Sermons on the Song of Songs

HOW CHRIST SHALL COME TO JUDGE IN HUMAN FORM, THAT HE MAY APPEAR DELIGHTFUL TO THE ELECT j AND HOW HE IS LESS THAN THE ANGELS, YET LOFTIER THAN THEY.

• Return, my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe or a young hart upon the numntains of Bether.'—QanX. iii. 17.

WHAT? He is but just now gone, and you call Him back? What sudden need has arisen in so short a time? Have you forgotten anything? Yea, truly, the Bride has forgotten everything which is not He, even her own self. And though she is not devoid of reason, yet sometimes she seems for the moment

to be deprived of it. Nor does it even appear that she retains in her feelings that modest self-restraint, which is always apparent in her actions. It is the violence of her love which occasions this. It is the same which in its triumph puts to silence every feeling of timidity, every consideration of fitness, or of deliberation; it causes her even to neglect times and seasons. For, as you see, the Bridegroom has scarcely left her side, than she calls upon Him eagerly to return. She entreats him even to hasten, to run with all the speed of the swiftest animals, such as the roe or the young hart. This is the literal meaning of the words, and this is the portion of the Jews.

2. But I will, as far as I have received from the Lord, seek out the spirit and the life in the deep and mysterious meaning of the sacred text; this is the portion which belongs to me, as a believer in Jesus Christ. Why should I not extract the sweet and salutary nourishment of the Spirit from the barren and tasteless mass of the letter, as I separate grain from chaff, the kernel from its shell, or marrow from the bone? With this mere letter, which, when tasted, savours only of the flesh, and when swallowed, brings death, I do not desire to have anything to do, but only with that teaching from the Holy Ghost which is hidden in it. For as the Apostle declares, The Spirit speaketh in a mystery (i Cor. xiv. 2); but Israel, in place of the mystery, which is veiled, takes the veil which covers the mystery. Why is this, except that a veil is still upon their heart? #Thus the literal meaning of the text is theirs, but its inner signification is mine; and thus there is to them a ministration of death in the letter, but to me life in the Spirit. For it is the Spirit which quickeneth (John vi. 64), inasmuch as it gives understanding; and is not understanding life? Give me understanding and I shall live, is the Psalmist's prayer to the Lord. Understanding does not remain on the surface of things, it is not superficial, it does not handle the outside with uncertain touch, like a blind man; but it penetrates to their depths, and often brings up from thence treasures of truth with eager grasp, as did the Psalmist when he said unto the Lord: / rejoice at Thy word as one that findeth great spoil (Ps. cxix. 144, 162). It is thus that the kingdom of truth suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force (Matt. xi. 1 2). But that elder brother in the Gospel (Luke xv. 25-30) who returned from the field is the type of that ancient and earthly-minded people which has learned to labour for an earthly heritage only, and groans with careworn and furrowed brow under the heavy yoke of the Law, which it bears throughout the burden and heat of the day. This people, I say, because it has no understanding, stands without even to the present time, and will not, even when invited by the Father, enter into the house of banqueting, thus depriving himself hitherto of any share in the music, and the dancing, and the fatted calf. Unhappy that he is, he refuses to make experience how good and joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. All this has been said to show the distinction between the portion of the Church and that of the synagogue;

that the blindness of the one and the prudence of the other might be made more evident; and the happiness of the one be made more plain by contrast with the pitiable folly of the other.

3. Let us now examine the words of the Bride, and endeavour so to expound the chaste sentiments of her sacred love, that there may appear nothing that is contrary to reason in the sacred text, nor anything importunate or unbecoming. And if we bear in mind that hour when the Lord Jesus (for He is the Bridegroom) passed from this world unto the Father (John xiii. 1), and at the same time the state of mind in which the Church, His newly-wedded Bride, necessarily was when she saw herself deserted and left as a desolate widow, deprived of her only hope (I refer to the Apostles who had left all and followed Him, and had continued with Him in His temptations); if, I say, we consider these things, it will appear to us, I think, that it is not unreasonable nor unaccountable that the Bride should be so inconsolable for His departure, nor so urgent for His return, when she is left so solitary and in such distress. The affection that she feels for Him, and the need that she has for Him, forms, then, a twofold reason for thus appealing to Him; that since He cannot but ascend up where He was before, He will at least hasten His promised return. For that she desires and entreats that He^would be like unto certain animals, and those the animals which are of greatest speed, is an indication of the eagerness of her desire, for which no return would be sufficiently prompt Does she not ask for this daily when she prays, Thy kingdom come (Matt vi. 10)?

4. Yet I think that she desires to point not less significantly to weakness as well as to speed, and that as well of sex in the roc as of age in the young hart. She desires, then, as it seems to me, that when returning to judgment He should appear, not in the Form of God, but in that Human Form in which He was not only born, but born as a little Child, and born only from that female sex which is the weaker of the two. Why is this? It is in order that from both the one and the other there may be a reminder to be gentle towards the weak even in the day of His wrath, and in the time of judgment to exalt mercy above judgment. For if He shall be strict to search out offences, who even of the elect shall stand in His presence {Ps. cxxx. 2)? The stars are not pure in His sight, and in His Angels He finds pravity (Job iv. 18; xxv. 5). Listen, then, to him who is elect and holy; hear what he says to God: Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto Thee, in a time when Thou mayest be found (Ps. xxxii. 5, 6). Even the saints, therefore, need to entreat pardon for their sins, that they may be saved by the mercy of God, and must not trust in their own righteousness; for all have sinned, and all need mercy. In order, then, that when He is angry He may remember mercy, the Bride entreats of Him to appear in the garb of mercy, that is, in the Form of which the Apostle says: Being found in fashion as a man (Phil. ii. 7).

5. And, indeed, it is very necessary for us that it should be thus; for if, even with this moderating influence, so great is His equity in judgment, so awful the severity of the Judge, so lofty His majesty, and so changed the very appearance of all things, that, according to the Prophet, the day of His Coming does not bear to be thought upon (Mai. iii. 2, Douay), what would it be, do you imagine, if He who is a consuming fire (I mean the Almighty God) should come in all that immensity, and power, and purity of His Godhead, to put forth His power against a leaf (so to speak) which the wind driveth away, and to pursue the dry stubble (Job xiii. 25)? He is Man also, and who, says the Prophet, shall behold Him? Who shall stand when He appearethl (Mai. iii. 2). How much less, then, could any among men endure the sight if He should manifest Himself to us without His Humanity: as God, unapproachable in His Glory, unattainable in His loftiness, incomprehensible in the greatness of His Majesty? But now, when His wrath is kindled but a little (Ps. ii. 12), how welcome and sweet towards the children of grace shall appear a glimpse of His Humanity! How it shall be to them a confirmation of faith, a strength to their hope, an increase in their confidence, because His grace and mercy is with His saints, and He hath respect unto His chosen (Wisd. iv. 15)! In fact, God the Father Himself hath given the power of judgment unto His Son; and not because He is His Son, but because He is the Son of Man (John v. 27). O truly He is the Father of mercies! He wills that men should be judged by a Man, in order that amid fear and apprehension of evils so great confidence might be given to the elect by the resemblance of nature. Holy David had predicted this formerly, in words which were equally a prayer and a prophecy: Give the King Thy judgments, O Lord: a fid Thy righteousness unto the King's son (Ps. lxxii. 1). To the same effect is the promise made by the Angels to the Apostles when, after Jesus had been taken up into heaven, they spake to the latter thus: This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven (Acts i. 11); that is to say, in that very form and substance of body.

6. It is very clear, from all these things, that the Bride had a certain access to the Divine plan, and that she was not ignorant of the mystery of God's supreme Will, which [hath chosen] the weak and harmless things of the world (1 Cor. i. 27); inasmuch as she indicates, in the spirit of prophecy, and in the words of one who utters prayer, that the nature which is weaker, or rather that which is lower (for then it shall no longer be weak), shall be set on high to judge; insomuch that He who shall shake heaven and earth by His power, while girded with power against the sinful and impenitent, shall yet show Himself gentle and kind, and, as it were, harmless, towards the elect. To this it may be added that, in order to discern the one from the other, He will need not only, as it were, the agility of the roe, but the piercing sight of the hart, so as to be able to discern, in so vast a multitude, and at the moment of so great a change of condition, whom to fix upon, and whom to pass over, that He may not crush the righteous instead of the wicked, when He shall tread down the peoples in His wrath. For as to the wicked, it is necessary that the prophecy of David, or rather the word of the Lord speaking by his mouth, should be fulfilled; that / will beat them small as the dust before the ivind: I will cast them out as the clay in the streets (Ps. xviii. 42, Vulg.); and also that another word, which He had spoken before by another prophet, should be accomplished, when, returning towards the Angels, He shall say [of the wicked]: I have trampled on them in My indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath (Is. lxiii. 3, Vulg.).

7. But if anyone thinks that it would be preferable to understand the words of the Bride in this sense, that our fawn should pass over the wicked, and choose out the good in His bounds, I do not contest this, provided that discrimination is understood to be thus made between the evil and the good. For, if I remember rightly, such was also the sense which I put upon the words when I was expounding this verse in a former discourse (Sermon LIV.). But there that One is said to leap as a fawn upon some, and to pass over others, according to the dispensation of grace, and by the secret, though just, judgment of God; while here it is according to the final and varying recompense of merits. And perhaps the last words of the verse, which I had, indeed, almost forgotten, may seem to support that sense; for after having said, Be Thou, my Beloved, like a roe or a young hart, she adds, upon the mountains of Bet/iel. Now, in 'the House of the Lord' (which is the meaning of the word Bethel1) there are no mountains which are evil. Therefore the Bridegroom, leaping as a fawn upon them, does not crush and trample them, but causes them to rejoice, that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: The mountains and the hills shall break out before God into singing.2 There are, indeed, mountains which, according to the Gospel, faith, though it be as a grain of mustard seed, is able to remove (Matt. xvii. 20), but these are not the mountains of Bethel: and whichsoever these latter are, faith does not at all remove them, but renders them fruitful.

8. If by the mountains of Bethel be meant the Principalities and Powers, and all other bands of the blessed Spirits, as it is of them that we are to understand what is said, Her foundations are upon the holy mountains (Ps. lxxxvii. 1), this One, who appears as a fawn upon mountains so excelling in dignity, is assuredly not of small account or to be despised, being made so much better than the Angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent Name than they ( Heb. i. 4). For what if we do read in a Psalm that He is made a little lower than the Angels (Ps. viii. 5)? That He is in a lower place does not con- flict at all with His being better than they; nor have the Apostle and the Psalmist spoken in opposite senses, since they were animated by the same Spirit. For it was by His condescension, and not by any necessity, that He was made lower than the Angels; and far from that rendering His goodness less, it, on the contrary, renders it greater. Nor does the Psalmist say that He is less than the Angels, but that He is rendered lower than they; he extols the grace of His goodness without depreciating His greatness. For His Nature does not permit that He should be less than the Angels: and the cause of His being set below them explains and excuses that descent. He was, in fact, set below them by His own will, and on account of our necessity. Thus that abasement is but the effect of the compassion which He felt for us. What loss, then, is there by this humiliation? For His clemency and goodness has gained whatsoever His dignity may seem to have lost. Nor has the Apostle passed over in silence this great mystery of such extreme goodness, but says: We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the Angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour (Heb. ii. 9).

9. Let this suffice in explanation of the comparison which the Bride makes of the Bridegroom to a fawn, and to show that she does thereby no injury to His dignity. Why do I say without injury to His dignity, when not even His weakness has remained without honour? He is [called] a fawn, He was a little Child He is spoken of as like unto a roe, inasmuch as He was made of a woman: and yet He is upon the mountains of Bethel, yet He is made higher than the heavens (Heb. vii. 26). He does not say, 'who is* or 'who exists'1 in the Heavens, but he says, made higher than the heavens, that it might not be thought that this was spoken of that Nature in which He is that which He is. But where he represents Him as preferred to the Angels, he does not say that He 'remains7 or 'exists,' but that He is made better than they. From which it appears that not only according to that which He is from all eternity, but also according to that which He is in time, He is exalted far above all Principalities and Powers, and being the Firstborn of every creature, He is above every created being. Therefore the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. i. 25). That the Apostle indeed asserts; but it seems to me that it would not be wrong to extend the assertion to the strength and the wisdom of the Angels. So, then, the present passage may conveniently be applied to the universal Church.

10. Now, as far as relates to the individual soul (for even one soul, if it love God dearly, wisely, and with passion, is the Bride), whosoever is spiritual may notice in himself what his own experience teaches upon this subject As for me, I do not fear to make known to you the experience of this kind which God has deigned to bestow upon me. For although it may perhaps appear trifling and worthless when heard, that does not affect me at all, because he who is spiritual wfll not despise me, while he who is not so will not understand me. But let me reserve this subject to another sermon, and perhaps there will not be wanting some who will be edified by that which the Lord, in answer to prayers, shall deign to inspire me with. For He is the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.