Hippolytus, Origen, and Ambrose on the Bridal Couple of
the Song of Songs
Disagreement over the appropriateness of allegorical interpretation is perhaps nowhere more pronounced than when it comes to the Song of Songs. Few contemporary biblical scholars advocate for an allegorical reading of this book.1 Yet the earlier tradition was virtually unanimous on the need for an allegorical reading of the Song of Songs. As Tremper Longman—who himself understands the Song strictly as an anthology of love poems—acknowledges, “No matter what the particular brand, the evidence is overwhelming that the dominant interpretative approach to the Song up to the mid-nineteenth century was allegorical.”2 The only obvious exception in the patristic period was Antiochene theologian Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350-428), who argued that in the Song of Songs Solomon celebrated his relationship with an Egyptian bride, and who for that reason insisted that the book was unworthy of being included in the canon.3
In modernity, however, allegorical readings of the Song have come to be viewed with suspicion and, in some cases, derision. William Phipps, for example, comments: “It is one of the pranks of history that a poem so obviously about hungry passion has caused so much perplexity and has provoked such a plethora of bizarre interpretations.”4 And Tremper Longman comes to the harsh judgment: “The Song of Songs is an unfortunate example of the tendency to use theology/philosophy to skew the interpretation of a text.”5 These examples could easily be multiplied, and today’s insistence on a strictly historical reading of the Song is almost as universal as the premodern agreement on allegorical interpretation once used to be. It is probably fair to say that by defending an allegorical reading of the Song of Songs, a contemporary exegete would place himself outside the accepted boundaries of the guild of biblical scholarship.
While recent interest in theological exegesis may be changing attitudes here and there, many continue to find the insistence on the “plain sense” of the text obvious and the alternative patently ludicrous.
Throughout this book, we’ve looked at objections to patristic exegesis, much of it focused on the allegorical approach common among the church fathers. The case of the Song of Songs, however, is particularly noteworthy. The objection here is not just that allegory arbitrarily twists the original meaning of the text but also that it denies the intrinsic goodness of the body and of sexuality. The denial of the body for the sake of the soul, and of earthly pleasures for the sake of heavenly joy, ties in directly, so it is thought, with the rejection of a literal reading of the Song in favor of a spiritual reading. In other words, the assumption is that a fundamental dualism affects attitudes toward sexuality as well as the interpretive stance vis-a-vis the Song of Songs.
Longman, for instance, claims that the Song’s canonical significance depends on the disavowal of earlier dichotomous readings: “Once the false dichotomy between body and spirit is rejected, it becomes clear why such a book might be found in the canon. God loves his human creatures as whole people, not just as temporarily embodied spirits. Love is a powerful emotion and sexuality a large part of the human experience, bringing great joy and pain. The book’s affirmations and warnings about love express God’s concern for his people.”6 At stake in a literal interpretation of the Song of Songs, according to Longman, is the genuine affirmation of temporal love and sexuality. On this view, the allegorizing of the Song is particularly egregious inasmuch as it warps the meaning of the Song into its opposite: a rejection of the love and sexuality that are celebrated therein.
In one important respect, the objection to allegorical readings of the Song makes a valid and important point: the way we approach interpretation (including but not only that of the Song of Songs) often says a great deal about how we view the body and sexuality, and vice versa. And a dichotomy between body and spirit—whether physically or hermeneutically—would indeed be problematic. But such a dichotomy can take different forms, since it is not just a neglect of the body in favor of the spirit that is problematic; equally dubious would be a materialist focus on the body at the expense of the spirit. On a sacramental view of reality, visible things point to and make present invisible things. The two interpenetrate. So, whether we’re dealing with a “spiritualist” or a “materialist” dichotomy, in either case we have lost sight of the sacramental mindset that I am defending in this book. In this regard, it bears pointing out that most modern interpretations settle for a strictly historical reading of the Song, and it is fair to ask whether this doesn’t constitute a lapse into the mirror
opposite of the dichotomy that has allegedly stained most of the Christian tradition.
It is not my purpose, however, to turn the tables on contemporary detractors of spiritual readings of the Song of Songs. My aim in this chapter is a more limited and defensive one: I simply wish to dispute the claim that it is escapism—a rejection of the physical or textual body—that drove the allegorical exegesis of the Song of Songs in the Christian tradition. At a fundamental level, patristic readings of the Song were sacramental. This doesn’t mean that the history of interpretation of the Song is without its problems, perhaps even at times problems of a dichotomous character; it is simply to say that by and large it is not such dichotomizing but rather a sacramental approach that shaped the impetus for and practice of the allegorizing of the Song of Songs.
In order to make this argument, I will focus on the exegesis of three patristic theologians: Hippolytus of Rome, Origen of Alexandria, and Ambrose of Milan. Considering the popularity of the Song of Songs in the early church, this is a relatively limited overview, but it will nonetheless enable us to draw several conclusions. First, there is a clear development from Hippolytus via Origen to Ambrose. While Hippolytus’s ecclesial reading of the Song interpreted the bride as the church, Origen complemented this reading with a personal interpretation that took the bride to be the soul. Ambrose, accepting both of these approaches —though more enamored with the latter than the former—added his own distinct ascetic emphasis.
Second, patristic allegorizing of the Song was profoundly shaped by Jewish exegesis and took its starting point in Old Testament nuptial metaphors for the relationship between God and Israel. As a result, the interpretations of Hippolytus and of Origen—and to some extent also of Ambrose—were grounded in the historical narrative of salvation. That is to say, they located the deeper or allegorical meaning of the Song within the historical and ecclesial realities of Israel and the church. None of these authors used allegory as a way to avoid God’s historical dealings with his people in history.
Third, even the personal readings of the Song, certainly in Origen (but, we will see, in some way even in Ambrose), cannot be said simply to result from overzealous asceticism. Origen shunned almost all moralizing when it came to the Song of Songs and avoided all discussion of physical virginity and of sexual purity. To be sure, he did refuse to treat sexuality and the body as ultimate, insisting that both the erotic “letter” of the text and the physical body serve their own proper function inasmuch as they bring the soul to spiritual union with Christ. On the whole, Origen’s personal allegorizing of the Song was, theologically, the almost inevitable by-product of an ecclesial interpretation.
Finally, though the early Ambrose used the Song of Songs to promote the consecration of virgins, and though matters of personal morality and asceticism were important to him, his use of the Song of Songs was nonetheless remarkably sacramental. It is precisely Ambrose’s much-criticized moralizing that allowed him to link the erotic language of the Song to questions surrounding sexuality and virginity. Also, Ambrose wasn’t interested in virginity just for its own sake: he regarded it as symbolic of the church’s purity, and he saw the bride’s desire for her groom as coming to fulfillment in the church’s sacraments. What is more, in a number of instances the bishop’s use of the Song’s erotic imagery was rather daring, and as such it grounded the spiritual relationship between Christ and the soul within the actual sensuous language of the text.
In order to make this study somewhat manageable, I will give particular attention to the opening verses (1:1-6), where the groom’s kisses, breasts, and ointment, as well as the bride’s being “black and beautiful” were occasion for much patristic speculation.7 Exegetical expositions of this passage took a variety of forms. Hippolytus’s Commentary on the Song was probably in origin a set of three Easter sermons. Origen’s surviving work consists of two homilies along with the first three books of a ten-book commentary on the Song of Songs.
Saint Ambrose, while he doesn’t offer a full-fledged commentary on the Song of Songs, does refer to it repeatedly in his early books Concerning Virgins and On Virginity, though we need to keep in mind that these are not really works on the Song of Songs per se. By contrast, his work Isaac, or the Soul—which in origin was likely a series of Easter sermons—purports to give an explanation of Genesis 24, but turns out to be a fairly detailed interpretation of the Song of Songs. Ambrose again returns to the Song later in life with his Homilies on Psalm 118 as well as with his mystagogical works, The Sacraments and The Mysteries, which are basically treatises on the typology of the liturgy, initially preached as homilies to newly baptized Christians at Easter. This variety of literary forms does not really present an obstacle to our investigation, but it is nonetheless good to keep in mind the genre of the various texts as we read along with Hippolytus, Origen, and Ambrose.
Saint Hippolytus of Rome (170-235) was one of the leading theologians and preachers of the third century.8 He wrote the first extant commentary on the Song of Songs and perhaps all of Scripture.9 His Commentary, which ends at Song 3:8, likely first served as an Easter homily—or perhaps a series of three
homilies10—in which Hippolytus introduced newly catechized and baptized believers to the mysteries of the Christian faith.11 After elaborating in his introduction on the three books of Solomon—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs—Hippolytus discusses the king’s wisdom, insisting that Solomon himself shouldn’t simply be identified with Wisdom, but that instead “the Word, who was himself Wisdom, was crying out through him.”12 Wisdom, brought forth by the Father before all creation, spoke the following words to Solomon:
“I, Wisdom, have lived with you as counsel and knowledge.”13 Hippolytus presents Solomon as Wisdom’s instrument.
The term “mystery” is an important one for Hippolytus. The original Greek, which likely has the word mysterion, is significant here.14 Hippolytus seems to indicate with it that the depth of meaning that once was hidden—also in the words of Solomon—has been revealed in Christ. Wisdom, Hippolytus points out with an appeal to 1 Corinthians 1:24, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.15 Solomon was “announcing (or foreshadowing) a mystery of revelation, from which it becomes understandable [that he] spoke what would later happen.”16 Hippolytus claims that this mystery was long “hidden,”17 but that it was already revealed typologically in the Song of Songs: “Now the Spirit sings what has been ordained in the church, since in various portions it reveals to us the economy in types which we must declare to those who are able to listen with faith.”18 This economy (oikonomia) of salvation is for Hippolytus a plan that God in his Wisdom (i.e., in Christ) has mapped out before time, a plan that the three books of Solomon reveal by means of certain types.
Because Saint Hippolytus takes his starting point in what we may call an “economy of types,” his approach to the Song of Songs is focused squarely on history. The redemptive economy is announced beforehand, in part through the Song, and it climaxes in Christ. Yancy Smith rightly comments, therefore, that for Hippolytus Scripture does not
simply reveal a series of eternal truths in allegory that could have been distilled apart from the history of God’s relationship with human beings. Rather, the history of God’s relationship with Israel in Scripture reveals God’s οίκ[ο]νομία (economy). . . . The mode of theologizing that Hippolytus follows depends upon a narrative in time and space that has to do with the redemption of physical beings of flesh and blood.19
As we will see, this affirmation of God’s economic unfolding of history—and, as Smith suggests, of embodiment—means that Hippolytus’s allegorical exegesis of the Song finds its telos or purpose in the incarnation and in the church.
This historical grounding of Hippolytus’s allegorizing shows up clearly when he explains Song 1:2 (“May he kiss me with kisses of his mouth, for your breasts
are better than wine”).20 Hippolytus immediately zeroes in on the longing of God’s people Israel for the coming of Christ. The imagery of the bride pleading for the bridegroom to kiss her is, according to Hippolytus, a “type” of “the people that entreats the heavenly Word to kiss them.”21 In other words, the Song depicts the Old Testament people of God as praying for the Christ to appear. As Gertrud Chappuzeau puts it, Hippolytus sees the plea for kisses as “a prayer of the people Israel that is waiting for the Messiah.”22 The Old Testament people of God are asking for the mouth of God to pour out the love and power of the Spirit. While the commandments, much like wine, gladden the heart (cf. Song 1:2), Hippolytus is convinced that the combination of law and gospel (the breasts of Christ) provides “eternal nourishment.”23
Here as elsewhere in his Commentary, explains Chappuzeau, Hippolytus appears concerned with the “facts of redemptive history. This is not about facts in the sense of objectively given facts, such as the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem or his entry into Jerusalem, but about the acts of God for the salvation of humanity, about the redemptive economy.”24 In other words, Hippolytus is after what I called earlier the “economy of types.” While it is obvious that Hippolytus allegorizes the text, he does so against the backdrop of the economy of salvation. So, when he looks for the deeper meaning of the Song, he finds it in the historical narrative of the Scriptures as it comes to its climax in Christ.25 The historical unfolding of the economy of salvation forms the framework for Hippolytus’s allegorical exegesis. For Hippolytus, therefore, history and spirit are closely connected. One finds the deeper meaning by searching within the history of salvation itself.
In a lengthy exposition on Song 1:3 (“and the scent of your ointment better than all spices; your name is an ointment poured out”), Hippolytus maintains that here the prayer of the previous verse has been answered: in the incarnation the Father has smashed open the vessel of oil. Now, therefore, the oil—the Word —spreads its aroma.26 What has apparently happened is that the Father has kissed his bride in the incarnation by opening his mouth (a “vessel of joy”) so that in the descent of Christ (the outpouring of the oil) the prophets are fulfilled.27 Hippolytus then presents a litany of Old Testament saints who already desired this anointing oil: Noah, Eber, Abraham, Jacob, Tamar, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, Joshua, David, Solomon, Daniel, the trio of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and Joseph and the Virgin Mary—they all longed for this anointing oil. The mystery of the incarnation, as the apex of salvation history, is at the center of Hippolytus’s attention.
It is certainly true that Hippolytus allegorizes the smallest details of verse 3. (He even mentions and allegorizes details that are not in the text, such as the
“vessel” containing the oil.) But his allegorizing has a clear logic: he determines the meaning of each of the details against the backdrop of the previous verse (Israel’s prayer for the coming of the Messiah) and with an eye to the salvation of God’s people in Christ. As Chappuzeau puts it: “The meaning isn’t derived point by point from the text; rather, a redemptive event is attributed in analogous fashion to the clear semantic contents of the image.”28 The result is that Hippolytus treats the biblical passage as a unit, with the flow of thought depicting the coming of the incarnate Word.
A variety of factors likely influenced Saint Hippolytus’s allegorical choices. First, we must keep in mind that the Old and New Testaments contain numerous nuptial references to God’s relationship with his people. In the Old Testament, passages such as Isaiah 50:1; 54:5-8; 62:4-5; Jeremiah 2:2-3; 3:1, 6-15; Ezekiel 16:1-63; and 23:1-48 all speak of God’s covenant with Israel as a love relationship between husband and wife, and they allude in different ways to Israel’s repeated betrayal of her husband and to God’s responses both of anger and of covenant renewal. And of course much of the book of Hosea is an extended reflection on the rocky marital relationship between God and Israel.29 New Testament passages such as Matthew 9:15; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:22-33; Revelation 19:7-9; 21:2, 9; and 22:17 build on this Old Testament imagery as they depict the relationship between Christ and his church as one between a bridegroom and his bride. It wouldn’t seem to require a great leap of the imagination for Hippolytus to depict the relationship between the groom and the bride in the Song of Songs in terms of the relationship between Christ and his church.
Second, Hippolytus may well have built on an earlier commentary on the Song of Songs written in the previous century by Irenaeus of Lyons.30 Saint Irenaeus engaged in exactly the kind of exegesis that we see at work in Hippolytus’s Commentary. Karl Shuve points out that it is Irenaeus who first established the typological pattern for reading Old Testament nuptial texts as prophetic witnesses to Christ’s redemption of his people.31 For example, in Against Heresies 5.9.4, Irenaeus speaks of the Holy Spirit delighting in the temple—in fleshly existence—as a bridegroom delights in his bride; and in 4.20.12, the bishop of Lyons refers to Hosea’s marriage to a prostitute and Moses’ marriage to an Ethiopian woman (Num. 12:10-14) as types of Christ’s relationship with the gentiles.32 Shuve makes the interesting point that Irenaeus, against gnostic denials of the goodness of the created order, treats particular, historical marriages in the Old Testament as types of the relationship between Christ and the church. Shuve comments that “far from being an attempt to repress the corporeal, sexual, and social dimensions of marriage, Irenaeus
develops this typological pattern to uphold the essential goodness of embodied existence.”33 Indeed, there is nothing either in Irenaeus or in Hippolytus that would suggest the early church started allegorizing the Song of Songs to escape its erotic contents.34
Third, Jewish exegetes also read the Song allegorically as describing the relationship between God and Israel, and they also did so in a historically conscious manner. Jonathan Kaplan has recently argued that in the first few centuries after Christ, rabbinic sages (the Tannaim) interpreted the Song of Songs by means of what he calls a “typological historicization.” He shows that the traditions of these early Jewish interpreters “correlated” the Song of Songs to a variety of events in Israel’s history. “What makes this process unique,” argues Kaplan, is that the Tannaitic midrashim “employed a form of figural interpretation of Song of Songs in order to achieve this correlation.”35 Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, a contemporary of Hippolytus, explained the bride’s plea for kisses as a petition from the people of Israel for God to speak with them and to give them his commandments, so that they might obey them.36 As we have seen, Hippolytus similarly saw God’s gift of the commandments reflected in the opening words of the Song, but he deemed the commandments to be mere wine compared to the milk that flows from the breasts of the groom. Rabbi Yohanan, who wrote perhaps several decades after Hippolytus—and did so in polemical dialogue with Origen37—saw the vessel with “ointment poured out” in Song 1:3 as a reference not to Christ but to Abraham. Abraham was like a vessel lying in a corner that could not spread its fragrance until someone placed it out in the open. The patriarch had to travel, so that his name might grow in reputation throughout the world.38 The only real difference between Rabbi Yohanan and Hippolytus is that the former read Abraham where the latter read Christ. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Hippolytus took his exegesis here directly from Jewish contemporary exegetes, though this is possible.39 It seems likely that there was a polemical cross-fertilization between Jews and Christians. The main point is that the kind of allegorical exegesis in which Hippolytus engaged was common also among rabbinic exegetes.
Controversy over the identity of the true people of God—the synagogue or the church—was important, therefore, as early Christians read the Song of Songs. And, as I already observed, this stands to reason against the backdrop of biblical depictions of the nuptial relationship between God and his people. This polemical context helps us understand why Hippolytus gives such detailed attention to the place of the Jews in God’s economy of salvation. He brings this out particularly in his reflections on Song 1:5-6, where the bride says she is “black and beautiful” and implores the daughters of Jerusalem not to gaze on her
because she is dark. Hippolytus depicts the bride here as the Jewish people boasting that despite being black from sin, they are “beautiful”—beloved by God.40 Hippolytus is convinced that the Jews deceive themselves with this claim. Israel doesn’t remain God’s beloved people regardless of her behavior. “Indeed, God is able from stones to raise up children for Abraham [cf. Matt. 3:9], so do not beguile yourself now about the promise of the patriarchs,” warns Hippolytus.41 Israel, so he argues, appears to have lost her status as the people of God.
Next, however, Hippolytus presents Israel in verse 6 as engaging in an act of repentance. She pleads with the church of the gentiles (the “daughters of Jerusalem”) not to look on her, as she admits that the sun’s rays have burnt her— meaning that Christ, as the “sun of righteousness” from Malachi 4:2, is looking down on her. Israel acknowledges that the prophets used to urge her to return to God and to guard her identity (“The sons of my mother fought in me. They made me a guard in the vineyards”42). And she admits she has failed to do so: “I have not guarded my vineyard.”43 By putting a confession of sin and an acknowledgment of Christ in the mouth of the Jews, Hippolytus upholds his claim that the church has become the true bride, while holding out hope that the Jews may be saved in and through Christ. Hippolytus doesn’t despise the Jews; he calls for their repentance: they must accept the new economy of salvation in Christ to be saved.44
For Hippolytus, the Song of Songs is about ecclesial identity: Who makes up the true bride, the true people of God? His answer is that it is those who confess their faith in Christ and accept the economy of salvation that he has introduced. Hippolytus makes his case by means of detailed allegorical exegesis, but it is an exegesis driven by questions about ecclesial identity and grounded in an “economy of types”—the biblical narrative as it centers on Christ and the mystery of salvation that he has brought about. Hippolytus displays no fear of the erotic language of the Song, nor does he allegorize because he dichotomizes body and soul or history and spirit. His approach is very much a sacramental one, in which the historical narrative of salvation is the locus where we can find the deeper meaning of the Song.
Origen of Alexandria’s (ca. 185-ca. 254) Two Homilies on the Canticle of Canticles (likely preached in 241 or 242) and his Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles (completed several years later) owe a great deal to Hippolytus,45
perhaps as the result of meeting him in Rome.46 Several of Origen’s exegetical choices are similar to those of Hippolytus. Origen’s allegorizing, like that of Hippolytus, takes place against the backdrop of the developing economy of salvation. Further, as I already mentioned, Origen has an ongoing dialogue with the synagogue, whose repentance he hopes will fulfill the Pauline promise of the salvation of all Israel (Rom. 11:26). As a result, the Alexandrian theologian treats historical realities as indispensable, focuses repeatedly on the ecclesiological implications of the Song, and respects (even if he treats it minimally) the literal meaning of the Song of Songs.
In no way does this turn Origen into a carbon copy of Hippolytus. Origen does caution against carnal readings that he believes can cause trouble to fleshly readers, and this warning is connected to the duality he posits between the outer, carnal man and the inner, spiritual man, between the bodily and the spiritual senses, and between visible and invisible things. This duality, however, is not a form of dualism. Origen’s acknowledgment of a duality does not separate the visible and the invisible in antithetical fashion.47 Instead, Origen believes that the body has a limited but positive role to play—though of course it can also hinder the anagogical or upward journey of the believer. He simply downplays the role of the physical body, since he is convinced that ascent to the perfection of union with Christ is much more important. In short, Origen’s allegorical reading of the Song works with a sacramental relation between history and spirit in which he aims to give each its proper due.
Origen is aware, I think, of the down-to-earth character of the Song of Songs as a literal marriage song. It is important to reaffirm this, particularly since J. Christopher King has recently argued that Origen reads the Song as a “total allegory,” by which he means that every aspect of the text is meant to be allegorical, “with no surplus whatsoever of a conventional, obvious, or corporeal meaning remaining behind.”48 The result, according to King, is a treatment of the Song of Songs as a “bodiless” or “asomatic” text, in which all duality between letter and spirit has disappeared.49 The reason for this, he thinks, is that Origen believed that in the Song the “letter” of “bodiless” texts becomes identical to its allegorical or figurative meaning. The coincidence of the two, explains King, “would seem to mean nothing less than that the literal meaning, which stands apart and inferior in most other Scriptures, is the spiritual meaning in the ‘bodiless’ text. . . . In the Song, it would appear that the ‘letter’ has been transformed into ‘spirit.’”50 According to King, Origen treated the Song as a “bodiless” text not because he wanted to protect the reader from the sensuality of the erotic text but because he regarded the Song “as nothing less than the spirit
of Scripture itself, revealed in its essential nature as Christ the Word’s eschatological song of nuptial love.”51
I am not quite persuaded.52 Origen did, in fact, intend to give the literal or historical understanding of the text its due, and the distinction he makes between the inner and the outer man—between body and soul—in the prologue of the Commentary shows that he meant to give a place to both (though obviously he regarded the latter as more important than the former). Origen explains that Scripture often calls “the members of the outer man by the same names as the parts and dispositions of the inner man,”53 and that this distinction corresponds to that between carnal and spiritual love.54 Similarly, when in book 3 he explains what allegorical exegesis does, he begins by distinguishing between visible and invisible things, and he then suggests that “the invisible things of God are understood by means of things that are visible.”55 Origen explains that earthly creatures are created after the likeness of “heavenly patterns.”56 Thus, we are taught by visible things to understand invisible things. What is true for metaphysics in general also holds for interpretation, so Origen continues. Historical events in Scripture have “the aspects and likeness of certain hidden things.”57 Of course, the hidden, heavenly things are much more important to Origen than the historical events. But it is through the latter that we arrive at the former. This is true for the Song of Songs no less than for other biblical texts.
So in what way does Origen acknowledge a distinct, literal meaning of the Song? In his Commentary he repeatedly distinguishes three meanings of a passage. The first is the “literal” (historicam intelligentiam)- or “surface” (historicum drama)59 meaning of the “simple story” (historiae speciem)— in its “dramatic form” (dramatis in modum composita historica).61 The second is the “inner meaning” (interior intellectus),- the “spiritual interpretation” (spiritalis intelligentia),- or “mystical exposition” (ordinem mysticum).64 Finally, Origen repeatedly refers to what he calls the “third explanation,” which speaks of the life of the soul.
To get an impression of how Origen treats the “surface” meaning of the text, let’s follow along with his understanding of the opening verse of the Song:
Reading it as a simple story, then, we see a bride appearing on the stage, having received for her betrothal and by way of dowry most fitting gifts from a most noble bridegroom; but, because the bridegroom delays his coming for so long, she, grieved with longing for his love, is pining at home and doing all she can to bring herself at last to see her spouse, and to enjoy his kisses. We understand further that the bride, seeing that she can neither be quit of her love, nor yet achieve what she desires, betakes herself to prayer and makes supplication to God, whom she knows to be her Bridegroom’s Father.65
Clearly, the drama in Origen’s epithalamium is hardly erotic, and Origen emphasizes the bride’s modesty by quoting 1 Timothy 2:8-9, saying that the bride makes her request by “‘lifting up holy hands without anger or contention,
. . . in decent apparel with modesty and sobriety,’ adorned with the worthiest of ornaments, such as befit a noble bride.”66 Further, Origen gives precious little space to the literal reading of the text. In fact, when he comments that the bride “betakes herself to prayer and makes supplication to God,” he almost lets the literal reading slide directly into the allegorical one.67 Still, he doesn’t ignore the former altogether. He deals with it up front because it is the indispensable ground for his (much more important) spiritual understanding of the text.
Origen’s “inner meaning” of the text—an exposition of the relationship between Christ and the church—is fairly similar to Hippolytus’s interpretation: the progress in salvation history is central in Origen’s allegorizing of the text. Although there are obvious differences—Origen pays much closer attention to the details of the text and is far more sophisticated than Hippolytus in drawing on other biblical passages to elucidate the Song—their underlying approaches are quite similar. Already in the prologue of his Commentary, when he discusses the title of the Song, Origen draws attention to the salvific history. He explains that “the songs in relation to which this song is called ‘The Song of Songs’” are introductory songs sung by the bridegroom’s friends—prophets and angels.68 There were six such songs: the song that Moses and the Israelites sang after crossing the Red Sea (Exod. 15:1-18); the song about the well that the Israelites sang after God provided water for them (Num. 21:17-18); Moses’ final song just before his death (Deut. 32:1-43); the song of Deborah and Barak (Judg. 5:2-31); David’s song of victory over his enemies (2 Sam. 22:2-51); and David’s song of thanksgiving after the ark was placed in the tent (1 Chron. 16:8-36).- The bride —and Origen sees her at this point both as the church and as the individual soul —must progress through each of the stages of these songs to arrive at the climactic Song of Songs itself. There the bride enters the nuptial chamber of the bridegroom, the heavenly reality itself.70
Origen recognizes in the bride who desires her groom’s kisses (Song 1:2) the church that “longs for union with Christ.”71 Angels have already given her the law as a betrothal gift, and the prophets have also already ministered to her.72 But the bride is no longer satisfied with God speaking to her through his servants; she desires that he
may come Himself, directly, and kiss me with the kisses of His mouth—that is to say, may pour the words of His mouth into mine, that I may hear Him speak Himself, and see Him teaching. The kisses are Christ’s, which He bestowed on His Church when at His coming, being present in the flesh, He in His own person spoke to her the words of faith and love and peace, according to the promise of Isaias
who, when sent beforehand to the Bride, had said: “Not a messenger, nor an angel, but the Lord Himself shall save us” [Isa. 33:22].Z3
Origen makes clear that the bride—here the Old Testament people of God— longed for the time when God himself would come to his people in Christ.
The next words of the Song, according to Origen, place us at a later point in history: here Christ has already come, and the church enjoys his breasts. The wine mentioned in the text stands for the teaching of the Law and the Prophets; the Savior’s breasts are better than this wine and conceal treasures (thesauri) of wisdom and knowledge (cf. Col. 2:3).- Origen carefully elucidates how it is that breasts can contain wisdom and knowledge: John in his Gospel uses the term “bosom” or “breast” when people recline at table as a way of referring to the ground principle of Jesus’ heart (John 13:23-25); furthermore, in Leviticus the “little breast of separation” and the “shoulder” are set aside to serve as the “ground of the heart” for the priests (Lev. 10:14-15).-
Origen recognizes the verbal similarities between Colossians 2:3 and Matthew 13:44, with the former speaking of Christ in whom are “hidden” (apokryphoi) all the “treasures” (thesauroi) of wisdom and knowledge, and the latter comparing the kingdom of heaven to a “treasure” (thesauro) “hidden” (kekrymmeno) in a field. Origen exploits this link, and he associates both passages, in turn, with Song 1:2. It is “certainly possible,” he suggests, that the field mentioned by Jesus contains vineyards to produce wine.76 Better than this wine, however, is the treasure that the man in Jesus’ parable purchases. Likewise, says Origen, the breasts of the bridegroom—“who is hidden like a treasure (thesaurus absconditus) in the Law and the Prophets”—are better than the wine of the Law and the Prophets.- In short, Origen identifies Christ (along with his wisdom and knowledge) as the treasure hidden within the vineyard of the Old Testament.78
When the bride says that the fragrance of the groom’s ointments is better than all spices (Song 1:3), she intimates to Christ, who by this time is in her presence, that while she used to have the Law and the Prophets (the spices) as pedagogues, now he, the only begotten Son, has been sent into the world by the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit.79 Origen suspects that this anointing refers to the priestly ointment mentioned in Exodus 30:22-25, since Christ is not only bridegroom but also priest. Origen then gives a detailed explanation of each of the four spices mentioned in Exodus 30—myrrh, cinnamon, sweet reed, and cassia—showing how each refers to Christ.80 All these spices used to be blended together with olive oil (Exod. 30:24), which Origen maintains is either a reference to the Son of God taking on the form of a servant or to his anointing with the Holy Spirit.81
When the bride then says that Christ’s “name is an ointment poured out,” Origen claims that these words are “a certain prophecy” regarding Christ’s name being spread throughout the world so as “to make it an odour of sweetness in every place.”82 In other words, at this point in the history of salvation we move from the life of Christ to the growth of the church. And so the young maidens —“young souls growing up in years and beauty”83—come to love the Savior and run after him, in line with the words: “Therefore have the maidens loved Thee, have they drawn Thee. We will run after Thee into the fragrance of Thine ointments” (Song 1:3-4). The bride then enters into the king’s chamber, where she sees all his royal riches: the very mind of Christ, “in which,” says Origen with a reference to Colossians 2:3, “are hid the treasures (thesauri) of His wisdom and knowledge.”84 The maidens, though they too have made some progress, have not yet attained the bride’s “summit of perfection,”85 and they cannot quite enter into the king’s chamber so as to drink directly from the Savior’s breasts. And so they are looking forward to a time when they will love the groom’s breasts better than wine (Song 1:4).
As he moves to book 2 of his Commentary, Origen begins by reflecting on the bride’s comment that she is dark and beautiful (Song 1:5). Here the bride—who now, after the incarnation and the spreading of Christ’s name across the world, clearly is the church of the gentiles—responds to the daughters of Jerusalem (the Jews) vilifying her ignoble birth. The Jews “call her black, as one who has not been enlightened by the patriarchs’ teaching.”86 In an ingenious excursus on the place of Ethiopians in the Scriptures, Origen shows that at least five Old Testament passages contain “types foreshadowing this mystery” (sacramenti hujus forma) of the church coming from the gentiles.87
Origen makes clear that he is not thinking of the “natural blackness” of the Ethiopian race.88 Instead, this is a blackness that originates from the disobedience of the gentiles. And unlike physical blackness, this spiritual black identity isn’t in any way cast in stone: Origen turns the tables on the “daughters of Jerusalem” and claims that while the church of the gentiles has become white —in line with the words of Song 8:5, “Who is this that cometh up, having been made white, and leaning upon her Nephew?”89—the synagogue now stands exposed to the Sun of Justice (Jesus Christ; cf. Mal. 4:2) and risks being blackened by its rays. The Sun of Justice either gives light or scorches one’s face, depending on how one responds to Christ. Following the logic of Saint Paul in Romans 11 (as well as that of Hippolytus), Origen comments that Israel has become “disobedient and unbelieving,” and that the Sun of Justice has darkened and even blinded the Israelites (Rom. 11:25)." Clearly, Origen is hoping that the synagogue will yet turn to Christ.91 Meanwhile, however, it is the
church that is the legitimate bride, who despite her “black” origin is in the process of becoming white through her acceptance of Christ as the Sun of Justice.
Origen’s ecclesial reading of the first five verses of the Song of Songs is obviously allegorical. At the same time, his allegorical choices are governed by the unfolding narrative of redemptive history. It is within these parameters that Origen searches the Scriptures for appropriate intertextual connections that will allow him to move from the historical to the spiritual level of interpretation. Without the historical unfolding of the economy of salvation, which culminates in the Christ event, Origen’s entire exegetical approach would fall apart. Thus, it is the historical and ecclesial anchor of his exegesis of the Song that renders it sacramental rather than dualistic. The Alexandrian exegete believes that salvation—the spiritual dimension of the text—is an event that unfolds in history, in Christ, and in the church as the people of God.
To be sure, Origen’s main innovation vis-a-vis the earlier tradition is that he adds to this ecclesial reading of the Song a personal interpretation. The “third interpretation” that he repeatedly mentions in his Commentary reads the relationship between the bridegroom and the bride as the bond between Christ and the soul. It is, of course, particularly in connection with such a personal reading of the Song that ascetic interests would come to the fore in the later tradition. We must ask, therefore, how Origen’s personal reading unfolds: Is it ascetic? Does it avoid the Song’s erotic language? Does it disparage the body? In short, does Origen actually maintain a sacramental approach also in his personal reading of the Song?
We should perhaps first take a quick tour of the exegetical choices that Origen makes in his personal reading. He maintains that the soul’s dowry, which she brings to her quest for union with Christ, consists of natural law, reason, and free will.92 Earlier, she received interpretations (“kisses”) from her teachers, but now she approaches the Word of God directly for the enlightening of her mind (Song 1:2).- As the soul matures and moves beyond childhood, she leaves behind the wine of other people’s teachings, and having taken a Nazirite vow of abstinence (Num. 6:3), she instead drinks directly from the breast of the Word of God.94 She recognizes the superiority of “knowledge of the mysteries and the divine judgements” over the “spices” of mere ethics and natural philosophy (Song 1:3).- The sense of smell through which she is drawn to Christ (Song 1:4) “denotes not a bodily faculty but that divine sense of scent which is called the sense of the interior man.”96 Although in his Commentary Origen is so preoccupied with the Jew-gentile relationship that he doesn’t come around to a personal reading of the bride being “black and beautiful,” in his Homilies he
does take time to warn his hearers against the darkness of sin, telling them to “take heed lest your soul be described as black and ugly, and you be hideous with a double foulness—black by reason of your past sins and ugly because you are continuing in the same vices!”97
Such moral injunctions, however, are the exception rather than the rule in Origen’s reflections on the Song. Notably absent from his exposition are any warnings against the passions or any language about the dangers of sexuality or of bodily preoccupations more broadly.98 Origen’s exegesis instead centers on christological mysticism; he is affective in his approach, wanting his reader to be united to Christ. One reason for the absence of ascetic warnings may be that Origen regards the Song of Songs as the third and most perfect of the three books authored by King Solomon. The first (the book of Proverbs) discusses matters of morality. The second (Ecclesiastes) deals with natural philosophy and physics.99 And in Solomon’s last book, the Song of Songs, “he instills into the soul the love of things divine and heavenly.”100 Therefore, to make moral exegesis the focus in one’s reading of the Song of Songs would, for Origen, be to miss out on the purpose of the book. It has a higher, more ultimate aim.
Origen recognizes that reading the Song of Songs at a surface level carries certain dangers. And it is fair to say that in connection with the Song of Songs, Origen is particularly cautious not to dwell at any length upon the “simple story” of the dramatic encounter of the groom and the bride. Part of the reason is, again, that the Song is aimed at describing the climactic spiritual union between Christ and the church or the soul. But an additional reason is probably the sensual contents of this particular Bible book. In his prologue to the Commentary,
Origen warns that if someone
who lives only after the flesh should approach it, to such a one the reading of this Scripture will be the occasion of no small hazard and danger. For he, not knowing how to hear love’s language in purity and with chaste ears, will twist the whole manner of his hearing of it away from the inner spiritual man and on to the outward and carnal; and he will be turned away from the spirit to the flesh and will foster carnal desires in himself, and it will seem to be the Divine Scriptures that are thus urging and egging him on to fleshly lust!101
The Song of Songs can be misused, so Origen notes. He warns, therefore, that people who are “not yet rid of the vexations of flesh and blood” should stay away from it.102
Origen certainly means for his readers to take his admonition to heart. But his word of caution doesn’t set the stage for an exegesis focused on ascetic concerns. Roland Murphy rightly observes that “the actual course of Christian interpretation [of the Song of Songs] is not to be explained as a pathological rejection of sex. Sex is simply seen in a different framework, indeed, it is hardly
seen at all, due to the exegetical principles which we find in Origen, who wielded such great influence on later interpreters.”103 For Origen, by the time we’re contemplating the soul’s mystical union with Christ, the fleshly passions have long disappeared from the horizon. Put differently, for Origen the soul’s quest for Christ is less a matter of avoiding the passions than of being drawn to the heavenly groom.
Several scholars have commented on the fact that Origen’s distinction between ecclesial and personal readings of the Song isn’t very clear-cut. R. P. Lawson comments that the two types of reading—which he calls spiritual and psychic—are closely linked: Origen “is saturated with the idea of the compenetration of the life of the Church and the life of the soul, of the mystery of the Church and our life under grace: in the final analysis, the two— inseparable—stand for true participation in the Divine-Human nature of the Logos.”104 Lawson suggests that what Christ is for the soul, he is also for the church, and vice versa. Similarly, Aidan Nichols has suggested that because Origen sees the soul as ecclesial (anima ecclesiastica), he often intermingles the two readings.105 What counts for Origen, explains Frances Young, is the wisdom and understanding that come through Christ, which are “granted to the Church and also to the individual believer, the latter both receiving from the Church and in a sense representing the Church.”106 Each of these authors recognizes that the soul and the church are closely linked, inasmuch as they both receive their identity in and from Christ.
This close connection between the church and the soul is important. It suggests that, for Origen, Christ is the climax both of the ecclesial economy of salvation (historia salutis) and of the personal journey of faith (ordo salutis). This implies that there is an analogy between the church’s attitude toward the letter (of the Old Testament narrative) and the soul’s attitude toward the body. Neither letter nor body is evil in and of itself, and neither is to be avoided as such (though Origen is keenly aware of the close link between the body and the passions). But for Origen the letter and the body don’t exist for their own sake; they are in no way ultimate. They serve rather to lead to Jesus Christ in such a way that the ecclesial history of salvation leads one forward (horizontally) to Christ, while the personal order of salvation leads one upward (vertically) to Christ. Insofar as the letter and the body fulfill this role, Origen wants us to affirm them; but to get stuck on the letter of the Song or on bodily concerns would be to miss the Song’s purpose. So while it is true that the sensual character of the Song plays a subordinate role in Origen’s vertical or anagogical (upward-leading) personal interpretation, this doesn’t betray a lack of sacramentality or a dichotomizing of body and soul or letter and spirit. What it
shows instead is that the erotic descriptions of the Song fulfill their proper, created purpose: to lead the soul to union with Christ.