Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Return: be like, my Beloved, to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel.”

“Return: be like, my Beloved, to a roe, or to a young hart.” What is this? It is only now He departed and dost thou beg Him to return? What unexpected event can have happened in so short a time? Has the Spouse forgotten something? Aye, she has forgotten everything which is not her Bridegroom, forgotten even herself. For though not devoid of reason, she seems to be acting now like one who has lost the use of reason. Even womanly propriety appears to be forgotten in her words, however modest may be her thoughts and feelings. This is all due to the vehemence of her love. For love is a power that conquers and renders captive to itself every sense of shame, every restriction of modesty, every counsel of reason, and induces a total disregard and neglect of all the rules of fittingness and decorum. Therefore you here behold the Spouse calling on her Beloved to come back almost as soon as He has begun to retire. And she prays Him to make haste, yea, to run like one of the beasts of the forest remarkable for their fleetness of foot, namely, “like a roe or a young hart.” Such, my brethren, is the literal sense, the portion of the Jews.

But as for me, following the counsel of the Lord, I will search for the treasures of spirit and life hidden in the profound depths of these inspired utterances. This is my inheritance, because I am a believer in Christ. Why should I not endeavour to find the wholesome and savoury food of the spirit beneath the unprofitable and unpalatable letter, as the grain amongst the chaff, the meat in the shell, or the marrow in the bone? I will have nothing to do with this letter which when tasted savours of the flesh, and when swallowed brings death. Nevertheless, that which lies concealed in it is of the Holy Ghost, for “by the Spirit (it) speaketh mysteries,” as the Apostle bears witness. But Israel is content to hold the veil of the mysteries, instead of the mysteries themselves, which are hidden beneath. Wherefore? For no other reason than that the “veil is still upon his own heart.” Hence to him belongs the sound of the word, but the signification thereof is mine. And so whilst the Scripture in the letter ministers death to the Jew, it becomes for me a source of life in the spirit. For “it is the spirit that quickeneth,” that is, by giving understanding. Is not understanding life? “Give me understanding that I may live,” cries out the Psalmist, speaking to the Lord. Understanding does not remain outside in the letter; it does not stick fast in the surface; it is not satisfied to grope its way by the touch of exterior objects, like a blind man. Rather it explores the profound deeps, whence it is accustomed to extract and to bring up with insatiable avidity the most precious spoils of sacred truth. Hence it can say with the Psalmist, “I will rejoice at Thy words, as one that hath found great spoil.” It is thus, my brethren, that the “kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” But that elder brother who came in from the fields, and who represented the people of the old and earthly dispensation, the people “taught to love the threshing,” groaning in misery—yet with hardened forehead—under the heavy yoke of the law, and bearing “the burden of the day and the heat”—that elder brother, I say, because he has not understanding, still stands outside and refuses to enter the banqueting-chamber even at his Father’s invitation, thereby defrauding himself, to the present hour, of a participation in the music, and the singing, and the fatted calf. Oh, what folly to be unwilling to learn from the experience “how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” These remarks will suffice to point out the difference between the portion of the Church and the portion of the Synagogue; so that the prudence of the one may be rendered more evident by contrast with blindness of the other, and the happiness of the one from the miserable infatuation of the other.

Let us now weigh attentively the words of the Spouse; and let us endeavour also to express the sentiments of holy love in such a manner that nothing in this inspired discourse shall have the least appearance of being either unreasonable, or indecorous, or inexpedient. Call to mind, therefore, that hour when the Lord Jesus was about to “pass out of this world to the Father.” Try to conceive also what were then the feelings of that domestic Church of His, the newly-wed Bride, when she saw herself on the point of being abandoned by her only hope and left as a desolate widow on the earth—I am speaking of the Apostles, who had left all things to follow Him, and who continued with Him in His temptations. Think of these things, my brethren, and I believe it will no longer appear to you strange or incongruous that a Spouse so devoted and so deserted should show as much solicitude for her Bridegroom’s return as grief for His departure. Therefore, in her love and her helplessness she found a twofold motive for urging Him at the least to hasten His return, since He could not be persuaded to remain with her and not to “ascend to where He was before.” For by desiring and praying Him to make Himself like to the beasts of the forest, and to those beasts in particular which are most remarkable for agility, by this she manifests the eager longing of her soul which reckons no swiftness swift enough. And does she not daily repeat the same request when she says in the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy kingdom come”?

It seems to me, however, that besides fleetness of foot the Spouse also intends to signify weakness, which is expressed by the sex of the roe and by the age of the hart. In my opinion, therefore, although she desires Him to come with power, she yet does not wish that He should appear at the judgment in the form of God, but rather in that form in which He was not only born for us, but was born for us as a little Child, and born of the weaker female sex alone. But wherefore does she ask Him to appear in this form? Because she hopes that His own weakness, and the weakness of the source whence His Human Nature is sprung, shall remind Him to have compassion in the day of His wrath, and even in the judgment itself to exalt mercy over judgment. For if He “will mark iniquities who shall stand it,” even of the elect? The very stars are not pure in His sight, and in His angels He found wickedness. Listen to what one of the saints and the elect says to God, “Thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin,” so speaks the Psalmist, “for this shall every one that is holy pray to Thee in a seasonable time.” Hence it is evident that the saints themselves have need to pray for the pardon of their sins and that it is through the divine mercy they are saved, since they place no reliance on their own justice. “For all have sinned and do need the glory—that is to say, the mercy—of God.” In order, therefore, that “when He is angry He may remember mercy,” the Spouse beseeches Him to appear at the judgment in the habit of mercy, in that habit to which the Apostle is alluding where he says, “And in habit found as a man.”