Cânticos 6
Bernard of Clairvaux
Cânticos 6:3
Moreover, the Bride has spoken more rightly, and not putting forward merit but setting forth the benefit first, and confessing that she has been preceded by the grace of the beloved. Rightly indeed. For "who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him?" (Rom 11:35.) Finally, hear John, what he perceived in his Epistle on this matter. "In this is love," he says, "not as though we have loved God, but that he first loved us" (1 Jn 4:10). The Prophet, however, even if he was silent about the anticipation of grace, did not deny the following thereof: plainly he was not silent. But receive in another place his more certain confession concerning this matter. "And your mercy," he says (he was speaking to the Lord), "will follow me all the days of my life" (Ps 22:6). Hear also concerning the anticipation, his no less certain and manifest knowledge. "My God," he says, "his mercy will anticipate me" (Ps 58:11); likewise to the Lord: "Quickly," he says, "let your mercies anticipate us, for we have become exceedingly poor" (Ps 78:8). Beautifully the Bride later, if I am not mistaken, places these same words not in the same order, but she too follows the order of the Prophet, speaking in this manner: "I to my beloved, and my beloved to me." Why so? Surely so that she may then prove herself the more full of grace, when she shall have given all to grace, and ascribed to it, of course, both the first and the last parts. Otherwise, how full of grace, if she has anything that is not from grace? There is no place for grace to enter where merit has already occupied. Therefore the full confession of grace marks the fullness of grace itself in the soul of the one confessing. For if anything of one's own is present, to that extent grace must yield to it. Whatever you assign to merits is lacking to grace. I do not want the merit that excludes grace. I shudder at whatever is of my own, insofar as it makes me my own, except that perhaps that is more mine which makes me mine. Grace returns me to myself, justified freely, and so freed from the servitude of sin. For where the Spirit is, there is liberty. She who is truly the Bride recognizes these things and confesses both graces: first indeed, that which is first, by which she was also anticipated; and afterward, the subsequent one as well. And so she says now: "My beloved to me, and I to him"; assigning the beginning to the beloved. In what follows: "I," she says, "to my beloved, and my beloved to me"; granting the consummation to him equally. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 67
Cânticos 6:9
Contemplate what a glory is hers who compares herself to heaven, even to that heaven who is so much more glorious as he is divine. This is no rashness, taking her comparison from whence her origin comes. For if she compares herself to the tents of Kedar because of her body drawn from the earth, why should she not glory in her likeness to heaven because of the heavenly origin of her soul, especially since her life bears witness to her origin and to the dignity of her nature and her homeland? She adores and worships one God, just like the angels; she loves Christ above all things, just like the angels; she is chaste, just like the angels, and that in the flesh of a fallen race, in a frail body that the angels do not have. But she seeks and savors the things that they enjoy, not the things that are on the earth. What can be a clearer sign of her heavenly origin than that she retains a natural likeness to it in the land of unlikeness, than that as an exile on earth she enjoys the glory of the celibate life, than that she lives like an angel in an animal body? These gifts reveal a power that is more of heaven than of earth. They clearly indicate that a soul thus endowed is truly from heaven. But Scripture is clearer still: "I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying: 'Behold the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell among them.'" But why? In order to win a bride for himself from among men. How wonderful this? He came to seek a bride, but did not come without one. He sought a bride, but she was with him. Had he then two brides? Certainly not. "My dove is only one," he says. Just as he wished to form one flock of the scattered flocks of sheep, that there might be one flock and one shepherd, so, although from the beginning he had for bride the multitude of angels, it pleased him to summon the Church from among men and unite it with the one from heaven, that there might be but the one bride and one Bridegroom. The one from heaven perfects the earthly one; it does not make two. Hence he says: "My perfect one is only one." Their likeness makes them one, one now in their similar purpose, one hereafter in the same glory. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 27
Cânticos 6:13
When therefore the soul perceives in itself so great a distance of things, how should it not cry out, placed as it is between hope and despair: "Lord, who is like you?" It is drawn toward despair on account of so great an evil; but it is called back to hope by so great a good. Hence it is that the more it displeases itself in the evil which it sees in itself, the more ardently it draws itself toward the good which it equally perceives in itself, and desires to become what it was made to be: simple and upright, and fearing God, and departing from evil. Why should it not be able to recede from that to which it was able to approach? Why should it not be able to approach that from which it was able to recede? Which two things, however, I would say must be presumed from grace, not from nature, nor indeed even from industry. For "wisdom overcomes malice" (Wis 7:30), not industry or nature. Nor is the occasion for presuming lacking: its conversion is toward the Word. The noble kinship of the soul with the Word is not idle, about which we have been treating now for three days, and the persevering likeness is the witness of that kinship. The Word graciously admits into the fellowship of the Spirit one who is like in nature. And certainly by the reason of nature, like seeks like. The voice of the one seeking: "Return, O Shulamite; return, that we may behold you" (Song 6:12). He will behold the like one, he who was not beholding the unlike one; but he will also present himself to be beheld. "We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 Jn 3:2). Think therefore that that question, "Lord, who is like you?", comes more from the difficulty than from the impossibility. Or, if you prefer this more, it is the voice of one marveling. Truly to be marveled at and wondered at is that likeness which accompanies the vision of God, or rather which is the vision of God; but I say it consists in charity. That charity is the vision, that is the likeness. Who would not be astonished at the charity of God who was spurned and yet calls back? Rightly is that wicked one reproved, who was introduced above, usurping for himself the likeness of God, when, by loving iniquity, he can neither love himself nor God: for thus you have it: "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul" (Ps 10:6). When therefore iniquity is removed from the midst, which causes the unlikeness that is partial, there will be a union of spirit, there will be a mutual vision and a mutual love. Indeed, when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial will be done away with; and there will be between them a chaste and consummated love, a full recognition, a manifest vision, a firm conjunction, an undivided fellowship, a perfect likeness. Then the soul will know, even as it is known (1 Cor 13:10, 12); then it will love, even as it is loved; and the Bridegroom will rejoice over the bride, knowing and known, loving and loved, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God blessed above all things forever. Amen. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 82