Wise Man describe them as * about to die for the world passeth away, and the lust thereof (1 John ii. 17). When, therefore, we desire to indulge these, we deprive ourselves of the sweetness of good which is common and social for the sake of that which is individual and selfish. These are undoubtedly those foul and acrid flies which defile in us the beauty of nature, distract our mind with cares and anxieties, and 18 Digitized by Google 274 destroy the pleasure and charm of the common life. It is for this reason that such a man is figured [in the parable] as the younger son, because his nature is corrupted by the unregulated passions of youth, and is without the ripeness and the gathered wisdom which belong to manhood, so that when he has fallen into distress his mind becomes hardened and loveless, and he has no regard for any but himself. 6. It is, then, from the commencement of such a most wicked and unhappy youth as this that the thoughts and inclinations of man turn easily to evil, and that he is by nature more prompt to anger with his neighbour than to compassion for his faults. Thus it is that

a man is divested of almost every sentiment of humanity ; and while he still needs and expects the help of others, he is disinclined to render help to others in return. [Such] a man, though himself a sinner, judges others severely who are sinners as himself, and even ridicules and scorns them, not considering himself, lest he also should be tempted. From this evil, nature cannot, as I have said, recover by its own strength, nor regain the oil of that original sweetness and kindness which has once been destroyed in it. But yet, what nature is unable to do is in the power of Divine grace. And he upon whom the Holy Spirit shall in His pity deign to pour the salutary unction of His goodness will at once regain his former feelings of goodness and sympathy, and shall obtain from grace even more than he had at first by the gift of nature. It will render him holy in faith and in goodness, and will bestow upon him, not merely oil, but the balsam gathered in the vineyards of Engedi. 7. For there is no doubt that from the 4 Fountain of the kid1 flow forth gifts more precious still, the anointing of which transforms kids into sheep, which enables sinners to pass from the left hand

to the right, after they have been abundantly steeped in the oil of mercy ; and thus, where sins abounded, grace much more abounds (Rom. v. 20). Does it not appear to you that such a man is restored in a sense to his humanity, who, putting off the hardness of the spirit of the world, and recovering, by the help of grace, the abundance of human loving-kindness, which carnal lusts, as it were foul and acrid flies, had well-nigh destroyed in him ; so that he derives from the humanity which he bears, or, rather, which is himself, the means and the manner of compassionating other men ; and regards as something inhuman1 and brutal, not merely for a man to do to another that which he would not wish to have done to himself, but also the not doing to others whatsoever he wishes they should do to him ? 8. This, then, is the source of the oil. But whence is the wine ?

Evidently from the cluster of the Cyprus grape. For if you love the Lord Jesus with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, could you possibly see and endure without emotion the injuries inflicted upon Him, and the contempt of which He is the object ? Assuredly not ; you would be at once actuated by a spirit of Digitized by Google CORRECTION TO BE ADAPTED TO THE CHARACTER OF OFFENDERS 275 judgment and of zeal, and would be as a strong man to whom wine has given new powers, and being filled with zeal like Phinehas, would say, in the words of David : My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten Thy words (Ps. cxix. 139) ; and with the Lord : The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up (Ps. lxix. 9; John ii. 17).

That most fervent zeal, then, is wine expressed from the cluster of Cyprus, and the love of Christ is as a cup which inebriates. For our God is a consuming fire (Deut. iv. 24), and a prophet once declared that a fire from above was sent into his bones (Lam. i. 13), insomuch that he burned with the love of God. When, therefore, the love of your neighbour has given you the oil of kindness, and the love of God has procured you the wine of zeal and emulation, you may safely draw near to heal the wounds of him who has fallen among thieves, and be a perfect imitator of that most charitable Samaritan.

Safely also may you too say with the Bride : My Beloved is to me as a cluster of Cyprus grapes in the vineyards of Engedi : that is to say, the love of Him who is dear to me imparts unto me a zeal for righteousness in feelings of brotherly kindness. But now enough of this ; for my weakness warns me, as it does often, to come to a close, and thus obliges me, as you know is frequently the case, to leave my discourses uncompleted, and to reserve for another day the remainder of the verses. But of what account is that ? For I am ready for scourges (Ps. xxxvii. 18, Douay), and know that what I have hitherto received of chastisement has been less than I deserved. Strike me, O my God ; strike me as a servant who labours ill, and perhaps the stripes may be reckoned to me as merits ; perhaps Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Spouse of the Church, who found not in me any good to reward, may yet find in my stripes and my sorrows a reason for exercising His mercy, and have pity upon me. He is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

OF THE TWOFOLD BEAUTY OF THE SOUL: HOW THE SOUL SPEAKS TO GOD THE WORD, AND THE WORD TO THE SOUL, AND WHAT Cant. i. 15. HOW beautifully, how exquisitely is all this spoken ! From the love of the Bride comes her presumption, from that of the Bridegroom His anger. This is shown by the issue of the matter ; for reproof has followed presumption, amendment reproof, and recompense amendment. The Beloved One only is present, the master is withdrawn, the king disappears, dignity is put off, reverence laid aside ; for where affection is perfect and strong, ther£ pride gives Digitized by way. And ai Moses once spake unto the Lord, as a friend to his friend (Exod. xxxiii. n), and the Lord replied to him, so there is now established between the Word of God and the devout soul a relation and communications as close and familiar as that between two neighbours. Nor is that strange ; for their love having but one source, it is reciprocal, and their affection mutually manifested.

Therefore, words sweeter than honey are exchanged between them, and they exchange looks full of all sweetness, in token of the sacred love which unites them. Then He calls her His beloved one, pronounces repeatedly that she is fair, and receives from her in return similar tokens of affection. Nor is that a superfluous repetition, which is the confirmation of His love, and which perhaps also has some mystery indicated by it 2. Let us inquire, then, what is the twofold beauty of the soul ; for it is that which seems to me to be referred to here. Now, the beauty of the soul is humility. I do not say this of myself, a prophet has said it before me : Thou shalt wash me with hyssop, and I shall be clean (Ps. li. 7) ; signifying the humility of the heart by that herb, which is lowly and of a purifying nature. The writer, who was both king and prophet, having fallen into a grave offence, expresses in these words his good hope that he shall be cleansed, and thus recover his former whiteness of innocence. But the humility of one who has deeply offended, though it may be loved, yet it cannot be admired. But if one who has preserved innocence joins with it humility, does he not seem to you to possess a twofold beauty of the soul ? St. Mary lost not holiness, and yet was not wanting in humility. Therefore it was that * the King desired her beauty* because she joined humility to innocence ; for, as she herself says : He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid (Luke i. 48, Douay).

Blessed are they who have kept undefiled their vestments (Rev. iii. 4) — that is to say, their simplicity and their innocence, if they are careful also to be clad in the beauty of humility. Assuredly the soul that is found to be such shall hear the words addressed to her : Behold, thou art fair, My love ; behold, thou art fair. May I, O Lord Jesus, hear Thee say but once to my soul : Behold, thou art fair. Do Thou [reserve for me, at least, my humility, for I have ill-kept my first robe of innocence]. I am Thy servant. I do not dare to profess myself Thy friend, for I do not hear Thy repeated testimony to my spiritual fairness. Even to hear it once is sufficient for me. But what shall I do if even that be in question ? I know what I will do : I, being a servant, will venerate Thy friend (amicam) ; being but a man deformed and dwarfish, I will dwell in admiration on her perfect beauty ; I will rejoice at the voice of the Bridegroom, who Himself admires a fairness so great. Who knows whether I may not at least find grace in the eyes of that friend, that by her favour even I may be found among the number of His friends ? For the friend of the Bridegroom remains in silence, yet rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice. This is His Voice in the ear of the Beloved ; let us hear it Digitized by Google 277 and be glad. They are in each other's presence, they are conversing together ; let us, too, pause and listen ; let no care of this world, no allurement of the flesh, withdraw us from that sacred colloquy. 3. Behold, thou art fair, My love ; behold, thou art fair. Behold expresses admiration, the rest praise. It is with reason that she is admired, because she has not adopted humility after the loss of holiness, and on account of it, but has retained it while remaining holy.

And rightly, too, is she twice over called beautiful, since neither kind of beauty is wanting to her. It is a rare being (avis) upon the earth who has not lost innocence, or in whom sanctity, if retained, does not exclude humility ; and therefore happy is she who has retained both the one and the other. That she has done so is proved, inasmuch as though conscious of no fault, she does not reject the reproof of the Bridegroom. We, even when we have committed great faults, scarcely suffer ourselves to be reproved ; but she, even when she has done no wrong, listens meekly to bitter words addressed to her. For if she desires to behold the glory of her Bridegroom, that is no fault, but rather a ground for praise. And yet when she is blamed she repents, and says: A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved unto me; He shall lie between my breasts, which is as if she said : * That is sufficient for me : I desire to know none but Jesus, and Him crucified.' How great is this humility ! Though innocent in every act, she takes upon her the feeling of the penitent, and though she has nothing to repent of, yet she is able to repent. ' Why, then/ you

ask, ' is she chidden, if she has done no wrong ?' But now listen to the prudence of the Bridegroom, and the dispensation of His grace. For as formerly the obedience of Abraham was tried and made proof of, so now is it with the humility of the Bride. And just as he, when his obedience was complete, heard these words spoken to him : Now I knmv that thou fearest God (Gen. xxii. 12), so in like manner, though in other words, it is said to the Bride, ' I know now that thou art humble for that is the significance of what He says : Behold, thou art fair. And He repeats the commendation, to show that the beauty of humility is added to the glory of holiness. * Now I know that thou art fair, not only by the love which I feel for thee, but also by thy humility. I say not now that thou art fairest among women, I praise not thy beauty of cheeks or of neck, as I did aforetime \ but I say simply, not in comparison of others, not in part, or with a qualification, but simply that thou art fair' 4. And He adds : Thou hast the eyes of doves. Plainly He is still continuing the praise of

humility. For He sees that, being blamed and checked for placing so high her researches, she at once, and without delay, lowers them to things simpler, so as to say : A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved unto me. There is no doubt a great difference between a Countenance full of glory and a bundle of myrrh, and therefore it is a great mark of humility to suffer the being recalled from the one and to the other. Thus, to say : Thou hast the eyes of doves signifies : * No longer dost thou hold converse with great matters, Digitized by Google 278 nor inquire into subjects too high for thee ; but, like that gentle and artless bird, art content with simpler matters, making thy nest in the hollows of the rock (that is to say), abiding in My wounds, and contemplating of thy own free will, as it were with dove-like gaze, the things only which relate to Me Incarnate, and to My Passion.' 5. Or it may be that, because the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove (Matt. iii. 16), it is rather a spiritual vision than a simplicity of vision that is here commended under the term * dovelike/ If you approve of this supposition, it will be necessary to refer

the verse before us to that which was spoken before by the companions of the Bridegroom, when they promised to her pendants of gold, with no intention, as I warned you at the time, of adorning the ears of the body, but rather of developing and training the spiritual hearing.1 And by this means it follows that, having the heart more completely purified by faith, which cometh by hearing, she is rendered more capable of discerning that which before was beyond her powers. And as by the receiving of these (symbolical) pendants she has obviously obtained an increased power of vision for the discerning of spiritual things, so she has also become pleasing to the Bridegroom, whose preference it is always (as far as relates to Himself) to be contemplated in a spiritual manner. Therefore He numbers this among her praises, and declares : Thy eyes are those of doves. Now thou regardest Me, He says, in the spirit, since Christ the Lord is as a spirit before thy face (Lam. iv. 20). Thou art able to do this, because thou hast dove's eyes. Before thou hadst not this power, and so incurred rebuke ; now thou mayst behold me as thou wilt, because thou hast a spiritual vision, the eyes of the Dove. This, indeed, is not the grace

for which thou madest petition, for not even now art thou capable of that ; but this shall suffice thee for the present. Behold Me now to the utmost of thy powers, and as these augment, thou shalt behold Me more clearly ; for assuredly, thou shalt be led on from glory to glory (Ps. lxxxiv. 7). 6. I do not think, brethren— I repeat, I do not think— that this Vision, which alone belongs to the present, is either mediocre or common to all, though it be inferior to that which shall one day be enjoyed. This may be inferred from the words which follow, for she goes on to say : Behold thou art fairy my Belowd. Now, consider the greatness and high elevation of a soul which claims the right to call Him, who is the Lord of the whole world, her Beloved. For notice that she does not even say simply Beloved^ but my Beloved \ to show that she had a right to call Him hers. Assuredly this Vision of Christ must be august and privileged, which confers upon the soul such con- • fidence and authority that it regards the Lord of all, not as her Lord, but as her Beloved. For I suppose that in this instance there is not at all presented

to the soul any defined image of the bodily form of Christ, or of the likeness of our weak flesh, or even of His Cross, for in these respects, according to the prophet, He hath no form nor come- ■s.

Digitized by Google 279 liness (Is. liii. 2). But that she, beholding Him, now pronounces Him fair and comely, shows that He appeared to her by means of a nobler vision, for the Bridegroom speaks to the Bride face to face, as once He spake to Moses (Exod. xxxiii. 11), and she beholds God clearly, not by symbols and types. Thus, beholding Him in the spirit, by a vision sweet and sublime, she declares Him to be such as in her vision she sees Him to be. Her eyes have seen the King in His beauty ; yet not as King, but as her Beloved. One prophet beheld Him upon His throne, high and lifted up (Isa. vi. 1), and of another it is testified that he saw God face to face, and his life was preserved (Gen. xxxii. 30) ; yet it seems to me that the Bride surpasses both, in that we read that the Lord was beheld by her, and that He was her Beloved. But He says : If I be the Lord, where is My fear ? (Mai. i. 6).

If, then, to them this revelation was attended with fear, for where the Lord is there fear must be [to those who behold Him], I certainly, if the choice were given to me, would prefer the vision of the Bride, and that with so much more willingness and gladness, as I perceive that it is the occasion of a nobler feeling, that is, love. For fear hath torment, but perfect love casteth out fear (1 John iv. 18). Great is the difference between [the Lord] appearing terrible in His doings toward the children of men (Ps. lxvi. 5) and His appearing fairer than the children of men (Ps. xlv. 2). Behold Thou art fair, my Beloved, yea, pleasant I These words express affection, not fear. 7. But perhaps thoughts arise in your heart, and you ask doubtfully : ' By what means can the words of the Word, spoken to the soul, and again those of the soul to the Word, be rendered audible, so that the soul should hear the Voice of Him that speaks to her, and praises her as fair, and should pour forth in turn her tribute to Him who has praised her ? How can that take place ? For it is not the word which speaks, but we speak by the word. Also the

soul has no means of speech, except by the words which the bodily organs articulate for her for that purpose.' A very reasonable inquiry ; but consider that it is the spirit which speaks, and that [the speaking as well as] the things spoken are to be spiritually understood. As often, then, as you hear or read that the Word and the soul behold each other or converse together, do not imagine that they behold visible bodily forms, or that audible words pass from one to the other. This is what you ought rather to think. The Word is Spirit ; the soul is a spirit also ; they have faculties [linguas] of their own for indicating their presence, and for communicating the one with the other. The tongue of the Word is the favour of His condescension j that of the soul is the fervour of its devotion. The soul which has no devotion is like an infant and speechless, and to such an one no discourse with the Word is possible. Therefore when the Word wishes to speak to the soul, and thus moves His tongue, the soul cannot but hear, for the Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul atid spirit (Heb. iv.

12). And, again, when the soul thus addresses the Word, He Digitized by Google. 280 cannot possibly be unconscious of it ; not only because He is everywhere present, but still more and especially because the tongue of devotion is never stirred to speak, except by an impulse from Him. 8. Therefore for the Word to call a soul beloved, and say to it, thou art fair, is to pour upon it the grace which shall enable it to love, and to know itself loved. In like manner, when the soul in turn names the Word her Beloved and speaks of Him as full of beauty, it is that she ascribes to Him, without fiction or disguise, the grace that she has to love Him and to be loved by Him ; it is that she admires His condescension, and wonders at the greatness of His grace. Indeed, His fairness consists in His love, and that is the greater because it was the earlier (praveniens). For this reason it is that she cries in the depths of her heart, and with all the powers of her strongest affections, that she is bound to love Him, and with so much stronger an affection, because He first loved her. Therefore the speech of the Word is an infusion of grace, and the

response of the soul is the giving of thanks and glory. She loves so much the more ardently, because she feels that the affection of her Spouse surpasses her own, and her admiration is the greater, because that affection preceded hers. On that account it is that she is not content with saying once that He is full of beauty ; she repeats her praise in order to heighten it by repetition. 9. Or perhaps that double phrase may be explained as applying to the two Natures in Christ — in the one the beauty of nature, in the other that of grace. How beautiful art Thou to Thy Angels, O Lord Jesus, in the Form of God, in Thy Eternal Nature, begotten before the morning star, in the splendour of Thy saints, who art Thyself the Form and Splendour of the Substance of the Father, in whom the glory and brightness of life eternal are resplendent from everlasting !

How august art Thou to me also, O my Lord, when I contemplate Thee in that state of glory which is Thine ! Even when Thou didst empty Thyself of Thy glory, when Thou layedst down the rays of splendour proper to that unfailing Light, even then Thy kindness shone the more brightly, Thy charity was more conspicuous, Thy grace the more radiant. O Star out of Jacob, how beautiful Thou art unto me in Thy rising (Num. xxiv. 17) ; O Branch springing out of the stem of Jesse (Is. xi. t), how bright is Thy Flower; O Dayspring from on High, in what joyful light hast Thou visited me, who sat in darkness ! (Luke i. 78). What an object of admiration and wonder is He, even to the heavenly Virtues, in His Conception by the Holy Ghost, in His Birth of the Virgin Mary, in the spotless innocence of His Life, in the flowing streams of His doctrine, in the glistering brightness of His miracles, in the mysteries revealed by His Sacraments ! In what blaze of glory dost Thou rise, O Sun of Righteousness, from the heart of the earth, after Thy setting [in death] ! In what a resplendent vesture (Is. lxiii. 1), O King of glory, dost Thou enter again the highest heaven ! At the sight of all these marvels, how can I do otherwise than cry, All my bones s/iall say, Lord, who is like unto thee f (Ps. xxxv. 10).

Digitized by Google THE STATE AND COMPOSITION OF THE WHOLE CHURCH 28 1 10. Believe, then, that the Bride, in beholding her Beloved, saw these and similar excellences in Him when she said : Behold, Thou art /air, my love ; behold, Thou art fair. Nor is it these only, but without doubt some other wonder of the beauty of the higher nature which she had remarked, which transcends our capacity of knowledge, and lies altogether beyond our experience. That repetition points out, then, the perfection of Jesus in each of His two Natures.

Hear also how, transported with the sight and at the words of her Beloved, she leaps, as it were, with joy, and sings before Him a nuptial song, full of tender and loving sentiments : Our bed is flourishing; the beams of our houses are of cedar, our rafters of cypress (i. 16, Douay). But let us reserve that song of the Bride for another beginning in a newer day ; so that, being rendered more willing and active by repose, we may the more readily be glad and rejoice with her, to the praise and glory of her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen. of the state and composition of the whole church, also of the manner in which, by an active life spent under obedience, the life of contemplation may be attained. ' Our bed is flourishing; the beams of our houses are of cedar \ our rafters of cypress* — Cant. i. 16.

HIS is an Epithalamium she is singing ; and she describes in graceful phrase the nuptial chamber and bed. She invites the Bridegroom to repose ; for, indeed, it is better for her to rest and be with Christ. It is only for the sake of saving souls that it is necessary for her to go forth. But now, believing that she has found a suitable opportunity, she announces that the chamber is decked ; she points out the couch, as it were, with the finger ; she invites, as I have said, the beloved one to rest there ; and, like the Apostles going to Emmaus, not being able to endure the fire of love burning within her heart, she constrains Him to accept the hospitality of mind and soul, to abide with her for the night (Luke xxiv. 29, 32), and says with Peter : Lord, it is good for us to be here (Matt. xvii. 4). 2. Let us now inquire what is the spiritual significance of all these things. First, it refers to the Church. And I consider that the in which a quiet and peaceable life is passed, exempt from the cares and inquietudes of the world. That bed is said to be decked or adorned, because the life and appointed course of the brethren is adorned and rendered bright by the examples and precepts of our fathers, as if bedecked with fragrant flowers. By ' houses ' we are to

Digitized by 282 understand the great masses of Christians, which those among them who are set in offices of power and dignity, such as Princes of the Church and of the State, bind together, and retain them each strongly in his place, as the beams and rafters of a house retain the walls, by the just and firm laws laid upon them ; lest, if everyone lived in his own way and at his own pleasure, they should disunite from each other like walls that begin to bend and spread, and thus the entire structure of the edifice falls to pieces and is destroyed.

As for the ' rafters/1 which are firmly attached to beams, and are a striking ornament to the mansions of the great, I take the term to signify the kindly and regular lives and characters of a clergy properly taught and ordained, and of the rites of the Church rightly performed and administered. For how shall the Orders of the clergy be able to subsist, or the charges of the Church be administered, if Princes did not, like strong and substantial beams, both protect them by their power, and maintain them by their munificence ? 3. If the beams are said to be of cedar, and the crossing-rafters of cypress, it is, without doubt, because the nature of each of these kinds of wood has something which befits the meaning intended.

The cedar being a tree of lofty height, and of which the wood is fragrant and incapable of decay, denotes with sufficient fitness the qualities needed in those men who are to hold, as it were, the place of beams in the Church. For those who are set over others need to be strong and steadfast, hopeful and patient, that their eyes and their mind should be lifted up to heavenly things ; and that, spreading abroad everywhere the good odour of their faith and life, they should be able to say with the Apostle : We are unto God a stveet savour of Christ in every place (2 Cor. ii. 15). The cypress, also, being similarly a fragrant and incorruptible wood, signifies and declares that every person, whosoever he may be, that is in Holy Orders ought to be of right faith and of pure life, that he may be worthy to serve as the ornament of the house of God, and to be in it, as it were, as its panelled ceiling, enriched with colours and gold. For what saith the Psalmist : Holiness becometh Thine House, O Lord, for ever (Ps. xciii. 5). In which words are well expressed both the beauty of holiness, and the endurance of a neverfailing grace. It is obviously necessary that the man who is chosen to be the ornament and decoration of that House should be himself adorned with goodness of life and character; and although he ought always to have the inward witness (that is, of his own conscience), yet he should also be such an one as has a good testimony from them who are without There are other qualities still in these woods, which have no little relation to those spiritual truths of which we are treating ; but I pass them over for the sake of brevity. planks crossing each other at regular intervals to compose the ceiling of a room ; but in later times they were painted, gilded, or inlaid with ivory and enamels. See Cheatham's 4 Dictionary of Antiquities,' art. Lacunary Work.— Ed.

Digitized by Google 4. As to the well being of the Church, it is happily expressed in a very few words: the authority of prelates, the good life and good report of the clergy, the disciplined obedience of the people, and the peaceful devotion of monks. When in each of these respects all is well, the holy Church, our mother, rejoices in the contemplation of them, and presents them to the sight of her Beloved ; she refers all things to His goodness as their cause, knowing that He is the Author and Giver of all good things ; nor does she attribute anything to herself.

For she says : Our bed, and, The beams of our houses, and the rafters ; this is a sign of her affection, not of her usurping the ownership of these things ; the very abundance of her affection gives her such confidence, that she regards nothing which appertains to Him whom she so loves as unconnected with herself. She believes that she is not to be excluded from the companionship of her Spouse, or from the sharing of His repose ; inasmuch as she is accustomed to seek, not her own interests, but His. And it is for that reason that she ventures to speak of, as common to both, the bed and the mansion which are His. She is bold to associate herself in the possession of those things which belong to Him, with whom she knows herself to be associated in love. It is not thus with that soul which has not yet given up her own will, but dwells amid her own possessions, and lies down by herself ; or, I should say more accurately, not by herself, but who dwells and associates in disorder and shamelessness with harlots; I speak of the lusts of the flesh, with whom that soul squanders its good things, and wastes its portion of the Father's substance, for which it

had made request (Luke xv. 12). 5. But is it the case with you, who hear or read these words of the Holy Spirit, that you think some of these things which are said capable of being applied to yourself ; that you recognise in your own soul somewhat of the felicity of the Bride which is chanted in this song of love by the Holy Spirit Himself ; and yet it is perhaps said to you also that you hear His Voice, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth (John iii. 8) ? Perhaps you desire also the repose of contemplation ; and in this you do well, provided that you do not forget the floivers with which, as you read, the couch of the Bride is strewed. Therefore do thou take great care similarly to wreathe around thine the blossoms of good works, and to make the exercise of virtues precede that sacred rest, as the flower goes before the fruit. Otherwise, it would be self-indulgent that you should so earnestly desire to rest before you have earned that rest by labour, and you would be neglecting the fruitfulness of Leah in desiring to enjoy only the society of Rachel. But it would be a reversing of the proper order to ask for the

reward before having earned it, and to grasp at the mid-day meal before performing the labour, of which the Apostle says : If a man will not work, neither shall he eat (2 Thess. iii. 10).

And what says the Psalmist? Through Thy precepts I get understanding (Ps. cxix. 104), so to teach you that the taste for contemplation is not due except to obedience to God s commandments. Do Digitized by Google 284 not, then, imagine that the love of your own repose is to be in any wise made a hindrance to works of holy obedience, or to the fulfilment of the traditions of the elders. Do not suppose that you will have the company of the Bridegroom for that bed, which you have strewed, not with the flowers of obedience, but with hemlock, and even with weeds and nettles, by your disobedient conduct. When it is thus with you, this is the reason that He will not hear and answer your prayers, and that when you call Him He will not come ; for He who is so great a lover of obedience that He preferred to die rather than not to obey [His Father], will assuredly not bestow His gifts upon one who is disobedient. And how should He approve the inane idleness which you call contemplation ? For He says by the prophet : / have laboured with patience (Jer. vi. n), referring to the time when, an exile from the heaven of perfect peace, which is His country, He accomplished salvation for us in the midst of the earth.

But I fear the more lest that fearful judgment should involve you also which once thundered against the treachery of the Jews in these words : Your new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with ; and again : Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth ; they are a trouble unto Me (Is. i. 13, 14). And the prophet will weep over you, and say : The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbat/is (Lam. i. 7). For why shall not an adversary mock at that which the Beloved rejects ? 6. I am extremely surprised at the shamelessness of some among us who, after having troubled us all by their singularity, annoyed us by their impatience, and contemned us by their contumacy and rebellion,1 have, nevertheless, actually the boldness to invite, and that with importunate prayers, the Lord of all purity to come into the foul resting-place of their conscience. But what does the Lord say to such ? When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you ; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear (Is. i. 15).

And why ? Because your bed, far from being strewed with flowers, is defiled with filth. And do you dare to invite the King of glory thither ? Do you think that He will rest there for a moment, or are you doing this to ensure reproof to yourself? The centurion in the Gospel prayed that the Lord would not come under his roof, because of his un worthiness, and yet there was not found such faith as His even in all Israel (Matt. viii. 8, 10) ; and you would have the Lord to enter your soul, reeking as it is with the foul vestiges of your vices ? The Prince of the Apostles cries out : Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Luke v. 8) ; and do you say : 4 Come to this clause is wanting in most MSS., and is a mere repetition of the words which precede. The earliest editions contain them, but omit * suA conttimaciti et reMliene contempserirtj.' A certain degree of surprise may be felt that in a community of so high a character as that of Clairvaux, any members should be found so insubordinate as those referred to by St. Bernard in this passage. But the fact is shown still more clearly in Serm. LXXXIV., n. 4, and in the c Life,' Bk. vii. It is evident that the evil are mingled with the good everywhere.

Digitized by Google me, Lord, and enter into my heart, for I am holy ?' Be ye all of one mind, says the same Apostle, love as brethren (i Peter iii. 8). And he who was ' a chosen vessel ' says : Lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting (i Tim. ii. 8). Do you see, then, how the Prince of the Apostles and the Apostle of the Gentiles agree and speak in the same spirit with regard to the peace and tran/quillity which the person who prays ought to possess? You may stretch out your hands to God all the day long, you who all the day long are engaged in distressing your brethren, destroying tranquillity, and separating yourself from unity [but it is to no purpose]. 7. * What, then/ you ask, * would you have me to do ?' In the first place, I would have you cleanse your conscience from every defilement of anger, and murmuring, and envy, and dispute ; and that you should hasten to banish from the hiding-place of your heart all that evidently conflicts with the peace which ought to reign among brethren, and the obedience due to your elders. In the next place, I should wish you to adorn yourself with the flowers of good works and laudable studies of every kind, and seek the sweet perfumes of all virtues ; or, in other words, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, ivhatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report \ if there be any virtue, if there be any praise of discipline, think on these things (Phil. iv. 8, Vulg.), and endeavour to employ yourself in them.

To that end you shall call upon the Bridegroom, and then with confidence, because when you shall bring Him into your soul you, too, shall be able to declare truthfully, our bed is adorned ; because your conscience shall everywhere be fragrant with the perfumes of piety, of peace, of gentleness, of justice, of obedience, of cheerfulness, of humility. Let this suffice as regards the bed. 8. As to the house. Each person, provided that he walks, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, ought to regard himself as spiritually a house of God. The Temple of God is holy, says the Apostle St. Paul, which Temple ye are (1 Cor. iii. 17). Take careful heed, then, brethren, of that spiritual building, which is no other than your own selves, lest, perhaps, when it begins to rise to a loftier height, if the beams of it be not strong, firmly fixed, and well bound and braced together, it should totter and fall ; take careful heed, I say, that the beams you use are such as are sound and will not decay, such as are massive and will not bend — that is to say, use the fear of the Lord, which is clean, and endureth for ever (Ps. xix. 9) ; and patience, of which it

is written, the patience of the poor shall not perish for ever (Ps. ix. 18) ; long-suffering, also, which perseveres without bending under the weight of the structure laid upon it, whatever it be, and is extended even unto the unending ages of the life of blessedness, according to the saying of our Saviour in the Gospel : Whosoever endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved (Matt. x. 22) ; and, above all, use charity, which never faileth (1 Cor. xiii. 8), because, as is said in this Song, it is as strong as death (Cant. viii. 6), though Digitized by 286 jealousy be cruel as the grave. Lastly, take careful heed to underprop and brace firmly together these, the great beams of the structure, with other timbers equally precious and beautiful, if you have it in your power so to do ; they will serve to form the panelled and fretted ceiling, and to render the house beautiful ; I mean the utterance and teaching of wisdom or knowledge, prophecy, the gift of healing, interpretation of the Scriptures, and other such gifts, which are known to serve rather to the beautifying and perfecting of the character than to be necessary to the salvation of the soul. Concerning these I have no precept to give you ; I

have only this advice : that since, as it is abundantly evident, timbers (so to speak) of this kind must be sought with much labour, are found with difficulty, and, if found, are not made fit for use without considerable risk, for our earth, especially in these times, is found to produce but few such ; for these reasons my counsel and warning to you is, that such as these should not be too eagerly sought for, but that you should make use of other and humbler woods for the panelling of your roofs, which, though they be less splendid in appearance, are shown by experience to be not less useful and strong, and, moreover, are to be obtained with far greater safety and ease. 9. I earnestly desire, also, that I may be possessed of an abundance of those other woods which grow so freely in the garden of the Bridegroom — that is, the Church — I mean peace, goodness, gentleness, joy in the Holy Ghost, the showing mercy with cheerfulness, the giving with simplicity, the rejoicing with them that do rejoice, and weeping with them that weep. Do you not think that a house is (as far as regards the ceiling) sufficiently well adorned when you perceive that it is panelled with such woods as these, skilfully

arranged, and in sufficient quantity? Lord, I have loved the honour of Thy House (Ps. xxvi. &). Bestow upon me always, I entreat, the materials wherewith to adorn the chamber of my own conscience, and of that of others, so that it may be made ready for Thy searching view. With these I shall be content. There will be those also who, following my judgment in this matter, will be content also, because they believe that Thou wilt be so ; the other [and higher endowments] I relinquish to holy Apostles and apostolic men. But do you also, my beloved, even though you are without those more precious woods, yet if these others are yours, have no fear ; approach with confidence to that chief corner-stone, elect and precious, and be ye also built up, as living stones, upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, into a spiritual house, so that you are [made to be] a holy Priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, by Jesus Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom of the Church, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Digitized by Google 287

OF THE THREEFOLD FLOWER [OF HOLINESS], NAMELY, OF VIRGINITY, OF MARTYRDOM, AND OF GOOD WORKS ; AND OF THE DEVOTION I SUPPOSE that this recalls what the Bride had said in commendation of their couch, that it was decked with flowers. For, lest she should take to herself the praise of the flowers wherewith the couch is decked and the chamber adorned, the Bridegroom replies that He is Himself the Rose of the plain [of Sharon] ; that the flowers do not grow in the chamber, but in the plain, from which is derived their beauty and their fragrance. Lest, then, any should have it in their power to reproach His Bride, and to say to her : What hast thou which thou didst not receive ? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1 Cor. iv. 7) He Himself, as a solicitous lover and kindly censor, deigns to point out benignantly to His beloved to whom she ought to attribute the beauty and the fragrance of her couch in which she was glorying. / am the Rose of Sharon, He says ; it is to Me you owe that of which you boast. We are here warned, then, to our great benefit, that it behoves us by no means

to glorify ourselves ; if any glory, let him glory in the Lord (2 Cor. x. 17). So much with regard to the letter; let us now examine, with the help of Him who is the subject of it, into the spiritual sense which it contains. 2. In the first place, notice that there are three conditions referred to in which a flower may be — in the plain, in the garden, and on the couch : and then you will more easily understand why the speaker has chosen to call Himself, by preference, the Rose of [the field of] Sharon. Flowers grow and bloom in fields and in gardens, but not in the chamber. There they show their beauty and exhale their fragrance, but not erect upon the stem, as in the place where they have grown : they are severed and prostrate, because they have not grown there, but have been brought. They have to be watered, and to be frequently renewed, because they do not long retain their beauty and freshness. If, as I have foreshown in another discourse, the couch strewn with flowers means the soul stored with good works, then, to maintain the same metaphor, you see clearly that it is not sufficient to do once or twice merely that which is right, but that

it is needful to add new deeds of good constantly to the former, so that having sown deeds of blessing, you may reap blessings also. Otherwise the flowers of good works wither and fall, and [the adornment formed of them] speedily loses all beauty and strength, unless they are continually renewed by fresh blossoms of good works piled upon the old. Thus much as regards the chamber.

Digitized by 288 3. In the garden and in the plain it is not so. There flowers once produced are constantly nourished, and so are long maintained in the beauty natural to them. Yet there is this difference between them, that the garden, in order to produce flowers, needs the labour and the skill of man who cultivates it ; but the field produces its bloom naturally, and of its own accord, without any aid from the industry of man. Now, do you already perceive what is signified by that field, which, though neither furrowed by the ploughshare, nor broken by the hoe, nor enriched by manure, is yet rendered beautiful by its carpet of flowers, upon which, without doubt, rests a blessing from the Spirit of the Lord? See, it is said in the Scripture, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed (Gen. xxvii. 27). That flower of the field was not as yet clad in its full beauty, yet it already exhaled fragrance, which the holy and aged Patriarch, though feeble in body, perceived beforehand in the spirit, as his joyful exclamation shows ; for though he was deprived of sight, its sweet scent was very apparent to him. It was not fitting, then, that the Bridegroom should

call Himself a flower of the chamber, because He is a flower whose bloom is perpetual ; nor yet of the garden, lest He might seem to be engendered by the operation of man. But He says with the fullest fitness and grace : I am the Rose of the field of Sharon ; for He appeared without any effort or cooperation of man, and when He had appeared He was at no time subject to corruption, according to the saying of the Prophet : Thou shall not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption (Ps. xvi. 10). 4. But let me, if you please, give you another explanation of this, which seems to me quite worth consideration ; for why has the Wise Man said that the Spirit manifests Himself in many forms, unless that He is wont frequently to hide under the bark, as it were, of the same text several and diverse spiritual senses ? According, then, to the division which I gave before of the various states of flowers, there are three distinct blooms — virginity, martyrdom, and a holy life.1 Virginity is the flower in the garden ; martyrdom that in the field ; a holy life that in the chamber. Rightly is virginity compared to a flower in the garden, inasmuch as it is

nearly related to modesty— it flies from publicity, it rejoices in concealment, it is willing to endure rule and discipline. Furthermore, in a garden flowers are enclosed, while in the field they are open to the view of all, and in the chamber they are strewed or scattered. So we read : A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed (Cant. iv. 12), which phrase expresses the bulwark of modesty, and the inviolate defence which preserves the sanctity of a virgin soul, provided that its sanctity is both in body and spirit Martyrdom, again, is well said to be a flower of the field, since martyrs are exposed to the mockery of all, and made a spectacle both to Angels and men. Is not theirs the pitiable condition which is described in the Psalms ? — We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us (Ps. Ixxix. 4).

Digitized by Google 289 The good actions of a holy life, also, are well compared to flowers in a chamber, for they produce the testimony of a quiet and safe conscience.

After a good work the repose of quiet contemplation is entered upon more securely ; and the more fully a man is conscious of not having been wanting through inertness or love of self in the performance of good works, the more confidence will he have in attempting to view and to investigate deeper and loftier truths. 5. In a certain sense all these things represent to us the Lord Jesus. He is the Flower of the garden, the Virgin Birth of a Virgin Mother, herself a shoot [from the stem of David].1 He is the Flower of the field — a martyr, the pattern of martyrdom, and the crown of martyrs. He was led forth out of the city, He suffered 4 without the camp,' He was raised upon the Cross to be seen of men, He was made the object of universal scorn. He is the Flower of the chamber also ; the mirror and the model of every kind of beneficence, as He Himself declared in His protest to the Jews : Many good works have I showed you from My Father (John x. 32); and the Scripture also testifies of Him : He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed (Acts x. 38). If, then, each of these three represents the Lord, for

what reason has He preferred to call Himself the Flower of the field only ? It was doubtless that He might encourage the Church, His Bride, to endure the persecution which He knew was impending over each soul which should desire to live godly in Christ Jesus. He does this that He may make it the better known in what He most desires to find imitators. It is because the Church, as I have said elsewhere, always desires repose and quiet, while He, on the contrary, urges her to earnest effort, forewarning her that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God (Acts xiv. 22). On which account also, when He had espoused to Himself the new Church which He had founded upon the earth, He said [to her members] : The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service (John xvi. 2) ; and again : If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (xv. 20), and many other similar sayings, which you may easily find for yourselves in the Gospels, in which He warns them to be prepared to endure suffering. 6. / am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valleys. She then points to the couch ; but He summons her to the plain

— that is, He excites her to vigorous effort. He regards it as the most persuasive argument possible to her to enter upon this struggle that He should propose Himself to her either as an example for one engaged in the struggle, or a reward for one that has overcome in it The words may be understood in either of these two senses. Thou, O Lord Jesus, art to me both a mirror of endurance and the reward of enduring.

The one is a powerful incentive; the other a great encouragement.

By the example of Thy valour Thou dost teach my hands to war ; by the Presence of Thy Majesty Thou dost crown me after the victory. Whether I view Thee as a combatant in the midst 19 Digitized by Google 290 of the strife [with evil], or regard Thee as at once the Bestower of the crown of victory, and that crown itself ; in either case Thou dost attract me wonderfully to Thyself ; in either capacity Thou art as a strong cable to draw me after Thee. * Draw me ; we will run after Thee.' Willingly do I follow ; more willingly still do I enjoy the fruits [of obedience]. If Thou, O Lord, art so good to those who seek Thee, what shall Thy goodness be to those who find?1 lam the Flower of the field. Let him who loves Me come into the field ; let him not refuse to engage in the combat with Me and for Me, that he may have it in his power to say with St. Paul : I have fought a good fight (2 Tim. iv. 7). 7. And as it is not the proud and arrogant, but rather the humble, who do not presume that they are able to do anything as of themselves, that are really fit for martyrdom, so the Lord adds : I am the Lily of the valleys — that is to say, the crown of the humble, wishing to mark by the commanding height of this flower over others, the special glory of their future exaltation.2 For there will be a time when every valley shall be exalted , and every mountain and hill shall be made low (Is. xl. 4), and then shall appear that splendour of eternal life— the lily, so to. speak, not of the hills, but of the valleys. The righteous? says the prophet, shall grow as the lily (Hos. xiv. 5) ; and who is righteous except he be humble? Thus, when the Lord bent Himself to the hands of His servant John, and the Baptist was stricken with awe of His Majesty, the Lord said : Suffer it to be so noiv, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness (MM. iii. 15), showing that He considered the consummation of righteousness to consist in perfect humility. The righteous man, then, is humble ; he is of the valley.

And we also, if we are found humble, shall grow as the lily, and bloom for ever before the Lord. Shall he not, then, truly and completely show himself the lily of the valleys, when the Lord shall * Quam pius es petentibus Quam bonus Te quarcntibus Sed quid invenientibus f This is one of the coincidences in thought and expression (of which there are noi a few) between the prose works of St. Bernard and some of the hymns which have come down to us under his name, which show without doubt that if the latter were not written by St. Bernard propria* manu (which is, upon the whole, the more probable conclusion) they are, at the least, a cento of Bernardine phrases. But see M. Haureau, 4 Des Poemes Latins attribues a St. Bernard,' p. 63 (Paris, 1890). Compare also Serm. IV., De Diversis, n. 1.— Ed. clustered stalks of the Convallaria majalis% with their white pendent flowers. But this flower is a native of Britain, and, as far as I know, is not found at all in Palestine.

There is much difficulty is exactly determining the flower intended here by the word shush&n. The white lotus, tulip, or amaryllis, and the ' Crown Imperial/ have been suggested by various commentators as being meant. But the flower which seems best to satisfy the various requirements of this and other passages of Scripture is the scarlet martagon {Lilium Chalcedonicum\ which grows in profusion throughout the Levant. See Matt vi. 28, Luke xii. 27.— Ed.

Digitized by Google 291 change the body of our humility, and make it like unto the Body of His Glory (Phil. iii. 21)? He does not say 'our body,' but 4 the body of our humility* ; and thus signifies that it is only those who are humble who shall be rendered glorious with the wonderful and immortal splendour of that Divine Lily. Thus much, then, with regard to the words of the Bridegroom, in which He testifies that He is the Rose of the field of Sharon, and the Lily of the valleys. 8. It would be interesting to go on here without a break to comment on what He says with regard to His Bride most dear ; but the time does not permit. For by our Rule (Rule S. Bened., c. 43) nothing must be preferred to 'the Service of God/1 which is the name that our father Benedict desired to be given to the solemnities of Divine worship, which are offered day by day in our oratory, thus showing more clearly how desirous he was that we should apply ourselves with all our heart to that holy work. Therefore I warn and entreat you, beloved, always to occupy yourselves in the praises of God with pure hearts and earnest minds. With earnestness, so as to present

yourselves at the worship of the Lord, as well with willingness and gladness, as with reverence ; not with laziness and sleepiness, not yawning, not keeping silence, not cutting your words short, or even passing over some altogether, not chanting through the nose or between the teeth, with broken and lowered voice, in a lazy and effeminate fashion, but pronouncing the words of the Holy Spirit with manly and earnest voices, which correspond with the dignity of the subjects of which they speak. And purely also — that is to say, so as to occupy your thoughts while you are chanting with nothing else than the words which you are chanting. I do not refer only to the avoiding vain and idle thoughts ; those also should at that hour, and in that place at least, be repressed which relate to the duties and occupations which those brethren who are entrusted with various2 functions are obliged, at other times, for the common good, and, as it were, of necessity, to employ their thoughts upon. I do not counsel you to carry with you when you go into the choir even those thoughts which you have derived from the books which you have been recently reading while sitting in the cloister, or 'those which have come to you from my voice,

in this lecture-hall (auditorio) of the Holy Spirit. They are, indeed, to edification ; but they do not edify you when you reflect upon them while you are chanting. For the Holy Spirit does not regard as acceptable that which you allow to obtrude at such an hour, which has no concern with your immediate duty, and occasions the neglect of a part of it. We are always capable, by His holy inspiration, of making our will conformable to His Divine Will; through the grace and mercy of Him who is the Bridegroom of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen. tinguished from the cloistered or choir brethren in Semi. IX., De Diver sis, n. 4, and farther on in Serm. LVII., n. 11. Digitized by Google 292

OF THE PRAISES WHICH THE BRIDE AND THE BRIDEGROOM ADDRESS RECIPROCALLY TO EACH OTHER ; AND HOW BY THE SHADOW OF CHRIST IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD HIS FLESH AND FAITH IN HIM. * As the lily among thorns,1 so is my love among the daughters,1 — Cant. ii. 2. THEY are not good daughters who, like thorns, pierce and trouble. Consider the evil race of plants which our earth produces, since it was cursed by sin. T/iorns and thistles, saith the Scripture, shall it bring forth to thee (Gen. iii. 1 8). As long as the soul is clothed in flesh, its course lies among thorns ; nor can it avoid having to bear the inquietude of temptations, and the sharp piercing of troubles. If the Bride is a lily, according to the words of the Bridegroom, let her understand with what vigilance and care she ought to watch over her conduct, surrounded as she is on all sides with thorns, of which the sharp points encounter her everywhere.

For the tender substance of a flower is unable to endure the slightest puncture of a thorn without injury. Do you feel, then, with how great need and propriety the Psalmist exhorts us to setve the Lord with fear (Ps. ii. 11); and the Apostle also, when he bids us ivork out your oum salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. ii. 12)? They had learned the truth of that saying by their own experience as friends of the Bridegroom, whose course was full of difficulty, and believed that it applied truly to their souls : As a lily among thorns, so is My lave among the daughters. One of them, in fact, says : I am turned in my anguish, while the thorn is fastened (Ps. xxxi. 4, Douay). And it was well that he was thus pierced, since by the anguish of the wound he was turned to repentance. The piercing of the thorns is good for you if it brings you to repent. Many correct their fault when they feel the penalty of it ; and such may take these words for their own.

A fault is a thorn, so also is its punishment ; and in like manner a false brother, or an evil neighbour, may be considered as a thorn. 2. As a lily among thorns, so is My love among the daughters. O lily, bloom bright, shining and beautiful, but tender and delicate, doubters and subverters are all around thee ! Among the thorns, what caution and circumspection you have need of! The world is full of thorns ; they are on the earth and in the air, and even in your own flesh. To live among these thorns and tion of this phrase in his account of the Huleh lily : * It is very large, and the three inner petals meet above and form a gorgeous canopy, such as art never approached, and king never sat under, even in his utmost glory. . . . This flower delights most in the valleys, but is also found on the mountains ; it grows among thorns, and I have sadly lacerated my hands in extricating it from them. Nothing can be in higher contrast than the luxuriant velvety softness of this lily and the crabbed, tingled hedge of thorns about it.* — Ed.

Digitized by Google 293 not to be torn by them, is the effect of Divine power, not of any efforts of your own. But be of good cheer, said the Lord, I have overcome the world (John xvi. 33). Even though in looking forward you see troubles and trials, as it were the sharp points of thorns threatening you, yet let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, remembering that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed (Rom. v. 3). Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow and shine bravely even in the midst of thorns. If God so care-for the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven (Matt vi. 28-30), how much more shall He care for her who is His very dear and cherished Bride ! Assuredly the Lord preservetk all them that love Him (Ps. cxlv. 20). As a lily among thorns, so is My lo7'e among the daughters.

It is no small proof of virtue to live a good life among the depraved, to preserve the pureness of innocence, and gentleness of character, among the evil-disposed ; it is a still greater one to be peaceful with those who are hostile to peace, and to show yourself a friend to your enemies themselves. That will evidently constitute a special degree of likeness to the lily, which does not cease to adorn and beautify with its own fairness the very thorns which pierce it. Does it not seem to you that this is to become a lily in truth, to fulfil in a certain way the perfection taught in the Gospel, in which we are bidden to pray for those who despitefully use us, to do good to them which hate us? (Luke vi. 27, 28). Do you, then, do likewise, and your soul shall be dear to the Lord, and He shall praise you, and say of you : As a lily among thorns, so is My love among the daughters. 3. We read farther on : As the apple-tree among the trees of the woody so is my Beloved among the sons (ii. 3). To the commendations of the Bridegroom the Bride renders her praise in return ; to praise Him is to acknowledge and to admire

the Being who is truly worthy of all praise, and to be praised by Him is to be rendered deserving of the praises given. And as the Bridegroom has praised her under the figure of a flower of surpassing beauty, so she declares His unmatched glory and eminence by comparing Him to a tree of great excellence. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the tree named is not so beautiful as some others, so that it is not fully worthy to be employed as a comparison, not being able to set forth sufficiently all His praise. Nor, indeed, does the Bride seem to have estimated it very highly, inasmuch as she puts it in comparison only with the trees of the forest,1 which are sterile, or, at least, unable to produce fruits fit for human food. Why, then, are better and nobler trees omitted, and this of but moderate merit brought forward for the purpose of setting forth the praise of the Bridegroom ? Ought He, who has not received the Spirit by measure (John iii. 34), to have this measured praise given to Him? It seems to me that He, who has no equal, is spoken of in the making of this similitude2 as if there Digitized by Google ' 294 might be a superior to Him. What shall

we say to these things ? I confess that the praise is small ; but this is because He who receives it is not considered in His greatness. For He is not spoken of here as the Lord who is great, and greatly to be praised (Ps. cxlv. 3), but as He who, though He is the Lord, is a little Child, and is greatly to be loved. For unto us a Child is born (Is. ix. 6). 4. Therefore it is not His Majesty that is exalted here, but His Humility that is commended; and this is reasonable and right, because the weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor. i. 25). Those [men] are as barren trees of the forest, inasmuch as, according to the Prophet, they are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together ; there is none that doeth good, no not one (Ps. xiii. 3, Douay). Alone among the trees of the forest the Lord Jesus is a tree bearing fruit — I mean with respect to His Manhood — and though set above the sons of men He is made a little lower than the Angels (Ps. viii. 5). For by a wonderful mystery He both, in becoming Flesh, made Himself to be

a little lower than the Angels, and. remaining God, always retained the Angels in subjection to Him. Thou shalt see, says the Scripture, Angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John i. 51), because that in one and the same Man, who is Christ Jesus, they both sustain the weakness and humbly adore the Majesty. But as the Bride finds greater sweetness in considering Him in His humility, she extols with greater willingness His* grace, she magnifies His mercy, she is lost in wonder at His condescension. Her delight is to admire [in Him] a Man among men, not God among the Angels ; just as an apple-tree among the trees of the forest is indisputably superior, but not so evidently among the trees of a garden. Nor does she consider that His praises are diminished when the goodness and kindness of His actions are raised still more highly by the thought of His physical weakness. For if, on the one side, she retrenches somewhat from His praise, on the other she fully supplies it, and forbears to dilate upon the glory of His Greatness that she may extol still more the grace of His condescension. For as the Apostle says that the weakness of God is stronger, and the foolishness of God wiser, than men, but does

not say 'than Angels'; and as the Psalmist declares of the Bridegroom : Thou art fairer than the children of men (Ps. xlv. 2), but does not say 'fairer than Angels/ so when the Bride speaks here, assuredly by the same Spirit, of the Man-God under the figure of a fruit-bearing tree as compared with forest trees, the intention plainly was to exalt Him above all the favour of men, but not above the excellence of Angels. 5. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons. Most fitly is it said among the sons, because, being the Only-Begotten Son of His Father, He has made it His object, Sept.) some nobler fruit-tree than the apple, as, for example, the quince, citron, or orange ; but the received rendering seems to be correct. — Ed.

Digitized by Google 295 and without jealousy, to acquire for Him many sons, whom He is not ashamed to call His brothers, so that He may be the first-born among many brethren. But He, who is the Son by Nature, is of right preferred to all those adopted sons, who are children by grace.

Just, also, is the simile, as the apple-tree, to Him who, like a fruitful tree, affords a refreshing shadow as well as valuable fruit. Is not that truly a fruit-bearing tree, whose flowers are the fruit of honour and riches? (Ecclus. xxiv. 17). Assuredly He is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon Him (Prov. iii. 18). All the trees of the forest, however fair and however great they be, shall not be compared unto Him ; not even those who seem to be helpful by their prayers and their ministry, by their teaching or their holy example; for Christ alone, the Wisdom of God, is the Tree of Life (Rev. xxii. 2), the Living Bread which came down from heaven and giveth life unto the world (John vi. 41; 33). 6. Therefore it is that she goes on to say : I sat down under His s/iado7it with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste. She might well long for the shadow of Him, from whom she has both grateful shelter, and will receive needful nourishment. Other trees of the forest afford, indeed, a shadow from the heat, but they have not the Bread of Life, the immortal fruits of salvation. For there is one Author of Life, and One Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. ii. 5), and it is He who says to His Bride : from Heaven, but My Father giveth you the True Bread from Heaven (John vi. 32). On this account, then, she had desired greatly the shadow of Christ, because it is He alone who shelters her from the hot breath of vices, and also fills her with the refreshment and joy of virtue. His Shadow is His Human Nature, and [that which brings me under the shelter of] His Shadow is faith. The Human Nature of Her Son it was which overshadowed Mary ; it is faith in my Lord which overshadows me. I might, indeed, say that His Flesh overshadows me also, since it is eaten by me in a mystery. The Blessed Virgin also experienced that shadow of faith, as is shown by the words spoken of her : And blessed is she who believed (Luke i. 45).

So a prophet says : The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord . . . under His shadow we shall live among the Gentiles} Under His shadow among the Gentiles, but in His light among the Angels. We are in the shadow as long as we walk by faith, not by sight ; and, therefore, the just, who lives by faith, is in the shadow. But he who lives by the understanding, happy is he, because he is not in the shadow but in the light. David was a righteous man, and he walked by faith when he addressed this prayer to God : Give me understanding, that I may learn Thy commandments, and I shall live (Ps. cxix. 73, 144). He knew that understanding shall succeed to faith, that the light of life and the life of light shall be revealed to the understandvivimus.

Digitized by 296 ing. It is needful to come first to the shadow, and so to attain to that of which it is the shadow ; since, as says the Prophet : If ye will not believe me, ye shall not understand (Is. vii. 9, and xliii. 10). 7. You see that faith is both life and the shadow of life. For the life which is spent in enjoyments, since it is not lived by faith, is but death and the shadow of death. For the widow, saith St. Paul, who liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Tim. v. 6). And to be carnally minded is death (Rom. viii. 6). It is also the shadow of death — of that death which torments everlastingly. We, too, have sometime been in the darkness and shadow of death, while we lived according to the flesh and not according to faith ; we were, indeed, already dead to righteousness, and soon to be swallowed up by that which is the second death. For it is certain that our life, as it was then, has drawn as near to death as the shadow is near to the body which casts it, and each of us may say with the Psalmist : Unless the Lord had been my helper, my soul had almost dwelt in hell (Ps. xciv. 1 7, Douay). But now we have passed from the shadow of death to the shadow of life, or, rather, we have passed from death unto life ( 1 John iii. 14), and are living in the shadow of Christ ; if, that is to say, we are of a truth living and not still dead. For I do hot think that a person who has been in the shadow lives in it forthwith, because it is plain that not everyone who has faith lives by faith. But faith without works is dead (James ii. 26), and that which itself has not life is incapable of imparting it. That is why,- after the Prophet had said : ' Christ the Lord is the Spirit before our face/ he goes on to say : ' under His shadow we shall live among the Gentiles ' (Lam. iv. 20).

Do you, then, take care, according to the example of the Prophet, to live in His shadow, that hereafter you may reign in His light ; for He has not only the shadow, He has also the light. Through the flesh He is the shadow of faith, through the spirit He is the light of knowledge. He is Flesh and He is Spirit. He is Flesh to those who remain in the flesh, and He is 4 the Spirit before our face ' — that is to say, in the future He shall be, provided that, forgetting those things which are behind and pressing forward to those things which are before, we attain to the experience of the truth in those words : // is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing (John vi. 64).

Nor do I forget that the Apostle, while still sojourning in the flesh, has said : Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet nott* henceforth know we Him no more (2 Cor. v. 16). But this was His peculiar privilege : we who have never been so highly favoured as to be caught up into Paradise and into the third heaven, we still are nourished by the Flesh of Christ, we venerate His sacred Mysteries, we order our lives by His example, we keep the faith, and, without question, we live in His shadow. 8. / sat down under His shadow with great delight Perhaps the Bride is here extolling herself as having a happier experience than the Prophet, inasmuch as she has sat under His shadow, not that she lives in it. For to be seated is to rest. It is more to rest in His Digitized by Google 297 shadow than to live in it, as it is more to live in it than simply to be in it. The Prophet predicates of himself that which is common to many: i We shall live;* but the Bride, who has a special privilege, states it with pride : * I sat down.' She does not say (as he has done) * we ' in the plural, but * 1/ to mark that this is peculiar to herself.

Where, then, we live with labour, we who serve with fear, being conscious of our offences, there the Bride, loving and devoted, sweetly rests. Fear is followed by a penalty, but love by sweetness ; wherefore she says : His fruit was sweet to my taste, signifying the heavenly charm of the contemplation which she had obtained when sweetly lifted up by love. Doubtless that is in the shadow, because it takes place, as it were, through a glass and darkly. But a time shall come when the light shall brighten to the dawn, the shadows shall wane until they wholly disappear : and then, in the place "of them, shall begin a vision as clear as it is constant ; it shall be not only sweetness to the taste, but satisfaction, yet without surfeit, to the whole nature. Where the Bride makes pause, let us pause too ; glorifying, for the portion given to us of spiritual dainties delightful to our taste, Him who is the Head of the whole family in heaven and earth (Eph. iii. 15), and the Bridegroom of the Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

HOW CHARITY IS REGULATED BY DISCRETION, SO THAT ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH, THAT IS, THE ELECT, ARE HELD ' He brought me into the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love,1 — Cant. ii. 4.

A CCORDING to the obvious meaning of the text, the Bride, after an interview, as sweet as it was confidential, with her ^ Beloved, according to her prayer, returns, on His departure, to her maidens ; to whom she appears so refreshed and excited in word and gesture, that it is as if she were inebriate. They are astonished at this novelty in her, and inquire the cause ; to which she replies that it is not at all wonderful she should seem to be excited as if with wine, since she has entered into the banqueting house. So much as to the literal sense. Spiritually understood, she does not deny that she is inebriate, but declares that it is with love, not with wine, unless love be wine. As long as the Bridegroom is present, she direct? her discourse to Him. She calls Him her Bridegroom, her Beloved, or Him whom my soul loveth ; but when speaking of Him to the maidens, she calls Him the King. Why is this ? Because, as I think, it is more fitting for the Bride, who is loving and beloved, to

Digitized by 298 use (as far as in her lies) terms of affection to Him whom she loves ; while at the same time she imposes respect upon her maidens, who require the bond of discipline, by the use of a term of dignity which inspires reverence. meant by the banqueting house I forbear to speak now, because I remember that I have treated of it before. (Sermon XXIII.) But if the term is to be understood of the Church, when the disciples, being filled with the Holy Spirit, were thought by the people to be full of new wine, then we must remember that St. Peter, answering on behalf of the Bride, as a friend of the Bridegroom, declared: These are not filled with wine, as ye suppose (Acts ii. 15). Notice that he denied, not that they were inebriated, but that they were inebriated in the manner, and from the cause, that the people supposed. Inebriate they were, yet not with wine, but with the Holy Spirit. And as if they had wished to testify to the people that they had been, in truth, brought into the King's banqueting house, St Peter, speaking still for them all, went on to say : This is that which was spoken bythi Prophet Joel : And it shall come to pass

in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Does it not seem to you that the banqueting hall was that house in which the disciples were assembled, 7vhen suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind (Spiritus), and it filled all the house where t/iey were si/ting, and thus accomplished the prophecy of Joel ? And was not each of them, going forth inebriated with the abundance of good things received in that house, and having, as it were, drunk deep of the rushing torrent of its pleasures, able to say with good reason : The King hath brought me into His banqueting house ? 3. You also, if you shall enter into the House of prayer in solitude and collectedness of spirit, if your mind be thoughtful and free of worldly cares, and if standing in the Presence of God before some altar, you shall touch, as it were, the portal of heaven with the hand of holy aspiration and longing ; if, having been brought among the choirs of the saints by the fervour of your devotion (for the prayer of the

righteous soul can scale even the heights of heaven), you deplore before them, in deep humility, your spiritual troubles and miseries, you plead your necessities with frequent sighs and groans too deep for utterance, and entreat earnestly their compassion ; if, I say, you act thus, I have full confidence in Him who said : Ask, and ye shall receive (Matt. vii. 7), and I believe that if you persevere in knocking earnestly at that door, it shall certainly be opened to you, and you shall not go away empty. And when you shall return to us full of grace and love, and are unable, in the fervency of your spirit, to conceal the gift which you have received, and which you will without jealousy impart to others ; thus you will be, not merely acceptable to all, but perhaps even the object of their admiration, on account of Digitized by Google the grace which has been bestowed upon you, and you will be able to declare with truth : The King hath brought me into His banqueting house. Only be cautious that you glory, not in yourself, but in the Lord But I would not assert that every spiritual gift conies forth from this cellar here mentioned. The Bridegroom has also other cellars and storehouses, and in these are

laid up divers gifts and graces, according to the riches of His glory. But of these, too, as I remember, I have already spoken. (Sermon XXIII.) Are not these things stored up with Me% saith the Lord, and sealed up in My treasures! (Deut xxxii. 34, Douay). Therefore the division of graces is made according to the diversity of storehouses, and the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. And although to one person is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another prophecy, to another the gifts of healing, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues, and other gifts similar to these to other persons, yet it does not follow that any one of those who receive gifts of this kind should therefore be able to say that he has been brought into the banqueting house. For it may have been from other storehouses that his gifts have been drawn. 4. But if anyone, while in prayer, should obtain the grace to be drawn out of himself, as it were, and into the sphere of the Divine glory, from whence he returns after a time fired with an ardent love of God, inflamed with a burning zeal for righteousness, and also filled with extreme

fervour in the pursuit of all spiritual occupations and studies, so that he can say : My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned (Ps. xxxix. 3), that soul will evidently have a not unfounded claim to say that he has been brought into the banqueting house, because out of the abundance of his charity he has begun to manifest and utter the effects of that inebriation which, unlike every other, is in the highest degree salutary and good. For there are two kinds of ecstasy in holy contemplation : one of the understanding, the other of the heart ; one in the light of the understanding, the other in the fervour of the affections ; the one a blaze of discernment, the other a rapture of devotion ; and the glow of piety, the heart aflame with holy love, the access of sublime adoration, are all derived from the banqueting house of the King, equally with the clear vision of the eager spirit ; and everyone, whosoever he may be, who rises from prayer endowed with the fulness of these priceless gifts, may say with truth, The King hath brought me into His banqueting house. 5. Then the Bride goes on to say : He set in order charity in me (Douay). This was

absolutely necessary, because zeal without knowledge is insupportable. Where zeal is eager, there discretion, which is the rule of charity by order, is most of all indispensable. Without knowledge zeal is found to be always less useful and less effectual ; and most often it is even very dangerous. The more fervent is zeal, the more eager the temper, the more profuse the charity ; the more Digitized by 3oo need is there of a watchful knowledge, which moderates zeal, tempers the warmth of the disposition, and regulates the gushings of charity.

That is the reason why the Bride, lest the impetuosity of spirit, brought, as it might appear, from the banqueting house, should be excessive and ungovernable, as she fears especially for the souls of the young, adds here that she has received also the orderly regulation of charity — that is, discretion. For discretion assigns to every virtue its due place ; arid order produces moderation, due proportion and fitness, and therefore never-failing continuance. Therefore the Scripture saith: By Thine ordinance the day continues (Ps. cxix. 91) calling virtue 1 the day.' Discretion, then, is not so much a single virtue, as a certain moderator and conductor of all the virtues, a director of the affections, and a teacher of all the conduct of life. Without it, even virtue degenerates into vice, and the natural impulses themselves are changed into passions which disturb and destroy nature.

He set in order charity in me. This is what took place in the Church, when [the Lord] gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers, for the perfecting of the Saints (Eph. iv. 11, 12). But it is necessary that the same charity should bind all these together into the unity of the Body of Christ, which it cannot in anywise do, unless it be guided and regulated.

For if each person allows himself to be carried away by the warmth and impetuosity of his spirit to do indifferently everything that occurs to him, following rather his own preference than the dictates of reason, it is plain that there will no longer be unity, but confusion and disorder ; for no one will be content with the ministry confided to him, but will be busying himself indiscriminately with that of others. 6. He set in order charity in me. Oh that the Ix>rd Jesus would, of His grace, set in order in me somewhat of the charity which He has bestowed, so that I might have such care of all things which are His, and relate to Him, as to put before all other things, to the utmost of my power, the duties of the office entrusted to me, yet so as, though these be put first, I may have a reserve of interest and sympathy for matters which are beyond my especial charge, for it is not always the case that those things should be the most loved which have to be the first cared for, for though they come before others in the care they require, they are frequently far behind them in usefulness, and therefore also in the approval and affection they commandThus it is frequently the case that the thing which, according to a command binding on us, is preferred to another, should, by the dictate of reason, come after it j1 and that which in the judgment of truth is of the greater importance, the order of charity, requires to be adopted with the greatest caution. Has there not, for example, been laid upon me by authority the care of you all ? Now, whatsoever I might read : * Dei judicio? etc., and Horst, * proinde quod Veritas judicat prirponitur% k jiuiiciof etc.