Homilies on the Song of Songs preface

Prologue. To Olympias.

I have welcomed your earnest request concerning the Song of Songs, which you put to us both face to face and by letter, as fitting for your venerable life and your pure soul: that through a contemplation suited to it the philosophy hidden in the words might be brought to light, purified in undefiled thoughts of the meaning that lies on the surface of the wording. So I have gladly taken up this task, not as though it would be of any use to you for your own character (for I am persuaded that the eye of your soul is clean of every passionate and soiled thought, and that through these divine words it looks without hindrance toward the undefiled grace), but so that the more fleshly might be given some guidance by the hand toward the spiritual and immaterial state of the soul, to which this book leads through the wisdom hidden in it.

But since some churchmen think it right to keep to the letter of holy Scripture in everything, and do not agree that anything is said by it in riddles and hidden meanings for our benefit, I think it necessary first to make a defence on these matters to those who bring such charges against us: that we do nothing out of place when we take pains to hunt down in every way what is profitable in the divine and God-inspired Scripture. So, if the wording too, understood as it is spoken, should be of some profit, we have what we seek ready at hand. But if something said with concealment, in hidden meanings and riddles, should be useless for profit according to its surface sense, we turn such words over, as the Word who teaches us through the Proverbs directs, so as to understand what is said either as a dark saying, or as an utterance of the wise, or as one of the riddles. Whether one wishes to call the contemplation of these things by uplifting interpretation (anagogy) tropology, or allegory, or some other name, we will not quarrel about the name, provided only that it holds profitable thoughts.

For the great apostle too, when he says that the law is spiritual, includes under the name of the law the historical narratives as well, since all God-inspired Scripture is law to those who read it, teaching those who listen attentively, not only through what it states plainly but also through the historical narratives, toward knowledge of the mysteries and toward a pure way of life. He uses interpretation as he pleases, looking to what is profitable, and does not trouble himself about the name by which the kind of interpretation ought to be called. Now he says that he changes his voice, when he is about to carry the history over to the demonstration of the economy concerning the covenants; then, recalling the two children of Abraham, born to him of the slave woman and of the free woman, he calls the contemplation concerning them allegory. Again, having narrated certain events of the history, he says, "These things happened to them as types, but they were written for our admonition." And again, having said that the ox treading out the grain must not be muzzled, he added that God is not concerned about oxen, but that it was written entirely for our sake. Elsewhere he calls the dimmer perception and the partial knowledge a mirror. And again he calls the passage from bodies to intelligible things a turning to the Lord and the removal of a veil. In all these different modes and names of contemplation according to the mind he points us to one form of teaching: that we must not by all means remain with the bare event, since the surface sense of what is said harms us in many respects for the life of virtue, but must pass over to the immaterial and intelligible contemplation, so that the more bodily thoughts are changed into mind and understanding, the more fleshly sense of the words being shaken off like dust. And for this reason he says, "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life," since in many places [of Scripture, that is,] the history, if we stop at the bare events, does not offer us examples of a good life. For what does it profit the hearer toward virtue that Hosea the prophet has children of prostitution, and that Isaiah goes in to the prophetess, if one stops what is said at the wording? [What] do the narratives about David contribute to the virtuous life, where adultery and murder ran together in one and the same defilement? But if some account should be found that shows what was arranged through these things to be blameless, then the word of the same apostle will be shown to be true, that "the letter kills" (for it holds in itself examples of wicked deeds), "but the Spirit gives life"; for it transposes the unseemly and discredited thought into more divine meanings.

We know also that the Word himself, who is worshiped by all creation, when in the likeness and form of a man he handed on the divine mysteries through the flesh, so unveiled for us the thoughts of the law that he said the two men whose testimony is true were himself and the Father; and he carried the bronze serpent set up on high, which was the people's remedy against the deadly bites, over to the economy accomplished for us through the cross. And he trained the sharpness of his own disciples through veiled and hidden words, in parables, in dark sayings, in sayings uttered in riddles, which he explained to them privately, resolving their obscurity; and there were times when, if the meaning of what was said was not grasped by them, he reproached their slowness and their misplaced understanding. For when he commanded them to keep away from the leaven of the Pharisees, and they in their small-mindedness looked at their bags, in which they had brought no provision of bread, then he rebukes them for not understanding that what was meant by the leaven was teaching. And again, when the disciples set a meal before him, he answered, "I have food to eat that you do not know"; and when they supposed that he was speaking of bodily food, [he explained] … his own word, that the food fitting and proper to him is the fulfilment of the saving will. And countless such things can be gathered from the sayings of the Gospels, in which what is understood at first sight is one thing, and what the meaning of the words looks to is another: for example, the water that he promised to the thirsty, through which those who believe become springs of rivers; the bread that comes down from heaven; the temple that is destroyed and raised in three days; the way; the door; the stone fitted at the head of the corner; the two on one bed; the mill; the women grinding; the one taken and the one left; the corpse; the eagles; the fig tree growing tender and putting out branches. All these, and whatever is like them, might serve to urge us to search the divine words, to give attention to reading, and in every way to track out whether some account higher than the surface understanding might be found, leading the mind by the hand to things more divine and incorporeal.

For this reason we are persuaded that what was forbidden to be eaten from the tree was not a fig, as some have declared, nor any other fruit of the orchard. For if the fig had been deadly then, it would certainly not be edible now. At the same time we have learned from the voice of the Master, laying this down as a doctrine in a negative statement, that "nothing that goes in through the mouth can defile the man." But we seek some other meaning in the law, worthy of the majesty of the Lawgiver; and even if we hear that paradise is the work of God's planting, and that a tree of life was planted in the middle of paradise, let us seek to learn from him who reveals hidden mysteries of what plants the Father becomes the farmer and the gardener, and how it is possible for two trees, the tree of salvation and the tree of destruction, to be in the very middle of paradise. For the exact middle, as in the outline of a circle, is surely at the one centre. If another centre were set beside the centre at some point, the circle would necessarily have to be shifted along with the centre, so that the former would no longer be the middle. Since, then, paradise is one, how does the word say that each of the trees is to be seen on its own, and yet that both this one and that one are in the middle, when the word that declared all God's works to be very good teaches that the deadly one is foreign to God's planting? Unless one contemplates the truth in these things through philosophy, what is said appears incoherent or fabulous to those who do not examine it …

And it would take long to gather each detail from the prophets: how Micah says that in the last days a manifest mountain will come to be on the tops of the mountains, so naming the mystery that comes to pass for the overthrow of the … ; how the lofty Isaiah says that a rod springs up and a flower from the root, so indicating the Lord's appearing through the flesh; what meaning, apparent in the wording, the curdled mountain has in the great David, or the chariot ten thousandfold, or the assembly of bulls let loose among the heifers of the peoples, or the foot dipped in blood, or the tongues of the dogs, or Lebanon beaten small with its cedars like the calf. And countless more besides can be gathered from the rest of prophecy to teach how necessary is the contemplation of the words according to their meaning. Whoever rejects it, as some are pleased to do, seems to me to act as if someone were to set the crops on the table for human food unprocessed, without rubbing out the ear, without separating the seeds from the chaff with the winnowing fan, without grinding the wheat into flour, and without making bread in the proper way of baking. As, then, the unprocessed produce is food for cattle and not for human beings, so one might say that the God-inspired words, if they are not worked up through a finer contemplation, are food for irrational rather than rational beings: not only those of the Old Testament, but also much of the teaching of the Gospel, such as the winnowing fork that clears the threshing floor, the chaff, the grain remaining at the winnower's feet, the unquenchable fire, the good barn, the tree that bears evils abundantly, the threat of the axe that fearfully displays the trees in their prime, the stones made over into human nature.

Let this be written by me, in a letter to your intelligence written in haste, as a defence against those who admonish us to seek nothing more from the divine words than the surface meaning of the wording. And if, after Origen laboured diligently on this book, we too have been eager to commit our own labour to writing, let no one accuse us, looking to the divine saying of the apostle, who says, "Each will receive his own reward according to his own labour." This discourse was not composed by me for display. But since some of those who were with me, out of love of learning, took notes of much of what was said in church, I took from them as much as their notes held in sequence, and added from myself whatever needed to be added, and so I have made the dictation in the form of homilies, carrying the contemplation of the words forward in order, word by word, as far as time and circumstances gave me leisure for it during the days of the fasts. For in these days the discourse on this book was delivered earnestly to the public hearing. And if God, the steward of our life, grants time of life and a peaceful season, we shall perhaps run through what remains as well. For as of now our discourse and contemplation have advanced only as far as the half. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of us to the ages of ages. Amen.