A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
All Commentaries on Song of Songs 4:12 Go To Song of Songs 4
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
This account can be even better read as an allegory of the church, prophetical of what was to happen in the future. Thus the garden is the church itself, as we can see from the Canticle of Canticles; the four rivers are the four Gospels; the fruit-bearing trees are the saints, as the fruits are their works; and the tree of life is, of course, the Saint of saints, Christ.
