Shuve—Irenaeus’s Contribution to Early Christian Interpretation of the Song of Songs 87soteriology. In so doing, he opened the door, if only partially, to the possibility that an
enigmatic poem about a desiring bride and a virile bridegroom might have theological
significance for the Christian community. But, it is possible to speak more concretely
than this. Irenaeus’s direct contribution to the early Christian tradition of Song exege-
sis was to provide a typological pattern according to which Old Testament narratives
of marriage and courtship were to be read. And, far from being an attempt to repress
the corporeal, sexual, and social dimensions of marriage, Irenaeus develops this typo-
logical pattern to uphold the essential goodness of embodied existence. Just as Hosea’s
historical marriage to the prostitute constituted a prophetic witness to God’s redemp-
tive act toward a sinful people, so too did Moses’ historical marriage to the Ethiopian
signify his inclusion of an excluded people.
This typological pattern of marriage as a prophetic witness provides the key
to a more sympathetic—and, I would argue, historically attuned—reading of Ori-
gen’s massively influential Homilies and Commentary on the Song of Songs. For the
moment, however, probing the one direct link between the Adversus haereses and
the Commentary on the Song of Songs will suffice—the typological reading of Moses’
marriage to the Ethiopian woman in Numbers 12. Since Origen provides his fullest
exposition of the passage in the Commentary, that will be the locus of our analysis.
At the start of Book Two, Origen offers an interpretation of Song 1:5, “I am black but
beautiful,” words attributed to the Bride. His remarks sit uneasily with a twenty-first
century audience. She is a Gentile, and her blackness, taken to mean ugliness, stems
from her ignorance of “the teaching of the patriarchs.”^38 Her beauty is juxtaposed
with this blackness, coming through faith in Christ, which restores the original
imprint of the divine image. For Origen, however, this verse is not fully intelligi-
ble apart from the other Old Testament texts that “foreshadow” this mystery. He
expounds at length four passages: Numbers 12, 2 Kings 10, Psalm 67, and Jeremiah
- At the head of this list, notably, is the story of Moses’ marriage to the Ethiopian,
which Origen begins: “Therefore, in Numbers we find Moses taking [accipere] an
Ethiopian wife, who is dark and black [fuscam videlicet vel nigram] .”^39 Origen, in his
erudition, goes on at much greater length than Irenaeus, discoursing about Aaron
and Mary’s jealousy and the favor shown to Moses after the marriage; he writes,
“Mary, who is a type [formam] of the abandoned synagogue [synagogae derelictae]
and Aaron, who is the image [tenebat imaginem] of the priesthood according to the
flesh [sacerdotii carnalis], seeing their kingdom taken away from them and given
to a people [genti] bearing its fruits [cf. Matt. 21:43], say: Has God spoken to Moses
alone? Has he not also spoken to us [Num. 12:2]?”^40 But, in its essentials, the Irenaean
reading is preserved: “It seems to me that they [i.e., Mary and Aaron] understood
the thing Moses had done more as a mystery [secundum mysterium], and they saw
Moses—that is, the spiritual Law [spiritalis Lex]—entering into marriage and union
[in nuptias et coniugium] with the Church that is gathered together from among the
Gentiles.”^41 Moses’ historical marriage to the Ethiopian has prophetic significance
regarding the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God, which Aaron and
Mary are able immediately to identify. The marriage of the black and beautiful bride
of the Song to Christ, it is true, has no “historical” dimension—the union of Christ