1. The Canticle in Francis’ Youth
(a) Gilbert Genebrard: It is in the Treatise on the Love of God that St. Francis de Sales reveals to us how he had been introduced to the Canticle of Canticles. He does it when he cites a book by Genebrard: “in the Chronology of the Hebrews, published by the scholarly archbishop of Aix, Gilbert Genebrard, whom I mention (with love), with honour and consolation, for having been his disciple, although unprofitably, when he was Royal Lecturer in Paris and expounded the Canticle of Canticles.”[1]
We are, then, in the year 1584, when Francis reacted against the pagan authors whom he studied, but who supplied him with nothing substantial. With the permission of Monsignor Deage, he then turned toward Theology and Sacred Scripture. He was, at the time, seventeen years old, and his professor, Genebrard, whose disciple he called himself, was forty-seven.[2]
Genebrard was a Benedictine from Cluny, a Doctor of Theology on the faculty of Paris and Royal Professor of Hebrew. He had already published numerous studies, and Francis had possibly procured for himself at that time his Commentary on the Psalms of David, published in 1577. But if he called himself his “profitless disciple,” certainly it is because he was not able to study the Hebrew language. Behold the text, in the Controversies, where he simply acknowledges it: “It would be foolish for me to wish to speak of the artlessness (originally, authenticity) of translations, I who never knew well (how) to read with the points in one of the languages necessary in understanding and who am scarcely knowledgeable in another.”[3] The “points” in Hebrew correspond, by and large, to the vowels. Undoubtedly he would have known some of the Hebrew roots, just as we see them, but no more than this. Likewise, it is of benefit for us to hear also of his ignorance of Greek!
On the other hand, this should not astonish us. St. Francis de Sales never undertook systematic “clerical” studies; what he knew in theology he learned alongside that other work, real and imposed, of knowing the “humanities” in Paris and “law” in Padua. Yet that did not prevent him from becoming a “Doctor of the Church!”
That same year, 1584, Theodore Beza published in Geneva a translation in Latin of the “Canticle of Canticles,” and it was to oppose that edition that Genebrard would publish, in his turn, another Latin translation. Thus, there was nothing unusual in making this subject a starting point. Francis normally found himself involved in the dispute, and we will later have some echoes of this. Let us note that Beza translated in “torchaic” verse, meaning in syllables composed of one long and one short (sound), and Genebrard opposed him with a translation in “iambic” verses, which are composed of one short and one long sound! But it does not seem that the dispute would be positioned there, as a matter of too great a freedom of interpretation on the part of the Protestants. No more does it seem that the translation of Beza would be suspected of being too lewd a translation (although he might have published certain poems that were rather frivoulous…), since at that time the protestant Castellion was expelled from Geneva for having concluded that the “Canticle of Canticles” was a lewd and obscene poem.
These few indications situate well the atmosphere in which Francis knew the Canticle; actually, this was a revelation, and we can better specify in these circumstances that it was the “clap of thunder.” As Fr. Lajeunie says, Francis happily learned that “the history of the world and of salvation, was, therefore, a history of love.”[4]
(b) The Student of the Canticle: In this way Francis studied under Genebrard; he would have taken notes and, in 1585, would have been able to obtain for himself the printed work. Now at this time, Francis is assailed by a terrible crisis, and this crisis thoroughly attacks his reason being, for living, and for believing. It is more than a crisis of “despair,” as it is so often called, since never in the course of this trial does he despair of the love of God. it is not God and his love which are its cause, but him (Francis) and his capacity to love. One thinks, in this case, of the Spouse, bewildered in the dark, who runs after her Bridegroom and who questions the jeering watchmen (Song 4:9). Francis learns to love; it is his first “wound of love.”
In the manuscript of March, 1586, where he notes his studies of philosophy, we find, justifiably, the famous citation of the Canticle which he will make his motto: tenui nec dimittam – “I have taken hold of him and will not let him go (Song 3:4)”. Thus, for him true happiness does not consist in the knowledge of the object loved but in the possession of it; it is the same with God.[5]
The same year, in a rule which he made for himself regarding the reception of the Holy Eucharist, we find this beautiful commentary on a verse of the Canticle:
(if I cannot make the sacramental communion) … I will comfort myself with a spiritual communion… like ones who are nourished … with the scent of fragrant and vaporous things … intoxicating themselves in the unique scent of such a powerful and strong wine … and though not receiving the unction, I will not stop running to the scent of the sweet perfumes of the Lord.[6]
It is astonishing how this image will be taken up again, developed and made use of by our saint. For him, to breathe a perfume will be “to pray,” and to embalm or pour fourth a perfume, the very symbol of the apostolate.
In the “intimate fragments” relative to his most painful crisis, we again find the Canticle of Canticles in the most lofty place, in an invocation to the Virgin Mary, who later will deliver him:
O Virgin, charming among the ‘daughters of Jerusalem,’ of whose delight hell cannot be happy, hell will I never see you thus in the kingdom of your Son, ‘beautiful as the moon, bright as the Sun’?[7]
It is indeed the Virgin Mary who will be the “most loved and most loving” Spouse. At this time, moreover, Francis entered into the “Congregation of Mary,” where he delicately acquires fervour in this marvellous working of Love and Beauty:
O Love, O Charity, O Beauty, to which I have vowed all my affections, ah, will I no more take joy in your delights, and will I no more be intoxicated by the abundance of your house, and will you no more water me from the stream of your voluptousness?[8]
No doubt, we are already replete with this arduous atmosphere of the Canticle of Canticles.
(c) The Canticle in Padua: St. Francis de Sales reveals, by this last text which we have cited, that he already arrived at a certain level of the spiritual life. Therefore, it is not astonishing that, by analysing and studying his manner of progressing in this domain, we would find it again in Padua. One of the exercises which he seemed to practise the most is what he calls “spiritual repose”:
As the body has need of taking its sleep … so it is necessary that the soul have some time for sleep and repose between the chaste arms of its heavenly Bridegroom…[9]
In the same images of the Canticles we find again three times the sleeping Spouse by her Beloved. But it is important to note that the allegorical sense here immediately finds the response in the Gospel, since it adds “in imitation of the Beloved Disciple.”[10]
Francis, therefore, assimilated the language of the Canticle; he compared it with the Sacred Scriptures and, more particularly, with the Gospel.
But in Padua, Francis is not only concerned with essentially interior and personal problems; no, he begins to consider himself in relation to the exterior world. Thus, he draws up his famous Rule of Padua, in which tow Salesian themes clearly stand out: Optimism and the concern for “human relation.”
And it is here that a typical aspect of Salesian Spirituality appears which is particularly good to underline today: never in the writings of our saint has the spiritual life been a strictly personal affair, a cutting of life with other men. Quite on the contrary, it is in his intimate life with God that he found the true conduct in relation to men. And the foremost value to consider in them is beauty:
Fourthly, I will sleep sweetly in the knowledge of the excellence of virtue … which is so beautiful … it is what renders man interiorly and also exteriorly beautiful.[11]
And the second attitude is that of being “welcoming.” But as he knows that in each of us “virtue” is hardly ever dominant, our saint looks for a way to proportion its presence and communication with others. Nevertheless, he follows a basic principle: “never despise meeting a person.”[12]
And, indeed; these two aspects find themselves curiously taken up again in a work of St. Francis de Sales, an “exercise of youth,” which is called the “Mystical Declaration on the Canticle of Canticles.”
First of all, for beauty we go to God:
Look for my paths in all creatures … above all in human nature … because it is as beautiful in itself as if it had all the ornaments of the world.[13]
In the next place, always, this inquiry into “human relation”:
The more a way is known to us, the more we frequent it; … here we speak to one, there to another … But if I consider God in man … while in this path which is familiar to us, we stop at all the flowers.[14]
Therefore, St. Francis de Sales began to study the Canticle of Canticles, and the more this chant of love helped him to communicate with God, the more it demanded of him another service, that of being able to communicate with man.
When he returned to Annecy, the “zeal of love,” of which he would speak to us later, invited him almost impatiently to accept the mission to the Chablais, during which he continued to live very intensely this communication of love with the Bridegroom, as these lines, written in the rapture of spiritual consolation, witness:
Amor Meus, Furor Meus!
My love is all my passion.
It seems to me indeed,
that my zeal is changed to passion for my Beloved … [15]
It is certainly the Spouse of the Canticles who put on his lips these words all full of ardour.
2. The Canticle in His Life and His Writings
(a) The “Mystical Declaration on the Canticle of Canticles”: According to the editor of the 1642 edition, this work of the saint is “one of the first exercises of his pen,” and it should be kept secret. St. Jane de Chantal, herself, confesses to never having intended to speak of it.
Why should it be mislaid? Why did he not publish it? Among all the hypotheses, and these would be numerous (why he did not publish the Controversies …), one of the reasons seems to be the genre of the work itself, a “declaration,” which means not a “manifesto,” but an explanation, a work in which a certain polemic on the subject of the interpretation of the symbolism of the “Canticle” would undoubtedly be displayed:
Neither the nature, nor the properties of the soul are at all mentioned there, but instead: eyes, hair, teeth, lips, necks, garments, gardens, ointments, and a thousand similar things which have put confusion into the explanations on account of the liberty which the expositors have had of attaching to one of them his own sense and, which is worse, on account of the insupportable license which the same expositor has taken of understanding in one page, one same word in different ways and for different things.[16]
St. Francis, on the other hand, will confine himself to that which “having once given one meaning to one expression,” will never change (id.). One could go so far as to say that it was a bit of a gamble, for the meanings for a single word are actually innumerable, even those in Tradition, for which he says further: “but we have undertaken nothing without imitation of better authors and without apparent propriety (agreement) among the terms signified and signifying.”
And to complicate matters, he adds that in this work the Canticle of Canticles solely represents and illustrates what he means by “mental prayer” (oraison). It is evident that one can enlarge a great deal the sense of “mental prayer,” but tradition also acknowledges the Spouse of the Canticle to be the Jewish people, the Church, or the Virgin Mary!
Thus, to display this work and publish it would certainly have exposed him to many difficulties.
Likewise, we could acknowledge another reason, which considers the general evolution of the thought of St. Francis de Sales and, consequently, of his style: “the language of war is different from that of peace, and no one speaks in one fashion to young apprentices and in another to old companions”[17] and differently to those famous “expositors” than to some religious (who are) more advanced in the spiritual life.
But already in the Controversies, even if we admit that the “Declaration” had been written earlier, we find the Spouse considered as representing the holy Church.[18]
It seems, therefore, that a profound transformation has taken place in him, in some sense an evolution, as mentioned previously. We are not saying that “he put some water into his wine” and that he accepted that one word could have several meanings, but rather that a great synthesis progressively developed in him, that as he gradually employed the image in all its depth and richness, he discovered that all of creation extols the Creator and, consequently, that a single image, a single word could comprise in itself a limitless source of meanings and values, since as soon as they are neither immediately opposed nor contradicted to themselves, just as in a grain, the entire plant in all its variety is already found implicitly contained.
So to discuss, for example, that image of the “kiss” ardently desired by the Spouse in the first verse of the Canticle, he could easily apply all the flights of man toward God. For, as Francis tells us, this gesture so marvelously expresses the union of love, it could then explain the ardent cry of men who desire the Saviour in the mystery of the Incarnation; it could more explicitly be on the lips of Mary, whose sighs, we are told, hastened the coming of the Messiah; or it could also spring forth from the heart of man in prayer.[19]
Where, then, do we find a contradictory interpretation? Quite simply in that it would seem improper, and consequently loathsome, to wish to give a noble and mystical interpretation to a gesture, a desire, which at that time was considered as evil, sensual and, therefore, sinful.
Now St. Francis de Sales intends to follow tradition. He speaks to us of “those theologians (who) employed the name of love in reference to divine things so as to remove from it the odour of impurity of which it was suspect according to the imagination of the world.”[20]
Is this not precisely the problem of the Canticle of Canticles?
(b) The Commentary on the Canticle in other Writings: Outside of the “Declaration,” we do not find a systematic commentary in his writing. On the other hand, we do know that he especially loved to make use of verses of the Canticle to guide and inspire the Instructions which he gave to the first Visitandines and which we have a remnant of in the Spiritual Conferences and in some of his Sermons.
In this way, we have six Sermons of this genre, all of which deal with the Virgin Mary. We also possess one of two outlines of sermons which are some rather long commentaries on certain passages.
Apart from the Sermons for grand occasions, such as that of August 15, 1602, given “in the Parish Church of St. Jean en Greve,” we must realize that St. Francis de Sales reserved the Canticle for persons already advanced in the spiritual life. This appears even more clearly in his Letters, in which the numerous citations reveal an uncommon equilibrium. We can cite some of these here to give you an idea of the style inspired by the canticle in his Letters.
“Let us kiss a little the feet of the Saviour; he will call us, when it will please him, to his holy mouth.”[21]
“Your heart, it is the bed of the Bridegroom, for which it is necessary to strew it with flowers.”[22]
“O my daughter, hold this Infant completely in your arms, and give him your breasts (heart). He feeds on the milk of humility.”[23]
Canon Lemaire, himself, tells us:
“I have withheld only a very small number of images from the Canticle in the choice of 412 texts, because they are far from our present tastes. No longer are we sufficiently unpretentious, and they could offend some readers who are not predisposed.”[24]
This does not mean that there would not be some citations of and allusions to the Canticle in the Introduction to the Devout Life, (for) we find there the same Salesian themes as in the Treatise, but less supported.
Indeed, the commentaries in the Treatise on the Love of God are many of the most vivid. They occupy a very important place, and the persistence of the impressions given by one image so pervades all the chapters which follow that one can say that the Bridegroom and the Spouse of the Canticle are constantly “present” in the entire book.
And if one consults the first manuscript of Treatise, this impression become even more impressive; one truly wonders whether the Treatise, itself, was originally envisioned as a “commentary” on the Canticle of Canticles. Indeed, it seems very much that next to Philothea and in front of Theotimus (who is found only in the definitive edition), there was in a proper position, Sulamite, the Sacred Lover, the Spouse of the Canticle.
It is here, indeed, that she seems to have acquired a new personality, a tint entirely Salesian. St. Francis takes pleasure in reanimating her, in describing her, in speaking to her, and in inviting us to heed her well. It is a true commentary “on the living person,” for all personages are living and full of ardour.
“I listen,” she says, “to the voice of my Beloved; ,,, see how it brims over …” “Behold this holy Sulamite. She can first embrace her spouse even before having greeted him; she needs no further introduction. But have compassion on her passion; she is enraptured by love.”[25]
A little further on: “See the holy Sulamite of the Canticles, as she is gently sleeping, attentive with an unparalleled sweetness to the presence of her Bridegroom…” Francis puts himself on familiar terms with his readers.[26]
In addition, sometimes one can no longer know how the Sulamite truly is: Magdalene, at the feet of Jesus or Mary, the perfect Spouse whose “Beloved is everything to her and she is all for him.”[27] It is also Anna, the mother of Samuel. It is, without naming her, St. Jane de Chantal. It is the blessed Virgin Theresa, “one of the greatest Sulamites of this age.”[28] And, finally, it is himself (Francis): “Draw me; I shall run after your attractions and shall cast myself into your heart in order to stay there for ever and ever.”[29]
Further on we find her again, completely wounded by love[30], listening to the words of her Beloved:
I am within your heat and on your heart
because I am the inhabitant and master of it;
I am in the midst of your heart
as the heart of your heart;
but I wish further to be on your heart
as the master of your heart,
so that nothing may enter there
other than what I will put there
and that only I may possess it perfectly.[31]
Our saint would desire very strongly that we, in our turn, listen to these words, and he wishes, in all his works, to place this desire in us. In the Canticle of Canticles, he has so assimilated this song of love that his entire expression is penetrated by it; he has become, in his turn, the true “chanter of the Love of God.”
But he wishes that we, possessed in turn by this love, also would sing, and this is the motive for the Treatise. that is why this book, which begins with the Canticle, ends likewise in its atmosphere.
“The Holy Spirit teaches that the lips of the divine Spouse, meaning the Church…” – these are the first words, and before ending the book, Francis offers us an earnest invitation to imitate the Sulamite by those “loving arrows” which our heart ought to shoot forth constantly toward the Beloved. These are “ejaculatory prayers,”[32] a particular expression for that prayer which becomes a loving word, an arrow which goes straight to the heart.
The assimilation (of this) is actually the fulfilment of the “allegorical” mission of the Canticle, since the Bridegroom is Jesus Christ:
Ah, Lord, I am yours.
My love is mine and I am his.
My life is Jesus Christ.[33]
3. Analysis of the Salesian Commentary on the Canticle
(a) The Prologue: Following tradition, St. Francis de Sales attributes the Canticle to Solomon and tells us that this Canticle is a “description of the loves of the Saviour and the devout soul,” for which “it employs a perpetual representation of the loves of a chaste shepherd and a modest shepherdess.”[34]
Right from the outset, the “modest shepherdess” has only one desire, expressed by her sighs – that of receiving from her “chaste shepherd” a kiss from his mouth.
He explains to us afterwards that this kiss “is a sign of love and dilection,” “a living proof of the union of hearts” which is “perfect love”:
Have you not noticed, Theotimus, that the sacred Spouse expresses her desire of being united with her Bridegroom by the kiss, and that this kiss represents the spiritual union which establishes itself by the reciprocal communion of souls?
Certainly it is man who loves, but he loves by his will, and therefore, the end (final cause) of his love is of the nature of his will. But his will is spiritual; that is why the union to which his love aspires is likewise spiritual, especially since the heart, the seat and source of love, not only could not be perfected by the union which it could have with corporal things, but would be debased therein.[35]
St. Francis explains at length the reason for this “debasement” by developing the notion of ecstasy, which is considered an acute form of the tension of our faculties, which he divides into three kinds of “loving actions: the spiritual, the reasonable, and the sensual,” each of which can be exercised without invoking the inhibition of the other two. In love, therefore, it is necessary to give the first place to the heart, which is its source and its seat: “Love is like fire, in which the more delicate the material is, so the clearer and more beautiful are the flames.”[36]
Since love tends toward union, it seems normal, therefore, that the stronger this love will be, the greater the desire for union will be, and as “all loving words are drawn from the resemblance between the affections of the heart and the passions of the body,”[37] so it may be expressed by the sign of the kiss.
That is why this first verse of the Canticle expresses in bold manner man’s profound desire to know God and to be united with Him: this everlasting desire, “the Desired of all nations,” the desire written in the heart “of every man living in this world” for this Incarnation, by which the divine nature, in uniting itself to human nature in the Person of the Son of God, has decided, realized and brought about the Will of God and the Salvation of Creation.[38]
St. Francis thinks about the great happiness which the human heart of Jesus had on that day of the Annunciation, in the moment when it was united to the divine nature “in the womb of the Virgin”[39]: “O what acts of perfect charity, of profound humility did it not produce (the soul of Our Lord) within that very Word at the very hour of the Incarnation.”[40]
And so, the desire of the spouse is genuine; it is authentic not only by what it signifies, but also by what it is, by its very expression. Could we not entice here a reflection on the profound sense of all our gestures? If in former times the spectacle of two lovers knew to inspire the Sacred Writer in a prophecy not only realized, but taken up again and illustrated afterwards by Christ Jesus (let us think of the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, of the Wedding Feast, etc…), why could we not today look for the Christian value in our ordinary behaviour? And will it not be better capable of witnessing by virtue of its authenticity? And, in some way, that which it will signify will then already be somewhat realized.
Perhaps we have further attempted today to forget that our true happiness is not in man but in God, in the condition that the commandment of the Love of God is intimately bound to that of the Love of Neighbour, that dialogue with man is good; in every sense of the term, it is itself indicative of dialogue with God.
Perhaps, also we have too often considered our bodies as an abject instrument, forgetting the profound unity of our being and, consequently, thwarting the true possibility of loving, since it is in our heart that the noble function of opening and preparing it (the body) for the resurrection recurs, in title and in fact, because already in the flight of her heart, the Spouse is persuaded that Love is stronger than death.
(b) First Poem (the Goodness of His Presence): But the Sulamite did not receive that kiss which she so desired. Besides, Francis, almost mischievously, had posed the question: “Is this not too much to ask?” Without even looking to respond to it, she repeats her request: “Yes, give it to me, that kiss of union, O dear friend of my soul.” Then addressing himself to us, he wonders:
Is this desire just, Theotimus, for who would not desire such a desirable good? But this would be a useless desire, besides, and what would it serve other than (of being) a continual martyr to our heart, if we did not have the assurance of one day being able to satisfy it.[41]
That is why, searching in herself for a reason, she looks at herself. Truly her tint is neither white nor delicate, but that has nothing to do with seeing beauty. “I am black, but I am beautiful,” she affirms.
Besides, that is not her fault, for it is such love, itself, that has rendered her so “burned and blackish.” No, there must be another reason why the Beloved has not responded.
Hence, she searches for it and asks him where it could rightly be found. And mysteriously behold that he answers her. Yes, he tells her, you are truly beautiful, and I believe also that everything is beautiful. Is it on account of love? For behind all the beauties of creation, an even greater marvel is found, a marvel of which she will one day have an “entire understanding” and which will radiate her beauty even more.
Even by simply listening to this voice the Spouse is already fulfilled. A great repose overcomes her; she is in the peace of love. “And so, she is a Sulamite, fully pleased, completely tranquil and at rest.”[42] As one knows, “Sulamite,” the wife of Solomon, means the “peaceful” (one).
In this way, gently blessed, the Beloved finds her even more beautiful, and a sweet dialogue ensues which will lead the Spouse into a rapture where, seeming to faint away, she asks for assistance from her companions. For, curiously enough, they will not have left them.
“For this (reason), the divine Bridegroom and the heavenly Spouse re-present their loves by a continual conversion, so that if their male and female friends occasionally speak in the midst of their conversation, it is only stealthily and of the sort that they will not at all trouble their colloquy.”[43]
The companions are near to intervene, but, is it dream or reality, the Beloved senses herself in the arms of the Bridegroom, who asks them to leave her thus asleep.
(c) Second Poem (The Fervour of Love): What has happened? Has the Beloved left, or is she really asleep, losing the notion of his presence? Still, the fact remains that she listens and waits for him to come, she sees him, and now he speaks to her anew.
Our saint takes delight in this spectacle: “See a little how she brims over in a variety of affections …. Behold, so many concerns, O holy Sulamite, in a single moment.”[44]
It is the Beloved who invites her to hasten to come to him. It is now Springtime; all is joy and beauty. With regard to her, he puts all his pleasure in looking at her and in listening to the sound of her voice.
Completely blessed by this invitation, but apparently without reacting, she knows to say: “My dear friend is everything to me, and I am everything to him.”[45]
Then the same phenomenon reproduces itself: as soon as she abandons herself to his happiness, she immediately loses the feeling of his presence (at least that is withdrawn). She calls him, “Come back …” but in vain!
At night time, not finding rest, she arises and runs in pursuit of him. She does not wish to let him go: “I have taken hold of him, and I will not let him go until that (day) when I am introduced to him in the house of my mother.”
“You see,” St. Francis tells us, “this Spouse thinks of nothing else than of holding her Beloved at her mercy as a slave of love, in which she imagines that it is hers to lead him by her will and to introduce him to he blessed abode of her mother, where, nevertheless, she will be introduced by him …”[46] And he joyfully continues:
The soul, impelled by loving passion, always gives a itself a little more to that which it loves, and the Bridegroom, himself, confesses that his Beloved has ravished his heart, having bound him by a single hair of her head, and he acknowledges himself as prisoner of love.[47]
Indeed, it is left to do, and finding her sleeping anew, he asks his companions to let her rest. It seems that the excess of ardour produced the same effects as the excess of happiness.
(d) Third Poem (The Joy of the Bridegroom): Certainly, it seems that there is a progression among the different poems. Indeed, in the first poem, the Sulamite manifests her love, which afterwards she fears losing; one looks forward in the new trials to see if the Spouse will remain “faithful.” But in the meantime, and in order to prepare better the scene which will follow, it seems that there is an “interlude.”
We witness what we could call a “liturgy of love” where the Beloved holds the principal part. Indeed, the shepherd and shepherdess have unexpectedly become king and queen, to him might and power and to her beauty and grace.
The Shepherd-King, Solomon the peaceful, no longer sees his Beloved (“How beautiful you are…”), yet he begins to describe her minutely. Afterwards, quite naturally, he calls upon her a second time but with such insistence that he surprises himself in declaring his love: “You have rent my heart, my sister, my spouse.”
And, St. Francis, although listening to the Bridegroom, glances at her and underlines his rather spontaneous affection:
The sacred Spouse used to close one of her eyes so as to unite her sight more strongly in the other one and, by this means, to aim more precisely at the centre of his heart … She herself holds her wig (her hair) so pleated and gathered together in its trees that she seems to have only one, single hair, which she presses close together as in a chain to bind and ravish the heart of her Bridegroom.
She allows him to continue in this way, entirely fulfilled and delighted that he finally agreed to her love and completely impressed that she was everything to him. It is then that, in her turn, she invites him “to come to her garden and eat of the fruit of her apple trees.”
And the Bridegroom came, but he was so content there, that at the same time, he invited all his friends: “Eat, my friends, and drink, and be intoxicated, my very dear (ones).” A grand feast is organized!
(e) Fourth Poem (The Great Trial): Thoroughly blessed in finding herself thus amid joyous company, the Spouse once more grows drowsy, but she makes some efforts to keep from falling asleep again and losing anew her Beloved: “I sleep,” she tells herself, “but my heart watches!” But it seems that she was no longer able to resist.
Behold the Bridegroom who calls her again. What had happened? It is very difficult to say; still, the fact remains that he is at the door and that he knocks: “Hasten to open to me; I have hair all full of dew…”
It is night. Rudely awakened, she acts poorly and does not realize what is happening. When she arises, in her haste and being completely moved and nervous, she does not know how to dress. “She overturns the vase of myrrh,” St. Francis de Sales tells us, and when she is at her door, too late, he has already disappeared!
It is then that the dream turns to nightmare. She opens the door, runs after him, and again finds the guards of the city, who this time are jeering at her. Bu, being “completely bewildered” by sorrow, she proclaims to them her great love for her Beloved: “If you see him, tell him that I languish of love for him!”
After that come the Daughters of Jerusalem, who upon seeing her in such a state, ask her: is it necessary that he be beautiful in order to rouse such love?
Yes, she answers them, “He is beautiful in a marvellous way.” And she begins to describe him so strongly that, in proportion, her love is intensified: “O how beautiful is my Beloved; how I love him; he is my most dear (one).”
Then why is he not here? Where has he gone? They ask her. But she no longer listens to them, for even if he had gone very far, he is now present in her heart, and she repeats without ceasing:
I am to my Beloved,
and my Beloved is to me…
(f) Fifth Poem (The Only Beloved!): Her heart was right, for the Beloved is there. Behold him who appears and presses toward her: “O my beloved, how beautiful you are!” He begins to contemplate her face and senses that he will not be strong enough to resist such grace. He is conquered: “Turn away your eyes from upon me…”
And just now she had said that she would have chosen him (from) “among thousands.” Had she meant it? In his turn, he replies to her that she is his Only (one), his unique dove.
And see how, in the measure that he looks at her, he is astonished. In that case, she, be it loving vengeance or capricious pretence, appears to turn away. It is then that he calls her again, and irresistibly she returns. At that moment, we could say, she began to dance: “How beautiful are your steps… What decorum you have in your march!” And he begins to describe her as she had just now described him.
It seems that the rhythm grows in intensity, and he begins to express his desire by comparing her to a palm tree.
“The hairs of the Spouse,” Francis de Sales then explains to us, “are like the ‘tendrils’ of palm trees which envelop the leaves. When they open, the flowers appear completely white. In the same way, when the hairs of the Spouse are separated, the remarkable beauty of her face appears, such a bouquet of flowers, with such a white colour that her hair seems jet black.”
A second time she invites him: “Come, let us escape to the fields…” But behold her anew in the arms of the Bridegroom, who, looking at the Daughters, asks them not to rouse her.
Their love is perfect: his of benevolence and hers of complacence.
(g) Conclusion (Love Strong as Death): This last part is full of mysteries and problems, and each verse offers multiple interpretations.
But for Francis it is the loving dialogue which continues, and the Bridegroom, who is Jesus Christ, recalls to his Beloved the history of his love since the fall of Adam and Eve.
Place me as a stamp on your heart
and as a seal on your name.
And so, he would like the heart of his Beloved, meaning her love, and her arms, meaning her entire life, all her actions, be for him, only for Him. And was it not proven by the Resurrection that Love is stronger than death?
After that, He recounts how He chose Mary and Joseph in order to come “here below on earth.” “Our sister is small…” – it is the holy Virgin who had made the vow of virginity – “she does not think of marriage; she has neither the heart nor the care for it.” St. Joseph was there in order to protect her and to provide that the mystery of the Incarnation be realized.
And even the last phrase, enigmatic in the translation of that time: “Flee, meaning come…” – it is the Ascension of Our Lord, for which St. Francis de Sales delivers to us his ingenious explanation: “The roe, when it flees, looks ahead so that the fawn of the does, which meanwhile walks entirely by leaping, might heed at each moment where it has left its mother.”
“The Canticle of Canticles,” he tells us, “is the wedding song (epithame) of the Church and of Christ.” Solomon begins by a desire for union: “Let him kiss me, let him come and unite himself to me by the Incarnation, in which Wisdom, going forth from the mouth of the Most High, unites itself to our flesh…” And he finishes by the Ascension; “Flee, my Beloved, he says; be like the roe and the fawn of the does on the fragrant mountains.”
4. Theology of the Canticle of Canticles
(a) The Bridegroom is Christ: St. Francis de Sales affirms that “Love is the sum of all theology.” The Doctor of the Church invites us, more especially here in the opportunity given by the Canticle of Canticles, to reflect more deeply on the fundamental relations between theology and love.
Moreover, it is astonishing to consider how he ha marvellously known to encapsule all of “holy doctrine” in this precise writing about a delicate story of love.
What is theology, if not the study of God? And what is love, if not one of the divine attributes by which St. John tells us that “God is Love?” And he does so with such insistence that we have the right and duty to ask ourselves whether theology would not truly be the very study of Love.
And why would we not ask love itself who God is? Will we know how to have the eyes and heart capable of such a consideration and of such a question? Is this not ultimately the question which the “Canticle of Canticles” poses to us?
(b) The Creation of Man: The mystery of the Incarnation reunites the mystery of all creation in order to govern it and afterwards to motivate it: “I have come so that they may have life and (have it) to the full…” And how can life superabound, if not in and by love? It seems, then, by re-reading the marvellous Salesian pages on the motive of the Incarnation, that everything in the world must converge, as it did in the blessed hour of the Annunciation, to pierce better the mystery of the being of Jesus. Since the first cell of matter, since the first life, since the first knowledge of existing, and since the first gesture of love everything in the evolution of the Universe is ordered to the realization of a heart capable of God, a heart capable of loving as God loves. “We plant the vine on account of the fruit,” and this Fruit is Love Incarnate, Jesus the Beloved Son, indissolubly united to Human Nature, even more strongly than that couple of Man and Woman “who will henceforth be a single flesh,” because it is precisely a sacrament of that Union of Christ and his Church, intimate union of the “Mystical Body of Jesus,” in the image of the mystery itself, of the union of the divine and human natures in the Person of the Word.
One understands, then, that this union at the time of the Incarnation is presented to us as the fruit of an ecstasy, as the promise realized by a kiss, and finally, as the accomplishment of a Word, these three facets attempting to seize Love in its ineffable mystery.
Yes, this Man, Jesus, has been created by love and for love, and God has so experienced in him that what he had made was good, very good, for him, meaning for Love, that he communicates his own mystery.
God is Love because He is Three Living Beings admirably United in a single Love… And are we not aware that when we truly love, it is this “image of God” in us which begins to vibrate, to live in the proper divine rhythm?
(c) Sorrow and Joy of Love: But this man whom God has willed thus capable of Love must, himself, bring about his own capacity to love and must do this until the mysterious change (brought about) by death: “Love is stronger than death.” This phrase is upheld in each movement of the Spouse and the Bridegroom, and it is love which realizes this astonishingly generous acceptance of death in the flight of its own sign. Man is “ecstasy” – “there is no greater love than to give one’s life for those whom one loves.”
And love has existed until the very end. It has totally broken to pieces and disparaged this body in frightful and insupportable sorrow. It has led us to the passion of Christ, to the limit of the Intolerable Annihilation of the Body in order to form it afterwards and, finally, to burst forth in Joy. But Love goes further and can, itself, predict joy to us even in the midst of sorrow, and the Canticle invites us to admit that the crown of Jesus was a crown, even if it was a crown of thorns, and that the thorns were real thorns. And all because love wanted it that way!
With the Canticle, we experience again in the sorrowful way of the Passion in the intense compassion and condolence of the Spouse. But to the sorrow of Jesus is added the suffering of not being able to correspond and, therefore, of not being able to feel the joy or even to have a presentiment of it. And why, if not because we are still dulled by a strange sleep. It is love, likewise, which awakens.
(d) The Resurrection of Love: There is only one man who has known how to love, and it is Jesus. And this (is so) simply because he has loved beyond death, on the shores of a lake, when he asked St. Peter three times: “Do you love me?”
Thus, even more than before, the heart of Jesus was desirous of the love of men, the love stronger than death, and each time that we truly love, it is our heart which we prepare for the resurrection.
“I have discarded my clothes; how will I clothe myself?” In this way, St. Francis shows us Jesus dressing himself in his resurrected body and realizing the response: “Yes, it is truly I …”
That is why the mystery of the Church has become inseparable from the mystery of the Presence of the Resurrected One.
Yes, Love exists and does not cease desiring to gather together and make live all loves, by nourishing them in the true Love, that of Jesus.
Now St. Francis has the gift of acquainting us with the presence of Jesus, a presence not only interior, but cosmic, universal, concrete and real. “No, this is not imagination, but a real truth, since even when we do not see Him, so it is that from on high he considers us. St. Stephen saw Him, in this way at the time of his martyrdom…”[48]
It is necessary, therefore, that our faith in love rejoin that Faith in the Love Incarnate by living now his life, that which we one day desire to live.
Now it is not love, Himself, which enlivens our Faith and gives it not only the eyes, but a heart capable of loving as He loves now, and not only as he loved formerly.
Rejoice in the Resurrection, but not only at Easter, because for anyone who loves, it is always Springtime. It is, in this way, that all of life is a Chant and Praise of the God of Love.
(e) The Action of Grace: What is the Eucharist, if not the possibility of loving Jesus here and of loving him intimately? “Love desires the secret” …, but a little afterwards it cannot refrain from radiating as delivered from all human respect.
Twice the mystery of the Eucharist is evoked in the Canticle, but it is likewise strongly present in the mystical explanation of “eating and drinking.” Thus, the Sacrament is an act of Union, a sign of love and a participation in the very mystery of life, of nourishment, and of vital energy.
The Eucharist is an Action of Grace because, St. Francis de Sales tells us it is already like a “kiss” by which “we receive the blood of the Saviour in his flesh and his flesh in his blood… into our corporal mouth,” and he specifies, “so that we might know that in this way it applies to us his divine Essence in the Eternal Banquet of Glory.” Therefore, it is an action of grace and joyous “thanks” for Love, for by the Eucharist we receive a “deposit” of union in fullness.
But, it is not, of course, a question only of “personal” happiness, since in the Sacrament is found implied, without separation, the very mystery of Love in its effort of union and reunion, in its teaching about the very mystery of the Church: He gives himself to me because he wants to give himself to everyone, and the universal abundance of the Eucharistic communion is a function of the depth of its interior intensity. Will love be capable of making us understand the truth of this paradox?
(f) Richness of Love: Without entering into the polemic, the Canticle of Canticles poses a problem to everyone which can shock and offend us. Was St. Francis so naïve, and should we merely excuse him? This would, indeed, be very easy and comfortable to do. No, the “Canticle” is and will remain a chant of love, a chant of human love in which the ardour, force and lyric poetry are found entirely oriented towards God.
Does the Canticle wish to preserve love? Or is it only a pleasing pretext in order to express curious, mystical experiences? Let us refrain from believing that it would be necessary to doubt the value of everything which can awaken us to the knowledge of God. for, as Francis de Sales tells us, not only does love possess the “same properties” in God as in man, but all our gestures, everything which lives and expresses itself, always lives and expresses itself beyond its immediate motivation, towards God.
Likewise, love has another richness, (for) when it is lived fully, it always brings us back to the origin as to the end, so that all our life is preserved from corruption, from worry, and from mortal indifference.
Therefore, the mystery of the “Canticle of Canticles” successfully catches up with the person who can find true happiness even in the condition of not considering or tasting real pleasure, even in renouncing it: man has never been made for himself, but (only) in order to give himself.
That is why love and death resemble each other, almost as strongly as they oppose each other, and why in every ecstasy death is there as is love. And if we speak of the “kiss of death,” we cannot forget the odious kiss of Judas which killed Christ. It is love, therefore, which expresses the kiss and not the reverse.
But since the Canticle has magnificently chanted that love is stronger than death, Christ Jesus, by his resurrection, has come to bring us true Love, the Love stronger than Death.
(g) Conclusion: Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of the Canticle of Canticles such is the point which this Salesian commentary poses, not only to exegetes, but likewise to theologians. It is by citing these words of the “Canticles” that Francis de Sales began his Treatise on the Love of God: “so that one may know that all the doctrine which she (the Church) announces consists of sacred dilection” – that is, of Love.
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[1] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 5, p. 277. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 11, Chapter 11.
[2] E.J. Lajeunie, St. Francois de Sales: l’homme, la pensee, l’action (Paris: Guy Victor), Vol. 1, pp. 137-138.
[3] Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 164. (Genebrard published his commentary in Paris in 1585, Apud Aegidum Gorbinum, sub signo Spei, e regione Collegi Cameracensis).
[4] Lajeunie, op. cit., p. 138.
[5] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p.10.
[6] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p.13.
[7] Lemaire, Henri. Les Images chez St. Francois de Sales, (Paris: Nizet, 1962, pp. 340. cf. “parfum”
[8] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p.18.
[9] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p. 28.
[10] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p. 28. cf. Jn. 14:23
[11] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p. 35.
[12] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p. 37.
[13] Oeuvres, Tome XXVI, p. 18. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse I, p. 5.
[14] Oeuvres, Tome XXVI, p. 21. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse II, p. 9.
[15] Oeuvres, Tome XXII, p. 104.
[16] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome XXVI, p. 14. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), preface, xvii.
[17] oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 20. Treatise on the Love of God, preface.
[18] oeuvres, Tome I, p. 44.
[19] oeuvres, Tome XXVI, p. 14. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, preface, xiii. (there is without doubt the insistence and deliberate choice for an affective and imaginative style. Cf. Oeuvres, Tome XV, p. 120, remarks to a theologian). On the Virgin Mary, cf. Oeuvres, Tome X, p. 14.
[20] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 73. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, chapter 14.
[21] Oeuvres, Tome XIII, p. 62.
[22] Oeuvres, Tome XV. p. 17.
[23] Oeuvres, Tome XVII, p. 116.
[24] Lemaire, Henri. Les Images chez St. Francois de Sales, (Paris: Nizet, 1962, p. 29.
[25] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 392. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 7.
[26] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 395. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 7.
[27] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 394. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 7.
[28] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 396. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 7.
[29] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 408. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, chapter 3.
[30] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 415. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 13.
[31] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 431. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, chapter 12.
[32] Ejaculatory prayers are prayers in forms of arrows (from jaculum meaning “fleche”) which go to the heart; flights of the heart. Cf. the essential point in Oeuvres, Tome III, pp. 73, 94, 100; Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, Chapter 2, Chapter 13. Here it is a matter of the fundamental Salesian teaching on prayer.
[33] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 487. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 12, chapter 9.
[34] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 50. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, chapter 18.
[35] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 55. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, chapter 10.
[36] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 61. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, chapter 10.
[37] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 347. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 13.
[38] Oeuvres, Tome IX, p. 422. cf. Gen. 49:26.
[39] Oeuvres, Tome X, p. 44.
[40] Oeuvres, Tome IX, p. 7.
[41] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 139. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, chapter 16.
[42] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 331. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 8.
[43] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 304. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 1.
[44] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 392. cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, chapter 7.
[45] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 278. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, chapter 7.
[46] Oeuvres, Tome IV, p. 188. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, chapter 6.
[47] Oeuvres, Tome V, p. 324. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 12, chapter 3.
[48] Oeuvres, Tome III, p. 76. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, Chapter 2.
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