I loved her, and sought her out from my youth, I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.
Read Chapter 8
Andrew of Crete
AD 726
Foreseeing you, the prophet Isaiah exclaimed by divine inspiration, "See, the virgin will be with child." And, "The root of Jesse will be raised." And, "Blessed is the root of Jesse." And, "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, a shoot will grow from his roots." Because of you the great Ezekiel proclaimed, "Here is the door toward the east. The door will be closed, and no one may enter by it. Only the Lord God will enter and leave by it, and the door will remain closed." Prophesying of you, the beloved man calls you a mountain, saying, "A stone taken from you, without human hands," hewn but not cut, removed but not split by the assumption of our humanity. You are the greatness of that awesome economy "into which angels desire to look." You are the beautiful dwelling of the descent of God, the land truly desired. In fact, "the king desired the glory of your beauty" and was enamored with the riches of your virginity: he made his dwelling in you, "and dwelled among us" and through...
"Your wife like a fertile vine within your home, and your sons like olive plants around your table." Once again the literal sense must be avoided here. We see in fact that many very holy men have neither wife nor sons and that the wicked have all that. How then can this part of the blessing be applied, which you know often does not pertain to the good but to the bad? "Wife" has the sense of sister. For this reason, as the wife of the blessed man one must understand wisdom, as Solomon says, "Who sought to take her as a wife." And elsewhere, "Love her, and she will watch over you. Do not abandon her, and she will care for you." She is therefore the wife of the righteous, who captivates her husband with a chaste embrace. - "Explanation of the Psalms 127.3"
There is wisdom and there is wisdom. The apostle knew various kinds: that of which he spoke when he said, "The world does not know God with the wisdom of God." And that which he spoke of saying, "God condemned as foolishness the wisdom of the world," or when he said that he spoke "not with the power of the flesh but by the power of God." Solomon, by contrast, spoke of that wisdom of whose charm he was enamored and that he made his bride (Job asked himself, "Where can she be found, in what place of wisdom?"). But did he speak of that "despised wisdom of the poor person," of the "wisdom guided by God" or of the "Wisdom of the Father, the only-begotten"? - "Ancoratus 42.7"
Since, according to the Gospel, the Lord is the bridegroom and, according to John, he has a bride, must we think in terms of earthly, bodily spouses? Certainly not. But by this use of language we are taught that he is the one who has been promised to the nations. By the Father"s work, the inheritance of the church has been espoused to him, through the assumption of the body that he took from the Virgin. But, to learn what we should understand by the designation "bride," we must examine closely what is said elsewhere regarding the term. For example, Solomon says, "I sought to take wisdom as my bride." And because he seeks a bride, he wants her to be rich, and he recounts the benefits of his bride, saying, "She manifests her nobility in a life of communion with God, because the Lord of the universe loved her." And "if one desires wide experience, she knows what is past and infers what is to come." And further, "A strong woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond precious stones." All o...
