Loving Their Wives as Their Own Bodies

The sixth and last point which I am told he brings against me, if my brother has not left anything unreported, concerns the apostle’s words, “He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.” In explaining them, after my own simple explanation, I put forward the question raised by Origen, stating his views though without mentioning his name, and saying: [a] “I may be met with the objection that the apostle’s statement is not true when he says that no one hates his own flesh, since those who suffer from jaundice, or consumption, or cancer, or abscesses prefer death to life and hate their own bodies.” And my own opinion follows immediately: “The words, therefore, may more properly be taken in a figurative sense.” [b]

When I say “figurative,” I mean to show that what is said is not literally the case, but that the truth is dimly shown through a mist of allegory. However, I will set out the actual words found in Origen’s third book: “We may say that the soul loves that flesh which is to see the salvation of God; that it nourishes and cherishes it, trains it by discipline, satisfies it with the bread of heaven, and gives it the blood of Christ to drink, so that it may thrive on wholesome food and may follow its husband freely, without being weighed down by any weakness. By a beautiful image the soul is said to nourish and cherish the body as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church, since it was he who said to Jerusalem: [c] “‘How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!’ “And so this perishable body may put on the imperishable and, poised lightly as if on wings, may rise more easily into the air. Let us men, then, cherish our wives, and let our souls cherish our bodies, in such a way that wives may be turned into men and bodies into spirits, and that there may be no difference of sex, but that, as among the angels there is neither male nor female, we who are to be angels may begin to be here what we are promised we will be in heaven.” [d]