Tag Archives: Origen

One Flesh=Made Holy….

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Left: St. Mary of Egypt received Holy Communion when she was baptized as an adult in Jerusalem and then again from the priest-monk Zosimas in the desert after 47 years of ascetic practice as a hermit. Right: priest pours water into the chalice at the Offertory of the Eucharist.

For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. (1 Cor. 7:14)

St. Paul has already discussed how a man and woman become one flesh when they have a sexual relationship, no matter how brief that relationship might be. Now he points out that because a husband and wife become one flesh, the unbelieving spouse shares in the holiness of the believing spouse.

Among the Eastern Christians, the spouse of the priest shares in her husband’s priestly ministry, to some extent. She is given a special title of respect, usually the feminine form of whatever title her husband has: presbyter/presbytera, papa(batushka)/mama (matushka), preot (priest)/preoteasa. She and the priest are one flesh and share a common relationship to the parish.

In the reception of Holy Communion, each Christian becomes one flesh with Christ and with other believers who partake. This is why the use of one loaf and one cup are so important in the celebration of the Eucharist. We all receive the same Holy Gifts and share a common life as a result.

Because we share a common life, we contribute to each other’s salvation and sanctification. The holiness of one member supports and sustains the holiness of the others; the sin of one member pulls down the others as well. “Save yourself and you will save 1,000 people around you,” said St. Seraphim of Sarov. The salvation of one radiates out to touch everyone in the vicinity–and beyond!–just a ripples from a stone thrown into a pond radiate out across the surface of the water.

“Husband and wife are one in the same way that wine and water are one when they are mixed together,” wrote the 2nd century Bible scholar Origen. The wine and water mixed in the chalice are frequently seen as an allusion to the union of divinity and humanity in Christ, as well as the union of human spouses or members of the same congregation. It is in the Paschal cup of blessing that we find our communion with God and each other.

“I Sleep, But My Heart Wakes”

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The Queen of Sheba before King Solomon (1649-1647)
Pauwels Casteels / Public domain
King Solomon is traditionally considered the author of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.

“I sleep, but my heart is awake” (Song of Songs 5:2) is one of the most interesting verses for the Patristic tradition and the tradition of the prayer of the Church. This is generally understood to be the sleep of the physical senses while the spiritual senses are active and aware; often, this verse was cited in connection with visions or dreams in which a person had a direct experience of God while otherwise incapacitated.

Jacob, in the Old Testament, dreamed that he saw the Lord atop a ladder that reached from earth to heaven; the angels were ascending and descending the rungs of the ladder. Solomon himself was visited by God in a dream and given the choice of selecting which divine gift he preferred; he famously asked for wisdom. The apostle Peter, in the Book of Acts, thought he was dreaming when an angel came and helped him escape from prison. The prophet Joel promised that authentic encounters with God in dreams would happen when the Messiah arrived.

A direct experience of God, either awake or asleep, is often considered a sign that the person has reached the third stage of spiritual growth. These stages—purification, illumination, purification—often overlap and retract while still going forward. They are never linear and self-contained. No one is ever finished with purification before beginning illumination or experiencing moments of perfection. These moments of purification can be spurs to continue the work of purification or illumination.

“For many of [the Church fathers], the Song of Songs should be viewed as the last part of a trilogy written by Solomon, whose first and second parts were Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Consistently with the tripartite ascent of the soul – or the Church – towards God that we find in the ascetic theological tradition of the Church, which consisted of the stages of purification-illumination-perfection (or union with God), these three books represented precisely this triad: Proverbs was seen as a work that represented moral purification, while Ecclesiastes reflected on the vanity of the transient world and thus was seen as a work of illumination through the contemplation of the world. The Song of Songs therefore, coincides with the third and final stage of the ascent of the soul or the Church towards God, and its symbolism of the union between the man and the woman symbolize the union with God.” (A. Andreopoulos, “The Song of Songs: The Asceticism of Love“)

“My Beloved is a sachet of Myrrh”

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Medieval illumination of the royal couple in the Old Testament Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon

“My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.” (Song of Solomon 1:13 ) St. Gregory of Nyssa comments on this, saying: “The Lord Himself, having become a balsam of myrrh (in His death) and taken residence in my heart itself, occupies the center of my awareness.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux also understands the bitter myrrh as an emblem not only of Christ in the Passion but as the personal repentance of each believer. “This perfume of repentance,” he preaches, “reaches to the very abodes of the blessed in heaven…. God will not scorn this crushed and broken spirit. This [myrrh] not only inspires us to amend our lives but even makes the angels dance for joy,” because the angels greatly rejoice over one sinner who repents. “Those who have renounced sinful ways are inevitably gripped by bitterness and confusion… like fresh wounds” but the bitterness of the myrrh gives way to the sweet scent of the oil of gladness described in Psalm 45:8 (which also describes the royal bride preparing to wed her groom).

In modern Judaism the Song is read on the Sabbath during the Passover, which marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well as commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, while Christian tradition reads it as an allegory of Christ and his “bride”, the Church.

The Church’s interpretation of the Song as evidence of God’s love for his people, both collectively and individually, began with Origen. Over the centuries the emphases of interpretation shifted: first, reading the Song as a depiction of the love between Christ and Church; in the 11th century, it was read as describing the relationship between Christ and each Christian; in the 12th century the Bride was seen as the Virgin Mary, Each of these new readings absorbed rather than simply replaced earlier interpretations, so that the commentary became ever more complex. Reading the Song of Songs as a theological metaphor reveals the two partners–whether understood as Christ and the Church, Christ and each believer, or God and the Blessed Virgin–are eternally bound in a relationship that the idea of “marriage” can only approximate.