Sermons on the Song of Songs

“In my bed by night I sought Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and found Him not.”

I will rise and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and I found Him not.

“The watchmen who kept the city found me: Have you seen Him Whom my soul loveth?”

“When I had a little passed beyond them, I found Him Whom my soul loveth: I held Him and I will not let Him go, till I bring Him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.”

Some of you, my brethren, as it appears, are feeling disappointed because, for several days past, I have given myself up so exclusively to the delight of studying, with wonder and admiration, the mystical meanings of this speech of the Spouse, that my sermons have been seasoned with few moral applications, if any at all. That certainly is not in accordance with my usual practice. But I want your permission now to go over again what has been treated already. I will not proceed until all has been rehearsed. I pray you, then, to tell me, if you remember, at what verse I began to defraud you of these moral reflections, so that we may commence again from there. It shall be my care to make good whatever loss you may have suffered, or rather I should say that this shall be the care of the Lord to Whom we look for everything. Whence, therefore, am I to begin with the rehearsal? Unless I am mistaken, the starting-point should be the verse, “In my bed by night I sought Him Whom my soul loveth,” because there and thenceforward my sole concern has been to remove the thick veil of allegory, and to place clearly before you the sense of this secret and delightful intercourse between Christ and His Church. Let us therefore go back to seek for moral interpretations; and do not be afraid that the work shall prove wearisome to me, provided it be profitable to you. The most convenient plan will be to endeavour to apply to the Word and the individual soul what I have already said concerning Christ and the Church.

But here I may be met with the objection, “Why dost thou join these two together? What is there in common between the Word of God and the soul of man?” I answer, “Much in every way.” For, in the first place, there is a close natural affinity between them, since the Word is the Image of God and the soul is made according to this Image. And secondly, their likeness to each other bears witness to that affinity, since the soul has been made not only according to the Image but also to the likeness of the Image. Do you ask in what consists their likeness to each other? But let me speak first about the Image. The Word is Truth, the Word is Wisdom, the Word is Justice. And under each of these respects He is an Image. An Image of what? An Image of Justice, an Image of Wisdom, an Image of Truth. For the Word as an Image is Justice of Justice, and Wisdom of Wisdom, and Truth of Truth; in the same manner as He is the Light of Light and God of God. But the soul is none of these things, because she is not the Image. Nevertheless she is capable of them, and is desirous of them too; and perhaps it is with respect to this capacity and this desire that she is said to be made according to the Image. She is a noble creature whose greatness is revealed in the fact that she possesses in herself such a capacity for participating in the perfections of the Word; and in her yearning for the same, she gives proof of her righteousness. We read in Ecclesiastes that “God made man right”; and that He made him great also is clear, as I have said, from his capacity for greatness. For it is necessary that what has been made according to the Image should bear some resemblance to the Image, and that its participation in the name of the Image should not be in vain; just as the Image Itself has not received the name of Image as a bare and empty title. Consequently of Him Who is the Image, that is, of the Word, we read that being “in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Here we have insinuated to us the righteousness of the Word, in that He is affirmed to be in the form of God, and His Majesty in that He is affirmed to be equal with God; in order to make it appear that, just as the Image is conformed in both these perfections to Him of Whom He is the Image, so is there on the other hand a corresponding conformity between the Image and the soul which is made according to the Image. For it is of the Same of Whom the Word is the Image that we hear David singing in the psalms, at one time, “Great is our Lord and great is His power,” at another, “The Lord our God is righteous and there is no iniquity in Him.” From this great and righteous Lord, the Word, His Image, has that He also is great and righteous, and from the Image the soul which is made according to the Image.