Tag Archives: Gregory of Nyssa

Mother of God as Fortress and Incense

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This icon, similar to the icon in Rome of the Mother of God known as “Health/Salvation of the Roman People,” illustrates the Song of Songs 4:4, which reads, “Like the Tower of David is your neck … a thousand shields hang upon it, all arrows of the mighty.”

“Who is she that goes up from the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatic spices–of myrrh and frankincense and all the perfumer’s powders?” (Song of Songs 3:6)

The friends of the groom are surprised by what they see, St. Gregory of Nyssa tells us. They know she is beautiful more splendid than gold or silver. But now they see her ascending and are struck with amazement and compare her beauty and virtue to not just a simple, single variety of incense but to a mixture of frankincense and myrrh together.

“One aspect of their praise is derived from the association of these two perfumes: myrrh is used for burying the dead and frankincense is used in divine worship…. a person must first become myrrh before being dedicated to the worship of God. That is, a person must be buried with Christ who assumed death for our sake and must mortify themselves with the myrrh–understood as repentance–which was used in the Lord’s burial.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Song of Songs)

A person must embrace ongoing self-examination and repentance; only then is it possible to then possible to enter the presence of God as the frankincense which is offered by the angels before the throne of God (Rev. 8:4).

Another of the spices used by perfumers was cinnamon. It was thought to have several remarkable properties, such as stopping putrefaction or infection and would cause a sleeping person to answer questions truthfully. So the application of “spiritual cinnamon” would stop anger, induce honest/truthful self-examination, and calm the anxious.

Myrrh and cinnamon were therefore metaphors for attitudes and practices that would protect a person from sin. In the Song, the bride–who was a type of the Mother of God–was not only myrrh and cinnamon but a protective fortress as well. The bride–in patristic sermons, the Mother of God–is a fortress with shields hanging from the battlements. The walls of the fortress are impervious to spears. The early fathers took this to mean that the prayers of the Mother of God could protect Christians from the darts and arrows of temptation. The fortress could also be seen as the Church herself, steadfast and immoveable on the rock of faith.

There were 18th century icons to illustrate this idea of the Mother of God as fortress; the inscription at the top of these icons was commonly:

“Like the Tower of David is your neck, built on courses of stone; a thousand shields hang upon it, all arrows of the mighty.” (Song of Songs 4:4)

In the example of this kind of icon seen above, the two saints appearing at the sides are additions generally not found in other versions.  They are the Martyr Adrian and the Martyr Natalia.  Some examples have instead the military saints such Alexander Nevsky at left, and George at right, but many have no saints added to the main image.

Much thanks to the Icons and Their Interpretation blog for information about this icon.

St. Francis Takes Refuge in the Cleft

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St. Francis, with the wounds of the stigmata visible on his hands and foot, kisses the foot of Christ on the Cross in this detail from a 13th century image in the Arezzo basilica of St. Francis.

St. Francis of Assisi is known for many things. Several episodes in his life have become part of popular culture, some still associated with his name while his connection to others has been forgotten: how many remember that the Christmas manger scene–the creche–was “invented” by St. Francis in 1223?

“For in the day of trouble he [the Lord] shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling, and set me high upon a rock.” (Psalm 27:7)

As I was reading the psalms last week, I was reminded of another incident in St. Francis’ life. In the autumn of 1224 (the year after he organized the first creche), St. Francis received the stigmata (meaning “brand” or “mark”)–the five wounds of Christ–although this was not generally known until after his death in 1226. The stigmata is commonly referred to as “the wounds of love” described by the bride in the Song of Songs 2:5. The groom then tells the bride, “Come, my dove, in the cleft of the rock…” (Song of Songs 2:13-14).

We are told by St. Gregory of Nyssa that this cleft “is the sublime message of the Gospel” and the person who loves God is not coerced to take refuge in the Gospel but must freely choose to love God and the Good News; St. Gregory points out that King David “realized that of all the things he had done, only those were pleasing to God that were done freely, and so he vows that he will freely offer sacrifice. And this is the spirit of every holy man of God, not to be led by necessity.” What is coerced is not love. Love must be freely given and freely received. Taking refuge in the rock is to freely give oneself to God and to be freely received by God.

The psalm refers to this same idea: the Lord will protect his friend, his beloved from danger by sheltering the beloved in the “secrecy of his dwelling,” the cleft “high upon the rock.” Readers–such as Augustine of Hippo–understood this psalm to promise freedom from sin to the beloved of God; the one who loves God would be kept safe from the danger of damnation even if slain by enemies.

Medieval poets often identified the “cleft in the rock” mentioned by the Song and the psalms with the wounds of Christ, especially the wound in Christ’s side made by the spear. Early Christian authors, such as St. Methodius of Olympus, preached that “Christ slept in the ecstasy of his Passion and the Church–his bride–was brought forth from the wound in his side just as Eve was brought forth from the wound in the side of Adam.”

The stigmata was the seal of St. Francis’ love for God and God’s love for Francis. It was in the refuge of this love that Francis found the safety to love the world which was in such need.

“I Sleep, But My Heart Wakes”

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The Queen of Sheba before King Solomon (1649-1647)
Pauwels Casteels / Public domain
King Solomon is traditionally considered the author of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.

“I sleep, but my heart is awake” (Song of Songs 5:2) is one of the most interesting verses for the Patristic tradition and the tradition of the prayer of the Church. This is generally understood to be the sleep of the physical senses while the spiritual senses are active and aware; often, this verse was cited in connection with visions or dreams in which a person had a direct experience of God while otherwise incapacitated.

Jacob, in the Old Testament, dreamed that he saw the Lord atop a ladder that reached from earth to heaven; the angels were ascending and descending the rungs of the ladder. Solomon himself was visited by God in a dream and given the choice of selecting which divine gift he preferred; he famously asked for wisdom. The apostle Peter, in the Book of Acts, thought he was dreaming when an angel came and helped him escape from prison. The prophet Joel promised that authentic encounters with God in dreams would happen when the Messiah arrived.

A direct experience of God, either awake or asleep, is often considered a sign that the person has reached the third stage of spiritual growth. These stages—purification, illumination, purification—often overlap and retract while still going forward. They are never linear and self-contained. No one is ever finished with purification before beginning illumination or experiencing moments of perfection. These moments of purification can be spurs to continue the work of purification or illumination.

“For many of [the Church fathers], the Song of Songs should be viewed as the last part of a trilogy written by Solomon, whose first and second parts were Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Consistently with the tripartite ascent of the soul – or the Church – towards God that we find in the ascetic theological tradition of the Church, which consisted of the stages of purification-illumination-perfection (or union with God), these three books represented precisely this triad: Proverbs was seen as a work that represented moral purification, while Ecclesiastes reflected on the vanity of the transient world and thus was seen as a work of illumination through the contemplation of the world. The Song of Songs therefore, coincides with the third and final stage of the ascent of the soul or the Church towards God, and its symbolism of the union between the man and the woman symbolize the union with God.” (A. Andreopoulos, “The Song of Songs: The Asceticism of Love“)