230 Notes to Chapter 6
the Christian history of Song interpretation. He playfully argues that male exegetes tried to avoid the Song’s
sexuality but unwittingly embraced it, only not as an erotic encounter between a woman and a man, but rather,
because they took upon themselves the role of Bride, as one between two men.
- HE VI.8.
- Moore, “History of Sexuality,” 332.
- King, Marriage Song, 89–133.
- King, Marriage Song, 51–56, lucidly demonstrates that Origen’s “carefully constructed terminology
points to a real distinction between gramma—the fixity, structure, and form of the written text—and sôma—
the fixed and limited understanding found in, and in a sense imputed to, the gramma by the materialistic
habitus that is our mind’s second nature” (55). The Song thus has a “literal” sense, but the spiritual meaning is
immediately and entirely transparent to it.
- King, Marriage Song, 126.
- King spends but three pages linking Origen’s Song exegesis to trajectories in first- and second-century
Christian thought (1–3).
- Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1992), 7–8, is worth quoting at length: “Consequently, although the ‘literal sense’ has often been thought
of as an inherent quality of a literary text that gives it a specific and invariant character... the phrase is simply
an honorific title given to a kind of meaning that is culturally expected and automatically recognized by read-
ers. It is the ‘normal,’ ‘commonsensical’ meaning, the product of a conventional, customary reading. The ‘lit-
eral sense’ thus stems from a community’s generally unself-conscious decision to adopt and promote a certain
kind of meaning, rather than from its recognition of a text’s inherent and self-evident sense.”
- For the Apostolic Fathers, I follow the Greek text of Michael Holmes, Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts
and English Translations of their Writings (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). Translations are my own.
- 2 Clem. 14.2 (Holmes, 120).
- 2 Clem. 14.3 (Holmes, 120).
- Paul Parvis, “2 Clement and the Christian Homily,” in The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, ed. Paul
Foster (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 39.
- Herm. 1.2 (Holmes, 336).
- Herm. 1.8 (Holmes, 344).
- I follow the Greek text of Philippe Bobichon, Justin Martyr: Dialogue avec Trypho, Vol. 1 (Fribourg:
Academic, 2003). Translations are my own.
- Dial. 126.1 (Bobichon, 522).
- Dial. 63.4 (Bobichon, 354).
- Hae r. I.7.1 (SC 264: 100).
- Hae r. I.8.4 (SC 264: 128).
- Hae r. V.9.1 (SC 153: 106).
- Hae r. V.9.2. (SC 153: 110).
- Hae r. V.9.4 (SC 153: 116).
- Hae r. IV.20.12 (SC 100^2 : 668-70).
- Haer. IV.20.12 (SC 100^2 : 670).
- Haer. IV.20.12 (SC 100^2 : 670). Cf. 1 Cor. 7:14.
- Haer. IV.20.12 (SC 100^2 : 670). Cf. Rom. 11:17.
- Haer. 4.20.12 (SC 100^2 : 670).
- Dem. 94 (SC 406: 209). Translations are based upon the Latin retroversion provided by A. Rousseau.
- Dem. 94 (SC 406: 210).
- Dem. 94 (SC 406: 210).
- Origen, Hom. In Cant. 1.2 (SC 37: 63): “For how long will my spouse send kisses to me through Moses,
will he send kisses through the prophets? I wish to touch his mouth—would that he come, would that he
descend.”
- Comm. In Cant. 2.1.4 (SC 375: 262): “quae paternae eruditionis non habeat claritatem.”
- Comm. In Cant. 2.1.21 (SC 375: 272).
- Comm. In Cant. 2.1.22 (SC 375: 272).
- Comm. In Cant. 2.1.23 (SC 375: 272).
