What was the purpose of Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles?

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St. Bernard of Clairvaux St. Bernard of Clairvaux, detail of an altarpiece by the Florentine School, early 15th century; in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles served as the primary vehicle for his spiritual doctrine, which emphasized that the knowledge of God is inextricably linked to the experience of divine love. Rather than seeking God through the rationalistic disputations of Scholasticism, which Bernard criticized as "scandalous curiosity," he argued that one must live in a "school of charity" to truly understand the divine.1

The sermons, often described as "sweet as honey"—earning him the title doctor mellifluus—functioned as a "love song supreme." They were intended to teach that "the Father is never fully known if He is not loved perfectly." By asserting that the measure of love for God is to "love without measure," Bernard provided a foundational guide for his followers to pursue God through prayer and devotion rather than through intellectual argument.1