A commentary on the Song of songs. From ancient and mediaeval sources

Front matter

5 isesa Fe atthe rate oe

Rite eee : : My i rithe Robey yieke rath

: Wink Betis

Introduction

I. Tu exceptional position occupied by the Song of Songs among the books of Holy Writ, standing as it does apart from Law and Prophets, Histories and didactic compositions, and having obviously on the surface but very faint relations to the remaining Scriptural Canticles, has naturally concentrated much attention upon it, and given rise to no little variety of comment on all the particulars connected with its external form and history, and its internal signification. One fact alone remains undisputed, that of its inclusion within the Canon, both Jewish and Christian, from the earliest times of which we have any record. Its place in the Septuagint testifies to its recognition as a sacred book by the Jews two centuries before the Christian era, and the language used concerning it by Rabbinical authorities puts it on avery different level from that accorded by them to the Deutero-Canonical Books. They classed it as one of the five Megilloth of the Bible, along Rabbinical with Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, and cape ranked it first among them, reading it at the Passover,

the most solemn festival of the year. Fully in accord-

ance with this position is the remark of Rabbi Akiba,

a contemporary of the Emperor Hadrian, saying, “The

entire history of the world does not present an epoch

like the day when the Song of Songs was given to

Israel, for though all the Hagiographa are holy, yet

_ the Song of Songs is. most holy.” The corollary from

these premises is that the Canticles have been regarded

b

Canonicity of the Song.

First objection to mystical view refuted.

Date and authorship.

».¢ INTRODUCTION.

all along as the work of an inspired writer, and as instinct with a spiritual meaning; both which views are explicitly asserted by the Targum, which begins its paraphrase with the words: ‘The songs and praises which Solomon the Prophet, king of Israel, spake by the Hoty Guost, before the Lorp the Creator of the universe.”

It has been objected in modern times against the alleged admission by the ancient Jews of a mystical import underlying the letter, that they prohibited the perusal of the Canticles by all persons below thirty years of age, whence it has been argued either that the book was given in vain so far as all who died in youth were concerned, or that the very fact of withholding it establishes the denial of its spiritual character. This objection, apart from its failing to settle whether the Jews were right or wrong in their discipline on this head, falls to the ground for two reasons ; first, that the Rabbins extended the same prohibition to the beginning of Genesis and the earliest and latest chapters of Ezekiel, without any impeachment of their inspiration ; and secondly, that the Eastern Church, like the Church of England, while avowedly upholding the mystical sense, refrains, on grounds of expediency, from public reading of the Canticles in divine worship, though the place of the book in the Old Testament Canon, as received by Christians, has been acknowledged ever since the earliest known list was drawn up by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, about a.p. 170.

II. The questions of date and authorship have both been hotly contested. The prevalent opinion amongst Jews and Christians until comparatively recent times, agreed with that of the Targum and Septuagint, and other ancient versions, in ascribing the Song to Solomon, son of David. There were, however, some exceptions. Some Talmudists assigned it to Hezekiah, R. Kimchi and a few others to Isaiah. On the other hand, the received tradition is supported by some important arguments. Apart from the title, which may of course have been added by a later hand (as is doubtless the case with several of the Psalms,) and

INTRODUCTION. xl from direct references to Solomon as a living person, which might be only poetical, there are two items of internal evidence which fix the date with tolerable Mmternal accuracy. First is the passage in chap. vi. 4, “Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem.” Tirzah, as the capital of the Northern kingdom under Jeroboam I. and his successors until the building of Samaria, (1 Kings xiv. 17; xv. 21; xvi. 8, 23,) would never have been coupled with Jerusalem, the head of the Davidic and Aaronic polity, by a poet of either Israel or Judah after the revolt of the ten tribes, owing to the political and religious hostility which immediately arose between the two realms, just as no poem before the union of the English and Scottish crowns praises both London and Edinburgh. Thus the furthest possible limit of date is the outbreak of war between Abijah and Jeroboam in B.c. 958. Another passage narrows the period much more. The eighth verse of the same chapter tells us of Solomon’s harem, ‘‘There are threescore queens and fourscore concubines.” But in 1 Kings xi. 8, we read, ‘“‘ And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.””. Wherefore we conclude that the Song was not only written in Solomon’s life-time, but at a comparatively early period of his reign, before he had fallen into the extravagant excesses of his old age. The plea which would deny the authenticity of the passage of the Book of Kings, treating it as a mere ex- _aggeration of later times, to be corrected by the more reasonable estimate of the Canticles, may be dismissed at once, apart from any question of inspiration, as neither justified by what we know of the manners of Eastern sovereigns nor by the treatment which two equally compatible statements would receive if found in the pages of a secular historian. So far as. style and diction are concerned, the chief modern critics are agreed in attributing the Song of Songs to the Solomonic age, in opposition to a somewhat earlier school, which post-dated it considerably, on grounds now admitted to be insufficient.

In the absence of direct internal evidence and of

b2 evidence.

Probability of Solomon’s authorship, from the title ;

_ from authorship of other songs ;

xil INTRODUCTION.

historical testimony at all coeval with the date of the composition, it is impossible to lay down as a certainty that Solomon was author of the Song. But there is, at the very least, quite as much to be said in favour of the earliest known tradition as can be urged against it. The title goes for something, for it establishes that at the very remote period when it was affixed,—earlier at. any rate than the LXX. version— no rival claimant had been effectually set up. Those who deny the Solomonic authorship urge that such an epithet as “Song of Songs’ makes against the claim, because no author would venture on such a panegyric of his own work. The reply to this is twofold. The critics must either accept the inscription as synchronous with the poem, or reject it. If they accept the genuineness of the name “Song of Songs,” they must take the remainder of the title into account also, and admit Solomon’s claim. If they reject the whole inscription as a later interpolation, then Solomon is not to be charged with having qualified his oem with any epithet at all, and the count fails. And this without taking into account a further consideration, that of the inspired character of- the book ; since, if Solomon was divinely instructed what to write, there can be no more personal vanity in his using the title “Song of Songs” than there is blasphemy in a Prophet beginning a sentence with “Thus saith the Lorp.” There would be, at the outset, something unaccountable in the total loss of the most copious class of writings of the wisest and most powerful of Hebrew kings. Most copious, because the thousand and five songs attributed to him in 1 Kings iv. 32, must have necessarily exceeded in bulk those three thousand proverbs, of which such important remains exist. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the great majority of these poems were of merely passing and secular interest, but it is difficult to conjecture why utter oblivion should have come on them all, as the negation of his authorship in this case requires its supporters to maintain. This difficulty, no light one in face of the preservation of so many songs of David

INTRODUCTION. Xill and Asaph, is more readily solved by acceptance of the traditional view than by any other means.

The next plea in Solomon’s favour is of small weight independently, but not without importance in a cumulative argument. He is praised, in the same passage which mentions the number of his writings, for his On aie great skill in natural history : ‘And he spake of trees, history ; from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.” (1 Kings iv. 33.) There is no book of Scripture which dwells so much as the Canticles upon natural imagery, or which mentions so many names of animals and plants in terms implying familiarity with their habits. The only reply which has been suggested to this plea is that other people may have known these things as well as Solomon. No doubt; but the real point at issue, that the internal evidence is so far perfectly consistent with the traditional authorship, is not in the least weakened by such a demurrer. The like may be said of the analogies of and from idea and diction, admittedly existing between Proverbs @3)°g'es and Canticles.!_ They do not fix with certainty the verbs. parts of the Book of Proverbs which are due to Solomon’s pen, nor do they give any clue to the priority of date in either case. But allowing, as all do, that Solomon is author of part of the Proverbs, the coincidences lend additional weight to the traditional view, and, as must never be forgotten in discussions of the kind, make the burden of disproof heavier for the contesters of the claim in possession.

Two other pleas are urged against Solomon from y,.ther opposite sides. Those who allow the spiritual inter- objections. pretation of the Song maintain that Solomon was not morally fitted to be the instrument of such teaching, while those who adhere to the newest modern literal

"Cant. 1. 11=Proy. xxy. 11; | Prov, xx. 13; Cant. v. 6=Prov.

Cant. iv.5=Proy. v.19; Cant. | i. 28; Cant. vii, 1= Prov. xxv. iv. 9=Prov. i. 9; Cant. iv. | 12; Cant. vii. 9=Proy. xxiii. 11=Prov. v. 3, xvi. 24; Cant. | 31; Cant. viii, 7=Prov. vi. 31

Methods of Interpretation.

Traditional view.

Allegorical view.

Literalist view.

Arguments for tradi-

XIV INTRODUCTION.

view regard the poem as in some degree a satire against him, and therefore certainly not from his pen. The second of these objections will be considered later, while it is enough to say of the first one that it loses sight on the one hand of the admitted discrepancy between the youth and age of Solomon, to the former of which the Song may more probably be ascribed ; and on the other of the frequent instrumentality of sinners in working out the designs of Gop, of which the prophecy of Balaam and the apostolate of Judas are sufficient examples.

III. The third question, and that which has been most eagerly contested of all, concerns the interpretation of the Song, whether it is to be mystical, allegorical, or literal, and in each of these cases what is the method to be followed. As before, there is a traditional view in possession, which has the pleas of remote antiquity, continuous tenure, and perfect consistency with itself in its favour. This view, common to the Talmud and Targum and to all Christian writers (with a brief exception to be noticed presently) for sixteen centuries, is that the poem is wholly mystical, with no historical basis whatsoever, and that it denotes the relations between Gop and His Church, albeit there is much variety of detail in setting forth the particulars of this relation. An intermediate view supposes an historical foundation for the Song, preferably the bridal of Solomon with Pharaoh’s daughter, and holds that a superstructure of religious allegory has been raised on this basis, as in that other case of the Exodus, so frequently used as a type of spiritual deliverance from sin. And a third view, almost exclusively modern, denies all inner meaning to the poem, save of the most incidental kind, and maintains a literal exposition. The mystical interpretation, which forms the subject: matter of the commentary in this volume, and which traces the history of the Divine dealings with man under the Law and the Gospel, has in its favour a cumulative mass of evidence of a very cogent nature. In the first place, the relationship of marriage is very tional view, frequently used in Scripture to denote the union be-

INTRODUCTION. XV tween Gop and the chosen people, the ornaments of a bride and abundant progeny are the promised rewards of devotion and obedience, barrenness and divorce are the threatened punishments of spiritual adultery. There is thus no antecedent improbability, as has been alleged, in the nuptial imagery.of the Song having a _ mystical signification. This comes out most clearly in from the that Book which has most obviously approached, if ee not actually borrowed, the language of the Canticles, , namely, the prophecy of Hosea, in which the marriage of Gop to Israel, and her sins against the nuptial bond, are steadily dwelt upon. A further illustration is afforded by the language of the forty-fifth Psalm, which represents a King, who is styled Lorp and Gop, as the Spouse of a Virgin Bride, and which is directly applied to Curist in the Epistle to the Hebrews. As the structure of this Psalm, like that of the seventy-second, absolutely forbids its literal application to any mere human soyran, save at the hands of those who are resolved to see no Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, be the evidence what it may, it contributes a most important item of proof to the tenability of the traditional view. This is further borne out by the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and the Revelation. The Baptist speaks of Curist as the Bridegroom, and of himself as the Bridegroom’s friend; while the Saviour, in defending His disciples from the charge of religious laxity, applies the name Bridegroom to Himself, and that of ‘children of the bridechamber”’ to His followers. S. Paul illustrates the metaphor further by declaring that he has ‘‘espoused”’ his converts ‘‘as a chaste virgin, to Curist,” and that earthly marriage is only a type of a heavenly mystery. The Apocalypse, with its description of the heavenly Jerusalem as the Bride of the Lamb, and of the final triumph of the redeemed as His marriage feast, completes the chain of Scriptural evidence; and if the mystical interpretation of the Canticles be set aside, it becomes exceedingly difficult to explain the use of this peculiar imagery, which cannot be traced to any other source.

The plea that not marriage, but courtship, which from parallelsin Arabic and Persian literature ;

Songs at Zikrs,

Xvi INTRODUCTION, leads to marriage, is the scope of the Song, has been urged against the Catholic view, but vainly in the face of the recurrent phrase “the Virgin of Israel’ in the Old Testament, and the clear statement of the New that the marriage has not yet come, and only the betrothal has taken place. The next argument of weight is that which serves to repel the @ priori objections taken to the form and diction of the poem as a vehicle for spiritual ideas. If it could be shown that the Song, if mystically explained, is an isolated phenomenon, having no parallel in any literature, very much would be done towards discrediting the ancient view. But such is not the case. The Arab nation, which in blood and language is most nearly allied to the Hebrews, has preserved to the present day the custom of chanting in public worship songs in which the religious meaning is veiled under the ordinary terms of earthly love. The service at which these are recited is called a Zikr, the poems themselves (usually in honour of Mohammed) muweshshah. On this, Mr. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians, chap. xxiv. writes as follows: ‘He pointed out the following poem as one of those most common at Zikrs, and as one which was sung at the Zikr which I have begun to describe. I translate it verse for verse, and imitate the measure and system of rhyme of the original, with this difference only, that the first, third, and fifth lines of each stanza rhyme with each other in the original, but not in my translation.

With love my heart is troubled ;

And mine eye-lid hind’reth sleep : My vitals are dissevered ;

While with streaming tears I weep.

My union seems far distant :

Will my love ever meet mine eye ?

Alas! did not estrangement

Draw my tears, I would not sigh.

By dreary nights I’m wasted : Absence makes my hopes expire :

My tears, like pearls, are dropping ; And my heart is wrapped in fire.

INTRODUCTION. XVil

Whose is like my condition ?

Scarcely know I remedy,

Alas! did not estrangement Draw my tears, I would not sigh.

O turtle-dove! acquaint me | Wherefore thus dost thou lament ?

Art thou so stung by absence ?

Of thy wings deprived, and pent?

He saith, ‘ Our griefs are equal ; Worn away with love I lie.’

Alas! did not estrangement Draw my tears, I would not sigh.

O First and sole Eternal!

Show Thy favour yet to me.

Hath no Lorp excepting Thee.

By Ta-H4, the Great Prophet,

Do not Thou his wish deny.

Alas! did not estrangement - Draw my tears, I would not sigh.

I must translate a few more lines, to show more strongly the similarity of these songs to that of Solomon ; and lest it should be thought that I have varied the expressions, I shall not attempt to render them into verse. In the same collection of poems sung at Zikrs is one which begins with these lines :

O gazelle from among the gazelles of El-Yemen!

J am thy slave without cost:

O thou small of age and fresh of skin!

O thou who art scarce past the time of drinking milk!

In the first of these verses we have a comparison exactly agreeing with that in the concluding verse of Solomon’s Song; for the word which, in our Bible, is translated ‘a roe,’ is used in Arabic as synonymous with ‘ghazal’ (or a gazelle,) and the mountains of El-Yemen are the ‘mountains of spices.’ This poem ends with the following lines :

The phantom of thy form visited me in my slumber : I said, ‘O phantom of slumber! who sent thee ?’

He said, ‘He sent me whom thou knowest ;

He whose love occupies thee.’

Attempted reply, from absence of sacred names ;

XVill INTRODUCTION.

The beloved of my heart visited me in the darkness of night ; I stood, to show him honour, until he sat down.

I said, ‘O thou my petition, and all my desire!

Hast thou come at midnight, and not feared the watchmen?’ He said to me, ‘I feared, but, however, love

Had taken from me my soul and my breath.’

Compare the above with the second and five following verses of the fifth chapter of Solomon’s Song. JF indine that songs of this description are extremely numerous, and almost the only poems sung at Zikrs; that they are composed for this purpose, and intended only to have a spiritual sense (though certainly not understood in such a sense by the generality of the vulgar ;) I cannot entertain any doubt as to the design of Solomon’s Song. The specimens which I have just given of the religious love-songs of the Moslems have not been selected in preference to others as most agreeing with that of Solomon, but as being in frequent use.” To this may be added the statement of Major Scott Waring as to a kindred custom in Persia, ‘‘ The Persians insist that we shall give them the merit of understanding their own language, that all the odes of their celebrated poets are mystical, and breathe a fervent spirit of adoration to the Supreme Being. They maintain that the Soofees profess eager desire with no carnal affection, and circulate the cup, but no material goblet, since all things are spiritual in their sect; all is mystery within mystery.” And finally, European literature contributes its quota of parallel in the Vita Nuova of Dante.

A twofold reply, of but little cogency, has been attempted to this proof that there is no inherent unlikelihood in the mystical interpretation. It is alleged, firstly, that the Song of Solomon contains no hint, no key, no direct reference to holy names and ideas, such as is certainly found in the first quotation from Arabic sources given above, and such as may possibly be found in the full text of the remainder, and that we are therefore not at liberty to interpret it otherwise than literally. This loses sight of a very important and familiar canon of composition, that an

INTRODUCTION. x1x allegory, in order to be perfect, ought moé to contain its own key. So far as it does, or as any ob-

trusive clue is given, it is defective in structure. The beast-fables of Bidpai, Alsop, and Krilof, supply familiar examples. Any distinct intimation of the purport in the body of the fable is simply destructive, and even au application tagged on is more than superfluous,

ranking with the too audible stage-explanations in the tragedy of Pyramusand Thisbe. This charge against the Song of Solomon, then, merely proves its high literary excellence, and the skill with which the author avoided the defect into which the Arab poet has fallen. The only reason which would excuse deviation from this rule would be the imperative need of warning persons against being led astray by the literal sense; but as a fact, in the whole literary history of the Canticles for nearly nineteen hundred years, there is scarcely an example on record of the literal sense having held its ground anywhere for a moment. Surely, “if the mystical exposition be so unnatural and far-fetched as some declare, this would not and could not be so, as we may learn from the total failure of the Alexandrine critics to establish their allegorical interpretation of the Iliad. Another objection, that urged by an American literalist, Professor Noyes, is more philosophical in tone, but not more convincing. It is that the fundamental differences between the pantheistic system of the Sufis and the religion of the Jews, and the great interval of time which lies between Solomon and Hafiz, (even if it be conceded that the odes of the latter are religious poems at all) make it absolutely impossible to institute any parallel between them. This argument loses sight of the original question, which is not whether there is any close likeness between Sufism and Judaism, which might crop up in literary forms, but whether there is the least antecedent improbability in the human mind selecting amatory language to express devotional thoughts. The allegation that it is most unlikely to do so is disposed of by the parallels adduced, and the cogency of the argument would be unaffected by the broadest divergency of race and creed, untenable on abstract grounds.

Objection from dissimilarity of race and religion, and from distance of time ;

inadequate as disproof,

Anthropomorphiclanguage of the Song.

Main difficulty of the literalist view.

XxX INTRODUCTION.

as all students of comparative mythology know full well. But, not to dwell on the constant intercourse between Canaan and Persia, from the days when Abraham met Chedorlaomer till those when John of Persepolis came with Macarius of Jerusalem to the Council of Nicza, which allowed ample opportunity for Iranian ideas to enter Palestine, the proof from the kindred race and religion of Arabia remains unmoved by any exception based on the plea of diversity, weak as even that is. Still less weight can be attached to objections drawn from the anthropomorphic language of the Song, which has been declared inappropriate in the highest degree to such august themes as those which the traditional interpretation finds in it. For this, again, is a mere @ priori plea, and therefore of no logical force whatsoever, failing, besides, to take account of the manner in which the shadow of the coming Incarnation is cast over the Old Testament, occasioning, nay, necessitating such language in order to prepare the minds of the Jewish nation for the reception of the full Messianic idea of a Gop-Man, which is gradually unfolded with advancing clearness as the prophetic series draws near its close. And as regards the question of the abstract fitness or unfitness of the language, it may be briefly observed that the “ verifying faculty’ of seventeen Christian centuries, exercised amongst others by men of such keen intellect, spiritual insight, and moral purity as Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Alcuin, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, and Gerson, may well be set against the conflicting opinions of the last hundred years in a matter of the kind.

This portion of the controversy leads up directly to what is, after all, the main difficulty in the way of literalists, a difficulty which they have not hitherto even plausibly seemed to overcome. It is that of accounting for the presence of the Song, assuming it to be a mere love-poem, in the Canon of Scripture at all, whether as originally admitted by the Jews or subsequently adopted by the Christians. It would stand apart from all the rest of Scripture as alone without

INTRODUCTION. Xxl a directly religious signification, and be necessarily degraded into a secondary rank, if not altogether excluded from the list of inspired writings. The only semblance of answer to this plea is the allegation that the Song does not stand alone in this respect, because the Book of Esther belongs to the same category, being alike without those sacred names and phrases which mark all other portions of the Bible.

But this phantom argument vanishes at a touch. The Book of Esther does stand in a very clear and definite relation to all the other historical books, because it gives the details of a most important crisis in the national life of the Hebrew people, serving as the chief link between the Captivity and the restoration of Israel. And further, though holy words are carefully excluded from the book (possibly through reserve in a writing designed for circulation amongst Gentiles,). yet the fast proclaimed by Esther and Mordecai points at once to a time of prayer to that Being Whose Name is left unspoken, and the Feast of Purim, celebrated by Jews everywhere for the twenty-three centuries which have since elapsed, testifies to the national sense of a deliverance scarcely second to that of the Exodus. The Song, however, cannot be so connected with other parts of Scripture on a literalist theory, but must remain as a startling and inexplicable anomaly.

IV. The sense that this is so has prompted, at

Tsolation of the Song from the rest of the Bible.

The Book of Esther not a parallel case.

Solutions different eras, various tentative solutions of the diffi- proposed culty. The earliest of these was propounded by Theodore of Mopsuestia in the first quarter of the fifth century, and represented the Song as merely an epithalamium on the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh’s daughter or with Abishag the Shunammite. This theory, after being condemned in express and forcible terms in the Fifth General Council, disappeared completely for more than eight hundred years, when it was reproduced for a moment by Gregory Abulfaraj. It rested again till revived by Grotius, who allowed it, nevertheless, to include an allegory ; and it was finally developed into a very elaborate form by the celebrated

1S difficulty.

XXli INTRODUCTION.

Bossuet, in 1690, whose genius gave it a measure of popularity amongst scholars till the early part of the present century, when the ingenious criticisms of Dr. Mason Good (some of which had been anticipated long before by Natalis Alexander,) established the utter incongruity of the language of the Song with the circumstances of a State alliance and with the national surroundings of an Egyptian princess, to whom the pastoral character of the Bride could in no wise be accommodated. The eloquent words in which Theodoret expresses the mind of the Church in his day against the views ascribed to Theodore of Mopsuestia merit citation. In the preface to his commentary on the

Rejoinder of Canticles, he says: ‘‘ Since the majority of those who

Theodoret.

slander the Song of Songs and deny it to. be a spiritual book, weave fables unworthy of crazy old women, some of them saying that Solomon the Wise wrote it concerning himself and Pharaoh’s daughter ; a few authors of the same stamp alleging that Abishag the Shunammite is the Bride, and not Pharaoh’s daughter ; while others, taking a somewhat more philosophical view, call it the Royal Speech, so as to understand the people by the Bride and the King by the Bridegroom ; we think that we shall be well employed in refuting at the outset of our exposition these false and mischievous theories, and then will proceed to set forth the true and clear meaning of the author. And yet these men ought to know that the holy Fathers, much their superiors in wisdom and spiritual insight, were they who placed this Book amongst the divine Scriptures, and approving it as full of the Spirir, pronounced it worthy of the Church. For had they thought otherwise, they would never have included a work whose subject was passion and desire in the number of Holy Writ. . . . Not only Eusebius of Palestine, and Origen the Egyptian, and Cyprian of Carthage, crowned with the diadem of martyrdom, and men earlier than they were and nearer to the Apostles, but also those who were afterwards famous in the Churches, Basil the Great in his exposition of the beginning of Proverbs, and the two Gregories, allied to Basil, one by blood