Katharina Bracht: The Aroma of Christ. Hippolytus’ λόγος-christology in his Commentary on the Song of Songs

Hippolytus of Rome is well-known as the author of the first Christian commentary on the Song of Songs. He determined the course for future Christian christological Canticum-exegesis by interpreting the bridegroom typologically as Christ and the bride as the Church, as it is taken up by Origen, Ambrose and other fathers of the church.Far less known, however, are those passages in which Hippolytus develops other typologies for Christ (now easily accessible not only in the Latin translation of the Georgian version by G. Garitte, Traités d’Hippolyte, CSCO 264, 1965, but also in an English translation by Y. W. Smith, The Mystery of Anointing,2015). The paper takes Hippolytus’ commentary on Cant 1:14 (13) (Hipp. Cant.13:1–4) as point of departure, where he typologically interprets the balsam taken from the trees growing in the vineyards of Engedi as the „aroma of Christ“, i.e. the „grace of economy“ which he diffuses at his crucifixion. It investigates in how far this corresponds with Hippolytus’λόγος-christology as known from his Commentary on Daniel(cf. Bracht, Hippolyts Schrift In Danielem, STAC 85, 2014, 279–91) and elucidates the ”logic“ of this strange typology. The paper furthermore pays attention to the reception of this motif in later Canticum-exegesis.