88 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, Legacy
the bridegroom and the church the bride is immediately transparent to the literal
sense. But to have any genuine meaning, Origen must relate it to actual flesh-and-
blood unions, which, in their corporeality point to spiritual reality.
My aim in this paper is a modest one. I do not wish to conflate Irenaeus’s and Ori-
gen’s attitudes toward embodied existence, nor am I arguing that Irenaeus exercised a
decisive influence over Origen’s exegesis. I have, however, hoped to demonstrate that
the distance between these two important early Christian theologians is not, perhaps,
as wide as is often thought, and that as much as Origen was a brilliant innovator in
his biblical interpretation, his debts to his predecessors—here, Irenaeus—are patent.
Moreover, I trust that I have shown that Irenaeus had an important role to play in
building the foundation onto which the edifice of the patristic exegesis of the Song of
Songs would rest.