Christian allegorists was Influenced by the pagan Greek philosophies (i.e., Platonic dualism, stoicism, and the Hellenistic-Roman cults), they posited a dichotomy between things of the flesh and things of the spirit. Purity was associated with sexual renunciation, and all expressions of bodily pleasure–including sexual expression–were considered evil. In the Song of Songs all erotic imagery was allegorized as the yearning of the soul for union with God, or an expression of Christ’s love for his church. As by allegory the Greek philosophers had succeeded in transforming the sensuous gods of Homer and Hesiod into ethereal, spiritual ideals, so the celibate church theologians were “able by allegory to unsex the Sublime Song and make it a hymn of spiritual love without carnal taint.”
Those who have resorted to that allegorical interpretation to legitimize the existence of Song in Scripture have missed the crucial point-the Song of Songs in its plain and literal sense is not just a “secular” love song, but is fraught with deep spiritual, theological significance.
From the OT Hebrew perspective God is not absent from the Song, nor are his love and concern for his creatures lacking in it. Rather, they are clearly shown in the enjoyment and pleasure (given by God to man in the creation) which the lovers find in each other and in their surroundings. In harmony with the presentation of creation in Genesis, sexuality in the Song is part of God’s good creation; and since it is
St. John Paul II is one of the most well-known advocates of this book and gave his guide to reading it during a general audience in 1984. He explains how the Song of Songs can only be read, “along the lines of what is written in the first chapters of Genesis, as a testimony of the beginning.” John Paul II refers to the following verses in Genesis as the key to understanding the Song of Songs.
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:23-25)
This situates the Song of Songs as a primary expression of “true” love experienced between a man and a woman in the sacrament of marriage. It is a love unsullied by original sin, full of a passion that unites the lovers together as one. This love is not one of lust, but a pure love of desire.