Cânticos 1
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Cânticos 1:4
Some great thing it is we are to see, since all our reward is seeing; and our Lord Jesus Christ is that very great sight. He who appeared humble, will himself appear great and will rejoice us, as he is even now seen of his angels.… Let us love and imitate him; let us run after his ointments, as is said in the Song of Solomon: "Because of the sweet smell of your good ointments, we will run after you." For he came and gave forth a sweet smell that filled the world. Whence was that fragrance? From heaven. Follow then toward heaven, if you do not answer falsely when it is said, "Lift up your hearts." Lift up your thoughts, your love, your hope, that it may not rot upon the earth.… "For wherever your treasure is, there will be your heart also." — EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 91:20
Cânticos 1:4
The Canticle of Canticles sings a sort of spiritual rapture experienced by holy souls contemplating the nuptial relationship between Christ the King and his queen-city, the church. But it is a rapture veiled in allegory to make us yearn for it more ardently and rejoice in the unveiling as the bridegroom comes into view—the bridegroom to whom the canticle sings, "The righteous love you," and the hearkening bride replies, "There is love in your delights." — City of God 17.20
Cânticos 1:7
"Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where do you feed your flock, where you lie down?" Neither we nor they have any doubt that the bride is speaking to the bridegroom, the church to Christ. But listen to all the words of the bride. Why do you want to attribute to the bridegroom a word that is still in the bride's part? Let the bride say everything she says, and then the bridegroom will reply.…Midday is coming, you see, when the shepherds take refuge in the shade; and perhaps where you are feeding your flock and lying down will escape me; and I want you to tell me, lest perchance I go as one veiled, that is, as one concealed and not recognized. I am in fact plain to see, but lest as one veiled, as one hidden, I stumble on the flocks of your companions. — SERMON 46:36
Cânticos 1:7
Why do I want you to tell me where you graze, where you lie down in the noonday? "Lest I should happen, like a veiled woman, on the flocks of your companions." That is the reason, she says, why I want you to tell me where you graze your flock, where you lie down in the noonday. When I come to you I won't lose my way, lest like a veiled woman I should come upon the flocks of your companions, that is to say, I should stumble on flocks that are not yours but belong to your companions. — SERMON 147A.3
Cânticos 1:7
With good reason then to this shepherd of shepherds, does his beloved, his spouse, his fair one, but by him made fair, before by sin deformed, beautiful afterward through pardon and grace, speak in her love and ardor after him, and say to him, "Where do you feed?" And observe how, by what transport this spiritual love is here animated. And far better are they by this transport delighted who have tasted of the sweetness of this love. They bear this properly who love Christ. For in them, and of them, does the church sing this in the Song of Songs. — SERMON 88:6
Cânticos 1:8
"If you do not know yourself, go out, you, in the tracks of the flocks, and graze your goats in the tents of the shepherds." Go out in the tracks, not of the flock but of the flocks, and graze, not like Peter my sheep but your goats; in the tabernacles, not of the shepherd but of the shepherds; not of unity but of division, not established in the place where there is one flock and one shepherd.By this answer she has been stiffened, built up, made stronger as the beloved wife, ready to die for her husband and live with her husband. — SERMON 138:8
Cânticos 1:11-12
We may appropriately understand of them, what was said to the bride in the Canticle of Canticles: "We shall make you likenesses of gold inlaid with silver while the king is reclining at his table," that is, while Christ is in his secret place, because "your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life shall appear, then you too will appear with him in glory." — ON THE TRINITY 1:8.16