Shuve—Irenaeus’s Contribution to Early Christian Interpretation of the Song of Songs 83the living Church is the body of Christ [ὅτι ἐκκλήσια ζῶσα σῶμά ἐστιν Χριστοῦ], for the
Scripture says, ‘God created man male and female [ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄρσεν
καὶ θηλῦ] (cf. Gen. 1:27).’ The male is Christ; the female is the Church.”^16 The final line
echoes the allegorical proclamation of Ephesians 5:32, although put far more discretely
and with Genesis 1:27 as the base text rather than Genesis 2:24, which explicitly speaks
of the joining together of the man and woman. The preacher attempts to resolve the
tension between these two images by associating the female with the flesh, which is
Christ’s body—“showing us that if any of us guard her in the flesh and do not corrupt
her [ἐάν τις ἡμῶν τηρήσῃ αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ καὶ μὴ φθείρῃ], he will receive her back
again in the Holy Spirit.”^17 The payoff of this ecclesiological excursus is an appeal for
the restraint of the desires of the body, as Paul Parvis has recently argued,^18 rather than
the glorification of the properly ordered marriage as a signifier for the union of Christ
and church, which is the case in Ephesians 5:21-32. This passage is not unimportant,
though, for it attests the growing matrix of Old Testament nuptial texts that come to be
employed in ecclesiological discourse.
One could perhaps also point to the enigmatic Shepherd of Hermas as relevant to
the present discussion. At the start of the text, Hermas, after being accused by his for-
mer mistress before the heavenly court, encounters “an old woman, in a great shining
garment, holding a book in her hands.”^19 Mistaking her for the Sibyl, Hermas is visited
by another heavenly agent, who informs him that this woman was in fact the church,
“created first of all things [πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη] .”^20 This text demonstrates that in the
early second century the church could be personified as a woman, but it is notable that
any strictly nuptial or erotic dimension is lacking, even though as the visions progress
the woman becomes more comely and beautiful.
Justin Martyr shies away from employing nuptial imagery when speaking of the
church, although he is the first Christian, after the author of the epistle to the Hebrews
(cf. 1:8-9), to cite Psalm (LXX) 44, the royal/messianic wedding song. He does this
six times in the Dialogue with Trypho,^21 and in each instance he offers a christological
reading (38.3-5; 56.14; 63.4; 76.7; 86.3; 126.1). This Psalm has an obvious appeal to
Justin, for the quite straightforward reason that its protagonist is referred to as Χριστός
and θεός (44:7). Justin invokes this Psalm when chastising Trypho at the end of the
Dialogue for being ignorant of the one whom David calls “Christ and the God who
is to be adored [Χριστὸς καὶ θεὸς προσκυνητός] .”^22 In only one instance does he give
an ecclesiological reading of this Psalm, and notably he identifies the church with
the daughter and not the queen: “The Word of God speaks to those who believe in
him... as to a daughter [ὡς θ υγατρί]—to the Church established by and sharing in
his name” (63.4).^23 The king’s desire (ἐπιθυμέω) for the beauty of the daughter receives
no comment. Although Justin cannot himself be said to articulate any kind of nuptial
theology, the christological interpretation of Psalm 44, which he advances in a number
of instances throughout the Dialogue, sets an important pattern for the interpretation
of marriages in the Old Testament.