Sermons on the Song of Songs

“My Beloved to me, and I to Him.”

“My Beloved to me, and I to Him.” For some time, my brethren, I have been occupied with the words of the Bridegroom. May He now grant me His help that I may be able to explain in a fitting manner this speech of His Spouse, unto His glory and our salvation. For what she says here is not so plain and easy that I am sufficient of myself to examine and discuss it worthily, without any need of His light to guide me. Her words, indeed, are as pregnant with meaning and as mysteriously profound as they are full of the sweetness of grace. To what shall I liken them? For the present, they may be compared to a certain kind of aliment excelling in three qualities: pleasing to the palate, nourishing as food, efficacious as medicine. Such, such, I say, is every sentence that falls from the lips of the Spouse. For by the sweetness of its sound it conciliates our affections; by its abounding wealth of meaning it nourishes and strengthens our minds; by its dark depth of mystery it bewilders our intellects in proportion as it exercises them, and thus in a wonderful way heals the swelling of the knowledge that “puffeth up.” If anyone of those who seem to themselves to know something, should chance to apply himself earnestly to the study of such texts, when he perceived the power of his genius failing and “every understanding being brought into captivity,” would he not humble himself, and feel compelled to cry out in the words of the Psalmist, Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me: it is high and I cannot reach to it”? And here, at the very commencement of her words, how much of sweetness is there not expressed! For consider in what manner she begins. “My Beloved to me,” she says, “and I to Him.” This may appear to you simple enough, because it sounds so sweetly. However, we shall see about that afterwards.

Now, therefore, beginning with love, she proceeds discourse about her Beloved, thus indicating that, like the Apostle, she knows nothing except Him Whom she loves. It is sufficiently evident of Whom she is speaking, but to whom is not so clear. For it is not possible to suppose that He of Whom she speaks is the same to whom her words are addressed, since He is no longer with her. There can be no doubt about his, because she presently seems to call Him back, and, as it were, to cry after Him, “Return, my Beloved.” Hence we are led to the conjecture that, having completed what He had to say to His Spouse, the Bridegroom, according to His custom, took His departure, whilst she remained behind, yet still speaking of Him Who is never absent from her affection. So indeed it is. She has kept Him on her lips, Who could not withdraw Himself from her heart, even when He withdrew from her His sensible presence. What issues from her lips, proceeds from her heart; “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Therefore she speaks of her Beloved, as one that is herself truly beloved, and truly deserving of love, “because she loveth much.” But I desire to know with whom she is speaking, since I understand well enough of Whom. For my part, I am unable to conceive whom else she could be addressing (if we suppose her to be addressing any at all) except it be the young maidens who can never be absent from their mother’s side when the Bridegroom leaves her. But we may also suppose—and with greater probability, as I think—that she has uttered those words to herself and not to any other. This conjecture is rendered the more likely by the abrupt and disconnected character of her discourse, which is plainly too incoherent to convey her thought to a hearer, the object we have principally in view in conversing together. “My Beloved to me,” she says, “and I to Him.” Nothing more! The sentence is suspended. Or rather it is not suspended, but fails utterly. The hearer also is in a state of suspense. Instead of receiving instruction, he has only his interest excited.

What is this which she says, “My Beloved to me and I to Him”? We know not what she says because we cannot read her thoughts. O holy soul, tell us what thou meanest by the words, “My Beloved to me and I to Him”? What, I ask, is this giving and receiving, this interchange of gifts which is so sweetly and so lovingly taking place between you? He to thee and thou again to Him. But what? Is it the same thing which He bestows on thee that thou renderest back to Him, or is it something different? If it is to us thou art here addressing thyself, if thou speakest for our instruction, express more clearly what thou dost mean. “How long wilt thou hold our souls in suspense?” Or art thou, like the Prophet Isaias, keeping thy secret to thyself? So it is, my brethren. It is her heart that has spoken, not her understanding, and consequently her speech is not for our understanding. Then wherefore? For no purpose at all, except that, being filled with marvellous delight and inflamed with most ardent love by the longed-for colloquy with her Bridegroom, since He left off speaking she has been unable either to keep silent altogether or to express what she feels within her. For it is not to manifest her emotions that she has spoken, but simply because she cannot remain silent. Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth has spoken, but not according to her heart’s abundance. The emotions have their own proper language whereby they express themselves, even against our will. Thus fear, for example, has its peculiar tremulous expression, sorrow prefers a mournful medium, whilst love selects the sweetest words. Will anyone pretend that the groans of those in pain, the sighs and sobbings of those in sorrow, the sudden and involuntary cries of those who are struck or frightened, and the eructations of satiety—will anyone say that these manifestations are made by use and custom, or excited by reason, or ordered by deliberation, or fashioned by premeditation? Is it not certain that instead of obeying the will of the soul they rather burst forth spontaneously? Thus, when love, especially divine love, is so strong and ardent that it cannot any longer be contained within the soul, it pays no attention to the order, or the sequence, or the correctness of the words through which it pours itself out, or whether they are few or many, provided only that they are in nowise opposed to its own interests. Sometimes it dispenses with words altogether; sometimes it makes use of no other means of expression save the mute language of sighs, in which it finds a sufficient vent. Hence it is that the Spouse, burning with an incredible ardour of divine love, in her anxiety to obtain some kind of outlet for the intense heat which consumes her, does not consider what she speaks or how she speaks. Under the constraining influence of charity, she belches forth rather than utters whatever rises to her lips. And is it any wonder that she should eructate who is so full and so inebriated with the wine of holy love?