Saint Thomas Aquinas, reader of the Song of Songs

Thomas Aquinas' (1225-1274) scriptural commentaries, sermons and other works include many references to the Song of Songs, an inspired poem that he sees as a prophecy celebrating the marriage of Jesus Christ and the Church. The verses relating to the beloved allow him to evoke the physical and moral perfections of Christ and to illustrate the "mysteries" of his life. As for the figure of the beloved, it simultaneously refers to the Church, to the Virgin Mary, all beautiful and spotless, and to each faithful soul, for whom the Song marks the culmination of a spiritual journey that culminates in perfect charity.

Through his use of the quotations from the Song, Saint Thomas reveals something of his "spirituality": the attention to the emotional dimension, in love with the spiritual life, more marked than one might think in a theologian sometimes considered too "intellectual"; the intimate link between perfect charity, contemplation and preaching, and an omnipresent tension towards full communion in Heaven.

A former student of the ENS, a Dominican, Serge-Thomas Bonino is currently Secretary General of the International Theological Commission in Rome, Consultant at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, President of the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Angelicum. He is the author of God, the One Who Is (De Deo ut uno) and Angels and Demons.