title: Explicatio in Cantica canticorum

author: Justus of Urgell

source_edition: Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 67, coll. 963A–994B

source_text:
## CAPUT PRIMUM.

[0963A]

Num. 1. *Osculetur me osculo oris sui.* Vox Ecclesiae haec est venientis ad Christum in osculo; offensam quam apud Deum homines peccando contraxerant resolvi cupientis, et pacem in qua, dum essemus Deo Patri inimici, per ipsum Filium ejus reconciliamur, invenire desiderantis: propter quod propheta ad Deum: *Pacem tuam, Domine, da nobis, et omnia reddidisti nobis [n: (Isa. XXVI)]*. In Evangelio quoque [n: (Luc. XV)] redeuntem a regione longinqua filium pater deosculatus est. Tunc enim quodammodo venientibus ad se osculum tradidit, quando unicum suum in homine nasci voluit, per quem etiam ut ei pacis vinculo adhaereamus attribuit. Denique et angeli, nascente Christo: *Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis [n: (Luc. VIII)]*, idcirco [0963B] voce consona clamaverunt, quia ipsum qui est pax nostra nobis utique talia dicendo, perspicue docuerunt.

Num. 2. *Quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino, flagrantia unguentis optimis.* Ubera Christi, apostolos, evangelistas non incongrue accipimus; per ipsos enim in fide nutrimur et spirituali alimento reficimur. Idcirco autem meliora vino probantur, quia evangelica doctrina eminentior quam lex olim data dignoscitur. Denique illic figura, hic veritas; illic tanquam austeritas vini diligendum tantummodo proximum et inimicum odiendum ostendit, hic dulcedo gratiae pro inimicis orandum, et eos qui nos oderunt admonet diligendos. Ipsa quoque Christi ubera, id est apostolos, unguentis optimis flagrantia declarat, quia tantis virtutibus [0963C] tantisque enituere miraculis, ut odor justitiae eorum longe lateque diffusus tunc intuentes oblectaret, et usque huc omnes reficiat audientes, sicut unus ex ipsis pronuntiat dicens: *Deo autem gratia, qui semper triumphat nos in Christo Jesu, et odorem notitiae suae manifestat in omni loco pro nobis [n: (I Cor. II)]*.

Num. 3. *Oleum effusum nomen tuum, ideo adolescentulae dilexerunt te.* Quem unxit Deus, id est Christum, *oleo laetitiae, prae participibus suis [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*, hujus etiam velut oleum effusum est nomen: quicunque enim Christiani a Christo nominantur ipsique chrismate perunguntur, atque in ejus nomine baptizati sancto Spiritu adimplentur, ut unguentum quod descendit a capite *in barbam Aaron [n: (Psal. CXXXII)]*; quod verum, perfectum, atque fortissimum declarat; [0963D] id est sacer Spiritus, qui a Deo diffusus est in Christo, *descendit* etiam *in oram vestimenti ejus,* ac totam, usque in finem, Ecclesiam replet; quae ei inhaerendo, sine dubio vestis ipsius est. Nam in transfiguratione [0964A] *vultus ejus splenduit sicut sol,* ut in Evangelio legimus, *et indumenta ipsius velut nix candida facta sunt [n: (Mat. XVII; Luc. IX)]*, *quae talia nullus fullo super terram facere potuit.* Nullus enim doctorum ad tantum nitorem sicut ille discipulos suos aliquando perduxit; vel sic a maculis ablutos, instar nivis candidos in se credentes facit. Hunc ergo adolescentulae, vel novellae Ecclesiae vel incorruptae animae dilexerunt; quae etiam flagranti unguento repletae cum Apostolo dicunt: *Charitas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis [n: (Rom. V)]*.

Num. 4. *Trahe me post te, curremus in odorem.* Dicit Dominus in Evangelio: *Nemo venit ad me nisi Pater, qui misit me, attraxerit eum [n: (Joan. VI)]*. Attrahitur enim ad Christum qui credit in Christo; illi vero currunt [0964B] post eum, qui eum imitantur vel qui dono ipsius ipsum sequendo proficiunt.

Num. 5. *Introduxit me rex in cellaria sua.* Introduxit Christus Ecclesiam in sua cellaria, cum ei revelavit Scripturarum occulta mysteria, sicut Apostolus ait, *ut ostenderet in saeculis supervenientibus abundantes divitias gratiae suae in bonitate super nos in Christo Jesu [n: (Ephes. II)]*. Vel tunc ex toto sancti introducuntur in Christi cellaria, cum eis in fine dicetur: *Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum quod vobis paratum est ab origine mundi [n: (Matth. XXV)]*.

Num. 6. *Exsultabimus et laetabimur in te memores uberum tuorum super unum.* Exsultant sancti et laetantur in Domino, cum recordantur quemadmodum per ubera Christi, apostolorum scilicet doctrinis, spirituali [0964C] lacte nutriti sunt. Quam doctrinam Christi dum priscae legis praeceptis inspiciunt clariorem, in illa vel ex ipsa Christum intuentes intelligunt, quibus ipse in Evangelio dicit: *Vestri beati oculi qui vident, et aures quae audiunt; amen dico vobis, multi prophetae et reges quaesierunt videre quae videtis, et non viderunt; et audire quae audistis, et non audierunt [n: (Matth. XIII; Luc. X)]*.

Num. 7. *Recti diligunt te.* Nec enim pravi possunt diligere aequitatem: illi enim recti sunt et diligunt Deum, qui non amore creaturae captivi tenentur; sed, sicut rectos decet, pretiosum munus praeponentes, Deo auctori omnium dilectione fortissima adhaeserunt. Sed et illi Deum recte diligere approbantur, qui non solum in beneficiis, sed in flagellis ipsius constituti, [0964D] similiter gratias agunt sicut et ille dicebat: *Benedicam Dominum in omni tempore, laus ejus in ore meo [n: (Psal. XXXIII)]*: id est, et quando laetitiam ex dono capio, et quando dolorem (eodem corripiente) suscipio. [0965A] Sicut alius quoque vehementissima passione probatus, carne putridus, et sincerus corde locutus est: *Si bona suscepimus de manu Domini, mala cur non sustineamus? Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sicut Domino placuit ita factum est; sit nomen,* etc.

Num. 8. *Nigra sum, sed formosa, filia Jerusalem, sicut tabernacula Cedar.* Nigra confessione peccatorum, formosa gratia sacramenti, filia Jerusalem. Ex illa enim primitivorum Ecclesia per Evangelium nata est quae prima credidit in Jerusalem; vel certe, sicut Apostolus dicit: *Illa quae sursum est Jerusalem, libera est, quae est mater nostra [n: (Galat. IV)]*. Et merito, quia assimilat se tabernaculis Cedar; quod interpretatur, obscuritatis; ad cujus filios Apostolus dicit: *Fuistis aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino (Ephes. [0965B] V)*. Potest etiam nigra vocari, cum passionibus, opprobriis, contumeliis et despectui traditur. Considera nigram atque formosam: in Paulo: *In omnibus tribulationem patimur, sed non angustiamur; aporiamur, sed non destituimur; dejicimur, sed non perimus [n: (II Cor. IV)]*. Quemadmodum tabernacula Cedar; *tanquam purgamenta hujus mundi facti sumus, omnium peripsema;* et sicut pellis Salomonis, *semper mortificationem Jesu Christi in carne nostra circumferentes, ut vita Jesu manifestetur in carne nostra mortali.*

Num. 9. *Nolite me considerare quod fusca sim, quia decoloravit me sol.* Id est: nolite me constitutam in persecutione despicere; aestus enim tribulationum sustinui, et quasi decorem temporalis jucunditatis amisi: *Per multas* enim *tribulationes oportet* me *intrare [0965C] in regnum Dei [n: (Act. XIV)]*. In illis namque sum de quibus scriptum est: *Beati qui lugent, quoniam ipsi consolabuntur: et vos quidem tristitiam habebitis, mundus autem gaudebit, sed tristitia vestra in gaudium convertetur [n: (Matth. V; Joan. XVI)]*.

Num. 10. *Filii matris meae pugnaverunt contra me.* Filii scilicet Synagogae, qui docentem et arguentem Stephanum martyrem lapidaverunt: *Et facta est persecutio magna in Ecclesia quae erat Hierosolymis, et omnes fratres dispersi sunt per regiones Judaeae et Samariae [n: (Act. VII)]*. Vel illi etiam pugnaverunt adversus Ecclesiam, qui Paulum praedicantem in gentibus, per civitates singulas persecuti sunt. Similiter et illi qui his qui ex gentibus crediderant, onera legis imponenda censebant, quae B. Jacobus cum caeteris apostolis [0965D] salubriter removenda decrevit [n: (Act. V)]. Nam et illi qui Galatas in Christo credentes circumcidi suaserant, perturbantes evangelicam traditionem adversus Ecclesiam pugnasse docentur, de quibus Paulus apostolus ait: *Neque* enim hi qui circumciduntur legem custodiunt, sed *volunt vos circumcidi ut in carne vestra glorientur [n: (Gal. V)]*. De ipsis etiam dixit: *Utinam abscindantur qui vos conturbant [n: (Ibid.)]*.

Num. 11. *Posuerunt me custodem in vineis.* Vineae quoque istae, Synagogae sunt: *Acceperat* quippe Saulus potestatem, et *epistolas a principibus sacerdotum, ut quoscunque credentes in Christo reperisset viros ac mulieres, in custodias tradere ut punirentur [n: (Act. XI et XXII)]*: ut dum ista perpetraret, quasi Synagogae vineam [0966A] custodiret. Et sequitur, *Vineam meam non custodivi.* Factus enim ex Saulo Paulus, ex persecutore praedicator, dum verbum Dei Judaeis contradicentibus praedicaret et omnino sperneretur, eisdem incredulis dixit: *Vobis quidem oportebat praedicari verbum Dei, sed quoniam repulistis illud et indignos vos judicastis tanta salute, ecce convertimur ad gentes, sic enim praecepit nobis per Scripturam Dominus: Dedi te in lucem gentium, ut sis in salutem usque ad extremum terrae [n: (Act. XIII; Isa. XLIX)]*. Vel sicut ipse ad Galatas scripsit, *Audistis conversationem meam in Judaismo, quia persequebar Ecclesiam Dei, et expugnabam illam et proficiebam in Judaismo supra multos coaetaneos meos in genere meo, abundantius aemulator existens paternarum mearum traditionum [n: (Gal. I)]*. Et iterum: *Sed [0966B] quae mihi fuerunt lucra, haec arbitratus sum detrimenta [n: (Philip. III)]*, tanquam sub aenigmate dicens: *Posuerunt me custodem vineis, vineam meam* enim *non custodivi.*

Num. 12. *Indica mihi quem diligit anima mea, ubi pascus, ubi cubas in meridie.* Legimus in Evangelio: *Si dixerint, Ecce hic est Christus, ecce illic, nolite exire [n: (Matth. XXIV; Marc. XIII)]*. Hic enim atque illic, partes esse noscuntur; Christus autem in Ecclesia catholica tanquam in meridie cubans, mundum universum suo fulgore perfudit, et in spiritu ferventibus requiescit, atque ex ea charitate qua orbem universum irradiat, credentes in se populos quotidie pascit.

Num. 13. *Ne vagari incipiam per greges sodalium [0966C] tuorum:* id est, si in ea claritate qua fidelium tuorum universitas consistit, te habitantem ignoravero, per greges sodalium, id est per congregationes haereticorum, incipiam oberrare. Sodales quippe Christi ex quadam parte haeredici appellentur, quia nativitatem, passionem, et resurrectionem ipsius profitentur; sed quia de ipsis Apostolus ait: *Habentes formam pietatis et virtutes ejus abnegantes [n: (II Tim. V)]*, *non* jam sodales, sed adversarii comprobantur.

## CAPUT PRIMUM. (cont.)

Num. 14. *Si ignoras te, o pulcherrima inter mulieres, egredere et abi post vestigia.* Vox Christi est ad Ecclesiam, *Si ignoras te, o pulchra inter mulieres:* si non intelligis quia tu es illa cui in psalmo dicitur: *Audi, filia, et vide, et inclina aurem tuam, et obliviscere populum tuum et domum patris tui, quia concupiscit [0966D] rex pulchritudinem tuam [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*, quia tu sola accepisti decorem incorruptibilis sacramenti. Et bene ait, *inter mulieres,* id est, gloriosa inter haereses: congrue enim mulierum nomine vocitantur, quia virginitatem quae est in Christo amiserunt. Igitur non oberres, me alibi extra te quaerendo ullo modo; in te quippe ubi me hactenus non quaerebas, tanquam in meridie requiesco. Jam intellige ubi me pascentem et gubernantem temetipsum quaeras, ne velut in nocte quorumlibet simulatio te abducat: quia tantummodo in te certa sinceritas me apud te regnante perdurat, in illis te esse cognosce, quibus post resurrectionem meam veraciter repromisi: *Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi (Matth. [0967A] XXVIII)*. Quod si quadam promissorum meorum dubitatione aliquo modo fluctuas, nec meam praesentiam, nec tuam pulchritudinem cognoscis: *egredere, et abi post vestigia gregum tuorum.* Merito etenim post vestigia gregum perget, quia pastoris praesentiam dereliquit. *Et pasce haedos tuos juxta tabernacula pastorum:* injustos homines oblectans traditionibus vel conventiculis haereticorum. His etenim redargutionibus objurgari merentur, qui Christum in catholica Ecclesia, vel seipsos Ecclesiam catholicam esse non cognoscunt.

Num. 15. *Equitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis.* Dicit Abacuc propheta: *Nunquid in fluminibus iratus es, Domine, aut in fluminibus furor tuus, vel in mari indignatio tua, qui ascendis super equos tuos, et quadrigae [0967B] tuae salus [n: (Abac. I)]*? Quos equos, apostolos et evangelistas accipimus? Ideo Christus loquitur ad Ecclesiam. Tunc *equitatui meo in curribus Pharaonis assimilavi te,* cum sapientes mundi ad meam fidem evocandos converti, ut deposito tumore saeculi, sub me (qui sum salus vera) currendo proficiant; meque circumferendo piis praedicationibus, credentium fide oculis manifestent. Ac sicut princeps mundi hujus qui jam missus est foras, falsis philosophis tanquam claris curribus usus est ad perniciem, ita ego mea sapientia repletis apostolis, credentes instituam ad salutem.

Num. 16. *Pulchrae sunt genae tuae sicut turturis.* Castitatem comitem verecundiae praedicavit. Dicitur enim genus turturum amisso corporali consortio solitarium [0967C] incedere, nec carnalem copulam ultra requirere. Habet itaque Christi sponsa eximiam pulchritudinem, quando cum pudore retinet castitatem.

Num. 17. *Collum tuum sicut monilia.* In collo hi insinuantur qui legem Dei diebus ac noctibus meditari non desistunt, quique etiam velut munda animalia, salutarem doctrinam jugiter ruminando reddunt. Hi, quia praeclara Ecclesiae ornamenta sunt, velut sponsae monilia describuntur.

Num. 18. *Murenulas aureas faciamus tibi.* Vox ista doctorum est, qui tunc ornamenta Ecclesiae auro argentoque permixta disponunt, quando spiritales intelligentias eloquii nitore disserunt. Murenulae autem a capite defluentes, solent ad cervicem ornandam aptari: et idcirco illae doctrinae praeclarae sunt, quae [0967D] a capite, id est Christo, procedentes, sic spirituali officio ministrant, ut cervicem nostram jugo Christi subdendam edoceant, ita ut talibus ab Apostolo dicatur: *Non alta sapientes [n: (Rom. XI)]*, etc.

Num. 19. *Dum esset rex in accubitu suo.* Narrant Evangelia [n: (Marc. XIV; Joan. XII)], ante biduum Paschae, recumbente Domino, a muliere habente alabastrum unguenti nardi pistici ejus capiti superfusum, et hic prophetia dicit: *Cum esset rex in accubitu suo, nardus mea dedit odorem suum.* Igitur tam haec quam illa figurate dicta vel facta noscuntur, quia Rege nostro (vel in cruce ubi inclinato capite spiritum reddidit, vel in sepulcro ubi corpore conditus requievit) in suo accubitu constituto, Ecclesia piae confessionis [0968A] odorifero unguento eum perunxit, ut cum voluntarie passum fuisse, et a mortuis resurrexisse die tertia virtute propria, in salutem credentium praedicare non cesset.

Num. 20. *Fasciculus myrrhae dilectus meus.* Myrrhae species, mortuorum corporibus condiendis apta dignoscitur. Fasciculus itaque myrrhae Christus passus et mortuus et sepultus. *Inter ubera mea commorabitur.* Ubera Ecclesiae esse eruditi et spirituali lacte redundantes qui nascentes in fide populos nutriunt, illi sine dubio comprobantur, qui mortem Domini, sicut praeceptum est, annuntiare donec veniat, omnibus modis non desistunt.

Num. 21. *Botrus Cypri dilectus meus.* Botrus in Cypro, Christus suspensus in crucis ligno: quod genus [0968B] ligni odoriferum semper et incorruptum est, signum etenim crucis, cum odore chrismatis praenotamus in fronte. Bene autem ait: *Botrus Cypri, dilectus meus mihi,* quia non illis qui crucifixerunt, sed his qui in crucifixum crediderunt, botri istius dulcedo concessa est. *In vineis Engaddi;* in Synagogae populis, ubi dominica peracta est passio. *Engaddi* interpretatur oculus tentationis meae. Lege Evangelium, et invenies Pharisaeos et Sadducaeos nihil aliud intendisse suis interrogationibus, nisi ut Dominum per singula tentarent, et invenirent causas accusandi cum; quibus ipse dicit: *Quid me tentatis, hypocritae [n: (Matth. XXII)]*? Sed tantum bonum passionis Christi, illis quidem gestum, nobis autem qui credidimus constat esse concessum.

[0968C]Num. 22. *Ecce tu pulchra es, amica mea.* Christus Ecclesiam, quam amicam pacis suae osculo fecit, bis pulchram pronuntiat, sicut Apostolus *sanctam corpore et spiritu [n: (I Cor. VII)]* esse docuit, adjiciens, *oculi tui columbarum.* Nihil est magis quod faciem ornet in corpore quam dispositio oculorum, per quos convenienter sanctos apostolos accipimus, qui etiam futura prospicere potuerunt; quorum privilegia designans beatus Paulus apostolus ad Corinthios scribens ait: *Vos estis corpus Christi [n: (I Cor. XII)]*. Et alio loco: *Quosdam quidem posuit Deus in Ecclesia primum apostolos [n: (Ephes. IV)]*, etc. Jam cum dicit, *oculi tui columbarum,* ipsos apostolos, quibus praeceptum est ut essent astuti *sicut serpentes, et simplices sicut columbae [n: (Matth. X)]*, evidenter ostendit: per cujus avis similitudinem, [0968D] eosdem sancto etiam Spiritu repletos esse demonstrat.

Num. 23. *Ecce tu pulcher es, dilecte mi.* Christum, quem pulchrum et decorum Ecclesia hoc loco commemorat, Psalmista sic pronuntiat, dicens: *Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*. Sed haec tua pulchritudo exinde est, quia *In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum; et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis [n: (Joan. I)]*. Addens autem, *lectulus noster floridus,* ipsum corpus dominicum in quo Deitas requievit, sincerum odoriferum, ex Virgine natum ostendit.

Num. 24. *Tecta domorum nostrarum.* Domus istae [0969A] in quibus Christus habitat, sancti sunt: sicut propheta dicit: *quoniam habitabo in eis [n: (Levit. XXVI; II Cor. VI)]*. Tecta autem et laquearia domorum istarum cedrina et cypressina, quae incorruptibilia et odorifera dignoscuntur, directionem Dei et proximi, quae per Spiritum sanctum desuper concessa est (id est ut sancti in se sint) demonstrat.

## CAP. II.

Num. 25. *Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium.* Ego decus mundi, ex virginitate humilium.

Num. 26. *Sicut lilium inter spinas.* Expulso homini de Paradiso dicitur: *Maledicta terra in operibus tuis, spinas et tribulos germinabit tibi [n: (Gen. III)]*; quae terra, utique caro humana intelligitur, quae aculeos libidinum et concupiscentiarum spinas producere consuevit. Quapropter quod ait: *Sicut lilium in medio [0969B] spinarum, sic amica mea inter filias:* filias haereses dicit, quae per baptismum quasi renatae, filiarum nomine nuncupantur; sed spinis comparatae, corrumpentes et corruptibiles perdocentur. Quam corruptionem Ecclesia nescit, quae liliorum sinceritati comparata, ultro citroque redolet ac resplendet.

Num. 27. *Sicut malum inter ligna silvarum.* Dicit Psalmographus, *quoniam quis in nubibus aequabitur Domino, aut quis similis erit Deo inter filios Dei [n: (Psal. LXXXVIII)]*? Illic adoptione, hic natura est filius; et ideo nullus in sanctis, vel in universo genere hominum, quamlibet filii vocabulo censeatur, Christo similis reperitur; qui fructus sui dulcedine refectioneque electos incomparabili decore praecedit.

Num. 28. *Sub umbra illius quem desideraveram.* [0969C] Eodem protegente quem semper adesse quaesivi, humilis ac secura permansi.

Num. 29. *Et fructus ejus dulcis gutturi meo.* Dicit in Evangelio Dominus: *Ego sum vitis, vos estis palmites; qui manet in me, et ego in eo, hic affert fructum multum, quia sine me nihil potestis facere [n: (Joan. XV)]*. Quamvis igitur fructus oriatur in palmite, ad vitem tamen deputandus est, ex cujus radice palmes cum fructu processit; et ideo quidquid justi in bonis operibus fructificant, totum est referendum ad Christum. In cujus fructibus incomparabilis dulcedo sentitur. Illi etiam sancti qui per gutturis speciem ruminare quae gustaverant, id est meditari quae Christi sunt, consueverant, ipsi etiam nimiam dulcedinem ex ejus fructu percipiunt.

[0969D]Num. 30. *Introduxit me in cellam vinariam.* Ascensurus in coelos Dominus praecipit apostolis ab Hierosolymis ne discederent, dicens ad eos: *Gaudete, quia vici mundum, et vado ad Patrem; vos vero sedete in civitate quoadusque induamini virtute ex alto.* Et sicut in Actibus apostolorum scriptum est: *Tunc reversi sunt in Jerusalem a monte qui vocatur Oliveti, qui est juxta Jerusalem, sabbati habens iter. Et cum intrassent in coenaculum, ascenderunt ubi manebant Petrus et Joannes.* Et post pauca, *Hi erant omnes unanimiter congregati cum mulieribus, et matre Jesu Maria, et fratribus ejus; erat autem turba hominum fere centum viginti [n: (Act. I, II)]* in hoc loco constituti; et superveniente Spiritu sancto repleti sunt; et cum [0970A] coepissent loqui variis linguis, musto pleni a populo putabantur. Tunc itaque Ecclesia in cellam vinariam introducitur, quando haec apostolica congregatio in unitate permanens, Spiritu sancto repletur, sicut et Apostolus dicit: *In uno Spiritu omnes nos baptizati sumus, sive servi, sive liberi, et omnes in uno Spiritu potati sumus [n: (I Cor. XII)]*. Quia vero charitas per Spiritum sanctum piorum in corde diffunditur, statim subjunxit, *Ordinavit in me charitatem.* Haec enim est ordinata charitas, ut diligat homo proximum suum tanquam seipsum; sic vero diligat Deum, ut etiam seipsum abneget propter ipsum. Diligitur autem in malis quoque non iniquitas quam ipsi faciunt, sed creatura in qua boni a Deo formati sunt. Sed et illa ordinata charitas, ut servi Dominum non sicut malefactores [0970B] sentiant, nec sicut lascivientes exsecrabili amore se diligant, sed etiam ubi necesse fuerit semetipsos mutuo expulsa superstitione cum libertate corripiant, secundum illud: *Meliora sunt vulnera diligentis, quam fraudulenta oscula blandientis [n: (Prov. XXVII)]*; et iterum: *Qui arguunt laudabuntur, et super ipsos veniet benedictio [n: (Prov. XXIV)]*.

Num. 31. *Fulcite me floribus, stipate me malis.* Sanctorum coetibus conjungi vel circumdari desiderat, quae pio et casto amore languescit; quia languor non est morbi, sed ineffabilis desiderii secundum illud: *Defecit in salutari tuo anima mea, et in verbum tuum supersperavi, defecerunt oculi mei in eloquium tuum dicentes: Quando consolaberis me [n: (Psal. CXVIII)]*? Felices illi qui tali profectu proficiunt: [0970C] quodammodo enim, qui multum desiderat, languescit et deficit donec optata vel quaesita reperiat.

Num. 32. *Laeva ejus sub capite meo.* Ipse Salomon in Proverbiis ait: *Beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam, et affluit prudentia; longitudo dierum in dextra ejus et in sinistra ejus divitiae et gloria.* Ac sic electa Christi Ecclesia sinistram habens sub capite, temporalia sibi subjecta describit; et dextra ejus se amplexari, dum aeterna concupiscit, edocuit.

Num. 33. *Adjuro vos, filiae Jerusalem, per capreas.* Filias Jerusalem, sanctas et pacificas doctorum animas dicit; quas, per munda et velocia animalia quae ruminare non desinunt, et in campis sanctarum Scripturarum aluntur, conjurat, *ne suscitare faciant, donec ipsa velit:* quod Paulum apostolum fecisse [0970D] cognoscimus, cum virginibus de conservanda sanctimonia, non praeceptum, sed consilium dedit [n: (I Cor. VII)]; et in Evangelio diviti dicitur: *Si vis perfectus esse, vade et vende omnia quae habes, et da pauperibus [n: (Matth. XIX)]*. Et alio loco ubi *spadones* laudantur, *qui se ipsos castraverunt propter regnum coelorum;* et statim adjicitur, *qui potest capere capiat.* Et iterum Apostolus, cum ad continentiam hortatur: *Hoc ad utilitatem vestram dico* (inquit), *non ut laqueum vobis injiciam, sed ad id quod honestum est,* hortor, *et quod facultatem praebeat sine impedimento Deum obsecrandi [n: (I Cor. VII)]*. Et rursus ad Philemonem: *Sine consilio autem tuo nihil volui facere, uti ne velut ex necessitate bonum tuum esset, sed voluntarium.* Tunc enim dilecta [0971A] quoadusque velit nullo modo suscitatur, quando sanctorum vota voluntate spontanea Domino offeruntur.

Num. 34. *Vox dilecti mei.* Haec vox Christi, quae in hac prophetia tantum commemoratur, non inscite de illa accipitur qua genus mortuorum hominum in Evangelio suscitantur, sicut ipse pronuntiat dicens: *Amen amen dico vobis, quia veniet hora in qua omnes qui in monumentis sunt audient vocem ejus, et procedent qui bona fecerunt in resurrectionem vitae [n: (Joan. V)]*. Et in Apocalypsi dicitur: *Beatus qui habitat partem in resurrectione prima [n: (Apoc. XX)]*. Ille in prima resurrectione partem invenit, qui erutus de mala consuetudine, tanquam a morte Christo vivificante resurgit.

Num. 35. *Ecce iste venit saliens in montibus.* Venit [0971B] Christus *saliens in montibus,* cum perfectior perfectis apparuit; *transiliens colles,* cum omnem sanctorum altitudinem suae majestatis excellentia superavit.

Num. 36. *Similis est dilectus meus capreae.* Similis est capreae, quia *in similitudine carnis peccati [n: (Rom. VIII)]*, nobis apparuit; similis etiam *cervorum hinnulo,* quia de sanctis qui serpentem vicerunt, secundum carnem duxit originem.

Num. 37. *En ipse stat post parietem.* Stat post parietem nostrum cum induitur velamine corporis nostri.

Num. 38. *Respiciens per fenestras.* Cum quiddam sui occuluit, quiddam autem manifestavit; quasi per fenestras et cancellos prospexit. Non enim se ex toto praecipue secundum Deum ostendit, qui Patrem videre [0971C] cupienti Philippo dixit: *Tanto tempore vobiscum sum, et non cognovistis me;* et alio loco: *Qui diligit me mandata mea custodit et ego diligam eum et manifestabo ei meipsum [n: (Joan. XIV)]*. Vel tunc per fenestras et cancellos prospexit, quando plebem in parabolis edocuit. Potest etiam intelligi quod tunc per fenestras prospexit, quando in passione, lancea perforato latere, sanguine et aqua manante, redemptionis et lavacri sacramenta produxit.

Num. 39. *Dilectus meus loquitur mihi.* Dilectus in hoc libro saepe describitur: quis enim tam dilectus Ecclesiae quam ille propter quem martyres animas posuerunt? *Surge, propera et veni: surge,* crede; *propera,* peracto cursu pii laboris praemium suscipe. *Amica mea,* reconciliata mihi per mortem; *formosa [0971D] mea,* munda facta per lavacrum.

Num. 40. *Jam enim hiems transiit.* Quia temporalis tribulatio finem accepit.

Num. 41. *Imber abiit et recessit.* Crebra et multiplex tentatio, vel paganorum persecutio quievit.

Num. 42. *Flores apparuerunt in terra.* Sancti redundaverunt in mundo, mense Novorum, quando Pascha celebratur, exorti; quibus Apostolus dicit: *Si consurrexistis cum Christo, quae sursum sunt sapite, non quae super terram [n: (Col. III)]*.

Num. 43. *Tempus putationis advenit.* Hi qui in domo Domini sunt plantati, adhibita disciplinae falce, ab omni superstitione purgati, venturis fructibus praeparantur.

[0972A]Num. 44. *Vox turturis audita est in terra.* Anima, in Evangelio, octoginta quatuor annorum castissima vidua, non recedens de templo, in jejuniis et orationibus Christum agnoscit, et loquitur de eo omnibus qui exspectabant redemptionem Israel [n: (Luc. II)]. Istarum quoque avium combinationem in sacrificium offerri mandavit, qui nil omnino in oblatione Dei praeclarum, nisi cum fideles corpore et spiritu sanctificati Domino offeruntur.

Num. 45. *Ficus protulit grossos suos.* Tandem etiam Synagoga credentes in Christo produxit Israelitas, sicut et Apostolus ait: *Nolo vos ignorare mysterium hoc, quia caecitas ex parte contigit in Israel, donec plenitudo gentium intraret, et sic omnis Israel salvus fieret [n: (Rom. XI)]*.

[0972B]Num. 46. *Vineae florentes et dederunt odorem.* Congregationes clericorum, monachorum quoque et virginum in Ecclesia proficiunt, et per bonam famam et conversationem innotuerunt.

Num. 47. *Surge, amica mea, et speciosa mea.* Piis appellationibus semper hortatur Ecclesia ut relictis temporalibus ad aeterna suspiret.

Num. 48. *Columba mea in foraminibus petrae.* Non aliud Ecclesia columba vocatur, nisi quia est sine dolo et Spiritu sancto repletur; habitat in foraminibus petrae, quia semper receptaculum habet in his, ex quibus sanata est, vulneribus Christi. Recipitur etiam in cavernam maceriae, cum sancta ex Scripturis consolatione fovetur, vel cum praecedentium sanctorum meritis atque orationibus ex toto protegitur. In [0972C] his foraminibus petrae, Thomas apostolus tanquam columba, protectionem invenit, cum post resurrectionem contrectatis Christi vulnerum locis, remota omni dubietate, *Deus meus et Dominus meus [n: (Joan. XX)]*, fideliter exclamavit.

## CAP. II. (cont.)

Num. 49. *Ostende mihi faciem tuam, Sion.* Sion interpretatur speculatio, quae merito in illis intelligitur qui cum Apostolo dicunt: *Nos autem gloriam Dei speculantes, in eamdem imaginem transformamur a claritate in claritatem tanquam a Domini spiritu.* Et iterum: *Non contemplantibus nobis quae videntur, sed quae non videntur [n: (II Cor. III)]*. Quae enim videntur temporalia sunt, quae autem non videntur aeterna sunt. Haec itaque invitatur ut semper ante Deum assistat, sicut Elias qui dicebat: *Vivit Dominus, in cujus conspectu asto hodie* [0972D] [n: (IV Reg. III)]; nec sit de illis quos propheta denotat dicens: *Verterunt ad me tergum et non faciem [n: (Jerem. II)]*; et, *vox tua,* inquit, *in auribus meis [n: (III Reg. XVII)]*; et, *clamaverunt justi, et Dominus exaudivit eos et ex omnibus tribulationibus eorum liberavit eos [n: (Psal. XXXIII)]*.

Num. 50. *Vox enim tua dulcis.* Orationes sanctorum semper Domino acceptae, gratiaque ejus praesentes, quia de Christi lumine acceperunt, ut in decore justitiae permanerent.

Num. 51. *Capite nobis vulpes parvulas.* Dicit per parabolam in Evangelio Dominus [n: (Matth. XIII)] cum crevisset herba, et fructum fecisset, tunc apparuerunt zizania: id est, proficiente Ecclesia numerosae [0973A] etiam haereses surrexerunt, vel in illa fide permanente quam prave sentirent investigatae sunt. Sic et ille Samson, qui interpretatur sol, captis trecentis vulpibus, eorum caudis ignem apposuit, et fructus inimicorum accendit [n: (Judic. XV)]. Semper enim haeretici in primordiis, velut ficta religione conspicui, in extremis suis ignem trahunt, gehennae incendio deputati. Et ideo *Capite nobis vulpes:* convincite haereticos, eorumque versutias sanctarum Scripturarum concludite testimoniis. Quos vulpes parvulas dicit, quia nihil magni secundum rectam fidem intelligendo continent; omne enim quod sapiunt, exhibent; qui pusilli sunt demoliuntur vineas, subvertunt plebes, pravis eas traditionibus corrumpentes. *Vinea nostra floruit.* Ecclesia catholica indeclinabili augmento [0973B] proficit.

Num. 52. *Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi.* Dicit Apostolus: *Erunt duo in carne una. Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico in Christo et Ecclesia [n: (Ephes. V)]*. De ipso enim eadem Ecclesia dicit: *Dominus pars haereditatis meae [n: (Psalm. XV)]*. Et iterum a Patre Filio dicitur: *Postula a me, et dabo tibi gentes haereditatem tuam, et possessionem tuam terminos terrae [n: (Psalm. II)]*. Habet igitur Christus Ecclesiam in suo corpore et Ecclesia Christum in capite: quae connexio quia dissociari non potest, merito dixit: *Dilectus meus mihi.*

Num. 53. *Qui pascitur inter lilia.* Pascitur inter lilia Christus quando corpus ejus, quod est Ecclesia, sanctorum et virginum coetibus decoratur

[0973C]Num. 54. *Donec exspiret dies, et inclinentur umbrae.* Donec evangelica traditio in clariore luce proficiat, et figurae Veteris Testamenti, quae velut umbrae, in ritu sacrificiorum, typicis observationibus praecesserunt, depellantur.

Num. 55. *Revertere, similis esto, dilecte mihi.* Dum dilectum insinuat regredi, similemque capreae et hinnulo dicit, Christi in coelos ascensionem, mundis et velocibus animalibus comparandam demonstrat. Haec enim celeri saltu, montium altiora transiliunt; supergressus est autem Christus omnia quae videntur excelsa, quia de ipso Apostolus dicit: *Propter quod Deus exaltavit illum, et dedit illi nomen quod est super omne nomen, ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur, [0973D] coelestium, terrestrium et infernorum, et omnis lingua confiteatur quia Dominus Jesus in gloria est Dei Patris (Philip II)*. Bethel autem interpretatur domus Dei: ergo super montes Bethel, quia omnibus sanctis qui in coelo et in terra sunt, Christum praedicat potentiorem

## CAP. III.

Num. 56. *In lectulo per noctes quaesivi.* In his qui in fide dormitant, et ignorantiae tenebris deleti sunt, quaesivit Christum, quem diligit Ecclesia; sed vide quid sequitur: *Quaesivi illum, et non inveni.* Dicit Dominus ad Adam: *In sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum [n: (Gen. III)]*. Non enim qui vitio quodam vel sopore inertiae resolvuntur, ad illius panis qui de coelo descendit, esum, cito perveniunt, [0974A] sed qui sanctis laboribus invigilaverint, ipsi eum reperiunt.

Num. 57. *Surgam et circuibo civitatem.* Consideravi omnem gloriam praesentis saeculi, inspexi congregationes infidelium et diversas sectas philosophorum; sed nec illic reperi quem diligit anima mea.

Num. 58. *Invenerunt me vigiles.* Disputaverunt contra me saeculi sapientes idolorumque cultores, multa inaniter perscrutantes, pluresque libros irritis laboribus conficientes, quibus dixi: Cur incassum superfluo conatu vexamini? Cur frustra vehementer ingenia vestra atteritis? num quem diligit anima mea vidistis? Quandoquidem falso nomine sapientiae gloriamini, *stultam fecit Deus sapientiam [n: (I Cor. II)]* vestram, quia Christum illic invenire minime valuistis.

[0974B]Num. 59. *Paululum cum pertransissem.* Cum pertransissem hujusmodi homines qui in saeculo vana scientia clari putantur, et cum eorum superstitiosis adinventionibus restitissem, eorumque sapientiam stultam judicassem, *invenit quem diligit anima mea.* Inde est quod Apostolus de talibus dicit: *Sapientiam loquimur inter perfectos, sapientiam autem non hujus saeculi, sed loquimur Dei sapientiam in mysterio, quae abscondita est, quam praedestinavit Deus ante saecula in gloriam nostram [n: (I Cor. I)]*: et quia ipsa sapientia quae Christus est, apud tales non reperitur, sequitur: *quam nemo principum hujus saeculi cognovit; si enim cognovissent, nunquam Dominum gloriae crucifixissent: sicut scriptum est, quod oculus non vidit, nec auris [0974C] audivit, nec in cor hominis ascendit, quae praeparavit Deus his qui diligunt illum [n: (Ibid.)]*. Sed quia apud spirituales invenit illum quem diligit sponsa, audi quid sequatur: *Nobis autem revelavit Deus per Spiritum suum; Spiritus autem omnia scrutatur, etiam profunda Dei [n: (Ibid.)]*.

Num. 60. *Tenui eum, nec dimittam.* Ita namque adhaerebo Christo, in ejus fide perseverabo, *donec ipsum* in Synagogae populis tanquam in domo matris praedicans, *introducam in cubiculum genitricis meae:* ut Judaei, qui eum hactenus negabant ore, corde recipiant; illuminatisque mentis oculis eorum, *in cubiculum,* in secreto sanctarum Scripturarum consistentem, qui nobis olim revelatus est aliquando reperiant. Vel tunc Christus in domo matris inducitur, cum ad [0974D] Jerusalem coelestem Christianus populus, qui est corpus ipsius, sociatur. Ubi est *quod oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis,* etc.

Num. 61. *Adjuro vos filias Jerusalem.* Hanc sententiam jam in superioribus constituit, et in quantum Deus audivit, adhibitis testimoniis nos pertractasse meminimus. Sed idcirco iterum in hoc libro arbitror repetitum, ne quisquam doctorum vel muneribus sollicitet, vel minis deterreat credituros, sed tantum quae sancta sunt praedicet, et voluntarie ad fidem vel religionem credituros sive convertendos adducat.

Num. 62. *Quae est ista quae ascendit per desertum.* Per desertum ascendit Ecclesia, quando populus [0975A] gentium, fide occupans credentium multitudinem, proficit. De ipsa enim in Psalmis canitur: *Posuit desertum in stagna aquarum, et terram sine aqua in exitus uquarum [n: (Psalm. CVI et CXIII)]*. *Virgulta fumi ex aromatibus,* orationes dicit quae ex cordis compunctione ad Dominum ascendunt a sanctis. Solet enim fumus lacrymas excitare. Myrrha et thus, et universi pulveris pigmenta, mortificationis insignia, vel diversa gratiarum quae in electis redundant dona, insinuant.

Num. 63. *An lectulum Salomonis.* Lectulus Salomonis, requies Christi est; quae requies Ecclesiae convenienter accipitur, quam sub numero in Psalmis legimus electam: *Quoniam,* inquit, *elegit Dominus Sion, elegit eam in habitationem sibi. Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi, hic habitabo, quoniam elegi cam* [0975B] [n: (Psal. LXXV)]. In sexagenario autem numero, quia sexagenarius totus suis partibus constat, et per denarium ascendit, merito ex fortissimis Israel deseribuntur, qui praesente Domino in Ecclesiae custodiam deputantur. Ad ipsam etiam dicitur per prophetam: *Super muros tuos, Jerusalem, custodes constitui; tota die et nocte perpetuo non tacebunt. Omnes tenentes gladios, ad bella doctissimi. Et uniuscujusque ensis super femur suum [n: (Isai. LXII)]*. Ipsis enim Apostolus dicit: *State ergo succincti lumbos vestros in veritate, et induite loricam justitiae, et calceati pedes in praeparationem Evangelii pacis, in omnibus sumentes scutum fidei in quo possitis omnia tela nequissimi ignea exstinguere; et galeam salutis assumite, et gladium spiritus quod est verbum Dei [n: (Ephes. VI)]*. Illi itaque sunt ad bella doctissimi, [0975C] qui contra carnis suae concupiscentias noverunt repugnare; et ille ensem super femur suum utiliter bajulat, qui carnales fluxus atque libidines spiritali cibo mortificat. Quicunque igitur hujusmodi in Ecclesia reperiuntur, hi fortes ex fortissimis Israel, contemplando Deum, esse noscuntur.

Num. 64. *Ferculum fecit sibi rex Salomon.* Ubi ciborum exhibitio scribitur, fides illic credentium per quam Christus advertitur. Nam cum Dominus mulieri Samaritanae ad puteum loqueretur, et illa regrediens majestatem ejus caeteris in civitate commanentibus nuntiasset, discipuli ejus supervenientes rogabant eum dicentes: *Rabbi, manduca. Ille autem dixit eis: Ego cibum habeo manducare quem vos nescitis.* Et paulo post: *ex civitate illa multi crediderunt in eum Samaritanorum* [0975D] [n: (Joan. IV)]. Horum fidem, cibum sibi futurum ostendit, quando discipulis hoc se comesturum quod illi nescirent, paulo ante praedixit. Sed in hoc loco, ut sequentia docent, nomen ferculi, magis instrumentum in quo aliquid deferatur, vel, sicut alia editio habet, gestatorium, quam ipsum cibum ostendit. *De lignis Libani:* de praecipuis in Ecclesia sanctis.

Num. 65. *Columnas ejus fecit argenteas.* Sustentacula Ecclesiae praeparavit ex doctis vel apostolis suis, sicut Paulus vas electionis ad Galatas scripsit: *Cum cognovissent,* inquit, *gratiam Dei Jacobus, Cephas, et Joannes, qui videbantur columnae esse, dextras mihi et Barnabae dederunt societatis [n: (Gal. II)]*.

Num. 66: *Reclinatorium aureum.* In illis bene epulaturus Christus reclinatorium invenit, qui intellectu [0976A] sincero praediti, velut aurum in sancta congregatione refulgent.

Num. 67. *Ascensum purpureum.* Ascensus purpureus, martyrum eximiam perfectionem in effusione sanguinis docet.

Num. 68. *Media charitate construit.* Ut ista omnia Ecclesiae ornamenta construeret, nulla alia causa est nisi quia *dilexit nos et tradidit semetipsum pro nobis oblationem et hostiam Deo in odorem suavitatis [n: (Ephes. V)]*.

Num. 69. *Egredimini et videte, filiae Sion.* Semper prae oculis habete, sanctae animae, *regem Salomonem,* pacificum nostrum, qui Christus est, quemadmodum passionem sustinuit [n: (Marc., XV; Joan. XIX)], ut genus humanum ab interitu liberaret; inspicite eum *in [0976B] diademate quo coronavit eum mater sua:* in illa spinea corona quam capiti ejus Synagoga superposuit in die desponsationis ejus. Tunc enim universam Ecclesiam sibi despondit, quando in patibulum crucis ascendens, ex eadem cruce signum in frontibus omnes in se credentes edocuit, sicut ipse ait: *Ego cum exaltatus fuero a terra, traham omnia ad meipsum [n: (Joan. XII)]*. Qui dies passionis fuit etiam dies laetitiae cordis ejus: sicut enim Christus quae bona per suam possessionem, in progenies, et multa tempora fidelibus condonavit.

## CAP. IV.

Num. 70. *Quam pulchra es, amica mea.* Repetitio sermonis commendat pulchritudinem quam laudat; vel ea sanctorum genera quae sub specie similitudinum intromittit, consideranda praemonstrat.

[0976C]Num. 71. *Oculi columbarum absque eo.* Simplicitas spiritualium plurimum veneranda, quia se nec extollere noverunt, et conscia puritate magis Deo quam hominibus placere contendunt.

Num. 72. *Capilli tui sicut greges caprarum.* Docet Apostolus mulieri capillos pro ornamento datos [n: (I Cor. XI)]; et idcirco Ecclesia illos populos in ornamento quam maxime habet, qui ex circumcisione primitius crediderunt, qui venditis et in usum pauperum prorogatis facultatibus suis *habebant cor unum et animam unam [n: (Act. IV)]*. *Hi ascenderunt de monte Galaad:* Galaad interpretatur, acervus testimonii, ac si ascensus, id est profectus eorum processit de testimoniis sanctarum Scripturarum, cum illic Christum intellexerunt in quem postea crediderunt.

[0976D]Num. 73. *Dentes tui sicut greges detonsarum.* Dentes, praedicatores dicit, qui ea quae susceperunt, salubriter comminuendum, in corpus Christi trajiciunt. Hi detonsarum gregibus comparantur, quia deposito vetere homine, in novitate Spiritus processerunt. *Ascenderunt* quoque *de lavacro,* cum accepta per baptismata remissione peccatorum profecerunt in Christo.

Num. 74. *Omnes gemellis fetibus.* Omnes repleti in charitate Christi et proximi, et quia ad misericordiam prompti, idcirco *sterilis nemo inter eos [n: (Jos. VI)]*.

Num. 75. *Sicut vitta coccinea labia tua.* Raab illa meretrix quae salvari meruit et Israelitico populo associari, coccineum funiculum in signum salutis per fenestram suae domus appendit. Quapropter illorum [0977A] labia decora, quia passionem igitur praedicant, et per ejus sanguinem datam redemptionem annuntiant; nihilque dulcius quod loquantur se invenisse congaudent, sicut et Apostolus ait: *Nihil me arbitror inter vos scire, nisi Christum Jesum, et hunc crucifixum [n: (I Cor. I)]*.

Num. 76. *Sicut fragmen mali punici genae.* Illi in facie Ecclesiae decorem efficiunt, qui, comitante verecundia, castitatem observant; sive sancti martyres, qui, imitantes Christi passionem, roseo sanguinis sui decore perfusi sunt, *absque eo quod intrinsecus latet,* praeter castitatis et martyrii meritum. Multa sunt et alia sanctorum bona quae ille novit quia ea in eorum corde concessit.

Num. 77. *Sicut turris David collum tuum.* Turris [0977B] dicitur perfectio vel doctrina sanctorum, quae non a se, sed a Christo *aedificata est cum propugnaculis,* cum sanctarum Scripturarum testimoniis, quibus infideles vel haeretici debellantur.

Num. 78. *Mille clypei pendent.* Potest haec turris, Scriptura canonica Veteris et Novi Testamenti convenienter intelligi, quae per Spiritum sanctum velut turris excelsa, constructa est. *Mille clypei pendent ex ea.* Hic numerus per plenitudinem universitatis accipitur, sicut in Psalmo: *Verbi quod mandavit in mille generationibus [n: (Psalm. CIV)]*, tanquam diceret, in omnes generationes. Itaque in hac sancta Scriptura, *omnis armatura fortium* reperitur; ex qua vel contra diabolum, vel contra ministros ejus fortiter repugnatur. Nam et ipse Dominus, cum in deserto [0977C] a diabolo tentaretur [n: (Matth. IV)], ex hac turri arma produxit, cum eum prolatis ex sacra Scriptura testimoniis usquequaque devicit.

Num. 79. *Duo ubera sicut duo hinnuli capreae.* Duo ubera Ecclesiae duo sunt Testamenta coaptata duobus hinnulis capreae *gemellis,* id est duobus populis qui ex te nutriuntur, circumcisionis videlicet et praeputii, ex peccati traduce natis; quae tamen *pascuntur in liliis,* dum sanctorum proficiunt pariter exemplis et doctrinis.

Num. 80. *Donec aspiret dies, et inclinetur. Donec,* sicut Apostolus ait, *absorbeatur quod mortale est [n: (II Cor. V)]*.

Num. 81. *Vadam ad montem myrrhae.* Conjungar his qui se propter Deum mortificando creverunt, seque [0977D] illi offerendo odorem gratiae propinare non desinunt.

Num. 82. *Tota pulchra es, amica mea.* Sicut dicit Apostolus, *ut exhiberet sibi Ecclesiam sine macula et ruga [n: (Ephes. III)]*. Nec hoc vacat quod ait, *Tota pulchra es,* in omnibus scilicet pusillis et magnis. Sed sic, non solum in martyribus, confessoribus, eruditis virginibus, sed etiam in continentibus, eleemosynariis ac poenitentibus.

Num. 83. *Veni de Libano, sponsa mea, veni.* Libanus candor interpretatur: nisi enim quis candorem sacro baptismate quo peccatorum remissio datur, perceperit, ad Christum venire non potest.

Num. 84. *Coronaberis de capite Amana.* Seir interpretatur lucerna; Hermon consecratio: quae omnia [0978A] referuntur ad Christum, qui quos illuminat, consecrat, ipsosque coronat, quos illuminans consecraverit.

Num. 85. *De cubilibus leonum.* Evocatur Ecclesia de cubilibus leonum et montibus pardorum, quando relicta elatione superba vel diversarum traditione sectarum simplex et humilis venit ad Christum.

Num. 86. *Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea.* Vulnus istud cordis dilectio est. Ingentis amoris itaque in illo oculo, Ecclesia Christo complacuit; quoniam non temporalia, sed aeterna prospexit. Sicque jam *in uno crine colli;* quia non ornari visibilibus, sed futuris studuit; aut forte unus oculus et crinis colli, est credentis Ecclesiae populus quem Christus sic dilexit, ut animam suam poneret pro eo.

Num. 87. *Quam pulchrae sunt mammae tuae.* Quam [0978B] admirandi sunt illi doctores qui nascentes in fide homines nutriunt, et garrientium carnalium molestias populorum tanquam piae nutrices perferunt, donec quos spirituali lacte educaverint, ad perfectionem perducant.

Num. 88. *Pulchriora ubera tua vino.* Jam supra, ubera ista apostolos, vel apostolicos viros esse praediximus, quorum doctrina vinum exuberat: veteris scilicet legis traditionem atque praeceptum. *Et odor unguentorum tuorum super omnia aromata.* Distributio gratiarum quae per Spiritum sanctum concessa est, quam Apostolus declarat cum dicit: *alii datur sermo sapientiae, alii scientiae [n: (I Cor., XII)]* etc., in tantum praeeminet, ut cunctas mundi vanitates exsuperet.

Num. 89. *Favus distillans labia tua, sponsa. Favus [0978C] distillans labia tua,* expositio Scripturarum sacrarum, *mel et lac* in doctrina tua, *sub lingua tua,* eo quod lacte parvulos nutris, et in melle diversorum vulnerum sive peccatorum putredines tollis.

Num. 90. *Et odor vestimentorum tuorum.* Dicit per prophetam ad Jerusalem de sanctis: *Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, quia omnibus his velut ornamento vestieris et circumdabis tibi eos quasi sponsa.* Proinde vestimenta Ecclesiae, omnes videlicet sancti praeclari in verbis et operibus, reddunt suavitatem odoris.

Num. 91. *Hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa.* Huic sponsae, quae velut hortus concluditur, id est Christi gratia, tam indissolubili materia circumdatur, ut de ea Isaias propheta dixerit: *Non adjiciet ut pertranseat per te omnis incircumcisus et immundus [n: (Isa. LII)]*. [0978D] Potest etiam hortus conclusus et fons signatus, ipsa mater Domini S. Maria intelligi, quae virgo concipiens virgoque generans, conclusi horti et signati fontis intemeratum in se decus exhibuit.

Num. 92. *Emissiones tuae paradisus malorum.* Profectus tui, congregatio sanctorum martyrum, *cum pomorum fructibus;* cum reliqua fidelium multitudine quae justitiae dulcedine decoratur.

Num. 93. *Cypri cum nardo, nardus et crocus.* Incorruptio et fortitudo virtutis martyrum, doctrina, bona fama, reperiuntur in universis populis baptismate in Christo renatis.

Num. 94. *Myrrha ex aloe cum omnibus.* Mortis Christi insignia cum praecipuis S. Spiritus donis.

[0979A]Num. 95. *Fons hortorum, puteus aquarum. Fons* patens eruditio populorum; *puteus,* profunditas doctrinarum; *quae fluunt impetu de Libano,* cum fervore Spiritus emittuntur a Christo.

Num. 96. *Surge, Aquilo, et veni, Auster.* Unus Spiritus, id est, quia Aquilo atque Auster sunt diversa vocabula, unius Spiritus sancti insinuat dona, Aquilo dum aestuantibus refrigeria praebet, Auster dum duros ad credendum vel benefaciendum resolvit. Aquilonem autem in bonam partem poni Psalmista docet, *Mons Sion latera Aquilonis civitas Regis magni [n: (Psal. XLVII)]*. Et rursum Ezechiel propheta: *Est super me manus Domini, et vidi, et ecce Spiritus fulgens veniebat ab Aquilone [n: (Ezech. I)]*. Et quoniam in duobus unus advertitur, non ait, Perflate, sed [0979B] *Perfla hortum meum, et fluant aromata illius:* inspira credentem populum, et redundent bona opera ejus.

## CAP. V.

Num. 97. *Veniat dilectus meus in hortum suum.* Ingrediatur in Ecclesiam suam et delectetur in operibus sanctorum suorum; vel, pascatur a fidelibus in pauperibus, retributurus pro temporalibus regnum aeternum.

Num. 98. *Veni in hortum meum, soror mea.* Festina ad regnum meum, plebs nomine meo ditata: *soror mea,* de sanguine meo; *sponsa mea,* in fide mea, sicut et Oscas propheta dicit: *Desponsabo te mihi in fide [n: (Ose. II)]*.

Num. 99. *Messui myrrham meam cum aromatibus meis.* Suscipe qui propter me passi vel mortui sunt, cum meritis eorum, martyres meos.

[0979C]Num. 100. *Comede favum cum melle meo.* Eos qui tenera vel vehementiore doctrina Veteris et Novi Testamenti cruditi sunt, suscipe in corpore meo.

Num. 101. *Comedite, amici, et bibite.* Dicit Dominus in Evangelio ad apostolos: *Jam non dico vos servos, sed amicos [n: (Joan. XV)]*. Petro autem apostolo in illo vase de coelis emisso in quo ei diversa genera animalium sunt ostensa, dictum est: *Petre, macta et manduca [n: (Act. X)]*: id est, mortifica; quod sunt, et quod ipse es, effice. Ergo comedite, amici, et bibite. Sit vobis laetitia de conversatione populorum in vestram transeuntium unitatem.

Num. 102. *Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat.* Propter Christum mori paratus sum, sed post mortem cum ipso regnaturum me esse credo. Ego etiam a temporalibus [0979D] delectationibus, consopitis quodammodo sensibus, conquiesco; sed futura desidero aeternaque conquiro.

Num. 103. *Vox dilecti pulsantis.* Dicit in Apocalypsi ipse Dominus: *Ego sto ad ostium et pulso; si quis aperuerit mihi, introibo cum illo et coenabo cum ipso, et ipse mecum [n: (Apoc. III)]*. Pulsat Dominus quando quae bona sunt, vel per doctrinam docet, vel occulta inspiratione sanctorum corda ad bene faciendum instigat. Vel haec est vox pulsantis in Evangelio: *Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis, et ego reficiam vos [n: (Matth. XI)]*.

Num. 104. *Aperi mihi, soror mea amica mea.* Aperiri sibi petit Christus, vel obedientia infidelium, vel in fide [0980A] gentium vocatarum; tunc enim ostium illi aperitur, quando ea quae praecepit adimplentur, vel quando in his qui crediderunt ei per fidem introitus reseratur. Soror Christi est Ecclesia de sanguine ejus; *amica,* quia per mortem ejus reconciliata; *columba,* de Spiritu sancto, immaculata baptismi sacramento.

Num. 105. *Quia caput meum plenum est.* Hi qui principali honore in Ecclesia praeeminere videntur, quasi caput in Christi corpore advertuntur; et qui in ipsa fidelium congregatione sacramenta visibilia administrant, veluti cincinni describuntur. Sed quia plerumque mortales homines vitiis vel tenebrarum operibus inficiuntur: hi ergo velut guttis noctium praegravati, Christo quasi capiti adhaerere videntur. Sed de quibusdam Apostolus ait: *Ipsi Christum non sincere annuntiant* [0980B] [n: (Philip. I)]. Propterea vox sponsae, velut pro talibus ingemiscentis subsequitur.

Num. 106. *Spoliavi me tunica mea.* Veniens ad fidem, veterem hominem secundum pristinam conversationem deposui, *et indui novum, qui secundum Deum creatus est [n: (Ephes. IV)]*. Si quid etiam contagii dum in terrenis gradior, pedibus meis accessit, Christo lavante ablutum est; et tunc ministros sacramentorum per quos ornari debeo, carnalibus infectos vitiis non sine moerore conspicio. Et idcirco quia malis quibus renuntiaveram, in quorumdam praevaricatione me fuscari persentio, *Spoliavi me tunica mea, quomodo induar illa? Lavi pedes meos, quomodo inquinabo eos?* Lugubri corde pronuntio, tanquam apertius loquens: Nunquid condecet ut vestibus peccatorum quibus credens [0980C] me exui, iterum induar? Aut sordibus quibus abluta sum, rursus male vivendo inquinari me patiar? vel si oportet ut a profectu ad defectum, vel a nitore justitiae ad peccatorum nigredinem male conversando regrediar?

Num. 107. *Dilectus meus misit manum suam.* Misit manum suam *per foramen,* quando me per passionum angustias transire perdocuit; *et venter meus conturbatus est ad tactum ejus,* quando imminente persecutione infirmiores mei conturbati contremuerunt acerbitate poenarum quae mihi illatae sunt ex permissu ejus. Tactus autem iste, advenientis plagae intelligitur cruciatus, secundum illud in Job, dicente Satana ad Dominum: *Alioqui tange ossa, et carnem ejus, nisi in faciem benedixerit tibi [n: (Job I)]*.

[0980D]Num. 108. *Surrexi ut aperirem dilecto meo.* Evigilans corde Christum confessa sum, nec deterrita suppliciis corporalibus in passionibus et in operibus meis, confessorum mortificatio, et in electis apparuit: *In conspectu Domini mors pretiosa sanctorum [n: (Psalm. CXXV)]*.

Num. 109. *Pessulum ostii mei aperui.* Omni dubietate remota, Christo credidi, eumque ineffabili amore dilexi, et clara voce in nationibus praedicavi, atque ut mihi adesset in tribulationibus invocavi.

Num. 110. *At ille declinaverat.* In hoc quasi declinavit atque transivit, cum me persequentibus tradidit et iniquis, et ut in meum corpus desaevirent, ipse permisit.

[0981A]Num. 111. *Anima mea liquefacta est.* Promissiones ejus audiens aestuavi desiderio, quando beatos esse *qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum coelorum [n: (Matth. V)]*, eodem promittente cognovi.

Num. 112. *Quaesivi et non inveni illum.* Sic in conculcatione malignantium derelicta sum quasi auxiliator non esset; et qui ab inimicis defenderet, subvenire non posset, sicut et beatus Job in passione positus dixit: *Clamo ad te et non exaudis me, et non respicis me; immutatus es mihi in crudelem, et in furore manus tuae adversaris mihi.*

Num. 113. *Invenerunt me custodes.* Comprehenderunt me saeculi potestates, qui quasi rempublicam regere noscuntur.

[0981B]Num. 114. *Percusserunt, vulnerarunt me plagis.* Et suppliciis in corpore meo debacchati sunt; et onerantes vinculis, in carceribus concluserunt. Prolongantes exquisitis cruciatibus vitam nec mortem celeriter inferentes, ne faciliter ab illatis poenis exui possem.

Num. 115. *Tulerunt pallium meum.* Etenim quando ecclesias ad solum usque demoliti sunt, et altaria simul cum Evangeliis et caeteris libris canonicis, ignibus cremaverunt; quando sacerdotes concluserunt ad metalla condemnatos, quando nec sacrificand locus, nec baptizandi libertas, nec communicandi est attributa licentia; cum haec omnia perse utores agerent, tunc quodammodo sponsae Christi, id est Ecclesiae, quasi quoddam pallium abstulerunt.

Num. 116. *Adjuro vos, filiae Jerusalem.* Sanctos [0981C] quosque conjurat si per istas tribulationes, ad ipsum, contempta vita mundi, perveniant: ut insinuent Ecclesiam in his persecutionibus constitutam, ineffabili circa Deum dilectione ferventem, nec tantis et tam horrendis angustiis ullo modo frigescentem.

Num. 117. *Qualis est dilectus tuus?* Vox interrogantium electorum, et fidem Ecclesiae ex ejus responsione inquirentium. *Qualis est dilectus tuus ex dilecto?* id est, qualis est Deus ex Deo, vel Filius a Patre? in similitudine omnium aequalitatem declarans personarum. Qui enim non discernuntur in unius esse naturae, et in eadem permanere creduntur gloria majestatis.

Num. 118. *Dilectus candidus et rubicundus.* Candidus quia *in principio erat Verbum, et Deus erat Verbum* [0981D] [n: (Joan. I)]. Rubicundus, quia ex Virgine genitus, *Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis.* Candidus in virginitate, rubicundus in passione: sicut et propheta de eodem dicit: *Quis est iste qui venit de Edom, tinctis vestibus de Bosra [n: (Isa. LXIII)]*? Edom, sanguis interpretatur; et idcirco ab effusione sanguinis rubicundus. *Iste formosus in stola sua gradiens in multitudine fortitudinis suae. Electus ex millibus.* Ipse est de quo in Psalmis: *Quis similis erit Deo inter filios Dei [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*? et iterum, *Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis.*

Num. 119. *Caput ejus aurum optimum.* Legimus in Apostolo: *Caput viri Christus, caput autem mulieris vir, caput vero Christi Deus [n: (I Cor. I)]*. Et ideo sicut in metallis [0982A] nihil simile auro, ita nec in creaturis quidquam comparabitur Creatori. Est autem caput Christi Deus, secundum quod paulo ante ex Evangelio commemoravimus, *In principio erat Verbum,* etc.

Num. 120. *Comae ejus sicut elatae palmarum.* Hi equidem sancti capiti suo, id est Christo, adhaerere noscuntur qui, in similitudine corvi, se peccatores agnoscunt: de quibus est ille qui dicit: *Si justum me voluerim facere coram te, os meum condemnabit me [n: (Job. IX)]*. Et rursum alius: *Quoniam iniquitatem ego agnosco [n: (Ps. L)]* Et consona voce Joannes cum electis pronuntiat: *Si dixerimus quia peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est, si vero confessi fuerimus peccata nostra, fidelis et justus est qui nobis peccata dimittat et mundet nos ab omni iniquitate (I Joan. [0982B] I)*. Similiter et Paulus: *Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere, quorum primus ego sum [n: (I Tim. I)]*. Et quia *omnis,* secundum Evangelium, *qui se humiliat et exaltabitur [n: (Matth. XXIII; Luc. IV, XVIII)]*: hi qui se confessione peccati dejiciunt, secundum quod in hoc libro scribitur, palmarum proceritati non immerito comparantur.

Num. 121. *Oculi ejus sicut columbae.* Spiritu sancto repleti, electi ejus absque ullo felle amaritudinis permanent, et Scripturarum rivulis populum imbuunt.

Num. 122. *Quae lacte sunt lotae.* Exind mundiores effecti, quia Christum in carne natum, fide non dubia credunt; et sacramento visibili se renatos, ablutos et nutritos agnoscunt, resident juxta fluenta plenissima, id est inter sancti Spiritus affluentissima dona.

[0982C]Num. 123. *Genae illius sicut areolae aromatum.* Sicut enim in oculis columbarum, jure apostolos accipimus Spiritu sancto repletos, ita et in genis quae vicinae sunt oculis, eas Ecclesias quae per apostolos crediderunt quae velut areolae aromatum, suavissimum odorem ex sancta conversatione producunt: *consitae a pigmentariis:* piis scilicet praedicatoribus, ad quos Apostolus ait: *Tu autem cum oleaster esses, insertus es in illis, et socius radicis et pinguedinis olivae factus es [n: (Rom. XI)]*.

Num. 124. *Labia illius distillantia myrrham.* Doctores ejus Spiritu vel etiam carne Virginis; in hocque passionem ejus praedicantes, ut pro illo qui pro nobis mortuus est non recusent mortem.

Num. 125. *Manus illius tornatiles aureae.* In manibus [0982D] Christi deputantur qui ea quae bona sunt operari non desinunt. Idcirco *tornatiles aureae,* quia ad omne opus bonum semper paratae; *plenae hyacinthis,* secundum illud Apostoli: *Divites in operibus bonis, facile tribuentes, et thesaurizantes sibi fundamentum bonum in futuro, ut apprehendant veram vitam [n: (I Tim. VI)]*.

## CAP. V. (cont.)

Num. 126. *Venter ejus eburneus.* In ventre ipsius deputantur, qui credentes in fide parturiunt; et eburneus etiam ipse venter, fons baptismi ex quo renascimur non inconvenienter accipitur; et quia eboris, defuncti animantis speciosa et incorruptibilia ossa noscuntur, propterea nobis ab Apostolo dicitur: *An ignoratis quia quicunque baptizati sumus in Christo Jesu, in morte ipsius baptizati sumus? Consepulti enim [0983A] sumus cum illo in baptismum per mortem, ut quomodo surrexit Christus per gloriam Patris, ita et nos in novitate vitae ambulemus [n: (Gal. III)]*. *Distinctus sapphiris;* adornatus ex se progenitis et in confessione clarissimis sanctis.

Num. 127. *Crura illius columnae marmoreae.* Crura quae totum corpus bajulant, ipsi sunt sancti qui domum Ecclesiae, et velut marmoreae columnae fundatae super bases aureas describuntur. Hi enim justi qui caeteros charitate supportant, et Scripturarum consolationibus fulciunt, sicut ait Apostolus: *Debemus nos firmiores imbecillitatem infirmorum sustinere, et non nobis placere.* Et paulo post, tanquam bases aureas Scripturas sanctas insinuat dicens: *Quaecunque scripta sunt, ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt, [0983B] ut per patientiam et consolationem Scripturarum spem habeamus [n: (Rom. XV)]*.

Num. 128. *Species ejus ut Libani, electus ut cedri.* Omnes sancti qui suavissimum odorem ex bona conversatione dederunt, et in corruptionis integritate perdurant, Deo auctore, tantorum bonorum gratiam perceperunt.

Num. 129. *Guttur illius suavissimum.* Hi qui mysteria ejus exponunt, et in lege ipsius quotidie meditantur, in sacra doctrina saporem suavissimum administrant. *Et totus desiderabilis.* Ubi illud adimplebitur quod B. Joan. in Epistola sua dicit: *Charissimi, nunc filii Dei sumus, et nondum apparuit quod erimus. Scimus quia cum apparuerit, similes ei erimus et videbimus eum sicuti est [n: (I Joan. III)]*.

[0983C]Num. 130. *Talis est dilectus meus.* Ad has gratiarum varietates, et ad ista mysteriorum ornamenta justos intendere persuadet, cum sponsi decorem in ejus membris contemplandum insinuat.

Num. 131. *Quo abiit dilectus tuus?* Tanquam scrutantes atque dicentes: Quia tantam pulchritudinem ejus exposuisti, ut ad quaerendum eum, nostrum cor ardens efficeretur, nunc ostende quo abierit, vel ubi declinaverit. Bene autem appellatur Ecclesia virgo, *pulcherrima mulierum,* quia de ea Paulus sic fidelibus loquitur: *Despondi vos uni viro, ut virginem castam exhiberem Christo [n: (I Cor. XI)]*. Et congrue de ipso dicunt: *Quo abiit, quo declinavit dilectus tuus.* Declinavit enim quodammodo *cum in forma Dei esset, et non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem Deo, sed semetipsum exinanivit [0983D] formam servi accipiens, in similitudinem hominum factus et habitu inventus ut homo; humiliavit se usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis [n: (Philip. II)]*. Igitur qui excelsum quaesierit in forma Dei, non eum reperiet nisi credat in formam servi: in qua se idcirco humiliavit, ut nos jacentes erigeret.

## CAP. VI.

Num. 132. *Dilectus meus descendit ad hortum.* Descendit ad hortum suum, quando visitavit in adventu suo Israel populum suum, sicut ipse ait: *Non sum missus nisi ad oves quae perierunt domus Israel [n: (Matth. X)]*. Areolam autem aromatis, ipsam S. Mariam Virginem intelligendam accipimus: ex ea quippe nobis ordo justitiae ortus est Dominus Jesus Christus.

Num. 133. *Ut pascatur in hortis, et lilia colligat.* [0984A] Ut regnet in gentibus, vel in Ecclesiis delectetur: ut ex eis virgines vel sanctos quosque assumat.

Num. 134. *Ego dilecto meo, et dilectus meus mihi.* Ego Christi regnum et ille rex meus; ego corpus ipsius et ipse caput meum. *Pascitur inter lilia,* cum in corde virginum requiescit, vel cum illic per gratiam, quam ipse tribuit, quotidie augetur et proficit.

Num. 135. *Pulchra es amica mea, pulchra,* etc. Pulchra per justitiam; suavis et amica, quia semper pacifica, decora sicut Jerusalem. Dicit Dominus in Evangelio: *In resurrectione non nubent neque nubentur, sed erunt sicut angeli in coelo [n: (Matth. XII; Luc. X)]*. Merito autem Ecclesia, sicut Jerusalem decora describitur, cui in aeternum similitudo angelorum a Domino condonatur.

[0984B]Num. 136. *Terribilis sicut castrorum acies.* Quanti tyranni et persecutores una cum auctore suo diabolo, conati sunt Ecclesiae virtutem dirumpere et praevalere nullo modo potuerunt. Habet enim S. Ecclesia castrorum aciem ordinatam, quando imminente Christo, nec martyres persecutio, nec virgines carnalis delectatio, nec misericordes cupiditas, nec humiles temporalis gloriae devincit ambitio.

Num. 137. *Verte oculos tuos a me, quia.* Non me semper in corpore conspiciendum requiras, quem spiritu per fidem melius cernis. Idcirco etenim in coelos ascendi, ut non semper localis tibi appaream qui sic omnia (divinitatis meae praesentia) repleo, ut ubique adsim, cunctaque contineam, et a nullo loco continear.

[0984C]Num. 138. *Capilli tui sicut greges caprarum, dentes tui sicut grex ovium quae omnes gemellis fetibus, et sterilis,* etc. *Sicut cortex mali punici.* Hos quatuor versus, bis in hoc loco constat esse descriptos, quos Deo donante jam in superiori loco tractavimus: in quibus tamen Judaeorum et gentilium populos convertendos cum geminae dilectionis fructu praedixit, et martyrum gloriam cum eorum meritis declaravit.

Num. 139. *Sexaginta sunt reginae, et octoginta concubinae.* In sexagenario numero, qui ascendente senario per denarium adimpletur, omnem bonorum perfectionem quae ex legis praeceptis consummatur, agnoscimus. Quemadmodum autem ipse senarius totis suis partibus constet, breviter adverte: nam sexta pars ejus unum, tertia duo, media autem tria esse [0984D] probatur. Unum autem, et duo, et tria, sex esse quis nesciat? quod in alio numero, distributis partibus et in unum reductis, ita adimpleri difficile invenitur. Itaque *reginae* perfectae sanctorum animae quae non sunt peccatorum ancillae, dicuntur: sic enim scribitur. *Ubi spiritus Domini, ibi libertas [n: (I Cor. III)]*. Concubinae autem, quae, sicut Agar, *in servitutem generant [n: (Gal. IV)]*, in illis qui suscepto semine verbi Dei non spiritualia sed carnalia sapiunt, merito deputantur. *Adolescentularum* autem quarum *non est numerus,* eorum est multitudo qui quae semper sancta sunt audire parati sunt, nec tamen quae audiunt, operibus adimplere contendunt, de quibus Apostolus dicit: *Semper discentes, et nunquam ad scientiam veritatis [0985A] pervenientes [n: (I Tim. III)]*. Et licet ista sint genera hominum qui Christo tanquam per doctrinam ipsius sociantur, attamen quia in electis non diversitas, sed unitas commendatur, audi quid sequitur.

Num. 140. *Una est columba mea perfecta. Columba,* quia simplex est, et spiritualiter sapit; *perfecta,* quia mundum relinquens, me magis quam temporalia aut se diligit, secundum illud: *Si vis perfectus esse, vade et vende omnia quae habes et da pauperibus, et veni et sequere me [n: (Matth. XIX)]*.

Num. 141. *Una est matris suae electa.* Matris suae coelestis Jerusalem, de qua Apostolus dicit: *Quae autem sursum est Jerusalem, mater nostra est [n: (Gal. IV)]*. Una est ergo illi, quia in futura beatitudine, ipsa tantummodo consociabitur illi.

[0985B]Num. 142. *Viderunt illam filiae, et beatissimam praedicaverunt.* Quae enim sanctae sunt animae, quae Ecclesiam non miris laudibus efferunt, cum etiam nec concubinae, id est carnales, in ejus praeconio sileant, quando eam invictam in martyribus et victricem in virginibus admirantur?

Num. 143. *Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi.* Consurgit quasi *aurora,* cum spretis tenebrarum operibus caste et sobrie vivit in conjugatis; *pulchra ut luna,* cum in continentibus candido nitore resplendet; *electa ut sol,* cum in virginibus perfectionis decore refulget, sicut illa bona terra in Evangelio, quae suscepto in se semine verbi Dei, tricesimum et sexagesimum atque centesimum fructum produxit; *terribilis ut acies ordinata.* An non terribilis quae gentium [0985C] ritus idolorumque cultus subvertit, et ipsa in fide Christi perdurans, a gentibus superari non potuit? Est et in eo terribilis multum, cum ei in Petro datur illa potestas ubi dicitur: *Quaecunque ligaveris super terram, erunt ligata et in coelo; et quaecunque solveris super terram, erunt soluta et in coelo [n: (Matth. XVI et XVIII)]*.

Num. 144. *Descendi ad hortum nucum, ut viderem.* Hortus nucum, canonem Veteris et Novi Testamenti designat: species enim nucum aliud ostendit in cortice, et aliud retinet in medulla. Quod si quis in Scripturis sanctis non discreverit, et quodammodo velut in nucis corticibus interna non quaesierit, et ad partum spiritualis intelligentiae pervenire non potest. Quod autem ait, *Ut viderem poma convallis:* ut viderem [0985D] fructum humillimae in Ecclesia plebis, sicut in Psalmis canitur: *Quoniam tu populum humilem salvum facies, et oculos superborum humiliabis [n: (Psal. XVII)]*.

Num. 145. *Ut inspicerem si floruissent vineae.* Ut probarem si in tantum profecisset Ecclesia ut germinarent in ea qui ad martyrii perfectionem attingerent; et rubicundam, propter Christi sui sanguinis effusionem pulchri essent.

Num. 146. *Nescivi, anima mea conturbavit me.* Quid nescivit Christus, nisi peccatum? Nescivit etiam illos qui in Evangelio dicunt: *Domine, nonne in tuo nomine prophetavimus, et in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus? Et tunc* (inquit) *dicam illis:* Amen dico vobis, [0986A] *quia nescio vos [n: (Matth. VII)]*: non quod eos quales essent nesciret, sed quia nihil boni ex ipsis esset cognovit. *Anima mea conturbavit me propter quadrigas Aminadab.* Aminadab istum quoque in Christo genealogice reperimus. Unde et has quadrigas in bonam partem accipiendas esse cognoscimus: in quibus evangelistas non incongrue accipimus. Porro autem quod ait. *Anima mea conturbavit me,* haec conturbatio non est tranquillitati contraria, sed sollicitudini congruens reperitur, secundum illud quod ad Martham in Evangelio dicitur: *Quid sollicita es, et turbaris [n: (Luc. X)] erga plurima?* Et in Psalmis: *Commovisti terram, et conturbasti eam, sana contritiones ejus, quia mota est [n: (Psal. LIX)]*. Unde vero omnes Evangeliorum narrationes narrant nisi per Spiritum [0986B] sanctum, secundum illud Ezechielis prophetae: *Quocunque Spiritus ibat, illuc et rotae pariter ferebantur [n: (Ezech. III et X)]*.

Num. 147. *Revertere, revertere, Sunamitis.* Bis Sunamitem istam in libro Regum laudabili in loco reperimus constitutam: id est, tam illam quae David regi in senectute ministravit, et in ejus complexu virgo quidem pulcherrima permansit [n: (IV Reg. IV)], quam etiam illam cujus Elisaeus filium ex promissione natum et post hoc mortuum suscitavit [n: (III Reg. I)]. Quapropter in hoc nomine sanctam Ecclesiam accipiendam esse quis dubitet? Frequenter vero ei *revertere* dicitur, quae quondam in illo juniore filio in regionem longinquam abiens [n: (Luc. XV)] aversa fuerat; tunc etenim reversa est, quando ad Deum ex corde conversa est. [0986C] Aut idcirco tam crebro ei *revertere* dicitur, ut etiam si conversa deliquerit, in desperationem non decidat, sed a peccandi consuetudine, spei indulgentia resipiscat. Quae vox ad sanctos utique comprobatur, qui conversae pulchritudinem desiderant intueri.

## CAP. VII.

Num. 148. *Quid videbitis in Sunamite, nisi.* Quid in Ecclesia intuendum est, nisi dispositio eorum qui semper in procinctu tanquam in castris constituti, contra diabolum dimicare non cessant, idcirco utique, ne fideles fidem amittant: ne religiosi apostatae efficiantur elevati, ne misericordes avaritia obdurentur, ne poenitentes revertantur ad vomitum, ne virgines integritatis decore careant, ne continentes castimoniae nitorem amittant? Hi sunt in Ecclesia chori castrorum jugiter in certamine constituti, et [0986D] Deo muniente semper invicti.

Num. 149. *Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui!* Quam admirandi profectus in his qui verbum Dei annuntiant in Ecclesia Christi! sicut Apostolus scriptum in propheta commemorat: *Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium bona!* Et iterum ipse: *Calciati pedes in praeparatione Evangelii pacis [n: (Rom. X)]*.

Num. 150. *Junctura femorum tuorum.* Juncturam femorum tuorum, ex circumcisione et praeputio venientium societatem advertimus populorum; et per id, tam illi qui ex femore Abraham secundum carnem propagati sunt, quam illi qui in semine ejus, id est in Christo, meruerunt; cum in unitatem fidei copulantur, tanquam monilia quae fabricata sunt manu [0987A] artificis, describuntur. Quis enim artifex tanquam monilia, hos in fide populos sociavit, nisi ille de quo Apostolus ait: *Ipse est pax nostra, qui fecit utraque unum [n: (Ephes. VI)]*?

Num. 151. *Umbilicus tuus crater tornatilis.* Hi qui non extremo, sed in medio Ecclesiae corpore commutantur, umbiculus dicuntur. Crater tornatilis vasa sunt utilia in eo tornatilia, quia ad obediendum vel ad omne opus bonum parata [n: (Ephes. II)], nunquam indigent poculis quia Spiritus sancti gratia semper repleta sunt.

Num. 152. *Venter tuus sicut acervus tritici.* Qui semper sancta Scripturarum alimenta percipiunt, et ea quae sunt salutaria infra se congerunt, in ventris similitudine deputantur, et hi velut acervus tritici [0987B] congestus merito pronuntiantur, quia ex doctrina sana ex qua quotidie replentur, multos affatim reficiunt; quae doctrina in tantum proficit, ut etiam ad virginitatis observantiam piis persuasionibus multos adducat.

Num. 153. *Duo ubera sicut duo hinnuli.* Duo testamenta duobus hinnulis capreae, id est ex peccati traduce venientibus populis coaptata. Ex his enim operibus nutriuntur, qui originali peccato obnoxii, in Christo tanquam hinnuli renascuntur.

Num. 154. *Collum tuum sicut turris eburnea.* Notitia Scripturarum, quae frequenti in meditatione conquiritur, velut turris eburnea, in colli pulchritudine designatur. Idcirco autem turris eburnea, quia qui verbo Dei assistunt, quotidiano profectu per nitorem [0987C] justitiae in excelsiora proficiunt.

Num. 155. *Oculi tui sicut piscinae in Esebon.* Spirituales doctores tui constituti in porta, in Christo sicut aquae irriguae ad erudiendos populos. Idcirco namque piscinae, quia Spiritus sancti repleti sunt scientia. In alio libro etiam ipse Salomon dicit: *Exstruxi piscinas aquarum, ut irrigarem silvas lignorum germinantium [n: (Eccle. II)]*.

Num. 156. *Nasus tuus sicut turris Libani.* Nasus Ecclesiae illi sunt qui odorem justitiae qui est in Christo, percipientes, ad cordis interna trajiciunt. Hi qui in magna virtute consistunt, sicut turris Libani disponuntur. Libanum autem candorem esse jam superius diximus: horum proceritatis candor *respicit contra Damascum,* quia sapientia eorum, quae ex [0987D] Deo est, illuminat mundum.

Num. 157. *Caput tuum ut Carmelus, et comae.* In Carmelo monte, sancti Elias et Elisaeus saepe receptaculum habuere [n: (III Reg. XVIII)]: quapropter in capite Ecclesiae Domino nostro Jesu Christo, quo sublimius ut est (tanquam in monte Carmelo) et justi habitaculum, et multitudo populorum tanquam diversitas animalium sapientiae percipiunt alimentum. *Comae capitis* istius, *sicut purpura regis juncta canalibus:* eminentiores quippe sancti, beati videlicet martyres Christi, consimilati per purpuram regalibus ornamentis, et salutaribus semper copulati intelliguntur doctrinis.

Num. 158. *Statura tua assimilata est palmae.* Perfectio [0988A] tua pervenit ad praemium, et doctores tui dulces effecti sunt per Spiritum sanctum.

Num. 159. *Dixi, ascendam in palmam.* Illi in palmam ascendunt qui in Christi cruce proficiunt, de quibus Apostolus dicit: *qui in Christo sunt, carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis et concupiscentiis.* Ipsi autem fructus hujus palmae (sanctae crucis) praemia consequuntur, qui illud, *si tamen compatimur ut et glorificemur [n: (Rom. VIII)]*, cum eodem Apostolo dicunt.

Num. 160. *Et erunt ubera tua sicut botri vineae.* Nec etenim alii reperiuntur, qui nascentes in fide enutriant, nisi doctores Ecclesiae.

Num. 161. *Et odores tui sicut malorum.* Et suavitas eruditionis tuae per eos propagabitur, qui sobrie et juste vivendo odorem bonae conversationis propinare [0988B] non desinunt.

Num. 162. *Guttur tuum sicut vinum optimum.* Possunt etiam in gutture illi sancti intelligi per quos lex et prophetae et evangelica doctrina pronuntiata est: quae utique sancta Scriptura eximio sapore praedita, ut vinum optimum redolet ac resplendet, et per Spiritum sanctum potantes inebriat.

Num. 163. *Dignum dilecto meo potandum.* De sacra Scriptura Christi potant, cum ex ea Christiani, qui sunt membra ipsius, miris modis et incomparabili dulcedine satiantur.

Num. 164. *Labiisque et dentibus illius ad rummandum.* Labia et dentes Christi doctores Ecclesiae: hi quod sanctum est ruminare non desinunt, cum ea quae ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt, quotidie [0988C] meditantur.

Num. 165. *Ego dilecto meo, et ad me conversio ejus.* Huic dilecto, ex voce Ecclesiae dicitur: *adhaesit anima mea post te, me suscepit dextera [n: (Psal. LXII)]*. Videamus et alibi quomodo ipsa dilecto suo loquatur: *Nos autem populus tuus, et oves gregis tui [n: (Psal. LXXVIII)]*. Et quomodo *ad me conversio ejus,* dicit propheta: *Eritque antequam clament, ego exaudiam, adhuc illis loquentibus ego exaudiam [n: (Isai. LXVI)]*, dicit Dominus. Sed nulla est ad Ecclesiam tam evidens Christi conversio, nisi cum *Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis [n: (Joan. I)]*.

Num. 166. *Veni, dilecte mi, egrediamur.* Egreditur Christus cum Ecclesia in agro, quando cum sanctis praedictis visitat mundum, sicut in Evangelio scriptum [0988D] est: *Qui seminat bonum semen, est filius hominis [n: (Matth. XIII; Marc. XIV)]*; ager est mundus. *Commoremur in villis;* in populis credentibus circumquaque diffusis, in quibus Christus per fidem habitat; non sine Ecclesia, cum eosdem ipsos in suis membris reputans, suam efficit Ecclesiam.

Num. 167. *Mane surgamus ad vineas.* Ut animae quae per fidem coli jam meruerunt, in matutinis Christum resurrexisse cognoscant, ne ultra de sui corporis resurrectione diffidant.

Num. 168. *Videamus si floruit vinea.* Appareat, si fideles, quae corde crediderunt ore pronuntient, sicut Apostolus ait: *Corde creditur ad justitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem [n: (Rom. X)]*; vel *si flores fructus [0989A] parturiunt,* si in eis per sancta desideria pietatis opera prodierunt.

Num. 169. *Si floruerunt mata punica.* Si illi qui in Christo crediderunt in tanta dilectione proficiunt ut etiam occidi pro ipso omnibus modis delectentur. Vis videre malum punicum, audi in Actibus apostolorum Paulum apostolum: *Ego,* inquit, *non solum judicari in Jerusalem, sed et mori pro Christo paratus sum [n: (Act. XXI)]*.

Num. 170. *Ibi dabo tibi ubera tua.* In hac sancta confessione sociabuntur tibi doctores mei, comparati ut patiantur pro te, qui quoque sine fine regnabunt apud te.

Num. 171. *Mandragorae dederunt odorem.* Hi qui alta radice fide fundati sunt, et quadam disciplinae vel [0989B] parcimoniae austeritate vigere noscuntur, publicis praedicationibus populos instruxerunt, odorem suavitatis ex conversatione sanctissima propinantes.

Num. 172. *Omnia dona nova et vetera.* Quoniam tam in patriarchis et prophetis quam in apostolis et martyribus ego ipse nova et vetera servavi tibi; quia illi te pronuntiaverunt et crediderunt venturum, isti praedicare non desinunt ex Virgine natum ac pro salute omnium passum, et post resurrectionem in coelos assumptum.

## CAP. VIII.

Num. 173. *Quis mihi det te fratrem meum.* Sugit ubera matris Christus cum mysteriis priscae legis reficitur Christianus populus, vel cum spiritualibus sacramentis doctores et piissima expositione, tanquam vero lacte reficiunt.

[0989C]Num. 174. *Ut inveniam te foras et osculer.* Ut te, inquit, quem Veteris Testamenti figurae tegebant, per Evangelium, ego in veritate reperiam. Et bene ait: Te foris inveniam, quia illi juniori filio de regione longinqua redeunti, pater in occursum regressus est [n: (Luc. XV)]: *ut deosculer te,* inquit, ut tibi reconciliari merear; *et jam nemo me despiciet;* videlicet ut non dicatur Petro, pro Cornelio quem gratia Spiritus sancti praevenerat: *Quare introisti ad viros praeputium habentes, et manducasti cum illis?* Sed ipse Petrus pronuntiet: *In veritate comperio, quoniam personarum acceptio non est apud Deum, sed in omni loco, et in omni gente, qui timet eum et operatur justitiam, acceptus est illi [n: (Act. XI)]*.

[0989D]Num. 175. *Apprehendam te, et ducam te.* Cum enim te apprehendero tibique per fidem adhaesero, restat ut *introducam te in domum matris meae:* in congregationem videlicet Jerusalem: illuc utique te introducam, quando cum omnibus bonis quae per tuam gratiam consecuta sum etiam ipsa perduci eo, hoc est ad coelestem Hierosolymam, meruero.

Num. 176. *Ibi me docebis, et dabo tibi poculum.* Ibi me docebis, ut jam non *in aenigmate per speculum,* sed *facie ad faciem* videam; et non *ex parte* sicut *nunc,* sed *tunc cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum [n: (I Cor. XIII)]*, ut ille ait: *Et dabo tibi poculum ex vino condito, et mustum malogranatorum:* quando optimos et dulcissimos protulero martyrum sanctorum fructus, [0990A] et filii hominum qui in umbra alarum tuarum sperant, *inebriabuntur a pinguedine domus tuae, et torrente deliciarum tuarum potabis eos [n: (Psal. XXXV)]*.

Num. 177. *Laeva ejus sub capite meo, et dextera illius amplexabitur me. Adjuro vos, filiae Jerusalem.* Haec quae in hoc loco scripta sunt, in superioribus jam praedicta, et Christo illuminante reperiuntur exposita. Sed idcirco arbitror iterato in hoc libro conscripta, ut vehementius cordi insideant; et bis insinuata vivaciori memoria renoventur. Haec jubent spernenda temporalia; et infra nos posita, velut sinistram sub capite constitutam edocent; et coelestem gloriam quae nos ex superiori parte, tanquam dextera complexatur, exspectandam admonent; vel illud, ut servituri Domino, voluntarii non inviti quae sunt sancta perficiant, [0990B] secundum quod Petrus apostolus docet: *Pascite qui in vobis est gregem Dei, non coacti sed spontanei [n: (I Petr. V)]*.

Num. 178. *Quae est ista quae ascendit de deserto?* Bene de deserto ascendere describitur, cui propheta dicit: *Pro eo quod fuisti derelicta et odio habita, et non erat qui pertransiret [n: (Isai. LX)]*, etc. De cujus etiam filiis in Psalmis canitur: *Erraverunt in solitudine, in siccitate, viam civitatis habitationis non invenerunt. Esurientes et sitientes, anima eorum in idipsis defecit, et clamaverunt ad Dominum cum tribularentur, et de necessitatibus eorum liberavit eos; deduxit eos per viam rectam ut irent in civitatem habitationis [n: (Psal. X)]*. Idcirco sequitur.

Num. 179. *Deliciis affluens.* Unde et populus Israel [0990C] e deserto egrediens, in terram promissionis lacte et melle fluentem ingreditur; et ille filius qui de siliquis porcorum pasci cupiens saturari non poterat, ad convivium quod de pingui occiso vitulo pater praeparavit reficiendus inducitur. Has delicias a deserto veniens Ecclesia, in Christo multiplices reperit; et *nixa super dilectum* scribitur, quia ad ipsam per prophetam idem dilectus dicti: *Ego feci, ego feram, ego portabo, et ego salvabo [n: (Isai. XLVI)]*.

Num. 180. *Sub arbore mali suscitavi vos.* In odorifero crucis patibulo ubi ego occubui, illic te a peccatorum interitu suscitavi, quando te credentem signo crucis praenotare praecipio.

Num. 181. *Ibi corrupta est mater tua.* Ubi tu per meam mortem suscitari meruisti, illic per suam impietatem [0990D] Synagoga capta est quando *Crucifige* clamabat; et, *Sanguis hujus super nos et super filios nostros [n: (Luc. XXIII)]*, Pilato judicante respondit.

Num. 182. *Pone me ut signaculum.* Ita ut cum Psalmista dicere possis, *Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine, dedisti laetitiam in corde meo [n: (Psal. IV)]*. Quoniam quaecunque signata sunt facile temerari non possunt, sic recipe fidem meam, ut eam integram illibatamque custodias, et quem per crucis signaculum accepisti thesaurum justitiae quem in te contuli, a nullo fore contingendum ullo modo pertimescas.

Num. 183. *Ut signaculum pone me.* Primitus super cor, inde super brachium signaculum superponendum [0991A] intellige: id est, ut tam in cogitatione quam in opere, ad meum signum accurras; ac te, per hoc, non alterius, sed mei esse demonstres; meque contutante, integra perseveres.

Num. 184. *Quia fortis ut mors dilectio tua.* In tantum dilexi te, ut mori voluerim prote; et haec erat fortitudo amoris, acerbitas mortis. *Dura* autem *sicut* infernus aemulatio; ut sancti quoque econtrario pro Christo occidi non metuant, quem pro sua salute mortem suscepisse sine dubio cognoverunt.

Num. 185. *Lampades ejus, lampades ignis.* Vasa in quibus castistas habitat, semper sunt splendida et Spiritus sancti igne ferventia.

Num. 186. *Aquae multae non potuerunt exstinguere charitatem,* nec flumina obruent illam, nec tribulationes; [0991B] nullae quamlibet validae persecutiones dilectionem quae est ex Deo, vel circa Deum, perturbare vel vincere possunt, secundum illud quod Apostolus dicit: *Quis nos separabit a charitate Christi? an tribulatio, an angustia, an persecutio, an fames, an nuditas, an gladius, an periculum? certus sum enim quia neque mors, neque vita, neque angeli, neque principatus, neque excelsum, neque profundum, neque creatura alia poterit nos separare a charitate Dei, quae est in Christo Jesu Domino nostro [n: (Rom. VIII)]*.

Num. 187. *Si dederit homo omnem substantiam.* Tanquam dicat: *Et si distribuero in cibos pauperum omnes facultates meas, et si tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam, charitatem autem non habeam, nihil mihi prodest [n: (I Cor. XIII)]*. Hac enim nihil pretiosius, ut Joannes [0991C] apostolus ait: *Quia Deus charitas est; et qui manet in charitate in Deo manet.*

Num. 188. *Soror nostra parva, et ubera non habet.* Ecclesia ex gentibus veniens, rudis adhuc ad credendum, et nec dum praedita viris eruditis ad docendum, secundum quod Apostolus loquitur: *Non potui vobis loqui quasi spiritualibus, sed tanquam parvulis in Christo lac vobis potum dedi, non escam; nondum enim poteratis, sed nec quidem adhuc potestis, adhuc enim estis carnales [n: (I Cor. III)]*. Et alibi: *Saecularia judicia si habueritis, contemptibiles qui sunt in Ecclesia, illos constituite ad judicandum. Ad verecundiam vestram dico: si non est inter vos sapiens quisquam qui possit judicare inter fratrem suum [n: (I Cor. VI)]*? Dum eos in tanta pusillanimitate redarguit, utique adhuc pusillam [0991D] in fide, et necdum spiritualibus nutrimentis habilem plebem ostendit.

Num. 189. *Quid faciemus sorori nostrae?* Quemadmodum disponemus Ecclesiam tempore quo ad fidem vocanda est?

Num. 190. *Si murus est, aedificemus super eum.* Qui coeperunt in fide crescere et ita stabiliri ut robore suo infirmos quosque commoneant; suscepto honoris privilegio, ad caeteros docendos instituantur, secundum quod Paulus ad Timotheum: *Haec commenda fidelibus qui idonei erunt et alios docere [n: (II Tim. II)]*. Et iterum ad Titum: *Hujus rei gratia reliqui te Cretae, ut ea quae desunt corrigas, et constituas per civitates presbyteros, sicut ego tibi disposui.* Dum ista sic in [0992A] Ecclesia disponuntur, tanquam propugnacula argentea muris adjiciuntur.

Num. 191. *Si ostium est, compingamus.* Dicit Propheta in Psalmis: *Pone, Domine, custodiam ori meo, et ostium circumstantiae labiis meis [n: (Psal. CXL)]*. Itaque si est quis idoneus ad loquendum, et velut ostium quod aperitur et clauditur, tempus loquendi vel tacendi intelligit; hoc tale ostium tabulis cedrinis compingamus, ut dum odoriferum lignum in se suscepit, cum Paulo dicere possit: *Mihi absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi, per quem mihi mundus crucifixus est, et ego mundo [n: (Gal. VI)]*.

Num. 192. *Ego murus et ubera mea sicut turris.* Vox Ecclesiae est, tam in fide quam pro fide proficientis: *Ego murus;* quia ipse aedificavit me qui fortissimus [0992B] pugnat pro me. *Et ubera mea sicut turris.* Construente Deo, proceritate justitiae creverunt, et in me parvulos qui in Christo sunt, nutriunt; et donec ad perfectionis cibum perveniant, eos educare non desinunt, quoadusque eis voce sapientiae dicatur: *Relinquite infantiam, et venite ambulare per vias prudentiae.*

Num. 193. *Ex quo facta sum coram eo.* Ex quo Christo pacem reperi, ex eo et murorum praesidia et turrium propugnacula cum decore suscepi, cum eis ab eo qui me condidit civitas esse promerui, habens munimenta in sanctis, et decorem retinens in electis.

Num. 194. *Vinea fuit pacifico.* Cultura assidua ad [0992C] hibita est a Christo in Ecclesia quae illos habet populos de quibus in Psalmis canitur: *Plantati in domo Domini, in atriis Dei nostri florebunt [n: (Psal. XCI)]*. *Tradidit eam custodibus.* Commisit eam regendam apostolis vel successoribus eorum episcopis. Ad quam, sub nomine Jerusalem, dicit Dominus per prophetam: *Super te et super muros tuos posui custodes tuos, tota die et nocte, usque in finem contacebunt [n: (Isai. VIII)]*.

Num. 195. *Vir affert fructus ejus mille argenteos.* Christus de quo propheta dicit: *Ecce vir, Oriens nomen ejus [n: (Zach. VI)]*. Compensat regnum coelorum pro sanctis laboribus vel eleemosynis, secundum illud quod in Evangelio dicitur: *Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum quod vobis paratum est ab origine mundi, quia esurivi, et dedistis mihi manducare, [0992D] sitivi, et dedistis mihi bibere; hospes fui, et collegistis me; nudus, et operuistis me; infirmus et in carcere, et venistis ad me [n: (Matth. XXV)]*. In mille autem argenteis plenitudo totius remunerationis ostenditur, et merces consummata justorum.

## CAP. VIII. (cont.)

Num. 196. *Vinea mea coram me est.* Secundum quod in Psalmis canitur: *Oculi Domini super justos, et aures ejus in preces eorum.* Dicit enim Apostolus *Quoniam ipse Dominus in jussu et in voce archangeli et in tuba Dei descendet de coelo, et mortui qui in Christo sunt resurgent primi, deinde nos qui vivimus, qui relinquimur, simul rapiemur cum illis obviam Domino in aera, et sic semper cum Domino erimus [n: (I Thess. IV)]*. Igitur quia semper post resurrectionem sancti cum [0993A] Domino sunt, idcirco Dominus dicit, *Vinea mea coram me est.*

Num. 197. *Mille tui pacifici et ducenti his.* Duodecim quippe si per centenum numerum amplientur, mille ducentos efficiunt; qui numerus utique apostolicis viris, qui ex eis spiritualiter per Evangelium in Christo sunt geniti, convenit, qui in summa perfectione constituti, tanquam illa terra optima, per centesimum fructum auctori suo respondet. Hi quoque pacifici, id est Christi discipuli, merito describuntur, simul quia ipsi Ecclesiae fructus custodiunt, vel malos foris doctrinae suae voce deterrent, vel suis orationibus, de improbis canibus et bestiarum morsibus, Ecclesiam quam Christus plantavit, defensare non cessant.

[0993B]Num. 198. *Quae habitas in hortis.* Quae redundas in populis sub cultu justitiae constitutis, vel doctrinae spiritualis aqua semper irriguis.

Num. 199. *Amice, ausculta, fac me audire.* Dicit in Evangelio Dominus discipulis suis: *Jam non dicam [0994A] vos servos, sed amicos [n: (Joan. XXV)]*; et iterum: *Qui habet sponsam sponsus est, amicus autem sponsi, qui statim audit eum, gaudio gaudet propter vocem sponsi [n: (Joan. III)]*. *Fac me audire vocem tuam:* illam utique quam remunerandis fidelibus dicis: *Euge, serve bone et fidelis, quia super pauca fuisti fidelis, super multa te constituam; intra in gaudium Domini tui [n: (Matth. XXVIII)]*.

Num. 200. *Fuge, dilecte mi, assimilare capreae hinuloque cervorum super montes aromatum.* Qui conversatus es nobiscum in terris, pronus regredere ad superna. Sicque ascendens in excelsis, qui nunc appares obtutibus carnis, adesto semper oculis cordis ut te in fide retineamus quem aspectu non cernimus. Assimilare capreae hinnuloque cervorum; quia tu es [0994B] qui carnem suscepisti mortalium, et saltu celeri omnes altitudines transcendisti coelorum. *Super montes aromatum,* excelsior existens super omnem gloriam angelorum.

english:
## CHAPTER ONE.

[0963A]

No. 1. *Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.* This is the voice of the Church coming to Christ in a kiss; desiring that the offense which men by sinning had contracted before God be undone, and longing to find the peace in which, while we were enemies to God the Father, we are reconciled through his very Son: on account of which the prophet says to God: *Give us thy peace, O Lord, for thou hast rendered all things to us [n: (Isa. XXVI)]*. In the Gospel too [n: (Luc. XV)] the father kissed the son returning from a far country. For then in a certain way he handed over a kiss to those coming to him, when he willed his only-begotten to be born in man, through whom also he granted that we should cleave to him by the bond of peace. Finally the angels too, when Christ was born: *Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will [n: (Luc. VIII)]*, cried out with [0963B] harmonious voice for this reason, because by saying such things to us they plainly taught him who is our peace.

No. 2. *For thy breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the finest ointments.* We not incongruously take the breasts of Christ to be the apostles and evangelists; for through them we are nourished in faith and refreshed with spiritual food. And they are proved better than wine for this reason, because the evangelical teaching is recognized as more eminent than the law once given. In short, there the figure, here the truth; there, as with the austerity of wine, it showed only that the neighbor was to be loved and the enemy hated; here the sweetness of grace admonishes that we pray for our enemies and that those who hate us are to be loved. It also declares those same breasts of Christ, that is, the apostles, to be fragrant with the finest ointments, because they shone forth with such great virtues [0963C] and such great miracles that the odor of their justice, spread far and wide, then delighted those who beheld it, and refreshes even to this day all who hear, as one of them proclaims, saying: *But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ Jesus, and manifests the odor of the knowledge of himself in every place through us [n: (I Cor. II)]*.

No. 3. *Thy name is oil poured out, therefore the maidens have loved thee.* He whom God anointed, that is, Christ, *with the oil of gladness above his fellows [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*, of him also the name is as it were oil poured out: for whoever are named Christians from Christ and are anointed with the chrism itself, and, baptized in his name, are filled with the holy Spirit, like the ointment which descends from the head *upon the beard of Aaron [n: (Psal. CXXXII)]*; which declares him to be true, perfect, and most strong; [0963D] that is, the sacred Spirit, who has been poured forth by God in Christ, *descends* also *upon the hem of his garment,* and fills the whole Church even to the end; which, by cleaving to him, is without doubt his very garment. For in the transfiguration [0964A] *his face shone as the sun,* as we read in the Gospel, *and his garments became white as snow [n: (Mat. XVII; Luc. IX)], such as no fuller upon earth can make them.* For none of the teachers ever led his disciples to such brightness as he; or thus, washed from their stains, he makes those who believe in him white as snow. These therefore the maidens, whether the young Churches or uncorrupted souls, have loved; who also, filled with the fragrant ointment, say with the Apostle: *The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the holy Spirit, who is given to us [n: (Rom. V)]*.

No. 4. *Draw me after thee, we will run in the odor.* The Lord says in the Gospel: *No man comes to me unless the Father, who sent me, draw him [n: (Joan. VI)]*. For he is drawn to Christ who believes in Christ; but those run [0964B] after him who imitate him, or who by his gift make progress in following him.

No. 5. *The king has brought me into his storerooms.* Christ brought the Church into his storerooms when he revealed to her the hidden mysteries of the Scriptures, as the Apostle says, *that he might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of his grace, in his bounty toward us in Christ Jesus [n: (Ephes. II)]*. Or the saints are wholly brought into Christ's storerooms then, when at the end it shall be said to them: *Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world [n: (Matth. XXV)]*.

No. 6. *We will exult and rejoice in thee, mindful of thy breasts above one.* The saints exult and rejoice in the Lord when they recall how, through the breasts of Christ, namely the teachings of the apostles, they were nourished with spiritual [0964C] milk. Which teaching of Christ, while they perceive it to be clearer than the precepts of the ancient law, in it, or from it, beholding Christ, they understand, to whom he himself says in the Gospel: *Blessed are your eyes that see, and your ears that hear; amen I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see the things that you see, and saw them not; and to hear the things that you hear, and heard them not [n: (Matth. XIII; Luc. X)]*.

No. 7. *The upright love thee.* For the depraved cannot love equity: for those are upright and love God who are not held captive by love of the creature; but, as befits the upright, preferring the precious gift, they have cleaved to God the author of all things with a most strong love. But those too are approved as loving God rightly who, set not only amid his benefits but amid his scourges, [0964D] likewise give thanks, just as he too was saying: *I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be ever in my mouth [n: (Psal. XXXIII)]*: that is, both when I receive gladness from a gift, and when I receive sorrow (from the same one chastising me). [0965A] Just as another too, tested by a most vehement suffering, rotting in flesh and sincere in heart, spoke: *If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure evil? The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, as it pleased the Lord so is it done; blessed be the name,* etc.

No. 8. *I am black, but comely, daughter of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar.* Black by the confession of sins, comely by the grace of the sacrament, daughter of Jerusalem. For from that [Jerusalem] the Church of the firstborn was born through the Gospel, which first believed in Jerusalem; or certainly, as the Apostle says: *That Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother [n: (Galat. IV)]*. And rightly, because she likens herself to the tents of Cedar; which is interpreted, of darkness; to whose sons the Apostle says: *You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Ephes. [0965B] V)*. She can also be called black when she is given over to sufferings, reproaches, insults, and contempt. Consider her black and comely: in Paul: *In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are perplexed, but not forsaken; we are cast down, but perish not [n: (II Cor. IV)]*. Just as the tents of Cedar; *we are made as it were the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all;* and like the skin of Solomon, *always bearing about the mortification of Jesus Christ in our flesh, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.*

No. 9. *Do not regard me because I am swarthy, for the sun has discolored me.* That is: do not despise me set in persecution; for I have endured the heat of tribulations, and have as it were lost the beauty of temporal pleasantness: *For through many tribulations must I enter [0965C] into the kingdom of God [n: (Act. XIV)]*. For I am among those of whom it is written: *Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted: and you indeed shall have sorrow, but the world shall rejoice, yet your sorrow shall be turned into joy [n: (Matth. V; Joan. XVI)]*.

No. 10. *The sons of my mother have fought against me.* The sons, namely, of the Synagogue, who stoned Stephen the martyr as he taught and reproved: *And there was a great persecution in the Church which was at Jerusalem, and all the brethren were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria [n: (Act. VII)]*. Or those also fought against the Church who persecuted Paul, preaching among the gentiles, through the several cities. Likewise also those who judged that the burdens of the law were to be imposed on those who had believed from among the gentiles, which burdens the blessed James, with the rest of the apostles, [0965D] decreed were salubriously to be removed [n: (Act. V)]. For those also who had persuaded the Galatians, believing in Christ, to be circumcised, disturbing the evangelical tradition, are taught to have fought against the Church, of whom the apostle Paul says: *For neither* do these who are circumcised keep the law, but *they wish you to be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh [n: (Gal. V)]*. Of these same he also said: *Would that they who trouble you were cut off [n: (Ibid.)]*.

No. 11. *They have set me a keeper in the vineyards.* These vineyards too are the Synagogues: *Saul had received* power, and *letters from the chief priests, that whatever men and women he found believing in Christ he might deliver into custody to be punished [n: (Act. XI et XXII)]*: so that while he perpetrated these things, he was as it were keeping the vineyard of the Synagogue. [0966A] And there follows, *My own vineyard I have not kept.* For, made Paul out of Saul, a preacher out of a persecutor, while he preached the word of God to the contradicting Jews and was utterly spurned, he said to those same unbelievers: *To you indeed it behooved to preach the word of God, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of so great salvation, behold, we turn to the gentiles, for so has the Lord commanded us through the Scripture: I have set thee as a light of the gentiles, that thou mayest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth [n: (Act. XIII; Isa. XLIX)]*. Or, as he himself wrote to the Galatians, *You have heard of my conduct in Judaism, that I persecuted the Church of God and stormed it, and advanced in Judaism above many of my contemporaries in my nation, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers [n: (Gal. I)]*. And again: *But [0966B] the things that were gains to me, these I have counted losses [n: (Philip. III)]*, saying as it were under an enigma: *They have set me a keeper in the vineyards, for* my own *vineyard I have not kept.*

No. 12. *Show me whom my soul loves, where thou feedest, where thou liest at noon.* We read in the Gospel: *If they shall say, Behold, here is Christ, behold, there, go not out [n: (Matth. XXIV; Marc. XIII)]*. For here and there are known to be parts; but Christ, lying in the Catholic Church as at noon, has flooded the whole world with his splendor, and rests in those who are fervent in spirit, and out of that charity by which he irradiates the whole globe, he daily feeds the peoples who believe in him.

No. 13. *Lest I begin to wander among the flocks of thy companions [0966C]:* that is, if in that brightness in which the whole body of thy faithful subsists I have not known thee dwelling, I shall begin to stray among the flocks of the companions, that is, among the congregations of heretics. For heretics may in a certain part be called companions of Christ, because they profess his nativity, passion, and resurrection; but because concerning them the Apostle says: *Having the form of piety but denying the power thereof [n: (II Tim. V)]*, they are proved to be *no longer* companions but adversaries.

## CHAPTER ONE. (cont.)

No. 14. *If thou know not thyself, O most beautiful among women, go forth and depart after the footprints.* It is the voice of Christ to the Church, *If thou know not thyself, O beautiful among women:* if thou dost not understand that thou art she to whom it is said in the psalm: *Hearken, daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and forget thy people and the house of thy father, for the [0966D] king has desired thy beauty [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*, because thou alone hast received the beauty of the incorruptible sacrament. And well does he say, *among women,* that is, glorious among the heresies: for they are aptly called by the name of women, because they have lost the virginity which is in Christ. Therefore stray not, by seeking me elsewhere outside thyself in any way; for in thee, where thou hast not been seeking me until now, I rest as at noon. Now understand where thou art to seek me, feeding and governing thee thyself, lest, as in the night, the pretense of any persons lead thee away: for since certain sincerity endures with thee only while I reign in thee, know that thou art among those to whom, after my resurrection, I truly promised: *Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age (Matth. [0967A] XXVIII)*. But if by some doubt of my promises thou waverest in any way, and knowest neither my presence nor thine own beauty: *go forth, and depart after the footprints of thy flocks.* Rightly indeed will she go after the footprints of the flocks, because she has forsaken the presence of the shepherd. *And feed thy kids beside the tents of the shepherds:* delighting unjust men with the traditions or conventicles of heretics. For by these rebukes they deserve to be chidden, who do not recognize Christ in the Catholic Church, or themselves to be the Catholic Church.

No. 15. *To my cavalry amid Pharaoh's chariots.* Habakkuk the prophet says: *Art thou angry with the rivers, O Lord, or is thy wrath upon the rivers, or thy indignation upon the sea, thou who mountest upon thy horses, and thy chariots [0967B] are salvation [n: (Abac. I)]?* Which horses do we take to be the apostles and evangelists? Therefore Christ speaks to the Church. Then *I likened thee to my cavalry amid Pharaoh's chariots,* when I turned the wise of the world to be called to my faith, that, laying aside the swelling of the world, running under me (who am the true salvation) they might advance; and, carrying me about with pious preachings, might manifest me to the eyes of believers by faith. And just as the prince of this world, who has now been cast out, used false philosophers, as it were bright chariots, unto destruction, so I, with the apostles filled with my wisdom, will train believers unto salvation.

No. 16. *Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtledove's.* He has proclaimed chastity, the companion of modesty. For the kind of turtledoves is said, when its bodily consort is lost, to go about [0967C] solitary, and to seek no further carnal union. And so the bride of Christ has an exceptional beauty when with modesty she retains her chastity.

No. 17. *Thy neck as necklaces.* In the neck are intimated those who do not cease to meditate on the law of God by day and by night, and who also, like clean animals, render up the saving doctrine by continually ruminating it. These, because they are the most excellent ornaments of the Church, are described as the necklaces of the bride.

No. 18. *We will make thee golden chains.* This is the voice of the teachers, who then arrange the ornaments of the Church, mingled of gold and silver, when they discourse spiritual understandings with the brightness of eloquence. Now golden chains, flowing down from the head, are wont to be fitted for adorning the neck: and therefore those doctrines are most excellent which, [0967D] proceeding from the head, that is, Christ, so minister with spiritual office that they teach our neck to be subjected to the yoke of Christ, so that to such it is said by the Apostle: *Not minding high things [n: (Rom. XI)]*, etc.

No. 19. *While the king was on his couch.* The Gospels relate [n: (Marc. XIV; Joan. XII)] that, two days before the Passover, while the Lord reclined, by a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of pure nard it was poured over his head, and here the prophecy says: *When the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its odor.* Therefore both this and that are known to have been said or done figuratively, because, our King being set on his couch (whether on the cross, where with bowed head he yielded up his spirit, or in the sepulcher, where laid away in body he rested), the Church anointed him with the fragrant ointment of pious confession, [0968A] so that she ceases not in every way to preach that he suffered willingly and rose from the dead on the third day by his own power, unto the salvation of believers.

No. 20. *A bundle of myrrh is my beloved.* The species of myrrh is recognized as apt for embalming the bodies of the dead. And so the bundle of myrrh is Christ, having suffered, and died, and been buried. *He shall abide between my breasts.* That the breasts of the Church are the learned and those abounding with spiritual milk, who nourish the peoples being born in the faith, those without doubt are proved to be, who cease not in every way to announce the death of the Lord, as it has been commanded, until he come.

No. 21. *My beloved is a cluster of Cyprus.* A cluster in Cyprus is Christ hung upon the wood of the cross: which kind [0968B] of wood is always fragrant and incorrupt, for we mark beforehand the sign of the cross, with the odor of chrism, upon the forehead. And well does he say: *My beloved is to me a cluster of Cyprus,* because not to those who crucified him, but to those who believed in the crucified, the sweetness of this cluster has been granted. *In the vineyards of Engaddi;* among the peoples of the Synagogue, where the Lord's passion was accomplished. *Engaddi* is interpreted the eye of my temptation. Read the Gospel, and thou wilt find that the Pharisees and Sadducees intended nothing else by their questionings than to tempt the Lord on every point, and to find grounds for accusing him; to whom he himself says: *Why do you tempt me, hypocrites [n: (Matth. XXII)]?* But so great a good of Christ's passion, wrought indeed for them, is established as granted to us who have believed.

[0968C]No. 22. *Behold, thou art beautiful, my love.* Christ pronounces the Church, whom he made his love by the kiss of his peace, twice beautiful, as the Apostle taught her to be *holy in body and spirit [n: (I Cor. VII)]*, adding, *thy eyes are doves'.* There is nothing that adorns the face in the body more than the disposition of the eyes, by which we fittingly take the holy apostles, who were even able to foresee things to come; whose privileges the blessed apostle Paul, designating them, writing to the Corinthians says: *You are the body of Christ [n: (I Cor. XII)]*. And in another place: *God has indeed set some in the Church, first apostles [n: (Ephes. IV)]*, etc. Now when he says, *thy eyes are doves',* he plainly shows the apostles themselves, who were commanded to be wary *as serpents, and simple as doves [n: (Matth. X)]*: by the likeness of which bird [0968D] he demonstrates that these same were also filled with the holy Spirit.

No. 23. *Behold, thou art beautiful, my beloved.* Christ, whom in this place the Church commemorates as beautiful and comely, the Psalmist thus proclaims, saying: *Beautiful in form above the sons of men, grace is poured out on thy lips [n: (Psal. XLIV)]*. But this beauty of thine is thence, because *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us [n: (Joan. I)]*. And adding, *our couch is flowery,* he shows the Lord's own body, in which the Godhead rested, pure, fragrant, born of a Virgin.

No. 24. *The roofs of our houses.* These houses [0969A] in which Christ dwells are the saints: as the prophet says: *for I will dwell in them [n: (Levit. XXVI; II Cor. VI)]*. And the roofs and paneling of these houses, of cedar and cypress, which are recognized as incorruptible and fragrant, demonstrate the direction toward God and neighbor, which has been granted from above through the holy Spirit (that is, that the saints may be in themselves).

## CHAP. II.

No. 25. *I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys.* I am the glory of the world, from the virginity of the humble.

No. 26. *As the lily among thorns.* To man, cast out of Paradise, it is said: *Cursed is the earth in thy works, it shall bring forth to thee thorns and thistles [n: (Gen. III)]*; which earth is understood to be human flesh, which is wont to produce the stings of lusts and the thorns of concupiscences. Wherefore, when he says: *As the lily in the midst [0969B] of thorns, so is my love among the daughters:* by daughters he means the heresies, which, as it were reborn through baptism, are called by the name of daughters; but, compared to thorns, are taught to be corrupting and corruptible. Which corruption the Church knows not, who, compared to the sincerity of lilies, gives forth fragrance and shines to and fro.

No. 27. *As the apple tree among the trees of the woods.* The Psalmographer says, *for who among the clouds shall be equal to the Lord, or who shall be like to God among the sons of God [n: (Psal. LXXXVIII)]?* There a son by adoption, here by nature; and therefore no one among the saints, or in the whole race of men, however he be reckoned by the name of son, is found like to Christ; who, by the sweetness and refreshment of his fruit, goes before the elect in incomparable beauty.

No. 28. *Under the shadow of him whom I had desired.* [0969C] Under the protection of the same one whom I ever sought to be present, I remained humble and secure.

No. 29. *And his fruit is sweet to my throat.* The Lord says in the Gospel: *I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing [n: (Joan. XV)]*. Although therefore the fruit arises in the branch, yet it is to be accounted to the vine, from whose root the branch with its fruit came forth; and therefore whatever the just bring forth as fruit in good works, all is to be referred to Christ. In whose fruits an incomparable sweetness is felt. Those saints too who by the office of the throat were wont to ruminate what they had tasted, that is, to meditate on the things that are Christ's, they too perceive an exceeding sweetness from his fruit.

[0969D]No. 30. *He brought me into the wine cellar.* The Lord, about to ascend into the heavens, charged the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, saying to them: *Rejoice, for I have overcome the world, and I go to the Father; but you, sit in the city until you be clothed with power from on high.* And as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: *Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath's journey away. And when they had entered the upper room, they went up where Peter and John were staying.* And after a little: *These were all gathered together with one accord with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brethren; and the crowd of men was about a hundred and twenty [n: (Act. I, II)]*, set in this place; and when the holy Spirit came upon them they were filled; and when [0970A] they had begun to speak in various tongues, they were thought by the people to be full of new wine. Then therefore the Church is brought into the wine cellar, when this apostolic congregation, remaining in unity, is filled with the holy Spirit, as the Apostle also says: *In one Spirit we were all baptized, whether slaves or free, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit [n: (I Cor. XII)]*. But because charity is poured forth in the heart of the pious through the holy Spirit, he at once subjoined, *He set charity in order in me.* For this is charity set in order, that a man love his neighbor as himself; and so love God that he even deny himself for his sake. And even in the wicked there is loved, not the iniquity which they themselves commit, but the creature in which the good have been formed by God. But that too is charity set in order, that servants should not feel toward the Lord as evildoers, [0970B] nor love themselves with an abominable love like the wanton, but even, where it is necessary, mutually correct one another with freedom, superstition being cast out, according to that: *Better are the wounds of one who loves than the deceitful kisses of one who flatters [n: (Prov. XXVII)]*; and again: *They who reprove shall be praised, and upon them shall come a blessing [n: (Prov. XXIV)]*.

No. 31. *Stay me with flowers, compass me about with apples.* She desires to be joined to, or surrounded by, the companies of the saints, who languishes with a pious and chaste love; because the languor is not of sickness, but of ineffable desire, according to that: *My soul has fainted in thy salvation, and in thy word have I over-hoped; my eyes have failed for thy word, saying: When wilt thou comfort me [n: (Psal. CXVIII)]?* Happy they who advance by such progress: [0970C] for in a certain way, he who desires much languishes and faints until he finds the things desired or sought.

No. 32. *His left hand under my head.* Solomon himself says in the Proverbs: *Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and abounds in prudence; length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory.* And thus the elect Church of Christ, having the left hand under her head, describes temporal things as subjected to her; and taught that his right hand embraces her, while she desires the eternal.

No. 33. *I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes.* By the daughters of Jerusalem he means the holy and peaceable souls of teachers; whom, by the clean and swift animals which cease not to ruminate, and which are fed in the fields of the holy Scriptures, he adjures, *that they make not to awaken, until she herself will:* which we know Paul the apostle did, [0970D] when to virgins concerning the keeping of holiness he gave, not a command, but counsel [n: (I Cor. VII)]; and in the Gospel it is said to the rich man: *If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor [n: (Matth. XIX)]*. And in another place where *eunuchs* are praised, *who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven;* and it is at once added, *he who can receive it, let him receive it.* And again the Apostle, when he exhorts to continence: *This I say for your profit* (he says), *not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is honorable,* I exhort, *and which affords the means of beseeching God without hindrance [n: (I Cor. VII)]*. And again to Philemon: *But without thy counsel I would do nothing, that thy good deed might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.* For then is the beloved [0971A] in no way awakened until she will, when the vows of the saints are offered to the Lord by a spontaneous will.

No. 34. *The voice of my beloved.* This voice of Christ, which is so much commemorated in this prophecy, is not unfittingly taken of that voice by which the race of dead men is awakened in the Gospel, as he himself proclaims, saying: *Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour shall come in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and they shall come forth who have done good, unto the resurrection of life [n: (Joan. V)]*. And in the Apocalypse it is said: *Blessed is he who dwells a part in the first resurrection [n: (Apoc. XX)]*. He finds a part in the first resurrection who, rescued from evil habit, rises as it were from death, Christ giving life.

No. 35. *Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains.* Christ [0971B] comes *leaping upon the mountains,* when he appeared more perfect to the perfect; *bounding over the hills,* when by the excellence of his majesty he surpassed all the height of the saints.

No. 36. *My beloved is like a roe.* He is like a roe, because *in the likeness of sinful flesh [n: (Rom. VIII)]* he appeared to us; like also *to the fawn of the harts,* because from the saints who conquered the serpent he drew his origin according to the flesh.

No. 37. *Lo, he himself stands behind the wall.* He stands behind our wall when he is clothed with the veil of our body.

No. 38. *Looking through the windows.* When he hid something of himself, but made something manifest; as it were he looked forth through the windows and the lattices. For he did not show himself wholly, especially as to God, who to Philip, desiring to see the Father, [0971C] said: *So long a time I have been with you, and you have not known me;* and in another place: *He who loves me keeps my commandments, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him [n: (Joan. XIV)]*. Or he looked forth through the windows and the lattices then, when he taught the people in parables. It can also be understood that he then looked forth through the windows, when in the passion, his side pierced by the lance, blood and water flowing forth, he brought forth the sacraments of redemption and of the laver.

No. 39. *My beloved speaks to me.* The beloved is often described in this book: for who is so beloved of the Church as he for whom the martyrs laid down their souls? *Arise, hasten, and come: arise,* believe; *hasten,* the course of pious labor accomplished, receive the reward. *My love,* reconciled to me through death; *my beautiful one,* [0971D] made clean through the laver.

No. 40. *For now the winter is past.* Because temporal tribulation has received an end.

No. 41. *The rain is gone and departed.* Frequent and manifold temptation, or the persecution of the pagans, has grown quiet.

No. 42. *The flowers have appeared in the land.* The saints abounded in the world, arising in the month of the New, when the Passover is celebrated; to whom the Apostle says: *If you have risen with Christ, mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth [n: (Col. III)]*.

No. 43. *The time of pruning has come.* Those who are planted in the house of the Lord, the pruning-knife of discipline applied, purged from all superstition, are prepared for the fruits to come.

[0972A]No. 44. *The voice of the turtledove is heard in the land.* Anna, in the Gospel, a most chaste widow of eighty-four years, not departing from the temple, in fastings and prayers recognizes Christ, and speaks of him to all who awaited the redemption of Israel [n: (Luc. II)]. He too commanded the combining of these same birds to be offered in sacrifice, who held nothing at all excellent in the offering to God, except when the faithful, sanctified in body and spirit, are offered to the Lord.

No. 45. *The fig tree has put forth its green figs.* At length the Synagogue too brought forth Israelites believing in Christ, as the Apostle also says: *I would not have you ignorant of this mystery, that blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles should enter, and so all Israel should be saved [n: (Rom. XI)]*.

[0972B]No. 46. *The flowering vines have given forth their odor.* The congregations of clerics, and also of monks and virgins, advance in the Church, and became known through good report and conduct.

No. 47. *Arise, my love, and my beautiful one.* With pious appellations he ever exhorts the Church that, temporal things being left behind, she sigh after the eternal.

No. 48. *My dove in the clefts of the rock.* The Church is called a dove for no other reason than that she is without guile and is filled with the holy Spirit; she dwells in the clefts of the rock, because she ever has a refuge in these, the wounds of Christ, from which she has been healed. She is also received into the hollow of the wall, when she is cherished with holy consolation from the Scriptures, or when she is wholly protected by the merits and prayers of the preceding saints. In [0972C] these clefts of the rock, Thomas the apostle, like a dove, found protection, when after the resurrection, the places of Christ's wounds having been handled, all doubt removed, he faithfully cried out: *My God and my Lord [n: (Joan. XX)]*.

## CHAP. II. (cont.)

No. 49. *Show me thy face, Sion.* Sion is interpreted contemplation, which is rightly understood of those who say with the Apostle: *But we, beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image from brightness to brightness, as by the Spirit of the Lord.* And again: *while we contemplate not the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen [n: (II Cor. III)]*. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. She therefore is invited to stand always before God, like Elias, who was saying: *The Lord lives, in whose sight I stand this day* [0972D] [n: (IV Reg. III)]; and let her not be of those whom the prophet marks, saying: *They have turned to me the back and not the face [n: (Jerem. II)]*; and, *thy voice,* he says, *in my ears [n: (III Reg. XVII)]*; and, *the just cried, and the Lord heard them and delivered them out of all their tribulations [n: (Psal. XXXIII)]*.

No. 50. *For thy voice is sweet.* The prayers of the saints, ever acceptable to the Lord, and present by his grace, because they received from the light of Christ, that they might remain in the beauty of justice.

No. 51. *Catch us the little foxes.* The Lord says by a parable in the Gospel [n: (Matth. XIII)] that, when the blade had grown, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared the cockle: that is, as the Church advanced, numerous [0973A] heresies too arose, or, while she abode in that faith, those things which they wrongly held were searched out. So too that Samson, who is interpreted the sun, having caught three hundred foxes, applied fire to their tails, and kindled the crops of the enemies [n: (Judic. XV)]. For heretics in their beginnings are always conspicuous, as with a feigned religion, but in their last days they draw fire, assigned to the burning of Gehenna. And therefore *Catch us the foxes:* convict the heretics, and shut up their cunning with the testimonies of the holy Scriptures. He calls them little foxes, because they contain nothing great by understanding according to the right faith; for they display all that they know; being petty, they demolish the vineyards, subvert the peoples, corrupting them with depraved traditions. *Our vineyard has flourished.* The Catholic Church [0973B] advances with unfailing increase.

No. 52. *My beloved is mine, and I am his.* The Apostle says: *They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church [n: (Ephes. V)]*. For concerning him the same Church says: *The Lord is the portion of my inheritance [n: (Psalm. XV)]*. And again it is said by the Father to the Son: *Ask of me, and I will give thee the gentiles for thy inheritance, and for thy possession the ends of the earth [n: (Psalm. II)]*. Christ therefore has the Church in his body, and the Church has Christ in the head: which connection, because it cannot be sundered, she has rightly said: *My beloved is mine.*

No. 53. *Who feeds among the lilies.* Christ feeds among the lilies when his body, which is the Church, is adorned by the companies of the saints and of virgins.

[0973C]No. 54. *Until the day breathe out, and the shadows decline.* Until the evangelical tradition advance in clearer light, and the figures of the Old Testament, which as shadows preceded in the rite of sacrifices, in typical observances, be driven away.

No. 55. *Return, be like, my beloved to me.* While he intimates the beloved to return, and calls him like to a roe and a fawn, he demonstrates the ascension of Christ into the heavens, to be compared to clean and swift animals. For these by a swift bound bound over the higher places of the mountains; but Christ surpassed all things that seem lofty, because concerning him the Apostle says: *Wherefore God exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, [0973D] of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father (Philip II)*. Now Bethel is interpreted the house of God: therefore upon the mountains of Bethel, because to all the saints who are in heaven and on earth, he preaches Christ more powerful.

## CHAP. III.

No. 56. *On my bed by night I sought.* Among those who slumber in the faith, and are blotted out by the darkness of ignorance, the Church sought Christ, whom she loves; but see what follows: *I sought him, and found him not.* The Lord says to Adam: *In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread [n: (Gen. III)]*. For those who are unstrung by some vice or by the drowsiness of sloth do not quickly come to the eating of that bread which descended from heaven, [0974A] but those who have kept watch in holy labors, they find him.

No. 57. *I will arise and go about the city.* I considered all the glory of the present age, I inspected the congregations of the unbelievers and the diverse sects of the philosophers; but not even there did I find him whom my soul loves.

No. 58. *The watchmen found me.* The wise of the world and the worshipers of idols disputed against me, searching out many things in vain, and composing many books by fruitless labors, to whom I said: Why are you troubled to no purpose by superfluous effort? Why do you wear away your wits in vain with vehemence? have you seen him whom my soul loves? Since you glory in the false name of wisdom, *God has made foolish* your *wisdom [n: (I Cor. II)]*, because you were in no way able to find Christ there.

[0974B]No. 59. *When I had passed a little beyond.* When I had passed beyond men of this kind, who in the world are thought famous for their empty knowledge, and had withstood their superstitious inventions, and had judged their wisdom foolish, *she found him whom my soul loves.* Hence it is that the Apostle says of such: *We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet wisdom not of this world, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, which God predestined before the ages unto our glory [n: (I Cor. I)]*: and because that wisdom which is Christ is not found among such men, there follows: *which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory: as it is written, that eye has not seen, nor ear [0974C] heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him [n: (Ibid.)]*. But because the bride finds him whom she loves among the spiritual, hear what follows: *But to us God has revealed them by his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God [n: (Ibid.)]*.

No. 60. *I held him, and will not let him go.* For so will I cleave to Christ, will persevere in his faith, *until,* preaching him in the peoples of the Synagogue as in the house of the mother, *I bring* him *into the chamber of her that bore me:* that the Jews, who until now denied him with the mouth, may receive him with the heart; and, the eyes of their mind enlightened, may at length find *in the chamber,* abiding in the secret place of the holy Scriptures, him who once was revealed to us. Or Christ is then brought into the house of the mother, when to [0974D] the heavenly Jerusalem the Christian people, which is his body, is joined. Where is *that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor into the heart of man,* etc.

No. 61. *I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem.* This sentence he has already set down above, and, insofar as God has heard us, we remember that we treated it with testimonies adduced. But therefore I think it is repeated again in this book, lest any of the teachers either solicit those about to believe with gifts, or deter them with threats, but only preach the things that are holy, and voluntarily lead those about to believe, or to be converted, to faith or religion.

No. 62. *Who is this that comes up through the desert.* The Church comes up through the desert, when the people [0975A] of the gentiles, occupying the multitude of believers by faith, advances. For concerning her it is sung in the Psalms: *He has set the desert into pools of waters, and the land without water into outlets of waters [n: (Psalm. CVI et CXIII)]*. *Little rods of smoke from aromatic spices,* he means the prayers which from compunction of heart ascend to the Lord from the saints. For smoke is wont to stir up tears. Myrrh and frankincense, and the powders of every dust, intimate the marks of mortification, or the diverse gifts of graces which abound in the elect.

No. 63. *Or the couch of Solomon.* The couch of Solomon is the rest of Christ; which rest is fittingly taken of the Church, whom we read in the Psalms to be elect under a number: *For,* he says, *the Lord has chosen Sion, he has chosen her for his dwelling. This is my rest for ever and ever, here will I dwell, for I have chosen her* [0975B] [n: (Psal. LXXV)]. And under the number sixty, because sixty consists wholly of its parts, and rises by the number ten, rightly are they described of the mightiest of Israel, who, the Lord being present, are appointed to the guarding of the Church. To her too it is said by the prophet: *Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and night forever they shall not be silent. All holding swords, most skilled for wars. And the sword of each upon his thigh [n: (Isai. LXII)]*. For to them the Apostle says: *Stand therefore, having your loins girt in truth, and put on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace, in all things taking the shield of faith, in which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God [n: (Ephes. VI)]*. Those therefore are most skilled for wars, [0975C] who have known how to fight back against the concupiscences of their flesh; and he usefully bears the sword upon his thigh who mortifies the carnal fluxes and lusts with spiritual food. Whoever therefore of this kind are found in the Church, these are recognized to be strong of the mightiest of Israel, contemplating God.

No. 64. *King Solomon made himself a litter.* Where the setting forth of foods is written, there is the faith of believers, through which Christ is perceived. For when the Lord was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, and she, returning, had announced his majesty to the others remaining in the city, his disciples coming up asked him, saying: *Rabbi, eat. But he said to them: I have food to eat which you know not.* And a little after: *from that city many of the Samaritans believed in him* [0975D] [n: (Joan. IV)]. Their faith he showed would be food for himself, when a little before he foretold to the disciples that he would eat this which they knew not. But in this place, as the following words teach, the name of litter shows rather the instrument in which something is carried, or, as another edition has, a bearing-chair, than the food itself. *Of the woods of Lebanon:* of the chief saints in the Church.

No. 65. *He made its pillars of silver.* He prepared the supports of the Church out of his learned men or apostles, as Paul, the vessel of election, wrote to the Galatians: *When,* he says, *James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, had recognized the grace of God, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship [n: (Gal. II)]*.

No. 66. *A golden resting-place.* Christ, about to feast well, finds a resting-place in those who, endowed with sincere [0976A] understanding, shine like gold in the holy congregation.

No. 67. *A purple ascent.* The purple ascent teaches the exceptional perfection of the martyrs in the shedding of blood.

No. 68. *The middle he built with charity.* That he might build all these ornaments of the Church, there is no other cause than that *he loved us and delivered himself for us, an oblation and a victim to God for an odor of sweetness [n: (Ephes. V)]*.

No. 69. *Go forth and see, daughters of Sion.* Ever have before your eyes, holy souls, *King Solomon,* our peaceable one, who is Christ, how he endured the passion [n: (Marc., XV; Joan. XIX)], to free the human race from destruction; behold him *in [0976B] the diadem with which his mother crowned him:* in that crown of thorns which the Synagogue set upon his head in the day of his espousal. For then he espoused to himself the whole Church, when, ascending upon the gibbet of the cross, from that same cross he taught all who believe in him the sign upon their foreheads, as he himself says: *I, when I shall be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself [n: (Joan. XII)]*. Which day of the passion was also the day of the gladness of his heart: for as Christ bestowed the good things which through his possession, unto generations and many times, upon the faithful.

## CHAP. IV.

No. 70. *How beautiful thou art, my love.* The repetition of the discourse commends the beauty which it praises; or the kinds of saints which it introduces under the appearance of similitudes, it shows beforehand as to be considered.

[0976C]No. 71. *Doves' eyes besides that.* The simplicity of the spiritual is greatly to be revered, because they know not how to extol themselves, and with a conscious purity they strive to please God rather than men.

No. 72. *Thy hair as flocks of goats.* The Apostle teaches that hair was given to a woman for an ornament [n: (I Cor. XI)]; and therefore the Church has as its ornament, most of all, those peoples who first believed from the circumcision, who, their goods being sold and paid out for the use of the poor, *had one heart and one soul [n: (Act. IV)]*. *These came up from Mount Galaad:* Galaad is interpreted, a heap of testimony, as if their ascent, that is, their advance, proceeded from the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, when there they understood Christ, in whom they afterward believed.

[0976D]No. 73. *Thy teeth as flocks of shorn ewes.* By teeth he means the preachers, who transmit into the body of Christ, salubriously to be crushed small, the things they have received. These are compared to the flocks of the shorn, because, the old man laid aside, they went forth in newness of the Spirit. They also *came up from the washing,* when, having received remission of sins through baptism, they advanced in Christ.

No. 74. *All with twin offspring.* All filled with the charity of Christ and of neighbor, and because they are prompt to mercy, therefore *is none barren among them [n: (Jos. VI)]*.

No. 75. *As a scarlet ribbon are thy lips.* That harlot Rahab, who deserved to be saved and to be associated to the people of Israel, hung a scarlet cord as a sign of salvation through the window of her house. Wherefore the lips of those [0977A] are comely, because they therefore preach the passion, and announce the redemption given through his blood; and they rejoice together that they have found nothing sweeter to speak of, as the Apostle also says: *I judge myself to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified [n: (I Cor. I)]*.

No. 76. *As a piece of pomegranate are thy cheeks.* Those effect the comeliness in the face of the Church who, modesty accompanying, keep chastity; or the holy martyrs, who, imitating the passion of Christ, were suffused with the rosy comeliness of their own blood, *besides that which lies hidden within,* beyond the merit of chastity and of martyrdom. Many and other are the good things of the saints which he knows, because he granted them in their heart.

No. 77. *As the tower of David is thy neck.* By tower [0977B] is meant the perfection or the doctrine of the saints, which is built not by itself, but by Christ, *with bulwarks,* with the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, by which the unbelieving or the heretics are warred down.

No. 78. *A thousand shields hang.* This tower can fittingly be understood to be the canonical Scripture of the Old and New Testament, which, through the holy Spirit, as a lofty tower, has been constructed. *A thousand shields hang from it.* This number is taken for the fullness of the whole, as in the Psalm: *Of the word which he commanded to a thousand generations [n: (Psalm. CIV)]*, as though he said, unto all generations. And so in this holy Scripture *all the armor of the strong* is found; from which one fights back strongly either against the devil, or against his ministers. For the Lord himself too, when in the desert [0977C] he was tempted by the devil [n: (Matth. IV)], brought forth arms from this tower, when with testimonies produced from holy Scripture he conquered him utterly.

No. 79. *Two breasts as two fawns of a roe.* The two breasts of the Church are the two Testaments, fitted to the two fawns of a roe, *twins,* that is, to the two peoples who are nourished from thee, namely of the circumcision and of the foreskin, born from the propagation of sin; which nevertheless *feed among the lilies,* while they advance alike by the examples and doctrines of the saints.

No. 80. *Until the day breathe, and it decline. Until,* as the Apostle says, *that which is mortal be swallowed up [n: (II Cor. V)]*.

No. 81. *I will go to the mountain of myrrh.* Let me be joined to those who have grown by mortifying themselves for the sake of God, and, [0977D] by offering themselves to him, cease not to proffer the odor of grace.

No. 82. *Thou art all beautiful, my love.* As the Apostle says, *that he might present to himself the Church without spot or wrinkle [n: (Ephes. III)]*. Nor is it idle that he says, *Thou art all beautiful,* namely in all, the small and the great. But so, not only in the martyrs, confessors, learned virgins, but also in the continent, the almsgivers, and the penitent.

No. 83. *Come from Lebanon, my bride, come.* Lebanon is interpreted whiteness: for unless one has received whiteness by the sacred baptism in which remission of sins is given, he cannot come to Christ.

No. 84. *Thou shalt be crowned from the head of Amana.* Seir is interpreted a lamp; Hermon, consecration: all which [0978A] are referred to Christ, who consecrates those whom he illumines, and himself crowns those whom, illumining them, he shall have consecrated.

No. 85. *From the dens of lions.* The Church is called forth from the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards, when, proud elation left behind, or the tradition of diverse sects, simple and humble she comes to Christ.

No. 86. *Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister.* This wound of the heart is love. And so, by an immense love in that eye, the Church pleased Christ; since she looked not to temporal, but to eternal things. And so now *with one hair of the neck;* because she was zealous not to be adorned with visible things, but with things to come; or perhaps the one eye and hair of the neck is the people of the believing Church, which Christ so loved that he laid down his soul for it.

No. 87. *How beautiful are thy breasts.* How [0978B] admirable are those teachers who nourish men being born in the faith, and, like pious nurses, bear the annoyances of the babbling carnal peoples, until they bring to perfection those whom they have raised with spiritual milk.

No. 88. *Thy breasts are more beautiful than wine.* Already above we have said that these breasts are the apostles, or apostolic men, whose doctrine exudes wine: namely the tradition and precept of the old law. *And the odor of thy ointments above all aromatic spices.* The distribution of the graces which is granted through the holy Spirit, which the Apostle declares when he says: *to one is given the word of wisdom, to another of knowledge [n: (I Cor., XII)]*, etc., so far excels that it surpasses all the vanities of the world.

No. 89. *Thy lips are a dripping honeycomb, O bride. Thy lips [0978C] are a dripping honeycomb,* the exposition of the sacred Scriptures, *honey and milk* in thy doctrine, *under thy tongue,* in that thou nourishest little ones with milk, and in the honey takest away the rottenness of diverse wounds or sins.

No. 90. *And the odor of thy garments.* He says by the prophet to Jerusalem concerning the saints: *I live, says the Lord, for with all these as with an ornament shalt thou be clothed, and thou shalt gird them about thee as a bride.* Therefore the garments of the Church, namely all the saints famous in words and works, render the sweetness of odor.

No. 91. *A garden enclosed is my sister the bride.* This bride, who is enclosed as a garden, that is, by the grace of Christ, is surrounded with matter so indissoluble that of her the prophet Isaias said: *He shall no more add that everyone uncircumcised and unclean pass through thee [n: (Isa. LII)]*. [0978D] There can also be understood by the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain the very mother of the Lord, holy Mary, who, a virgin conceiving and a virgin bringing forth, showed in herself the undefiled beauty of the enclosed garden and the sealed fountain.

No. 92. *Thy shoots are a paradise of apples.* Thy advances, O congregation of the holy martyrs, *with the fruits of apples;* with the remaining multitude of the faithful, which is adorned with the sweetness of justice.

No. 93. *Cyprus with nard, nard and saffron.* The incorruption and fortitude of the virtue of the martyrs, doctrine, good report, are found in all the peoples reborn in Christ by baptism.

No. 94. *Myrrh from aloe with all.* The marks of the death of Christ with the chief gifts of the holy Spirit.

[0979A]No. 95. *A fountain of gardens, a well of waters. A fountain,* open, the instruction of the peoples; *a well,* the profundity of doctrines; *which flow with force from Lebanon,* when they are sent forth from Christ with the fervor of the Spirit.

No. 96. *Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind.* One Spirit, that is, because the north wind and the south wind are diverse names, he intimates the gifts of one holy Spirit: the north wind while it offers coolness to the sweltering, the south wind while it loosens the hard to believe or to do well. Now the Psalmist teaches that the north wind is set in a good sense, *Mount Sion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King [n: (Psal. XLVII)]*. And again Ezekiel the prophet: *The hand of the Lord is upon me, and I saw, and behold a shining Spirit was coming from the north [n: (Ezech. I)]*. And because in the two one is perceived, he says not, Blow ye through, but [0979B] *Blow through my garden, and let its aromatic spices flow:* breathe upon the believing people, and let its good works abound.

## CHAP. V.

Num. 97. *Let my beloved come into his garden.* Let him enter into his Church and take delight in the works of his saints; or, let him be fed by the faithful in the poor, about to repay the eternal kingdom for things temporal.

Num. 98. *Come into my garden, my sister.* Hasten to my kingdom, O people enriched by my name: *my sister,* by my blood; *my spouse,* in my faith, as also the prophet Hosea says: *I will betroth thee to me in faith [n: (Ose. II)]*.

Num. 99. *I have reaped my myrrh with my spices.* Receive my martyrs, who for my sake have suffered or died, together with their merits.

[0979C]Num. 100. *Eat the honeycomb with my honey.* Those who have been instructed by the tender or the more forceful teaching of the Old and New Testament, receive into my body.

Num. 101. *Eat, friends, and drink.* The Lord says in the Gospel to the apostles: *Now I no longer call you servants, but friends [n: (Joan. XV)]*. But to Peter the apostle, in that vessel let down from heaven in which diverse kinds of animals were shown to him, it was said: *Peter, kill and eat [n: (Act. X)]*: that is, mortify [them]; put to death what they are, and make [them] what you yourself are. Therefore eat, friends, and drink. Let there be joy to you over the manner of life of the peoples passing over into your unity.

Num. 102. *I sleep, and my heart keeps watch.* For Christ's sake I am ready to die, but after death I believe that I shall reign with him. I also rest from temporal [0979D] delights, my senses in a manner lulled to sleep; but I long for things to come and seek after things eternal.

Num. 103. *The voice of my beloved knocking.* The Lord himself says in the Apocalypse: *I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to me, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me [n: (Apoc. III)]*. The Lord knocks when he either teaches by doctrine the things that are good, or by hidden inspiration urges the hearts of the saints to do well. Or this is the voice of him knocking in the Gospel: *Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you [n: (Matth. XI)]*.

Num. 104. *Open to me, my sister, my beloved.* Christ asks that it be opened to him, whether by the obedience of unbelievers, or in the faith [0980A] of the nations that are called; for the door is opened to him then, when the things he has commanded are fulfilled, or when in those who have believed an entrance is unlocked to him through faith. The sister of Christ is the Church, of his blood; *beloved,* because reconciled through his death; *dove,* of the Holy Spirit, immaculate by the sacrament of baptism.

Num. 105. *For my head is full.* Those who seem to be preeminent in the Church by chief honor are regarded as, so to speak, a head in the body of Christ; and those who in the very congregation of the faithful administer the visible sacraments are described as, as it were, ringlets. But because for the most part mortal men are infected with vices or with works of darkness, these therefore, as though weighed down with the drops of the nights, seem to cling to Christ as to a head. But of certain ones the Apostle says: *They themselves do not preach Christ sincerely* [0980B] [n: (Philip. I)]. Therefore the voice of the bride follows, as of one groaning for such men.

Num. 106. *I have stripped myself of my tunic.* Coming to the faith, I put off the old man according to the former manner of life, *and put on the new, who is created according to God [n: (Ephes. IV)]*. If also any contagion, while I walk among earthly things, has clung to my feet, it has been washed away by Christ's washing; and then I behold, not without grief, the ministers of the sacraments, by whom I ought to be adorned, infected with carnal vices. And therefore, because I perceive myself darkened by the evils which I had renounced, in the transgression of certain ones, [I say]: *I have stripped myself of my tunic, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?* I declare it with mournful heart, speaking as it were more openly: Is it fitting that I should again put on the garments of sins of which, by believing, I [0980C] stripped myself? Or that I should suffer myself to be defiled again, by living evilly, with the filth from which I was washed? or that I should go back, by an evil manner of life, from advance to failure, or from the brightness of righteousness to the blackness of sins?

Num. 107. *My beloved put forth his hand.* He put forth his hand *through the opening,* when he thoroughly taught me to pass through the straits of sufferings; *and my belly was troubled at his touch,* when, persecution being imminent, my weaker members, troubled, trembled at the bitterness of the punishments that were inflicted upon me by his permission. But this touch is understood as the torment of the coming blow, according to that [passage] in Job, when Satan says to the Lord: *Otherwise touch his bones and his flesh, unless he bless thee to thy face [n: (Job I)]*.

[0980D]Num. 108. *I arose to open to my beloved.* Awaking in heart, I confessed Christ, and, not deterred by bodily torments in my sufferings and in my works — the mortification of confessors — it also appeared in the elect: *In the sight of the Lord precious is the death of the saints [n: (Psalm. CXXV)]*.

Num. 109. *I opened the bolt of my door.* All doubt removed, I believed in Christ, and loved him with unspeakable love, and preached him with clear voice among the nations, and called upon him to be present to me in tribulations.

Num. 110. *But he had turned aside.* In this he, as it were, turned aside and passed by, when he handed me over to persecutors and to the wicked, and himself permitted them to rage against my body.

[0981A]Num. 111. *My soul melted.* Hearing his promises I burned with desire, when, he himself promising, I learned that they are blessed *who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [n: (Matth. V)]*.

Num. 112. *I sought him and did not find him.* Thus in the trampling of the malicious I was forsaken as though there were no helper; and [as though] he who might defend from enemies could not come to aid, as also blessed Job, set in his suffering, said: *I cry to thee and thou hearest me not, and thou lookest not upon me; thou art changed toward me into one cruel, and in the fury of thy hand thou art set against me.*

Num. 113. *The watchmen found me.* The powers of the world seized me, who are known to govern, as it were, the commonwealth.

[0981B]Num. 114. *They struck me, they wounded me with blows.* And they raged with torments upon my body; and loading me with chains, they shut me up in prisons. Prolonging life with exquisite tortures and not bringing death quickly, lest I might easily be freed from the punishments inflicted.

Num. 115. *They took away my cloak.* For when they demolished the churches down to the ground, and burned with fire the altars together with the Gospels and the other canonical books; when they shut up the priests, condemned to the mines; when no place for sacrificing, no liberty of baptizing, no leave of communicating was allowed; when the persecutors did all these things, then in a manner they took away from the bride of Christ, that is, the Church, as it were a certain cloak.

Num. 116. *I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem.* He conjures all [0981C] the saints, [asking] whether through these tribulations they may come to him, the life of the world despised: that they may show the Church, set in these persecutions, fervent with unspeakable love toward God, and in no way growing cold amid such great and so horrible straits.

Num. 117. *What manner of one is thy beloved?* The voice of the elect asking, and inquiring the faith of the Church from her answer. *What manner of one is thy beloved from the beloved?* that is, what manner is God from God, or the Son from the Father? declaring in the likeness of all things the equality of the persons. For they are not distinguished [but are] of one nature, and are believed to abide in the same glory of majesty.

Num. 118. *My beloved is white and ruddy.* White, because *in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God* [0981D] [n: (Joan. I)]. Ruddy, because begotten of the Virgin, *the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.* White in virginity, ruddy in passion: as also the prophet says of him: *Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra [n: (Isa. LXIII)]?* Edom is interpreted "blood"; and therefore ruddy from the shedding of blood. *This one, beautiful in his robe, walking in the multitude of his strength. Chosen out of thousands.* He it is of whom [it is said] in the Psalms: *Who shall be like to God among the sons of God [n: (Psal. XLIV)]?* and again, *Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, grace is poured out on thy lips.*

Num. 119. *His head is the finest gold.* We read in the Apostle: *The head of the man is Christ, but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God [n: (I Cor. I)]*. And therefore, just as among metals [0982A] nothing is like gold, so among creatures nothing will be compared to the Creator. But the head of Christ is God, according to what we recalled a little before from the Gospel, *In the beginning was the Word,* etc.

Num. 120. *His locks are as the high fronds of palm trees.* Those saints indeed are known to cling to their head, that is, to Christ, who, in the likeness of the raven, acknowledge themselves sinners: of whom is he who says: *If I should wish to make myself righteous before thee, my own mouth shall condemn me [n: (Job. IX)]*. And again another: *For I acknowledge my iniquity [n: (Ps. L)]*. And with harmonious voice John pronounces with the elect: *If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, who will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity (I Joan. [0982B] I)*. Likewise also Paul: *Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first [n: (I Tim. I)]*. And because *everyone,* according to the Gospel, *who humbles himself shall also be exalted [n: (Matth. XXIII; Luc. IV, XVIII)]*: those who cast themselves down by the confession of sin, according to what is written in this book, are not undeservedly compared to the loftiness of palm trees.

Num. 121. *His eyes are like doves.* Filled with the Holy Spirit, his elect abide without any gall of bitterness, and imbue the people with the little streams of the Scriptures.

Num. 122. *Which are washed with milk.* Thereupon made cleaner, because they believe with undoubting faith that Christ was born in the flesh; and acknowledge themselves reborn, washed, and nourished by the visible sacrament, they abide beside the fullest streams, that is, among the most abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit.

[0982C]Num. 123. *His cheeks are like little beds of spices.* For just as in the eyes of doves we rightly understand the apostles filled with the Holy Spirit, so also in the cheeks, which are near the eyes, [we understand] those Churches which believed through the apostles, which, like little beds of spices, produce a most sweet odor from holy manner of life: *planted by the perfumers:* namely by devout preachers, to whom the Apostle says: *But thou, when thou wast a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and made a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive [n: (Rom. XI)]*.

Num. 124. *His lips are dropping myrrh.* His teachers, [proclaiming him] by the Spirit or even [born] of the flesh of the Virgin; and in this preaching his passion, so that for him who died for us they do not refuse death.

Num. 125. *His hands are turned and golden.* Among the hands [0982D] of Christ are reckoned those who do not cease to work the things that are good. Therefore *turned and golden,* because always ready for every good work; *full of hyacinths,* according to that [word] of the Apostle: *Rich in good works, giving easily, and laying up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life [n: (I Tim. VI)]*.

## CHAP. V. (cont.)

Num. 126. *His belly is of ivory.* In his belly are reckoned those who, believing, bring forth in faith; and this belly of ivory is also not unfittingly taken as the font of baptism, from which we are reborn; and because the bones of ivory are known to be the beautiful and incorruptible bones of a dead animal, therefore it is said to us by the Apostle: *Or do you not know that whoever of us have been baptized in Christ Jesus, have been baptized in his death? For we are buried together [0983A] with him by baptism into death, that as Christ rose through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life [n: (Gal. III)]*. *Set with sapphires;* adorned with the saints begotten of himself and most illustrious in confession.

Num. 127. *His legs are marble columns.* The legs, which bear the whole body, are the saints themselves who [bear] the house of the Church, and are described as marble columns founded upon golden bases. For these are the just who support the rest with charity, and prop them up with the consolations of the Scriptures, as the Apostle says: *We who are stronger ought to bear the weakness of the weak, and not to please ourselves.* And a little after, he indicates the holy Scriptures as it were golden bases, saying: *Whatever things were written, were written for our instruction, [0983B] that through the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we might have hope [n: (Rom. XV)]*.

Num. 128. *His appearance is as of Lebanon, choice as the cedars.* All the saints who have given a most sweet odor from good manner of life, and endure in the integrity of incorruption, have received, God being the author, the grace of such great goods.

Num. 129. *His throat is most sweet.* Those who expound his mysteries, and daily meditate on his law, administer a most sweet savor in sacred doctrine. *And wholly desirable.* Where that shall be fulfilled which blessed John says in his Epistle: *Dearly beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is [n: (I Joan. III)]*.

[0983C]Num. 130. *Such is my beloved.* She persuades the just to attend to these varieties of graces, and to these ornaments of the mysteries, when she suggests that the beauty of the bridegroom is to be contemplated in his members.

Num. 131. *Whither has thy beloved gone?* As if searching and saying: Since thou hast set forth so great a beauty of his, that our heart is made to burn to seek him, now show whither he has gone, or where he has turned aside. And rightly is the Church called a virgin, *most beautiful among women,* because Paul speaks thus of her to the faithful: *I have espoused you to one husband, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ [n: (I Cor. XI)]*. And fittingly they say of him: *Whither has thy beloved gone, whither has he turned aside.* For he turned aside in a manner *when he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, [0983D] taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man; he humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross [n: (Philip. II)]*. Therefore whoever seeks the exalted one in the form of God will not find him unless he believe in the form of the servant: in which he humbled himself for this reason, that he might raise us up who lay prostrate.

## CHAP. VI.

Num. 132. *My beloved has gone down to the garden.* He went down to his garden when in his coming he visited Israel his people, as he himself says: *I am not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel [n: (Matth. X)]*. But by the little bed of spice we understand the holy Virgin Mary herself: for from her arose for us the order of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Num. 133. *That he may feed in the gardens, and gather lilies.* [0984A] That he may reign among the nations, or take delight in the Churches: that from them he may take up virgins and all the saints.

Num. 134. *I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine.* I am the kingdom of Christ and he is my king; I am his body and he is my head. *He feeds among the lilies,* when he rests in the heart of virgins, or when there, through the grace which he himself bestows, he daily increases and advances.

Num. 135. *Thou art beautiful, my beloved, beautiful,* etc. Beautiful through righteousness; sweet and beloved, because always peaceable, comely as Jerusalem. The Lord says in the Gospel: *In the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven [n: (Matth. XII; Luc. X)]*. And rightly is the Church described as comely as Jerusalem, to whom for eternity the likeness of the angels is granted by the Lord.

[0984B]Num. 136. *Terrible as an army in battle array.* How many tyrants and persecutors, together with their author the devil, have tried to break the strength of the Church and in no way have been able to prevail. For the holy Church has the battle array of a camp set in order, when, Christ being at hand, neither does persecution overcome the martyrs, nor carnal delight the virgins, nor covetousness the merciful, nor the ambition of temporal glory the humble.

Num. 137. *Turn thine eyes away from me, for.* Do not require me always to be seen in the body, whom thou discernest better in spirit through faith. For I ascended into heaven for this reason, that I might not always appear to thee confined to a place — I who so fill all things (by the presence of my divinity) that I am present everywhere, and contain all things, and am contained by no place.

[0984C]Num. 138. *Thy hair is like flocks of goats, thy teeth like a flock of sheep which all [bear] twin offspring, and there is none barren,* etc. *Like the rind of a pomegranate.* These four verses, it is agreed, are here written twice, which by God's gift we have already treated in an earlier place: in which, however, he foretold the peoples of the Jews and gentiles to be converted with the fruit of twofold love, and declared the glory of the martyrs with their merits.

Num. 139. *There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines.* In the number sixty, which is completed by six ascending through ten, we recognize every perfection of good things which is accomplished from the precepts of the law. But how the number six consists of the whole of its parts, note briefly: for its sixth part is proved to be one, its third two, and its half three. But who does not know that one, and two, and three [0984D] are six? which, in another number, with the parts distributed and reduced to a sum, is found to be thus completed with difficulty. And so the *queens* are called the perfect souls of the saints, which are not handmaids of sins: for so it is written, *Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [n: (I Cor. III)]*. But the concubines, who, like Hagar, *bring forth unto bondage [n: (Gal. IV)]*, are rightly reckoned among those who, having received the seed of the word of God, are wise not in spiritual but in carnal things. But of the *young maidens* of whom *there is no number,* there is the multitude of those who are ready to hear the things that are ever holy, and yet do not strive to fulfill in works what they hear, of whom the Apostle says: *Ever learning, and never [0985A] arriving at the knowledge of the truth [n: (I Tim. III)]*. And although these are kinds of men who are joined to Christ as it were through his teaching, nevertheless, because in the elect not diversity but unity is commended, hear what follows.

Num. 140. *One is my dove, my perfect one.* *Dove,* because she is simple, and is wise in spiritual things; *perfect,* because, leaving the world, she loves me more than temporal things or herself, according to that [word]: *If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come and follow me [n: (Matth. XIX)]*.

Num. 141. *She is the one chosen of her mother.* Of her mother the heavenly Jerusalem, of which the Apostle says: *But the Jerusalem which is above is our mother [n: (Gal. IV)]*. She is therefore one to her, because in future blessedness she alone shall be joined to her.

[0985B]Num. 142. *The daughters saw her, and proclaimed her most blessed.* For what holy souls are there that do not extol the Church with wondrous praises, when not even the concubines, that is the carnal, are silent in her praise, since they admire her unconquered in the martyrs and victorious in the virgins?

Num. 143. *Who is this that comes forth as.* She rises up as the *dawn,* when, the works of darkness despised, she lives chastely and soberly in the married; *beautiful as the moon,* when in the continent she shines with white brightness; *choice as the sun,* when in the virgins she shines forth with the beauty of perfection, like that good earth in the Gospel, which, having received into itself the seed of the word of God, produced fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold; *terrible as an army set in order.* Is she not terrible who overthrew the rites of the nations [0985C] and the worship of idols, and herself, enduring in the faith of Christ, could not be overcome by the nations? And she is very terrible in this too, when that power is given to her in Peter, where it is said: *Whatever thou shalt bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever thou shalt loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven [n: (Matth. XVI et XVIII)]*.

Num. 144. *I went down to the garden of nuts, to see.* The garden of nuts designates the canon of the Old and New Testament: for the nature of nuts shows one thing in the shell, and retains another in the kernel. And if anyone does not discern in the holy Scriptures, and does not, as it were, seek the inner things within the shells of the nut, he cannot come to the birth of spiritual understanding. But as for what he says, *That I might see the fruits of the valley:* that I might see [0985D] the fruit of the most lowly people in the Church, as is sung in the Psalms: *For thou wilt save the humble people, and wilt bring low the eyes of the proud [n: (Psal. XVII)]*.

Num. 145. *That I might look whether the vineyards had flourished.* That I might prove whether the Church had so far advanced that there should spring up in her those who would reach the perfection of martyrdom; and that they should be beautiful, ruddy, on account of the shedding of the blood of their Christ.

Num. 146. *I knew not, my soul troubled me.* What did Christ not know, except sin? He also knew not those who in the Gospel say: *Lord, did we not prophesy in thy name, and in thy name do many mighty works? And then* (he says) *I will say to them:* Amen I say to you, [0986A] *I know you not [n: (Matth. VII)]*: not that he did not know what manner of men they were, but because he knew that there was nothing good from them. *My soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab.* We find this Aminadab too genealogically in Christ. Whence we recognize that these chariots too are to be taken in a good sense: in which we not unfittingly understand the evangelists. Furthermore, as for what he says, *My soul troubled me,* this troubling is not contrary to tranquillity, but is found to be fitting to solicitude, according to what is said to Martha in the Gospel: *Why art thou solicitous, and troubled [n: (Luc. X)] about many things?* And in the Psalms: *Thou hast moved the earth, and troubled it; heal thou its breaches, for it is shaken [n: (Psal. LIX)]*. But whence do all the narratives of the Gospels narrate except through the Holy [0986B] Spirit, according to that [word] of the prophet Ezekiel: *Wherever the Spirit went, thither also the wheels were borne together [n: (Ezech. III et X)]*?

Num. 147. *Return, return, O Shunammite.* We find this Shunammite twice set in a praiseworthy place in the book of Kings: that is, both her who ministered to king David in his old age, and in his embrace remained indeed a most beautiful virgin [n: (IV Reg. IV)], and also her whose son, born by promise and afterward dead, Elisha raised up [n: (III Reg. I)]. Wherefore who would doubt that by this name the holy Church is to be understood? But often *return* is said to her, who once, in that younger son going away into a far country [n: (Luc. XV)], had been turned away; for then she returned, when she was converted to God from the heart. [0986C] Or *return* is said to her so frequently for this reason, that even if, being converted, she should fall, she may not sink into despair, but by the indulgence of hope may recover from the habit of sinning. Which voice is surely approved as [addressed] to the saints, who desire to behold the beauty of her [now] converted.

## CHAP. VII.

Num. 148. *What will you see in the Shunammite, but.* What is to be beheld in the Church, but the disposition of those who, always in readiness as though set in a camp, do not cease to fight against the devil, for this reason surely, lest the faithful lose their faith; lest the religious, puffed up, become apostates; lest the merciful be hardened by avarice; lest the penitent return to their vomit; lest the virgins lack the beauty of integrity; lest the continent lose the brightness of chastity? These are in the Church the choirs of the camp, continually set in the contest, and, [0986D] God fortifying them, ever unconquered.

Num. 149. *How beautiful are thy steps!* How admirable is the advance in those who announce the word of God in the Church of Christ! as the Apostle recalls what was written in the prophet: *How beautiful are the feet of those who evangelize good things!* And again he himself: *[Your] feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace [n: (Rom. X)]*.

Num. 150. *The joining of thy thighs.* By the joining of thy thighs we understand the fellowship of the peoples coming from the circumcision and the uncircumcision; and by this, both those who according to the flesh were propagated from the thigh of Abraham, and those who deserved [to be] in his seed, that is in Christ — when they are joined into the unity of faith — are described as necklaces which have been made by the hand of a [0987A] craftsman. For what craftsman joined these peoples in faith like necklaces, except he of whom the Apostle says: *He is our peace, who has made both one [n: (Ephes. VI)]*?

Num. 151. *Thy navel is a turned goblet.* Those who are placed not at the extremity but in the middle of the Church's body are called the navel. The turned goblet: they are useful vessels, turned in it, because they are prepared for obeying and for every good work [n: (Ephes. II)], and never lack drinks, because they are always filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Num. 152. *Thy belly is like a heap of wheat.* Those who always receive the holy nourishments of the Scriptures, and gather up within themselves the things that are wholesome, are reckoned under the likeness of the belly, and these are rightly called as it were a heaped-up [0987B] pile of wheat, because from the sound doctrine with which they are daily filled, they abundantly refresh many; which doctrine advances so far that by devout persuasions it leads many even to the observance of virginity.

Num. 153. *Thy two breasts are like two fawns.* The two testaments are fitted to the two fawns of a roe, that is, to the peoples coming from the propagation of sin. For by these works are nourished those who, subject to original sin, are reborn in Christ as fawns.

Num. 154. *Thy neck is like a tower of ivory.* The knowledge of the Scriptures, which is acquired by frequent meditation, is designated, like a tower of ivory, in the beauty of the neck. And [it is called] a tower of ivory for this reason, that those who attend upon the word of God advance to higher things by daily progress through the brightness of [0987C] righteousness.

Num. 155. *Thy eyes are like the fishpools in Heshbon.* Thy spiritual teachers, set in the gate, are in Christ like watering waters for instructing the peoples. For [they are called] fishpools for this reason, that they are filled with the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. In another book Solomon himself also says: *I made pools of water, to water the woods of the springing trees [n: (Eccle. II)]*.

Num. 156. *Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon.* The nose of the Church are those who, perceiving the odor of righteousness which is in Christ, transmit it to the inner things of the heart. These, who stand in great virtue, are set forth as the tower of Lebanon. And we have already said above that Lebanon is whiteness: the whiteness of their loftiness *looks toward Damascus,* because their wisdom, which is from [0987D] God, illuminates the world.

Num. 157. *Thy head is like Carmel, and thy hair.* On Mount Carmel the holy Elijah and Elisha often had their refuge [n: (III Reg. XVIII)]: wherefore in the head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ — since he is the more exalted (as though on Mount Carmel) — both the just find a dwelling, and the multitude of peoples, like a variety of animals, receive the nourishment of wisdom. *The hair of* his *head, like the purple of a king bound in the channels:* for the more eminent saints, namely the blessed martyrs of Christ, likened through the purple to royal ornaments, are understood to be always joined to saving doctrines.

Num. 158. *Thy stature is likened to a palm tree.* Thy perfection [0988A] has come to its reward, and thy teachers have been made sweet through the Holy Spirit.

Num. 159. *I said, I will go up into the palm tree.* Those go up into the palm tree who advance in the cross of Christ, of whom the Apostle says: *they who are in Christ have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences.* But they themselves obtain the fruits, the rewards, of this palm (the holy cross), who say with the same Apostle: *if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified [n: (Rom. VIII)]*.

Num. 160. *And thy breasts shall be like the clusters of the vine.* For no others are found who nourish those being born in faith, except the teachers of the Church.

Num. 161. *And thy odors like [those] of apples.* And the sweetness of thy instruction shall be spread abroad through those who, living soberly and justly, do not cease [0988B] to offer the odor of good manner of life.

Num. 162. *Thy throat is like the best wine.* In the throat also can be understood those saints through whom the law and the prophets and the gospel teaching were proclaimed: which holy Scripture indeed, endowed with excellent savor, gives forth fragrance and shines like the best wine, and through the Holy Spirit inebriates those who drink.

Num. 163. *Worthy for my beloved to drink.* They drink of the sacred Scripture of Christ, when from it Christians, who are his members, are satisfied in wondrous ways and with incomparable sweetness.

Num. 164. *And for his lips and teeth to ruminate.* The lips and teeth of Christ are the teachers of the Church: these do not cease to ruminate what is holy, when they daily [0988C] meditate on the things that were written for our instruction.

Num. 165. *I am my beloved's, and his turning is toward me.* To this beloved, in the voice of the Church, it is said: *my soul has cleaved after thee, thy right hand has upheld me [n: (Psal. LXII)]*. Let us see also elsewhere how she speaks to her beloved: *But we thy people, and the sheep of thy flock [n: (Psal. LXXVIII)]*. And as to how *his turning is toward me,* the prophet says: *And it shall be, before they cry, I will hear; while they are yet speaking, I will hear [n: (Isai. LXVI)]*, says the Lord. But there is no turning of Christ toward the Church so evident as when *the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us [n: (Joan. I)]*.

Num. 166. *Come, my beloved, let us go forth.* Christ goes forth with the Church into the field, when with the aforesaid saints he visits the world, as it is written [0988D] in the Gospel: *He who sows the good seed is the Son of man [n: (Matth. XIII; Marc. XIV)]*; the field is the world. *Let us abide in the villages;* among the believing peoples spread on every side, in whom Christ dwells through faith; not without the Church, since, reckoning those same ones among his members, he makes them his Church.

Num. 167. *Let us rise early to the vineyards.* That the souls which have already deserved to be cultivated through faith may, in the mornings, know that Christ has risen, lest they any longer distrust concerning the resurrection of their own body.

Num. 168. *Let us see if the vineyard has flourished.* Let it appear whether the faithful proclaim with the mouth what they have believed with the heart, as the Apostle says: *With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation [n: (Rom. X)]*; or *if the flowers bring forth [0989A] fruits,* whether in them, through holy desires, the works of piety have come forth.

Num. 169. *If the pomegranates have flourished.* Whether those who have believed in Christ advance in such great love that they even delight in every way to be slain for him. Do you wish to see a pomegranate? Hear in the Acts of the Apostles Paul the apostle: *I,* he says, *am ready not only to be judged in Jerusalem, but also to die for Christ [n: (Act. XXI)]*.

Num. 170. *There I will give thee thy breasts.* In this holy confession my teachers shall be joined to thee, prepared to suffer for thee, who also shall reign without end with thee.

Num. 171. *The mandrakes have given their odor.* Those who are founded in faith with a deep root, and are known to flourish by a certain austerity of discipline or [0989B] frugality, have instructed the peoples by public preachings, offering the odor of sweetness from a most holy manner of life.

Num. 172. *All gifts new and old.* Because both in the patriarchs and prophets and in the apostles and martyrs I myself have kept for thee things new and old; because they proclaimed thee and believed that thou wouldst come, these do not cease to preach thee born of the Virgin and having suffered for the salvation of all, and after the resurrection taken up into heaven.

## CHAP. VIII.

Num. 173. *Who will give thee to me for my brother.* Christ sucks the breasts of the mother when the Christian people is refreshed by the mysteries of the ancient law, or when the teachers refresh [them] with spiritual sacraments and most devout exposition, as if with true milk.

[0989C]Num. 174. *That I may find thee without and kiss thee.* That I, he says, may find thee in truth through the Gospel, thee whom the figures of the Old Testament covered. And he says well: I will find thee without, because to that younger son returning from the far country, the father went back to meet him [n: (Luc. XV)]: *that I may kiss thee,* he says, that I may deserve to be reconciled to thee; *and now no one will despise me;* that is, that it may not be said to Peter, concerning Cornelius whom the grace of the Holy Spirit had gone before: *Why didst thou go in to men having uncircumcision, and eat with them?* But let Peter himself declare: *In truth I perceive that there is no respect of persons with God, but in every place, and in every nation, he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him [n: (Act. XI)]*.

[0989D]Num. 175. *I will lay hold of thee, and lead thee.* For when I have laid hold of thee and cleaved to thee through faith, it remains that *I bring thee into the house of my mother:* namely into the congregation of Jerusalem: thither surely I will bring thee, when I myself also, with all the goods which I have obtained through thy grace, shall have deserved to be led there, that is, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Num. 176. *There thou wilt teach me, and I will give thee a cup.* There thou wilt teach me, that I may see now not *in a riddle through a mirror,* but *face to face;* and not *in part* as *now,* but *then I shall know as also I am known [n: (I Cor. XIII)]*, as he says: *And I will give thee a cup of spiced wine, and the new wine of pomegranates:* when I shall have brought forth the best and sweetest fruits of the holy martyrs, [0990A] and the sons of men who hope in the shadow of thy wings *shall be inebriated with the fatness of thy house, and thou wilt give them to drink of the torrent of thy pleasures [n: (Psal. XXXV)]*.

Num. 177. *His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem.* These things which are written in this place, already foretold above, are found expounded, Christ enlightening [us]. But I think they are written again in this book for this reason, that they may settle more forcefully in the heart; and, being twice suggested, may be renewed with livelier memory. These bid that temporal things be despised; and, set beneath us, they teach [them to be] as a left hand placed under the head; and they admonish that the heavenly glory, which embraces us from the higher part as a right hand, is to be awaited; or this, that those about to serve the Lord may perform the things that are holy willingly, not unwillingly, [0990B] according to what Peter the apostle teaches: *Feed the flock of God which is among you, not by constraint but willingly [n: (I Petr. V)]*.

Num. 178. *Who is this that comes up from the desert?* Rightly is she described as coming up from the desert, to whom the prophet says: *Because thou wast forsaken and held in hatred, and there was none that passed through thee [n: (Isai. LX)]*, etc. Of whose sons also it is sung in the Psalms: *They wandered in the wilderness, in a dry place; they found not the way to a city of habitation. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them, and they cried to the Lord when they were troubled, and he delivered them out of their distresses; and he led them by the right way, that they might go into a city of habitation [n: (Psal. X)]*. Therefore it follows.

Num. 179. *Abounding in delights.* Whence also the people of Israel, [0990C] going forth from the desert, enters into the land of promise flowing with milk and honey; and that son who, desiring to feed on the husks of the swine, could not be satisfied, is brought in to be refreshed at the feast which the father prepared from the fatted calf that was killed. These delights the Church, coming from the desert, finds manifold in Christ; and she is written to be *leaning upon her beloved,* because to her the same beloved says through the prophet: *I have made, I will bear, I will carry, and I will save [n: (Isai. XLVI)]*.

Num. 180. *Under the apple tree I raised you up.* On the fragrant gibbet of the cross, where I lay down, there I raised thee up from the destruction of sins, when I command that thee, believing, be marked beforehand with the sign of the cross.

Num. 181. *There thy mother was corrupted.* Where thou didst deserve to be raised up through my death, there the [0990D] Synagogue was taken through her own impiety, when she cried *Crucify;* and answered, while Pilate was judging: *His blood be upon us and upon our children [n: (Luc. XXIII)]*.

Num. 182. *Set me as a seal.* So that thou mayest say with the Psalmist, *The light of thy countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord; thou hast given gladness in my heart [n: (Psal. IV)]*. Since whatever things are sealed cannot easily be violated, so receive my faith, that thou mayest keep it whole and unimpaired, and mayest fear in no way that the treasure of righteousness which thou hast received through the seal of the cross, which I have bestowed upon thee, will be touched by anyone.

Num. 183. *Set me as a seal.* Understand that the seal is to be set first upon the heart, then [0991A] upon the arm: that is, that both in thought and in work thou mayest run to my sign; and by this show thyself to be not another's but mine; and, with me protecting thee, mayest persevere whole.

Num. 184. *For thy love is strong as death.* I loved thee so much that I willed to die for thee; and this was the strength of love, the bitterness of death. But *jealousy* is *hard as* hell; so that the saints too, on the other side, do not fear to be slain for Christ, whom they have known without doubt to have undergone death for their salvation.

Num. 185. *Its lamps are lamps of fire.* The vessels in which chastity dwells are always splendid and fervent with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Num. 186. *Many waters could not quench charity,* nor shall the floods overwhelm it, nor tribulations; no persecutions, however strong, can disturb or conquer the love which is from God, or toward God, [0991B] according to what the Apostle says: *Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or the sword, or peril? For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord [n: (Rom. VIII)]*.

Num. 187. *If a man should give his whole substance.* As if he should say: *And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing [n: (I Cor. XIII)]*. For nothing is more precious than this, as John [0991C] the apostle says: *For God is charity; and he who abides in charity abides in God.*

Num. 188. *Our sister is little, and has no breasts.* The Church coming from the gentiles, still untrained for believing, and not yet endowed with learned men for teaching, according to what the Apostle says: *I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not yet able, but neither indeed are you now able, for you are still carnal [n: (I Cor. III)]*. And elsewhere: *If you have secular judgments, set those who are contemptible in the Church to judge them. I speak to your shame: is there not among you any wise man, who is able to judge between his brother [n: (I Cor. VI)]?* While he rebukes them in such great faintheartedness, he surely shows a people still small [0991D] in faith, and not yet fit for spiritual nourishments.

Num. 189. *What shall we do for our sister?* How shall we order the Church in the time when she is to be called to the faith?

Num. 190. *If she is a wall, let us build upon her.* Those who have begun to grow in faith and to be so established that by their strength they admonish the weak; having received the privilege of honor, let them be appointed to teach the rest, according to what Paul [says] to Timothy: *Commend these things to faithful men who will be fit to teach others also [n: (II Tim. II)]*. And again to Titus: *For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldst correct the things that are wanting, and shouldst appoint presbyters in the cities, as I appointed to thee.* While these things are thus ordered in [0992A] the Church, they are as silver bulwarks added to the walls.

Num. 191. *If she is a door, let us frame [it].* The Prophet says in the Psalms: *Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door of enclosure round about my lips [n: (Psal. CXL)]*. And so, if there is anyone fit for speaking, and, like a door which is opened and shut, understands the time of speaking or of keeping silence; let us frame such a door with boards of cedar, so that, while it takes into itself the fragrant wood, it may be able to say with Paul: *God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world [n: (Gal. VI)]*.

Num. 192. *I am a wall, and my breasts are like a tower.* It is the voice of the Church, advancing both in faith and for faith: *I am a wall;* because he himself has built me, who most mightily [0992B] fights for me. *And my breasts are like a tower.* God building [them], they have grown in the loftiness of righteousness, and they nourish in me the little ones who are in Christ; and until they come to the food of perfection, they do not cease to bring them up, until it be said to them by the voice of wisdom: *Leave off infancy, and come, walk by the ways of prudence.*

Num. 193. *From the time I was made in his presence.* From the time I found peace with Christ, from that time I received both the defenses of walls and the bulwarks of towers with comeliness, when by him who founded me I deserved to be a city with them, having fortifications in the saints, and retaining beauty in the elect.

Num. 194. *The peaceable one had a vineyard.* Constant cultivation was [0992C] applied by Christ to the Church, which has those peoples of whom it is sung in the Psalms: *Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God [n: (Psal. XCI)]*. *He delivered it to keepers.* He committed it to be ruled by the apostles or their successors the bishops. To whom, under the name of Jerusalem, the Lord says through the prophet: *Upon thee and upon thy walls I have set thy keepers; all the day and night, unto the end they shall keep silence [n: (Isai. VIII)]*.

Num. 195. *The man brings its fruits, a thousand pieces of silver.* Christ, of whom the prophet says: *Behold a man, the Orient is his name [n: (Zach. VI)]*. He recompenses the kingdom of heaven for holy labors or almsgivings, according to what is said in the Gospel: *Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; [0992D] I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you covered me; sick and in prison, and you came to me [n: (Matth. XXV)]*. But in the thousand pieces of silver is shown the fullness of the whole recompense, and the completed reward of the just.

## CHAP. VIII. (cont.)

Num. 196. *My vineyard is before me.* According to what is sung in the Psalms: *The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their prayers.* For the Apostle says: *That the Lord himself, at the commandment and at the voice of an archangel and at the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven, and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first; then we who live, who are left, shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall be ever with the Lord [n: (I Thess. IV)]*. Therefore, because after the resurrection the saints are ever with [0993A] the Lord, therefore the Lord says, *My vineyard is before me.*

Num. 197. *Thy thousand peaceable ones, and two hundred for these.* For twelve, if they be enlarged by the number one hundred, make a thousand two hundred; which number surely befits the apostolic men, who were spiritually begotten of them through the Gospel in Christ, who, set in the highest perfection, like that best earth, answer to their author by the hundredfold fruit. These too are rightly described as peaceable, that is, the disciples of Christ, both because they themselves guard the fruits of the Church, or by the voice of their teaching drive off the wicked without, or by their prayers do not cease to defend the Church which Christ planted from wicked dogs and the bites of beasts.

[0993B]Num. 198. *Thou who dwellest in the gardens.* Thou who overflowest among the peoples set under the cultivation of righteousness, or ever watered with the water of spiritual doctrine.

Num. 199. *O friend, hearken, make me to hear.* The Lord says in the Gospel to his disciples: *Now I will not call [0994A] you servants, but friends [n: (Joan. XXV)]*; and again: *He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice [n: (Joan. III)]*. *Make me to hear thy voice:* that voice surely which thou speakest to the faithful who are to be rewarded: *Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many; enter into the joy of thy lord [n: (Matth. XXVIII)]*.

Num. 200. *Flee, my beloved, and be like a roe and a fawn of the harts upon the mountains of spices.* Thou who didst dwell with us on earth, incline to return to the things above. And thus ascending on high, thou who now appearest to the gazes of the flesh, be ever present to the eyes of the heart, that we may hold thee in faith whom we do not discern by sight. Be like a roe and a fawn of the harts; because thou art he [0994B] who didst take the flesh of mortals, and with swift leap didst cross over all the heights of the heavens. *Upon the mountains of spices,* being more exalted above all the glory of the angels.