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 CANTICLE

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CANTICLE

As a matter of fact, the spiritual interpretation of the song has proved a rich source for mystical theology and asceticism. It is only necessary to call to mind the best of the old commentaries and interpretations of the book. There are still in existence fifteen homi- lies by St. Gregory of Nyssa on the first six chapters (Migne, P. G., XLI, 755 sqq.). The commentary of Theodoret (Migne, P. G., LXXXI, 27 sqq.) is rich in suggestion. In the eleventh century Psellus com- piled a "Catena" from the writings of Nilus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus (Auctar. bibl. Patr., II, 681 sqq.). Among the Latins Ambrose made such fre- quent use of the Canticle of Canticles that a whole commentary may be developed from the many appli- cations, rich in piety, that he made of it (Migne, P. L., XV, 1851 sqq.). Three commentaries are to be found in the works of Gregory the Great (Migne, P. L., LXXIX, 471 sqq., 905; CLXXX, 441 sqq.). Appo- nius wrote a very comprehensive commentary which, even as late as 1843. was republished at Rome. The Venerable Bede prepared the matter for a number of smaller commentaries. The elaborate exposition by Honorius of Autun of the book in its historical, alle- gorical, tropological, and anagogical meanings de- serves special mention. The eighty-six homilies left by St. Bernard are universally known. Gilbert of Hoyland added to this number forty-eight more. The greatest of the saints enkindled their love for God on the tender expressions of affection of Christ and His bride, the Church, in the Canticle of Canticles. Even in Old Testament times it must have greatly consoled the Hebrews to read of the eternal covenant of love between God and His faithful people.

Within certain limits the application to the relation between God and the individual soul adorned with supernatural grace is self-evident and an aid to virtuous living. The bride is first raised by the bridegroom to a relation of complete affection, after- wards betrothed or married (iii 6-v, 1), and, finally, after a successful activity (vii, 12 sq.; viii, 11 sq.), is received into the heavenly dwellings. A fife of contemplation and activity bound up with painful trials is the way there. In the Breviary and Missal the Church has repeatedly applied the song to the Mother of God (see B. Schafer in Komment., p. 255 sqq.). In truth the bride adorned with the beauty of spotless purity and deep affection is a figure most appropriate to the Mother of God. This is the reason why St. Ambrose in Ms book, "De virginibus", so repeatedly and especially quotes Canticles. Finally, the application of the song to the history of the life of Christ and of the Church offers pious thought rich material for contemplation. In doing this the natural course of the song can, in some measure, be followed. At His entrance into life, and especially at the time of His public activity as a teacher, the Saviour sought the Church, His bride, and she came lovingly towards Him. He united Him- self with her at the Cross (iii, 11); the Church itself makes use of this thought in a number of offices. The affectionate conversations with the bride (to ch. v. 1) take place after the Resurrection. What fol- lows may be referred to the later history of the Church. A distinction should be made in such meth- ods of interpretation, however, between what may be accepted as certain or probable in the context and what pious contemplation has. more or less arbitra- rily, added, lor this reason it is important to ascer- tain more exactly than was done in earlier times the genuine and true sense of tin' text.

Literary Form or the Song. -Both the tradi- tional poetic accentuation and the language vised to express the thoughts show tin- book to lie a genuine poem. The attempt has been made in various ways to prove the existence of a definite metre in the He- brew text. The opinion of the present writer is that a six-syllable trochaic metre may be applied to the

original Hebrew version (De re metrica Hebraeorum, Freiburg, Baden, 1880). The essentially lyrical char- acter of the song is unmistakable. But as various voices and scenes appear, neither should the dramatic character of the poem fail of recognition; it is, how- ever, evident that the development of an external action is not so much the intention as the unfolding of the lyrical expression of feeling under varying cir- cumstances. The cantata form of composition is sug- gested by the presence of a chorus of the "daughters of Jerusalem " though the text does not indicate clearly how the words are divided among the various char- acters. This accounts for the theory put forward at times that there are different personages who, as bride and bridegroom, or as lovers, talk with, or of, each other. Stickel in his commentary assigns three different persons to the role of the bridegroom, and two to that of the bride. But such arbitrary treat- ment is the result of the attempt to make the Canticle of Canticles into a drama suitable for the stage.

Unity of the Canticle. — The commentator just men- tioned and other exegetes start from the natural con- viction that the poem, simply called the Song of Songs and handed down to posterity as a book, must be re- garded as a homogeneous whole. It is evident that the three clearly distinguished roles of bridegroom, bride, and chorus maintain their plainly defined char- acters from beginning to end; in the same way cer- tain other designations, as "beloved", "friend", etc., and certain refrains keep recurring. Moreover, sev- eral parts apparently repeat one another, and a pecu- liar phraseology is found throughout the book. The attempt has however been made to resolve the poem into separate songs (some twenty in all); this has been tried by Herder, Eichhorn, Goethe, Reuss, Stade, Budde, and Siegfried. But it has been found exceed- ingly difficult to separate these songs from one an- other, and to give to each lyric a meaning distinctly its own. Goethe believed this impossible, and it is necessary to resort to a working over of the songs by the person who collected them. But in this every- thing would depend on a vague, personal impression. It is true that a mutual dependence of all the parts cannot be maintained in the secular (historical) inter- pretation. For, even in the historical hypothesis, the attempt to obtain a flawless drama is successful only when arbitrary additions are made which permit the transition from one scene to another; but these inter- polations have no foundation in the text itself. Tra- dition also knows nothing of genuine dramatic poetry among the Hebrews, nor is the Semitic race more than slightly acquainted with this form of poetry. Driven by necessity, Kampf and others even invent double roles, so that at times other personages appear along with Solomon and the Sulamitess; yet it cannot be said that any one of these hypotheses has produced a probable interpretation of the entire song.

Difficulties of Interpretation. — Allegorical. — ■ All the hypotheses of the above-mentioned kind owe their origin to the prevalent dislike of allegory and symbolism. It is well known how extremely distaste- ful poetic allegory is to our age. Nevertheless alle- gory has been employed at times by the greatest poet - of all ages. Its use was widespread in the Middle Ages, and it was always n preliminary condition in the interpretation of the Scriptures by the Fathers. There are many passages in the Old and New Testaments which it is simply impossible to understand without allegory. It is true that the allegorical method of interpretation has been greatly misused. Yet the Canticle of Canticles can be proved to be a flawlessly consecutive poem by the employment of rules for poetical allegory and its interpretation which are fixed and according to the canons of art. The proof of the correctness of the interpretation lies in such a combination of all the parts of the song into a homo- geneous whole. The dramatic form, as far as it can