Aponius

In his own words on Song of Solomon

• Song of Solomon 2:5

  The love of eternal life sprouts from the love of knowledge, as does the ability to endure persecution from the love of eternal life, and the virtue of fortitude from persecution, and the perfected glory of martyrdom from fortitude.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 3:44

• Song of Solomon 2:17

  In this verse, the Lord's resurrection is taught and foretold. Just as the apostles were afraid without him, terrorized by the treachery of the Jews, so also is the soul, which, in a certain sense, is naked and unarmed without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, terrorized by the treachery of demons.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 5:4

• Song of Solomon 3:6-7

  Thus he was crowned by the blessed mother who begot him according to the flesh, Christ the King, the true Solomon. This was the day of his wedding and the day of gladness of heart, when the immaculate was joined to the stained. Our Lord Jesus Christ made the church immaculate by the touch of his body and blood and rendered it most beautiful, cleansed from every stain of sin by the most holy washing of baptism, with every wrinkle of heretical inclination wiped away by the salve of doctrine.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 5:48

• Song of Solomon 4:1

  Having been cleansed from every habit of the vices of the flesh and converted to the one true God from the worship of a multitude of shameful gods, Christ the Lord praises the twin beauty of the church of the Gentiles, both body and soul. For the first beauty of the soul is that it would know its Creator, second that it would know itself, the kind of thing it is or the reason for which it was created.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 6:1

• Song of Solomon 4:16

  By exalting the kingdom of the north above all kingdoms of the world, therefore, Almighty God commands what is [now] the kingdom of the Romans to arise. By inspiring prophets from the south, by revealing his Christ through a Virgin, whom the prophets of the south had celebrated as proceeding from a dense and intact body (as the prophet Habakkuk said, "God will come from the south," that is, the Word of the Father, and "the holy one from a mountain shadowy and dense," which refers to the assumed humanity), paradise begins to be redolent with fragrances of the deaths of the martyrs, precious and wonderful aromas, and to give great praise to the Lord, the King of heaven, and to all the heavenly host, as the prophet predicted: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 7:49

• Song of Solomon 5:2

  "I sleep and my heart remains awake." The divine Word, who is to be understood here under the title of the heart, never sleeps or falls asleep while hidden within the veil of the flesh, but he carries the sleeper. He explains this in a deeply mysterious way to the friends and beloveds who believe in him and whom he invites to partake of the joy of human salvation. [He does this] lest, while they see him detained in the sleep of death according to his humanity, they are deprived of the faith through which they see in him a majesty that is full and ever watchful. I am asleep to you through bodily absence, he says, but I am awake in heart by never withdrawing the presence of my deity from you.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 7:59

• Song of Solomon 5:10

  He is white because he is the light of the world, the Sun of righteousness "who enlightens everyone entering the world," according to John the Evangelist and the preaching of the prophets. He is red because he would walk on earth in the fleshly clothing derived from the Virgin Mary, a miracle to be offered through angels by rising to heaven, as was said through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah to those who asked him, "Why is your apparel red?"

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 8:34

• Song of Solomon 6:8

  In the present verse, therefore, three orders of merit are indicated to be in the church according to the following enigma. First, clearly, there are teachers, living an immaculate life. Second, there are the teachable, who imitate the lives of their teachers and burn with great desire to understand the content of the teaching and to distinguish sound doctrine from unsound doctrine. But the third order is that of maidens, for whom only belief in the one God helps toward salvation, who are not yet worthy to be joined to the sacred number. Although all of them may have the Word of the Father as King, he who was with the Father in the beginning and always remains God in the Father, the dignity of merit nevertheless escapes them.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 9:21

• Song of Solomon 6:10

  By clinging continually to God the Word, she is made wholly on fire, like a burning coal. Also like a burning coal among a number of dead coals, when joined to the others, she ignites them all. Thus, in the midst of the souls of the dead [destined] for eternal life, she alone, the singular chosen one, vivifies all souls who believe in her, makes them like herself, and draws them to her beauty. Nevertheless, uniquely splendid like the moon, perfect in heaven among the stars, she in their midst is proven to glow with everlasting beauty more than all others. Chosen like the sun in paternal majesty among all the powers of the heavenly hosts, she is proclaimed as one to be admired by all, as the following verse teaches: "The maidens saw her and called her most blessed; queens and concubines also praised her."

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 9:30

• Song of Solomon 7:1

  In every way, then, [the beauty of her feet] seems to me to be understood to follow the first fruits of praise in this people who are imitators of the footsteps of those who follow Christ to heaven by dying in the [steps of the] blessed prince of the apostles. Thus does this people, through its earthly works in the example of blessed Peter, by mortifying its flesh, migrate to heaven, just as it also comes into the light from the shadows of ignorance by following Christ the Head.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 10:4-5

• Song of Solomon 8:8

  This sister is undoubtedly understood to be the Jewish people (a people that we said was converted to the God of heaven in the final days), who are led out of the prophesied desert before the end of the world. [They are]"ascending from the desert" of unbelief, where God is not worshiped, "leaning upon" the Word of God, "flowing with delights," known by faith in the indivisible Trinity, without which not only are there no delights, but the soul incurs danger of starvation. She is a sister because she descended from the seed of Abraham, from whom came Christ according to the flesh and the church according to faith, inasmuch as Abraham would be established by God as a father to the nations. And from these nations comes the church, which is made one body through faith in Christ, just as the soul of Christ is proven to be made one person with the Word, to whom the Word of God the Father united himself. It is the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ which is now understood to say, with pious affection for this very people, "Our sister is little and has no breasts."

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 12:29

• Song of Solomon 8:14

  By saying "Flee, my beloved," Christ makes heard the voice that he desires to hear. Through this, it is confessed that he alone on the earth, alone among all humankind (true man, but born in an ineffable manner), alone found to be a foreigner and pilgrim, alone fleeing the sordid lifestyle of humanity, alone ascending upon the prophesied "mountains of spices," he alone in every way is made Lord of heaven and earth. It shows that he alone fled both interior and exterior sin. He alone, who would bind the devil, fugitive of heaven, is himself a fugitive of the earth in the midst of a perverse and depraved nation.

  EXPOSITION OF SONG OF SONGS 12:83