Sermons on the Song of Songs

We have next to apply our minds to a consideration of the day and the shadows mentioned by the Spouse. What is that day? What are these shadows? Why is the day said to “aspire”? By what power are the shadows made to incline? For she says, with deliberate explicitness, “Till the day aspire and the shadows be inclined.” And not alone explicitly, but singularly also, because, unless I am deceived, this is the only place where you will find the day represented as aspiring. To aspire is to breathe towards. Now winds are said to breathe, but never days. Man also breathes, and so do all the irrational animals; indeed it is by the uninterrupted alternation of inhaling and exhaling the air that they preserve their lives. And how does this motion of the air in respiration differ from wind? The Holy Spirit likewise breathes; and the very name of spirit is derived from the act of breathing (spiritus, spirans). But in what sense can a day be said to breathe, since it is neither a wind, nor an animal, nor a spirit? And yet the Spouse speaks of it not only as breathing, but—which is more significant—as breathing towards something, that is, aspiring. Not less unusual is the expression, “Till the shadows be inclined.” For at the rise of this corporeal and visible sun above us, the shadows are annihilated rather than inclined. Consequently we have to seek for the objects referred to here outside the material universe. And if we succeed in discovering a spiritual day and spiritual shadows, then perhaps the aspiring of the former and the inclining of the latter shall become more clearly intelligible. Now if there be anyone who regards as something corporeal that day whereof the Psalmist sings, “Better is one day in Thy courts above thousands,” I know not what such a person would call incorporeal. There is also a day of evil import, that, namely, which was cursed by the Prophets, Job and Jeremias. But God forbid that we should believe it to be one of the days “which the Lord hath made”! It must therefore be a spiritual day.

To come now to the shadow, who doubts that it was a spiritual shadow which overshadowed Mary at the moment when she conceived the Saviour? And who doubts that it is of a spiritual shadow the Prophet Jeremias is speaking where he says, “A Spirit before our face (is) Christ the Lord, under His shadow we shall live among the gentiles”? But in my opinion the Spouse in this place designates by the name of shadows the “opposing powers,” who are not only shadows but even darkness, nay, “the princes of this darkness,” as they are called by the Apostle; and with these wicked angels are included those of our own race who adhere to them, the sons, not of the day, nor of the light, but of the night and the darkness. For, as is evident, these shadows shall not entirely vanish away immediately that the day aspires or breaks, just as we see the corporeal shadows not only departing but utterly annihilated before the face of the rising corporeal sun. But if the spiritual shadows shall not be reduced in the same way to nothingness, they shall certainly be brought to a condition more miserable than nothingness. They shall continue in existence, but as “inclined,” that is to say, as broken and beaten. “He will incline himself and fall, when he shall have power over the poor,” says the Royal Prophet, speaking no doubt of the prince of darkness. Therefore their nature shall not be destroyed, but they shall lose their capacity for evil; their substance shall remain, but their power shall pass away with the power of darkness. They shall be “taken away lest they should see the glory of God.” They shall be preserved from annihilation, but only to burn for ever in the fires of hell. Surely these spiritual shadows shall then be inclined, when the mighty shall be put down from their seats and made a footstool for the just. And these things, my brethren, “must shortly come to pass.” We are now in “the last hour”; “the night is passed and the day is at hand.” And when the day shall “aspire,” the night must expire. That night is the devil; that night is the “angel of Satan” who “transformeth himself into an angel of light”; that night is Antichrist, “whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the Spirit of His Mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.” As for the day, what can that be but the Lord Himself? Yes, He is manifestly the Day, bright and “aspiring,” Who by the Spirit of His Mouth shall put the shadows to flight, and shall destroy the diabolical spectres “with the brightness of His coming.” But some of you may prefer to take the word “incline” more simply, and to suppose that the inclination of the shadows means their annihilation. According to this view, lest it should be thought that we are not taking account of every interpretation—according to this view, I say, the shadows should be considered as designating the figures and mysteries of Holy Scripture, also the specious utterances, and the verbal quibbling, and the involved arguments of the sophists, because by all these things, as by shadows, the light of truth is at present prevented from shining fully upon our souls. For now “we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part shall be done away.”

I should now have said enough on the verse under discussion, had the Spouse represented the day as “breathing” and not as “breathing towards,” that is, as “aspiring”. But on account of such addition, small though it be, I think it necessary to offer some further remarks, which may help to explain her selection of the word “aspiring.” For I confess that it has long been my conviction, that, in the text of Sacred Scripture, so holy and precious, not a single jot or tittle is without its special significance. With regard to the expression “aspiring,” we use it whenever we want to signify a particularly ardent desire of someone for something. For example, we say that such a person aspires to such an honour or to such a dignity. In this place, therefore, the word is employed to indicate the marvellous abundance and vehemence of the Spirit reserved for that future day, when not alone our minds but our bodies too, though in a different manner, shall be spiritualised; and when such of us as may be found worthy, “shall be filled with the plenty of God’s house,” and allowed to “drink of the torrent of His pleasure.”