Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 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

Song of Solomon 4:1

We are not to administer rebukes until we have removed from our eye the beam of envy or malice or pretense, so that we may have clear vision to cast out the speck from a brother’s eye. For we shall then see that speck with the eyes of the dove, the kind of eyes that are commended [as belonging to] the spouse of Christ, the glorious church which God has chosen for himself, the church which has neither spot nor wrinkle, that is, the church which is pure without guile.

SERMON ON THE MOUNT 2:19.66

Song of Solomon 4:2

“Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes.” What do shorn ewes mean? Those who lay aside secular burdens. What does shorn mean? Those who lay aside their fleeces, like the load of secular burdens. Those persons were your teeth, about whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles that “they sold all their possessions and laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles, so that distribution might be made to each, as there was need.” You have received the fleeces of your shorn ewes. That flock has come up from the washing of holy baptism. All have given birth, because they have fulfilled the two commandments.

SERMON 313B.3

Song of Solomon 4:2

He says to the church, his spouse, “Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn, which come up from the washing, all with twins, and there is none barren among them.” By this twin offspring the twofold object of love is meant, namely, God and the neighbor: “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

LETTER 149

Song of Solomon 4:2

The teeth of the church are those through whom she speaks. Of what sort are your teeth? “Like a flock of sheep that are shorn.” Why “that are shorn”? Because they have laid aside the burdens of the world. Were not those sheep, of which I was a little before speaking, shorn, whom the bidding of God had shorn when he said, “Go and sell what you have, and give to the poor; and you shall find treasure in heaven: and come and follow me”? They performed this bidding: shorn they came. And because those who believe in Christ are baptized, what is there said “which come up from the washing” means they have come up from cleansing. “Whereof every one bears twins.” What twins? Those two commandments, whereupon hang all the law and the prophets.

EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 95:9