24. Spiritual Love (Commentary on the Canticle, sermon 1,: Pg 44.764D-765C)33
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live, as the inspired word tells us: No man shall see the face of the Lord and live (Exod. 33.20).
You see then how important it is to learn how to follow the Lord. For even after all those lofty ascents, those terrible and splendid visions, Moses, although he is practically at the end of his life,32 is hardly judged worthy of the grace, he who has learnt to walk behind his Lord. But following God in this way he no longer encounters the obstacles of sin.
24. Spiritual Love (Commentary on the Canticle, sermon 1,
PG 44.764D-765C)33
All of you, following the counsel of Paul, have stripped yourselves of the old man (Col. 3.9) like a soiled garment with all his works and desires; and by the purity of your lives you have put on the snow-white garments of the Lord which He showed us at His Transfiguration on the mount. All of you, then, who have been transformed into something divine and sinless—it is to you that I speak of the mystery of the Canticle of Canticles. Come within His incorruptible bridal chamber, now that you have put on the white garment of pure and chaste thoughts. Some there may be who do not wear the garment of a clean conscience as befits the divine espousals; they may be involved in their own thoughts, and try to drag down the pure words of the Bride and Bridegroom to the level of irrational, animal pleasure, and thus become absorbed in shameful images. Such as these must be cast out of the community who joyfully participate in the marriage, and be assigned to the weeping and gnashing of teeth instead of the happiness of the marriage chamber. This is the declaration I
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must make before I begin the mystical interpretation of the Canticle of Canticles. For in the sacred text we shall find the soul clothed, in a sense, in the garment of a bride to prepare it for a pure and spiritual marriage with God that has nothing to do with the body. For He, Who will have all men to he saved, and to come to the \nowledge of the truth (1 Tim.
2.4), shows us in this book the most perfect and glorious path of salvation, I mean, by way of love. For some are saved by fear, as for example, when we break off from sin because we have our eyes on the threatened punishment of Hell. There are others, too who live lives of virtue because of the rewards promised to the good; and these possess their goal not by charity but by their hope of reward. But he who runs in spirit to reach perfection, casts out fear. For it is the attitude of a slave, who does not stay with his master out of love and simply does not run away for fear he will be beaten. The truly virtuous man even despises rewards, lest he give the impression that he esteems the gift more than the giver. He loves with his whole heart and soul and strength (Deut. 6.5) not the creatures that come from God but Him Who is the source of all good. And He Who calls us to share in Him commands that this disposition be in the souls of all of us who listen to Him.
25. Mystical Marriage (ibid., 776A-777C) In the art of painting the material of the different colors fills out the representation of the model. But anyone who looks at the picture that has been completed through the skil ful use of color does not stop with the mere contemplation of
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the colors that have been painted on the tablet; rather he looks at the form which the artist has created in color. So it is with the Scripture we are discussing. We must not as it were look merely at the material of the colors (in this case, the words), but rather at the form of the King that the chaste concepts of the mind have expressed in the words. Now the colors, as for example, white, yellow, black, red, blue, are in this case the words in their obvious meanings, as for example, mouth, kiss, myrrh, wine, parts of the body, bed, maidens, and the like.
And the form that is expressed by these words is that state of integrity and blessedness, union with God, the banishment of all evil, and the assimilation of the truly good and beauti ful. These notions bear witness that Solomon's great wisdom transcended all the limits of mortal wisdom. For what could be more paradoxical than that nature itself should purify its own passions? For in words that seem to suggest passion it offers us precepts and instruction in purity. For he does not say that we ought to be beyond all carnal passion, that we should mortify our members on earth, or that our lips should not be sullied by sinful words; rather, he so manages our souls that we are made to look to chastity by means of words which seem to suggest the opposite, and through sensuous expressions he reveals a meaning which is incorruptible.
But one thing at least the sacred text should teach us, by way of preamble, that those who are to be initiated into the secret mysteries of this book must no longer be mere men; rather they must be substantially transformed by Christ's word into something divine. And the Word bore witness to this when He told his disciples that they were now more than mere men, for they had been separated from men by that distinction which He Himself had proposed in their pres-
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ence: Who do men say that I am? (Mark 8.27) But who do you say that 1 am? (Mark 8.29) So too here the sacred text uses expressions the obvious meaning of which would suggest carnal passion; and yet it does not slip into any improper meaning, but rather uses such words to instruct us by chaste concepts in the life that is divine. And in doing this it shows us that we are no longer to be men, with a nature composed of flesh and blood. Rather, it points to that life we hope to attain at the resurrection of the saints, a life like that of the angels, free from all concu- • 94 piscence.
After the resurrection, when our bodies will be re-united to our souls, they will be incorruptible; and the carnal pas sions which disturb us now will not be present in those bodies; we shall enjoy a peaceful equilibrium in which the prudence of the flesh will not make war upon the soul; and there will no longer be that internal warfare wherein sinful passions fight against the law of the mind, conquering the soul and taking it captive by sin. Our nature then will be puri fied of all these tendencies, and one spirit will be in both, I mean in the flesh and in the spirit, and every corporeal affec tion will be banished from our nature. In much the same way the Word in the Canticle bids us, even though we live in the flesh, not to turn our thoughts to it but to look merely to the spirit, and to turn all the expressions of love that we may find here as pure and immaculate offerings to the good Lord Who surpasses all understanding, in Whom alone is all that is sweet, lovely and desirable. For any enjoyment of Him only increases our desire for a greater share in His goodness. Such was Moses' love, such was Isaias', and such was John's when he called Him the bridegroom: He that hath the bride is the
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bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom s voice (John 3-29)* So too
Peter, when asked whether he loved the Lord, answered with all sincerity: Thou \nowest that l love thee (John 21.15). It was the same with the other Apostles. So it was with Paul, who first persecuted Christ and then loved Him, even though he had not seen Him, and wrote: l have espoused you that 1 may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11.2).
26. The Spiritual Senses (ibid., 780C-781C) There is another lesson that we are incidentally taught by the deeper study of this book: it is that we have two sets of senses, one corporeal and the other spiritual, as the Word tells us in the book of Proverbs: Thou shalt find the sense of God.35 There is a correspondence between the motions and movements of the soul and the sense organs of the body, as we learn from the words of the Spirit given in our text. Wine and milk, it is true, are distinguished by the taste; but the spiritual realities which they signify are grasped rather by the intellectual power of the soul. A kiss is an operation of the sense of touch: in a kiss two pairs of lips touch. There is, however, a spiritual faculty of touch, which comes in contact with the Word, and this is actuated by a spiritual and im material sense of touch, as it is said: Our hands have handled of the word of life (1 John 1.1). So too the smell of the divine perfumes does not proceed from the smell of our nostrils but from a spiritual faculty which draws in the sweet odor of Christ by an inhalation of the spirit. And this is the tenor of the text of the maiden's prayer as we have it in the opening
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section: Thy breasts are sweeter than wine and the odor of thy ointments above all ointments (Cant. 1.1-2). Here is re vealed a notion which is not at all insignificant, I think, nor to be despised. For in this comparison which shows how far superior is the milk we draw from the divine breast to the joy we derive from wine, we learn that all human wisdom or the exercise of the imagination cannot at all be compared with the simple nourishment we derive from divine revela tion. For milk comes from the breast and it is the food of infants. But wine is for the more perfect, because of the warmth and strength which it brings. And yet what is su perior in the wisdom of the world is far inferior to the child like instruction we receive from the divine word. Hence it is that the divine breasts are better than human wine, and the smell of the divine ointments is sweeter than all other per fumes. And the meaning of this seems to be as follows: by ointments we are to understand the virtues, as for example, wisdom, temperance, fortitude, prudence and the like; and if we anoint ourselves with these in accord with the choice and capacity of each one, we shall, each in his way, enjoy a good odor: one, the odor of temperance or wisdom; another, that of justice or fortitude, or of any other aspect of virtue; and still another might enjoy a good odor that would be com pounded of all these ointments. And yet all of these could not be compared with that all perfect virtue which dwells in heaven according to the prophet Habacuc: His glory covered the heavens (Hab. 3.3); for this is essential wisdom, essential justice, essential truth, and so on with all the rest. The odor of the heavenly ointments, says the text, offers an incom parable happiness in contrast with the ointments of this world which we know.