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THE SONG OF SONGS

PASSION, DESIRE, AND THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
Delivered by Dr. Edwin Greenlee on August 29, 2010

Reading

I am a rose of Sharon
A lily of the valleys.

As a lily among brambles,

So is my love among maidens.

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,

so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house,

and his intention towards me was love.

Sustain me with raisins,

refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the wild does:
do not stir up or awaken love
until it is ready.

Song of Song: Chapter 2, verses 1 to 7.

NSRV translation.
Commentaries

Commentary by Origen

We ought to understand also that it is impossible for human nature not to be always feeling the
passion of love for something, Everyone who has reached the age that they call puberty loves
something, either less rightly…or rightly…Either it becomes a passion for money and the pursuit
of avaricious ends; or they go after glory and become desirous of vainglory; or they chase after
harlots and are found the prisoners of wantonness and lewdness…[But passion can be used
laudably by seeking after]…only that which is found in God and the powers of the soul---it
follows that the only laudable love is that which is directed to God and to the powers of the
soul.” (Origen, Prologue, 36.)

Commentary by Ariel and Chana Bloch

“The Song of Songs is a poem about sexual awakening of a young woman and her lover. In a
series of subtly articulated scenes, the two meet in an idealized landscape of fertility and
abundance—a king of Eden—where they discover the pleasures of love. The passage from
innocence to experience is a subject of the Eden story too, but there the loss of innocence is
fraught with consequences. The Song looks at the same border-crossing and sees only the joy of
discovery.

The poem is set in early spring, with its intimations of ripening. The rains of the winter season
have just ended, the vines are in blossom, the air is alive with scents and birdsong. Since the
poem speaks through metaphor, this setting reveals something essential about the lovers, who
live in harmony with the natural world. The images of spring reflect their youth, and the innocent
freshness of their passion.”

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 Today, I invite you to explore a sacred text with me. The text that I want to share with
you is one that is considered holy to both the Jewish and Christian traditions and as such it is also
part of our tradition as Unitarian Universalists. This is a book of only six pages in my copy of the
New Revised Standard Version of the bible. Yet it has intrigued scholars and religious
individuals for over two thousand years. I have only a short time this morning and my goal will
be to whet your appetite to want to explore this book further, along with the great commentary
tradition that has grown up around it.
In the Prologue to his Commentary on the Song of Songs, Origen, the early Christian
theologian who preached universalism and is acknowledged as a forebear of Unitarian
Universalism, underscores the importance of love and passion for the individual seeking union
with God. He states “it is impossible for human nature not to be always feeling the passion of
love for something. Everyone who has reached the age that they call puberty loves something,
either less rightly…or rightly.” The Song of Songs is a special book of the Hebrew Bible that is
full of passion and desire. It is unique in that God is not mentioned anywhere in the Song. It is
full of poetry that celebrates the fullness of the natural world and as well as sensuality and
sexuality without self-consciousness or guilt. Also, it is written nearly completely in a female
voice as opposed to the other books of the bible where male voices dominate. Concisely, it is
about valuing passionate, physical love without self-consciousness or guilt. And this is a part not
only of our Unitarian Universalist tradition but also of the tradition of Jewish and Christian
believers everywhere.
The best guess of scholars is that the Song was written about 300 BCE. It has been a
source of both delight and controversy ever since. The Song has been a favorite object of
commentators from the famous Rabbi Akiba in the third century of the Common Era to early
Christian commentators like Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. In the Middle Ages in Latin
Christianity there were numerous commentaries written on it. And even today the Song of Songs
is a favorite. The feminist scripture scholar Phyllis Trible sees it as redeeming and counter-
balancing the patriarchal and fallen world depicted in Genesis.
Looking at the surface of the Song we find images of nature; references to elements of
the created world that enliven our senses: sight, smell, taste and touch; and images that speak of
sensual and sexual awakening. Modern commentators likes Ariel and Chana Bloch see these
verses as a collection of love poems. However, for thousands of years, Jewish and Christian
commentators, such as Origen, have found additional meanings beneath the literal words of the
Song. So how does Origen carry out his allegorical interpretation and apply these verses, these
images, to the spiritual quest? What is the connection between physicality and the body, its
enjoyments and passions, and spirituality? Rather than a strong break that many see between the
physical and sexual on the one hand, and the spiritual and mystical on the other, there is a
continuum. The individual who is developing and maturing sexually and the individual
committed to a spiritual path has but one body, one psyche, one soul, and this is the basis for all
human development be it physical, psychological or spiritual.
With a contemporary reading of these verses, we find a text rich with images and
symbols. This is not an objective, descriptive narrative account. Origen’s allegorical
interpretation is a particular instance of a reading of these images and symbols within a defined
symbolic and imaginative universe, that of early Christianity, that is directed toward clearly
articulated ends, the salvation of the soul.
Today Heather shared with you the first seven verses of the second chapter of the Song of
Songs. These verses are full of symbolic language. The female voice is heard throughout, except

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in the second verse, which is usually attributed to the male voice. The female voice uses the
imagery of flowers to describe herself. Her beloved is described in the image of an apple tree.
The scene is one of the bounties of the natural world and in that world love and sexuality thrive.
The female narrator speaks of feasting, of the enjoyment of food such as apples and raisins. She
speaks delicately of physical embrace. To me these five verses speak of unselfconscious
sensuality and physical enjoyment.
Origen reads these same verses as a roadmap for individuals who are on a spiritual quest
and seeking the deepest understanding of, and union with, the divine. It would be easy to see
these two approaches as contradictory. Looking at the way in which Origen understood these
verses, we can discern a contrast between this world and the spiritual realm. However, these
images of sensuality and passion are also seen as important to the individual on a spiritual quest.
The spiritual quest is arduous, fraught with danger, and very difficult. For success, all of an
individual’s human capabilities are needed, including passion and striving, shaped by the
assistance of the wisdom and guidance of religious tradition. Human beings, with their physical
bodies, their sensual experiences of the world, employ passion, made up of physical,
psychological, and spiritual dimensions, to motivate and to guide them in many activities,
including spiritual growth and ascent to the heights of spiritual experience. Origen, as a
prominent early Christian commentator on the Song, symbolically engages the sensuality,
physicality, and sexuality of the Song and through his understanding and creative use of the
symbols contained in it, reads it as a guide for the adept who wants to seriously engage in
spiritual growth.
Origen provided the paradigmatic Christian model for the allegorical interpretation of the
Song of Songs. Earlier Jewish interpretations drew upon the imagery of the Song as referring to
the relationship between God and Israel, Origen saw two models: one is the relationship between
Christ and the Church and the other as the relationship between Christ and the individual soul.
During the medieval period, the interpretation of the Song of Songs is also viewed as a spiritual
love poem about the relationship between Christ and the soul that was much more fully
developed by authors such as Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux. A more mystical
approach was also developed by writers such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila who
created vernacular literature based upon the Song. Spiritual interpretations of the Song of Song
by Origen merged or mapped onto the expression of passionate physical love described on the
surface of the Song and transformed it into a passionate spirituality that we experience as much
in and by the body as in the soul.
The Song offers up many interpretations for us today as it has to those on a spiritual quest
for over two millennia. The Song can be appreciated as exquisite love poetry. It’s incredibly
beautiful and intriguing imagery can refresh and inspire us. In other ways, the Song of Songs
Jewish and Christian commentary tradition offers a map to show us how our passions and our
physical bodies can assist us on our varied spiritual journeys. I invite you to explore this sacred
text with fresh eyes and to see it as a model for exploring and using other sacred texts. Such as
exploration shows that there is much more to the Jewish and Christian traditions that proof texts
and “thou shalt nots.” In the Song there is a wisdom that shows us that love, physical as well as
spiritual, is stronger and more potent than death. And it provides the basis for a religious
perspective that affirms a healthy sexuality, one that embraces the body without guilt or self-
consciousness and that can offer us guidance on the varied spiritual journeys that we are on
today. Thank you.

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References

Bloch, C. and A. Bloch. 2006. The Song of Songs. New York: Random House.

Laird, M. 2002. Under Solomon’s Tutelage: The Education of Desire in the Homilies on the
Song of Songs. Modern Theology 18: 507-525.

Lawson, R.P. 1956. Introduction. In The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies. Origen.
New York: Newman Press.

Matter, E.A. 1990. The Voice of My Beloved: the Song of Songs in Western Medieval
Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Origen. 1956. The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies. New York: Newman Press.