Canticles 4:2

7. But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty. …

85. The time when the kingdom was removed from the tribe of Judah was the time appointed for the coming of Christ our Lord, the true Saviour, who should come not for harm, but for great good. Thus was it prophesied, "A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, till He come for whom it is reserved: He is the desire of nations." Not only the kingdom, but all government, of the Jews had ceased, and also, as prophesied by Daniel, the sacred anointing from which the name Christ or Anointed is derived. Then came He for whom it was reserved, the desire of nations; and the holy of holies was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Christ was born in the time of the elder Herod, and suffered in the time of Herod the tetrarch. …

7. “Since Thou hast smitten all who oppose me without a cause.” It is not to be pointed as if it were one sentence, “Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God; since Thou hast smitten all who oppose me without a cause.” For He did not therefore save Him, because He smote His enemies; but rather He being saved, He smote them. Therefore it belongs to what follows, so that the sense is this; “Since Thou hast smitten all who oppose me without a cause, Thou hast broken the teeth of the sinners;” that is, thereby hast Thou broken the teeth of the sinners, since Thou hast smitten all who oppose me. It is forsooth the punishment of the opposers, whereby their teeth have been broken, that is, the words of sinners rending with their cursing the Son of God, brought to nought, as it were to dust; so that we may understand “teeth” thus, as words of cursing. …

37. “And He took him from the flocks of sheep, from behind the teeming sheep He received him: to feed Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance” ( ver. 72 ). This David indeed, of whose seed the flesh of Christ is, from the pastoral care of cattle was translated to the kingdom of men: but our David, Jesus Himself, from men to men, from Jews to Gentiles, was yet according to the parable from sheep to sheep taken away and translated. For there are not now in that land “Churches of Judæa in Christ,” which belonged to them of the circumcision after the recent Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, of whom saith the Apostle, “But I was unknown by face to the Churches of Judæa, which are in Christ,” etc. Already from hence those Churches of the circumcised people have passed away: and thus in Judæa, which now doth exist on the earth, there is not now Christ. …

9. “For He is the Lord our God” ( ver. 7 ). But that we may without fear fall down and kneel before Him, what are we? “We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.” See how elegantly he hath transposed the order of the words, and as it were not given its own attribute to each word; that we may understand these very same to be the sheep, who are also the people. He said not, the sheep of His pasture, and the people of His hand; which might be thought more congruous, since the sheep belong to the pasture; but He said, “the people of His pasture.” The people are therefore sheep, since he saith, “the people of His pasture:” the people themselves are sheep.…He praiseth these sheep also in the Song of Solomon, speaking of some perfect ones as the teeth of His Spouse the Holy Church: “Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which come up from the washing; whereo …

6. Let me now fulfil the promise I made a little while ago and with all the skill of a rhetorician sing the praises of water and of baptism. In the beginning the earth was without form and void, there was no dazzling sun or pale moon, there were no glittering stars. There was nothing but matter inorganic and invisible, and even this was lost in abysmal depths and shrouded in a distorting gloom. The Spirit of God above moved, as a charioteer, over the face of the waters, and produced from them the infant world, a type of the Christian child that is drawn from the laver of baptism. A firmament is constructed between heaven and earth, and to this is allotted the name heaven, in the Hebrew Shamayim or ‘what comes out of the waters,’, and the waters which are above the heavens are parted from the others to the praise of God. …

16. Be of good courage, O Jerusalem; the Lord will take away all thine iniquities . The Lord will wash away the filth of His sons and of His daughters by the Spirit of judgment, and by the Spirit of burning . He will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be cleansed from all your sin . Angels shall dance around you, and say, Who is this that cometh up in white array, leaning upon her beloved? For the soul that was formerly a slave has now adopted her Master Himself as her kinsman: and He accepting the unfeigned purpose will answer: Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair: thy teeth are like flocks of sheep new shorn, (because of the confession of a good conscience: and further) which have all of them twins ; because of the twofold grace, I mean that which is perfected of water and of the Spirit, or that which is announced by the Old and by the New Testament. …

38. And farther on: “Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn, which are come up from the pool, which all bear twins, and none is barren among them, thy lips are as a cord of scarlet.” This is no slight praise. First by the pleasing comparison to those that are shorn; for we know that goats both feed in high places without risk, and securely find their food in rugged places, and then when shorn are freed from what is superfluous. The Church is likened to a flock of these, having in itself the many virtues of those souls which through the laver lay aside the superfluity of sins, and offer to Christ the mystic faith and the grace of good living, which speak of the cross of the Lord Jesus.