Fathers

Song of Solomon 5

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I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends! Drink, yes, drink abundantly, beloved. I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night.” I have taken off my robe. Indeed, must I put it on? I have washed my feet. Indeed, must I soil them? My beloved thrust his hand in through the latch opening. My heart pounded for him. I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left, and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer. The watchmen who go about the city found me. They beat me. They bruised me. The keepers of the walls took my cloak away from me. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love. How is your beloved better than another beloved, you fairest among women? How is your beloved better than another beloved, that you do so adjure us? My beloved is white and ruddy. The best among ten thousand. His head is like the purest gold. His hair is bushy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks, washed with milk, mounted like jewels. His cheeks are like a bed of spices with towers of perfumes. His lips are like lilies, dropping liquid myrrh. His hands are like rings of gold set with beryl. His body is like ivory work overlaid with sapphires. His legs are like pillars of marble set on sockets of fine gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is sweetness; yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.

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What the Fathers say

Song of Solomon 5:6

Western Saints

Ambrose of Milan

"I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had gone." What is this going? Simply that he has penetrated into the center of the mind as it was said to Mary, "And his sword will pierce your soul." For the living Word of God, as piercing as a sharp sword, comprehends both the limits of bodily thoughts and the secret places of the heart.

Concerning Virginity 11:67 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

Hence again she says: "My soul melted when the beloved spoke." For the mind of a person not seeking the form of its Creator is badly hardened, because it remains cold in itself. But if it has now begun to burn with desire to follow him whom it loves, melted by the fire of love it runs. It becomes anxious with desire, all things in the world that pleased grow worthless, there is nothing that delights outside the Creator, and things that formerly delighted the soul afterward become grievously burdensome. …

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 25 ↗

Bede

But he turned aside, etc. For this is what the Psalmist says: "Man approaches a deep heart, and God will be exalted" (Psalm 63). For the more the human heart, purified by faith and prayer, is lifted up to contemplate the glory of the divine vision, the more it finds what it seeks to be higher, and to which it should ascend at the time of the promised reward. Ecclesiastes is similar: "I have said, I will become wise; and it moved further away from me, and much more than it was" (Ecclesiastes 7). …

Commentary on the Song of Songs ↗