Sermons on the Song of Songs

There is, besides, another possible interpretation, which indeed I had not intended to propose to you, but which, as it seems to me now, ought not to be passed over. For why should we not suppose that these words of the Canticle belong most properly to the “little ones,” of whom the Spouse, as mother or nurse, has solicitous charge? Such “little ones,” that is to say, immature and tender souls, cannot endure with patience that she should give herself to repose, by whose doctrine and example they desire to be more fully instructed and edified. And in a subsequent verse we read of their being severely checked in their troublesome restiveness and forbidden to awaken the Spouse until she herself wishes. These children, therefore, when they notice her eager for kisses, seeking seclusion, avoiding publicity, keeping aloof from the multitude, and preferring her own ease to the care of themselves, raise their voices in protest against such conduct. “Act not so,” they cry, “act not so. Better is the milk of thy breasts than the wine of such kisses. By means of that milk thou canst deliver us from ‘the carnal desires that war against the soul,’ thou canst rescue us from the world and win us to God.” Or perhaps, when they say, “Because thy breasts are better than wine,” they intend to signify this: “Those spiritual delights distilled to us from thy breasts are far superior to the earthly pleasures wherewith, as with wine, we were formerly intoxicated and held captive.”

This comparison of bodily pleasures with wine is very apt. Just as the grape, when drained by pressure has no longer any juice to yield, so the body in the wine-press of death is sterilised completely as a source of delight, and can never again wax wanton under the impulse of passion. Hence, the Prophet declares, “All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. The grass is withered and the flower is fallen.” And the Apostle, “He that soweth in the flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.” Also, “Meat for the stomach and the stomach for the meat, but God shall destroy both it and them.” But consider, if perhaps this comparison may be extended not only to the flesh, but to the world as well. It also “passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof,” and all things therein shall come to an end of which there is no end. But not so the spiritual breasts. These, when exhausted, shall be again replenished, from the fountain in the maternal heart, with the milk that can satisfy the sucklings’ thirst. Better, therefore, than the love of the flesh and the world are those breasts of the Spouse rightly said to be, which no number of little ones can ever drain, but which are always refilled to overflowing from the heart of charity. For rivers flow forth ceaselessly from that heart, and there is made within it a “fountain of living water springing up into eternal life.” The crowning commendation of the Spouses’ breasts is that which is said of the fragrance of their ointments. By this We are given to understand that they not only feed us with the sweetness of sound doctrine, but also exhale the pleasant odour of a good name. As to what these breasts are, what the milk that fills them, and what the ointments whereof they are redolent, all these questions I purpose to discuss more in detail in another sermon, with the help of Christ, Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth one God, for ever and ever. Amen.