This process of perversion was begun by Jewish Jahvists, but they have been far surpassed by our A. S. version, whose solemn nonsense at most of the chapter heads in the Bible here reached its climax. It is a remarkable illustration of the depths of fatuity to which clerical minds may be brought by prepossession, that the closing chapter of Canticles, with its beautiful exaltation of romantic love, could be headed: “The love of the Church to Christ. The vehemency of Love. The calling of the Gentiles. The Church Prayeth for Christ’s coming.” The “Higher Criticism” is now turning the headings into comedy, but they have done—nay, are continuing—their very serious work of misdirection.
It has already been noted that the Jewish doctors exalted Bathsheba, adulteress as she was, into a blessed woman, probably because of the allusion to her in the Song (iii. 2) as having crowned her royal Son, who had become mystical; and it can only be ascribed to Protestantism that, instead of the Queen-Mother Mary, the Church becomes Bathsheba’s successor in our version: “The Church glorieth in Christ.” And of course the shepherd lover’s feeding (his flock) among the lilies becomes “Christ’s care of the Church.”
But for such fantasies the beautiful Song of Songs might indeed never have been preserved at all, yet is it a scandal that Bibles containing chapter-headings known by all educated Christians to be falsifications, should be circulated in every part of the world, and chiefly among ignorant and easily misled minds. These simple people, reading the anathemas pronounced in their Bibles on those who add anything to the book given them as the “Word of God” (Deuteronomy iv. 2, xii. 32, Proverbs xxx. 6, Revelation xxii. 18), cannot imagine that these chapter-headings are not in the original books, but forged. And what can be more brazenly fraudulent than the chapter-heading to one of these very passages (Revelation xxii. 18, 19), where nothing is said of the “Word of God,” but over which is printed: “18. Nothing may be added to the word of God, nor taken therefrom.” But even the learned cannot quite escape the effect of these perversions. How far they reach is illustrated in the fate of Mary Magdalen, a perfectly innocent woman according to the New Testament, yet by a single chapter-heading in Luke branded for all time as the “sinner” who anointed Jesus,—“Magdalen” being now in our dictionaries as a repentant prostitute. Yet there are hundreds of additions to the Bible more harmful than this,—additions which, whether honestly made or not originally, are now notoriously fraudulent. It is especially necessary in the interest of the Solomonic and secular literature in the Bible that Truth shall be liberated from the malarious well—Jahvist and ecclesiastical—in which she has long been sunk by mistranslation, interpolation, and chapter-headings. The Christian churches are to be credited with having produced critics brave enough to expose most of these impositions, and it is now the manifest duty of all public teachers and literary leaders to uphold those scholars, to protest against the continuance of the propaganda of pious frauds, and to insist upon the supremacy of truth.
[1] American Journal of Philology. Vol. III.
[2] In 1 Chron. iii. 19 Shelomith is a descendant of Solomon. In these studies “Abishag the Shunamith,” 1 Kings i. 2, has been conjecturally connected with Psalm xlv., and the identity of her name with Shulamith has also been mentioned. This identity of the names was suggested by Gesenius and accepted by Fürst, Renan, and others. Abishag is thus also a sort of “Solomona.” In 1 Kings i. there is some indication of a lacuna between verses 4 and 5. “And the damsel (Abishag) was very fair; and she cherished the King and ministered to him; but the King knew her not. Then”—what? why, all about Adonijah’s effort to become king! David did not marry Abishag; she remained a maiden after his death and free to wed either of the brothers. The care with which this is certified was probably followed by some story either of her cleverness or of her relations with Solomon which gave her the name Shunamith—Shulamith—Solomona. Of the Shunamith it is said they found her far away and “brought her to the King,” and in the beginning of the Song Shulamith says “The King hath brought me into his chambers.” This suggests a probability of legends having arisen concerning Abishag, and concerning the lady entreated in Psalm xlv., which, had they been preserved, might perhaps account for the coincidence of names, as well as the parallelism of the situations at court of the lady of the psalm, of Abishag the Shunamith, and of Shulamith in the “song.”
The “great woman” called Shunamith in 2 Kings 4 was probably so called because of her “wisdom” in discerning the prophet Elisha, and the reference to the town of Shunem (verse 8) inserted by a writer who misunderstood the meaning of Shunamith. This story is unknown to Josephus, though he tells the story of the widow’s pot of oil immediately preceding, in the same chapter, and asserts that he has gone over the acts of Elisha “particularly,” “as we have them set down in the sacred books.” (Antiquities. Book ix. ch. 4.) The chapter (2 Kings iv.) is mainly a mere travesty of the stories told in 1 Kings xvii., transparently meant to certify that the miraculous power of Elijah had passed with his mantle to Elisha. There is no mention of Shunem in the original legend. (1 Kings xvii.)
[3] Compare Psalm xlv. 12–15.
[4] 1. “Why will ye look upon Shulamith as upon the dance of Mahanaim?” The sense is obscure. Cf. Gen. xxxii. 2, where Jacob names a place Mahanaim, literally two armies or camps; but it was in honor of the angels that met him there, and it is possible that Shulamith is here compared to an angel. If the verse means any blush at the dancer’s display of her person it is the only trace of prudery in the book, and betrays the Alexandrian.