Song of Solomon 8:6

That we may fully know that this is true you have in the Canticles to the soul, now fully perfect, what I wish the Lord Jesus may say to you, “Put me as a seal upon your arm.” May peace glow in your heart, Christ in your works, and may there be formed in you wisdom and justice and redemption.

Christ is the seal on the forehead, the seal in the heart—on the forehead that we may always confess him, in the heart that we may always love him, and a sign on the arm that we may always do his work. Therefore let his image shine forth in our profession of faith, let it shine forth in our love, let it shine forth in our works and deeds so that, if it is possible, all his beauty may be represented in us. Let him be our head, because “the head of man is Christ”; let him be our eye, that through him we may see the Father; let him be our voice, that through him we may speak to the Father; let him be our right hand, that through him we may bring our sacrifice to God the Father. He is also our seal, which is the mark of perfection and of love, because the Father, loving the Son, set his seal on him, just as we read, “Upon him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.”34And so Christ is our love. Good is love, since it has offered itself to death for transgressions; good is love, which has forgiven sins. And so let our soul clothe itself with love, and love of a kind that is “strong as death.” For just as death is the end of sins, so also is love, because one who loves the Lord ceases to commit sin. For “charity thinks no evil and does not rejoice over wickedness, but endures all things.” For if one does not seek his own goods, how will he seek the goods of another? Strong, too, is that death through the bath through which every sin is buried and every fault forgiven.

The Lord Jesus himself, invited by such eager love and by the beauty of comeliness and grace, since now no offences pollute the baptized, says to the church, “Place me as a seal upon your heart, as a signet upon your arm”; that is, you are comely, my beloved, you are all fair, nothing is lacking in you. Place me as a seal upon your heart, so that your faith may shine forth in the fullness of the sacrament. Let your works also shine and set forth the image of God in whose image you were made. Let no persecution lessen your love, which cannot be quenched by many waters nor drowned by many rivers.

And since you are worthy to be compared not now with humans but with heavenly beings, whose life you are living on earth, receive from the Lord the precepts you are to observe: “Set me as a signet upon your heart, and as a seal upon your arm.” [Thus] clearer proofs of your prudence and actions may be set forth, in which Christ the figure of God may shine, who, equaling fully the nature of the Father, has expressed the whole which he took of the Father’s Godhead. Whence also the apostle Paul says that we are sealed in the Spirit; since we have in the Son the image of the Father, and in the Spirit the seal of the Son. Let us then, sealed by this Trinity, take more diligent heed, lest either levity of character or the deceit of any unfaithfulness unseal the pledge which we have received in our hearts.

When death comes, it cannot be resisted. By whatever arts, whatever medicines, you meet it; the violence of death can none avoid who is born mortal; so against the violence of love can the world do nothing. For from the contrary the similitude is made of death; for as death is most violent to take away, so love is most violent to save. Through love many have died to the world, to live to God.

Rightly is [love] said to be “strong as death,” either because no one overcomes it as no one overcomes death, or because in this life the measure of charity is unto death, as the Lord said: “Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Or, rather, because as death tears the soul away from the senses of the flesh, so charity tears it away from carnal passions.

Let the love of God be stronger than death in you. If death releases you from the desire for everything, how much more appropriate is it that the love of God should release you from the desire for everything.

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?

Just as death destroys the body, so ardent desire for eternal life cuts off the love of material things. It renders one whom it has perfectly taken hold of insensible to earthly desires which come from without.

“Stern as death is love.” Love is compared with the sternness of death, for, doubtless, once it comes, it summons the mind completely away from the love of the world. Accordingly, abbots must be such that they may perfectly love God and their neighbor; they must have their eyes removed from the evil desires of this world, as Adam did in paradise before the fall.

"Set me as a seal upon your heart," etc. Place me as a seal upon your heart, by thought; upon your arm, by action, so that charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and unfeigned faith (I Tim. I) may be within, and the same devotion of the heart, which the inner judge sees, may also be proven by good deeds visible to outward eyes, to the glory of the Father who is in heaven. He rightly says, Place me as a seal: for we often carry some sign tied to our finger or arm, by which we may be reminded of that thing whose memory we care to keep more frequently. Thus, the Lord also wishes us, by the present sign, always to be reminded to keep His commandments, according to what He Himself commands, saying about the law which He gave: It shall therefore be as a sign on your hand, and as a mark before your eyes for remembrance (Exod. XIII). And it comes to pass that if we continuously bear His memory in our breast, He who granted us this grace, being mindful of us eternally, may keep us happy with His presence in His heavenly kingdom, as if with the function of a seal, according to what He promises to the distinguished leader of His people, saying, I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant, and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, says the Lord (Haggai II). To the contrary, rejecting him who turned to apostasy after faith, He says, If Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off (Jer. XXII). Or certainly it should be more deeply understood, because a seal, where it is placed, is usually a sign of mysteries, of precious things, and those which ought not to be profaned; as it is written about the Lord, And He seals up the stars like under a seal (Job. IX): evidently so that they may not be opened or commanded except by the permission of Him who sealed them. Hence Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which is in the uncircumcision; for by circumcision which he received in the flesh, it was signified that the faith which he had already received even before circumcision was effective for the purification of both heart and body; which faith we now have without fleshly circumcision, in which we are also justified, according to the prophet and apostle's saying, The just shall live by faith (Rom. I). Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ should be placed as a seal upon our heart, as a seal upon our arm, so that we may know that everything He did or said in the flesh is heavenly and mysterious. For since He Himself is the power of God and the wisdom of God, we place Him as a seal upon our heart, when we learn the things He said as if they are truly divine words of wisdom; we place Him as a seal upon our arm, when we strive to hear and follow, as much as we can, the things He did, as if they are true examples of virtue. Again, we place the Lord as a seal upon our heart and arm, when we keep His commandments in the present for the reward of that which we are not yet able to see.

For love is as strong as death, etc. This love, or jealousy, can rightly be understood both in our Lord Redeemer and in His chosen ones: for the love by which He loved us was as strong as death, because it was so great that through it He came to death for us. Hence, He says, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). The zeal by which He was zealous for us was as harsh as hell, because He could not be diverted from His concern for our salvation by any temptations of opposing enemies, just as hell cannot be mitigated by any tortures of the wretched, nor its severity be changed. This comparison indeed appears austere, but the more austere the comparison is given, the more the affection of our zealous Lord is commended. Of whom He Himself, having driven the deceitful from the temple, says to the Father, "Zeal for Your house has consumed me" (Psalm 69:9). And the greater His zeal is shown, the graver the condemnation follows us if we spurn it. But even the love of His faithful is as strong as death, because they cannot be separated from it by the bitterness of death itself. Hence, they confidently say, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" (Romans 8:35). Their pure and God-devoted jealousy is likened to hell, because just as it never loses those whom it has once seized, so the fervency of their zealous persistence never cools at any time. It is the same zeal by which Phinehas, inflamed, struck down the fornicators in the desert; the same by which Elijah burned, when after suspending the waters of heaven, and then recalling them after three years, after slaying the prophets of Baal, and turning the heart of the people to the Lord, he said: "I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, they have thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword" (1 Kings 19:14); the same zeal Peter used when he led the lying neophytes to death; the same of which Paul speaks to the Corinthians: "I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2-3). Appropriately, in this place, was introduced the greatness of perfect love or zeal, where Judea, marveling at the new conduct of the Gentiles, was reminded by the Lord to bring back to mind the gifts of piety that were granted to her, because clearly after the corruption of her mother and her own mother, she herself was awakened through the tree of the cross in the first resurrection to grace. Similarly, this sentence can fittingly be applied to the preceding: Remember, O Church gathered from the Jews, that you have come to life through the wood of my passion, and never forget that the greatness of love and zeal led me to death for you. Nor marvel that I have received into my faith the crowds of Gentiles, whom you see inflamed with such great love and such great zeal to fulfill my will that it seems easier that either death could be convinced not to seize more souls from the world, or hell, not to receive those seized, than it would be for them ever to depart from my faith. Do not think you can please me with mere verbal profession alone; rather, if you wish to come to life, place the memory of my will as a seal upon your heart, place it on your arm; and so imbue your mind with divine or brotherly love, so zealously, that the gathering of your people into the heavenly citizenry may be fully completed, so that such love, such zeal, can never be changed or diminished by any state of opposing or alluring things. Some understand the statement "Zeal is as harsh as Hell" to refer to the envy that the synagogue often had against the Church of the Gentiles; thus it is read in the Acts of the Apostles, "On the following Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting what was said by Paul" (Acts 13). This zeal is harsh as Hell because it consumes the soul it has captured with the plague of impiety. Hence it is written, "Zeal seized the ignorant people, and now the fire consumes the adversaries." If understood this way, the Lord rightly admonishes the synagogue not to be held by this zeal against the Church when it sees it rising from the desert of vices and abounding in heavenly delights, adhering with an irrevocable mind to her Beloved, lest by envying others she loses the goods she could have had herself. Adding more on the strength of love, He says: "Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame," meaning the fire within them in that same charity they internally burn; while the flames, in the execution of righteousness, shine far and wide. Did not the hearts of those who said, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us on the road, and opened the Scriptures to us" (Luke 24), prove themselves to be lamps of fire? Did our Lord not want us to be lamps of flame when He said: "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matt. 5)? Those are the lamps which the virgins who have them will enter the marriage chamber of the eternal kingdom with the bridegroom. These have placed His love and fear upon their hearts and arms, that is, all their thoughts and actions they have subjected to His commandments. Then indeed the lamps of the foolish will go out, because their works, by which they seemed to shine before men, will grow dim when the internal Judge comes and reveals the intentions of hearts, for they performed their good works with a view to temporary praise.