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Origen therefore counsels that the childlike Christian "who is not yet rid of the vexation of flesh and blood and has not ceased to feel the passion of his bodily nature" should refrain from reading the Song, lest he think that Scripture is "urging him on to fleshly lust." Since, as the Greek maxim says, "like is known by like," Origen concludes that only those whose minds have become spiritual can know the God who is "spirit and truth."

Origen's treatment of the opening lines of the Song shows how he saw the spiritual sense symbolically represented in the literal sense of the drama.

Solomon's Song begins with the bride who, tired of waiting so long for her beloved to come, asks the bridegroom's father, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." The bride's cry is the voice of Israel's faithful, who are not satisfied with intermediaries such as Moses and the other prophets, but desire the Divine Word himself. Moses and the prophets have prepared her. They have trained her to love the Word. But she wants more; she wants to see the Word face to face.

The Father, hearing the prayer and knowing that the bride desires the Word with a suitable passion, sends the Son. The bride is now ready to be united with her beloved because she has attained a perfect love for the Word.

When the bridegroom comes, the bride says to him, "Your love is better than wine; and the odor of your perfumes better than all spices." In this verse, Origen explains, the bridegroom is a symbol for Christ. The Greek word Christ means "the anointed one"—the one anointed with oil. The bride's description of "the odor of [his] perfumes," Origen claims, alludes to the oil mentioned in Psalm 44:8, "Thou has loved Justice and hated iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows."

Origen sees perfume as a symbol of the Word's power to sanctify those who love him. For 2 Corinthians 2:14 says that the Church is "the good odor of Christ in every place." When the bride is united to her beloved, the perfume that covers the bridegroom's body rubs off on the bride. Even as the bride takes on the fragrance of her new husband's perfumes, so too the soul united with Christ is made holy by their intimate communion. The stench of sin is replaced by the sweet smell of virtue and righteousness. The Church that is spotless takes on the aroma of Christ's holiness by being taken to Christ's bosom. When the Church is united with Christ it becomes like him, restored to the image of God.

Solomon's language of desire is shocking, Origen admits, but only if we fail to appreciate its symbolic meaning. Personal virtue and correct interpretation are integrally linked for Origen. The interpreter must possess virtue in order to see beyond the carnal sense of Scripture. But if the Christian has made God, rather than the world, the object of her deepest desire, then she will be able to recognize the truth hidden in the Song's erotic language: only such language can adequately describe the intensity of perfect love for God—and the ecstatic joy the soul finds in loving and being loved by God.

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