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Exegesis soared to sublime heights with the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. Mark S. M. Scott: this nuptial tale supplied fertile ground for the mystical musings of Origen. He says the song's overt eroticism engenders a sense of awe and wonder.
Exegesis soared to sublime heights with the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. Mark S. M. Scott: this nuptial tale supplied fertile ground for the mystical musings of Origen. He says the song's overt eroticism engenders a sense of awe and wonder.
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Exegesis soared to sublime heights with the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. Mark S. M. Scott: this nuptial tale supplied fertile ground for the mystical musings of Origen. He says the song's overt eroticism engenders a sense of awe and wonder.
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Gregory of Nyssas Soteriological Exegesis of the Black and Beautiful Bride in Song of Songs 1:5 * Mark S. M. Scott Harvard University Patristic exegesis soared to sublime heights with the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. 1 This nuptial tale, replete with evocative imagery and multivalent symbolism, supplied fertile ground for the mystical musings of Origen (ca. 185254 C.E.) and Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335395 C.E.). 2 Although its overt eroticism engen- * I wish to express my thanks to Sarah Coakley, Nicholas Constas, and Rowan Greer for reading earlier drafts of this essay. I would also like to thank Lucian Turcescu for encouraging me to submit an earlier edition to an essay contest sponsored by the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies (CSPS), for which it won rst prize. I presented it at their annual conference in 2005 in London, Ontario at a session with Charles Kannengiesser. Thanks also to the editorial staff and the anonymous reader for HTR. Lastly, I wish to thank Peter Widdicombe, who rst opened the wardrobe doors and guided me through the enchanted world of Origens theology. 1 For a concise and helpful overview of patristic biblical exegesis, especially vis--vis Origens hermeneutics, see chapter 4, The Interpretation of Scripture, in Henri Crouzels magisterial Origen: The Life and Thought of the First Great Theologian (trans. A. S. Worrall; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) 6184. Excellent broad overviews can be found in the articles Allegory and Inter- pretation of the Bible in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (ed. Everett Ferguson; 2d ed.; New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1997). See also the ne articles by Manlio Simonetti Cantico dei Cantici and Scrittura Sacra in Origene. Dizionario. La cultura, il pensiero, le opere by Adele Monaci Castagno (Roma: Citta Nuova Editrice, 2000). 2 In the prologue to his translation of Origens Homilies on the Song of Songs Jerome extols the singular brilliance of Origens allegorical exegesis to Pope Damasus I (366384 C.E.): While 66 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW dered some apprehension, the profound symbolic meanings deployed by the church fathers enabled the church to embrace fully the Song of Songs as a deep reservoir of theological insight. 3 Always provocative and potentially scandalous, it perennially generates hermeneutical difculties. Since exegesis invariably reects the social and historical location of the interpreter, disparate themes and issues will resonate with different readers in different eras. For a generation of scholars attentive to the problem of racism, Song 1:5 merits particular attention because of its complex employment of racial imagery. In this verse the Bride proudly declares: I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Qedar, like the curtains of Solomon (hw: an: w ynI a} hr: /jv [#r <n w#-n<w]; c oivo ci i xoi xop). Both the Hebrew and Greek word for black, hr:/jv and co, have negative connotations, and the ambiguous sense of the conjunction between coivo and xop constitutes the grammatical crux of the hermeneutical debate. 4 This essay advances two interrelated approaches to analyzing Origen and Greg- orys theological exegesis of Song 1:5. First, it problematizes their use of negative symbolism for blackness in their expositions of this verse. 5 Second, it proposes that their innovative use of allegory enables them to transcend racial categories and thus to obviate what might appear to modern readers as racist rhetoric. I will argue that in distinct yet related ways, the exegesis of Origen and Gregory utilizes black imagery to convey soteriological truth rather than racial stereotypes or anti- black sentiments. They concern themselves ultimately not with race but with the doctrine of salvation. Origen surpassed all writers in his other books, in his Song of Songs he surpassed himself, in The Song of Songs Commentary and Homilies (trans. R. P. Lawson; ACW 26; New York: The Newman Press, 1956) 265. This paper will cite the pagination of Lawsons translation of the Latin original. Lawson notes that the original Greek texts of Origens commentary and homilies on the Songs of Songs are no longer extant, although there are some small fragments. Runus translated the original commentary into Latin. Unfortunately, he translated only three out of the ten books of the original, as Jerome reports (23). 3 The Song of Songs: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentaries (ed. and trans. RichardA. Norris, Jr.; The Churchs Bible, ed. Robert Louis Wilken; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) xviii. Norris comments that the Song of Songs was included late in the Hebrew Canon because of the interpretive difculties involved in identifying the symbolic referents of the lovers and their attendants. From an early point in Jewish and Christian interpretation, the book was reckoned among the deepest and most difcult texts in the Bible. 4 Michael V. Fox notes that hw: an: w ynI a; hr: /jvv is best translated black but beautiful rather than t black and beautiful which inverts the meaning. See d HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version (London: HarperCollins, 1993) 1002, n. 1:5. hw: an: means desirable, and xop means beautiful. The usual word for beautiful in Hebrew is (fem.) hp; y: , hence the Greek text is glossing over a, perhaps exegetically undesirable, nuance here. 5 For a recent in-depth study of Origens treatment of the Song of Songs, as well as his hermeneutical method more generally, see J. Christopher King, Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture: The Bridegrooms Perfect Marriage Song (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). MARK S. M. SCOTT 67 I Origen: The Bride as the Puried Gentile Church Consistent with his exegetical method, Origen begins the Commentary on the Song of Songs by outlining his understanding of the literal sense of the passage (II.1). 6 He speaks in the voice of the Bride to explicate the basic meaning: that the Bride is beautiful despite being black. At this point in the narrative, the Bride responds to the daughters of Jerusalem, who apparently have disparaged her beauty because of her dark complexion. She retorts that her black skin conceals an inner beauty, just as the black tents of Qedar and the black curtains of Solomon conceal inner beauty. In Origens imaginative reconstruction of this text, he expressly associates the Brides blackness with ugliness. The Bride herself implicitly afrms the correlation of black skin with ugliness by attributing her beauty to an internal rather than an external state, as Origen puts it: I am indeed dark (fusca (( )or black (nigra)as far as my complexion goes, O daughters of Jerusalem; but, should a person scrutinize the features of my inward parts, then I am beautiful (formosa (( ). 7 Thus, she shifts the aesthetic locus from her external hue to her internal state of virtue. By transpos- ing the context of her beauty from a surface condition to a spiritual condition, she betrays her internalization of their negative assessment of her bodily blackness. 8 At the same time, however, she supplants these negative attitudes and associations by denying their ultimate signicance in determining her aesthetic status. Origen proceeds from the literal level of the text to the mystical, which also co- heres with his standard hermeneutical procedure. 9 As he enunciates in the Prologue, the Bride in the story represents the Church, 10 but in this passage she represents more specically the Church gathered from among the Gentiles (ecclesiae personam tenet ex gentibus congregatae). 11 The daughters of Jerusalem represent the Jews 6 Origen, The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, 19. Lawsons English translation of these texts uses the critical edition of Origens works by W. Baehrens, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (GCS, vol. 8; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1925). This paper will also consult with this critical edition throughout. 7 Origen, Song, 91. 8 Moreover, the transposition of beauty from an external condition to an internal state corresponds to the shift from surface to depth, which is the modus operandi of Origens allegorical method. 9 Origen, Song, 92. Norris, The Song of Songs, xviii: The ancient writers nd no difculty in transferring the language of erotic love to spiritual matters. Indeed, the primary reason for resorting to allegory is that they assumed that any writing included in scripture treated, in one manner or another, the relation between God and human beings. They believed that human ers, even when it is focused by desire for union with another human person, displays a receptivity to and a reaching out for a more ultimate love. 10 Origen, Song, 21. 11 Ibid., 92. Norris, Song, 39. He translates c 0vp as nations instead of Gentiles. The rst systematic allegory of the Song of Songs was by Rabbi Akiba in the early second century, who described it as the Holy of Holies and interpreted it as an allegory of Gods love for Israel (xviii): This kind of exegesis was also practiced by Christians, beginning with Hippolytus of Rome and Origen, both of whom saw in the Bridegroom a representation of Christ (i.e., the eternal Word and Wisdom of God), and in the Bride a representation of the Church, that is, the people of God. This ecclesiological interpretation of the Song became a dominant, and in some cases the exclu- 68 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW who despise and vilify her for her ignoble birth, in other words, they degrade Gentile Christians because of their inferior ancestry. According to this mystical interpretation, the aspersion black refers not to skin color but to the state of be- ing unenlightened by the wisdom of the patriarchs and particularly by the Mosaic law. As with his literal exegesis, black (nigra) here has an unmistakably negative resonance. Blackness symbolizes for Origen a particular sort of spiritual opacity. Although the Gentile church (ecclesia ex gentibus) cannot boast of Jewish descent and Mosaic enlightenment (illuminatio Moysis), it nonetheless shares with the Jews an innate capacity for divine enlightenment. As Origen writes, But I have my own beauty, all the same. For in me too there is that primal thing, the Image of God (imago Dei), wherein I was created; and, coming now to the Word of God, I have received my beauty. 12 Origen regards divine ancestry as more fundamental than human ancestry. Since God created all humans, regardless of race, in the image of God, the Gentile church can reect divine beauty through the Word of God. The Gentile church may lack the ancestral pedigree and exterior signs of enlightenment, but close inspection shows its truly authentic and salvic illumination. Later, when Origen draws further symbolic parallels between the Bride, the queen of Sheba, and the personied Ethiopia of Psalm 67, he characterizes Ethiopia, before its conversion, as the black one who has been darkened with exceed- ing great and many sins and, having been stained (infectus) with the inky dye of wickedness, has been rendered black and dark (niger et tenebrosus). 13 Origens typology operates under the assumption that the blackness of the Bride, the queen of Sheba, and Ethiopia signify spiritual opacity. In his exegesis the quality of blackness denotes sin, wickedness, and spiritual deciency. 14 Consequently, the Bride only becomes beautiful when she transforms her blackness into fairness or whiteness, which denotes spiritual enlightenment. Thus, Ethiopia represents the Gentile sinners who offer confession and repentance to God and subsequently, it is implied, become beautiful by becoming white. 15 Origens exegesis clearly intends to use categories of color symbolically, but the racial implications of his commentary require careful nuance and critical reection; I shall take up that task in the nal two sections. In his exegesis of Song 1:6, Origen continues to develop these soteriological themes and symbolic frameworks. In this verse the Bride expresses her shame over sive, theme of later Christian exegesis (and, not least, that of Nicholas of Lyra, the late-medieval commentator). Origen, however, taught that the Song could also be taken to speak of the relation between the Word of God and the individual soul (xix). 12 Origen, Song, 92. 13 Ibid., 103. Origen notes the parallel between the Bride and the queen of Sheba (the South) in his First Homily on the Song of Songs I.6, 27778. 14 Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature (New York: Routledge, 2002) 74. 15 Origen, Song, 103. MARK S. M. SCOTT 69 her deformed condition of blackness (nigredine) or darkness (infuscatione): It is not a natural condition in which she was created, Origen argues, but something that she suffered through force of circumstance. 16 In the very next sentence Origen qualies his assertion by remarking that the passage obviously does not refer to bodily blackness (nigredine corporis) but to the souls blackness. J. Christopher King explains: When the Bride speaks of her blackness . . . Origen interprets her words asomatically. 17 Whereas the physical blackness of the Ethiopian race (gentem Aethiopum) results from prolonged exposure to the suns ercer rays (107), spiritual blackness results from the Sun of Justice (sol iustitiae, pio oixoioouvp). 18 The light of the spiritual sun (sol spiritalis) affects the obedient and disobedient differently. For the obedient and upright, it causes illumination (illuminat), but for the disobedient, the sun must needs look askancethereby scorching the soul and making it black. 19 Origen correlates the positive illuminating effect of the sun to spiritual enlightenment and the negative burning effect of the sun to spiritual darkening: The sun has twofold power: it enlightens the righteous; but sinners it enlightens not, but burns. 20 The symbolic contrast between darkness and light continues in his exegesis of Song 1:6, though with an emphasis on the souls illumination. By uniting with Christ, the soul becomes puried from sin and gradually re- covers its beauty: Once she [the Bride or soul] begins to . . . cleave to Him [the Bridegroom or Christ] and suffer nothing whatever to separate her from Him, then she will be made white and fair (dealbata et candida). 21 Since spiritual blackness occurs through neglect and sloth, one must transform it through industry, in other words, through purication. Salvation then occurs in the movement away from darkness into ever-brightening light: When all her blackness has been cast away, she will shine with the enveloping radiance of the true Light. 22 Thus, Origens exegesis of 1:6 reinforces the symbolic framework that he developed in his exegesis of 1:5. Whereas his primary typological referent for the Bride in the Song of Songs remains the Gentile church, he also identies her with the individual soul. These two typologies do not appear inconsistent or mutually exclusive for him, because his allegorical approach allows him to discover multiple symbolic meanings that need not cohere with each other. As Origen delves deeper into mysteries of the text, his symbolism becomes increasingly multivalent and theologically complex. 16 Ibid., 107. 17 King, Origen on the Song of Songs as the Spirit of Scripture, 57. 18 Origen, Song, 108. Lawson, The Song of Songs, 331, n. 60. Lawson notes that the Sun of Justice has Messianic overtones for Origen and that he explicitly identies this Sun with Christ throughout his corpus. He also mentions that the word Ethiopian (Ps 67:32, Ai 0i o: oi 0m, o ) means burnt-face (331, n. 57). 19 Ibid., 109. 20 Ibid., 112. 21 Ibid., 107. 22 Ibid. 70 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW Origen treats Song 1:5 in his First Homily, and many of the themes that surfaced in his commentary echo here. 23 In this homily Origen puzzles over the simultaneous ascription of blackness and beauty to the Bride. He takes it to be self-evident that the two are antithetical: But the question is, in what way is she black and how, if she lacks whiteness, is she fair? 24 Here again Origen associates blackness with sin and whiteness with beauty. He presupposes the same symbolic framework that he constructed in his commentary. The Bride represents the Gentile church puried from sin, and her beauty, according to Origen, results from the divine gift that fol- lows repentance: She has repented of her sins, beauty is the gift conversion has bestowed; that is the reason she is hymned as beautiful. 25 She retains her beauty, then, despite her blackness, which represents the vestiges of sin that remain fol- lowing conversion: She is called black, however, because she has not yet been purged of every stain of sin, she has not yet been washed unto salvation. 26 So the beauty of the Gentile church consists in its conversion to Christ, while its blackness consists in the continued tinge of sin in the church. Blackness represents the stain of sin that must be washed away through the purication of baptism. According to Origen, this symbolic nexus explains how the Bride can be simultaneously black and beautiful: Intelleximus, quomodo et nigra et formosa sit sponsa. 27 For Origen, then, blackness clearly connotes a negative predicate that describes the state of the Gentile church before conversion. Salvation, consequently, he may metaphorically express as the gradual transformation fromdarkness (sin) to white- ness (purity): Nevertheless she does not stay dark-hued, she is becoming white. 28 The process of purication uses blackness and whiteness as primary symbols. In true homiletic fashion, Origen then applies the black and white dualism to the individual soul: But if you do not likewise practice penitence, take heed lest your soul be described as black and ugly. 29 Blackness indicates the shameful quality of sin in the Gentile church and in the individual soul, as he mentioned above. d Since it is a forbidding hue, it engenders ridicule and causes the Bride shame, as he writes, Look not at me, for that I am blackened. She apologies for her 23 Lawson, 1617. Origens two Homilies on the Song of Songs were written in Greek and are no longer extant in the original version. Jerome translated them into Latin and included a prologue addressed to Pope Damasus I. Lawson surmises that Origen probably wrote the Homilies a few years after his Commentary, that is, before 244 C.E. Furthermore, he argues that these Homilies are an indispensable but often overlooked resource for apprehending Origens theology, especially his soteriology or doctrine on grace. His translation of these texts into English seeks to remedy this oversight. 24 Origen, First Homily, I.6, 276. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. MARK S. M. SCOTT 71 blackness. 30 Just as darkness represents the absence of light in the physical world, so in the spiritual realm darkness indicates the absence of spiritual light: The Sun has looked down on me. With full radiance His bright light has shone on me, and I amdarkened by His heat. I have not indeed received His light into myself. 31 As we noted previously, Origen argues that the light of Christ can either darken or lighten the soul, depending on its receptivity. A permeable soul absorbs the light of Christ through repentance and thereby becomes beautied by illumination. The opaque soul repels the light of Christ, which results in spiritual darkness and ugliness. In section three Origens portrayal of blackness in his commentary and homily on Song 1:5 will be analyzed further. I Gregory of Nyssa: The Bride as the Beautied Soul Gregory of Nyssas fteen homilies on the Song of Songs follow the same hermeneutical trajectory that began with Hippolytus of Rome (b. 17075 C.E.), whom most scholars agree composed the rst Christian allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. 32 Origen, however, receives the credit for giving the allegorical reading of the Song its classic expression. 33 In fact, Gregory acknowledges Origens exposition in his prologue and situates his commentary alongside it: Although Origen laboriously applied himself to the Song of Songs, we too have desired to publish our efforts. 34 Their commentaries, though similar in hermeneutical and theological approach, differ in symbolic emphasis. Gregory identies the Bride primarily with the individual soul, while Origen identies her mainly with the church. Quasten remarks: The Song of Songs represents to him the union of love between God and the soul under the gure of a wedding. It is this aspect of the book that predomi- nates in Gregorys commentary in contrast to Origen, who, particularly in his homilies on the subject, prefers to regard the Bride as the Church [specically the Gentile Church]an interpretation that Gregory does not neglect, but relegates to a minor role. 35 30 Ibid, 278. 31 Ibid. 32 For an extensive treatment of Gregorys commentary on the Song of Songs, see Franz Dnzls Braut and Brutigam: die Auslegung des Caniticum durch Gregor von Nyssa (Beitrge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese 32; Tbingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1993). 33 Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs (trans. Casimir McCambley; Brookline, Mass.: Hellenic College Press, 1987) 56. All references to Gregory will utilize McCambleys pagination. 34 Gregory, Commentary. 39. 35 Johannes Quasten remarks on the relationship between Gregory and Origen: The forward concludes with high praise of Origen, whose mystical exegesis has beyond doubt had a powerful inuence on Gregory. Nevertheless, Gregory is too deep and independent a thinker to follow slav- ishly the Alexandrian master (Patrology [Utrecht: Spectrum Publishers, 19641966] 3:266). 72 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW Much like Origen, however, Gregory posits that the Song has deeper levels of meaning beyond the literal storyline. 36 When understood properly, it functions as a paradigmatic text for the transmission of both philosophical and theological knowledge: Once again the Song of Songs (to Aioo tmv oootmv) is presented to us as a guide for every type of philosophy and knowledge of God (ioooio tc xoi 0coyvmoio). 37 Gregory operates with a twofold conception of the text that corresponds to the twofold levels of meaning. The exterior or literal level appears easily apprehensible by everyone. Conversely, the interior or symbolic meaning requires purication from sin as a necessary precondition for accessing its meaning: All these things can be found in the literal meaning if we only prepare ourselves to enter the Holy of Holies (to oyio tmv oyimv) after having been puried from the lth (uaov) of shameful thoughts by the bath of the Word (tm outpi tou oyou). 38 Just as entry into the Holy of Holies was forbidden to the unclean, so entry into the mystical knowledge of God is forbidden to the sinful. 39 Those who have cleansed themselves from sin have the capacity to apprehend the mysteries hidden within the story. Once the puried soul perceives that a gurative narrative runs parallel to the literal story (though on a hidden, mystical level), the true spiritual meaning can emerge. Gregory depicts the Bride in Song 1:5 as a teacher instructing her pupils about the mysteries of God. Her self-description as black and beautiful (c oivo xoi xop ) discloses not her self-perception or complexion but rather the nature of divine love. For Gregory, the Bride represents the soul, and the predication of black- ness denotes its sinfulness: I have become dark through sin (c ootio). 40 The Brides blackness signies the repulsiveness that results from the souls wicked deeds. Consequently, in harmony with Origen, Gregory explicitly characterizes blackness as the antithesis of beauty. Something makes the Bride beautiful despite being black: Although I am black, I am now this beautiful form, for the image of blackness has been transformed into beauty (ctcoxcuoo0p yo to ooimo tou oxotou ci xoou op v). 41 When juxtaposing their commentaries, one sees that Gregory and Origen employ similar hermeneutical methods and interpretive categories in their exegesis of this verse. Both employ symbolic interpretations and utilize racial categories to describe the spiritual state of the soul. Moreover, blackness represents their principal symbol for spiritual sinfulness, repulsiveness, and ugliness, which indicates the quality of the soul that the Bridegroom must either overlook or transform. 36 Norris, The Song of Songs, xx, 37. Gregory follows Origens twofold application of a moral (individual soul) and Christological or ecclesiastical (the church) reading of the Song. 37 Gregorii Nysseni, In CanticumCanticorum(ed. W. Jaeger; trans. Hermannus Langerbeck; Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. 6; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960) 59. This paper cites from this critical edition. 38 Gregory, Commentary, 60. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 61. MARK S. M. SCOTT 73 According to Gregory, the fundamental theological meaning of this verse is not humanitys sinfulness but rather of Gods immense love for mankind. 42 In her sinful condition the Bride remains unsuitable for marriage, but her Bridegroom graciously transforms her ugliness into beauty. Gregory delineates the salvic process by which the soul becomes beautiful through the interrelated concepts of incarnation and atonement: Although I have become dark through sin and have dwelt in gloom by my deeds, the Bridegroom made me beautiful through his love, having exchanged his very own beauty for my disgrace [Is 53:23; Phil 2:7]. After taking the lth of my sins upon himself, he allowed me to share his own purity, and lled me with his beauty. 43 Gregory delineates the nature of divine love, which deigns to enter into the human condition and assume humanitys sinfulness for its salvation. The Brides beauty metaphorically expresses the souls salvation from sin, and by imitating Christ the sinful soul grows in beauty. Gregory, like Origen, associates the souls blackness with its past sin: My former life has created this dark, shadowy appearance ( t to oxotcivov xoi omoc). 44 Although the souls past sins impinge upon its present existence, it nevertheless remains beautiful on the grounds that it abides loved by righteousness. 45 The traces of sin indelibly afxed to the soul do not mar its beauty, since these traces only indicate a sign of its past life, not its present reality. Gregory posits a theological link between Song 1:5 and Rom 5:8: But God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us. Both Gods love and humanitys sinfulness constitute the central features of both texts, he avers. Gregory expounds Rom 5:8 using the racial categories of Song 1:5: Al- though we were darkened through sin, God made us bright (mtocioci ) and loving through his resplendent grace. 46 Here Gregory applies the duality of darkness and light to soteriological transformation. The gloom of night (i.e., sin) has darkened our souls, although they are light by nature (oao xoto uoiv), and stand in need of spiritual illumination. Salvation means the process whereby the soul becomes beautiful by internalizing Christs resplendent grace. Gregory illustrates the soteriological import of Song 1:5 using Pauls conversion: Paul, the bride of Christ, had become radiant from darkness. 47 Hence, just as the Brides blackness transformed into beauty, so Paul, a blasphemer, persecutor, insulter, and black in color (c o), became illuminated, in effect made spiritually light/white, by Christ. This transformation from darkness to light, in other words, from sin to salvation, occurs in the cleansing of baptism, which symbolizes the bath of regeneration 42 Ibid., 60. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., 61. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 74 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW that washes away the souls dark form (p oxotcivp op ). Gregory argues, then, that Paul conceives of salvation as the enlightenment of the darkened soul: Paul also says that Christ entered the world to enlighten those who were dark. 48 Hence, Gregory correlates Pauls explicit soteriology in Romans with the implicit soteriology of Song 1:5. Gregory adduces another scriptural passage to elucidate his notion of the souls salvic enlightenment. In Ps 87:4 the citizenry of the heavenly Jerusalem in- cludes Ethiopia and other foreign peoples. 49 The demographics of the city of God, Gregory avers, will be multi-ethnic and multi-national. Interestingly, he comments that the Ethiopians become light in color in the heavenly city, a change which symbolically marks their salvic transformation. When applied to the narrative, Gregory argues that this passage reveals the Bridegrooms goodness in accepting his black Bride. When read allegorically, however, it testies to the goodness of Christ, who receives the blackened soul and restores its beauty by fellowship with himself (tp ao coutov xoivmvio xopv oacyoctoi). 50 Salvation, ac- cording to Gregory, consists of the beautication of the soul that ensues from its purication from sin. But the negative metaphysical or spiritual status of blackness entails that the souls beauty requires illumination or whitening. By conceiving of salvation as the process of becoming light or white, he makes blackness an evil quality both spiritually and physically. Although Gregory only draws a correlation between blackness and sin on a spiritual level, it nevertheless tends to reinforce racially prejudiced opinions. He may, thus, inadvertently provide transcendental legitimization for prejudicial views, since the material world ought to reect truths in the spiritual realm. In the nal two sections, I shall develop this critique and advance a theological solution. After explicating verse ve, Gregory proceeds to expound on the closely inter- connected verse six. Apparently the Bride, not originally black, became black by exposure to the sun: Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me (Song 1:6). Allegorically this verse accounts for the origin of evil, which the pigmentation of the Bride symbolically represents. Just as the Bride originated white, so the soul originated pure of sin. Moreover, just as the Bride became dark by exposure to the sun, so the soul becomes sinful by succumbing to temptation: The cause of darkness is not ascribed to the Creator, but its origin is attributed to the free will of each person. 51 Blackness, then, does not appear natural, either spiritually or physically. Gregory focuses not on the literal level but on the spiritual implications that follow, namely, the theological anthropology that it suggests: Human nature was an image of the true light, far removed from 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 62. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. MARK S. M. SCOTT 75 any darkness: it gleamed by imitation of the archetypes beauty. 52 The natural light or white condition of the soul, then, corresponds to its condition as originally pure and enlightened by God. But by their exercise of free will, souls become burned by the sin that results from yielding to temptation, which renders it ugly: The sun burns the bright surface of the body by the assault of temptations and blackens its form in ugliness, 53 The anthropology that he develops from Song 1:6, therefore, reinforces the negative association between blackness and sinfulness. Blackness, he argues, results from a perversion of the original white, pure condition of the soul. Gregory returns to the theme of the Brides beauty in his fourth homily. Before commenting on the passionate panegyric in verses 1516 of chapter one, Gregory pauses to reect once more on the nature of spiritual beauty and corruption, a topic which he introduced in his exegesis of Song 1:5. He compares the souls purica- tion from sin and return to primal beauty to the purication of adulterated gold through re. In the beginning human souls remained bright by virtue of their pure reection of God: Human nature was golden at the beginning and shone by reason of its resemblance to the undeled good. 54 But a foreign matter became mixed with the soul and resulted in its delement and adulteration. The advent of sin viti- ated the souls ability to reect Gods light. Verse ve, he observes, symbolically indicated this problem: However, it [the soul] became discolored and blackened by the admixture of vice as we have heard the Bride say at the beginning of the Song of Songs: her neglect to tend the vineyard made her black [1:5]. 55 Sin, then, represents the failure of the soul to continue in its natural and proper good. In its sinful state the soul becomes discolored and blackened (ou oou xoi c oivo), since impurities have adulterated its golden or bright hue. The categories implied here cohere with Gregorys earlier ones. A healthy, pure soul remains golden and bright, while an unhealthy, impure soul becomes discolored and blackened. The source of the darkening of the soul, consistent with the symbolic matrix outlined above, comes from sin. As before, Gregory does not place the weight of his allegorical interpretation on the sinfulness of the blackened soul. On the contrary, he accentuates the solu- tion, not the problem, gleaned from Song 1:5. Mired by sin and diminished in its capacity to reect the divine, the soul stands in need of grace, just as the Bride needs beautication. Not willing to put her away quietly, God restores her original state of beauty, which corresponds to Gods redemption of the soul: God, who fashions all things in his wisdom, cares for his Brides deformity. He does not contrive for her any new beauty which was not formerly there; 52 Ibid., 63 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., 91. See also Gregorii, Canticum, 100. 55 Ibid. 76 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW rather, He leads her back to her rst grace by removing what was blackened through evil, changing her color to one which is not deled. 56 A spiritually black soul, deformed, unnatural, and deling, requires salvation or beautication, namely, the return to the pristine beauty of the soul by the removal of the grime of sin. To illustrate the souls purication, Gregory returns to the analogy of the goldsmith. Just as adulterated gold needs to undergo multiple purications by re to restore it to its unalloyed state, so the sinful soul requires repeated puri- cations, before one can cleanse it from all stain of sin and restore it to its natural state of beauty: So too the attendant of the blackened gold, i.e., the Bridegroom, has brightened the soul by a kind of rening process through the application of his remedies. 57 So Gregory develops here the themes of divine love and salvation as beautication, which involve a change from darkness to brightness through the analogy of the renement of gold. In summary, then, salvation, for Gregory, means the restoration of the souls original state. Put in the terms of the Song, salvation means beautication, and beautication entails changing from black to white: The Song teaches by these words about the restoration of beauty which the Bride gained by approaching the true beauty from which she has departed. 58 The Origenistic theme of the fall and return of souls informs Gregorys soteriology. Beauty forms Gregorys central soteriological category, which he deploys throughout his commentary. In his ex- egesis of Song 1:15: Behold, you are fair, my companion, Gregory alludes to Song 1:5 and succinctly articulates his theological anthropology and hamartiology, namely, the souls primal beauty and its corruption through sin: Formerly you were not fair. Having strayed from the archetypal beauty by association with vice, you became ugly. 59 The misuse of free will, he asserts, causes sin. Beauty remains the symbol for salvation, and ugliness remains the symbol for sin. Furthermore, beauty and ugliness correspond to whiteness and blackness, which constitute the dening features for each. So for Gregory the story of the Bride conveys deep anthropological and soteriological truth. He emphasizes not the souls ontological dilemma (sin), but the divine love as expressed through its beautication (salvation). In his interpretation of Song 1:5, Gregory consistently posits a symbolic matrix, wherein the Brides blackness represents the souls sinfulness. At rst the soul pos- 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 92. The soul functions like a mirror that reects whatever it is exposed to, according to Gregory. By turning away from evil the soul is able to become beautiful by reecting the Beauti- ful One: So too the soul, when cleansed by the Word from vice, it receives within itself the suns orb and shines with this reected light. Therefore, the Word says to his Bride: You have become beautiful by approaching my light; by drawing near to me, you have attained communion with my beauty (93). 59 Ibid., 92. MARK S. M. SCOTT 77 sessed a beautiful quality expressed by the metaphor of whiteness or brightness. But once sin corrupted its original beauty, it developed an ugly quality expressed by the metaphor of darkness or blackness. Since sinfulness and temptation lurk outside of Gods original creation, ugliness must ultimately have a satanic origin, although that begs the question of the origin of Satan. 60 At any rate, darkness, for Gregory, is antithetical to beauty; I have noted the detrimental implications of this symbolism for racial discourse and will expand on them momentarily. More- over, Gregory considers the quality of blackness unnatural, since souls originated golden or bright, and their salvation consists of returning to that state. At bottom, then, the passage speaks to the nature of sin and salvation: The Song of Songs then speaks about our transformation from a good color (cuoio) to blackness (cov). 61 Gregory, however, cautions against interpreting the words in the Song very precisely, recommending instead a symbolic hermeneutic. 62 One must read the racial categories presented in Song 1:5 allegorically, not literally, in order to avoid detrimental misapprehensions and misapplications. I Black Theology and the Soteriological Foci of Song 1:5 We must now ask whether or not Origen and Gregorys allegorical interpretations withstand the searching critiques of black theology. But before we embark on this stage of the argument, we must raise an important methodological question: is it fair to evaluate their exegesis from a modern hermeneutical and theological perspective? We must bear in mind that modern racism and a black theology, sensitive to the problem of racism and exploitation in recent history, did not exist in antiquity in the same way that it does for contemporary society. From the outset, then, we must vigilantly avoid anachronistically assessing their racial discourse by standards that they could not possibly meet. As I mentioned in the introduction, all exegesis remains deeply contextual, and so we cannot expect Origen and Gregory to treat this racially charged material with the critical nuance of a modern exegete. They attended to the social and theological problems of their time and particularly to Jewish-Christian relations and the doctrine of salvation. In light of this, I would consider it unfair and misguided to subject them to modern critical standards. Although we must avoid anachronistic judgments, we may nonetheless ask prob- ing questions about the racial implications and undercurrents of their exegesis. Can one justify their use of racial metaphors? Does their treatment of this verse promote or reinforce racial prejudices? I submit that Origen and Gregory interpret Song 1: 5 soteriologically, not racially, which demonstrates both their ability to transcend these racial categories and their appropriation of negative black symbolism. For Origen, the condition of blackness denotes, not a negative physical state, but a nega- 60 The origin of evil must lay in the privation of the good, since everything God creates is good. 61 Ibid., 63. 62 Ibid. 6364. 78 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW tive spiritual state. He does not equate black pigmentation with ugliness, because the quality of blackness constitutes simply a metaphorical description of the souls sinful state: it in no way indicates or promotes any anti-black sentiment. It would not occur to him to make an aesthetical judgment of colored bodies, since he seeks only to ascertain the spiritual sense of blackness. In fact, he plainly avers: She [the Bride] is not speaking of bodily blackness. 63 The darkness of the Bride functions merely as his point of entry for reecting on the purication of the Gentile church and the soul from a state of sin to a state of salvation. His employment of racial categories was a matter of textual necessity rather than personal preference. Given the presence of these categories, however, he does not use them as an occasion to legitimize racial stereotypes but rather to see in the narrative profound ecumeni- cal truths about the movement from sin to salvation. Origen thus transcends these racial categories by transposing the context from the physical to the spiritual. True beauty for him remains a condition, not of the body, but of the soul. But this explanation does not imply that Origens exegesis is completely free of negative racial symbolism. In his Homilies on Jeremiah Origen adduces Song 1:5 within a wider commentary on Jeremiah 13:11. Just as the linen mentioned in this verse appears dark at the beginning but becomes bright through effort, so the soul appears dark at the start of its purication but eventually becomes cleansed: We are dark at the beginning in believinghence in the beginning of the Canticle of Canticles it is said, I am very dark and beautiful, and we look like the soul of an Ethiopian at the beginning. 64 What does Origen mean by looking like tpv upv Ai 0i oiv? 65 He seems to suggest that the souls of Ethiopians, not simply the Bride, correspond to their skin color, with the implication that black people have black souls. Although the absence of the denite article suggests that he means all Ethiopians, it seems more plausible, given his explicit reference to Song 1:5, that he limits the ascription of a blackened soul to the Bride. In any case, this condition of blackness precedes the souls purication through baptism and enlightenment: Then we are cleansed so that we may be more bright according to the passage, Who is she who comes up whitened (Song 8:5)? d 66 Blackness, as the color of the earth, must become more white and bright (oao tcoi), before the soul becomes worthy to cling to God (xooo0oi tm 0cm), which coheres with his notion of the progressive purication of the soul. In contrast to his commentary, however, he seems to draw a more explicit correspondence between black skin and a black (i.e., sinful) soul. 63 Origen, Commentary II.2, 107. 64 Origen, Homily 11.6.3, from Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah, Homily on 1 Kings 28 (trans. John Clark Smith; The Fathers of the Church 97; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998) 109. 65 Origen, Homlies sur Jrmie IXI (trans. Pierre Husson and Pierre Nautin; Sources chrtiennes I 323; Paris: Cerf, 1976) 430. 66 Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah, 11.6.3, 109. MARK S. M. SCOTT 79 Origens exegesis of Song 1:6 evinces the most racially offensive material in his commentary, although he does not expressly disparage black skin. While expound- ing on the allegorical meaning of this verse, he parenthetically discusses the natural origin of physical blackness. He comments that the Ethiopian race became black through prolonged exposure to the intense rays of the sun. Originally, he tacitly argues, white Ethiopians became black, departing from their natural hue, only af- ter being scorched and darkened. Once darkened, the Ethiopians transmit their congenital stain to their progeny. 67 To classify blackness as a natural deformity rather than as an expression of divine creativity reveals a parochial view of black- ness. In these deliberations Origen presupposes whiteness as the natural condition of humanity and blackness as an anomalous state that arises afterwards. These as- sumptions make black pigmentation an ailment that one must overcome, if one can invert the analogy to spiritual blackness to apply to physical blackness. By making blackness a negative physical quality, Origen reveals the extent to which he has internalized the ethnocentric views of his socio-historical context. The theologian must then ask how this ethnocentrism informs his theology and later theology as well. These opinions shape his allegorical interpretation of the Brides blackness and explain why spiritual blackness has negative symbolic connotations. On a more promising note, however, Origens mystical interpretation posits an anthropology that negates racial and ethnic differences. He attempts to express the fundamental unity of humanity despite these distinctions, as I alluded to above: For in me too there is that primal thing, the Image of God, wherein I was created; and, coming now to the Word of God, I have received my beauty. 68 His theological anthropology constitutes a salutary starting point for understanding the theological signicance of race and ethnicity. If God created all humans in the image of God, then each person, regardless of his or her racial or ethnic identity, reects (albeit imperfectly) the beauty of divinity. Skin color cannot diminish or enhance this in- ner beauty. Moreover, although ones dark or light hue might comprise a feature of ones physical beauty, the real locus of beauty lies in the state of the soul, which all share equally. As one grows in Christ, the soul becomes more beautied and less marred by the effects of sin, which thus deepens the correspondence between ones created capacity and existential reality. Hence, Origens universal anthropological ground for salvic purication transcends racial categories by privileging spiritual unity over physical differentiation. Frank Snowden afrms that Origen exhibited no hostile opinions against blacks and actually fostered a highly favorable view 67 Ibid., 107. 68 Origen, Commentary, II.1, 92. Norris, The Song of Songs, 39. Norris translates this passage as follows: For in me what is most elemental and deep-seated is that which has been made after the image of God; and now drawing near to the Word of God I have recovered my beauteous ap- pearance. 80 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW of blacks. 69 Nevertheless, Origen does appropriate an ancient view of race even in his allegorical interpretation: In his language of spiritual blackness and whiteness Origens adaptation of the Greco-Roman back-white imagery is clear, but equally clear is his indebtedness to classical themes of black-white contrast. 70 In this way Origen overcomes anti-black sentiments latent within these polarities. 71 But he does not, pace Snowden, entirely wrest himself free of all negative attitudes. Nevertheless, he makes great strides in that direction. Gregory also employs racial categories in his homiletic exegesis of the Song but, like Origen, he uses them not to promote or reinforce racism but to illustrate deep spiritual truth. He probes beyond the surface meaning, and, as with Origen, does more than merely equate blackness with sin. The souls blackness only marks the beginning of the knowledge disclosed by this verse. For Gregory, the essential point remains not the sinfulness of the soul but the love of God who transforms the souls ugliness into beauty: The Bride further speaks to her pupils of an amazing fact about herself in order that we might learn of the Bridegrooms immense love for mankind who added beauty to the beloved [Bride] through such love. 72 More than simply diagnosing the problem, Gregorys exegesis celebrates the solution to sin: the beautication of the soul through Christ. God demonstrates the depth of divine love by loving humanity despite their sin and by emptying Godself for its amelioration. This verse, then, far from merely appropriating negative and antiquated assumptions about blackness, uses the given racial categories of the narrative to illustrate and to extol the magnitude of Gods love. He transforms what one might justiably perceive as a relic of ancient bigotry into an ode to Gods love for lost souls. Thus, Gregory shifts the focus from the negative connotations associated with black skin to the spiritual reality of the sinfulness of humanity and the salvation afforded by God. The theological afrmation of Gods love combines with his soteriological em- phasis on the souls beautication. Gregory expresses his soteriological viewpoint through the analogy of the Brides transformation fromblackness to beauty, which corresponds to the souls transformation from sin to salvation. He characterizes the souls purication as an exchange, whereby Christ imparts his beauty to the soul and assumes the sin of the soul. 73 Two important passages underpin his soteriology: 69 Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983) 66. 70 Snowden, 103. 71 Snowden, 101. 72 Gregory, Fourth Homily, 60. 73 Ibid., 6061, 67. This idea anticipates what Luther later called the great exchange between the soul and Christ whereby Christs righteousness becomes ours, and our sinfulness becomes his. In Luthers Two Kinds of Righteousness and The Freedom of a Christian he illustrates his soteriology by employing the Song of Songs portrayal of the love between married lovers (e.g., TKR, 297; FC, 351). In a marriage union all that belongs to the Bridegroom is given to the Bride, and vice versa (TKR, 297). Likewise, according to Luther, all that belongs to Christ belongs to the Christian and MARK S. M. SCOTT 81 the Suffering Servant song in Isaiah 53 and the hymn to Christ in Philippians 2. He does not explicate the mechanics of this exchange between the soul and Christ, but the main lines of his conception appear clear. God the Son descends into the human condition, assumes humanitys sinfulness, and puries the soul from sin by lling it with his beauty and making it lovely. 74 He enlightens the previously black in color souls. 75 Though tempting, it would be anachronistic to cast Origen and Gregory as nascent black theologians. But it would also be anachronistic to cast them as anti-black. The situation is more complex than either option suggests. Origen and Gregory exhibited favorable attitudes toward blackness, but they also reected negative attitudes. 76 I submit that they transcended these categories by denying their ultimate signicance and by utilizing them to convey profound soteriological truth. Nevertheless, for the modern reader, the association between blackness and sin and whiteness and salvation remains problematic. One can mitigate the force of this objection by highlighting their shared sense of a common theological anthropol- ogy, whereby the souls of all people, regardless of skin color, reect the image of God (as Origen writes) and share an archetypal beauty (so Gregory), before they fall into sin. Moreover, with Snowden, one could praise them for their ecumenical and global conception of salvation: Origen and his exegetical disciples made it clear that all men, regardless of the color of their skin, were called to faith, and in their interpretations they employed a deeply spiritualized black-white imagery. 77 The problem remains, however, that symbolic associations between blackness and sin carry over to the physical realm and engender negative racial attitudes. They certainly did not intend thisand Snowden correctly notes that skin color did not give rise to a marked antipathy toward blacks and did not evoke negative reactions in the domain of social behaviorbut it nevertheless follows as an unintended consequence. 78 all that belongs to the Christian belongs to Christ. The union between the soul and Christ entails an exchange of attributes whereby Christs grace, life, and salvation becomes the souls while sin, death, and damnation, which belong to the soul, becomes Christs (FC, 351). 74 Ibid., 60. 75 Ibid., 61. 76 Gregorys positive attitude toward darkness is expressly seen in his Life of Moses, where Moses sees God in the darkness, which signies the unknown and unseen (96). Darkness is the condition for spiritual enlightenment: What is now recounted seems somehow to be contradictory to the rst theophany, for then the Divine was beheld in light but now he is seen in darkness. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson; New York: Paulist Press, 1978) 95. 77 Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, 107. 78 Ibid. 82 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW I Origen and Gregory of Nyssa: The First Apostles of Blackness? Black theology raises salient criticisms about the stigma attached to blackness and the concomitant fusion of the physical with the moral and ontological. Within the context of the patristic period, Robert Hood remarks that the church appropriated the dominant cultural attitudes toward blacks and blackness: During the forma- tive years of the Christian church in the Roman Empire, blackness not only had a distinctive negative connotation, but also was personalized as the devil. 79 The church expressed spiritual categories in terms of shade and color polarities, where light and white signied spirit and divine goodness, and dark and black signied materiality and evil. Hood further comments that these categories ltered into the patristic exegesis of Song 1:5, which intentionally deviates from the Septuagint nuance of the verse because of a widespread uneasiness about the correlation between blackness and beauty: The Greek-language Septuagint translated the Hebrew I am black and beauti- d ful; the Latin Vulgate by Jerome resisted the theological implications of the Greek Nigra sum et pulchra and instead renders it in the Latin Nigra sum sed formosa: I am black but comely (or beautifully formed). (Cf. RSV: I am very dark, but comely.) 80 Hood extols Origen as the rst apostle of blackness because he transforms blackness into a positive witness to salvation in his commentaries and homilies on the Song of Songs. 81 Hoods insight into Origen could equally apply to Gregory, who also redeployed black imagery to positive ends. In contrast with Hood, Frank Snowden argues that we have no evidence of racial prejudice in the ancient world: The ancient world did not make color the focus of irrational sentiments or the basis for uncritical evaluation . . . nothing comparable to the virulent color preju- dice of modern times existed in the ancient world. 82 Snowden rightly afrms the fact that the ancients did not fall into the error of biological racism; black skin color was not a sign of inferiority, but, conversely, Hood rightly afrms that we do have evidence of negative connotations associated with blackness. 83 After studying Origen and Gregorys interpretation of Song 1:5, we may conclude that Hoods thesis about the early churchs attitude toward blacks seems too pessimistic, while Snowdens appears too optimisticthe truth lies somewhere in between. Origen and Gregory at once exhibit negative attitudes toward blackness and posi- tive attitudes toward the salvic import of black imagery. Our analysis shows that while we cannot classify Origen and Gregory as the rst apostles of blackness, 79 Robert E. Hood, Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness (Min- neapolis: Fortress Press, 1994) 73. 80 Hood, 75. 81 Idem., 18, 80. 82 Snowden, Before Color Prejudice, 63. 83 Ibid. MARK S. M. SCOTT 83 we may nonetheless recognize their positive employment of the racial categories inherent in this verse, despite the fact that the very use of these categories involves problematic assumptions. For Origen the black Bride corresponds primarily to the Gentile church and his central metaphor for salvation is purication. For Gregory the Bride corresponds primarily to the soul and his central metaphor for salvation is beautication. For both the racial categories in Song 1:5 are a gateway to profound soteriological truth, not racism. I Conclusion When the church fathers read the Song of Songs, they perceived deep theological truths beneath the surface narrative. The passionate nuptial relationship detailed in the story, often in overtly erotic terms, became in the industrious hands of the Fathers an allegory of Christs relationship to the soul and the church. Origen and Gregory exemplify this hermeneutical trajectory and while some might character- ize their homilies and commentaries on the Song of Songs as eisegesis rather than exegesis, their speculative ights nonetheless have captured the imagination of generations of exegetes. By treating Origen and Gregory together in this essay I do not mean to elide their differences. As I stated above, they have disparate symbolic emphases. Nevertheless, their exegesis of the Song of Songs evinces remarkable similarities. With respect to Song 1:5, they both afrm the soteriological signicance of the Brides blackness, though with slightly different nuances. For both, the story manifests divine grace in symbolic shades. Once the symbolism of these shades of grace comes into view, the potentially offensive racial aspects of the narrative become less problematic, though not altogether obsolete. In this way, Origen and Gregorys soteriological exegesis of the racially charged language in this verse opens up new exegetical pathways for black theology. It also provides a new imaginative context for Christian theology to conceive of divine love and salvation. Reproducedwith permission of thecopyright owner. Further reproductionprohibited without permission.