Беседа 10. Толкование на Песн. 4:16–5:2

Song 4:16. Arise, O north, and come, O south, and blow into my heliport, and let my aromas flow. Song 5:1. Let my brother go down to his garden and eat the fruit of his vegetables. I breathed into my helicopter city, my sister bride, I swallowed my myrrh with my aromas, I ate my bread with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk; eat, my neighbors, and drink, and get drunk, brothers. Song 5:2. I'm sleeping, but my heart is awake. Since the review of Divine utterances ahead of us now, following in order in the Song of Songs, contains some concepts that are difficult to comprehend and, due to their obscurity, shrouded in mystery, there is an urgent need for us to be more attentive, or better yet, more assisted by prayers and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we, in amazement at these lofty miracles, do not suffer the same thing that usually happens to us when we look at the stars, because Marveling at their beauty from afar, we cannot think of any way to understand their creation; on the contrary, because of their beauty, it is a pleasure for us to remain in visible wonder. For these rays and the radiance of these Divine words, the most brilliant and most excellent of the eyes of the soul, truly appear to be some kind of stars, “as high as the heavens from the earth,” as the Prophet says (Psalm 102:11). And if the same thing happens to our soul that we hear about Elijah, and our thought, caught up in the chariot of fire, having become exalted, is transferred to the heavenly beauties (with the Holy Spirit we will imagine that fire that the Lord came to “bring to earth” (Luke 12:49), given to the disciples in the form of tongues), then for us it will become not hopeless to approach these stars, I mean the Divine concepts that illuminate our souls through heavenly and spiritual words. For look with your soul's eye, I tell you, listener, the word that came from the Lord to the patriarch, “look at this heaven” (Gen. 15:5) and consider the stars, if you can measure the height of the very concepts. Pay attention to the power of the queen, understanding her dominion from her commands; what autocratic authority is revealed in what he speaks; It is not through prayer that he succeeds in what he wants, but according to the unfaithful word of the Promised One, who says that the “faithful and wise builder” is made lord “over all” of the Master’s possessions (Luke 12:42-44). Having accepted this power, the bride royally disposes of two winds to please herself, commandingly removing the north wind from herself, and favorably calling on the south, and urging her to come to her as soon as possible. Literally it reads like this: “Arise, O north, and come, O south” (Song. 4:16). Something similar to what was said can be found, perhaps, in the words of the centurion, at which God the Word Himself marveled, as the Evangelist narrates, saying: “When Jesus heard it, he was amazed” (Matthew 8:10) and preferred the centurion’s words to the faith of Israel. For it seems to me that the Lord, in relation to faith, makes a comparison of the centurion not with the people of Israel, but with that same Israel, who, in the struggle with the enemy and with the help of God, barely escaped the fall, remaining completely unharmed by the opponent, because he received the disease of the side (Gen. 32:24). And this centurion, about whom we are now speaking, with a kind of royal power, imperiously sending away what is alien to him, brings closer to himself what he pleases. And in my opinion, this husband deserved surprise mainly by the fact that he speaks about himself, how from the soldiers subordinate to him, with full authority, he sends away whomever he wants, and calls to himself whoever he wants, and assigns to the slave the service due to him. And at the same time, one can see a certain wisdom in the centurion’s words: once sent, he no longer returns to himself, but, as soon as the sent one leaves, instead of him he brings another closer to him. For, having said this: “go, and he goes” (Matthew 8:9), he continues that he is calling another, and not the one who was sent away; and by this, I think, the Word teaches such a position that it is not natural for those who are mutually opposite to each other to treat each other in the same way, because there is no communication between “light and darkness,” says the Apostle (2 Cor. 6:14); on the contrary, out of all necessity, after darkness is removed we see light in its place, and after vice is eradicated, virtue is introduced in its place; and having succeeded in this, the wisdom of the flesh no longer rebels against the spirit and cannot rebel, because its power to resist has been mortified, but becomes ready for all proper service, remaining submissive and obedient to the dominion of the spirit. For when the warrior, the defender of vice, was driven out, and in his place came the warrior of virtue, clothed in the armor of righteousness and armed with a spiritual sword, fenced with defensive weapons - the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, having on him all spiritual armor (Eph. 6, 14–17), then the slave-body fears his master and readily accepts the commands of the prevailing one, according to which virtue advances in the service of the body. For this is indicated by the centurion’s word: “I say to my servant: Do this, and he will do it” (Matthew 8:9). But let’s listen to the queen, why she drives the north wind away from her, turning its breath back. For he does not order him to calm down, just as the Lord, when the sea was rough, commanded the storm to be silent and the waves to be silent (Mk. 4:39), but so that the south wind could blow unhindered, when no contrary breath would delay its striving, he commands the north wind to withdraw and flee, saying: “Arise.” What is the reason for the removal of this wind? “The north is a cruel wind,” says the tributary word, but it is called pleasant by the name” (Proverbs 27:16). But the north is not on the right side for anyone, except for some the east is behind, and for others the path is to the west. Without a doubt, you understand the mysterious meaning of the predicate, that he who has departed from the east (and Christ is called the east in prophecy), and who goes to the west of the world, where the dominion of darkness, has the north wind on his right hand, supplying him with bad parting words, with which he makes his way into darkness. Thus, the dissolute man on the right finds the north wind blowing along with the passion of dishonor. Thus, for the covetous, this wind of wickedness happens to be right, when, like some kind of sand or dust, the nourishment of covetousness gathers for him. Thus, providing his assistance to every sin, he is “pleasant” to whom he can become pleasant, being “cruel” by nature, but covering his cruelty with pleasures. Therefore, the north wind is driven away from under her command by the one who, having invested herself with power over the passions, says: “Arise, O north.” And that this name signifies resistive force will be clear to anyone who understands the nature of the visible. For who does not know about the movement of the sun that, while flowing from the east to the south, it inclines towards the west? And since the surface of the earth is spherical, as those who understand the like say, then, being illuminated by the sun in one part, it is necessarily covered with darkness in the opposite part, obscured by the barrier of what is in the middle. So, since this place always remains unlit and cold, being neither illuminated nor warmed by the sun's rays, therefore the prince of the dark powers, who, like water, petrifies the tender nature of the soul, petrifies and makes it cruel, the Word calls both the north wind and the cruel, the maker of the gloomy winter, I mean that winter, in which the Gospel calls it impossible to escape from danger (Matthew 24:20), because during it the beauty of those who bloom with virtue fades. Therefore, it is wonderful that the word of the queen drives this wind with power, calling on the midday, warm and always bright, which he calls “the south”, from which a stream of pleasure flows, saying: “And come, south, and blow in my helicopter city, and let my fragrances flow” (Song. 4, 16), so that with a strong breath, as we heard it was with the disciples in the upper room, blowing on the animate plantings, move the planting of God to the outpouring of aromas and cause fragrant prophecy and saving dogmas of faith to flow from the lips, unhindered in every kind of language spreading the aroma of teachings. Thus, one hundred and twenty disciples planted in the house of God, with the breath of such a south, brought forth flower - teaching in different languages. Therefore, the bride says to such a south: “Blow in my helicopter city.” Since she became the mother of helicopter cities, according to the voice of the Bridegroom, who made her the source of helicopter cities, as the word contains, it is therefore desirable for her that her helicopter city be winnowed, i.e. The Church, replete with animate trees, and fragrances flowed from them, the Prophet says: “His Spirit breathes, and waters flow” (Psalm 147:7), and the bride, magnified by royal wealth, changes the streams with splendor, turning them into rivers of fragrances flowing from the trees of Vertograd with a strong blow of the wind, so that from this one can find out the difference in the Testaments Old and New, and namely, that the prophetic river is filled with waters, and the gospel one with aromas. Such a river of aromas, with the assistance of the Spirit, flowing from the palace of the Church, was the great Paul, whose currents were fragrant with Christ. Another such river was John, Luke, Matthew, Mark and all the others, like the noble plantings of the bride’s helix, blown by the bright midday south, they became sources of aromas, pouring out the fragrance of the Gospels. “Let my brother go down to his garden,” says the bride, “and let him eat the fruit of his vegetables” (Song 5:1). What a bold voice! What a generous and generous soul, exceeding any excess of generosity! Whom does He treat with a feast of His own fruits? For whom does He prepare a supper from His own blessings? Whom does he invite to taste what He has prepared? To the One from Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, and in Whom are all things, Who gives everyone “food in due season, opens His hand, and performs every living good pleasure” (Psalm 144:15-16), there is “bread, come down from heaven and give life to the world” (John 6:33), from His own source flows life to all beings—to Him the bride offers meal. And the meal is a vertograd, planted with animate trees. These trees are us, if only we offer Him the salvation of our souls as food, because He who counts our life for himself at the feast said this: “It is my food to eat, that I may do the will” of My Father (John 4:34). The goal of the Divine will of Him is obvious, “who wants everyone to be saved and to come into the understanding of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Therefore, this is the evil prepared for Him—our salvation. And our will becomes a fruit, in itself, like a branch, putting the soul into the hands of the God who reaps us. It should be seen from this that first the bride enjoys the fruit of the apple tree, saying: “and its fruit is sweet” in my mouth (Song 2:3), and then the fruit itself becomes ripe and delicious, and is offered to the worker for joy. And the expression; “let it come down” has the meaning of a petition, being pronounced like words; “Hallowed be Thy name,” and “Thy will be done.” For, just as there these sayings, in their appearance, contain a prayerful meaning, so here the expression: “let it descend” is the prayer of the bride, showing God the abundant fruitfulness of virtue. And condescension means a matter of philanthropy. For, since it is impossible to ascend otherwise to the Most High, unless “The meek Lord accepts” (Psalm 146:6) bows down to the creeping thing on the earth, therefore the mountain-ascending soul, calling for help on the guidance of the Most High, begs Him to descend from His greatness in order to become accessible to those below. And he who spoke through the mouth of the Prophet: “I still said to you” there, “behold, I came” (Isa. 58:9), before the prayer came out of the bride’s mouth, and heard what she needed, and heeded the readiness of her heart, and was already in the city, blown by the south wind, and gathered the fruits of the aromas, and was satisfied with the vegetables of virtue, and recounts the feast, saying to the bride like this: “I went down into Vertograd, my sister bride: I took my myrrh with my spices, I ate my bread with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk: eat, my neighbors, and drink, and get drunk, my brothers” (Song. 5, 1). Do you see how generosity exceeds asking? The bride asked that her plantings in Vertograd, fanned by the blowing south since noon, become sources of aromas, and that the worker be treated to vegetable fruits. Everyone knows that fragrance, whatever it may be, gives pleasure to the sense of smell, and vegetables, like food, have less power than bread to maintain the health of those fed. But He who descended into His heliport, having transformed the nature of the fruit into something more important and dear, collects myrrh in the heliport, having found it with its aromas, because His is everything, “if there is any good,” no matter what it is found in, as the prophetic word sings (Zech. 9:17). He makes the trees, instead of fruit, abound with bread mixed with His honey. And with this, let the prophetic word also be spoken, that His honey is like other blessings, and from the same is drawn the wine mixed with His milk: for “from Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). Oh, how blessed are these heli-cities, in which the plantings, as is testified, abound in such fruits that they are transformed into every kind of food according to the desire for pleasure! For for those who enjoy the incense they become myrrh, by mortifying the earthly members, preparing the myrrh of a pure and fragrant life, brewed from many and various aromas of virtue. And for those who seek the most perfect food, they become bread, which is not eaten with a bitter potion, as the law commands (Ex. 12:8), because a bitter potion is suitable for the present time, but honey will have its seasoning when the fruit of virtue in its time sweetens the senses of the soul, as evidence of which is the bread revealed to the disciples after the resurrection of the Lord, sweetened with an comb of honey (Luke 24, 42). For the thirsty one, it becomes a cup full of wine and milk, and not a sponge dipped in bile and ocet, which the Jews give to the Benefactor on a reed as a sign of goodwill. And, of course, the mysterious meaning of what was said is not unknown to us, namely, how Paul, who was dying all his days, was the myrrh-bearing tree (1 Cor. 15, 31), pronouncing to himself the “condemnation of death” (2 Cor. 1, 9), fragrant with purity and dispassion and becoming “the stench of animals” for those “being saved” (2 Cor. 2, 16), like the animate plantings of the vertograd bring bread to the Lord of the vertograd, as evidenced by the One sitting on the throne: “you are hungry, and give to Me to eat" (Matthew 25:35), because charity is the bread of gladness, sweetened with the honey of the commandment, just as those fruitful plantings of the vertograd, to which He says: “You were thirsty, and gave Me a drink,” pour out wine to the Bridegroom, dissolving it with milk, and not with water, according to the custom of the innkeepers. But milk is the first food of human nature - both pure and simple, in the true sense infantile and not cunning, cleansed from all evil guilt. Having said this to the bride, the Word offers his neighbors the Gospel sacraments, saying: “Eat, my neighbors,” “and drink and get drunk, my brothers”; for for one who knows the mysterious sayings of the Gospel, there will be no difference between what is said here and the secret teaching of the disciples that was done there, because the Word speaks the same way both here and there; “eat” and “drink”. But in this advice to go into rapture, which the Word gives here to the brethren, as it may seem to many, there is something more against the Gospel. However, if someone examines it exactly, then this too will turn out to agree with the Gospel instructions. For what was commanded to friends here in words, the Word did there in reality, because any intoxication usually produces a frenzy of the mind dominated by wine. Therefore, what advice is given here was then produced by Divine food and Divine drink, and is always produced, since along with food and drink a transformation from worse to better and frenzy are received inside. So they become drunk, according to the prophecy, drinking from the “fatness of the house of God” and being drunk with “a stream of sweetness” (Psalm 35:3), just as the great David once got drunk when, having gone out of himself and being in a frenzy, he saw invisible beauty and proclaimed this notorious word: “every man is a lie” (Psalm 115:2), entrusting the word interpretation of untold treasures. So the youngest Benjamin, Paul, was in ecstasy when he went into a frenzy, saying: “For God’s sake we shall be astounded” (because our frenzy was for God); “If we are chaste to you” (2 Cor. 5:13), as he showed about himself in words to Fistus, that “he does not rage, but speaks words of chastity and truth” (Acts 26:25). I know that blessed Peter, in this form of intoxication, was both “hungry” and “intoxicated,” for before the bodily food was brought, when “he was hungry and wanted to taste,” the household “preparing” his meal came upon him with a Divine and sober intoxication, from which he lost his temper and saw the gospel “shroud” lowered from above by the four edges, containing in itself people of every kind in countless species and birds, and four-legged creatures, and reptiles, and beasts, having on them an image according to the difference of their worship, and what was in them of a bestial and dumb appearance, then he commands the Word to Peter to slaughter, so that after their cleansing, the rest would become acceptable, when the pure Word of piety is taught to them, and the Divine voice repeatedly spoke: it is not bad, “Whoever has cleansed is God” (Acts 10:10-15), but this proclamation is repeated three times, so that we may know with one voice that God who cleanses is the Father, and in another way that God who cleanses is the Only Begotten Son, and similarly in another way that God who cleanses all unclean things is the Holy Spirit. And so, since such is the intoxication from the wine offered by the Lord to fellow celebrants, from which a spiritual exaltation in the Divine occurs, then the Lord beautifully commands those who have become neighbors in virtues, and not those who are far away: “Eat, my neighbors,” “and drink, and get drunk.” For “he who eats and drinks is unworthy to judge himself by eating and drinking” (1 Cor. 11:29). Well, he also called those worthy of food brethren; “Whoever does His will, this brother and sister and mother” is called the Word (Mark 3:35). Intoxication is followed in order by sleep, so that through digestion the strength of the evening can be returned to the health of the body. Therefore, after this feast, the bride falls into sleep. But this dream is somehow strange and does not follow natural custom, because in an ordinary dream both the sleeping person is not awake, and the waking person is not sleeping, but both cease, and sleep and wakefulness alternately give way to each other. And here we see in the bride some new and extraordinary confluence and combination of opposites. She says: “I sleep, but my heart watches” (Song. 5, 2). In what sense should we accept this? Sleep is a semblance of death, because in sleep all sensory activity of the bodies ceases: neither vision, nor hearing, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch act during sleep, as is typical for them. On the contrary, sleep relaxes bodily forces, even produces oblivion about the worries that a person has, lulls fear, tames irritation, takes away strength from the upsetting and insensates all disasters while he controls the body. Therefore, from what has been said, we know that the one who is magnified by this and says: “I sleep, but my heart watches” has become higher than herself (Song. 5, 2). For indeed, when the mind lives alone by itself, not disturbed by any of the senses, then the nature of the body is brought into inaction, as if in a dream or in a tomb, and it can rightly be said that the sight falls asleep from inaction, because the sights that usually amaze children's eyes are despised, I mean not only these sights of earthly matter, for example: gold, silver, all kinds of stones, some kind of their good color arouses greed in the eyes, but also the miracles visible in the sky, the brilliance of the stars, the circle of the sun and the varied appearance of the moon, and if anything else brings pleasure to the eyes, since nothing lasts forever, but everything moves and rotates over time. When, when looking at true goods, everything like this is despised, then the bodily eye remains inactive, because the soul, having become more perfect, is not attracted by what it shows, looking with the mind at one thing that is higher than the visible. Likewise, hearing becomes somehow dead and inactive, because the soul is occupied with what is above reason. It is not worth even talking about feelings that are more bestial, because, like some kind of stench from carrion, the sense of smell, which seeks out odors, and the taste, which has given itself up to the service of the belly, are far rejected by the soul, and with them the sense of touch, this slavish and blind sense, which, perhaps, is only produced by nature for the blind. When all this, due to inaction, is possessed, as it were, by some kind of sleep, then the activity of the heart is pure, the thought turns its gaze to grief, not deafened and undisturbed by sensory movement. Since in human nature pleasure is twofold, one is produced in the soul by dispassion, and the other in the body by passion, which of the two will be chosen by will, then it will prevail over the other. For example, if someone pays attention to the feeling attracted by pleasure, which is produced in the body by the feeling, then he will spend his life without tasting the Divine joy, out of habit, the best is, as it were, darkened by the worst. And for those whose lust is directed towards the Divine, for them the good remains unclouded, and all enchanting feelings are considered worthy of avoiding. Therefore, the soul, when it delights in the mere contemplation of things, is not awake for anything that brings pleasure through the senses, but, having lulled every bodily movement with nothing undisguised and pure thought, in Divine wakefulness it receives the Manifestation of God, which may we also be vouchsafed with the help of the said dream, having succeeded in spiritual wakefulness about Christ Jesus. Glory to him forever and ever! Amen. You might be interested in: