1.7. “If you do not know yourself, you beautiful one among women, go out and
follow the tracks of the flocks; graze your young goats close to the tents of
the shepherds.”
. . .
What? Whence did you acquire that beauty so that you are fairest of
women? From faith and humility or from the works of the law? Not from faith and
humility? For “blessed is the one who believed,” says that prophetess, your relative
Elizabeth, filled with joy and exulting in the Holy Spirit with an infant in
her womb: “Blessed,” she says, “is the one who believed that what she was told
by the Lord will be fulfilled” [Lk 1.45]. She did not say, Blessed is the one
who was found in the works of the law. Behold the beatitude from faith. You
also sang at once, “Because he regarded the humility of his servant, behold,
because of this all the generations will call me blessed” [Lk 1.48]. Behold the
beatitude from humility. Therefore, form faith and humility. Indeed, your
entire beauty is faith and humility, and this is “the place of my rest” [Is 66.1,
Acts 7.49]. (Rupert of Deutz, Commentary on the Song of Songs, First Book [trans.
Jieon Kim and Vittorio Hösle; The Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation
22 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2024], 67)
