7:9. Thy throat like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and
for his lips and his teeth to ruminate.
7:10. I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me.
7:11. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in
the villages.
7:12. Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard
flourish, if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruits, if the
pomegranates flourish: there will I give thee my breasts.
7:13. The mandrakes give a smell. In our gates are all fruits: the new
and the old, my beloved, I have kept for thee.
Canticle of Canticles Chapter 8
The love of the church to Christ: his love to her.
8:1. Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of
my mother, that I may find thee without, and kiss thee, and now no man
may despise me?
8:2. I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother's house:
there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine
and new wine of my pomegranates.
8:3. His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.
His left hand, etc. . .Words of the church to Christ. His left hand,
signifying the Old Testament, and his right hand, the New.
8:4. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor
awake my love till she please.
8:5. Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights,
leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there
thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.
Who is this, etc. . .The angels with admiration behold the Gentiles
converted to the faith: coming up from the desert, that is, coming from
heathenism and false worship: flowing with delights, that is, abounding
with good works which are pleasing to God: leaning on her beloved, on
the promise of Christ to his Church, that the gates of hell should not
prevail against it; and supported by his grace conferred by the
sacraments. Under the apple tree I raised thee up; that is, that Christ
redeemed the Gentiles at the foot of the cross, where the synagogue of
the Jews (the mother church) was corrupted by their denying him, and
crucifying him.
8:6. Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love
is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are
fire and flames.
8:7. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown
it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he
shall despise it as nothing.
8:8. Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our
sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?
Our sister is little, etc. . .Mystically signifies the Jews, who are to
be spoken to: that is, converted towards the end of the world: and then
shall become a wall, that is, a part of the building, the church of
Christ.
8:9. If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she
be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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