Amy Hughes: Blackness and the Bride in Origen’s Commentary on the Song of Songs

“…[M]y light and my splendor will be restored to me, and that blackness for which you now reproach me will be so fully banished from me, that now too I shall be deemed worthy to be called the light of the world.” In his explication of Song 1:6a, Origen portrays the Bride on a path of self-discovery laden with theological and philosophical representation. Origen’s exegesis focuses primarily on the Bridegroom’s beauty in his Christological perfection and in relation to that perfection, his description of the beauty of the Bride emerges as an important thematic element. In five main passages from the Song, Origen develops themes regarding racial difference, self-discovery, feminine interaction with the divine as representative of both the individual and the corporate experience of the Church, and progressive growth in moral virtues all in conjunction with the beauty of the Bride. It is certainly not lost on anyone who reads Origen’s commentary that he seems to directly contradict himself as to whether he really believes that black is indeed beautiful. This paper will focus primarily on the themes of racial difference and feminine beauty understood as theological and ecclesiastical categories by Origen in two main passages about the black and beautiful Bride. With respect to these themes, this paper focuses on the text, but also makes uses of important recent scholarship on Origen and race by Mark S. M. Scott, as well as Denise Kimber Buell’s work on reading race in early Christianity. The black and beautiful Bride in Origen’s Commentary on the Song of Songs, in effect, redefines beauty as an important theological construct.