Theodoret of Cyrus

“I shall lead you into my mother’s house and into the chamber of the one who conceived me.” Now, what is the house of the all-holy Spirit (of whom the bride was born, after all) if not the divine temple, which resembles the Jerusalem on high, where they enter to speak with the bridegroom, having received the status of bride? And there, she says, “I shall give you some spiced wine to drink and some juice from my pomegranates,” by “spiced wine” referring to the teaching redolent of divine grace, as it were spiced and proving to be fragrant. By “juice of pomegranates” she refers to the benefit deriving from the fruits of love.

“Who is this coming up all covered in white, leaning on her nephew?” They do not say “white” but “all covered in white,” being black, remember. While the bride said of the bridegroom, “My nephew is white,” and did not say “covered in white,” being such by nature, she on the contrary was covered in black (the sun looked on her, remember) and is now covered in white and shares the bridegroom’s whiteness. And just as being the light he both made her light and called her so, and being holy he made her holy, and becoming resurrection he accorded her resurrection, so he also gave her a share in his own peculiar whiteness. Hence on seeing her, the young women say, “Who is this coming up all covered in white, leaning on her nephew?” Guided by him and as it were led hand in hand, she makes her ascent into heaven and her departure to her beloved through her firm belief in him.

Possess “ardor” as well: if you were to acquire it, you would allow no one else to have more importance in your eyes, or yourself to be apathetic, but only her to enjoy your intimacy. “Ardor is harsh,” note, and difficult to overcome, like hades (drawing the name hades from common usage, and applying it also to death). But love is so strong because first of all it has wings, and around its wings it has a fiery flame and emits sparks. What could be more powerful than this when enkindled, especially since its fire is of the kind that is unquenchable?

“If a man gives his whole life for love, they will utterly despise him.” Those bereft and devoid of love will despise the one giving his life for love; hence blessed Paul also said, “When reviled we bless, when persecuted we put up with it, when blasphemed we are encouraging, we have become the world’s refuse, as it were, everyone’s off-scouring to this day.” This happens, in fact, to people who are dizzy: though they cannot stand up straight, they think everything else is spinning around; similarly also people bereft of love blaspheme the devotees of love as stupid and foolish. Far from undermining love, however, this even rendered it more ardent. When reviled the apostles gave blessings, when blasphemed they were encouraging, and on becoming the world’s refuse, as it were, they claimed to be everyone’s off-scouring to this day.

It is the holy authors who were celebrated in the Old Testament who see the bride’s spiritual youth and the immaturity and inconspicuous condition of her breasts. In their capacity as go-betweens and marriage brokers [they] say among themselves, “The king is now on the point of taking our sister as his bride, but she is small and without breasts. She is not yet fertile, nor can she provide the milk of instruction or offer developed nourishment to the needy. So we must give thought to what is to be done. Since she is about to be related to the great king and be like a wall of his house, watching and guarding what is within, and being like a door that protects the contents, let us build as if on a wall ‘silver parapets.’ ” That is,[the parapets are] arguments splendid for their reasoning, the Lord’s sayings, after all, being “pure sayings, silver tried in the fire, tested in the earth.” “So … from her position on them she may fire at the enemy and hunt down the schemers. Let us place on her as on a door tablets made of cedar that incur no decay from sin, cedar being incorruptible.”