Erotic Hermeneutics
A Labor of Love
The principle work of theology is to awaken within us a love for God. Or, to speak more precisely, it is to awaken within us a sure and certain knowledge of our Belovedness by God, but this is precisely the same thing, since “we love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This reciprocal dance of love forms the very heartbeat of our faith, the rhythmic pulse that animates our spiritual journey.
If this is the work of theology, then the work of reading and understanding the Scriptures is a labor of love. It is a courtship, of sorts. Not the cold, clinical dissection of a dead text, but a living encounter with the God who loves us, and reveals himself to us in and through his Word, by the power of his Holy Spirit breathed intimately upon us and into us. Each verse becomes a love letter, each chapter a rendezvous, each book an epic romance spanning the breadth of human experience and divine mystery.
Consider this an invitation to erotic hermeneutics. To engage with holy texts not merely as distant scholars, but as impassioned lovers, seeking union with the Divine through the written word. It is in this space between intellect and passion that we find a deeper, richer understanding of sacred texts because it is a “standing under,” and not “mastery over.” A reading that is at once a scholarly discipline, and an erotic adventure.
But what does it mean to approach Scripture erotically? It is to recognize that our engagement with the text is not merely cerebral, but wholly embodied. We bring to it not just our minds, but our hearts, our bodies, our desires, our fears, our hopes. We come to the text as whole persons, created in the image of a God who is love itself.
Let us consider the act of interpretation as a form of lovemaking. Just as lovers seek to know each other deeply, intimately, so too do we seek to know the text, to explore its contours, to delight in its beauty, to wrestle with its challenges. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable before it, to be changed by it, to be drawn out of ourselves and into a deeper union with the Divine.
Erotic hermeneutics recognizes the power dynamics inherent in the act of interpretation. It challenges the notion of the reader as conqueror, subduing the text to their will. Instead, it posits a mutual giving and receiving, a dance of meaning where both text and reader are transformed in the encounter. It acknowledges that true understanding comes not from domination, but from submission – a willing surrender to the text’s power to shape us. More still, it reconnects us with the passionate, embodied nature of our faith. Christianity is not merely a religion of the mind, divorcing spirit from body, reason from emotion. Our faith is Incarnational: the Word became Flesh, and dwells among us in all the messy, beautiful complexity of human existence. The Word enters our flesh. It sinks into our deepest being. It takes root there, shaping us from within, that we shape the world without.
The Sensuality of Interpretation
Imagine the sacred page before you, its words a tantalizing veil of ink and parchment. As your fingers trace the curves of each letter, you lean in close, breath quickening, seeking to penetrate the mysteries hidden within. This is the essence of erotic hermeneutics – a sensual, passionate engagement with the Word that transcends mere intellect.
The act of reading becomes a full-bodied experience. The scent of ancient leather bindings mingles with the crisp aroma of fresh paper. The weight of the book in your hands grounds you in the physical world even as the words lift your spirit out of it. Your eyes caress each line, lingering over particularly beautiful phrases, savoring them like fine wine. Your lips may even move silently, tasting the words, feeling their texture on your tongue.
This is Lectio Divina taken to its heights, where reader and text become lovers locked in an eternal embrace. In this dance, we find not just meaning, but union; not just understanding, but ecstasy. The text is a living entity, pulsing with potential, pregnant with possibility. We approach it with hearts aflame and minds open wide, for in this holy union of reader and word, we touch the very face of God.
The sensual engagement with the text awakens parts of ourselves that lie dormant when we read merely for information, merely for data, merely for ammunition for our arguments. Our body and our emotions are integral to this interpretive process. We find ourselves invited to weep with the psalmist, burn with righteous anger alongside the prophets, tremble with awe before divine mysteries alongside the priests. Such emotional responses are not distractions from understanding, but gateways to deeper insight. They are signifiers, not just that we have grasped the text, but the text – at last – has grasped us.
It is not merely the words that are pregnant with meaning and with possibility. We find ourselves, in the mystery of the encounter, startled like Mary by the angelic voice. The text speaks to us, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in thunderous proclamations. We “treasure these things in our hearts,” allowing the words to sink deep into our being, to challenge us, comfort us, transform us.
The seed of the Word takes root deep within us, germinating within our hidden depths. It sprouts up in unexpected moments – a flash of insight during prayer, a sudden application of Scripture to a life situation, a new understanding that blooms in the midst of community discussion. And finally, it bears fruit in our lives, our relationships, our communities. The Word, sensually engaged and deeply internalized, becomes incarnate once again in our flesh and blood existence.
The process of internalization and incarnation is itself deeply sensual. We feel the Word growing within us, stretching us, sometimes painfully, as it reshapes our understanding and our very selves. We experience the labor pains of new insight, the ecstasy of revelation, the tender nurturing of budding understanding. Our whole being becomes a womb for the Word, nurturing it, protecting it, allowing it to grow and develop until it is ready to be born into the world through our actions and our love.
In the erotic hermeneutic, the boundaries between reader and text blur. We lose ourselves in the words, only to find ourselves anew. We surrender to the text, allowing it to have its way with us, to seduce us, to ravish us with its beauty and its truth. And in this surrender, we find a profound freedom – the freedom to be fully ourselves, fully alive, fully in love with the Divine who speaks to us through these sacred words.
The sensuality of interpretation reminds us that our faith is not merely a set of propositions to be believed, but a love affair to be lived. It invites us to bring our whole selves – body, mind, heart, and soul – to the sacred page. In doing so, we open ourselves to a transformative encounter with the Divine, an encounter that leaves us forever changed, forever yearning for more.
Dionysus and the Art of Divine Eros
In the realm of erotic hermeneutics, few figures loom as large as the 6th-century Syrian philosopher-theologian known as Dionysius the Areopagite. He was a master of this kind of reading, both as a theorist, and an exemplar. His work represents a revolutionary approach to understanding divine love, one that shocked his contemporaries and continues to challenge us today.
Dionysius made the audacious claim that when we say “God is Love,” it is more proper to say “God is Eros” than “God is Agape.” In doing so, he suggested that God embodies not just self-sacrificing, self-emptying love (agape), but also passionate, infatuating, ecstatic love (eros). Furthermore, he proposed that our love for God should mirror this divine eros, characterized by the same fiery passion that leads to romantic self-abandonment.
This is was a bold and provocative claim. In the Greek Bible, eros is present as a concept – both positively (as in the Song of Songs, or implicitly, in the nuptial relationship between Christ and the Church) and negatively (as uncontrolled passion) – but it is notably absent as a term. The biblical authors universally preferred other language for love, because eros carried connotations that were vulgar, almost pornographic. To modern ears, Dionysius’s claim might sound as shocking as saying, “God is my f*ckbuddy.”
Yet Dionysius wasn’t operating in a vacuum. His use of eros drew from the Platonic philosophical tradition, where such language was more acceptable. However, Platonists could employ this terminology more easily because they generally viewed the body as somewhat unreal or uninteresting, with true reality existing in the abstract realm of forms. You might think of it kind of like the edgy stuff said by an academic. Folks might raise an eyebrow, but then get on with the business of living life, trying to be a good person and all that. But Dionysius brought this erotic fire into the church, suggesting it was not only acceptable but necessary to receive God’s love as eros and to love God erotically in return.
To justify this radical reinterpretation, Dionysius turned to the words of Ignatius of Antioch, an early Christian martyr. In one of his letters, Ignatius writes, “My love (eros) has been crucified!” Dionysius seizes upon this phrase, interpreting it as evidence of the kind of erotic, self-abandoning love for God that he advocates.
However, a closer examination of Ignatius’s words in context reveals a different meaning:
The prince of this age wants to tear me apart, and destroy my inclination (γνώμη) toward God. Don’t let any of you who are near by assist him! Rather, be on my side, that is, on God’s side. Do not speak of Jesus Christ, and lust (ἐπιθυμέω) after the world…For my part, I write to you while living, but longing (ἐράω) for death. My eros has been crucified, and there is no longer in me any fire of love for the material (φιλόϋλος), but only living and speaking water in me, saying within me, “Come to the Father.” I do not delight (ἥδομαι) in the food of corruption or the delights of this life. I want the Bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, and for drink, I want his blood, which is incorruptible love (ἀγάπη).
Ignatius to the Romans, 7 (my translation)
Powerful passage. There’s a lot going on here. And indeed, no question, Ignatius is seized by a kind of fiery divine madness that is drawing him away from the pleasures of this life, and into the furnace of divine love. But what that love is NOT is eros. When Ignatius says, “My eros is crucified,” he is echoing Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ;” he is talking about the death of his earthly passions. His eros (along with his hedone, his epithimia, and his love of material things) is subsumed into agape. This is an ascetic renunciation of worldly desires. Yet in the hands of Dionysius, these words take on a new, ecstatic dimension.
Ignatius spoke of mortification, but Dionysius discovers ecstasy. Ignatius renounced worldly passion, but Dionysius uncovers a more profound, divine passion. It is an interpretive move both daring and deeply reverent, unfolding layers of significance that resonate with the broader Christian understanding of divine love.
This is the very essence of erotic hermeneutics. He reads the spirit of Ignatius’s passion against the letter, inviting us to get swept up in the same divine eros by appropriating Ignatius’s spirit while inverting his language. In doing so, he reveals the potential of this method to uncover hidden depths in sacred texts, transforming our understanding of divine love and our relationship with God. This approach is not without its risks. It could be seen as a misreading, or even a willful misinterpretation of the text. But it also opens up new possibilities for engagement, allowing us to discover fresh meanings and applications of beloved texts that speak to our deepest longings and experiences. It invites us to embrace a more passionate, all-encompassing relationship with God – one that engages not just our minds, but our hearts, bodies, and souls in a dance of divine eros.
The Tension of Text and Subtext
Oh, the delicious tension inherent in this approach! The push and pull between what is said and what is meant, between the author’s intent and the reader’s desire. It is a dance as old as language itself, a tango of text and subtext that leaves us breathless, flushed with the effort of understanding. And is this not how the Divine speaks to us? In whispers and sighs, in words that mean far more than they say?
This tension is the very essence of erotic hermeneutics. It’s the space where meaning is not just discovered, but created. Like lovers who communicate volumes in a single glance, the text and reader engage in a silent dialogue rich with nuance and possibility. Each word becomes a gesture, each phrase a caress, each paragraph an intimate encounter.
Consider the Psalms, those passionate cries of the heart. On the surface, they speak of righteousness, of judgment, of faithfulness. But beneath, there thrums a current of raw emotion – longing, desperation, ecstasy. The psalmist who cries “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God” (Psalm 42:1) is not merely expressing spiritual thirst. This is the language of erotic yearning, of physical need so intense it becomes spiritual.
Or take the prophets, those fierce lovers of God who spoke truth to power. Their words, often harsh and condemning on the surface, vibrate with an undercurrent of passionate love. When Hosea speaks of God’s relationship with Israel in terms of marriage and adultery, he’s not just using a convenient metaphor. He’s revealing a truth about the nature of our relationship with the Divine – one that is intimate, passionate, and sometimes painfully raw.
The Song of Songs knew this truth – that the language of human passion is the best mirror we have for divine love. That in the ache of desire, the throb of longing, we catch a glimpse of God’s love for us. But even here, in this most explicitly erotic of biblical texts, there is tension. Is this a celebration of human love? An allegory of God’s love for Israel? A mystical representation of Christ’s love for the Church? The text teases us with possibilities, inviting us to read between the lines, to lose ourselves in its sensual imagery.
This tension between text and subtext is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. It’s an invitation to engage with Scripture not just with our minds, but with our whole selves. To allow the words to work on us, in us, through us. To be transformed not just by what is said, but by what is left unsaid, by the spaces between the words where the Spirit moves and breathes.
Approaching the Text as Lovers
Let us approach the text with all the passion of new lovers. Let us press our ears to the page and listen for the heartbeat of the Divine pulsing beneath. Let us allow ourselves to be seduced by the Word, to be drawn ever deeper into its embrace. In this erotic hermeneutic, we find ourselves caught up in the divine dance of interpretation, where every reading is an act of love, and every insight a moment of holy consummation.
This approach requires vulnerability. Just as lovers must bare themselves to each other, we must come to the text willing to be exposed, to have our preconceptions challenged, our deepest fears confronted, our highest hopes ignited. We must be willing to be changed by our encounter with the Divine Word.
Imagine approaching your Bible as you would a lover. You open it with trembling hands, heart racing with anticipation. Your eyes caress each word, lingering over phrases that spark something deep within you. You read slowly; you read again, savoring each syllable, allowing the rhythm of the language to wash over you like gentle waves.
As you read, you’re not just seeking information. You’re seeking connection, communion, union. You’re opening yourself to be touched by the Divine, to be moved in ways that transcend mere intellectual understanding. You’re inviting the text to speak to you in the language of love – sometimes tender, sometimes fierce, always transformative.
This lover’s approach to the text is not about imposing our desires onto Scripture. Rather, it’s about aligning our desires with the heart of God revealed in the text. It’s about allowing our passion for understanding to be kindled and fueled by God’s passion for us.
Consider how a lover reads a love letter. They don’t just skim for facts. They pour over every word, searching for hidden meanings, treasuring each turn of phrase. They read between the lines, intuiting the emotions behind the words. They may even press the letter to their heart, or bring it to their lips, physically expressing their connection to the beloved through the medium of the text.
So too, in erotic hermeneutics, we engage with Scripture with this level of intensity and intimacy. We may find ourselves weeping over a psalm, or shouting for joy at a gospel proclamation. We might feel a physical ache as we read of God’s longing for his people, or a rush of warmth as we encounter words of divine comfort.
In this lover’s approach, we also recognize that love involves knowing and being known. As we seek to know the text, to uncover its mysteries, we open ourselves to being known by the Author behind the text. We allow the Word to read us, to interpret us, to expose our hidden depths and secret longings.
This mutual knowing, this interplay of revelation and response, is the heart of erotic hermeneutics. It transforms our reading of Scripture from a dry academic exercise into a passionate encounter with the living God. In this divine dance of interpretation, we find ourselves caught up in a love story that began before the foundation of the world and stretches into eternity.
Every reading becomes an act of love, every insight a moment of holy consummation. And in this union of reader and text, human and divine, we taste the ultimate fulfillment of our deepest desires – to love and be loved, to know and be known, to lose ourselves and find ourselves in the embrace of the Divine Lover.
The Promise and Peril of Passionate Engagement
This is both the promise and the peril of erotic hermeneutics – that in our passionate engagement with the text, we might find ourselves transformed, undone, remade in the image of the Divine Lover. That in our quest for meaning, we might discover that we ourselves are the meaning, the living, breathing embodiment of the Word made flesh.
The promise of this approach is nothing short of revolutionary. By engaging with sacred texts as passionate lovers, we open ourselves to a depth of understanding that goes beyond mere intellectual comprehension. We invite the words to penetrate our very being, to rewrite our internal narratives, to reshape our desires and aspirations. This is the transformative power of the Word, not just informing us, but forming us, conforming us to the image of the Divine.
Consider the experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). As Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, they later exclaimed, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” This is the promise of erotic hermeneutics – that our engagement with the text might set our hearts aflame, igniting a passion for God that consumes us and propels us forward in our spiritual journey.
Moreover, this approach promises a more holistic engagement with Scripture. By bringing our emotions, our bodies, our desires into the interpretive process, we honor the full humanity that God has given us. We recognize that we are not disembodied minds, but whole persons, created in God’s image, with the capacity to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).
Yet, this promise is not without its perils. The intensity of this approach can be overwhelming, even dangerous, if not tempered with wisdom and community. There’s a risk of becoming so caught up in our personal, passionate engagement with the text that we lose sight of the broader context of Scripture and tradition. We might be tempted to twist the text to fit our desires, rather than allowing it to shape our desires.
Furthermore, the vulnerability required in this approach can leave us exposed and raw. Like lovers who risk heartbreak by opening themselves fully to another, we risk disillusionment or crisis when our encounters with the text challenge our preconceptions or confront us with difficult truths. The God we meet in Scripture is not always the God we expect or want, and this can be deeply unsettling.
There’s also the danger of spiritual narcissism – of becoming so enamored with our own experiences of the text that we neglect the communal aspect of interpretation. Erotic hermeneutics, while deeply personal, should not be purely individualistic. We need the balance of community, tradition, and reason to guide and ground our passionate engagement with Scripture.
As we approach the text with hearts aflame and minds open wide, we must be prepared for the possibility of profound change. For in this holy union of reader and word, we touch the very face of God, and cannot help but be forever altered by the encounter. This alteration is both thrilling and terrifying. It’s a death and a rebirth, a continual process of being undone and remade in the image of Christ.
Yet, for all its perils, the promise of this approach beckons us onward. For in this passionate engagement, we discover that we ourselves are the meaning – not in a self-centered way, but in the sense that we are called to become living exegeses of the text. Our lives become a commentary on Scripture, our actions an interpretation of the Word. We find ourselves, as Paul says, “living letters” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3), embodying the message we have so passionately embraced.
The Eternal Dance
Erotic hermeneutics invites us into an eternal dance with the Divine through the medium of sacred text. It challenges us to bring our whole selves – mind, body, and spirit – to the act of interpretation. In doing so, we open ourselves to a deeper, more transformative engagement with both the text and the Divine presence it reveals.
This dance is indeed eternal, for it reflects the very nature of God. The Trinity itself can be understood as a divine dance of love – the eternal, mutual, ecstatic self-giving of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we engage in erotic hermeneutics, we are invited to participate in this divine dance, to be caught up in the endless flow of love that is the life of God.
The dance of interpretation is never finished, never static. Each time we approach the text, we bring new experiences, new questions, new longings. And each time, the text meets us anew, speaking fresh words of challenge and comfort, conviction and grace. This is the beauty of living Scripture – it grows with us, revealing new depths as we are ready to plumb them.
Moreover, this approach recognizes that interpretation is not a solitary act, but a communal one. Even as we engage personally and passionately with the text, we do so as part of a great cloud of witnesses – joining our voices with the countless lovers of God who have wrestled with these words before us. Our individual dances of interpretation interweave with those of our brothers and sisters, past and present, creating a grand, cosmic choreography of meaning-making.
Erotic hermeneutics also reminds us that interpretation is not just about extracting meaning from the text, but about creating meaning with the text. It’s a co-creative act, a collaboration between human and Divine. As we pour ourselves into the text, we find that the text pours itself back into us, reshaping our understanding, our desires, our very selves. It challenges the false dichotomies that often plague our engagement with Scripture – between head and heart, between intellect and emotion, between the sacred and the sensual. It invites us to a more integrated, holistic way of knowing that honors all aspects of our humanity.
May we always remember that at its heart, all true interpretation is an act of love – a passionate, ongoing dialogue between the human and the Divine, forever unfolding in the sacred space between word and understanding. It’s a love that demands everything of us, yet promises even more in return. A love that undoes us and remakes us, that challenges and comforts, that burns away the dross and refines the gold within us.
Erotic hermeneutics is not just a method of reading Scripture, but a way of living Scripture. It’s an invitation to let the Word become flesh in us, to embody the text in our daily lives, to become living, breathing exegeses of God’s love letter to humanity. As we dance with the Divine through the sacred words, may we find ourselves ever more deeply in love with the Author of Life, ever more fully becoming who we were created to be.
For in this eternal dance of interpretation, we discover the ultimate purpose of Scripture – not merely to inform us, but to transform us; not just to guide us, but to infuse us with divine life; not simply to show us the way, but to be the way. We become, in a profound sense, living embodiments of the Word, bearing the message of God’s love into every corner of our world.