Z Scheper, Reformation Attitudes Towards Allegory in the Song of Songs

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Modern Language Association

Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of SongsAuthor(s): George L. ScheperSource: PMLA, Vol. 89, No. 3 (May, 1974), pp. 551-562Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461591

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GEORGE L. SCHEPER

ReformationAttitudes

toward

Allegory

and

the

Song

of

Songs

WHEN

representative

hermeneutic

treatises

of the

Middle

Ages

and the

Reformation

are

examined

closely,

it becomes

rather

difficult

to make

generalizations

about the dif-

ferences

in attitude

toward

the

senses of

Scripture

(particularlyallegory)

between

the

medieval

theo-

logians and the Reformers. This is confirmedby a

comparative

analysis

of the

medieval and

Refor-

mation

commentaries on

the

Song

of

Songs,

the

locus

classicus of the

allegorical

interpretation

of

Scripture,

for the

traditional

allegorization

rested

secure

in

the

Reformation.

Nonetheless,

the most

cursory

examination

reveals fundamental differ-

ences

between

medieval

and Protestant

spirituality

as

manifested in those

commentaries. But the dif-

ference

has little

to do

with

exegetic

principles;

rather,

it

stems from

fundamentally

different

in-

terpretations

of

the

nuptial

metaphor,

the use of

human

love to

symbolize

the love between God

and

man.

I. The

Senses of

Scripture

in

the

Reformation

Prevalent

generalizations

about Reformation

exegesis,

sharply differentiating

it

from

medieval

allegorical

exegesis

in

its

heightened

concern

for

textual

accuracy,

historical

context,

and the

plain

literal

sense,

lay great

stress on certain famous

animadversions

by

the

early

Reformers on medie-

val allegory. These animadversions leave the

impression

that

the

Reformers were

simply

and

unequivocally opposed

to

anything

other than

a

single,

literal

sense

of

Scripture.1

In Luther's

words: "In

the

schools of

theologians

it

is

a

well-

known

rule

that

Scripture

is

to be

understood in

four

ways, literal, allegoric, moral,

anagogic.

But

if

we

wish

to

handle

Scripturearight,

our

one effort

will

be

to

obtain

unum, simplicem,

germanum,

et

certum

sensum

literalem."

"Each

passage

has

one

clear,

definite,

and

true

sense of

its own. All

others

are but doubtful and uncertain opinions" (quoted

in

Farrar,

p.

327;

italics

mine).

Consequently,

Luther's remarks on

allegory

are

characteristically

caustic:

"An

interpreter

must as much

as

possible

avoid

allegory,

that he

may

not wander

in

idle

dreams."

"Allegories

are

empty speculations,

and

as it

were the scum of

Holy Scripture."

"Allegory

is a sort of beautiful harlot, who proves herself

specially

seductive to idle

men."

"Allegories

are

awkward,

absurd,

invented, obsolete,

loose

rags"

(Farrar,

p. 328).

Nonetheless,

Luther does

allow for a

homiletic

use of

allegory

for

illustrative

purposes.2

More-

over,

the theoretical

insistence on a

plain

literal

sense tended to be belied in

practice

by

the

rigors

of

interpreting

Scripture according

to

the

analogy

of faith

(i.e.,

interpreting

Scripture by

Scripture)

and

especially

by

the

reading

of

Christology

in

the

whole Bible-two

hallmarks of

Luther's her-

meneutics.3 The

latter

doctrine,

that

the Bible

everywhere

eaches

Christ,

necessitates

at least

one

kind of

figural interpretation,

typology,

which

Luther and his followers

would

perforce

sharply

distinguish from

allegory.

As Luther

said,

"When

I was a

monk,

I was an

expert

in

allegories.

I

allegorized

everything. Afterwards

through

the

Epistle to the Romans I

came to some

knowledge

of Christ.

There I saw that

allegories were not

what Christ

meant but what Christ

was."4 This

accounts for

the fact that in

practice

Luther can be

as allegorical a commentator as Origenhimself-

notably in his comments on

Genesis, Job,

Psalms,

and

above

all the

Song of

Songs,

for which

he de-

vised his own unique historical

allegorization.

Calvincarried forward

the doctrine of one

plain

literal

sense

with

even

greater thoroughness

than

Luther and

rejected allegorical

interpretationeven

when invoked

for purely ornamental

andhomiletic

purposes. Yet on

typology he was

ambivalent.

Theoretically,

he

professed

to

eschew

typology and

Christocentric

interpretations even of

the

pro-

phetic writings.5But confronted with the typologi-

551



Reformation

Attitudes

oward

Allegory

and the

Song of Songs

cal

interpretations

made

by

Paul

himself,

he

is

forced

to

regard

them

as illustrativereferences

or

"accommodations"6

or else

to

admit

thatmany

Old

Testament

types

actually

refer

directly

or immedi-

ately

to Christ and not

to the

apparent

referent

at

all

(lest

a

multiple

sense be

implied).7

Moreover,

Calvin and

his followers

were not averse to read-

ing

their

favorite doctrines

as

applications

into

passages

where

a

modern

expositor

would

not find

them8and

Calvin himself

maintained that it was

less

harmful to

allegorize

Mosaic

law than to ac-

cept

its

imperfect

morality

as the

rule for Christian

men

(see

Farrar,

p.

350). (We

are reminded

of

Erasmus' dictum

that

"We

might

as well read

Livy

as

Judges

or

other

parts

of

the Old

Testa-

ment if we leave out

the

allegorical

meaning,"

quoted in Grant, p. 142.) We shall see how Calvin

maintained a

completely

traditional

view

of

the

allegorical

interpretation

of the

Song

of

Songs,

to

the

point

of

expelling

Castellio from Geneva

for

denying

it.

For the

English

Protestant

tradition,

Tyndale's

Obedience

of

a Christian

Man has

long

been

noted

as

the classic statement

of

antiallegorical,

literal

exegesis.

In his section

on the four senses of

medieval

exegesis,

Tyndale

views the allegorical

senses as

a

papist

device

to

secure

Catholic doc-

trines from

scripturalrefutation:

"The literal

sense

is become

nothing at all:

for the pope hath

taken

it clean

away, and hath

made it his possession,"9

so

that

our

captivity

under the pope

is maintained

by

these

"sophisters

with their

anagogical and

chopological sense"

(p. 307).

In contrast, Tyndale

stoutly

maintains the doctrine

of

one literal

sense:

"Thou shalt understand,

therefore,that the

scrip-

ture

hath

but one

sense,

which is the literal

sense.

And

that

literalsense

is the root and ground

of all,

and the anchor

that

never faileth, whereunto,

if

thou

cleave,

thou canst never err

or go out of the

way" (p. 304). For the whole of Scriptureteaches

Christ, as Luther said,

and as God is a spirit,

all

his

words

are spiritual: "His

literal sense is

spiritual"(pp.

319-20). As for the

parables, simili-

tudes,

and

allegories used by

Scripture writers,

they

are

simply

a

part of the literal

sense, just as

our own

figures of speech

are an inherent

part of

our

direct

meaning,

not another

"sense." In in-

terpreting

such similitudes

as are used

by the

Scripture

writers themselves,

we must,

Tyndale

says,

avoid private interpretation,

ever

keep in

"compass of the faith" (i.e., be guided by plain

texts)

and

apply

all to Christ

(p. 317).

That

is,

like

Luther,

Tyndale

theoretically

admits

only

one

kind of

allegory, radically

distinguished

from

all

others-typology.

But

as has been

noted,

there is

a

certain

dis-

crepancy between the purity of these theoretical

statements,

polemical

in

context,

and

the actual

exegetic practice

of the Reformers.

Moreover,

the

rejection

of

allegory

and the insistence

on

one

un-

divided

sense

hinged

for

the

early

Reformers on

maintaining

a radical

distinction

between

typology

and

allegory.

But the more

systematic

Protestant

hermeneutic treatises

reveal,

as

Madsen has

shown,

that

any

essential distinction

was

impossi-

ble

to

maintain.

For

instance,

Flacius

Illyricus

at

first tried

to fix the

difference

by defining types

as

a

comparison between historical deeds and allegory

as

a

matter of words

having

a

secondary meaning

-but

this was

no

different from

the

old Catholic

discrimination

between

figures

of

speech

(part

of

the

literal

sense)

and the

spiritual

sense

(arising

out

of

the

significance

of

things).

So Flacius

shifts

to a

second distinction:

that

types

are restricted

to

Christ

and the

Church,

while

allegories

are accom-

modations

to ourselves-but

that is hardly

an es-

sential difference

(being no more

than the dis-

tinction between allegory

proper and tropology

in

the fourfold scheme)

and breaks down

his

initial

distinction

between

the

significances

that arise

from

words

and

deeds.10

In

any case, types remain

as a significant

in-

stance

of what the Catholics

called the spiritual

sense but what the Reformers

insisted

on calling

the

full literal

sense,

a

purely

semantic distinction.

More important, it needs

to be pointed out

that

the early

Reformers' denunciations

of allegoryhad

a

specific

historical

context. The allegorical

ex-

travagances

condemned by Luther,

Calvin, and

Tyndale

accurately characterize

not the

central

patristicand medievalexegetictradition but rather

the

products

of

one school of allegorical

exegesis

that

flourished

especially in the

late Middle Ages

and

came to

predominate

in

the

Renaissance

Catholic commentaries contemporary

with the

Reformers.

These "dialectical" commentaries

(as

C. Spicq calls them"1)

igorously systematized

the

different

dimensions of allegorization

in

monu-

mental

compilations

full of elaborate

and

ingeni-

ous

explanations,

scholastic

distinctions,

and

rhetoricalpatterns. The

margins of the fourteenth-

century commentaries of Hugh of St. Cher, for

552



George

L.

example,

are filled with

references

to

things

"tri-

plex," reinforcing

a

pervasive

trinitarian

symbol-

ism at

every point.

In his

commentary

on the

Song

he notes that

there are three

adjurations

not

to awaken the

sleeping

bride because

spiritual

sleep is threefold,l2and three times she is called to

ascend because there are

three

stages

in the

spiritual

life.13 n the fifteenth

century, Dionysius

the Carthusian

became the first to

present,

in his

commentary

on the

Song,

an

unvaryinglysystem-

atic

threefold

allegorization

for

every

verse on the

following pattern:

of Christ and

the

Sponsa

Uni-

versali

(the

Church),

of Christ and the

Sponsa

Particulari

(the soul),

and of

Christ and

the

Sponsa Singulari

(Mary)-a

method that allows

him to draw

lengthy

doctrinal

essays

and devo-

tional exercises out of any verse whatsoever.14

This method became the hallmark

of

much Catho-

lic

exegesis

in

the sixteenth and

seventeenth

cen-

turies,

in

commentaries such

as those

of Martin

Del

Rio and Michael

Ghislerus. And Blench

argues

in

great

detail in

his

study

of

Preaching

in

England

in

the

Late

Fifteenth

and Sixteenth

Cen-

turies that the

exegetic

practice

of the Catholic

preachers

in

these

centuries,

such as Fisher and

Longland,

is

marked

by

a

thoroughgoing allegori-

zation

even

of

the

New Testament

(such

that the

six

pots

at the

wedding

of

Cana,

for

instance,

are

taken to

symbolize

the six

qualities

that

impelled

Christ to assume

flesh,

or the six

heavinesses

ex-

perienced

by

the

Apostle

during

the

Passion"5),

nd

that

in

general

these

preachers

demonstrate

an

in-

difference to

and even

a

contempt

for the

literal,

historical

sense

that

fully justifies Tyndale's

char-

acterization.16

Thus,

it

is

specifically

this

"dialectical"school

of

exegesis,

which

flourished

in

the late Middle

Ages

and the

Renaissance,

mainly

in

the

schools,

to

which

Tyndale's

attack

is

appropriate.

Now this

dialectical school, in subjecting every verse to a

rigidly

systematic

and

uniformly

detailed and

manifold

allegorization,

in effect

revived the ab-

stract,

antihistorical

allegorical

technique

of

the

Hellenistic

school of Philo

and

the

Gnostics.

The

difference

between the

Hellenistic and dialectical

modes on the one

hand and the

Palestinian,

bibli-

cal,

and

patristic

mode of

allegory

on

the

other,

is

the

difference between

regarding

Adam and Eve

as

symbols

of reason and

sensuality

and

regarding

them

as historical

types

of

Christ and the Church.

From the time of Origen, the Hellenistic mode

Scheper

553

entered,

to a

greater

or lesser

degree,

irrevocably

into the tradition of Christian

allegorical exegesis,

creating

a

complex

attitude toward

history

and

spirit

that is at the root of medieval

exegesis.

But

the

Hellenistic mode

never became itself the

cen-

tral tradition of patristic and medieval exegesis.17

In

actuality,

it seems to us that

the overwhelm-

ingly

central

tradition of medieval

exegesis

is

in

accord

with

the Reformers on

most

basic

points.

There is no

question

in either tradition of

the

verbal

inspiration

of

Scripture,

the

harmony

and

even

uniformity

of biblical

theology,

the universal

Christology

of both

Testaments,

the wholeness

of

the

sense

of

Scripture

and its foundation

in the

letter,

nor even of the fact that much

biblical

language

is

figurative.

On

the

crucial

last

points

we need only cite, for the medieval tradition, the

complete

accord of

Augustine's

De

Doctrina

Christiana,

Hugh

of

St.

Victor's

Didascalicon,

and

St. Thomas' remarks on

scriptural interpretation.

Like

Augustine, Hugh

bases the idea of

spiritual

senses on the basic

conception

that

things

as well

as

words

can

be

signs,

and that the

significance

of

words,

including figures

of

speech,

is

the literal

sense,

while

the

significance

of

things

("the

voice of

God

speaking

to

men")

yields

the

spiritual

senses.18

Like

Augustine

and

Origen, Hugh

discriminates

three basic

senses,

the

literal,

the

allegorical,

and

the

moral,

and notes that while some

passages may

have

a

"triple

sense,"

many

will

be

simply

histori-

cal,

purely

moral,

or

entirely spiritual-or any

combination

thereof.

Superior

as

they may

be,

the

spiritual

senses must be

grounded

in

the

letter,

not

only

in

the sense that the

factual

biblical

history

is

the basis of

all

revelation,

but

in that

the letter is

"the

meaning

of

any

narrative

which uses words

according

to their

proper

nature. And

in the sense

of the

word,

I

think that all the books of either

Testament

. . .

belong

to

this

study

in their literal

meaning" (Hugh, Did., p. 121). I would take this

to

mean that

even works that are

purely

allegori-

cal,

such as

Canticles,

have

a

literal,

albeit

figura-

tive,

sense

(the

human

similitude).

In

short,

Hugh

says,

"And

how can

you

'read' the

Scriptures

without

'reading'

the letter?

If

one does

away

with

the

letter,

what is left of the

Scriptures?"'"19

nlike

Philo,

Hugh

does not

regard every phrase

in

the

Bible as

susceptible

of

allegorical interpretation

nor

does he

regard

history

itself as

unimportant

or

contemptible

unless

allegorized. Perhaps

the term

"allegorical interpretation" s a misnomer for the



Reformation

Attitudes

oward

Allegory

and

the

Song

of

Songs

tradition

represented

by

Augustine

and

Hugh,

and

belongs

to the

Alexandrians;

it is not

allegorical

interpretation

but the

interpretation

of

allegories

with

which

Hugh

is

concerned.

Precisely

the same

points

are

repeated

by

Thomas in passages in Quodlibet20nd his com-

mentary

on Galatians

iii.28

(quoted

in

Lubac,

Pt.

I11,

Vol.

II,

p.

295)

and

especially

in the

following

classic

statement

in the Summa

Theologica:

Therefore

hat first

signification

whereby

words

signify

things

belongs

to the

first

sense,

the historical

or

lit-

eral.

That

significationwhereby

things signified

by

words

have themselves lso a

signification

s

called

he

spiritual

ense,

which s based

on the

literal,

and

pre-

supposes

it.

Now this

spiritual

sense

has a

threefold

division.

. . .

Therefore,

so far as the

things

of

the

Old

Law

signify

the

things

of

the

New

Law,

there

is

the

allegorical

sense;

so far as

the

things

done

in

Christ,

or so far as the

things

which

signify

Christ,

are

signs

of what we

ought

to

do,

there

is the

moral

sense.

But so far as

they signify

what relates

o

eternal

glory,

there is the

anagogical

sense. Since

the

literal

sense

is

that which the author

intends, and

since

the

author

of Holy Scripture

s God, Who

by one

act

comprehends

ll things n His intellect,

t is not

unfit-

ting,

as

Augustine

says, if, even according

o

the

lit-

eral

sense, one word

in Holy Scripture

hould

have

several

senses.21

It is important to notice how in the last sentence

Thomas

defines

that which the

author-God-

intends

to

be the literal sense

(not, as some

critics

seem

to think, saying

that the literal

sense, as

one

among

others,

is the one that

God

intended ).

It

is

in

this

sense that every

text in Holy

Scripture

naturally

has

a literal sense, and

it implies

a

con-

ception

of "literal sense"

that actually

embraces

all

four

senses as being

the full sense intended

by

God,

and

thus the three specific

spiritual

dimen-

sions

(allegory,

tropology,

and anagogy)

"unfold"

from

this

one whole sense.22

n any case,

Thomas

makes

clear that the spiritual senses are founded

upon

the

"literal" sense

in the usual,

narrower

sense

of

the term,

as he reiterates

n replyingto

the

objection

that the multiplicity

of senses

would

cause

confusion;

to that objection

he replies

that

the

multiple

senses do not arise

from ambiguity

in

the

letter

but from

the

significance

of the

desig-

nated

things:

Thus

in

Holy Scripture

no confusion

results,

for

all

the

senses

are founded

on one-the

literal-from

which

alone

can any argument

be drawn,

and

not

fromthose intendedallegorically, s Augustinesays.

Nevertheless, nothing

of

Holy

Scripture

perishes

because

of

this,

since

nothing

necessary

o

faith

is

containedunder

the

spiritual

ense

which

is

not

else-

where

put

forward

clearly

by

the

Scripture

n

its

literal

sense.23

And, like Hugh, Thomas notes that figurative

language

is

part

of the literal

sense:

The

parabolical

ense

is

contained

n

the

literal,

for

by

words

hings

are

signified

properly

nd

figuratively.

Nor

is

the

figure

tself,

but

that

which

is

figured,

he

literal

ense.

When

Scripture

peaks

of God's

arm,

the

literal

sense

is not

that God

has

such

a

member,

but

only

what

is

signified

by

this member,namely,

opera-

tive

power.

Hence

it

is

plain

that

nothing

false

can

ever

underlie

he

literal

sense

of

Holy

Scripture.24

(Still,

for

Thomas,

the

literal

sense

alone,

divorced

from the spiritualsense, is carnaland Judaic- the

Holy

Ghost

is

sent

into

the

hearts

of

believers

"ut

intelligerunt

spiritualiter

quod

Judaei

carnaliter

intelligunt.")25

We

can

see

in

this

passage

the

real

basis

of

the

frequent

assertion

by

the

commenta-

tors, seemingly

so

contrary

to

the

fact,

that

the

Song

has

only

a

spiritual

sense.

For

just

as

the

"arm of

God"

literally

(but

by

means

of

similitude)

means

His

operative

power,

so,

too,

we

may

say,

the

Song

is

literally

about

Christ

and

the

Church,

by

means

of the

"sweet

similitude"

of

human

love.

Similaranalysesare found in the Catholictheorists

of

the

sixteenth

and

seventeenth

centuries,

such

as

Escalante

or Serarius

(see Madsen,

pp.

23-25).

This

puts

a

different

ight

upon

the

assertions

of

Luther,

Calvin,

and

Tyndale

that they

were

re-

verting

to

the

idea

of

one,

literal sense

presumably

lost

sight

of

by

the medieval

commentators.

In

fact, William Whitaker,

the

most thoughtful

of

English Reformation

scriptural

critics,

overtly

says

that

he does

not

wholly

reject

the

theory

of

spiritual

senses

as

defined

by

Catholics

like

Gregory

or

Thomas,

but still

maintains

that

the

sense of

Scripture

is one and undivided ("but" is

Whitaker's

perception;

as

we

have

seen,

Thomas

believed

in the undivided

single sense

of

Scripture

too).

"These

things

we do

not

wholly

reject:

we

concede

such things

as allegory, anagoge,

and

tropology

in

scripture;

but

meanwhile

we

deny

that

there are

many

and

various

senses.

We

affirm

that there

is but one true, proper

and genuine

sense

of

scripture,

arising

from the

words

rightly

under-

stood,

which we call

the literal; and we

contend

that

allegories,

tropologies,

and

anagoges

are

not

various senses, but various collections from one

554



George

L.

Scheper

sense,

or various

applications

and

accommoda-

tions of that one

meaning."

"The literal

sense,

then,

is not

that which the

words

immediately

sug-

gest,

as the

Jesuit

[i.e.,

Bellarmine]

defines

it;

but

rather that

which arises

from the words them-

selves, whether they be taken strictly or figura-

tively."26

Thus,

the

allegories

woven

by

the New

Testa-

ment

writers,

for

instance,

"are

not various mean-

ings,

but

only

various

applications

and

accom-

modations

of

scripture"

(Whitaker, p. 406).

"When we

proceed

from the

sign

to

the

thing

signified,

we

bring

no new

sense,

but

only bring

out into

light

what

was before

concealed

in

the

sign.

When we

speak

of the

sign by

itself,

we ex-

press

only

part

of the

meaning;

and so also when

we mention only the thing signified: but when the

mutualrelation

betweenthe

sign

and

the

thing

sig-

nified

is

brought

out,

then

the

whole

complete

sense,

which

sfounded

upon

this similitudeand

agreement,

is set

forth."27

Thus,

as

in

Thomas,

the

term

"literal

sense"

really

has two

meanings

for

Whitaker: the narrower

being

the

grammatical-

historical

sense,

the

broader

being

the

full

sense

(including

spiritual

accommodations).

It would

seem

that

Whitaker differs

from

the

Catholicsonly

in

restrictiveness,

limiting

what they

call allegory

more or

less

to the types

invoked by

the New

Testament

writers,

and

he

expressly states

that the

interpretation

of David's battle

with Goliath

as

Christ's

battle with

Satan

is purely

an application,

not

a

bona

fide part

of the

"full" meaning

and

certainly

not the one

grammatical-historical

mean-

ing.

And

yet

there

is

an unedited

manuscript

com-

mentary

on

the Song

of Songs

by Whitaker,

in

which

he

perpetuates

in the most

conventional

way

the

allegorical interpretation

of

that book

(which

has

no

direct

New Testament

sanction

as

a

type).28

We shall

see that many

Protestants(almost

all of whom accepted the allegoricalinterpretation

of

the

Song)

insisted

even more fervently

than

the

Catholics

that the Song had

only a spiritual

sense

and

neither

a

typological

historical

reference

to

Solomon

(which

many Catholics

accepted)

nor

any

reference

to

carnallove

at all-which

virtually

denies that

this love song between

Christ and

the

Church

even

uses the

similitude

of human love.

Indeed, it was

their very

scruples about

admit-

ting any

implication

of multiple

senses that

led a

number

of later

Protestant

theorists of

exegesis to

admit a more extreme brand of allegorizationthan

the medieval

Catholics,

a

brand closer to

the

Alexandrian

tradition.

Thus,

Solomon

Glass

re-

tains the

rejection

of

multiple

senses for the

doc-

trine

of one

full

sense,

but the latter

now

clearly

includes

spiritual

meanings

(the

significance

of

things), which may be allegorical, typological, or

parabolic.29

All

essential

distinction between

type

and

allegory

is abandoned. In

Madsen's

words:

"By

the

middle of the

seventeenth

century

the

dis-

tinction

between the Catholic

theory

of

manifold

senses

and the Protestant

theory

of

the one

literal

sense

had,

for

all

practical purposes,

become

meaningless.

Both sides

agreed

that

only

the

literal

meaning

could

be used to

prove

doctrine,

that

literal-figurative

meanings

must conform

to the

analogy

of

faith,

that

'typical' passages

in the

Old

Testamenthad a double meaning,and that various

'allegorical

accommodations'

might

be

gathered

from the

text for homiletic

purposes

even

though

they

were not

intended

by

the author"

(p.

38).

Indeed,

the

left-wing

Protestants went further than

the Catholics

in

admitting allegorical readings;

in

strongly distinguishing

the

letter as

the

written

word of

Scripture

from the

spirit

as the

living

Word of God

as

communicated

to the

soul,

non-

conformists

like Samuel How

and John

Saltmarsh

and John Everardviewed

the whole written

Scrip-

ture, including

the New Testament,

as only

a

figurative

rendering

of ineffable spiritual

truths;

Everard says,

for example, "Externall

Jesus

Christ

is

a

shadow,

a symbole, a figure

of the

Internal:

viz. of him that is to be born

within us. In

our

souls" (quoted

in Madsen,

p. 41). Finally, with

Gerard Winstanley

and even more the

Platonist

Henry More,

the

literal-historical

reality

of

the

biblical

narrativesis actually

denied and we

have

come

full circle back

to

Philo

and the

Gnostics.

II. The Song of Songs

in Reformation

Exegesis

The Protestant commentaries on the Song of

Songs

in the sixteenth

and seventeenth

centuries

reinforce

the contentions offered

above, for

they

provide

a

striking

contrastto the innovative

stance

of the treatises on exegesis,

being

overwhelmingly

conservative in purveying the traditional

allegori-

cal interpretation.

An initial objection

here

might

be that the

commentaries

on the Song are

an

anomaly, that

they represent

an

insignificant

rem-

nant of the older tradition,

the last bastion

of

al-

legory

to give way.

In hindsight

this might be

true,

but it is a teleological interpretationof intellectual

555



Reformation

Attitudes oward

Allegory

and the

Song of Songs

history

and does not reflect

how the

age

saw

itself.

To a sixteenth-

or

seventeenth-century

commenta-

tor,

the

idea that the

allegorization

of the

Song

was

an

anomaly

would

have been

incomprehensi-

ble. The modern oblivion

of the book has tended

to blind us to the

really

crucial

position

it holds in

exegetic history,

not

only

for the

question

of al-

legory

but for the central

matter of the relation

of

divine to

profane

love,

and

in

fact,

as Ruth Waller-

stein

has

said,

the

Song

involved

for the Middle

Ages

and

Renaissance the whole

question

of the

place

of the senses

in

the

spiritual

life

and

helped

"to

shape

man's ideas of

symbolism

and

of the

function of

the

imagination."30

This

helps

explain

the

prodigious exegetic history

of the

book;

the

number of commentaries

is

astounding.

The

early

catalogs and bibliographiestend to list more com-

mentaries on the

Song

than

on

any

other

biblical

book save the

Psalms,

all of Paul's

epistles

taken

together,

and the

Gospels.31

My

own checklist

of

commentaries

through

the seventeenth

century

totals 500 and is still

far from

complete.

There

are

over

a score

of

printed

commentaries

by

English

Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth

cen-

turies,

including

monumental compilations like the

Puritan John

Collinges' two volumes

on just the

first

two

chapters

of the

Song (a

total of almost

1,500

pages).32

t has

seemed

to

previous

historians

of

exegesis absolutely

distinctive of the High

Mid-

dle

Ages

that it

was

preoccupied

with the Song of

Songs

and

that it

was

then

regarded

n some ways

as the

pinnacle

of Scripture-and

indeed there are

sixty

or

seventy

extant

commentaries

from the

twelfth

and

thirteenth centuries

alone. But

the data

for the

sixteenth and

seventeenth

centuries

would

indicate a

similar

"preoccupation"

among

the Re-

formers.33

Again

and

again

the

Reformers,like the

medieval

Cistercian

monks, express

their highest

regard

for

the

Song,

for

nowhere else, they

say, is

Christ's divine love bettertaught.34There are, to be

sure,

tremendous differencesbetweenthe spiritual-

ity

of

the

monastic

and Puritan

commentaries on

the

Song,

but the

materials do

not reveal funda-

mental

distinctions in

attitudes toward

allegory.

Moreover,

in addition to the

formal commen-

taries,

there

are

innumerable sermons

on texts

from

the

Song,

as well as a prominent

use of the

allegorized

Song in a variety

of worksof Protestant

spirituality.

For

instance, the Anabaptist

Melchior

Hofmann

interperts

adult Christian initiation

as a

betrothalbetween Christ and the faithful soul, the

whole

process

interpretedaccording

to the

imagery

of the

Song

of

Songs-much

as

Cyril

of Jerusalem

and

St.

Ambrose

used texts from

the

Song

to de-

scribe

each

step

of

the

baptismal

rite as

they

knew

it.35

And

George

Williams has shown that

noncon-

formists like Bunyan and separatist sects like the

Quakers,

Huguenots, Swedenborgians,

and

Pi-

etists,

who maintained

a

"theology

of the wilder-

ness"

(the

idea

of a

holy community

living

in

spiritual

isolation

from

decadent

society),

fre-

quently

invoke the verses of

the

Song

in which the

divine lover calls his bride

up

from the wilderness

(Cant.

iii.6,

viii.5).36

Furthermore,

Protestant

tracts

and

sermons on

marriage,

such as

Croft's

The Lover

(1638),

not

infrequently

cite the al-

legorized Song

as

a

presentation

of the divine

archetypewhich humanmarriageshould imitate.37

Indeed,

there

are a number of

sermons

specifically

devoted

to the theme of

the

spiritual

marriage

and

a

notable

treatise on the

subject by

Francis Rous

(1675),

based

throughout

on the

Song

of

Songs

and

ending

in a devotional

piece

called

"A

Song

of

Loves"

quite

in the tradition of St. Bernard or

Richard

Rolle.38

When we add

to this the evidence

of the poetic

paraphrases and

of other Protestant

poetry di-

rectly inspired

by the Song, the centrality of

that

book to Reformation

spirituality

cannot be

doubted.

In England alone, beginning

with Wil-

liam Baldwin's

monumental Balades

of Salomon

(1549-the

earliest printed book of original En-

glish lyric

poetry), 110

pages of traditional doc-

trinal paraphrase,

there are at least

twenty-five

extant

English poetic paraphrases

through the

seventeenth

century, most

being elaborate allego-

rizations

in the traditional

mold.39Besides

these,

there

is

a

considerablebody

of Protestant

poetry

based directly

on the Song, notably

the

emblem

books of Van

Veen, Hermann Hugo,

and Francis

Quarles.40To give one other example, fully one

third

of

the preparatory

meditations on

the

eucharist,

the magnum

opus of Edward

Taylor,

are

a

poetic commentary

on verses

from the Song.

Returningto

the formalcommentaries,

they are,

as noted, in all

essentialsthoroughly

traditionalin

allegorizing

the book. It is

true that one Reformer,

Sebastian

Castellio, had rejected

this tradition

and

concluded

that, being nothing

but a colloquy

of

Solomon

and his beloved

Shulamite,the Song

had

no spiritual significance

and should

be excluded

from the Canon. This conclusion was so anathema

556



to

Calvin that he had Castellio

expelled

from

Geneva because of it. In this

case,

Calvin's

posi-

tion was no different

from

that of the fathersof

the

Second Council of

Constantinople

of

553,

who

condemned Theodore

of

Mopsuesta

for

the same

opinion.41ndeed, some Protestantallegoristswent

to extremes not

contemplated

by

the

medieval

commentators. One minor school viewed the book

as a

prophetic-historical

work,

so that

just

as the

Targum

saw in the book the

history

of

God's

deal-

ings

with

Israel,

the

English

commentator

Bright-

man read it as

a

history-prophecyextending

from

the

reign

of David

to

1700

(a

commentary

turned

into the

unlikely

form of

poetic

paraphrase by

Thomas

Beverley,

to a

length

of 70

pages

[see

n.

39]).

And Martin Luther

devised

the

completely

unique allegorical interpretation hat the Song was

Solomon's

praise

of and

thanksgiving

for a

happy

and

peaceful

realm.42

But most

Protestants

rejected

such unconventional

allegorization

in favor of the

traditional

reading

that

saw the

Song

as

a

dialogue

between Christand the Church or

the faithful soul.

Indeed,

the

continuity

of the

traditionbetween the

Middle

Ages

and the

Reformation is

strikingly

evident from an

examination of the

authorities

utilized

by

the

English

commentators. In com-

mentary

after

commentary

we discover

the domi-

nant

explicit

influence of

Augustine

and

Bernard,

and favorable citation of

authors like

Gregory

the

Great,

Ambrose, Jerome,

and even

Rupert

(author

of

a

Marian

commentary

on

the'Song).43

To

an

outside observer the

continuity

with the

past

in these

commentaries

would

far

outweigh

any

innovative

elements. To be

sure,

the

Protes-

tant

commentaries

almost

uniformly

adopt

a

pri-

marily

ecclesial

allegory,

with the

tropological

dimension as

a

valid

application.

But

so,

in

fact,

is

the medieval

tradition built on

the foundation of

the

ecclesial

interpretation,

and even those com-

mentaries devoted most strikingly to the Christ-

soul

allegory,

such as

Bernard's,

recognize

that the

ultimate

priority

remains with the ecclesial in-

terpretation.

Similarly,

the Protestant

commen-

taries

deplored

the mechanical

allegorization

of

every particular

detail in

the

scholastic,

dialectical

commentaries,

but so

do

Origen

and Bernard

eschew

any

such

allegorization

of

particulars.

Nevertheless,

the

Protestant

commentaries

are

dis-

tinctly

Protestant in

opposing

what

they

called

papist

and

monkish

interpretations,

that

is,

alle-

gorizations that reflectthe ecclesiasticalstructures

L.

Scheper

557

of

the Catholic Church or the monastic milieu

(e.g.,

the enclosed

garden

as the monastic

cloister),

replacing

them with

allegorizations

reflecting

Protestant ecclesiastical

structure,

vocabulary,

and

doctrine

(such

as

justification

by

faith or the

im-

puted righteousnessof Christ).

That

the

Song

of

Songs

is a

spiritual

book is

a

premise

shared

by

medieval and Protestant

com-

mentators

alike,

but for the

Protestants,

more

con-

cernedwith the

idea

of a

single

sense,

thereis more

of a

problem

in

defining

the relation

of the

allegory

to

the text. In a

chorus,

the commentators all

de-

clare that the sense

of

the

Song

is

solely

spiritual,

that it has

no

carnal

sense-which is more or less

what the

medieval commentators

said,

but with

less

rigorous

intent. James

Durham,

one

of

the

ablestcommentators,said: "Igrant it hath a literal

meaning,

but

I

say,

that literal

meaning

is not

immediate . .

.

but that which is

spiritually

and

especially

meant

by

these

Allegorical

and

Figura-

tive

speeches,

is the Literal

meaning

of the

Song:

So

that its Literal sense is

mediate,

representing

he

meaning,

not

immediately

from the

Words,

but

mediately

from

the

Scope,

that

is,

the

intention

of

the

Spirit,

which is

couched under

the

Figures

and

Allegories

here

made

use of."44

Consequently,

there is

great

confusion about whether the

Song

is

typological

or

not,

with

opinion

about

equally

divided,

but with some Protestant

commentators,

such as Durham and

Beza,

taking

a

position

as

strongly

as Luis de Leon's

inquisitors

that

there

can be no historical

reference to Solomon

and

Pharaoh's

daughter(which

would

be

dangerously

lewd),

because the

Song speaks

solely

of Christ and

the Church.45With

such an extreme

view,

one

could

hardly

dwell on the

aptness

of the

Song's

praises

of the lovers' bodies

to

the

figurative

situa-

tion

(historia),

in

the

way

that even the Cistercian

monk Gilbert of

Hoilandia does

in

explicating

the

praise of the bride's breasts: "Those breasts are

beautiful

which rise

up

a

little

and swell

moder-

ately,

neither too

elevated,

nor,

indeed,

level

with

the

rest of the chest.

They

are as

if

repressed

but

not

depressed,

softly

restrained,

but not

flapping

loosely."46

n

contrast,

the Protestant

Durham

says

that "our

Carnalness makes it hazardous and

un-

safe,

to

descend in the

Explication

of these Simili-

tudes"

(Clavis,

p.

401),

and the

Puritan

Collinges

says

that

"

the

very

uncouthness of the same ex-

pressions,

is

an

argument,

that it

is no meer

Woman here intended"47(although how inap-



Reformation

Attitudes toward

Allegory

and the

Song of

Songs

propriate praise

of

a

woman

could

serve as

an

apt

metaphor

for love of

God

seems

rather

obscure).

Commentators

like

Origen,

Bernard,

and

Guil-

laume de

Saint-Thierry,

who

thoroughly allego-

rized

the

Song,

nonetheless

devoted considerable

attention to setting forth the aptness of the letter,

though

to

be sure with cautions

against allowing,

in

Origen's

words,

"an

interpretation

that has to

do with

the flesh and the

passions

to

carry you

away."48

In

short,

the medieval attitude toward

the

letter of the

Song

was that

one

can talk about

the

story

(historia)

without immediate reference to

the

spiritual

meaning,

but that the

story's

real

meaning

is the

spiritual

sense. The

apparent

con-

troversy

betweenthose who assertedthat the

Song

has

a

literal sense

(in

the narrow

meaning

of a

historical sense) and those who seemed to deny it

is

purely

rhetorical: those who discerned

a

literal

sense

(such

as a referenceto Solomon and

Phar-

aoh's

daughter)

all

acknowledged

that it is artifi-

cial

to talk

about

the

story apart

from its

spiritual

significance,

while

those

who

denied

that the

Song

has

a

literal

meaning always acknowledged

that

the

spiritual

sense is

conveyed

"under

the simili-

tude" of human

love

and

that the

interpretation

of

the

letter is

in

fact

nothing

other

than the

explica-

tion

of

that

similitude.

For

instance,

if

the

bride's

breasts

are

compared

to

twin roes

feeding among

the

lilies,

one

needs

to know what

quality

in a

woman

is

being

commended

in

that

comparison

before

one can

appreciate

the

significatio-hence

Gilbert's

comments on

feminine

pulchritude

cited

above.

Thus

far

the

medieval and

Reformation

exegetes

are

once

again

seen to have

comparable

attitudes, except

that the

conscientiousness

about

one sense

and

possibly

a

greater puritanism

seems

to make the

Protestants rather more

shy

of the

carnal

similitudes.

It

is at

this

point,

I

believe,

that

we encounter

the really fundamental difference between the

spirituality

embodied

in the Catholic

and

Protes-

tant

commentaries

on

the

Song,

that

is,

in their

conception

of

the central

metaphor underlying

the

allegorized Song,

the

spiritual marriage,

or

divine

love

conveyed

under the

similitude

of carnal hu-

man

love.

There

is

complete agreement among

the

Protestant

commentators with the

traditional

view

that

spiritual

truths

can,

in

the

last

analysis,

be

expressed only metaphorically (although

it

might

be

pointed

out that this

symbolist conception

of

truth almost always sits side by side with the ra-

tionalistic assertion

that

nothing

is said

figura-

tively

in

Scripture

that is not elsewhere in

the

Bible

stated

discursively-an

ambiguitygoing

back

at least to

Augustine's

De

Doctrina).

They

are

moreover

agreed

that the

nuptial

metaphor

is

uniquely suited to expressingthe highest mystery

of all

(as

Paul

calls it in

Ephesians),

the love

be-

tween

God and His

people,

and

that

therefore

the

human

language

of

the

Song

is

dramatically ap-

propriate.49

But

precisely

whereinconsists that

pe-

culiar

aptness

of the

nuptial

metaphor?

On

this

there is

surprisingly

ittle

elaboration

in the

Protes-

tant

commentaries,

but what there

is

mostly

de-

velops

the

aptness

of

the

nuptial metaphor

in

terms of the

moral,

domestic virtues of

Christian

marriage:

faithfulness,

tenderness,

affection,

mu-

tual consent, the holding of things in common, the

headship

of the husband.

In

other

words,

as Sibbes

says explicitly,

the

metaphor

is

based

on the

nature

of the

marriage

contract.50Dove elaborates on

the

analogy between the marriage rite and the history

of

redemption (God giving away His Son; the Last

Supper as a wedding banquet; the procreation

of

spiritual fruit) (Conversion, pp. 87-89).

Beyond

this,

there

is some reference to the passionate na-

ture of

love and to the one-flesh union

of

marriage

as

a

symbol

of

union with God.51

But

generally,

when the

sexual

aspect of the

union

tends

to

sur-

face, the commentators avert their eyes and allude

to the dangers of lewd interpretation.

Thus,

Homes says, "away, say we, with all carnal

thoughts, whiles we have heavenly things

pre-

sented us

under the notion

of

Kisses, Lips,

Breasts, Navel, Belly, Thighs, Leggs. Our minds

must

be

above our

selves, altogether minding

heavenlymeanings."52 And on Canticles v.4

("My

beloved

put

his

hand

in

the hole and my

bowels

were

moved for

him"), the Assembly Annotations

exclaims,

"to an

impure fancy

this verse is

more

apt to foment lewd and base lusts, than to present

holy

and divine notions. ...

It

is shameful to men-

tion

what

foul

ugly

rottenness some

have

belched

here and

how

they have neglected that pure and

Christian sense that

is

clear

in

the words."53

Now,

to be

sure,

these cautions

are to be found

in the

medieval

commentaries

as

well,

but what

is

in

dramatic contrast to

the

Protestant

analysis of

the

aptness

of the

nuptial image

in terms of

the

moral

qualities

of the

marriage

contract

is

the

whole

tradition, stretching

from

Gregory

of

Nyssa

through Bernard and Guillaume de Saint-Thierry

558



George

L.

Scheper

to John

of

the

Cross,

which

identifies sexual

union

itself as the

foremost aspect

of

the

spiritual

mar-

riage

metaphor-in

its total

self-abandon,

its

in-

tensity,

its immoderation

and

irrationality,

and

above

all

its

union of two

separate

beings,

the one-

flesh union that is the supreme type of the one-

spirit

union between ourselves

and Christ.

We

have

just

quoted

the

Assembly

Annotations

on the

filth belched

up

in connection with an erotic

verse

of the

Song;

but

note in contrast Bernard's

analy-

sis of the

"belching"

of the

intoxicated,

impas-

sioned

bride herself

in

the

Song:

"See

with

wvhat

impatient

abruptness

she

begins

her

speech....

From the abundance

of her

heart,

without shame

or

shyness,

she breaks out with the

eager request,

'Let Him kiss me with the kiss of

His

Mouth.'

...'He looketh upon the earth and maketh it

tremble,'

and

she

dares

to

ask that He should kiss

her Is she

not

manifestly

intoxicated? No doubt

of it."54

And if

she seems

o

you

to

utter

words,

believe hem

o

be the

belchings

of

satiety,

unadorned

nd

unpremedi-

tated. ... It

is not

the

expression

of

thought,

but

the

eructation

of love.And

why

should

you

seek in sucha

spontaneous

outburst for

the

grammatical

arrange-

mentand

sequence

of

words,

or for the

rulesand

orna-

ments of

rhetoric

Do

you yourselves

ay

down laws

andregulationsoryourowneructations?

II,

282-83,

sermon

67).

Thus,

when

love, especially

divine

ove, is so

strong

and

ardent hat t

cannot

anylonger

be

contained

with-

in

the

soul,

it

pays

no attention to the order,

or the

sequence,

or the

correctnessof the

words through

which it

pours

itself out.

.

.

.

Hence it is that

the

Spouse,

burning

with an

incredible

ardour

of divine

love,

in

her

anxiety

o obtain some kind

of outlet for

the

intense heat which

consumes

her,

does not con-

sider

what she

speaks

or how she

speaks. Under

the

constraining

nfluence

of

charity,

she belches

forth

rather han

utters

whatever ises to her lips.

And is

it

any

wonder hat she shouldeructatewho is so full and

so

inebriatedwith

the wine

of

holy

love? (I,

281-82;

see also

sermons

49, 52,

69, 73, 75)

In

the

highest

reaches

of

divine love,

all con-

siderations of

prudence,

order,

and

decorum, all

the

rules of

etiquette

and

rhetoric are transcended;

again,

it

is

for

that reason that divine

love

is most

aptly symbolized

not by friendship

or familial

love

or

domestic

affection,

but

by

obliviating drunken-

ness

and sexual

passion.

In

short,

it

is

in

the

nature

of sexual

passion

to

transcend

all other

considera-

tions:

"O

love,

so

precipitate,

so

violent,

so

ardent,

so

impetuous, suffering

the

mind to

entertain

no

thought

but of

thyself,

content with

thyself

alone

Thou disturbest all

order,

disregardest

all

usage,

ignorest all measure. Thou dost triumph over in

thyself

and

reduce to

captivity

whatever

appears

to

belong

to

fittingness,

to

reason,

to

decorum,

to

prudence

or counsel"

(nI,

435-36,

sermon

79).

Gregory

of

Nyssa, Gregory

of

Elvira,

Guillaume

de

Saint-Thierry,

John of the

Cross,

all

agree

in

fixing

on

the

passionate

union of two in one

flesh,

rather than on the domestic hierarchical relation

of husband

and

wife,

as the

principal

basis

for

the

use of human

love

as a

symbol

of

the

union

of

Christ and

His

people.55Actually,

this

interpreta-

tion of the image goes back at least to Chry-

sostom's

interpretation

of

I

Corinthians xi.3 and

Ephesians

v.22-33,

in which he

argues

that the

nuptial symbol

residesnot in the domestic hierar-

chy

but

in the

joining

of two in one

flesh,

and

re-

flections

of that

exegesis

are

found in the standard

glosses.56

Nevertheless,

in

the Reformation the sexual in-

terpretation

of the allegory is only hinted at

in

the

commentaries

on the Song, although

it does

find

some expression in the sermons and

tracts on

the

spiritual marriage

and especially in the poetry

in-

spired by the Song. But herein,

we believe, lies

the

great change

in spirituality, for it was not

Protes-

tant

hermeneutics,

the analysis of the senses

of

Scripture,

that spelled the end of the theology

of

the spiritual marriage and the centrality

of

the

Song of Songs (a demise sealed in the

18th

cen-

tury), but rather the supplanting

of a

mystical,

sacramentalspiritualityby

a more

rationalistic

and

moralistic Christian spirit

that could

hardly

praise, as Bernard does,

spiritual

drunkenness,

immoderation, and

impropriety.

Typology

was

one form of allegory suited to the didactic mode

and

it continued to flourish, but essentially

al-

legory and

symbolism were more conducive to

a

mystery-oriented

rather than

history-oriented

Christianity.

In literary terms,

it is the

difference

between

the passionate poetry of Rolle or John

of

the Cross

and the didactic style of Paradise

Re-

gained or

Pilgrim's Progress.

Essex CommunityCollege

Baltimore

County,

Maryland

559



Reformation

Attitudes toward

Allegory

and

the

Song

of

Songs

Notes

1

See,

e.g.,

Frederic

W.

Farrar,

History of

Interpretation

(London:

Macmillan, 1886),

pp.

342-53.

2

See,

e.g.,

Luther's

Works,

ed.

J. Pelikanand

W.

Hansen,

xxvI

(St.

Louis:

Concordia, 1963),

435 (on

Galatians

iv.24).

Cf. The Table Talk

of

Martinl

Luther,

trans. William

Hazlitt

(London:

H.

G.

Bohn,

1859),

pp.

326-27.

3

See

John

Reumann,

The Romance

of

Bible

Scripts

and

Schlolars

(Englewood

Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall, 1965),

pp.

55-91.

On

Luther's

ypology

in

general,

see

James

Samuel

Preus,

From

Slhadow

to Promise

(Cambridge,

Mass.:

Har-

vard

Univ.

Press, 1969),

pp.

153-271;

Heinrich

Bornkamm,

Luther

un1d

das Alte

Testament

(Tubingen:

Mohr,

1948);

Jaroslav

Pelikan,

Luther

the

Expositor

(St.

Louis: Con-

cordia,

1959);

Paul

Althaus,

Tlhe Theology

of

Martin

Lther

(Philadelphia:

Fortress

Press,

1966).

4

Quoted

in Robert

Grant,

A

Short

History of

thie

Inter-

pretationl

of

the

Bible,

rev.

ed.

(New

York:

Macmillan,

1963),p. 129;also see TableTalk,p. 328.

5 Calvin,

A

Commenltarie

upon

Galathianls,

trans. R. Vaux

(London,

1581),

p.

104.

6

E.g.,

on

Gal.

iv.24 he writes,

"Paul certainlydoes

not

mean that

Moses

wrote the history

for the purposeof

being

turned

into

an

allegory, but points out

in what way

the

history

may

be made

to

answer

the present

subject."

Quoted

in

William Madsen,

From Shadowy Types

to

Truth

(New

Haven:

Yale Univ.

Press, 1968),p.

29.

7

See

H.

Jackson Forstman,

Word

and

Spirit:

Calvin's

Doctrine

of

Biblical

Authority

(Stanford: Stanford

Univ.

Press,

1962),

a study documenting Calvin's

continued

interest

n

typology.

8

See

J.

W. Blench,

Preaching

in England in

the

Late

Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York: Barnes and

Noble,

1964),

p.

57.

9

William

Tyndale,

Doctrinal

Treatises, ed.

Henry

Walter,

Parker

Society,

No. 42

(Cambridge,

Eng.:

Cam-

bridge

Univ.

Press, 1848),

p.

303.

10

Clavis

Scripturae

Sacrae (1567;

rpt. Jena, 1674);

see

discussion

n

Madsen,pp.

30-31.

11

Esquisse

d'une

histoire de l'exegese

latine

au

Moyen

Age

(Paris:

J.

Vrin,

1944), pp.

212-18.

12

Hugonis

de

Sancto Charo, Opera,

8 vols.

(Venice:

Nicolaum

Pezzana,

1703),

i,

136v (on Cant.

viii.4).

13

Opera,

i,

121r

(on Cant. iii.6),

133r (on

Cant.vi.10),

and

136v

(on

Cant.

viii.5).

14

Dionysius

Cartusianus,

Opera

Omnia, 42 vols.

(Mon-

strolli:

Typis

CartusiaeS. M. de Pratis, 1896-1935),vii,

passim.

It

should

be noted that Honorius d'Autun

in

the

12th

century

was

the first to apply

a systematic

fourfold

allegorization

of

the Song according

o the classic

fourfold

scheme (see

PL,

vol.

172, cols.

347-496).

15

See

MS.

Lambeth 392, fols. 168-70 (discussed

by

Blench,

p.

4).

16

Yet

even

a

preacher ike Longlandpreserves

a

reason-

able,

traditional

definition

of

scriptural

enses:"A nut

has

a

rind,

a

shell

and

a centreor kernal.The

rind is bitter,

the

shell is hard,

but

the centre

s sweetand full of

nourishment.

So in

Scripture

he

exterior

part, that is the literalsense

and

the surface

meaning,

s very bitter

and hard, and seems

to

contradict tself.But if you crack t open, and moredeeply

regard

he intention of the

spirit,

together

with

the

exposi-

tions of the

holy

doctors,

you

will find

the

kernal

and a

certain sweetness

of true nourishment." "Take the

life

from a

body,

and the

body

becomes

till

and

inert;

take

the

inward and

spiritual

sense

from

Scripture,

and it becomes

dead and useless."

Quoted

in

Blench,

pp.

21-22,

from

"Quinque

Sermones

oannis

Longlandi"

1517),

in

oannis

Lonlglandi.

.. Tres

Conciones

(London

[1527?]),

61v,

48r.

17 On this matter of Gnostic-Philonic

allegory

in com-

parison

with

rabbinic-patristic

llegory,

see

esp.

J. Bonsir-

ven,

"Exegese allegorique

chez les

Rabbins

Tannaites,"

Recherches

de

Science

Religieuse,

24

(1934),

35-46;

Jacob

Lauterbach,

"The

Ancient Jewish

Allegorists

in

Talmud

and

Midrash,"

Jewish

Quarterly

Review,

NS

1

(1910-11),

291-333,

503-31;

R. P. C.

Hanson,

Allegory

and Event

(London:

S.C.M.

Press, 1959),

pp.

11-129;

H.

A.

A. Ken-

nedy,

Phlilo's

Contribution to

Religion

(London:

Hodder

and Stoughton, 1919);and my "The SpiritualMarriage:

The

Exegetic History

and

Literary

mpact

of

the

Song

of

Songs

in the Middle

Ages,"

Diss.

Princeton

1971,

Ch.

iv,

pp. 321-400.

18

Hugh

of

Saint

Victor,

Didascalicon,

trans.

Jerome

Taylor

(New

York: Columbia Univ.

Press,

1961),

pp.

121-22.

For

Augustine,

see

On Christian

Doctrine,

trans.

D.

W. Robertson

(New

York: Liberal

Arts

Press, 1958),

esp.

pp.

7-14,

34-38.

19

Hugh,

De

Scriptoris

et

Scriptoribus

Sacris-quoted

by

John

McCall,

"Medieval

Exegesis,"

Supplement

4

in

William

Lynch,

Christ

and

Apollo

New

York: New Amer-

ican

Library,

1960),

p.

223;

cf.

Spicq,

pp.

98-103.

20

Quodlibet,

vll,

Q.

14-16-the

passage

is

quoted

and

analyzed n Henri de Lubac,Exegesemedievale, pts. in 4

vols.

(Paris:

Aubier,

1959-64),

Pt.

,

Vol.

,

273.

21

S.T.,

1,1,10,

in Basic

Writings

of

Saint Thomas

Aquinas,

ed. Anton

Pegis,

2

vols.

(New

York:

Random,

1945), ,

16-17.

22

The text

of

the

last sentence

in the Summa

passage

should be examined

carefully:

"Quia

vero sensus

litteralis

est

quem

auctor

intendit,

auctor autem sacrae Scripturae

Deus

est,

quia

omnia simul suo intellectu

comprehendit,

non

est

inconveniens,

ut

Augustinus

dicit xII

Conf.,

si

etiam

secundum itteralem ensum n unalittera

Scripturae

plures

sint

sensus."

Here,

Lubac

correctly

observes,

the

etiam

proves

that

in

the

last

phrase

"litteralem"

s to be

understood

n

the narrower

ense,

as

one

among

the

four

senses;

but

in

the first

part

of the

sentence,

"litteralis"may

have

the

meaning

of

the

full,

encompassing

sense (see

Lubac,

Pt.

I,

Vol.

I,

280-82 and cf.

Synare,

"La

Doctrine

de S. Thomas

d'Aquin

sur

le

sens litteral des

Ecritures,"

Revue

Biblique,

35,

1926,

40-65).

23

S.T.,

1,1,10,

reply

obj.

1,

in

Basic

Writings,

I,

17.

24

S

T.,

i,1,10,

reply

obj.

3.

25

S.T.,

i-a,

102,

2-quoted

in

Lubac,

Pt.

a,

Vol. a,

p.

296. As

Lubac

notes,

the term

allegory

was

a

very

mprecise

one,

esp.

in

that it

sometimes

denoted

all the

spiritual

senses and sometimes the

doctrinal sense

alone,

an

am-

biguity

retained

by

Thomas.

But Madsen

unaccountably

asserts that a

third

meaning-figurative

language

n

gen-

eral-further confusesThomas' discussion FromShadowy

560



George

L.

Scheper

Types

o

Truth,

p.

22),

when in fact one of Thomas'

contri-

butions

is that he

specifically

excludes

figurative

anguage

in

general

rom the

province

of

allegory.

26

William

Whitaker,

A

Dispultationl onl

Holy

Scripture

against

the

Papists,

trans.

William

Fitzgerald,

Parker

Society,

No. 45

(Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge

Univ.

Press, 1849), pp. 404-05. See CharlesCannon, "William

Whitaker's

Disputatio

de Sacra

Scriptllra:

A

Sixteenth-

Century Theory

of

Allegory,"

Hruntington

Library

Quar-

terly,

25

(1961-62),

129-38. This article is an accurate

representation

f

Whitaker'sviews

but attributes o

them

an

originality

not

really

appropriate.

27

Whitaker,

p.

407

(italics

mine).

Cannon

(pp.

132-35)

has

noticed the

correspondence

of this

interpretation

o

modern

definitions

of

metaphor

in scholars like Cassirer

and

I. A.

Richards.

28

Praelectiones

Gulilelmni

Whitakeri

inl Ccantica

Canti-

corum,

Bodl. MS.

59,

fols. 1-50. This

MS

seems

to

have

escaped

all attention.

29

Philologia Sacra (Frankfort, 1653).

30

Studies in

Seventeenthl-Century

Poetic

(Madison:

Univ.

of

Wisconsin

Press, 1965),

p.

183.

'31Pitra

found 160Christian

ommentaries

up

to

the 15th

century

(J.

B.

Pitra,

Spicilegiumnlolesmenlse,

vols.,

Paris:

Didot

Fratres,

1852-58,

ill, 167-68)

and Rosenmuller ists

116

from

1600

o

1830

cited

by

Paul

Vulliaud,

Le

Cantique

des

Cantiques

d'apres

Ila

tradition

]uive,

Paris,1925, p.

18).

Salfeld

counted

over

100

Jewish

commentaries

rom the

9th

to

the

16th

centuries

S.

Salfeld,

"Die

judischen

Er-

klarer

des

Hohenliedes,

x-xvi.

Jahr.,"

Hebraeische

Bibli-

ographie,

9,

1869,

110-13,

137-42).

The most

complete

bibliography,

LeLong's,

lists

a total

of

400

commentaries

(Jacques

LeLong,

Bibliotheca

acra,Paris,

1723, pp.

1113-

17).

32

The

Intercourses

of

Divine

Love betwixt Christ

and

the

Church,

2

vols.

(London, 1676, 1683).

33

This

observation

is in

contrast

to the usual

view,

as

expressed,

for

instance, by

Sister

Cavanaugh,

that

the

Reformers

"said

little

about

the

Song

of Solomon," that

they

indeed

"shied

away"

from

it. See

Sr. Francis

Cava-

naugh,

"A

Critical

Edition of

The

Canticles

or Balades

of

Salomon

Phraselyke

Declared

in

English

Metres

by

William

Baldwin,"

Diss.

St.

Louis Univ.

1964, p.

21.

34

n

the

words of

the

Puritan

Collinges:

"I

think

I

may

further

say,

that

there

is

no

portion

of

Holy

Writ so

copi-

ously

as

this,

expressing

he

infinite

ove,

and

transcendent

excellencies

of

the

Lord Jesus

Christ. None

that

more

copiously

instructs

us,

what

he

will

be to

us,

or what

we

should

be

toward

him,

and

consequently

none

more

worthy

of

the

pains

of

any

who

desires

to

Preach

Christ."

Inter-

courses,

i

(1683),

sig.

A3r.

35

Melchior

Hofmann,

"The

Ordinanceof

God"

(1530),

in

Spiritual

and

Aiiabaptist

Writers,

ed.

George

Williams,

Library

of

Christian

Classics,

25

(Philadelphia:

West-

minster

Press,

1957), pp.

182-203.

For

Cyril,

see

"The

Catechetical

Lectures

f

S.

Cyril,"

rans.

Gifford,Library

f

the

Nicene

and

Post-Nicene

Fathers,

2nd

ser.,

vII

(New

York:

Christian

Literature,1894),

1-159

(see esp.

Cat. 3,

13, 14,

and

My

stag. 2).

For

Ambrose,

see

Theological

and

Dogmatic

Works,

rans.

Roy

Defarrari

Washington,

D. C.:

Catholic Univ. of AmericaPress,1963), pp. 3-28, 311-21.

For

analysis

of the

Song

and

early

Christian

iturgy,

see

Jean

Danielou,

The Bible

and

the

Litulrgy

(Notre

Dame:

Univ. of Notre Dame

Press,

1956),

pp.

191-207

and

my

"SpiritualMarriage,"pp.

758-92.

36

Wilderness

alnd

Paradise in

ClhristianiThouglht

(New

York:

Harper,

1962),

pp.

92-94.

37

Robert Cofts,

The Lover:

Or,

Nuptial

Love

(London,

1638),

Sect.

xv, E5r-F4v;

see also

Thomas

Vincent,

Chlrist,

the Best Husband

(London,

1672).

38

See Francis

Rous,

The

Mystical

Marriage,

3rd

ed.

(London,

1724

[first

pub.

1635]),

esp.

pp.

112-25.

Also

note

the Bernardine

se of the

Song

in Samuel

Rutherford's

letters:

Joshlula

Redivivus:

Or,

Thlree

Hundred

anid Fifty-

Two

Religiouls

Letters,

Writte;i

betweenl

1636

&

1661

(New

York, 1836).

39

The

Canlticles

or Balades

of

Salomonl,

Phraselvke

Declared

inl

Englysh

Metres

(London,

1549).

The

corpus

of

English

paraphrases

n

the

Song

includes

work

by

Dray-

ton,

Sandys,

Quarles,

and Wither

(a

version

by Spenser

s

lost). Many are quite as bulkyas Baldwin's;for instance,

Thomas

Beverley's

An

Expositionr

of

the

Divinely

Prophetick

Song of

Songs

(London, 1687),

a laborious

redaction

of

Thomas

Brightman's

historical

allegorization,

A

Com-

mentary

onl

the

Canticles

(in

Works,

London,

1644,

pp.

971ff.),

into 70

pages

of

poetic

paraphrase.

Moreover,

there

are

comparable

works

in

French,

such as Ant.

Godeau's

"Eglogues

sacrees,

dont

l'argument

est

tire

du

Cantique des

Cantiques,"

in

Poesies

Chrestiennes

(Paris,

1646),

pp.

147-266. These

paraphrases

and

other

poemsrelating

o the

Song

are

the

focus

of

my study

of

the

exegetic

and

literary

relations

of

the

Song

of

Songs

in

the

Renaissance,

which

is

in

progress.

40

0. Van

Veen,

Amoris

Divini

Emblemata

(Antwerp,

1660); Hermann Hugo, Pia Desideria: Or, Divine Ad-

dresses, rans.E. Arwaker

London,

1686);

Francis

Quarles,

Emblems,

Divine and Moral

(London,

1736

[first

pub.

1635]).

41

In

Calvin's

words,

"Our

principal

dispute

concerned

the

Song

of

Songs.

He

considered

hat

it

is a lasciviousand

obscenepoem,

in which

Solomon

has

describedhis

shame-

less

love

affairs"

quoted

in

H.

H.

Rowley, The Servant

of

the

Lord,

London:

Lutterworth

Press,

1954,

p. 207).

For

an

account

of the

dispute,

with

quotations from

Calvin,

Castellio,

and

Beza,

see

Pierre

Bayle,

The

Dictionary

His-

torical and

Critical,

2nd

ed.,

5

vols. (London, 1734-38),

II,

361-62,

n.d.

Also see The

Cambridge

History

of

the Bible:

The

West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed.

S. L.

Greenslade(Cambridge,

Eng.: Univ.

Press,

1963),

pp.

8-9.

On

Theodoreof

Mopsuesta

ee

Adrien-M.

Brunet

"Theodore

de

Mopsueste

et le

Cantique

des

Cantiques,"

Etudes

et

Recherches,

9

(1955), 155-70.

42

See

Luther's

Works,

Vol.

15,

ed. J.

Pelikan and

H.

Oswald

(St.

Louis:

Concordia,

1972).

43

Clapham

provides

the

fullest

list

of

citations,

headed

by

Augustine,

Isidore

of Seville,

Lombard,and

Rabbi

Ibn

Ezra, followed

by Ambrose,

Bernard,

Theodoret,

Origen,

Gregory,

Rupert,

and Thomas:

Henoch Clapham,

Three

Partes

of Salomon

his Song

of Songs (London,

1603).

Mayer's

commentary

s actually

a catena, providing for

English

readers

a

running

paraphrase

f

the commentaries

of Gregory,Justus Urgellensis, he Targum,and Bernard:

561



Reformation

Attitudes toward

Allegory

and the

Song

of

Songs

John

Mayer,

A

Commentaryupon

the

Whole

Old

Testament

(London,

1653).

The definitive

3rd

ed.

of

the Westminster

Assembly

Annotations

frequently

cites

authorities

like

Augustine,

Ambrose,

Rupert,

and

esp.

Bernard:

West-

minster

Assembly,

Annotations

upon

All the

Books

of

the

Old and New

Testament,

3rd

ed.

(London, 1657).

The

com-

mentaryof Dove, one of the earliestEnglishexpositions

of the

Song,

cites

only

a

couple

of

Protestant

authorities

n

passing,

but

makes

frequent

use of

Cyprian,

Jerome,

Chrysostom,

Thomas,

and above all

depends

on

Augustine

for doctrine

and

Bernard

or

interpretation:

John

Dove,

The

Conversion

of

Salomon

(London,

1613).

44

Clavis

Cantici or an

Exposition of

the

Song

of

Solo-

mon

(London, 1669),

p.

6;

cf. the definition

of

allegory

n

Robert

Ferguson,

The Interest

of

Reason in

Religion:

with

thle

Import

&

Use

of

Scripture-Metaphors

(London,

1675),

pp.

308-09.

46

According

to

Beza,

Psalm 45 serves

as

an

"abridge-

ment"of

the

Song

and,

like the

Song,

is to

be

taken

"and

altogether o be vnderstood n a spirituall ense,"without

any

reference o

Solomon's

marriage,

or

"farre

t

is

from

all reason to

take

that alliaunce

&

marriage

of

his

to

haue

bin

a

figure

of so

holy

&

sacred

a one

as that

which

is

pro-

posed

vnto

us

in

this Psal."-Master

Bezaes Sermons

pon

the

Three

First

Chapters

of

the Canticle

of

Canticles,

trans.

John

Harmer

London, 1587),

4r.

46

Quoted

in

D.

W.

Robertson,

A

Preface

to Chaucer

(Princeton:

Princeton

Univ.

Press,

1962),

p.

135.

47

Intercourses,

1

(1683),

29.

48

The

Song

of Songs,

trans.

R.

P. Lawson

(Westminster,

Md.:

Newman Press, 1957), pp.

200-02.

49

See,

e.g.,

Richard Sibbes:

any

"sinful

abuse

of

this

heavenly

book

is far from the

intention

of

the

Holy

Ghost

in it, whichis by stoopinglow to us, to takeadvantage o

raise

us

higher

unto

him,

that

by taking

advantage

of

the

sweetest

passage

of

our

life,

marriage,

nd the

most

delight-

ful

affection,

love,

in

the sweetest manner

of

expression,

by

a

song,

he

might

carryup

the soul to

things

of

a heavenly

nature"-from

"Bowels

Opened"

1639),

in

The Complete

Works

of

Richard

Sibbes,

ed. A.

B.

Grosart

(Edinburgh,

1862),

ii,

5-6. See also

Assembly

Annotations: "being

a

work

of

highest

ove and

joy,

it can

be

no

blame

to

it,

that

it

is now

and then

abrupt

and

passionate....

it

could

be

expressed

noway

more

happily,

han

in

such

similitudes

as

were

proper

to such

persons,

and

such

subjects....

That

crimination

and

exceptions

against

the

kisses and

oynt-

ments

and other

affectionate

peeches

of

it,

are

so

far

from

blemishing

or

polluting

t,

that

they

beautifie

and enoble

t;

for if

they

had been

away,

how had it remained

an

Epithal-

aminon? how

had those dearextasiesand

sympathies

been

expressed?

how had

the

language

been sutable

and

con-

generous

to the matter?

which none can read with

danger

of

infection,

but such as

bring

he

plaguealong

with

them"

(sig. 7Gr).

50

Sibbes, Works,

I,

201;

cf.

Durham, Clauis,

p.

40.

6'

See,

e.g.,

Durham,

Clauis,

pp.

354,

365,

368,

401;

William

Guild,

Loves Entercovrs

etween

the Lamb

&

His

Bride,

Christ and

His Church

(London,

1658),

p.

1;

John

Trapp,

Solomonis

IIANA'PETOO:

or,

A Commentarie upon

the Books

of

Prouerbs,

Ecclesiastes and the

Song

of

Songs

(London, 1650),

pp.

219-20;

Bartimeus Andreas

An-

drewes],

Certaine

Very

Worthy,

Godly

anld

Profitable

Sermons

upon

the

Fifth

Chapter

of

the

Songs

of

Solomon

(London, 1595),

pp.

220-22.

52 Nathanael

Homes,

A

Commentary

Literal or

Historical,

and

Mystical

or

Spiritual

on the Whole Book

of

Canticles

(London, n.d.), bound separatelypaged in The Worksof

Dr. Nathanael

Homes

(London,

1652),

p.

469.

63

Assembly

Annotations,

sig.

712r'.

Cf.

St. Teresa,

"Con-

ceptions

of

the

Love of

God,"

in

Complete

Works

of

Saint

Teresa

of

Jesus,

trans. E. A.

Peers,

3 vols.

(New

York:

Sheedand

Ward,

1950),

ii,

360.

54

Saint Bernard's

Sermons on the Canticle

of

Canticles,

trans.

by

a

priest

of Mount

Melleray,

2 vols.

(Dublin,

1920), i,

50-51

(sermon

7).

Hereafter ited in

text.

65

See

my

"Spiritual Marriage,"

pp.

404-13,

425-30,

535-40.

For

Gregory

of

Nyssa,

see From

Glory

to

Glory:

Texts

from

Gregory

of

Nyssa's

Mystical

Writings,

ed.

Jean

Danielou,

trans. Musurillo

London:

John

Murray,

1962);

for

the

Spanish mystics,

see

E.

Allison

Peers,

Studies

of

the Spanish Mystics, 3 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1927,

1930,

1960).

Note

the

analogous interpretations

f

sexual

imagery

n

Gnostic

texts,

in

the

Kaballah,

and

in

Eastern

Tantric

and

Vishnaite

cults and Sufism-see

my

"Spiritual

Marriage,"

pp.

156-79.

56

See

Chrysostom,Homily

xx on

Ephesians,

NPNF,

13

(New

York,

1889),

146-47 and

Homily

xxvi

on

X

Cor.,

Library

of

the

Nicene

and

Post-Nicene

Fathers,

xii

(New

York:

Christian

Literature,

1889),

150-51.

Cf.

the

Glossa

ordinaria n

i

Cor.

xi.3,

PL,

Vol.

114,

col.

537;

Assembly

Annotations,

sig.

DDD4V;

Matthew

Poole,

Annotations

upon

the

Holy

Bible

(Edinburgh,

1801

[first

pub.

16831),

sig.

SC2r;

Bernard,

I,

336-38

(sermon

71).

562

Documents

Z Scheper, Reformation Attitudes Towards Allegory in the Song of Songs