Cantica Canticorum: Eighty-Six Sermons on the Song of Solomon

on the title of the book: * the song of songs, which is Solomon’s/

O you, brethren, it is needful to speak of other truths than to those persons who are of the world; or, at least, to speak of them in a different manner. To them, if a preacher wishes to observe the order of teaching which the Apostle has prescribed (i Cor. iii. 2), milk, not meat, is to be given. He himself teaches us, by his own example, to offer more solid nourishment to such as are spiritual, as when he says: * We speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ‘And also: ‘We speak wisdom among them that are perfect’ (1 Cor. ii. 13, 6), such as I trust that you, my brethren, are; unless it is in vain that you have been long occupied in the study of heavenly things, in meditating upon the law of God day and night, and in training yourselves to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Prepare, therefore, to be nourished, not with milk, but with bread. There is bread in [these words of] Solomon, and that white and delicate; I mean in this book which is called ‘The Song of Songs.’ Let us set it before us, and break it according to our need.