"The Ladder of the Seven Songs" in Origen: Reconfiguring the Midrash of the Ten Songs as a Mystagogical Device
Abstrakt
This article examines the sequence of seven biblical songs enumerated by Origen in the Prologue to the Commentary on the Song of Songs and in the first Homily on the Song of Songs, in comparison with the rabbinic tradition of the “Ten Songs” attested, among other sources, in the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael. While the rabbinic list represents a midrashic mode of enumeration structured by lexical and chronological criteria and oriented toward Israel’s historical and eschatological destiny, Origen reconfigures enumeration into a sequence culminating in the Song of Songs as the nuptial hymn of the Bridegroom and the Bride. Through close textual analysis and engagement with prior scholarship, the article shifts the focus from questions of direct dependence or influence to the internal hermeneutical function of enumeration. It argues that, in Origen’s Prologue, the ordered sequence of songs operates as a mystagogical device, articulating stages of spiritual ascent that lead the soul toward mystical union with the Word of God. The analysis concludes that Origen’s sevenfold schema does not preserve a rabbinic tradition nor simply diverge from it but represents a creative reconfiguration of a shared exegetical form, transformed to serve a distinctively Christian theology of spiritual pedagogy and ascent.
Słowa kluczowe:
Origen, commentary, Song of Songs, biblical enumeration, Midrash of the Ten Songs, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, allegorical interpretationBibliografia
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