SOURCE: Moritz, Theresa. “The Church as Bride in Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs.” In The Chimaera of His Age: Studies of Bernard of Clairvaux; Studies in Medieval Cistercian History V, edited by E. Rozanne Elder and John R. Sommerfeldt, pp. 3-11. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1980.

In the following essay, Moritz examines Bernard's ninth sermon in his Sermons on the Song of Songs and argues that it reflects Bernard''s conviction that the Church is Christ's true bride.

In the Sermons on the Song of Songs, Bernard of Clairvaux identifies the Bride, whose marriage the Song celebrates, as a figure both for the Church and for the individual soul. Bernard's ‘spiritual’ application of the text to the union of Christ and the Church usually remains of secondary importance to modern scholars,¹ because they regard the Sermons as a program for the soul's achievement of private, contemplative...