45. It loves to grow in gardens, in which
Susanna, while walking, found it, and was ready to die rather than it
should be violated. But what is meant by the gardens He Himself
points out, saying: “A garden enclosed is My sister, My
spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed;” Cant.
iv. 12. because in gardens of this kind the
water of the pure fountain shines, reflecting the features of the image
of God, lest its streams mingled with mud from the wallowing places of
spiritual wild beasts should be polluted. For this reason, too,
that modesty of virgins fenced in by the wall of the Spirit is enclosed
lest it should lie open to be plundered. And so as a garden
inaccessible from without smells of the violet, is scented with the
olive, and is resplendent with the rose, that religion may increase in
the vine, peace in the olive, and the modesty of consecrated virginity
in the rose. This is the odour of which the patriarch Jacob smelt
when he heard his father say: “See the smell of my son is
as the smell of a field which is full.” Gen. xxvii. 27. For although the field of the holy
patriarch was full of almost all fruits, the other brought forth its
crops with greater labour, the latter flowers.