The justified here begins to praise herself and says, “I am the flower of the field” because she was not spread abroad throughout the earth. For, behold, I am a flower to all men through faith in you.
He says himself, “I am a flower of the field, a lily of the valleys, as a lily among brambles.” Consider, then, another place in which the Lord likes to reside, and not only one place but many. He says, “I am a flower of the field,” because he often visits the open simplicity of a pure mind;“and the lily of the valleys,” for Christ is the bloom of lowliness, not of luxury, voluptuousness, of lasciviousness, but the flower of simplicity and lowliness. “A lily among brambles” as the flower of a good odor is sure to grow in the midst of hard labors and heartfelt sorrow (since God is pleased with a contrite heart).
This flower has become fruit that we might eat it, that we might consume its flesh. Would you like to know what this fruit is? A Virgin from a virgin, the Lord from the handmaid, God from man, Son from mother, fruit from earth. Listen to what the fruit itself says: “Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot bring forth much fruit.”
[Christ] himself says in the Song of Songs, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley.” Our rose is the destruction of death, and [that rose] died that death itself might die in his dying.
It is necessary to understand that the valleys where the bride is a lily, as she is called, are comparable to these ravines. For in distinguishing herself in the midst of that which is called “hollow” by reason of actions or thoughts that are base, she who is adorned magnificently stands resplendent among them as a lily. It is also because at the age to come she is going to pass judgment on such souls by comparison with the perfection of her own deeds even though by nature she holds no advantage over them, just as the inhabitants of Nineveh and the Queen of the South pass judgment upon a generation that is faithless. Besides the fact that she became as a lily in the valleys where nothing was possible before, these valleys may have begun to bear fruit out of envy for the beauty of her flower, receiving seeds from the sower who went out to sow, … like a land rich and good that causes the seed to multiply. …If the valleys, because they are low, fallow and many in number, designate the Gentiles who have come to knowledge after being in the depths of impiety, then the field may designate Israel made level8 by the teachings of the prophets and the law in order to be ready for cultivation.… For the plow of the cross has not yet opened up the earth: that plow to which the Savior has yoked the apostles like oxen in sending them out to cultivate two-by-two. Nor has the land yet been moistened by the blood of the Savior, being sterile and infertile.
I was “a flower of the countryside,” that is, I assumed an earthly body and sprang from the earth, being eternal and exalted or, rather, immeasurable. I became “a lily” not of mountains or hills, or simply of the countryside, but of “valleys”: I brought not only the good news of salvation to the living but also resurrection to the dead, descending to the lower parts of the earth to fill everything. This is the reason he calls himself “a flower of the countryside, a lily of the valleys,” that is, the dead: to them he both promised and brought into effect a return to life.
I am the flower of the field: Christ professes himself the flower of mankind, yea, the Lord of all creatures: and, ver. 2, declares the excellence of his spouse, the true church above all other societies, which are to be considered as thorns.
[AD 235] Hippolytus of Rome on Song of Solomon 2:1