Cânticos 2
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Cânticos 2:2
So also strange daughters: daughters, because of the form of godliness; strange, because of their loss of virtue. Be the lily there; let it receive the mercy of God: hold fast the root of a good flower, be not ungrateful for soft rain coming from heaven. Be thorns ungrateful, let them grow by the showers: for the fire they grow, not for the garner. — EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 48:8
Cânticos 2:2
But would you like to know what is said to this lady somewhere else, in the Song of Songs? "Like a lily in the midst of thorns, so is my darling in the midst of the daughters." An extraordinary saying—he called the same people both thorns and daughters. And do those thorns do mightily? They do indeed. Can't you see how these heresies too pray, fast, give alms, praise Christ? — SERMON 37:27
Cânticos 2:4
He didn't abolish love of parents, wife, children, but put them in their right order. He didn't say, "Whoever loves" but "whoever loves above me." That's what the church is saying in the Song of Songs: "He put charity in order for me." Love your father, but not above your Lord; love the one who begot you, but not above the one who created you. — SERMON 344:2
Cânticos 2:4
What is, "Set in order love in me"? Make the proper degrees, and render to each what is his due. Do not put what should come before, below that which should come after it. Love your parents but prefer God to them. — SERMON 50 (100).2
Cânticos 2:5
In the Song of Songs it is said, "I am wounded with love"; that is, of being in love, of being inflamed with passion, of sighing for the bridegroom, from whom she received the arrow of the Word. — EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 45:14
Cânticos 2:5
The wound of love is health-giving. The bride of Christ sings in the Song of Songs, "I am wounded with charity." When is this wound healed? When our desire is sated with good things. It's called a wound as long as we desire and don't yet have. Love, you see, in that case, is the same as if it were a pain. When we get there, when we have what we desire, the pain disappears, the love doesn't cease. — SERMON 298:2
Cânticos 2:6
As for the right hand of the Father, it isn't meant in the manner of the structure of the human body, as though he is on the Son's left, if the Son in terms of bodily positions and relationships is placed on his right. But the right hand of God means the inexpressible peak of honor and good fortune, as we read it said about wisdom: "His left hand under my head, and his right hand embraces me." If earthly convenience has been lying underneath, then eternal felicity is embracing from above. — SERMON 214:8
Cânticos 2:15
What does "catch" mean? [This means to] come to grips with them, convince, refute them, so that the vineyards of the church may not be spoiled. What else is catching foxes, but overcoming heretics with the authority of the divine law, and so to say binding and tying them up with the cords provided by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures? [Samson] catches foxes, ties their tails together and attaches firebrands. What's the meaning of the foxes' tails tied together? What can the foxes' tails be but the backsides of the heretics, whose fronts are smooth and deceptive, their backsides bound, that is condemned, and dragging fire behind them, to consume the crops and works of those who yield to their seductions? — SERMON 364:4
Cânticos 2:17
Since, then, there are in the Old Testament precepts that we who belong to the New Testament are not compelled to observe, why do not the Jews realize that they have remained stationary in useless antiquity rather than hurl charges against us who hold fast to the new promises, because we do not observe the old? Just as it is written in the Canticle of Canticles: "The day has broken, let the shadows retire," the spiritual meaning has already dawned, the natural action has already ceased. "The God of Gods, the Lord has spoken: and he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof." — IN ANSWER TO THE JEWS 6:8