[1]. The Song of Songs, &c. This book is called The Song of Songs, because all other songs in the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms [[67]]are made for this song, which is not amatory, but a song about the marriage of the Divine Bridegroom with the Church.
[2]. Let him kiss me, &c. This is the language of the spouse offering a petition to the Father of the Bridegroom; for she has known both the promises made to Abraham and the prophecies of Jacob; as well as the prophecies of Moses, respecting her beloved, and the description of his beauty and power as given in the Psalms; “Thou art more beautiful than the sons of men,” &c.; she has learned that her beloved, who is adorned with beauty and grace, is both God and the eternal Son; “For thy throne, Oh God, is for ever and ever,” &c. Having recognised the beauty, strength, riches, dominion, and power of the bridegroom which he displays above all things, world without end, she draws nigh to him to embrace him and to kiss him in Spirit. Let none whose spirit is low, and who only tastes that which is earthly, be misled by the expression “kisses.” Let him remember that we ourselves embrace and kiss the limbs of the beloved at the mysterious time (the Lord’s Supper), and that which we see with our eyes, store up in our hearts, and, as it were, feel ourselves in conjugal embraces; so that it is with us as if we were with him, embracing and kissing him, after, as the Scriptures say, “love has driven away fear.” Therefore it is that the Bride wishes to be kissed by the Bridegroom himself.
390–444. Cyril of Alexandria, who was born towards the close of the fourth century, and died in 444, went so far as to explain “the palanquin,” to mean the cross; its “silver legs,” the thirty pieces of silver which brought Christ to the cross; the “purple cushion,” the purple garment in which the Saviour was mocked; “the nuptial crown,” the crown of thorns put on Christ’s head, &c. &c.
650. The influence of the Chaldee mode of interpretation seems now to become more apparent in the Christian Church. Aponius, who is quoted by the venerable Bede, and must therefore have lived in the seventh century, regards the Song of Songs as describing what the Logos has done for the Church from the beginning of the world, and what he will do to the end of it; thus, like the Chaldee, he takes the book as a historico-prophetical description of the dealings of God with his people, only that the Chaldee takes the Jews as the object of the description, but Aponius substitutes the Gentile Church.
673–735. Bede, called the venerable, who was born at Wearmouth, in Durham, in 673, and died in 735, wrote seven books on the Song of Songs, one being merely a copy from [[68]]Gregory the Great, in which he defends the doctrine of grace against the Pelagians.
1091–1153. To the scholastics of the middle ages the Song of Songs seemed an unfathomable abyss of mysticism, into whose depths they could dive as deeply as their speculative minds and fertile imaginations prompted them. St. Bernard, who was born at Fountains, in the vicinity of Dijon, in Burgundy, and died in 1153, delivered eighty-six sermons upon this book, and this prodigious number comprises the first two chapters only. In the first sermon he says, “The unction and experience can alone teach the understanding of such a Song. It is not to be heard outside, for its notes give no sound in the street; but she who sings it, she hears it and he to whom it is sung, that is the bridegroom and the bride.” He divides the Song into three parts; in the first part the bridegroom leads the bride into the garden, and in the second he conducts her into the cellar, and in the third he takes her home into his apartments. Upon the words Let him kiss me, &c. (Chap. i. 2), which he explains as referring to the incarnation of Christ, he remarks, “O happy kiss, marvellous because of amazing condescension; not that mouth is pressed upon mouth, but God is united with man.”[78]
Gilbert Porretanus, the disciple of St. Bernard, continued these sermons, but only lived to deliver forty-eight, which extend to Chap. v. 10; so that the one hundred and thirty-four sermons only comprise four chapters and a half.
1270–1340. In the Commentary of the celebrated Nicolas De Lyra, a converted Jew, and a native of Lire, in Normandy, we meet more fully the Chaldee mode of interpretation as adopted by Aponius. Like the Chaldee, De Lyra takes the Song of Songs to be a historico-prophetical book, with this difference, however, that he regards Chap. ii.–vii. as describing the history of the Israelites from their Exodus from Egypt to the birth of Christ, and from Chapter vii. to the end, the origin [[69]]of the Christian Church, her progress, and the peace which she attained in the days of Constantine. Upon the words, “We have a little sister,” he remarks, “This is the Church humble and abject among the worldly enemies, for so she was till the time of Constantine.”[79]
1538. The great reformer, Luther, could not reconcile his mind to believe that the Song of Songs describes the conjugal union of Christ, the bridegroom, with the bride, i.e. the Church as a whole, or with the soul of every individual believer. He therefore rejected the allegorical interpretation of the Fathers, and advanced a new theory, viz., “that the bride is the happy and peaceful State under the dominion of Solomon, and that the Song is a hymn of praise, in which Solomon thanks God for the obedience rendered unto him as a divine gift: for, where the Lord does not direct and rule there is neither obedience nor happy dominion, but where there is obedience or a happy dominion there the Lord lives and kisses and embraces his bride with his word, and that is the kisses of his mouth.”[80]
1542. John Brentius, the Suabian reformer, adopted the same theory. He calls the Song of Songs, “Carmen encomiasticum, quod de laude regni et politiae suae Solomon conscripsit.”[81]
1544. Castellio, seeing that Luther had rejected the allegorical interpretation of the Fathers, and propounded a theory of his own equally untenable, maintained that the book has no allegorical meaning whatever, but is merely a “colloquium Salomonis cum amica quadam Sulamitha,” and as such deemed it unworthy of a place in the sacred canon.[82]