Napoleon and Josephine adored violets. She often wore
the extremely expensive violet scented perfume as her trade
mark. Only the wealthiest people could afford it. When she
died in 1814, Napoleon planted violets at her grave, and just
before his exile to St. Helena he made a pilgrimage to it. He
picked some of the violets and put them in a locket which he
wore around his neck to the end of his life. Here were lovers
who were linked by their noses, and a special fragrance kept
that memory of their love alive even after death.
Solomon would not be surprised by this, for his love song
is filled with the fragrance of love. From the beginning to
the end the nose is playing a prominent role in the romance.
Solomon may not have known that we breathe about 23,000
times a day and move 438 cubic feet of air. He may not have
known that man is capable of detecting over 10,000 different
odors, but Solomon knew that the sense of smell has more to
do with love than most people ever dream of. His love song
is filled with perfume, incense, fragrant spices, flower and
spring garden smells of all kinds, and also the smells of trees,
plants and fruits. I doubt if there are so many references to
romantic smells, in so short a space, in any literature on
earth.
Rather surprising is the fact that the first reference to perfume
refers to the male. In verse 3 the female lover says
pleasing is the fragrance of your perfume. Not only is his
wearing of perfume surprising, but it is plural-perfumes.
The male lover has more than one kind, and he is giving her
multiple pleasant sensations. The mystery is easily solved by
a study of the role of perfume in the ancient world. We use
deodorants, after shave, and cologne today, but we are
conservatives compared to the ancient world where men use
more perfume than women do in our day.
John Trevenar in, The Romantic Story of Scent writes,
"The men of the ancient world were clean and scented."
Keep in mind, we are talking about the Biblical world where
it was hot and dusty, and you could perspire at the drop of a
toga. Smelling good was so much of a part of that world that
we have detailed records of how they perfumed themselves,
and even washed their clothes in perfume. Two of the three
gifts the wise men brought to Jesus were frankincense and
myrrh. These were two of the oldest and most expensive
perfumes in the ancient world. When Mary and Joseph fled
to Egypt they were hot, and Joseph would have used as
much of the perfume as Mary, for it was vital to a man to
smell good.
We could spend hours just looking at the evidence to
confirm the reality of Solomon's song, but let me just share
one paragraph from Diane Ackerman's, A Natural History
Of The Senses, which was published in 1990.
Ancient he-men were heavily perfumed. In a way, strong scents
widened their presence, extended their territory. In the
pre-Greek culture of Crete, athletes anointed themselves with
specific aromatic oils before the games. Greek writers of around 400BC
recommended mint for the arms, thyme for the knees, cinnamon, rose,
or palm oil for the jaws and chest, almond oil for the hands and
feet, and marjoram for the hair and eyebrows. Egyptian men, attending a
dinner party would receive garlands of flowers and their choice of
perfumes at the door. Flower petals would be scattered underfoot,
so they could make a fragrance stir when guests trod on them.
Statues at these banquets often spurted scented water from their several
orifices. Before retiring, a man would crush solid perfume until
it was an oily powder and scatter it onto his bed so that he could
absorb its scent while he slept. Homer describes the obligatory
courtesy of offering visitors a bath and aromatic oils. Alexander
the Great was a lavish user of both perfumes and incense, and was
fond enough of saffron to have his tunics soaked in its
essence.
Her elaborate research has led to dozens of pages of this
kind of information, yet she says, as a world authority on
odors, "The most scent-drenched poem of all times is the
Song of Solomon." This song makes the fragrance of love a
major issue, and Christians who do not heed this revelation
lose a valuable tip. For centuries Christians ignored this
book and did not take it seriously. They developed the idea
that it was worldly to use perfume and smell good. They felt
it was more holy to be dirty. The Puritans did not go that
far, but they did reject perfume as worldly. To this day, the
nose is not honored in romance, and the result is many a
Christian couple damages their love life.
If God says the nose is part of His design for love, who are
we to ignore the Designers plan? In some cultures lovers kiss
with their noses, and their word for kiss means smell. They
get great pleasure in breathing in the odor of the one they
love. In Madagascar they believe that every soul has it own
unique scent. And when they kiss they breathe in that
unique odor of their loved one, and mingle their souls. They
experience a spiritual and physical intimacy. In the
Philippines some have so refined their sense of smell that by
sniffing a pocket handkerchief they can tell if it belongs to
their lover. They send bits of linen to each other when they
are separated so they can keep each other in mind by
inhaling each others scent.
We laugh at nose kissing, but it is because we have little
awareness of the role of the nose in romance. When Ruth
went to meet Boaz and stimulate his interest as taking her as
a wife, her mother-in-law Naomi gave her good advice in
Ruth 3:3. She told her to wash and put on perfume. A bad
impression on the nose is a sure way to quench the spark of
romance. William Erb put it in poetry.
The shades of night were falling
Around us thick and fast:
I stood beside Matilda
The first time and the last.
I tried to give her kisses
According to etiquette,
But she had eaten onions,
Me thinks I smell them yet.
If he kissed you once, will he kiss you again, is not a
modern question. That poem was written in 1897, and
similar thoughts go back into ancient history. On the other
hand, it has also always been true that, "Aroma is beauty,
and beauty is the stimulant to passion." The question, of
course, is what does this obvious truth in the realm of
romance have to do with our religious and spiritual love?
The Bible makes it clear that the nose is important in
religious love, just as it is in the realm of romance. The Jews
were proud of their Semitic noses. Levi Haytha said, "The
Supreme Architect created man with a spout over his mouth,
and it constitutes his beauty and his pride." The nose was
important in the worship of God, and still is to the Jews
today. Zohr wrote, "What would the world do without
fragrance? We would pine away without it, and so we burn
myrtle at the conclusion of the Sabbath."
If we go back to the Old Testament days, we see that the
sacrifices of animals was a major part of their worship. If
you enjoy meat cooking on a grill, then you can imagine the
delicious odors as cattle and sheep were cooked on the altar
by the hundreds and even thousands. The smell was
magnificent. We know this for Scripture indicates that God
enjoyed the smell of the offerings. When Noah left the ark,
and made his sacrifices to God, we read in Gen.8:21, "And
Jehovah smelled the delicious odor and said I will never do it
again." He promised never to destroy the world again with
a flood.
All through the Old Testament sweet and delicious odors
were to fill the temple. Incense was to mingle with the
sweet-smelling offerings. The reason we enjoy a good roast
cooking, and sweet perfume, is because we are made in the
image of God who also delights in pleasant fragrance. He is
the author of sense of smell, and all the fragrant aromas in
the world of nature. He is also the author of the very first
perfume recipe known to man. It was a very exclusive secret
formula to be used in the temple, and for anointing holy
objects, and the priests. The formula and the description of
its uses can be found in Ex. 30:22-28. It was a sacred
formula that could only be used for the special purposes that
God stipulated. Any other use was strictly forbidden.
Worship and pleasant smell were linked together. When
the Jews went after other gods, they would burn incense to
them. They could not conceive of any truly religious love
and devotion without the presence of pleasant fragrance.
There are hundreds of text in Scripture dealing with various
kinds of perfume and aromatic materials. The main point of
it all is, pleasant smell is associated with religious love just as
it is with romantic love. Prov, 27:9 says, "Oil and perfume
rejoice the heart." All relationships are made better with
the presence of pleasant odor.
When we move into the New Testament, we discover that
Paul had a real nose for nice smells. He expressed his thanks
to the Philippians Christians for their support by writing in
Phil. 4:18, "I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus
the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable
and pleasing to God." Paul connected spiritual love, and the
sacrifice of Christ, with a sweet smell in Eph. 5:2. "And
walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Our great Shepherd
lover was never more fragrant than when he breathed out
His last breath and said, "It is finished." God did not let His
Son see corruption in the tomb. Lazarus was stinking after
four days in the tomb, but no foul odor was permitted to
come upon the body of our Lord. He became, by His death,
the eternal lover, whose fragrance is like that of an eternal
rose.
When Jesus came to the home of Mary and Martha just
shortly before the crucifixion, we read of this unique event in
John 12:3, "Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure
nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with
her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the
ointment." Here was a great act of love, with great
symbolic meaning. Jesus said it was for the day of His
burial. Many other spices and perfumes were put upon the
body of Christ when He was buried, but this event hints that
death would never leave its ugly smell on Christ, for He was
the very embodiment of love and fragrance.
In Him all excellence is found.
His name a fragrance sheds around,
Like that most costly oil of nard,
Which Mary poured upon her Lord.
The Shulamite girl says her lover's name is like perfume
poured out. That is exactly how the church, the Bride of
Christ, feels about Him and His name. Bonar wrote,
I love the name of Jesus,
Immanuel, Christ the Lord,
Like fragrance on the breezes,
His name abroad is poured.
The most significant passage in all the Bible which relates
to smell, love, and the Gospel of Christ, is II. Cor. 2:14-16.
"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in
triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the
knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of
Christ to God among those who are being saved and among
those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to
death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." In this
passage Paul links the very issues of heaven and hell to the
nose. To spread the Gospel is to spread the fragrance of the
knowledge of Christ. Has anyone ever told you, you smell
like a Christian? How is a Christian suppose to smell?
According to Paul, he is to smell sweet and pleasant, like the
perfume of God in Christ.
Billy Graham has every one of his counselors put a mint
in their mouth, just as he gives the invitation, for it is hard
to lead a soul to love Christ if you smell like onions, or have
some other foul odor. Religious love is aided by pleasant
smell. Pleasant odor was very important to Paul, for he was
dealing with people in Greek culture, and if you study how
the Greeks love perfume you will understand Paul's concern.
Listen to Antiphones as he describes the bath of an Athenian
man of fashion.
In a large gilded tub he steeps his feet
and legs in rich Egyptian unguents.
His jaws and breast he rubs with thick palm oil,
and both his arms with extract sweet of mint,
his eyebrows and his hair with margoram,
his knees and neck with essence of ground thyme.
Descriptions of a Greek banquet are unbelievable in the
costly perfume used. Xenophones describes an unique
method by which all were showered with it. He slipped
four doves, whose wings were saturate
With scents, all different in kind-these doves,
Wheeling in circles round, let fall upon us
A shower of sweet perfumery, drenching, bathing
Both clothes and furniture and lordlings all.
The Romans were also fanatics for perfume, but time
does not permit us to explore. In a world like that, Christians
had to have a pleasant appeal to the nose of people in order
to win their attention. The pleasant appeal was, of course,
the name of Jesus. His was, and is, the only name on earth
that rid men of the foul odor of sin. All though the Bible the
word stink, and the word stank, are used to describe sin and
its consequences. Hate is linked to a stench in the nostrils.
Every man either stinks before God, because he is a sinner,
and has no deodorant that can cleanse him, or he is like
perfume before God, because by his faith in Christ he has
covered himself with the sweet-smelling sacrifice of the cross.
A rotten breath can hurt romance, and a rotten soul hurts
your relationship with God. Jesus Christ is God's only
remedy for the foul breath of the sinful soul. If you put your
trust in Him you can come out of this foul world smelling
like a rose.
