Meditations on the Song of Songs-“I am black but beautiful”
We contemplate today the saying of the Virgin of the Song: “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem” (Song 1:5).
This phrase was, of course, said about the Church of the Gentiles, which is considered black because it was without the Law, without the fathers, without the prophets, without promises or covenants, and without faith-based knowledge of God. From this perspective—in the eyes of the Jews or the daughters of Jerusalem—
it is black, but in the eyes of God, it is beautiful.
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The human soul—in its state of sin—is a black soul in the eyes of people. Yet it is beautiful through the Blood of Christ, which purifies it from all sin. It says: I am black now, in my state of sin. But I will be beautiful later, in the state of repentance. Black in my present and past, and beautiful in hope for the future.
I am black in my defiled state of sin, distant from God. But I believe that my state of sin will not last forever. My darkness will not remain eternally. I believe that I am beautiful because I was created in the image and likeness of God. A holy breath came forth from the mouth of God and settled in me… -
I am beautiful because I was created in the image of God… and this sin is not of my nature. It is foreign to me, caused by something external, for “the sun has tanned me.”
I am beautiful because the grace of God will visit me one day, and His Holy Spirit will work within me. He will not leave me in my darkness. I was once blackened by original sin, then I entered the font of baptism and became white and beautiful. Then my skin grew dark because the sun had tanned me. Yet I am confident that I shall enter the font of repentance and come out beautiful, as I came forth from the font of baptism. -
I am beautiful because He will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; He will wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. He will restore me by His grace to my first rank…
I am black because I am in a stage of abandonment—“I sought Him, but I did not find Him.” But I am confident in hope that I will surely find Him, even if after a while. Then He will clothe me with His righteousness, and I shall become beautiful as I once was. I am black, O daughters of Jerusalem, fair and white… but I warn you:
Do not rejoice over me, and do not rest in my blackness as if it were a shame, for the Apostle forbids you.
He says: “Remember those who are in bonds, as if bound with them; and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” (Heb. 13:3). “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (Rom. 11). You are all liable to be tanned by the sun, just like me! -
I had a sister who was black and became beautiful—the earth on its first day…
“It was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). This darkness means it was black… Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The desolate earth became beautiful and filled with fruits and flowers… -
And I too await the day when the Lord will say to me, “Let there be light,” and there will be light. And God will see the light, that it is good, and I shall become beautiful…
I live in hope of that day. I do not live in my present darkness, or despair would choke me. In hope, I await the coming light. I await the Lord to wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. The phrase “whiter than snow” is a comforting one, full of hope—I will live in it…
When the Church of the Gentiles said, “I am black and beautiful,” it was in the depth of faith in the coming salvation, in the coming of Him who bears the sins of the whole world…
And when she said, “I am beautiful,” she reminded me of David’s psalm: “Have mercy on me, for I am righteous.” In saying this, he did not speak of his own righteousness but of the righteousness that would come through the shed blood, which would wash him so that he would be whiter than snow, justified freely by grace. Likewise, I say of myself: “I am beautiful.” -
I have another sister who was black and became beautiful. Do you know her, O daughters of Jerusalem? She is Jerusalem herself, as described in the Book of Ezekiel.
The Lord said to her when she was cast out in her filth on the ground: “I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, and I said to you, ‘In your blood, live.’” Such was her state—black… Then the Lord said: “I passed by you again and looked upon you; indeed, your time was the time of love. So I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine. Then I washed you with water (that is, baptism); I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil (that is, the chrism). I clothed you with embroidered cloth and gave you fine linen (symbolizing repentance); I adorned you with ornaments… You were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you…” (Ezek. 16).
This is the story of the black one who became beautiful when the Lord visited her in the “time of love”—the moment He saw fit to reveal His love.
How precise the phrase: “Your beauty was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you.” It is the beauty of God, not the beauty of the soul; the righteousness of Christ, not self-righteousness. It is a gift from God to the soul, not the work of human effort… -
Many souls were black and became beautiful—like the souls of all the repentant: Moses the Black, Augustine, Pelagia, and Mary of Egypt…
But this soul does not say, “I was black and became beautiful.” She says, “I am black and beautiful,” because she lives by hope and sees the future as though it were before her eyes. She is confident that she is precious, no matter how she falls. -
There are souls you see as black, but the Lord sees them as beautiful…
For example, Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the Church—how black his soul appeared in the eyes of believers! Yet the Lord looked at the soul of Saul—not black, but beautiful—and said to him: “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” I am washing you, and you kick against the soap, the water, and the sponge. Yet I will keep washing you until you are whiter than snow… And after you are white, “I will show you how many things you must suffer for My name’s sake.” They will stone you and scourge you; blood will flow upon your white soul, and I will sing to you My song: “My beloved is white and ruddy.” -
I am a black soul; I may be dead, like the prodigal son or Lazarus, yet I have before me the word of the Lord: “He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”
They may say of me: “This my son was dead,” or, “He already stinks.” But I am confident that I will come forth from the tomb and return to Bethany, where the Lord will visit me, with Mary and Martha… -
I am a fallen soul, but I am not lost…
One of the seraphim will take a live coal from the altar and touch it to my lips, saying to me, “You are cleansed.” The Lord Himself will gird Himself and wash my feet so that I may be entirely clean, like the rest of the disciples… -
I am black and beautiful… Sin strikes me from the outside, but my love for God fills my heart from the inside, like Peter the denier…
He denied Christ three times, cursed, and swore that he did not know the Man… Yet after the resurrection he said to the Lord, “You know all things; You know that I love You.”
Sin is foreign to me, and I am foreign to it. My inner soul is white.
The denial, cursing, and swearing are my outer blackened self; but love is my true, beautiful soul. My outer self is struck by Satan and grows dark, but my inner heart is beautiful. This outer blackness I will certainly cast off—now, and when I am clothed in a luminous, spiritual body that does not sin, nor touch matter again…
I am black and beautiful, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. As though it were said of me:
“Meanwhile, I struggled with myself and strove, as if I were two in one—one driving me, the other restraining me.”
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These striving souls, fighting the battles of the Lord, sometimes fall, sometimes rise. The devil may wound them and disfigure some of their parts; yet despite their falls, they are black and beautiful…
No matter how wounded they are in battle, they are beautiful because they have not thrown away their weapons, nor surrendered them, nor lost their faithfulness to the Lord, no matter how deeply they are hurt… -
The more a person lives in humility, the more he finds himself black…
Yet at the same time beautiful—like the publican who dared not lift his eyes to heaven but, with a broken heart and shame, said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” A soul both black and beautiful…
The publican’s soul was black and beautiful, while the Pharisee was not beautiful though he appeared white.
Another soul that was black and beautiful was the soul of the right-hand thief on the cross. He was a thief—and we still call him the right-hand thief. The word “thief” symbolizes his blackness, while “right-hand” symbolizes his righteousness in Christ…
Rahab the harlot, like the right-hand thief, was black and beautiful. She was a woman of ill fame in her city, but the scarlet cord declared that she was more beautiful than all the inhabitants of Jericho—like the Samaritan woman…
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Every black and beautiful soul calls to you: Do not judge by appearances.
Appearances never reveal the truth. David, in the eyes of his brothers, was small and despised, yet he was the Lord’s chosen one and became His anointed… -
It is a black and beautiful soul that loves the Lord yet sins out of weakness.
But not beautiful are the black souls that betray the Lord, sin with stubbornness, persist in their iniquity, and live in indifference and carelessness. -
The phrase “I am black and beautiful” can also be applied to the weak whom the Lord has chosen—foolish ones to shame the wise, weak ones to shame the strong.
Each such soul, despised in the eyes of men, is beautiful in the eyes of God. He “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to seat them with princes of His people.” That poor one, raised from dust and ashes, sings within his soul: “I am black and beautiful.”
I am weak, yet I work by God’s power; ignorant, yet I speak with God’s wisdom…
I am among the despised and those that are not, yet the Lord has granted me existence. Once, God took a handful of dust, breathed into it the breath of life, and it cried out, “I am black and beautiful.”
I was dust on the earth, trampled by beasts, yet I became the image and likeness of God.
God chose fishermen and tax collectors and seated them with princes of His people. Likewise, He chose the orphan virgin, betrothed to a carpenter, and made her higher than the cherubim and more glorious than the seraphim, before the chiefs of angels… -
We may also use the phrase “I am black and beautiful” to describe things beyond human beings—like the village of Bethlehem, the cattle manger, and despised Nazareth.
Bethlehem, the least among the tribes of Judah, and Nazareth, from which no good thing was thought to come, became holy and renowned lands—black and beautiful.
And the cattle manger, which men’s hearts despised, became a place where emperors and kings came to bow and be blessed. Every grain of its dust sings, “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem…” -
God has given us new values for all things… Perhaps the virtue of endurance, which turns the other cheek, also says: “I am black and beautiful.”
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Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – El-Keraza Magazine, Sixth Year (Issue 48), November 28, 1975
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