A lily among thorns

July 28, 2025 Mark Brians

*p/c Santa Caterina del Sasso, by Wolfgang Sauber via wikimedia commons*

In chapter two of the Song of Solomon the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of the Vulgate, owing a bit to the idioms of Latin, is a bit stronger: lilium inter spinas. She is a lily set in a nest of spines. One cannot get at her without getting into the spines. Towards the end of the chapter the Lover says of her Beloved that they belong each to the other and that he willingly pastures, or “browses”, among the lilies which means also among the thorns.

What’s going-on? Why make this comparison? What’s more —what do the lovers of the Song mean by this?

Love, eros, agape

February 26, 2024 Mark Brians

It is a curious thing when a Lutheran theologian and Friedrich Nietzsche are fond to be in agreement. Nietzche bemoaned the ways in which Christ (his great enemy) had spoiled and ruined eros —that is erotic love. Jesus the Galilean had come and ushered-in an age of charity and had done away with the dark and alluring erotic core of heathenism. Anders Nygren, writing later, agreed. Eros is for Nygren something that no Christian should have anything to do with —really and truly. Sure, we may experience romantic affection but the real core of the world was agape —selfless charity.

Utterly despised

January 10, 2023 Mark Brians

It is because, in thinking that Love is the kind of thing that wealth can buy, that person reveals they do not in fact value love as highly as they appear.

Da Blog