BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX’S READING OF THE SONG OF SONGS 2:4–5: WOUNDED BY LOVE – PUTTING ORDER IN LOVE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/3476Abstract
Before focusing on the two important verses, this article first considers Bernard’s monastic approach to the reading of the Song of Songs and the sources of this approach in Origen’s commentary and sermons. Bernard like Origen presupposes that the main theme of the book is the transformation of the readers into deeper love. The image of “being wounded by love†and the theme of the “ordering of love†are taken from tradition and Bernard presents these in his own way in view of his primary audience, which are the monks of his monastery. This growth in love presupposes the self-knowledge of having been created in the image and likeness of God by which human perfection was seen as a sharing in God’s way of seeing and relating: to oneself, to one’s neighbours, and to the whole of created reality.
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