Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines, for our vineyard hath flourished.”

“Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines, for our vineyard hath flourished.” Evidently, the visit to the vineyard has not been waste of time, since the foxes have been there discovered destroying the vines. This is the literal sense. But what do these words mystically convey to us? For it is necessary in the first place to reject from our interpretation, as vain and unprofitable and altogether unworthy of so holy and venerable a Canticle, the vulgar and obvious ideas suggested by the letter. Unless indeed there be some so mentally obtuse and stolid as to esteem it a great thing to have learned from Sacred Scripture that they ought to take care of their earthly possessions, like the children of this world, and that they ought to guard and protect their vineyards against the incursions of ravaging beasts; lest otherwise they should lose the fruit thereof, namely, the wine “wherein is luxury,” and get no return from the money and labour expended. A terrible loss, no doubt, and well deserving that we should peruse this holy Book with such attention and respect in order to be instructed how to defend ourselves against it! That the Bible, forsooth, should teach us how to preserve our vineyards from the foxes, and warn us that our coffers shall be emptied in vain by the expenses incurred in the cultivation of the vines, unless we are diligent in guarding them! You, at least, my brethren, are not so uninstructed, so devoid of all spiritual grace, as to entertain such crude and carnal sentiments. Let us therefore endeavour to find the mystical signification of our text. There we shall discover, in a sense satisfactory to our reason, and at the same time worthy of Holy Scripture, flourishing vineyards and destroying foxes, in catching and expelling which we shall be more honourably and more profitably employed than in defending our material possessions. For you will surely allow that souls have to be guarded more watchfully than grapes, and that far more vigilance is necessary to protect the former against the “spirits of wickedness,” than to catch the cunning little foxes that spoil the vines.

I have now to explain to you what are the spiritual vines and the spiritual foxes. And whilst you listen to the remarks I shall have to make, and learn in what respects and against what enemies you ought to be on your guard, let it be your care, my dear children, to look each to his own vineyard. To the wise man his own life is a vineyard, his own mind is a vineyard, and a vineyard also is his own conscience. For he that is truly wise will allow nothing in himself to remain uncultivated, nothing unprofitable. Not so the fool. In him you shall find everything neglected, everything abandoned, everything untilled and uncared for. The fool has no vineyard. How can there be a vineyard there where you look in vain for any sign of a plantation, any sign of cultivation? The whole life of a fool is overgrown with thorns and thistles. And does such a waste deserve to be called a vineyard? A vineyard it may have been once, but now it is so no longer, being reduced by neglect to a wilderness. For where now are the vines of the virtues? Where are the grapes of good works? Where the wine of spiritual gladness? “I passed through the field of the slothful man.” says Solomon, “and by the vineyard of the foolish man, and behold it was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall was broken down.” Here, my brethren, you have the wise man mocking at the fool for that he has lost not only the goods of nature but also the gifts of grace, which perhaps he had received through the “laver of regeneration,” and by his negligence has reduced that first vineyard, planted not by man but by the hand of God, to something unworthy to be called a vineyard. Besides, how can there be a vineyard where there is no life? But in my judgment the fool’s existence would be more truly described as an enduring death than as a real life. How can life consist with a state of sterility? When a tree becomes withered and barren is it not judged to be dead? “And He killed their vineyards with hail,” sings the Psalmist, insinuating that vines no longer live when they have been cursed with barrenness. In the same way the fool, though apparently alive, is really dead, because he lives unprofitably.

Therefore it is proper to the wise man alone to have, or rather to be, a vineyard, because he alone can be said to live. He is like “a fruitful tree in the house of the Lord,” and consequently a living tree. For wisdom herself, by participation in which men are denominated wise, “is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her.” How then does he not live who has laid hold on the tree of life? He lives indeed, but he lives by faith. For the wise man is a just man and “the just man liveth by faith.” And conversely, if “the soul of the just man is the seat of wisdom,” as she certainly is, the just man is a wise man. Such a one, therefore, whether you call him a wise man or a just man, shall never be found without his vineyard, because he shall never be found otherwise than living; and his life is his vineyard. And a good vineyard in truth is this vineyard of the just man. Rather I should have said, a good vineyard is the just man himself, whose virtue is as the vine, whose works as the branches, the testimony of whose conscience as the wine, and whose tongue is as the wine-press. “This is our glory,” says the Apostle, “the testimony of our conscience.” Do you not see, my brethren, how there is nothing unprofitable about a man of wisdom? His words, his works, his thoughts, and everything else that belongs to him, are they not all “God’s husbandry, God’s building,” and the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth? What in it, therefore, can be lost to Him, Who will not allow so much as a leaf of it to fall to the ground?

Nevertheless, this spiritual vineyard is perpetually exposed to hostile incursions and surprises. For “where there are great riches, there are many also to eat them.” The wise man, consequently, will be as careful to guard as to cultivate his vineyard, and will not suffer it to be devoured by the foxes. A most mischievous fox is the secret detractor, and another, just as bad, is the fair-spoken flatterer. Against both of these the wise man will be on his guard. He will endeavour, so far as it depends on him, to catch such rational foxes, but to catch them only by his benefits, by his services, by his salutary admonitions, and by his prayers to God for their conversion. He will never cease to “heap coals of fire on the head” of the slanderer in this way, and also on the head of the flatterer, until, if it is possible, he has expelled from the heart of the one its envy and from the heart of the other its hypocrisy. Thus shall be fulfilled the command of the Bridegroom conveyed in the words, “catch us the little foxes which destroy the vines.” Does it not seem to you, my brethren, that that fox has been caught, who, covered with shame and confusion, and blushing for his own evil behaviour, becomes thereby the witness of the embarrassment and sorrow he feels for having hated a man most deserving of his love, or for having loved only “in word and in tongue” one by whom he knew himself to be loved “in deed and in truth”? He has been caught, plainly, and caught for the Lord, according to the injunction which He has given, saying expressly, “Catch us the little foxes.” Would to God that I could so catch “all them who are my verersaries without cause,” that I might either gain them or restore them to Christ! Thus, “let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul; let them be turned back and be confounded that devise evil against me,” in such a way, namely, that I may be found obedient to the Bridegroom, not alone in catching the foxes, but also in catching them for Him! But let us go back now to the beginning, so that our exposition may proceed with an orderly sequence.