Commentary on the Song of Songs

Contents

Reading pages: 0.61–0.73 · 0.74–0.86 · 0.87–1.100 · 1.101–2.114 · 2.115–2.127 · 2.128–2.140 · 2.141–2.154 · 2.155–2.168 · 2.169–3.183 · 3.184–3.196 · 3.197–3.210 · 3.211–3.223 · 3.224–3.237 · 3.238–3.241

1. 0.61Origen introduces the Song of Songs as a wedding song in dramatic form, sung by the bride (the soul or the church) to the bridegroom, the Word of God.
2. 0.62Origen warns that the Song is solid food for the mature, notes the Jewish custom of reserving it for adults, and lists the topics of his prologue.
3. 0.63Greek writers on love were misused by carnal readers; Origen prays for a chaste understanding and turns to Genesis, which speaks of two men created.
4. 0.64Paul confirms the two men, inner and outer, and scripture uses the same names, such as boy, youth and father, for both.
5. 0.65Scripture speaks of the soul's ages and of its members (eyes, ears, hands, feet, belly, throat, tongue, teeth, arm) with the names of the body's.
6. 0.66The inner man has his own food, drink, barrenness and fruitfulness; so besides carnal love there is a spiritual love that sows in the spirit.
7. 0.67Heavenly love is the soul's wound from the beauty of the Word; the soul can also love an adulterer, as Ezekiel's Oholah and Oholibah show.
8. 0.68Scripture usually avoids the word 'love' (amor) and uses 'charity' or 'affection' instead, as with Isaac, Jacob and Amnon, but names love openly for wisdom.
9. 0.69Scripture uses 'love' openly only where no misunderstanding is possible; love and charity mean the same, and God, Father and Son, is charity.
10. 0.70The charity that is God loves only incorruptible things, makes every person our neighbour as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and is misnamed when applied to money or vice.
11. 0.71Like the name 'god', 'charity' is used properly of God, by extension of the neighbour, and falsely of corruptible things; God may rightly be called love, as Ignatius did.
12. 0.72Human nature must always love something; love is rightly used only when directed to God and the virtues, not to money, glory, lust, or even the liberal arts.
13. 0.73The two great commandments contain the whole law, as a woman in love does nothing to displease her beloved; perfect love makes tribulation light, as Jacob's love for Rachel did.
14. 0.74Perfect charity endures all things; the Song is the church's wedding song to Christ, and only the Son knows charity, which the Spirit reveals to worthy souls.
15. 0.75Solomon's three books correspond to the three branches of philosophy, moral, natural and inspective (contemplative), which the Greeks borrowed from him; logic runs through all three.
16. 0.76Proverbs teaches moral philosophy, Ecclesiastes natural philosophy and the Song contemplative philosophy, while the opening of Proverbs also shows Solomon's concern for logic.
17. 0.77Proverbs also teaches the rational discipline; the order of the books leads from moral training through contempt of the visible world in Ecclesiastes to the invisible things veiled in the Song.
18. 0.78The Song comes last for the purified soul; the three disciplines are prefigured in Abraham (moral, obedience), Isaac (natural, digging wells) and Jacob (contemplative, the ladder).
19. 0.79The patriarchs' tents show the pilgrim life of the philosopher; Origen turns to the title 'Song of Songs', comparable to 'Holy of Holies' and 'ages of ages'.
20. 0.80The 'songs' are those sung by prophets and angels, the bridegroom's friends; the Song is sung by the Bridegroom himself, and the first of the songs is that of Moses at the Red Sea.
21. 0.81The second song is sung at the well in Numbers, the third in Deuteronomy, and the fourth by Deborah, whose name means 'bee'.
22. 0.82Deborah's song follows victory; the fifth song is David's in 2 Samuel 22 and the sixth David's in 1 Chronicles 16, which correspond to Psalms 18, 105 and 96.
23. 0.83The Song is the seventh song, or the song beyond all songs including Isaiah's and the Psalms' songs of ascents; Origen asks why the three books of Solomon have different titles.
24. 0.84Solomon is a figure of Christ; the three titles correspond to Christ reigning in Israel (Proverbs), in the heavenly Jerusalem (Ecclesiastes), and as the Peaceable One when God is all in all (the Song).
25. 0.85The Song names Solomon only, without bodily titles, because the perfect bride loves Christ no longer according to the flesh; the Levites, set above Israel's number, show something greater than Israel.
26. 0.86As the Levites stand above Israel and the priests above the Levites, the titles of Solomon's books mark degrees; in perfection the disciple becomes like the teacher; the title is 'Song', singular.
27. 0.87Origen rejects the view that the Song is one of Solomon's five thousand songs (1 Kgs 4), since neither church nor synagogue has any other songs of his in the canon.
28. 0.88Though apostles quoted apocryphal writings, the church's boundaries must not be crossed; the grammar of the title shows that the Song itself is Solomon's.
29. 1.89Read as a drama, the first verse shows a bride who has received gifts from her absent bridegroom and prays to his Father that he would come and kiss her.
30. 1.90Spiritually, the church, having received the law from angels and the promises from the prophets, prays that the Bridegroom himself would come and speak to her, as he did in the incarnation.
31. 1.91Thirdly, the soul, having the dowry of natural law, reason and free choice, prays to receive the 'kisses' of the Word, that is, understanding of obscure things given directly by God.
32. 1.92The liturgical kiss of peace is an image of the Word's kiss; in the drama, the bridegroom appears while the bride is still praying, and she turns to praise his breasts and ointments.
33. 1.93Scripture names the ruling part of the heart variously (heart, bosom, breast); here, in a drama of love, the bridegroom's 'breasts' mean his heart, that is, his doctrines.
34. 1.94The 'wine' is the teaching of the law and prophets, which the Bridegroom's teaching surpasses, as when Jesus taught in the temple and on the mountain.
35. 1.95Christ's new teaching surpasses the old, as at Cana; the queen of Sheba, who marvelled at Solomon's banquet and cupbearers, cannot have admired merely bodily food.
36. 1.96There are good and bad wines, that is, doctrines, as the Rechabites' refusal shows; the Bridegroom's teaching surpasses even the good wine of the law and prophets.
37. 1.97The treasure hidden in the field is better than the field's wine, as Christ hidden in the law and prophets surpasses their plain teaching; the soul vowed to God like a Nazirite no longer drinks wine.
38. 1.98The 'spices' are the law and prophets that prepared the church; the ointment of Christ, anointed by the Spirit, surpasses them as the spiritual high-priestly ointment surpasses Aaron's (Exod 30).
39. 1.99The four spices of the holy ointment figure the incarnation: myrrh his death and resurrection, cinnamon the spotless church, calamus his teaching, iris the Spirit or judgment, and the oil his mercy and the unity of his person.
40. 1.100Christ's ointment is the Spirit, the oil of gladness; for the soul, the 'spices' are moral and natural philosophy, surpassed by the mystical understanding; Origen keeps the Septuagint's 'breasts' over a variant 'words'.
41. 1.101The verse prophesies that Christ's name would spread like poured-out ointment through the world, loved not by souls grown old in sin but by 'young maidens', souls continually renewed.
42. 1.102Christ emptied himself so that souls could love and draw him to themselves; the young maidens are the churches, or souls instructed in moral and natural matters, who run after his fragrance.
43. 1.103If Christ's name alone so draws souls, his very substance will unite them to him in one spirit; now the bride runs by smell alone, but in time all the soul's senses will be filled with the Word.
44. 1.104The Word adapts himself as milk, vegetables, solid food or manna to each soul's capacity; the perfected will enjoy him with every sense in the 'place of delights'.
45. 1.105The perfect enjoy the Word with spiritual senses; as bodily senses can be healthy or impaired, so the inner senses must be trained to discern good and evil, and the bride's 'smell' is such a spiritual sense.
46. 1.106The fragrance of Christ gives life to some and death to others, as this spiritual exposition does; believers who mock it are to be persuaded from other scriptures that speak of spiritual senses.
47. 1.107Scripture's references to spiritual eyes, ears, smell, taste and touch confirm the spiritual senses; the 'emptied ointment' is Christ's self-emptying, from whose fullness the young maidens receive.
48. 1.108The bride loves the Bridegroom for the fullness of his ointments, not only for his self-emptying; the king's chamber into which he brings her is the hidden mind of Christ.
49. 1.109The king's chamber holds Christ's treasures of wisdom and knowledge; Paul, caught up to paradise, was near it; the young maidens run after him, each at her own pace.
50. 1.110Only the perfect bride enters the king's chamber and becomes queen; the young maidens hope to follow; she also has her own chamber of prayer; the maidens promise that they will come to love the Bridegroom's breasts.
51. 1.111The young maidens, raised on the 'wine' of elementary teaching, promise to love Christ's teaching more when they mature; 'Righteousness has loved you' is their amends for not yet loving fully.
52. 1.112Righteousness loves Christ because love keeps his commandments and admits no iniquity; the virtues love Christ, who is himself the substance of the virtues.
53. 1.113Christ is the virtues, which are also said to embrace him; likewise he is called both bridegroom and bride (Isa 61:10).
54. 2.113The bride, black but beautiful, answers the daughters of Jerusalem; spiritually she is the church of the gentiles, despised for her birth by those of the earthly Jerusalem.
55. 2.114The church of the gentiles, black for her birth but beautiful through repentance and faith, is the Ethiopian wife of Moses whom Miriam disparaged.
56. 2.115Origen cites the Ethiopian wife of Moses (Num 12) and the queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon (1 Kgs 10) as figures of the gentile church.
57. 2.116Further figures of the gentile church: Josephus on the queen of Sheba, Ps 68 on Ethiopia, Zeph 3 on Sheba, and the Ethiopian eunuch who rescued Jeremiah.
58. 2.117After the Ethiopian Abdimelech's reward, Origen argues that Miriam and Aaron's complaint makes sense only mystically: Moses, the spiritual law, passes to the gentile church, while Miriam stands for the abandoned synagogue.
59. 2.118Moses was praised most when he married the Ethiopian, figure of the church wed to Christ; the queen of Sheba likewise prefigures the gentile church coming to the true Solomon.
60. 2.119The queen of Sheba is the gentile church, which brings Christ good works, learning and virtues, confesses her sins, and admires now his prudence, later his wisdom.
61. 2.120Solomon's house, food, servants' seats, ministers, clothing, cupbearers and offerings figure the incarnation, Christ's will, bishops and presbyters, deacons, baptism, teachers and prayers.
62. 2.121The queen believed Christ himself, not human messengers; in heaven the church will see far more than she heard; Solomon's blessed wives and servants are souls who stand always before the Word.
63. 2.122The queen's gifts are the church's consecrated understanding, prayers and works; Ethiopia stretching out her hand first means the gentiles coming before Israel, who will be saved after the fullness of the gentiles.
64. 2.123The Ethiopian eunuch who drew Jeremiah from the pit figures the gentile people who, believing in Christ's resurrection, 'bring him up' from death; so the church has many testimonies to answer the daughters of Jerusalem.
65. 2.124The 'skins of Solomon' are the goat-hair coverings of the tabernacle, black yet adorning it, or the coverings of the heavenly tabernacle; the one bride is the many churches, or the repentant soul.
66. 2.125The bride's blackness is not of nature but comes from the sun 'looking askance' at her; the soul's blackness comes from neglect and is removed by diligence, so that at the end she comes up made white.
67. 2.126The gentiles were once passed over by the Sun of righteousness while Israel was looked upon; now the order is reversed, yet Israel too will obtain mercy, as Paul teaches in Romans 11.
68. 2.127The soul that walks upright before the Sun of righteousness is enlightened; to the crooked he too seems crooked, as the true light is a straight rule that shows up crooked wood (Lev 26).
69. 2.128The sun has a twofold power, to light and to burn; God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart means that his muddy heart received only the burning power of the Sun of righteousness.
70. 2.129Scripture says Israel groaned 'from their works', showing a spiritual meaning; the sun burns only where there is sin, and God is light to the righteous and consuming fire to sinners.
71. 2.130In the drama, the bride's brothers fought in her and made her keeper of others' vineyards while her own went unkept; to find the 'mother', Origen turns to Paul's allegory of the two covenants.
72. 2.131The bride's mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, and her sons who fought 'in her' are the apostles, who overthrew unbelief and false doctrines in the gentile church.
73. 2.132The vineyards the bride keeps are the scriptures of both Testaments; her own unkept vineyard is her former learning, which she abandons, as Paul counted his Jewish observances loss for Christ.
74. 2.133The church, like Eve, was once deceived and ungodly; for the individual soul, the mother's sons are the guardian angels who fight for those still infants in Christ.
75. 2.134Her unkept vineyard is her old life, abandoned with the angels' help; in verse 7 she asks the Bridegroom, who is king, shepherd and bridegroom, where he pastures, fearing to stray among his companions' flocks.
76. 2.135Souls are joined to Christ in different degrees: queens, concubines, young maidens, sheep, and lowest of all those in the flocks of his 'companions', whose status Origen questions.
77. 2.136The bride, out of modesty, wants to come to the Bridegroom secretly; the companions may be the angels set over the nations (Deut 32:8–9), whose flocks are the nations, while Christ's own flock hears his voice.
78. 2.137Christ's own sheep differ from the flocks of the companions; the bride seeks the good shepherd's noonday pastures and calls him 'you whom my soul has loved', since he must be loved with the whole soul.
79. 2.138Psalm 23 traces the soul's progress from being a sheep in green pastures to conversion, the path of righteousness, combat, and finally the table, anointing and cup of mystical knowledge.
80. 2.139'Noon' means the clearer light of knowledge in the heart; God appeared to Abraham at noon, and whoever walks in the day as Paul urges hastens toward that noon.
81. 2.140Noon is purity of heart in which one sees God, as Abraham at Mamre and Joseph's brothers at noon; the evangelists say 'sixth hour' rather than 'noon' for the crucifixion, to link it with man's creation on the sixth day.
82. 2.141The 'veiled' are the philosophical schools whose truth is covered; verse 8 is Solomon's earlier and better form of the maxim 'Know yourself': the soul must recognize its beauty as God's image or be sent to pasture kids.
83. 2.142The soul that does not know itself will wander among the shepherds' tents pasturing kids until it learns by experience; Christ places salvation in self-knowledge, which Origen now begins to explain.
84. 2.143The first way of self-knowledge concerns the soul's dispositions: whether its purpose is good, whether it progresses, helps others, sins from will or weakness, and masters anger, sadness and fear.
85. 2.144Self-knowledge also tests love of glory, generosity, and openness to persuasion; the soul that has received the Word's kisses but lives like the crowd is told to go out after the flocks.
86. 2.145The soul that neglects self-knowledge drifts among teachers, pasturing restless thoughts instead of following the one Good Shepherd; Origen turns to the deeper self-knowledge of the soul's nature.
87. 2.146The deeper self-knowledge belongs to the gift of knowledge, whose first object is the Trinity and second the creation; the soul should ask about its own substance and origin, whether transmitted with the body or coming from outside.
88. 2.147The soul should ask whether it was created with the body or before it, whether it takes a body more than once (which the end of the world excludes in this life), and whether it shares the angels' substance or may become like them by grace.
89. 2.148The advancing soul must study itself in God's word and law, or it will follow the opinions of philosophers, 'pasturing kids' among their sects, and be put out from the mysteries for its sloth.
90. 2.149The threat applies to the gifted 'perfect' soul who neglects self-knowledge, since much is required of those given much, and such negligence harms many, like the buried talent or Onan.
91. 2.150The 'shepherds' are the rulers of this world or the angels of the nations, or for the soul the world's teachers; the soul must be led by the Spirit of adoption. In verse 9 the bride is likened to the Lord's horsemen who overcame Pharaoh's chariots.
92. 2.151Pharaoh's chariots are souls through whom demons attack the church; the Lord's horses and horsemen, seen by Elisha's servant, in Habakkuk and in Revelation, are souls who bear Christ's bridle and are led by the Spirit.
93. 2.152The white horse of Revelation may be Christ's body, his soul, both, or the church; the bride, likened to this heavenly cavalry, surpasses souls still under Pharaoh, or was herself taken from Pharaoh's chariots.
94. 2.153Souls that take the Word as rider are blessed; 'my close one' may be Christ's own soul, the church's model. In verse 10 the bride, blushing at the rebuke, has cheeks and neck made beautiful.
95. 2.154Following Paul's teaching that the church is Christ's body and bride (1 Cor 12; Eph 5), the bride's members, such as eyes, ears, hands and cheeks, are members of the church.
96. 2.155The bride's cheeks are the church's chaste and pure members, made beautiful by Christ; the turtledove, faithful to one mate, figures the church's faithfulness to Christ; her neck is the obedience of those who take his yoke.
97. 2.156The necklace is Christ's obedience, which the church's obedience imitates, as Judah's pledge to Tamar foreshadowed; in verse 11 the speakers are the Bridegroom's friends, the angels, prophets or patriarchs.
98. 2.157Before Christ came, the angels served as guardians of the bride; the church exists from the beginning, even before the world's foundation, and Adam prophesied the mystery of Christ and the church.
99. 2.158The church already existed in the saints before Christ, who loved her and came to her; angels and prophets ministered to her, as at Mamre and the burning bush, where the angel is the Lord himself, against heretics who belittle the God of the law.
100. 2.159The friends offer only 'likenesses of gold' and 'studs of silver'; gold signifies invisible, incorporeal nature and silver word and reason, as several scriptures show.
101. 2.160The 'likenesses of gold' are the law and its tabernacle, figures and shadows of heavenly realities, which the angels and prophets made for the church to stir her desire for the true gold.
102. 2.161The 'studs of silver' are the rare places where the prophets themselves explained their figures; at Christ's passion the torn veil showed that hidden meanings are now opened, in true gold and solid silver.
103. 2.162The likenesses last 'until the king lies down', that is, until Christ's death and resurrection; then believers receive true gold, the spiritual meaning of the figures (rock, sea, cloud, manna, lamb, veil).
104. 2.163Balaam's prophecy of the king who lies down like a lion marks the end of the likenesses; the patriarchs and prophets foresaw Christ in the Spirit and were perfected by faith in what was to come.
105. 2.164For the individual soul, the likenesses and small studs of silver are elementary teaching with glimpses of mysteries to arouse desire, until the soul grows wide enough for the King to dwell and rest in it.
106. 2.165The Word, with the Father and the Spirit, rests and feasts in the perfect soul on peace, humility and charity; in verse 12 the bride's nard, touching the Bridegroom, gives back his own fragrance.
107. 2.166Spiritually, the bride is the church in the person of Mary of Bethany, whose nard on Jesus' feet returned to her with his fragrance and filled the house, that is, the world, the church, or the believing soul.
108. 2.167From many nards (the prophets) the soul comes to the one nard (Christ's teaching); Christ becomes for each spiritual sense its object: light, word, bread, ointment and touchable flesh.
109. 2.168In verse 13 the Bridegroom is a 'bundle of drops' dwelling between the bride's breasts; he is her 'kinsman', her brother's son, because the gentile church's elder brother is Israel, from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.
110. 2.169The 'bundle of the drop' signifies Christ's body binding his divine power, or for the soul the binding of doctrines (as only bound vessels are clean); Christ is a 'drop', small like Daniel's stone, who gathers the nations.
111. 2.170Myrrh, drop and cassia signify Christ's death, self-emptying and baptism; the Word bound in the heart gives his fragrance; verse 14's 'cluster of henna of Engedi' completes the bride's threefold praise to rouse the maidens.
112. 2.171Nard, drop and henna mark steps of progress in love; Christ the true vine first gives the scent of the flower, then strength in trials, and at last the wine of the new covenant; henna's warming power is the love that made the disciples' hearts burn.
113. 2.172'Engedi' means 'eye of my temptation': for one who understands and overcomes temptation like Job, the Word becomes the cluster of Engedi; only the perfect soul perceives the fragrance of nard, drop and henna.
114. 3.172The Bridegroom's second praise shows the Bride's progress: she is now fair as one near to him, even in his absence.
115. 3.173The dove-eyes signify spiritual understanding of Scripture, given by the Holy Spirit.
116. 3.174The repeated praise may refer to the Church now and in the age to come; the dove-eyes may signify the Son and the Spirit; the Bride now sees the Bridegroom's beauty.
117. 3.175Only the soul with spiritual sight sees the Word's beauty; the shady bed is the body, shared with Christ as Paul says our bodies are members of Christ.
118. 3.176The shady body shares in grace; Christ's assumed body may be the shared bed; the house with cedar timbers is the Church.
119. 3.177The cedar beams and timbers of the house are the bishops and presbyters of the Church; Christ is the flower of the field (Israel) and the lily of the valleys (the Gentiles).
120. 3.178Christ, not perfected as a flower under the law, became a lily among the Gentiles, clothed by the Father in sinless flesh, and his Church becomes a lily among thorns.
121. 3.179The daughters among whom the Bride is a lily are heretics who once believed; for each soul Christ is a flower or a lily according to its progress.
122. 3.180Rufinus explains his word for the apple tree; the Bridegroom excels the 'sons', fallen or heavenly, as the apple tree excels the trees of the wood.
123. 3.181The trees of the wood are the angels behind the heresies and their barren doctrines; the Church and the soul rest in the shade of the Son of God.
124. 3.182The shade of the apple tree is the life-giving shadow of Christ, better than the shadow of the law and a step toward seeing face to face.
125. 3.183All in this life are under some shadow; the shadow of the law gave little protection, but faith in Christ's incarnation shelters fully until we see face to face.
126. 3.184The sweet fruit in the throat contrasts with throats that are open graves; the Bride asks the Bridegroom's friends, the prophets, to bring her into the house of wine, Wisdom's banquet.
127. 3.185The house of wine is the banquet of the kingdom, the wine of the true vine, Christ, opposed by the wine of iniquity and false doctrine.
128. 3.186The wine of iniquity opposes the ever-new wine of the true vine; 'set love in order in me' means loving God without measure and one's neighbour as oneself.
129. 3.187Love for neighbours is graded by merit: those who teach the word and rescue souls, and those of holy life, are to be loved more.
130. 3.188Love for enemies is also graded; and men owe a chaste love to all women, in due order: wife, mother, sisters, and others.
131. 3.189Love is ordered toward spouses, relatives, and those who serve the Church; even God, who loves all he made, loves each according to merit.
132. 3.190Even hatred has its order, as the hatred of God's enemies flowing from love for God; the Bride asks to learn love's order, perhaps from the angels.
133. 3.191Those asked to set love in order may be angels, prophets, departed saints who pray for the living, or apostles; the Greek of Song 2:5 names a tree, not ointments.
134. 3.192Literally the wounded Bride asks to lean on a fragrant but fruitless tree and on apple trees; spiritually men are trees, fruitless, bad-fruited, or good-fruited.
135. 3.193The fragrant but fruitless trees are the catechumens; the apple trees are souls renewed in God's image; the Word becomes to each what each needs.
136. 3.194The Word is food and delight to the soul; the soul burning with love for the Word is wounded by his saving dart, by love, wisdom, power, or righteousness.
137. 3.195Against God's saving darts stand the demons' fiery darts, quenched by faith; the Bridegroom's left and right hands are not to be taken bodily, for the Word is beyond gender.
138. 3.196Scripture uses human words for divine realities; the left hand is the incarnation and its riches and glory, faith in the passion; the right hand is the eternal Word.
139. 3.197The Church rests on faith in the incarnation (the left hand) and seeks knowledge of the eternal Word (the right); the Bride adjures the maidens by the field to rouse love as far as the Bridegroom wills.
140. 3.198Each soul's manner of life is its field, and the Church's common life is a common field; love lies asleep within and must be lifted up as far as God wills.
141. 3.199Paul roused sleeping love; read as drama, Song 2:8–13 shows the Bridegroom approaching, breaking the snares set for the Bride, and calling her to come in springtime.
142. 3.200Continuing the literal drama, the Bridegroom describes the signs of spring and the sheltered place by the rock where the Bride will unveil her face to him.
143. 3.201Christ was first known to the Church by his voice in the prophets; he leaps on the mountains (prophets, apostles) and, for the struggling soul, opens hard passages of Scripture.
144. 3.202In the drama the Bridegroom is now present, now absent, as Christ is to the Church in peace and persecution, and to the soul in finding or missing the meaning of Scripture.
145. 3.203The Word comes and goes in the soul's understanding until he abides; the Bride once saw him in the winter of trials, now in the springtime of spiritual graces, the devil's snares broken.
146. 3.204Christ leaps over the mountains as the gospel swiftly spread through the kingdoms, and as he springs out of the law and the prophets once the veil is removed.
147. 3.205The mountains are the saints, or the New Testament and the hills the Old; at the end those of lofty life will be found on the mountains with the Word.
148. 3.206Believers become mountains as Christ grows in them, the proud are brought low; Christ is the mountain of mountains; the roe and stag are clean animals and images of the holy.
149. 3.207Origen gathers the Scripture passages about the stag (Deuteronomy, Psalm 29, Job, Proverbs) to interpret them spiritually.
150. 3.208Visible creatures bear likenesses of heavenly realities, as the mustard seed images the kingdom and faith, so that the soul may rise from the visible to the invisible.
151. 3.209Wisdom 7 shows that knowledge of visible things points to hidden ones; God made the visible creation to teach the invisible.
152. 3.210Each item in Wisdom's list has a visible and a hidden sense: the world, the elements, the times, the years, and the stars as the saints and the glory of the resurrection.
153. 3.211Animals, spirits, and thoughts also have hidden senses: men become like beasts, unclean spirits blow like winds, and evil or good thoughts have authors; creation teaches the invisible through the visible.
154. 3.212Scripture, like creation, is written so that visible events carry hidden meanings; the stags perfected by God's voice are spiritual persons who bring Christ to birth.
155. 3.213The spiritual stags give birth to the spirit of salvation and free their converts; the 'stag of friendships' is Christ who slew the serpent, and the 'foal of graces' the Holy Spirit.
156. 3.214Christ is a 'young stag' because he was born a child of the saintly 'stags', his forebears; the high mountains for the stags are the persons of the Trinity; the roe is named from keen sight.
157. 3.215Christ alone sees the Father and, like the roe whose humour heals eyes, gives others sight of him; God is seen by the mind, not the body.
158. 3.216The roe stands for faith and the stag for good works; the mountains of Bethel are the books of Scripture; like a hunter losing the scent, Origen goes back over the passage.
159. 3.217Origen retells the literal drama from the start: the Bride's longing, her entry into the chamber, the Bridegroom's comings and goings, and his arrival at the latticed window.
160. 3.218Spiritually, the soul in the Church is taught the hidden things of the Word, who visits and leaves her and stands half-hidden behind the wall, to be found by seeking.
161. 3.219The Word stands behind the wall of doctrine and calls the soul out; the windows are the senses, through which death or life enters.
162. 3.220In the body the soul sees wisdom only through images; applied to Christ and the Church, Christ stood behind the wall of the Old Testament and calls the Church from the letter to the spirit.
163. 3.221The rains are the prophets, which ceased with John because the Church now has the river of God; the nets are the snares spread by the devil, figured by Nimrod.
164. 3.222The devil's nets ensnared all; Christ alone, sinless and free among the dead, broke them, rose, and led captivity captive.
165. 3.223Verses 10–13 addressed to the soul: the Word calls her beyond the bodily senses; she is 'near' as joined in one spirit, 'fair' as renewed, and a 'dove' as receiving the Spirit.
166. 3.224Those who receive the Spirit become doves; when the winter of vices passes the soul flowers, is pruned, hears hidden wisdom (the turtledove), and puts forth the first shoots of the Spirit's fruit.
167. 3.225The soul's fig tree and vine are its first virtues; the rain 'gone away to itself' shows that sin has no substance and vanishes when the Word appears.
168. 3.226Applied to Christ and the Church: winter is the age of plagues, wars and Israel's unbelief; spring is the Gentile Church, the pruning of sins in baptism, and the spiritual sense springing from the law.
169. 3.227The vines are the Churches, whose 'own fragrance' shows the soul's free choice restored by grace; or the angelic powers; or the verse foretells the Church's call at the resurrection.
170. 3.228Read eschatologically, the flowers are the first promises, the pruning the final judgement, the turtledove Christ teaching face to face; then the literal sense of Song 2:13–14 is given.
171. 3.229The literal scene (the outer wall, the veiled Bride) yields no benefit or coherence, so it must be read spiritually: the soul's winter is the time of passions, when it must withdraw and simply avoid sin.
172. 3.230In spring the Word calls the soul out of the city (the world) to the outer wall, sheltered by the rock, Christ, on whom no trace of the serpent (sin) is found.
173. 3.231The rock is Christ, whose cleft reveals the Father; sheltered there, the soul shows its unveiled face and is heard, as Moses was.
174. 3.232The soul's voice is sweet when it speaks God's word and avoids idle talk; its face is fair when renewed in God's image; the Church's face reflects the virtues of believers.
175. 3.233The outer wall is the stronger defence of hope in the age to come; for the Church, Christ's call is the gospel of resurrection, and she 'sleeps among the lots' between Israel's first and final calling.
176. 3.234Israel's final calling will be by faith, not law; the Church walks veiled under Christ's shadow until the age to come, and her voice of true faith is sweet, unlike the heretics'.
177. 3.235The outer wall may be the Father's bosom, whose secrets the Son reveals; the little foxes of Song 2:15 are demonic thoughts, which angels are commanded to catch.
178. 3.236Angels help the soul discern and expel evil thoughts while they are small, as Judas failed to do with his love of money; applied to the Church, teachers must refute heresies at their beginning.
179. 3.237Heresies must be refuted early before they spread; Origen gathers the Scripture passages about foxes (Psalm 63, the Gospels, Samson).
180. 3.238After citing Samson and Nehemiah, Origen interprets Psalm 63: false teachers who read Scripture carnally descend to the depths and become the portion of the demons, the foxes.
181. 3.239Those deceived by false teachers become the foxes' portion; Samson tying the foxes' tails figures the true teacher turning heretics' contradictory arguments against them.
182. 3.240The foxes threatening the wall in Nehemiah are worldly wise men scorning the unlearned Gospel; the Bridegroom's friends and the Church's teachers must catch the foxes while small, as Psalm 137 dashes Babylon's little ones.
183. 3.241'Little' may refer to the vineyards: beginning souls can be harmed by evil thoughts and false teachers, but are safe once good teachers cast the foxes out.