The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and found him not.

v.1–2

VERS. 1, 2.-- *In the little bed.* While the preachers of Judaea were praying, behold, the Gentile world, breathed upon by the divine Spirit, comes to the acknowledgment of its own salvation, and holds with firm love what it has found. Whence there follows: The voice of her entering fully. *In the little bed.* Morally, the holy soul makes herself a little bed in the night, while, fleeing all the disturbances of the world, she procures a secret place in which she rests. In this bed she seeks her beloved: because, while she is free from cares, she rests in the search for him, how she may come to him: but while she lives in the world, she does not perfectly shake the world's darkness off from herself, and the more grievously she suffers, the more frequently she seeks him, and the more fervently, that when he is found she may suffer darkness no more. But because in this world she does not find him, therefore it is added: *I sought him, and found him not.* But because she burns with the greatest longing, and whatever she holds does not suffice her until she find the offence: therefore she subjoins the perseverance of her search, *I will rise, and will go about the city. In the little bed.* From the time that Adam sinned, man began to rest in earthly things, and yet, with reason for his guide, understanding true blessedness as it were through a dream, he thought that it consisted in earthly things. Morally. In the little bed the soul seeks God, when in her leisure she does indeed desire to see God, and longs to go forth to him out of the prison of the flesh, but it is not granted: and the Bridegroom hides himself, that, being not found, he may be sought the more ardently. *And I found him not.* Because to me, the Gentile world, no angel, no prophet, no teacher whatsoever showed the light of divine knowledge in doubtful things, therefore I found him not, and when I discovered this, that he could not be found in a bed, I purposed in my mind to rise up out of the bed of carnal pleasures, and to gird myself to the labour of a saving search, and by land and by sea, publicly and privately, to go to the schools of all whom I might hear called wise. *Streets,* are spiritual men, who, while they walk toward heavenly things, keep the narrow way. *Broad ways,* that is, worldly men, who follow many pleasures, and go along the high road. She goes about them all, therefore, because she beholds in mind and imitates all the saints who are or have been: even among worldly men she sometimes finds what may avail for the search after the Bridegroom: but after she has shown the doubled labour of her search, again she subjoins the difficulty of finding: *I sought, and found not:* but while she seeks and does not find, she herself is both sought and found: whence it is said: *The watchmen found me. I sought.* Having traversed the world with the utmost labour, having sifted the words of the wise, I could learn nothing certain of the way of truth.

²I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not.

³The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth?

⁴When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.

⁵I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up, nor awake my beloved, till she please.

⁶Who is she that goeth up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh, and frankincense, and of all the powders of the perfumer?

v.6

VERS. 6.-- *Who is this.* He treats further of the Church converted from the Gentiles, how, when the foundation had been received from the apostles, she was thereafter multiplied through the successions of times and the advancements of degrees. *Who is this?* The converted Jews, seeing that the Gentiles also are converted and are received alike into the love of the Bridegroom; not out of envy, but as it were marvelling, and rejoicing together in the fellowship of brethren, they ask whether salvation is promised to the Gentiles: which had been much in doubt. *That goeth up.* At the same time she also sleeps, when the Church estranges herself from carnal desires, and by good works draws near to the vision of her own Maker. *Through the desert.* That is, through the midst of the Gentiles, who were fruitful with no fruit of the virtues, whom no prophet or angel had trained to the worship of God, or: *Through the desert as a little rod of smoke,* because, separated from the enticements of the world, she is given up to heavenly precepts. Smoke at the same time partly rises, and partly, what had risen before, is wont in the upper air to disappear: so the Church, in certain of her members is always begotten anew, in certain who were born before is always gathered to heavenly things. Smoke, born of fire and climbing on high, little by little withdraws itself from human sight: so the Church, kindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit alone into the love of God, does not cease to ascend, until, drawn away from earthly things, she is caught up to the invisible things of heaven. *Of aromatical spices.* Note that, in recounting the spices, he sets first *myrrh,* then *frankincense,* and afterward *of all the powder of the perfumer,* because it is first to mortify the concupiscence of the flesh, afterward to offer to God the acceptable vows of the heart, and so with humility to grow in every kind of virtue. *Spices.* Reduced to powder they avail for the compounding: so the virtues, when they do not lift up the mind, but are as it were reduced to powder by the doer's own low esteem of himself, lead on to perfection. *The perfumer,* either the man who gives his labour to the virtues: or God, who bestows the virtues.

⁷Behold threescore valiant ones of the most valiant of Israel, surrounded the bed of Solomon?

v.7

VERS. 7.-- *Behold the little bed.* To the former love, who marvels, the Gentile world answers, determining whither she goes up, namely to the *little bed,* and by what she goes up, namely because the midst of the *litters* is paved with charity, and she proves that she has come into that same love of the Bridegroom in which the former is: because she likewise has the nuptial furniture, and has preachers, whom God would not have sent to us had he not chosen them beforehand. *Behold the little bed.* The little bed of the true peacemaker is the eternal blessedness in which the king rests with his saints, to which the Church through the desert partly comes daily, and at last shall come perfectly. Or the bed of God is also, in the present, the quiet manner of life of the saints. Both beds *the most valiant compass about:* because preachers guard both the present quiet and the peace of the Church against assaults, and all the more perfect contemplate with fixed intent the inward quiet of the heavenly country. *Israel.* That is, a man seeing God, by which name all are justly called who tend toward the joys of the divine vision. Among whom the most valiant are they who either are lifted up by the gift of heavenly contemplation, or take up the ministry of preaching.

⁸All holding swords, and most expert in war: every man's sword upon his thigh, because of fears in the night.

v.8

VERS. 8.-- *All holding swords.* Who unceasingly have the word of God ready at hand, both for cutting away superfluous things in themselves and in their subjects, and for driving back and trampling down the enemy. *All holding swords.* They hold the word of God, and are skilled how to use it, in vanquishing both others and themselves as regards vices. *Most expert in war.* Because for so many thousands of years they have fought against the devil in the frailty of the flesh, they are taught by constant practice. *Because of fears.* Lest the snares of the tempter; if they find them careless and unarmed, they lay them low: and lest, when these have been overcome, the little bed which they ought to have guarded be defiled, that is, lest the present peace of the Church be violated, and so the blessedness to come be lost.

⁹King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus:

¹⁰The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple: the midst he covered with charity for the daughters of Jerusalem.

v.10

VERS. 10.-- *A golden resting-place.* That is, his own contemplatives, full of divine wisdom, or he makes a *resting-place* in the litter when he promises the faithful the hope of perpetual quiet. *Golden,* because he prepares the rest of his own vision, glittering with glory. *A purple ascent.* The ascents are those by whom one may climb first to the virtues, afterward to the holy of holies: who are *purple,* that is, ready for martyrdom. Or, the virtues themselves are the *ascent,* and they are the true *purple:* with which faithful souls are adorned. Or, Christ himself is the *ascent,* through whom entrance is made both into the Church and into heaven. *Purple,* because he washed us in his own blood: and none enters the Church who is not steeped in the sacraments of the Lord's passion. *The midst he paved with charity.* Or with the charity by which he suffered for us. *The midst,* that is, the hearts of the Church, he made ready after the manner of a couch, where faithful souls might softly rest: because he filled the whole of her within with the love of things above: whence he adds: *For the daughters of Jerusalem.* For the souls that burn with desire of heavenly things, because the more he loved us, the more he kindled us to suffer for him. *The midst* Behold a consolation. He who cannot pour out his blood for the Lord, let him love his neighbour *for the daughters of Jerusalem,* because they are not to be called sons, that is, the firm, but daughters, who through charity are not strangers to the building of God.

¹¹Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see king Solomon in the diadem, wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousal, in the day of the joy of his heart.

v.11

VERS. 11.-- *Go forth and see,* etc. In fair order, after the king's gifts have been recounted, she begins also to proclaim his very beauty and adornment, and invites them to see him. And the order and the succession of this Church is to be marked, which, established from the firstfruits of the Jews, admonishes by prelates, by judges, and by other degrees that first Church, now after the apostles grown lukewarm, that the mother may repay the like to the successors and fellow-tribesmen of those by whom she was preached to. *In the diadem.* As it were lying hid in the humanity by which he overcame the devil: and the flesh was the cause of this victory unless God were overshadowed with flesh, the devil would not assail him. *In the diadem,* that is, in that crown of thorns wherewith his own Judaea crowned him. *Who crowned him.* With which humanity his mother honoured him: in this, that she is a virgin, not defiled, as other women are, by the filth of original sin: and she sends us to the history. As if to say: Believe the nativity, the passion, the resurrection. This description is extended to the manifoldness of the Church. *Of his espousals.* If we refer *his* to the mother, we say, at the time of the annunciation: if to the faithful, at the time of the resurrection, which was the chief gladness, because then was the human race set free.