Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica canticorum, sermo LXI

SERMON LXI.

1. Arise, my love, my bride, and come

(Song 2:13). The bridegroom commends His great love by repeating the words of love. For repetition is an expression of affection; and that He again solicits His beloved to the labour of the vineyards shows how solicitous He is for the salvation of souls. For that the vineyards are souls you have already heard. Let us not linger needlessly over what has been said. See what follows. Yet He had nowhere, as I recall, up to this point in the whole of this work openly named her the bride, except just now when they go to the vineyards, when she is brought near to the wine of charity. When charity shall have come and been made perfect, it will make a spiritual marriage: and they shall be two, not in one flesh, but in one spirit, as the Apostle says: He who cleaves to God is one spirit [with Him] (1 Cor. 6:17).

2. There follows: My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, show me your face, let your voice sound in my ears. He loves, and goes on speaking words of love. He calls His dove again with endearments; He calls her His, and claims her as His own: and whereas He Himself used to be entreated more urgently by her, He now, the turn reversed, asks for her presence and her speech. He acts as a bridegroom; but, being modest, He shrinks from the public, and He resolves to enjoy His delights in a secluded place, namely in the clefts of the rock and the hollow places of the wall. Suppose, then, the bridegroom to say something like this: Do not fear, my love, as though this work of the vineyards to which we exhort you should hinder or interrupt the business of love. There will indeed also be some use in it towards that which we both desire. Sound vineyards have walls, and these are welcome retreats for the modest. This is the play of the letter. Why should I not call it play? For what seriousness does this sequence of the letter have? It is not even worth hearing what sounds outwardly, if the Spirit does not from within assist the weakness of our understanding. Let us not, then, remain outside, lest, which God forbid, we also seem to be recounting the enticements of shameful loves; bring chaste ears to the discourse now in hand, which is of love; and when you think of the lovers themselves, you ought to understand not a man and a woman, but the Word and the soul. And if I should say Christ and the Church, it is the same thing; except that by the name of the Church is meant not one soul, but the unity, or rather the unanimity, of many. Nor should you think the clefts of the rock or the hollow places of the wall to be hiding-places for those who work iniquity, lest any suspicion at all should creep in of works of darkness.

3. Another has expounded this place thus, interpreting the clefts of the rock as the wounds of Christ. Quite rightly: for the rock is Christ. Good clefts, which establish faith in the resurrection and the divinity of Christ. My Lord, he says, and my God (John 20:28). Whence was this oracle brought back, if not from the clefts of the rock? In these the sparrow has found itself a house, and the turtle-dove a nest, where she may lay her young (Ps. 83:4); in these the dove keeps herself safe, and gazes without fear at the hawk circling about her. And therefore He says: My dove in the clefts

of the rock. It is the voice of the dove: On a rock He has exalted me (Ps. 26:6); and again: He has set, it says, my feet upon a rock (Ps. 39:3). The wise man builds his house upon a rock, because there he fears neither the violence of the winds nor that of the floods (Matt. 7:24, 25). What good is there not on the rock? On the rock I am exalted, on the rock secure, on the rock I stand firm. Secure from the enemy, strong against falling; and this because I am exalted from the earth. For everything earthly is uncertain and apt to fall. Let our conversation be in heaven, and we fear neither to fall nor to be cast down. In heaven is the rock; in it is firmness and security. The rock is a refuge for the hedgehogs (Ps. 103:18). And in truth, where is there safe and firm security and rest for the weak, if not in the wounds of the Saviour? I dwell there the more securely, the more powerful He is to save. The world rages, the body presses, the devil lies in wait: I do not fall; for I am founded upon a firm rock. I have sinned a great sin: my conscience will be troubled, but it will not be overthrown, because I shall remember the wounds of the Lord. For indeed He was wounded for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5). What is so [far gone] unto death that it is not loosed by the death of Christ? If then so potent and so efficacious a medicine comes to mind, I can no longer be terrified by any malignity of disease.

4. And therefore it is plain that he erred who said: My iniquity is greater than that I should deserve pardon (Gen. 4:13). Except that he was not of the members of Christ, nor did it belong to him from the merit of Christ that he should presume it his own, [that he should] call his own what was His; as a member [calls its own] the property of the head. But I confidently take to myself from the bowels of the Lord what is lacking to me of myself, since they overflow with mercy; nor are clefts lacking through which they may flow out. They dug His hands and feet, and pierced His side with a lance: and through these fissures it is granted me to suck honey from the rock, and oil from the hardest stone; that is, to taste and see that the Lord is sweet. He was thinking thoughts of peace, and I knew it not. For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? But the piercing nail has become for me an unlocking key, that I may see the will of the Lord. Why should I not see through the opening? The nail cries out, the wound cries out, that God is truly in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. The iron passed through His soul, and His heart has drawn near, so that He can no longer not know how to suffer with my infirmities. The secret of the heart lies open through the openings of the body; that great sacrament of godliness lies open, the bowels of the mercy of our God lie open, in which the dayspring from on high has visited us. Why should the bowels not lie open through the wounds? For in what would it have shone out more clearly than in Thy wounds that Thou, Lord, art sweet and mild, and of much mercy? For no one has greater compassion than this, that one lay down his life for those given over to death and condemned.

5. My merit, therefore, is the compassion of the Lord. I am plainly not destitute of merit, so long as He is not [destitute] of compassions. And if the mercies of the Lord are many, I too am nonetheless many in merits. For what if I am conscious to myself of many offences? Surely where offence abounded, grace also superabounded (Rom. 5:20). And if the mercies of the Lord are from eternity and even unto eternity (Ps. 102:17), I too will sing the mercies of the Lord for ever (Ps. 88:2). [Shall I sing] my own righteousnesses? Lord, I will be mindful of Thy righteousness alone (Ps. 70:16). For it is mine also; for Thou hast been made righteousness for me from God. Must I fear that one may not suffice for both? It is not a short cloak which, according to the prophet, cannot cover two (Isa. 28:20). Thy righteousness is righteousness for ever (Ps. 118:142). What is longer than eternity? Both Thee alike and me a generous and eternal righteousness will generously cover. And in me indeed it covers a multitude of sins; but in Thee, Lord, what [does it cover] but a treasure of loving-kindness, riches of goodness? These are laid up for me in the clefts of the rock. How great the multitude of Thy sweetness in them, hidden indeed, but [hidden] in those who perish! For why should what is holy be given to dogs, or pearls to swine? But to us God has revealed it through His Spirit, and has even led us into the holy place through the opened clefts. How great in these is the multitude of sweetness, the fullness of grace, and the perfection of virtues!

6. I will go for myself to those store-rooms so richly filled, and, at the prophet's bidding, will leave the cities and dwell in the rock (Jer. 48:28). I will be like a dove nesting in the topmost edge of the opening, that, set like Moses in the cleft of the rock while the Lord passed by, I may deserve at least to look upon His back parts (Exod. 33:22, 23). For as for the face of Him Who stands, that is, the glory of the Unchangeable, who may see it, save one who has already deserved to be led in, not into the holy place, but into the holy of holies? Yet the contemplation of His back parts is neither worthless nor to be despised. Let Herod despise it; I despise it the less, the more contemptible He showed Himself to Herod. Even the back parts of the Lord have something in them that delights to see. Who knows whether God may turn and forgive, and leave a blessing behind Him? A time will come when He will show His face, and we shall be saved. But meanwhile let Him go before us with the blessings of sweetness, those, that is, which He is accustomed to leave behind Him. Let Him now show the back parts of His condescension, being about, on another occasion, to show His face in the glory of His dignity. Sublime in His kingdom, but sweet on the cross. In this vision let Him go before me now; in that one let Him fulfil me. Thou shalt fill me, he says, with joy with Thy countenance (Ps. 15:11). Each vision brings salvation, each is sweet; but the one in sublimity, this in lowliness; the one in splendour, this in pallor.

7. Finally he says, And the back parts of His back in the paleness of gold (Ps. 67:14). How should it not grow pale in death? Yet gold, even pale, is better than gleaming brass, and what is foolish of God is wiser than men. The Word is gold, Wisdom

is gold. This gold discoloured itself, hiding the form of God and putting forward the form of a servant. It discoloured the Church too, who says: Do not consider me that I am swarthy, because the sun has discoloured me (Song 1:6). So too her back parts are in the paleness of gold, who did not blush at the discolouring of the cross, did not shrink from the scorching of the passion, did not recoil from the bruising of the wounds. She even takes pleasure in them, and wishes her last state to be like these. Therefore at last she hears: My dove in the clefts of the rock, because it is with entire devotion that she dwells amid the wounds of Christ, and lingers there in continual meditation. From this comes the endurance of martyrdom, from this her great confidence before God most high. The martyr need not fear to lift up his bloodless and livid face to Him by Whose bruise he was healed, to present a glorious likeness of His death, namely in the paleness of gold. Why should he fear, to whom it is even said by the Lord: Show me your face? To what end? As it seems to me, He wishes rather to show Himself. So it is: He wishes to be seen, not to see. For what does He not see? He has no need that anyone show himself to Him, from Whom nothing is unseen, not even if it should hide itself. He wishes, then, to be seen; the kindly leader wishes the face and eyes of His devoted soldier to be lifted up to His own wounds, that from this He may raise up his spirit, and by His example render him stronger to endure.

8. Indeed he will not feel his own [wounds], while he gazes on those of Christ. The martyr stands exulting and triumphant. Though his whole body be torn, and though the iron search out his sides, he looks about, not merely bravely but eagerly, to see the sacred blood well up from his flesh. Where, then, is the martyr's soul at that moment? Surely in safety, surely in the rock, surely in the bowels of Jesus, His wounds indeed lying open for it to enter. If it were in its own bowels, it would surely feel the iron searching them; it would not bear the pain, it would give way, and deny [the faith]. But now, dwelling in the rock, what wonder if it should have hardened after the manner of the rock? Nor is this strange either, if, exiled from the body, it does not feel the pains of the body. Nor does numbness bring this about, but love. For sense is subdued, not lost; pain is not absent, but it is overcome, it is despised. From the rock, then, [comes] the martyr's fortitude; from it, plainly, [he is] strong to drink the Lord's cup. And how glorious is this inebriating cup! (Ps. 22:5) Glorious, I say, and pleasant, no less to the emperor looking on than to the soldier in triumph. For the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10). Why should He not rejoice at the sound of so brave a confession? Indeed He even seeks it with longing: Let your voice, He says, sound in my ears. Nor will He delay to repay the debt according to His own promise: as soon as anyone shall have confessed Him before men, He too will confess that one before His Father (Matt. 10:32). Let us break off the discourse, for it cannot be finished now; lest it be without measure, if we wished to embrace in this one discourse all that still remains of the appointed chapter. Let us therefore keep what remains for the beginning of another, that by our word and by our measure the bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, may indeed rejoice, Who is God blessed above all things for ever. Amen.