The Preface to Origen on the Song of Songs

Take again the preface to the Song of Songs: “To the most holy Pope Damasus. In his other books Origen surpassed all other men; in the Song of Songs he surpassed himself. The work consists of eleven complete volumes and runs to nearly twenty thousand lines. In it he discusses first the version of the Septuagint, then those of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, and last of all a fifth version, which he says he discovered on the coast of Actium. He does this so grandly and so freely that it seems to me the words have been fulfilled in him that say, ‘The king has brought me into his chamber.’ “To translate so great and so valuable a work into Latin would take a vast amount of time, labor and money. So I leave it unattempted, and have only translated, without elegance but faithfully, these two short treatises that he composed in everyday language for babes and nursing infants. I give you a mere taste of his thought, not a full meal; but enough to let you see what his greater works are worth, when the smaller ones give you so much pleasure.” [a]