The Song of Songs as well,
according to Ambrose, contains a typological prefiguration of baptism (DM
7.35), in the Bride’s words, “I am dark and beautiful”, if interpreted, not
literally, but allegorically (as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa had done, joining
the Bible and Greek philosophy in their exegesis, including the maxim “Know
Yourself”): “the Church, who has received these clothes thanks to the laver of
regeneration (baptism), says in the Song of Songs: ‘I am dark and beautiful, O
daughters of Jerusalem’: dark because of the weakness of human condition, and
beautiful thanks to the divine grace; dark because I am constituted by sinners,
beautiful thanks to the sacrament of faith [fidei sacramentum]”. (Haec
vestimenta [. . .] Ecclesia, per lavacrum regenerationis adsumpta, dicit in
canticis: “Nigra sum et decora, filiae Hierusalem”: nigra per fragilitatem
condicionis humanae, decora per gratiam; nigra quia ex peccatoribus, decora fidei
sacramento.) Sacramentum fidei is the sacrament of baptism, since it is
through baptism that one becomes a Christian, either at birth or after
converting. (Ilaria L. E. Ramelli , “The Sources of Augustine on Christ’s Death
and Resurrection as Exemplum and Sacramentum: Origen and
Ambrose?,” in Origen, the Philosophical Theologian: Trinity, Christology,
and Philosophy-Theology Relation [Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 160; Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 2025], 489)
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