Sermons on the Song of Songs

THAT A MAN WHO IS PIOUS AND WISE OUGHT TO CULTIVATE CARE- FULLY HIS VINEYARD, THAT IS TO SAY, HIS LIFE, HIS SOUL, AND HIS CONSCIENCE; THAT THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF FOXES, NAMELY, FLATTERERS AND DETRACTORS; AND OF THE TEMP- TATIONS OF MONKS IN THEIR NOVITIATE.

* Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.1 — Cant. ii. 15.

IT is clear that it was not without real need that attention was called to the vineyards, since foxes are found among the vines, who are despoiling them. That is the literal sense of the words. But what of the spiritual? In the first place, we reject the common and familiar explanation altogether as absurd, insipid, and altogether unworthy to be received as the sense of a Scripture so sacred and authentic. Unless anyone is so dull of mind and devoid of reason as to imagine it a great thing to be taught here, after the fashion of the children of this world, to have a care for earthly possessions; to guard and defend the vines against the wild animals which attackthem, for fear of possibly losing the fruit of the vine, in which is excess and riot, and of so losing at once their labour and their outlay. Assuredly great would be the loss if we should read and study the holy Book with so much care and deep veneration, only to be taught in it to protect our vines from foxes, lest if we should be negligent in our care of them, our cultivation should end in our purses being left empty. You are not so unskilled, nor so wanting in spiritual graces, as to understand the Scripture in so carnal a manner. Let us, then, seek the sense of them in the spirit. We shall, indeed, find, but in a sense more reasonable and more worthy of Scripture, the vines which have tender grapes, and the foxes which spoil them, and upon whom we may expend our labour in driving them away or capturing them, at once more honourably and to better purpose. Can you possibly doubt that it is needful to employ much more watchfulness to keep souls in safety than a crop of grapes, and that it needs much more vigilant care to avoid the snares of spiritual wickedness on account of the one than to capture marauding foxes on account of the other?

2. But now I must point out what these vines denote in a spiritual sense, and what these foxes. It will be your care, my dear sons, to apply, each to himself and to his own vineyard, whatever I may say in the course of this inquiry, that he may learn in what respect, and of what dangers, he has most necessity to take heed. To a wise man, then, this vineyard signifies his life, his soul, his conscience. For he who is wise ought to leave nothing in himself uncared for or desert. With the foolish man it is quite otherwise. You will find that with

him all things are lying neglected, dirty, and in disorder. Indeed, the foolish can hardly be said to have a vineyard at all, for how can there be a vineyard where nothing appears to be planted, nothing to be cultivated anywhere? The whole life of the foolish bristles, as it were, with thorns and briars growing wild; and is that a vineyard? Even though it was once one, it is so no longer, for it has gone back to the condition of desert. Where is the vine of virtue? Where are the grapes of good works? Where the wine of spiritual joy? I went, says the wise man, by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall thereof was broken down (Prov. xxiv. 30, 31). You see how the wise man ridicules the foolish, because he has left to perish by neglect the good endowments of nature and the gifts of grace, which he had perhaps received by the laver of Regeneration; which was, as it were, his original vineyard, planted by God and not by man; so that it is no longer a vineyard. And assuredly there can be no vine where there is no life. For I should regard the life of one who is void of understanding as rather death than life. How can there be life where there is barrenness? The tree that is dry and barren, is it not regarded as dead? Faggots and brushwood also are but dead wood. He destroyed their vines with hail, says the Psalmist (Ps. lxxviii. 47), showing that vines condemned to perpetual sterility are, in fact, deprived of life. So the man void of understanding, inasmuch as his life is useless, is dead while he liveth.

3. It is, then, the wise man alone of whom it can properly be said that he has a vineyard, or, rather, that he himself is one, that has life. He is a tree in the House of God which bears fruit, and is therefore living. For that very wisdom itself, by which a man becomes, and is called, wise, is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her (Prov. iii. 18). How can he that takes hold upon her fail to have life? He truly lives, but by faith. For it is the just who is wise, and the just lives by faith (Heb. x. 38). And if the soul of the just be, as it is, the seat of wisdom, then he is truly wise who is just. He, then, whether you call him the wise or the just, because he never ceases to live, will never cease to have (or, rather, to be) a vineyard. For the vineyard and the life are in him the same thing. And the vineyard of the just is good, or, rather, the just is a good vineyard, since in him virtue is as the vine, his [good] actions the branches and shoots, the testimony of his conscience the wine produced, and his tongue, as it were, the wine press. Our rejoicing is this, says the Apostle, the testimony of our conscience (2 Cor. i. 12). Do you perceive how in the wise nothing is without its use? His discourse, his reflections, his manner of life, and all the rest of his conduct, what are they but entirely God's husbandry, God's building, and in one word, the vine of the Lord of Hosts? And since, as we are assured, even its leaves shall not fall withered to the ground (Ps. i. 3), what can perish which belongs to it?

4. But yet to such a vine as this there will never be wanting persecutions from without, nor snares from within. For when goods increase, they are increased that eat them (Eccles. v. 11). The wise man will be no less careful to keep his vine in safety than to cultivate it; nor will he suffer it to be devoured by foxes. Among the worst of these is the secret detractor, but the fawning flatterer is not less evil. Of both he who is wise will beware. He will direct his efforts, as far as in him lies, to 'take ' those who practise such arts, but to take them by kindnesses and courtesies, by salutary admonitions, and prayers to God on their behalf. He will not cease to heap such coals of fire upon the head of the abusive person (Rom. xii. 20) and also of the flatterer; until he shall succeed, if possible, in drawing the envy from the heart of the one, and the dissimulation from that of the other, and thus fulfil the command of the Bridegroom: Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines. Does it not appear to you that a person is, as it were, 'taken/ whose countenance is covered wkh confusion, who blushes for his own judgment, and is himself the witness of the shame and regret that he feels, whether for having regarded with hatred a man most worthy of love, or for having loved with only a pretended and wordy affection him by whom, as he has at length (though late) experienced, he was loved in deed and in truth? He is evidently taken, and taken for the Lord, according to His own express command: Take [for] us. Would that I might be able thus to ' take ' all those who oppose me without a cause, that I might gain them for Christ, or restore them to Him! That thus those who seek my life may be dismayed and confounded, that those who wish me evil may be turned backward and put to confusion, so that I for my part may be found obedient to the Bridegroom, and may take these foxes for Him,1 and not for myself, is my earnest desire. But let us return to our text at the beginning, that our explanation may proceed in due order.

5. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the grapes. This passage relates to morals; and, regarding it in a moral sense, we have already shown that these vines, spiritually understood, are nothing else than spiritual men, whose inward nature and faculties are all cultivated; which germinate, bear fruit, and bring forth a spirit of salvation, so that we are able to say of these vines of the Ix>rd of Hosts what is said of the Kingdom of God, that it is within us (Luke xvii. 21). For we read in the Gospel that the Kingdom of God shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matt. xxi. 43). These are they which St. Paul enumerates, saying: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal. v. 22, 23). These fruits, then, are our progress in virtue. These are accepted by the Bridegroom, because He has a care of us. Do you think that it is of mere plants of earth that God has care? It is for men, not for trees, that the

God Man has affection, and He regards our progress in holiness as His fruits. He observes diligently the season of these; He smiles to see them appear, and takes care and shows solicitude that, when they have appeared, they should not perish for us, or rather that they should not perish for Him; for He regards Himself as having the same interest in them as we. Therefore He commends, in His wise Providence, that the little foxes which lurk around them should be taken, lest they should ravage the fruits while still immature. And as if anyone should object, ' your fear is premature, for the time of fruit has not yet come.' He adds: 'That is not the case, for our vines have Under grapes.1 After the flowers1 the fruits do not delay; the former are no sooner fallen than the latter burst forth and begin to appear.

6. That is a parable which applies to the time which is approaching. Do you see [that these signify] those Novices? They have only lately come, they have only just been converted. We cannot say of them that our vine has been in flower, for it is flowering now. That which in the meantime you see appear in them is the flower, but the time of fruit has not yet come. The flower is their new and altered manner of life, their recently adopted rule, and stricter method of conduct They have put on a mortified countenance, and a well regulated demeanour of their whole body. That which appears in them is, I confess, pleasing, for their outward man shows less care for dress and appearance, their speech is more sparing, their countenance more cheerful, their glances more modest, their movements more quiet and measured. But since they have practised these rules of life but a very little while, this very newness obliges us to regard them, so to speak, as flowers, and their actions as the hope of fruit, rather than as fruit themselves. I do not so much fear for you, my young sons, from the cunning of the foxes, since it is well known that their hostility is directed rather against fruits than flowers. Your danger comes from another direction. For you I fear the blasting of your flowers by the frost, rather than their being torn away by violence. It is the chilling north wind that 1 suspect, and the morning frosts, which are wont to cut off the early and untimely flowers and the fruits in their germ. Therefore it is from the direction of the north wind that you are threatened; for who can stand be/ore Bis cold? (Vs. cxlvii. 17). If this freezing cold has once pervaded the soul (as happens but too often to it when the spirit is in a condition of relaxation and torpor), then, if there is no one (which may God avert) to hinder its further progress, it enters into the secret places of the heart, and into the inmost part of the soul; it stuns and paralyzes good dispositions, it closes up the avenues by which good advice and help might come, it troubles the light of the judgment, it fetters the impulses of the spirit; then, as it happens also to those who are suffering under a fever of the body, the soul undergoes sudden and vehement chills, its vigour is relaxed, a languor creeps 1 The Vulgate reading is vinea nostra flortiit. — Ed.

over its powers, a horror of austerity is continually intensified, the fear of poverty troubles it more and more, the soul contracts, as it were, upon itself, grace ebbs away from it, life becomes wearisome, the reason is stupefied, the courage stifled, the recent fervour of the man rapidly grows cold, a fastidious and dainty lukewarmness gains ground in the soul, brotherly charity grows cold, pleasure begins to have attractions, the man falls into a false security, and the habitude of vice resumes its former prevalence. What shall I say more? The law is evaded, righteousness is rejected,1 obligation proscribed, the fear of the Lord abandoned altogether. Finally, such a person yields himself to the last degree of shamelessness, he makes that leap which is rashness itself, that fall most disgraceful, shameful, and full of confusion and ignominy, from the sky into the abyss, from the pavement of a palace into a dunghill, from a throne into the gutter, from heaven into a swamp of mire, from the cloister into the outer world — yea, from paradise into hell.2 It is not now the time to point out the origin and beginning of this downfall, or to show by what means it may be avoided, or by what strength it may be surmounted. That shall be the task of another day. At present let us proceed with what we have begun.

7. Our discourse must be brought back to those who are more advanced in virtue, and more stedfast in it; to the vine which has already flowered, whose flowers have nothing more to fear from the cold, though its fruits are not yet secure from despoiling foxes. It has yet to be explained at greater length what is to be understood spiritually by these foxes; why they are called ' little why the command is not that they are to be driven away, or to be slain, but that they are to be ' taken and how the different kinds of these are to be distinguished, so that my hearers may learn to know them, and to be more on their guard against them. But we must not enter upon this subject in the present sermon that we may not weary you, and that our devotion may not cease to be marked by willingness and zeal, through the grace and to the glory of Him who is the great Bridegroom of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is above all, God blessed